When Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Werner Herzog's remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 dark and gritty cult classic, was announced, more than a few cinephiles took it for a joke. Why would an acclaimed, expectation-defying director hop on the unnecessary remake bandwagon? How could Nicolas Cage, currently on a quest to alienate as many moviegoers as possible with a string of bad movies, hope to live up to Harvey Keitel's brazenly raw and (literally) naked performance? The war of words that erupted between Herzog and Ferrara hasn't helped. With Hollywood always hungry for movies to re-do, it's safe to say this sort of thing will happen again. Here's a look at a few controversial remakes from the past, and what we can learn from their mistakes.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
Fans of the gritty original were less than enthused by the news that John Travolta and Denzel Washington would be starring in a big budget summer movie update. How could a distinctive 1970s New York City thriller be updated for the modern age? Not very gracefully, as it turns out. Travolta's tattooed, over-the-top hijacker bombed, and the gritty urban thrills of the original are absent in a remake that, as one critic put it, "cranks the volume and inflates the 'Noo Yawk' attitude to a cartoonish level of macho posturing."

Lesson learned: There's a fine line between gritty and garish.

Continue reading "Werner Herzog Rips Off Abel Ferrara? Hollywood Remakes Always Stir Up Trouble!" »

Whether you like the Twilight series or not, it's hard to argue that it's doing much for the vampire genre. Take, for example, Robert Pattinson, the brooding blood-sucker at the center of New Moon. He may be undead, but he's really anything but scary: A teen heartthrob with fangs does not a monster make. And he's not alone! Since the '50s, supposedly-scary beings have been eliciting snickers instead of fear at theaters. Come with me on a journey back in time through unscary monsters past...

The Aliens in Signs (2002)
M. Night Shyamalan no doubt thought he was heightening tension by barely showing his aliens on screen. Nope: All fear evaporates when you realize that the aliens find it impossible to break down a door separating them from Mel Gibson and his family. Imagine having the technology to get to earth from who knows how many light years away, only to be stymied by a wooden door. Fail!

Leprechaun in Leprechaun (1993)
Let's see: He's about two feet tall, meaning you could probably hit him with a stick from a safe distance if attacked, and four-leaf clovers render his powers useless. Really, the only reason he's able to pull off any of his whimsical murders, including death by pogo stick, is that nobody believes a tiny leprechaun could be real, let alone harm them. Once society becomes vigilant, it's doubtful this diminutive monster would cause any trouble at all.

Continue reading "A Terrifying Teen Werewolf? A Creepy Leprechaun? Well, Maybe in Theory" »

It's no secret that Hollywood loves to recycle ideas, whether it's rebooting a beloved classic or churning out endless, ill-advised sequels. Which is why "The Box" might sound awfully familiar -- not the plot of the new Cameron Diaz/James Marsden suspense flick, but its title. It's been used at least five different times! In an effort to keep Hollywood on its toes (we're watching you...) here are eight more movie titles that pop up again and again.

Taken (2008)
Liam Neeson put this title on the map earlier this year when he butt-kicked his way to victory against his daughter's kidnappers. This was not the first time "Taken" has been taken as a movie moniker. There are many Takens, the most prominent of which is the 1999 suspense flick starring Dabney Coleman as a kidnapped businessman no one is interested in saving. And there's yet another Taken on the way in 2010!

Deception (2008)
Deceit sure is a popular theme in Hollywood. The most recent Deception was the 2008 thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman as deceived and deceiver respectively, but it's also the name of many a direct-to-video flick. Rewinding back to 1946, there's also the romantic thriller starring Bette Davis as a music teacher who kills an ex-lover. That may sound more like murder than deception, but "Murder" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Continue reading "The Box Now an Official Member of the Overused Movie Titles Club" »

If you've seen advertisements for Pirate Radio you may be wondering why Philip Seymour Hoffman is reprising his character from Almost Famous (2000), only this time on the high seas. You're not alone. Nor is Hoffman the only one who has given audiences a disquieting sense of deja vu. Whether it's an expression of their laziness or just an honest mistake, sometimes actors end up playing the same exact character in two completely different movies.

