Matrix #1, Cabaret.

Yes, I saw Ravenous, and I thought it was a decent movie, also.

And, the Matrix trilogy is also excellent.

quote:

"Chinatown", "Rosemary's Baby", "Bonnie and Clyde","Night of the Living Dead", etc. Films start to take on an edge.

Yep, and I despised every one of those. The pervading theme: "There is ...no hope." I don't like a lot of 'deep' shit-I just want to be entertained and escape reality for a few hours. Which is what movies were once upon a time supposed to do.

Was "Ravenous" that one with the confessed kiddie porn lover in it? The guy that made FERRIS BUELLER (he stole the movie)as the principal? He was also the scientist who was possesed by The Dark Overlord in HOWARD THE DUCK( and he made that movie worthwhile, too-I can still repeat just about every one of his lines). Jefferey Jones, I think his name is. If that's the one, jesus, that bloody fight to the death at the end was really over the top.

quote:

The pervading theme: "There is ...no hope."

This brings us full circle, I think. What your identifying is the difficult-to-define movement of post-modernism which is largely responsible for policies like anti-smoking.

Post-modernism essentially rejects any of traditional American standards on all fronts, whether it be politics, books, movies, anything really. Essentially, postmodernism says "God is Dead, all white male American writers suck, everything's an abstraction, there are no rules, there are no values, everything is just arbitrary, etc, etc. So, we'll just go ahead and replace all of this Ma and Apple pie stuff with any ole contrived horseshit we can come up with; Environmentalism, anti-smoking, political correctness blah blah blah."

Essentially, post-modernism was the introductory pattern for neo-communism. I realized this while trying to reconcile how many of the radicals of the sixties and seventies turned into the moral busybodies of today. I'm not a religious person, but I find it ironic how much all of this seems to gel with a Biblical pre-apocalyptic scenario where an anti-human force continues to gain power until everything culiminates in destruction. It's interesting to note that during the same period we're talking about here, Nixon was convinced that the U.S.S.R. was secretly behind all of the protests taking place at the time and was continually frustrated when his underlings couldn't find any link to the communists.

Anyway, I guess I'm the opposite. I like "deep shit" in my movies because maybe on some level I hoped it would stay up there on the screen where picking it all apart is all academic. I certainly don't want that shit in my life. As a co-worker blurted out the other day when we were discussing some of these ridiculous prohibitions of late: "Jesus Christ! It's getting to be like some f***ing science fiction movie!"

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the movie Smoke. It's about smoking! I thought it was a good movie.

Smoke

Haven't seen it yet.

Boy, is 383 goin' to be pissed. I heard this directly from no less than Kurt Russell's lips on the Craig Ferguson show last night that someone is REMAKING....ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK-apparently again with John Carpenter's blessing (like he did with THE FOG, which they butchered)-and it will NOT star Russell as Snake Plissken. I shall avoid this one lkie the bubonic plague, as I did KING KONG.

I haven't saw 'Smoke' either.

I just heard Escape From New York is being remade.... I'm sure it'll be ruined, just like 'The Fog' was.

What the hell is John Carpenter thinking?

That's odd, I tried to post that this morning, and it wouldn't post-kept telling me it was a 'duplicate post', yet nothing was showing-now, it WAS showing, and was a duplicate post. Oh, well, I deleted one, thanks anyway, 383! Appreciate it.

Not a problem. Thanks for the heads up on this movie. I'll more'n'likely avoid it as well.

You know, since I wrote that list of "the ten worst films" earlier in this post, I'd realized that I'd forgotten the unwatchable remake of "The Fog". Funny you mentioned it.

THE FOG-remake-started out trying to do a halfway decent film, keeping some of the same characters (in name, anyway), and the atmosphere was decent. But-the new PC dictates there must be a black in the cast -character served no purpose and did not work-and the second half they went on a different tangent and things deteriorated very rapidly. I have no intention whatsoever what they were trying to say with that bizarre ending. Some movies just plain should NOT be remade, since they can't possibly be improved upon, therefore you're only going to screw it up.

I've said this before, but IF they're going to do a 'remake' on anything, then, damn it, I want the same characters and the SAME STORY! DON'T change it to where it's unrecognizable! All they do and have done, with 'remakes' for about the last twenty years or so, is USE THE TITLE-that's the ONLY resemblance in most cases to the original movie. The directors say, "Well, everyone's seen the original, so we wanted to go in a different direction." Well....THEN , IF IT'S A DIFFERENT STORY, IT ISN'T A REMAKE, IS IT?? But you see, they don't have the balls anymore in hollywood to do a different movie and actually CALL it something else, so they steal a familiar title to a classic, or at least a cult classic, and figure the title will pull enough suckers into theatres the first weekend, they'll turn a profit.

