Good morning humans,
I just got wind the other day about a possible remake of American Psycho which I think is a huge mistake to do but then secretly I wouldn't mind seeing a modern version of it. I follow BEE on twitter and he doesn't seem to mind it one bit.
So leak your thoughts below on what you think should happen to BEE's classic.
You seen Ellis' response to it on Twitter, Brandon? I think Scott Dsick would make a great Batemn.
Yeah, I did. Too bad Disick isn't an actor.
The novel was one of the principle reasons I got a hard-on for the written word. At the young age of twenty, I was reading this book and thinking, "Holy shit, now this is how you do it." It was the proverbial highlight reel of how to write a character-driven story, and I still make a point of going back to it at least once a year to enjoy the ride all over again.
- Exact same reason I got into writing. And I re-read it once a year, as well.
And thank you for my favorite scene, featuring one of my favorite 80's bands, Huey Lewis and The News.
Great article Brandon. I think Lionsgate is making a mistake.
I'm fortunate enough that the people who run this site let me have an opinion, so thanks to Dennis and Josh for letting me get that off my chest.
mistake - absolutely - the story is about the 80s - and oh so much that was shallow, sociopathic and downright icky about the 80s. Whatever "moderner" era it's set in has its own problems, and would require a different character altogether.
problem with movies is that they are so bloody expensive (the way Hollywood makes them is, at any rate), that producers are unwilling to take huge risks - so they remake remake remake - or Hollywoodize foreign films, which is another rant altogether. the recent spate is particularly annoying, mostly because the films that are being remade aren't all that old.
Can't wait for the Casablanca, Citizen Kane, 2001: a Space Odyssee, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars remakes...
Shut yor mouth on a Casablanca remake. that would kill my soul.
@Averydoll - I suggest you don't watch Barbed Wire... the plot might be familiar... and Pamela Anderson, well...
I feel like you just tried to kill my soul.
Why why why? Enough with the remakes of the classics! Does there have to be a version of the same movie every 5 years to keep it up to date? I doubt anyone can beat Christian Bale anyway.
Scott Dsick IS Bateman
STAR WARS REMAKE????????
@Avery Doll - I didn't MAKE the movie... >P
@Liana - I'm blaspheming - but I wouldn't put it past Hollywood.
Oh, and Jaws, Amadeus, Apocalypse Now! - somebody stop me...
They are already redoing the Spiderman franchise and Superman. They just did another version of X-men. Don't even get me started on The Smurfs....
I'm really confused by the Spiderman thing - can someone tell me without making me read an article? Are they re-doing the movies that were JUST made with Toby Whoever? Because that seems so odd to me. What is the point of this?
I guess they realized the last movie was so bad they had to create an alternate timeline with a new Spidey. Although I have to say I like the actors in it, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. I hated Kirsten Dunce as Mary Jane, she was so annoying.
Yep, it's a reboot. New everything.
At least they are using new villains. I'm interested to see Josh Whedon's Avengers.
I can't see another Patrick Bateman besides Bale. And I agree, modernizing it would be a complete mistake. The time period is essential to the story, and the music was one of the best parts of the movie(like Brandon said, Bateman doesn't listen to fucking Mumford and Sons...and I can't imagine the 3 way scene without Sssudio playing) They would have to go a different route, and try to have some of the more violent scenes in the movie for it to stand out against the original.
I like the idea of Garfield as Peter Parker more than I liked the idea of the other guy.
I just don't know how many more of these superheroes I can get invested in...
I don't understand why a movie that is only 11 years old is being remade.
then there's the Hulk (2003) and the Incredible Hulk (2008) - and probably a handful of Punisher movies, none of which were worth their weight in spent casings.
@Bradley - it's Hollywood's death knell - once a movie and its remake are competing for an Oscar, then it's time to pack up and move along... that or someone remakes Police Academy 5. I think that Hollywood has traded in imagination for magic beans.
I can understand trying to reenvision a comic book story that you may think wasn't done justice in a movie before. Come on, the new Batman series is the best so far. But remaking a movie that was written as a movie and done amazingly, that to me is rape.
Or if you bother to "remake" something, be completely original and blow people's minds by making it 10 times better than what was done before. That happened with the so-called remake of Battlestar Galactica. I wonder if that will be the case with American Psycho.
Yeah, movies with characters published in the issues of Marvel Comics aren't remakes. It's just different stories with the same character, although the movies' stories may be similar.
The only thing more horrific than a remake of American Psycho would be a sequel featuring Mila Kunis.
Oh...yeah.
Heh, I see Brandon covered that...
the 2008 Hulk movie was a reboot of the 2003 one. If Ang Lee had presented us with something different, there wouldn't have been a remake.
I don't get the Psycho remake at all - especially considering it was shot-by-shot identical to the first (although details were changed, like the square shower head, which of course follows from the round eye, the round drain, egads...)
Okay, but the 2008 Hulk had Edward Norton in it, so it was a winner.
