Remakes Without an Accent
By Lisa Fary
For god’s sake, America. Just read the subtitles, already. Or accept a dubbing. And accept that sometimes, things happen in places that aren’t the United States to people who aren’t American. You’ll see more truly amazing movies and less toned down, dumbed down crap.
What’s that? Lisa’s pissed off about Hollywood remakes? Hasn’t she run off at the keyboard about this enough?
No, because my previous ranty rants (and Sylvia Bond’s and Rhea Dee’s) were mostly geared toward shiny remakes of old movies. Today, I’m angry about Hollywood remakes of foreign movies, which are almost always inferior to the originals. (I say “almost” because I’m sure there’s an exception which I’m not aware of – they can’t all be The Grudge, The Eye, or Quarantine. Right?).
So, let’s talk about some of the foreign-to-Hollywood remakes coming down the pike:
Let the Right One In
The American title looks like it’s going to be Let Me In. Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) is helming this remake which is set in Colorado, rather than in a Swedish, working class suburb. Reeves is keeping the time frame of the original, setting it during the Reagan era and is sensitive to the casting. He is planning to keep the remake’s actors in the tween range, rather than aging them up to mid to late teens to appeal to the Twilight crowd.
Oldboy
Last November, Will Smith swore that his Oldboy isn’t a remake of the Park Chan-Wook film Oldboy; it’s an adaptation of the Oldboy manga. Sort of how Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an adaptation of the book, not a remake of the Gene Wilder movie. This is sort of promising for an American version to be its own film rather than a soulless copy – it also gets Stephen Spielberg, who’s writing the adaptation, around the Korean film’s more. . . ahhh. . . uncomfortable elements. I’m still not on board yet – Park Chan-Wook’s original is simply amazing and I’m not convinced that Spielberg can do better with it.
Martyrs: This is the one I’m most afraid of and not because the movie isn’t for the faint of heart (I didn’t include video because I couldn’t bring myself to look at any parts of it again just yet). It’s ripe for an idiotic adaptation. 20th Century Fox has bought the remake rights to Pascal Laugier’s relentlessly brutal horror film. No details have been announced, and I have no idea how far along the studio is in the production process, but I dread dread dread and American remake of this movie that will turn Martyrs into a titillating, hyper-sexualized revenge story. Hollywood usually misses the point in the source material anyway, and Martyrs is not an easy film to watch or talk about. There is no way that Fox will do right by this movie.
Here is where I’d ask if there was a shred of originality left in Hollywood, but I already know the answer to that. Who needs originality when even a near universally critically panned movie like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen still pulls in close to $109 million in its opening weekend ($200 million in the first five days). There seems to be no more need of originality because viewers will flock to crap.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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I don't think Spielberg can do Oldboy better, either. I forsee a major chickening out the subject matter front. Le sigh. I'm gonna go make myself feel better and watch Lady Vengeance or something.
And for some reason, I can't stop picturing the Let The Right One In remake filmed in shaky cam, a la Cloverfield. We'll see how this director fares when he's not under the wing of JJ Abrams.
american re-makes of asian movies can be awesome! Departed anyone? Who cares if someone remakes a film? It's not like the other-one disappears from the time space continuum. Plus, any-time spielberg wants to turn a camera on, I'm all for it!
It's not just Asian movies, though. There can absolutely be good remakes (I left it open to this in the third paragraph – there are always exceptions), like Scent of a Woman or The Magnificent Seven, or your example, The Departed. But, these are the exception because they manage to take the original concept and make it work intelligently for an American audience rather than simply copying it – I guess the difference is like the difference between "inspired by" and "knock-off".
True, they don't disappear (and yet, my annoyance remains. Curious).
No, but non-American films themselves already suffer from distribution problems in America. The fact is most people don't know that "The Departed" is a remake. And there are enough people who do know that still aren't at all interested in seeing "Infernal Affairs". Do you know what I think is wrong with this picture?
People in America undermine foreign films. They think they're all artsy film noir affairs. They think that only the really good ones find crossover appeal (ignoring that many do find crossover appeal, just not in America). They think they're unapproachable because of cultural differences.
Even if the remake is better than the original, all it continues to do is perpetuate the myth that Hollywood influences the rest of the world, while undermining the influence the rest of the world's film cultures have on Hollywood. Did "The Departed" make people suddenly start thinking "Hmmm, maybe Hong Kong has a film industry that is worth checking out"? Or did it just reinforce the notion that Hollywood is the only film industry in the world that matters?
I prefer subtitles personally. I think what worries more than movie remakes is them re-making tv series, and tv series from Britain at that! I mean seriously, it's not that hard to understand British english.
But their accents are just so snooty and elitist. What do they think they're English or something???? The only adaptation that's been successful, I think, is The Office because it found it's own place. The Coupling adaptation was atrocious. I'm sure Spaced, if it hadn't been killed, would have been just as bad.
O. M. G. The reviewers on the "Let the Right One In" video are the most insipid I've seen. And they review trailers???
What bothers me about remakes is that Hollywood will remake a movie that doesn't NEED remaking. Why not remake an unsuccessful film instead? Why not find a way to revamp and improve a movie that DIDN'T do well (foreign or domestic) instead of sullying the genius of something that was made well? Or at the very least, remake somethingthat wasn't made 2-3 years ago, but something timely that works to update into today's modern world. It's just frustrating…
I feel like there should be at least a couple generations between the original and the remake – like it's too soon to remake stuff from the 1980s (actually, I'm surprised no one has tried to remake The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink yet).