Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder star in Mel Brooks’ Oscar winning comedy The Producers. Scoring the Academy award for Best Original Screenplay, this one is a hoot from beginning to end. It also saw Wilder get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Mostel stars as Max Bialystock, a producer, who will do anything to make…
Tag: remake
The Magnificent Seven (2016) – Antoine Fuqua
I’ve enjoyed most interpretations of The Seven Samurai I’ve come across, but there’s a special place in my heart for the 1960 film with it’s iconic score by Elmer Bernstein. So, when I heard back in 2016 that there was yet another iteration coming I wasn’t quite ready to jump in and see how this…
Thir13en Ghosts (2001) – Steve Beck
Executive producers Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver were fans of William Castle films from the 50s and 60s and they set about creating remakes of some of the cult classic films he, which all featured some kind of tweak to get audiences in seats. Under the name Dark Castle Entertainment, the first remake was The…
Deathstalker (1983) – James Sbardellati
Deathstalker is pure 80s sword and sorcery, and while I’m all for gratuitous nudity, there is a lot of it, I don’t need all the rape, I don’t care what the thought process is behind it. It’s repugnant and doesn’t serve to tell us anything about the characters we didn’t already know. Setting that aside,…
Invaders From Mars (1986) – Tobe Hooper
I remember when Invaders From Mars came out in 1986. I knew it was a remake, having read about it in Starlog magazine, and while I didn’t recognize the names of those involved as I grew they would become very familiar to me. What I remember most is reading the novelization when I grabbed it…
Sorcerer (1977) – William Friedkin
Iconic director William Friedkin took on an adaptation of The Wages of Fear, creating his own nerve-biting version of the French film, and novel. The film stars Roy Scheider as one of four unlucky men from around the globe who have found themselves, for one reason or another, stuck in a Latin American country that…
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) – Alfred Hitchcock
James Stewart and Doris Day find themselves caught up in international intrigue and a political assassination in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, a remake of his own film from 1934. While on a working holiday that takes the family to Paris, Casablanca and Marrakesh, Dr. Benjamin McKenna (Stewart), his wife, Jo (Day)…
Never Say Never Again (1983) – Irvin Kershner
Sean Connery returns to his iconic role of James Bond, in this non-canon film that is basically a beat for beat remake of the classic 007 film, Thunderball. And there’s a reason for that. Going head to head with Roger Moore’s Bond outing of Octopussy, Warner Brothers had the rights to make a 007 film…
Mighty Joe Young (1998) – Ron Underwood
There are a few reasons to watch the Disney update of the RKO classic Mighty Joe Young, which is the next title in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies by director John Landis. First it features the wonderful Charlize Theron, second, the always awesome Bill Paxton, third, the amazing animatronic and effects work of the…
The Departed (2006) – Martin Scorsese
I come to a rather interesting list in the Ten Bad Dates With De Niro book that has a couple of films that I haven’t previously covered for the blog. It’s a list of remakes that are arguably better than the original. And the critical reception, not to mention that of the audience, would seem…
The Mind Reels 