(editor's note: in the interest of keeping this from getting too long, I'm splitting the first "Front" from the second two and making them separate entries)
The Remake Front:
This is going to sound nutty, but I'm starting to relax my stringent "oh, for crying out loud, another remake?!" position. Don't be fooled; I still think that the studio system is relying too heavily on the recognizable names of yesteryear in order to score a quick buck, but two things have softened my stance just a smidgen.
One of them is the oldest story in the book, but it makes up a perfectly reasonable argument in MGM: When the Lion Roars (a rather good and kind epic-length documentary I hope to review some time soon. To put it in perspective, When the Lion Roars is two hours longer than Never Sleep Again and four times as long as Here's Looking at You, Warner Brothers). Louis B. Mayer's philosophy was that films were made to be remade, in order to constantly improve or to adapt the material to changing techniques, stars, and audiences. And it's true: if you look at the history of Hollywood, remakes are nothing new, and not just smaller titles. The 1925 version of Ben-Hur was every bit as epic for the era as its 1959 remake. The same can be said for The Ten Commandments, but all sorts of films got the remake treatment: Mutiny on the Bounty, The Thief of Bagdad, The Maltese Falcon, Imitation of Life, Gaslight, and The Prisoner of Zenda. It's a tried and true fact that this is nothing new.
What I do wish is that the mentality of Mayer was still the prevailing logic behind remakes; if you can make it better, then why not try? I'm sticking to my guns that the majority of remakes in the last ten years fail to improve in any way over their original counterparts. Sure, King Kong added a lot of whiz-bang effects and expanded the love story between Ann and Kong, but is it really a more essential version? Does it make you say "wow, I'm glad that Peter Jackson revisited that story, because we needed it."? Not really, and certainly not any more than the 1976 version did. Mind you, that's one example. I can point to examples where it does work or where the creative team brought something new to the table: Gore Verbinski's remake of The Ring, for example, is a fine movie in its own right, as is Alexandre Aja's take on The Hills Have Eyes. Both bring something new to the table that simultaneously work in their own right and increased my appreciation of the original.
Wow, I got way away from the point... anyway, the second part comes from Tales from the Script, a documentary I reviewed not too long ago. One of the anecdotes I left out really stuck with me, which was a lament by one of the writers that "playwrights have the opportunity to see their scripts performed over and over again. Screenwriters get one shot." For some reason, that really resonated with me in the whole "to remake or not to remake" debate. There's something to be said for the idea of interpretation that is inherently limited by film as a medium. There's really only one go at it for most writers, and if it doesn't work, no matter how good the script is, that's it. There won't be another incarnation 90% of the time. I don't know how much it sways me in favor of remaking films more often, but it certainly got me thinking.
All of this brings me to a current "in production" remake that I'm reasonably torn about. I happen to really like Fright Night; it's not one of the best 80s horror movies, but it's a pretty damned good one and it's a lot of fun. I get that it has a limited recognition range for the teenage set (considering that the average 18-year old was born seven years after Fright Night was released), and the story could still work if handled properly.
That said, I don't know anything about the script (credited to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel vet Marti Noxon) or director Craig Gillespie (who made Lars and the Real Girl, which I haven't seen), but I have to say that the cast being assembled is very intriguing. Rather than go for an interchangeable twenty-something set of youngsters (what I like to call the "Platinum Dunes" playbook), the cast breaks down thusly:
Charley Brewster (originally played by William Ragsdale), the young man convinced his new neighbor is a vampire - Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Charlie Bartlett)
Judy Brewster (his mother, originally played by Dorothy Fielding), Charley's mother - Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Velvet Goldmine, The United States of Tara)
"Evil" Ed Thompson (originally played by Stephen Geoffreys), Charley's friend who goes "vampire" out of spite - Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Role Models, Superbad, Kick-Ass)
Okay, here come the big two; the ones I'm most interested in.
Jerry Dandrige (originally played by Chris Sarandon), the vampire - Colin Farrell (In Bruges, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The New World)
and
Peter Vincent (originally played by Roddy McDowall), in the original film a TV Horror Host, in the remake a Magician who claims to know about the occult - David Tennant (Doctor Who, Hamlet, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).
Okay, now that's interesting. Not at all what I expected from a cast for a remake. Believe it or not, I really like the idea of Colin Farrell taking over the Chris Sarandon role, and the idea of David Tennant as Peter Vincent (even in this new incarnation) strikes me as inspired. Yelchin, Mintz-Plasse, and Collette are also all fine choices, and I have to say that my interest level went up a bit when I read the news this morning.
Mind you, this could all go crashing down horribly, but consider the Cap'n to have his hopes up...
Stay tuned later today for the second "fronts".
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