Ashley Judd
In her breakout role in Kiss the Girls (1997), Judd plays a woman who escapes a killer and becomes tough-as-nails as she works with a detective to bring down the brute. Judd reprises that role -- no, not in the prequel Along Came a Spider (2001) -- but in Double Jeopardy (1999), as a woman who, after going to jail when her husband frames her for murder, goes from housewife to hardcore to bring him down.

Harrison Ford
It's tough to find fault with the man who played Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Lately, though, Ford keeps playing a grumpy guy who gets grumpier when his family is kidnapped. The circumstances don't really matter. Whether he's playing the President in Firewall (2006) or a security designer in Air Force One (1997), the character is the same. Wait, that's wrong: It's the other way around. Point proven!

Continue reading "Same Role, Different Movie - Philip Seymour Hoffman Joins the Play-It-Again Club" »

Money doesn't always buy happiness -- or cinematic sensation. You can spend serious dough and still wind up with a total flop. But you can also max out your credit cards, call in favors from all your Facebook friends, and maybe -- just maybe -- take things blockbuster. (Case in point: Lee Daniels' stirring indie drama Precious, which sparked instant Oscar buzz despite its humble $3 million origins.) These movies were all made on a shoestring and went on to earn their keep and, in most case, many millions more. Sometimes, all it takes is a dollar and a dream -- and a really, really good idea.

Paranormal Activity (2009)
Production Budget: $15,000; Domestic Gross: $84 million
This supernatural thriller scared up amazing box office numbers despite having been made with the kind of spare change the director could have found under his couch cushions. Against formidable odds,  this claustrophobic ghost story was so good, remake-happy Paramount released it without changing a thing.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Production Budget $400,000; Domestic Gross $44 million
This clean-as-a-whistle celebration of geek chic divided audiences, but it sold enough tickets to qualify as a stunning success. Director Jared Hess, front-loaded the cast and crew with current and former students of his alma mater, Brigham Young University to keep things on the cheap. Who knew Mormons would prove so theatrically viable?

Continue reading "Not All Movies Need Big Budgets, as Precious and Paranormal Activity Go to Show" »

In 1972, ufologist Josef Allen Hynek categorized the three kinds of alien encounters, from UFO sightings to alien observations. Ufologists have since created a fourth classification: Alien abduction! The scifi thriller The Fourth Kind explores the phenomenon, as have so any movies in the past. Here's a look at ten cinematized abductions. Some of these characters' captors are evil incarnate, but others, as it turns out, are just overly curious intergalactic anthropologists.

10. Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), The Last Starfighter (1984)
This may not have all the benchmark traits of an alien abduction movie, but one scene says it all: When Centauri shows up at Alex's trailer park, he charms the glum starfighter into his car by praising his arcade skills! Once Alex is strapped in, Centauri whisks his bewildered passenger into outer space. The fact that Alex ends up having the time of his life (what, no probes?) lands this one at the bottom of the list.

9. Sam Phillips (Philip Sayer), Xtro (1982)
In this disturbing, gory low-budget flick, a father is playing with his son in their backyard when he suddenly gets sucked up by a beam of white light. He returns to Earth three years later to find his wife and son, but something is different. Could it be his ability to transform into a freaky creature with four legs? Bingo! The movie's ending -- no spoilers here -- makes it one of the starker abduction movies to date.

Continue reading "Classic Ten - Alien Abductions" »

There's no arguing the fact that Al Pacino's one of the fiercest actors of his generation. Still, despite the nuanced portrayals he's delivered over the decades, there's nothing better than when Pacino works himself up into a mindless rage. The movies in which he does so may not be his best -- at least not in the traditional sense -- but there's nothing more entertaining than when Pacino lets his freak flag fly. As he does in...

The Recruit (2003)
While this conspiracy pic is far from Pacino's best work, it does contain a few of those moments where you have to wonder whether Al Pacino might actually be nuts in real life. When Colin Farrell foils a scheme he's cooked up, Pacino, cornered, totally loses it, yelling, "I'm obsolete! I'm irrelevant! Me! Shame on you! You yank me home, you shove me out in the woods!" It's a glorious moment for any true Pacino fan.

