10.29.2008

high or low?


Whaddami, a producer of remakes to you? I make remakes for you? Is that it?

So I'm sitting here watching the waning moments of Gus Van Sant's head-scratcher reshoot of Psycho (1998), and I happened onto this little tiddy-bit @ the Daily Beast.

Scorsese has pulled off some pretty amazing remakes before - The Departed happens to be one of my favorite films of the last few years - but he's not set to direct this one, Mike Nichols is. The last Nichols I saw was Closer (2004), mostly for the Portman-related content, and it was one of the most dreary and least cinematic movies I think I've ever seen. And a Mamet script? Hmmm, I say, hmmm.

4 comments:

Joaquin said...

I say hmmm, too.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Somebody must have held a fire sale on the rights to all of Kurosawa's old films because this is the fifth remake to get the go-ahead in the last three years. First there were the Japanese remakes of The Hidden Fortress and Sanjuro that turned out to be small hits over there in 2007/2008. Then the Weinsteins decided to produce a remake of the Seven Samurai in which a multi-culti group of professional soldiers defend a northern Thai village (release set for 2009). Next comes Rashomon 2010 which will be a courtroom drama set in New York. And now this! Jesus, I'm not the biggest Kurosawa fan, but this is getting a little offensive. Let the guy rest in peace. Didn't Ron Howard’s Ransom do enough damage to this story already?

Dex said...

wait - "gimme back my son?" that was a remake of this thing?

oof. oof, i say.