Is John Carpenter the new Philip K Dick? March 17, 2007
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , add a commentThere was a time not so long ago, in a galaxy so close it may well be this one, that any sci-fi film getting greenlit would be by necessity based on a short story by Philip K Dick. Total Recall, Paycheck, Screamers, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly… I imagine other sci-fi authors sat by their typewriters gnashing their teeth at the Hollywood mantra that PKD was the only sci-fi author Out There worth optioning a movie idea.
But there’s a new guy in Hollywood. He’s a dude full of movie ideas, and better still, this dude has proved you can make cheap movies based on these ideas, and they might even have made money, because he’s actually already made them. And if these cheap movies have made money, imagine how cool it would be to follow the Modern Hollywood Rule of throwing lots of money at them, I mean, bigger movies are better movies, yeah? Better still, many of these films were made in the seventies, back when most of the current cinema-going public weren’t even born. These popcorn-munching guys probably don’t even know they are watching old classics being raped onscreen before their very eyes.
The Fog, Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing… either they have been remade or are in pre-production. For a Carpenter fan like myself, it’s a miserable time at the movies. I cannot believe how bad The Fog was, and I refuse point-blank to watch Halloween it’d be like paying to see a car-crash, and feel awful dread at what might be done to The Thing. And now it has been announced that Escape From New York is set for a remake, starring Gerard Butler, fresh from the boffo box-office of 300. Unbelievable. I only hope that Carpenter is laughing all the way to the bank from all of this. It’s doubly annoying from a fans perspective though, as Carpenter hasn’t been able to make a film in years. Sure, his recent films may have tailed off quality-wise, but even a poor Carpenter film is better than most of the dross that gets shoveled into multiplexes these days.
So I gaze forlornly at my dvd shelf, and the Carpenter films on there. Poor buggers used to be classics, now some of them have been forever sullied by inferior remakes, and the rest are just sitting there waiting for some Hollywood exec or hack screenwriter to bastardize it into another awful remake. Whatever happened to original ideas? Maybe I’m getting old, but the last few years in cinema have been awful. There was a time when I saw the penchant for movies based on tv ‘hits’ with morbid curiosity, then the recent run of horror classics being remade made me nervous, and now it seems to be Carpenter’s turn. Is Hitchcock next? I’m beginning to think that no film is safe. Is it just a matter of time before my beloved Blade Runner gets remade, or given a just-as-unnecessary sequel?
Agh. The cinema is getting to be a dangerous place for movie-lovers these days.
An ill Omen March 4, 2007
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 2 commentsWell it’s been awhile since my last post. The world outside rather interfered with the online world- flood at work, new job, tyres slashed on my car, a very bad case of flu….
So what have I been watching? Well, I finally caught up with THE DEPARTED, certainly Scorsese’s best film for years. A few days later he won the Oscar… well, everyone knows that he should have won it for GOODFELLAS, but THE DEPARTED is certainly a worthy winner for him. I’ve struggled with TIDELAND and ANGEL-A, which I may discuss here at some later date.
But I’ve also seen THE OMEN remake. Now I’ve said it before about THE WICKER MAN remake, but it’s just as apt here- really, what on Earth was the point? Besides a nice prologue sequence in Rome, the film seemed almost a shot-for-shot remake. Unless a remake has something new to say, what is the point of even bothering? Richard Donner’s THE OMEN has been unofficially remade so many times -I think the FINAL DESTINATION films are culprits- that an ‘official’ remake is pointless in the extreme, especially if misguided devotion or respect for the original results in such a passionless effort. I strangely couldn’t get ‘into’ the film at all, I was so distracted by the misguided faithfulness of the recreation of the Richard Donner original. Even the deaths were pretty much identical. I’ll say it again- what was the point? It clearly seems that millions were spent purely on the whim of the marketing boys that figured a remake released on 6/6/06 was such a neat idea. A cynical marketing ploy that leaves us with a soulless, antiseptic film.
And later this year we have Rob Zombies remake of HALLOWEEN and Will Smith in a remake of another 70s classic, THE OMEGA MAN. I despair. It’s a difficult time to be a movie fan.