First The Wild Bunch speculations, next this…no matter how many Oldboy detractors or Let the Right One In detractors exist, the originals will ALWAYS be superior to the remakes. ALWAYS.
Spike Lee, go dig a hole and die somewhere….
Does that mean you don’t like City of Angels, Dimitris?Haha.
Generally, I prefer Lee’s films when they’re not personal projects so call me mildly intrigued. Maybe if he goes back to the manga source material, he can do something different with it. Otherwise, yeah…
Oldboy is a horrible film, so this is a remake I can embrace.
Spike Lee? Heck, that at least sounds interesting, I’ll be curious to see how it plays out.
“Oldboy is a horrible film, so this is a remake I can embrace.”
You embrace a possible remake Jerry boy with two mediocre actors when the original at least has one of the greatest actors across the globe in its roster? Dude, seriously…I expected a more reasonable answer ;)
I think Greg X likes City of Angels a bit Ari but I know why…it’s for sentimental reasons :P
“Generally, I prefer Lee’s films when they’re not personal projects so call me mildly intrigued.”
So you prefer Inside Man to the rest of his filmography then ;-)
Clockers was only a little personal.
doubt Summer of Sam was that personal (though u never know).
the more exciting news than Oldboy is Red Hook Summer which just finished filming, a follow up to Do the Right Thing with Spike returning as Mookie
“a follow up to Do the Right Thing with Spike returning as Mookie”
AKA Spike Lee is bored of his life or he hasn’t anything creative on his mind and he’s cashing in on Oliver Stone-like sequel tripes.
^^guess you could say the same for 25th Hour maybe, apart from the racial tirade.
i think Summer Of Sam is quite similar to Do The Right Thing in many ways, esp how deals with the problem of difference/other and the frustrations/hostilities resulting from misunderstanding that can lead straight into cynical and destructive mob like behaviour .
but yeah, you can look at it separately too
had no idea about Red Hook Summer. sounds kind of desperate to me, but we’ll see
It takes place in Atlanta with the Mookie character that is why I am interested, it doesn’t seem to be rehashing New York business.
Yeah, I prefer Inside Man to most of his other films. 25th Hour and Summer of Sam are my favorites by him.
I wished he used his Inside Man clout to make Jackie Robinson instead of Miracle at St Anna. Maybe he will use his Oldboy clout (once that hits) to make Jackie
“AKA Spike Lee is bored of his life or he hasn’t anything creative on his mind and he’s cashing in on Oliver Stone-like sequel tripes.”
LOL
Den, where is a good place to start for Spike’s documentaries?
I’ve seen all of his features, but maybe one of his docos, if any at all.
1. Why would you be interested in the remake of a great film that’s only 8 yrs old?
2.Spike is only doing this for the money so he can produce his own projects.
Just when I thought I couldn’t Spike Lee any more. No doubt, he’ll try to get attention by starting shit with Park Chan-Wook. Never been a fan of Lee’s style.
Johnny Depp in a remake of The Thin Man? Ugh. Is it my imagination or do we have much fewer stars nowadays than at any other time in Hollywood history? Would a little broader pool of talent really be so hard to find? It seems like the stars have a narrower range of types and therefore symbolic or direct communicative possibilities and that impoverishes the Hollywood system, or it does when they bother to stray off of their increasingly narrow path to success anyway, and, sadly, often the most adventurous films are those that are driven by one of the few big stars that are left, so it seems to be something of a self-sustaining cycle.
docs
4 Little Girls is maybe the most accomplished but I like his sort of black icon series: Jim Brown All American, Kobe Doin Work and The Huey Newton Story (which is a filmed play really so maybe that does not count
“Is it my imagination or do we have much fewer stars nowadays than at any other time in Hollywood history?”