I would still like to see the version Norton was champoining.
And, you know, don't get me wrong, I ADORED the remake of Fright Night, but that was because it was truly reimagined and done so differently from the first. To me, it's barely a remake. But Fright Night was a cheesey B flick to start with, so there is something different here, remaking an incredibly well done film, where the setting, the actor, the script, and the soundtrack all feed into it's perfection. I feel like you change even one part of that and you're asking for a disaster. I just cannot SEE a different Patrick Bateman, just like I couldn't see someone else in Swayze's part in Dirty Dancing. Another great example is Footloose--it worked because of the time it was set in, the modern reboot is just absolutely unbelievable--a town where dancing is illegal? In 2011? For fuck's sake.
I think remakes should only be made if the original movie had a lot of potential to be great but failed. I cannot think of any modern day remake like this. The one exception could have been The Wizard of Gore, but the remake turned out to be worse than the original movie.
I enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead remake because I came into the theatre with such low expectations and saw it at a dollar theatre, although the original was preferable. Later, I found out the remake's screenwriter was someone who has written various movies that I've liked. I'm also fond of the Psycho remake, but only because of the absurdity of its existence considering it used the same script as the original and was almost the same (besides the color) as far using the same shots. It seems like a critique of remakes to me.
The movie's wikipedia page says, "Even Van Sant admitted that it was an experiment that proved that no one can really copy a film exactly the same way as the original." And wow, he must have put in a lot of effort into proving this and it just doesn't seem worth it.
I also think remaking foreign language movies is ludicrous and more Americans need to learn how to read.
The Halloween remake made me so mad, because they took out most of what was disturbing about the original.
Well, the one thing about subtitles is...it just doesn't work in some movies. My husband and I are rabid Nightwatch fans, but we watched the dubbed version (it was what was available). Somewhere in our series of moves, we lost the DVD, I found it on Netflix and was excited to introduce it to my friend, but she couldn't really follow what was going on because she was reading the subtitles when she needed to be looking at what was going on onscreen. I really hated the subtitled version. Now, that isn't an arguement for remaking it, just an arguement for decent dubbing in films like that.
On the flip side, there are plenty of movies that aren't hitting you with the kind of visuals that Nightwatch does, and that you aren't going to miss something REALLY important by taking the time to read the subtitles. And I do love films like that.
You get used to subtitles the more you watch movies like that. I grew up with subtitled movies and I don't even notice I'm reading and watching at the same time. It would be a shame to only be exposed to American movies since there is a different way of acting, interpreting reality, different vision that different cultures have, and those are lost when the movie is remade. I think it would be a shame, or a loss to anyone to watch movies from only one culture, whichever that may be.
I liked the Halloween remake, but it wasn't really a remake. Half of it was a prequel and half of it was a remake. I liked the prequel part and thought the remake part was ok but not great. I'm also one of the few people who liked the sequel (possibly more than the original remake).
Dubbing annoys me unless it's used for animation rather than "live action" because it isn't as obvious that the characters' mouths aren't matching up with the dialogue. Sergio Leone's movies where the lead actors are American (and speak in English) and everyone else speaks in Italian (which is replacing by English dubbing) is really awkward to watch considering the motion of the lead actor's mouths match up to their dialogue but the secondary actor's mouths don't match up.
I remember renting Dario Argento's Deep Red a while back and there were major problems with that as far as the dubbing and subtitles. Sometimes it was dubbed while sometimes the characters spoke in their actual language and it was subtitled. It was just a mess and I couldn't finish. The movie's imdb page says this in its faq: "Pieces of the original English audio recording were lost. The movie was originally shot in Italian." I wonder if they're still lost when it comes to newer editions of the movie.
I've never heard of anyone saying that subtitles made them too distracted to watch a movie. I always assumed people who don't like dubbed movies don't like to read. I imagined they never read books so they also did not want to have to read during a movie.
Nightwatch's subtitles are all cool looking and gimmicky. Perhaps that's why your friend was distracted by them. Maybe she wouldn't have been distracted if they were the normal type of subtitles.
@Bradley, that's a decent point, because as I was writing that I was thinking of Delicatassen, which is visually interesting in it's own way, and I didn't find it distracting to watch it/read the subtitles at the same time. I didn't find the dubbing in Nightwatch to be that bad, though. There were a couple moments where you could really tell, but the majority of the film seemed to roll pretty smoothly.
Anyway, none of that really concerns the original point, which is that American remakes of foreign films are usually awful. I got a good laugh out of MTV doing a line for line remake of BBC's Skins, though--so much is lost in the cultural translation when nothing is re-written (like, for instance, the difference in age of majority in the UK vs. the US). I disliked both versions, but at least the UK Version made some sense.
I can't really think of any movie remakes of foreign films from English-speaking countries besides a vague memory of hearing about a British movie with a bunch of white people at a funeral being remade in the U.S. and changing the cast's ethnicity to black.