I remember back in the thirties and forties films, and even a few fifties, they always remade films-BUT...and this is a KEY thing here...the makers would change the title and names of the characters. That way, if they decided to vary from the original storyline in any way, they could. Nothing at all wrong with that angle-you'd just leave the theatre thinking it had a certain sense of familiarity to it. But this crap of screwing with the storyline (or, in the case of HOUSE OF WAX, doing a movie that has no bearing whatsoever to the original except the title)blows.

quote:

Boy, is 383 goin' to be pissed. I heard this directly from no less than Kurt Russell's lips on the Craig Ferguson show last night that someone is REMAKING....ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

Well, he's REALLY going to be pissed when he sees this, then.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

Boy! As you may know, Michael Myers' mask is a Captain Kirk mask dyed white. The picture above looks so much like William Shatner that it's almost funny.

Fox is currently remaking the 1951 classic Sci-Fi ... "The Day the Earth stood Still". I bet we don't see any smoking this time around. It was full of smoking, even the doctor's smoked. If you have not seen in awhile, you should, just to see how much times have changed.

The great director they chose for the above 'remake' (DTESS) previously gave the world such classics as one of the HELLRAISER direct-to-video pieces of shit, and UBAN LEGEND 2:THE FINAL CUT. While I personally though that film was better than the first, that's faint praise, it was still shit. Nice, eh? Notice that with ONE exception (WAR OF THE WORLDS)it's NEVER a Spielberg or even a decent director that does these.

quote:

I want the same characters and the SAME STORY! DON'T change it to where it's unrecognizable!

Maybe the worst and most notorious remake was Gus Van Zandt's update of "Psycho".

It was a shot-by-shot remake, with the exception of our being treated to Norman Bates masturbating while looking into Marion Crane's room, but this was faithful to Robert Bloch's original novel.

Anyway, the "Psycho" remake is terrible! The performances in the film are so much less subtle than the originals and come across as what they are; cheap imitations.

That being said, I don't think that any eighteen year old left the theatre thinking "Gosh, 'Psycho' stinks and I'll never see the original." If anything, they were much more likely to see the original when they had no interest before.

The reverse is probably almost never true. Few say "I wanted to see the original, but the remake sucked so bad that I didn't bother." Even if they did say that, it's probably because they heard about the remake and it spawned their interest in the original, and they saw it before they saw the remake.

So, in this way, I'm an oddity. I like remakes, because they make it more likely that someone curious will see the original. I understand the revulsion people have for remakes, and even share it on an emotional level, because I share with others the sincere appreciation of good, original material.

The most striking and important thing that can be realized from people's dislike for remakes is that people take movies very seriously emotionally. We all feel that we own them in a sense, because of our unique enjoyment of them and the aesthetic connection we make with them.

I've made a short film. Here's the important thing about that statement; it shouldn't have happened.

The creation of my short film is completely illogical. When a couple of friends told me that they wanted to finance a film of something I'd written, there was absolutely no chance of it ever happening. The location had very specific limitations. Despite this, I was literally escorted to a location that fit my specifications exactly. What did the owner of this property charge us? She wouldn't accept a cent. We needed a specific type of old truck for the film, so I went to a truck show and met a very nice man willing to let us use his truck for two weekends at the extremely reasonable price of $100.00.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the key element in this film (that shouldn't have happened) is this; the people who gave us the resources to make it did so because they only heard the words "movie" or "film". We were quite honest with them and told them that it was a low budget, independent short film, that probably very few people would see. They didn't seem to hear that, even when we repeated it.

People love films and crave to be part of the creative world that they have no time for in their busy lives.

At the point we decided to make a film, I would've thought that I'd be more likely to hit the lottery than see a film in the can.

So, please know this. If you have something artistic or creative that you wish to do, but feel reluctant, I promise you this; for some reason that I can't explain, the ground comes up to meet your feet when you're pursuing something creative. Though I can't explain it, I'm convinced that some force or pattern greater than ourselves loves creativity and will lend a hand when creativity is going on.

The people I met who allowed me to make my film are less ironic than the fact that they shouldn't have existed at all. Nonetheless, there they were.

Back to point, films resonate with people in a very serious way. People may keep their wedding pictures or pictures of their loved ones around their home, but films hold a very important emotional, private place in people. They don't want that messed with. That is why so many so dislike remakes of films.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

I just don't understand why certain movies are being remade.. sceens cut out and or parts added. Why??

is it to entertain the audiance better or to send a certain message.. is there a new trend of movies comming out take for instance the Michael Moore Movie about National Health Care.

Well, I suppose we can stick a fork in Halloween now.

It's done.

I personally believe there is a serious lack of imagination, inventiveness, and creative ability in hollyweird these days. I have been drawn to a lot of independent (sometimes very strange) films in the last few years.

Anyone here like "The Naked Lunch"?

I did. Peter Weller was a trip.