Yeah, it’s really bizarre. It seems like you can count the number of stars on one hand. I was thinking recently how a film starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts came out this summer and I hadn’t even heard about it. Granted, I’m not paying attention much but it’s funny. I guess they were the tail end of the star system since all the ones now who still have clout all emerged in the 1990s.
i think there are fewer stars because the younger generation of Hollywood actors have zero personality or charisma for the most part. the only thing they can market is sex appeal, and that gets old after a while. plus it doesn’t help that formulas rule the industry, so they keep hiring the same old kind of actor over and over again.
i’m sure there are plenty of great American actors that either aren’t good looking enough, or haven’t found the right ‘break’, that we’ll never get the pleasure of seeing, and ones that are struggle more than most once they are finally established in the industry because of their lack of sex appeal(Paul Giamatti)
" I was thinking recently how a film starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts came out this summer and I hadn’t even heard about it. ".
Roberts is finished imo. Gibson is washed up too, for obvious reasons.
so that’s 2 big stars from the 80’s and/or 90’s down for the count.
Gibson may just suprise you. If Chris Brown can retain his popularity…
Stars imo are actors who cultivate a persona from film to film, expand upon it sure but never ditch what made them popular in the first place. Clooney does not want to do this, Pitt either.
Jolie and Depp are stars because there is almost always a sense of weirdness (in his case) and sort of blank toughness (in hers). Sandler is a star because he kept his sort of man child persona from film after film and found a way to appeal to audiences that like him film after film
^ Sandler might a star for the reasons you suggest Den but is he a worthwhile-to-observe-his-acting star?
That IS the question…
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone defend Sandler’s acting chops (although he has produced one of the worst previews I’ve ever seen – Jack and Jill).
But all of those others mentioned – Clooney, Depp, Sandler, Jolie emerged in the late 90s. DiCaprio obviously too. Is it impossible for a new star to emerge in the current climate? Why? It can’t just be – as Joks asserts – that new Hollywood actors have zero charisma. Certainly actors like Ryan Gosling or Joseph Gordon-Levitt do.
^^Gosling is a decent actor, but he doesn’t strike me as being a ‘star’, at least not in the traditional sense.
of course the response to this could be that neither were the new Hollywood actors, but i don’t think Gosling comes off as ‘larger than life’ in the way that Nicholson or Deniro or Pacino did when they were roughly his age.
I never said he is a good actor, I do find him worthwhile because I think actors who do the same types of things are much more interesting because every work is like part of one large work, far better than different role to different role.
I also forgot to mention Mr Stallone who is bigger than ever especially internationally. And Tyler Perry (from the 2000s) who can certainly open a movie big. He is an interesting star because he has no charm unless he is in drag, but he is playing Alex Cross soon and I can promise that will make a ton of cash.
Nah, he isn’t bigger than ever. Cliffhanger grossed over 255 mill in 1993, which is like over 400 in today’s money, and it wasn’t anywhere hear his biggest film.
but he was an unlikely comeback story, i’ll give you that.
The old one sucked, the new one will suck to.
The end.
This is gonna blow big time, I like Bale and Brolin but the original was just so full on and out there that an American version will look tame in contrast.
“The old one sucked, the new one will suck to.”
…said the person who likes Clooney’s directorial efforts? Ummm, yeah, try again. Placing the original in the same context of a possibly redundant remake is quite pointless as an argument.
PolarisDiB
Confirmed and with date set in place
Oldboy remake rumors are so many and so frequent that I’ve reached “I’ll believe it when I see it, and then I probably won’t go see it” stage about two years ago. This is looking serious, and seriously, my opinion is that it’s finally sounding less and less painful. There’s even an off-hand chance this could be pretty good. If this happens as is, I will wait to hear reviews and if the reviews are positive, I’ll bother to watch it.
If Steven Spielberg had made it, I would walk. If Will Smith was involved, I would walk. Josh Brolin and Spike Lee? Eh.
I know this is ironic considering my Mark Kermode Diminished Expectations thread, but it’s sort of a build upon that concept. If remakes are going to exist, they might as well have the correct talent behind them. And if they are bound to fail (I still cannot imagine that ending existing in American cinema with money put behind it), they can at least be inspired failures.
Edit: and no, really, Christian Bale is the perfect type of scenery-chewing sadism with a shit-eating grin to pull off the heavy. Even if you dislike him it works into his character.
—PolarisDiB