Although there are a lot of versions of American versions of British shows. Usually, their existence doesn't make sense to me because I don't understand why a British show can't be on prime time just because the actors have British accents. But occasionally I prefer the American version over the British version: like The Office and Being Human (although I wonder if I was just in a bad mood when I watched a few episodes of the original version of Being Human). I also really liked the show, The Killing, which is an American version of a Danish show (although I haven't seen any episodes from the original show).
I'm wondering when American TV will do their own version of The Misfits. Probably my favorite British non-humor show was Life on Mars. There was an American adaptation of it, but it was dreadful and didn't last long. It had a few really great actors (like Harvey Keitel in the show's best role and Michael Imperioli), so I really don't understand why it was so bad.
And dammit, I think Bridesmaids killed one of my favorite British comedy shows (The IT Crowd) by making one of the show's stars an overnight sensation in the U.S. and now he's probably never going to make another TV show ever again.
@Bradley Sands - while I agree with you re: dubbing, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is one exception - the dubbing was really well done. Not an easy task between Mandarin & English (as any thousands of movies will prove).
I think one of the strangest cases of remakes was Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 - pretty much the same movie, same director, same principle actor... but part 2 was greatly superior (in a Sam Raimi kindo of way).
I've seen Crouching Tiger but don't remember it. I wonder if there was a dubbed version and a subtitled version that played in different theatres. One particularly memorable movie that was dubbed was Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Evil Dead 2 is a sequel to the first movie, but it's confusing because people are likely to think it's a remake unless they already know in advance considering it's pretty much the same as the first one except for the humor and Ash being alone rather than with friends (although a believe a few people show up later: the owners of the cabin and their family, I think). I remember there being a summary of Evil Dead 1 at the beginning of the sequel but it only mentioned Ash's girlfriend and excluded the rest of his friends. Anyway, I think the first movie is a lot scarier than the sequel, so it's better if we judge it that way, but the sequel is more fun. Same thing with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The first movie is pretty much a horror classic while the sequel is just a really good movie.
I never watch a foreign movie that's been dubbed. For me hearing their language is a huge part of the movie. I tried watching the dubbed version of Oldboy but there is just nothing like hearing the real actors. By the way a possible Oldboy remake has been floating around. Last I saw they had their eyes on will smith to play lead, anybody else with me on burning Hollywood if this ever happens?
I'm actually pretty curious about the new American Psycho.
Now, this picture is not directly related to the new flick (maybe) and I'm a curious person period.
Point being: is Bateman really an exclusive feature of the '80s? Guys, Goldman Sucks and co. are telling a different story, and I don't think that today's CEO mob is just a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Plus, I so want to watch Patrick Bateman playing bongos in Zuccotti Park.
On Halloween remake - it was the "prequel" that annoyed me. They changed the whole premise. It is not shocking when a kid who comes from a dirt poor environment with a stripper mom becomes a crazed murderer. It's expected. What was neat about the original was that there were no obvious reasons for why he did what he did. He came from a nice upper middle class neighborhood. It showed that evil could be right next to you and you would never know it.
@Flaminia - the Bateman type character isn't exclusive to the 80s, but Bateman is. Also, the guy in the picture is obviously a poseur because he's eating caviar with a metal spoon...
My yuppie side cried out when I saw that. He's also fucking with the quality of the caviar by warming it with body heat.
He's also fucking with the quality of the caviar by warming it with body heat.
Shit Brandon maybe you should play Bateman haha.
lol, it's a fashion photoshoot from Vice. It's hilarious.
There's a Bateman inside all of us. No escape ;)
@Bradley, I'm sure they will do an American version of Misfits, I like the UK version but the seasons are so short that sometimes when American shows try to expand a show to 22 episodes, it loses all meaning. I can't stand the Office anymore, it has gone on way too long. Unfortunately, the UK Misfits isn't as good as it used to be anyway since the character of Nathan left plus unless the show was on cable, they could not get away with all the cussing they do on the UK version or the really out there stuff like Nathan stomping on a placenta and covering everyone in blood.
@Brandon--Wow, that is a yuppie side, I would microwave caviar. I have no idea how to eat that stuff.
@Avery--I agree, the Halloween remake pissed me off. I feel like Rob Zombie went too far by redoing those. The Devil's Rejects and House of a 1000 corpses were decent because they were homages to the old style demented horror films on the past but taking a character like Michael Myers and making him so obvious was annoying. Plus he puts his wife in every damn movie he makes.
I also hated the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.
I'm not a fan of Black Christmas remake either.
Prom Night wasn't even a remake. If they had named it something else, it would have been a fine movie because it wasn't really like the original at all. I didn't get it.
I didn't see Bridesmaids, who from the IT Crowd was in it? (I love that show). The Irish guy was in Dinner For Schmucks and that gave me a good laugh (although, hardy har, wasn't that a remake of a French Film?)
"Le Dîner de Cons"