Even Better Than the Real Thing

Never really understood the motive for remaking classic films. For studios; sure! It's a lower risk investment over creating an original property, but today's audiences seem to be bizarrely gleeful over their favourites being remade. It's as if a modern update will suddently make the original more relevant. A timeless classic is just that - timeless! It has the right to stand alone without some modern take sullying its name.

Most of them turn out to be terrible. There have been exceptions to the rule, where the remake has been good and even exceeded in quality over the original. Controversial or not, below is a list of remakes that I consider better than the original:

The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956)

The Omega Man (Boris Sagal, 1971)

Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kauffman, 1978)

Nosferatu the Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979)

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)

Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)

Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983)

The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986) 

Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz, 1986)

The Blob (Chuck Russell, 1988)

Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese, 1991)

Fist of Legend (Gordon Chan, 1994) 

12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1996)

Bedazzled (Harold Ramis, 2000)

The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)

The Hills Have Eyes (Alexandre Aja, 2006)

13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010)

The Crazies (Breck Eisner, 2010)

Maniac (Franck Khalfoun, 2012)

Other notable remakes which aren't better than the original, but range from good to great to classic in their own right, in some cases:

The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960)

A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)

Night of the Living Dead (Tom Savini, 1990)

The Vanishing (Georges Sluizer, 1993)

Village of the Damned (John Carpenter, 1995)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Marcus Nispel, 2003)

Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder, 2004)

House of Wax (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2005)

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Friday the 13th (Marcus Nispel, 2009)

Sorority Row (Stephen Hendler, 2009)

Let Me In (Matt Reeves, 2010)

Piranha 3D (Alexandre Aja, 2010)

The Town that Dreaded Sundown (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 2014)

This blog post was inspired by my recent discovery that the same tossers who wrote and directed the God awful Scream sequels are attached to helm Escape from New York. Hopefully it remains in pre-production limbo and doesn't progress further. 

EDIT: Completely forgot to include Breathless. Cheers, The Martorialist!

Hot Pants

Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)

One of my favourite ever recurring put-downs, is the use of the 'Allo, 'Allo theme being played whenever a pompous contestant serves up a gallic platter on gastronomic gameshow Come Dine With Me. It's equally relevant here whenever Jean-Luc Godard is brought up in any kind of film discussion. I find Godard boring and utterly pretentious. His films are not for me. The only take aways I got were Anna Karina was mighty tasty back then, and a talking computer with throat cancer will have me reaching for the remote. That's it. Nothing more. Opted to revisit Jim McBride's remake of Breathless since it's a personal go to pick whenever superior remakes find their way in any movie discussion. 

Generally find the changes made over the original work a lot better for me; namely the leads' origins and the location are vice versa to Godard's film. Don't know about you, but eighties America looks way more appealing to me than sixties era France. Our remake's couple also happen to be far more stimulating than the other two dossers. I find Valérie Kaprisky's character, Monica far more endearing compared to Jean Seberg's Debbie Downer beatnik; also helps that she's smoking hot. Richard Gere's rock 'n' roll outlaw Jesse is what ultimately makes the movie such a joy to watch. How he can pull off wearing Rodney Dangerfield's tablecloth checkered trousers and still look cool doing it, defies all belief. It's also a remarkable achievment playing such a larger than life character, who might possibly be on the spectrum, infinitely less annoying than Jean-Paul Belmondo's wannabe American gangster from the original. Also, it helps matters that Richard Gere doesn't resemble a smoking chimp when taking puffs from a cigarette, either.

Breathless vs. Breathless

(Kermode Uncut, 2010)

 

A favourite scene between the two love birds is Jesse's explanation of the tragic plight of The Silver Surfer to Monica. It's one of the most intimate scenes between the couple and foreshadows events that occur later on. Jesse identifies with Mavel's Herald of Galactus because he sees himself as equally misunderstood. An example of which is displayed in a newstand scene early on in the film.

McBride's film makes excellent use of music, which really compliments Jesse's erratic persona. No real surprise that he would eventually direct the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic a few years later, since his music features so prominently. The biggest musical highlight for me however, is the incredible use of Link Wray & The Wraymen's Jack The Ripper incorporated to perfection in a car theft scene. 

This film deserves way more love, in my humble opinion. Glad that a respected critic like Mark Kermode was brave enough to put his neck on the chopping block back in the day and claim it was better than Godard's original. Only people who still feel outraged today by this statement are so far up Godard's arse that it puts Richard Gere's gerbil to shame. McBride's film is the superior version and will always be.