Shot for shot remakes are nothing new, but when it comes to remaking one of the greatest 3D animations yet created into a live action film using real toys, now that’s worth talking about. While a live-action Toy Story remake is obviously not going to look perfect — as, let’s face it, real toys can’t move on their own or move their facial muscles to create expressions, the dedication to such a time-consuming fan project is simply amazing. For that reason, we can only hope that if and when Disney Pixar actually finds out about the project that they support the fan’s efforts, rather than trying to shut it down. Click through to check it out now.
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Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night, two remakes of beloved 1980s movies (souped up with CG and 3-D, of course) hit theaters tomorrow. Earlier today, the Internet went crazy over the news that Ridley Scott is rebooting Blade Runner. With Hollywood’s seemingly never-ending series of ‘80s revamps, apparently everything old is new again, but the logic for the continued revisiting of one of cinema’s worst decades is beyond understanding. Seriously, how many honest-to-God masterpieces were there in the 1980s? A half-dozen, maybe? (For the record: Raging Bull, Do the Right Thing, Blue Velvet, Raiders, E.T., and The Thin Blue Line, but feel free to play the home game).
As we’ve discussed before, nostalgia is a powerful thing; our faculties for critical judgment aren’t always in place when we’re, say, pre-teens, and the demographically desirable audience that these films are being pitched to were either (on the far side) very young children when these films were released, or (on the younger end) kids when they first saw them on VHS. They hold the memory of those movies as a sacred thing, a talisman of childhood. But have you ever gone back to these movies? Good heavens. After the jump, we’ll take a look at ten of the most financially successful and culturally iconic movies that, come to find out, are actually terrible. Add your own in the comments; if you disagree, we’re sure you’ll let us know.
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Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Or it may never have been at all. The “it,” of course, refers to Lars von Trier’s rumored remake of Taxi Driver, which had the media abuzz for nearly a spin around the sun. Often, the very mention of the word “remake” with a beloved title leads to a feisty chorus of “ohs” and “whys,” from The Seven Samurai to the more recent Let the Right One In. But with von Trier’s brilliant but checkered past (hit-miss-hit) and Martin Scorsese’s notorious “hero,” there was definitely promise for a must-see redo.
In that what-if spirit, here’s a list of other American classics and the directors we think could make them their own. Leave your own scenarios in the comments.
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Some teen focus group must have suggested that zombies are the new vampires. Hot on the heels of yesterday’s news that Six Feet Under executive producer and former WB Entertainment president David Janollari had joined MTV’s programming team, comes word of this: The network is planning to create a spin-off TV series of Dawn of the Dead licensed from George Romero’s 1978 horror film, which was the second in his Living Dead series. On the surface this makes sense: the story is set in a suburban shopping mall.
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