Any Given Sunday (1999)
As a typically acerbic, old-school coach, Pacino puts his own stamp on that sports flick staple: The motivational speech. Is anyone better equipped to raise his volume, decibel by decibel, as he hammers on about gaining success in football inch until he's finally spitting and screaming in all his Pacino-esque glory? By the time he's finished, nobody on that team can even consider losing that game.

Continue reading "Al Pacino's Great, and He's Even Better When He Taps Into His Inner Monster" »

Who says a horror movie can't also be a work of art? There's no reason aesthetics have to go out the window when fear comes in the door. This Halloween, enjoy a little culture with your horror, and gasp in admiration as you cling to the edge of your seat. Read on for eight picks that combine viscera with vision. Call them the bloody and the beautiful -- or just sit back and enjoy the show.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Not all art needs to be slick. This ragged-looking feature employed a wildly successful viral marketing campaign nearly as impressive as the finished film. Their purposefully disorienting shooting style -- like a home video made by someone suffering from delirium tremens -- only ramps up the atmosphere of dislocation, anxiety and, eventually, sheer panic. When else has a little bundle of sticks looked so scary?

Dead Ringers (1988)
David Cronenberg always gets points for originality, and this movie's no exception: How many films have you seen about twin gynecologist barbiturate addicts in love with the same woman? But the major props here go to star Jeremy Irons: It takes one hell of an actor to play two identical parts that the viewer can tell apart -- even when one character is impersonating the other. The horrifying dream sequences are just the icing on the cake.

Continue reading "Seriously Scary - Horror Movies That Qualify as Art" »

Sure, you could go out and buy a trendy costume based on the most popular movie in theaters -- though Max costumes from Where the Wild Things Are sold out before the pic was even released. Luckily, there's no shortage of ideas at the movies: Screenwriters love to use Halloween as a way of making their characters look extra ridiculous. (Or unrecognizable. Or just plain scary.) Read on for a list of the top ten movie meta-costumes worthy of copycatting this Halloween.

10. E.T. in E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
A ghost costume is like the muumuu of Halloween costumes -- it covers up a whole host of ills, including, in some cases, the fact that you're an alien. Still, while the ghost look was subtle and useful, E.T. really should have considered his "Gertie's closet" ensemble as an alternative. Positive points for functionality balancing out negative points for creativity equal out to the bottom spot on this list.

9. Dani (Thora Birch) in Hocus Pocus (1993)
At first you might not think Dani's witch costume is all that, but take a closer look at the way the movie's actual witches are dressed and you'll see that she's nailed it! Even better, it provides excellent cover when blending with trick-or-treaters on the street in order to avoid capture. For the ability to channel her inner mismatched-hag, Dani takes ninth place.

Continue reading "Classic Ten - Movie Characters in All Their Halloween Costumed Glory" »

Halloween is less than a week away and that means it's time for candy, costumes and scary movies. While most fright flicks share one of a few common threads -- masked killers, murderous monsters -- not each and every scary movie comes in that same wrapping. In fact, some of the scariest moments at the movies are courtesy of genres where you'd least expect to find them. Are you easily frightened? Then be sure to add the following to your "Do Not Watch" list!

The Butterfly Effect (2004)
It's hard to imagine anything involving Ashton Kutcher as scary, but The Butterfly Effect is seriously creepy. Kutcher, as a collegiate with a troubled past, finds a way to change the worst events of his life only to realize he's initiated The Butterfly Effect and caused things to get worse and worse. Replete with freaky flashbacks, life just keeps become more like a nightmare. It's hard to shake this one off. Seriously!

Pi (1998)
Anyone with even the smallest penchant for paranoia should never, ever watch Pi. The harrowing tale of paranoid mathematical genius Max (Sean Gullette) is enough to make any neurotic think that someone really is after them. For Max, stumbling upon a 216-digit number in his work as a mathematician leads to pursuit by Biblical zealots, increasingly painful headaches, and trippy hallucinations until he finally takes a drill to his own temple.

Continue reading "Cartoons, Conspiracy Flicks, and A Clockwork Orange - Non-Horror Movies Terrify Too" »