Will You See The Birds Remake?
While trolling for news, I came across something I'd didn't much like at all. Platinum Dunes is going to remake the Hitchcock classic, The Birds, for a 2009 release. The movie is rumored to star Naomi Watts. Watts is beautiful and talented and was terrific in everything from King Kong (yes, I loved it) to The Ring.
And yet, I believe there are some things you just don't mess with. The Birds is so close to perfection, so Hitchcockian, so horrific that anyone who tries a remake is doomed to fail. (Platinum Dunes is also redoing - shudder - Friday The 13th.) Forgive me for ranting, but don't they know what happened when Psycho was remade starring Vince Vaughan? Tonight, all I'll see when I dream is Hitch twisting and turning in his grave. Am I right?
I know this may sound sacreligious, but I didn't think the "Psycho" remake was all that bad. On its own, it's pretty good; I don't think Gis Van Zant was trying to top it. If there is a remake of "The Birds", that would be my advice to the film makers - don't try to top it.
You're very right. The new one will look slick. It'll be an action-packed modern movie...low on characterization and replete with an over-blown soundtrack by some second-rate composer (Williams being too expensive and Herrmann, Goldsmith and so many other good ones being dead).
The new film will not improve on the old one (how could it?)nor will it have something new to say.
I am all for re-makes if there are things in the original that could have been done better. King Kong is a fine example. Ben Hur is another. But Hollywood is suffering from re-make-itus, trying to re-package old movies for a younger and generally less sophisticated and discriminating audience.
very nicely put, dr. scott giles.
Is no classic film sacred anymore???
The last ten years or so has seen a disgusting onslaught of Hollywood remakes. Not one of them has gone on to claim any kind of recognition or worthwhile merit of its own! Clearly, today's movie industry is incapable of bringing anything new and original to the screen anymore. Why do they feel that they only way to bring a classic film to today's generation of young filmgoers is to REMAKE IT??? Are today's young audiences so immature that they would disregard, say, a wide re-release of one of Hitchcock's legendary films?
If THE BIRDS is going to be remade, I can only say that it's sad, sad, sad! Whoever the director is, he or she may as well put themselves in the same shameful memory that I consider Gus Van Sant to be in for having even thought about remaking PSYCHO!
Harold, perhaps the only way these terrible Hollywood remakes are going to stop is if people simply refuse to hand over their hard-earned time and money anymore to the industry fatheads who keep making them!
I have. Last year, I finally decided it had to stop for me. I now refuse to see anymore remakes, sequels or franchise films! I prefer to spend my time with independent films, foreign films, or at the very least, a Hollywood film that is an original story that I haven't seen before. Last summer (2007), I stayed away from every sequel and threequel that came out. Didn't leave me a whole lot to see, though. I saw MR. BROOKS and A MIGHTY HEART. Enjoyed them both!
This decision has made me a much happier moviegoer and saved me a lot of time and money.