This morning, I read an article called Cinemas slash ticket prices to revive sales in the Sydney Morning Herald. Apparently a number of cinemas around Australia have decided to cut their prices dramatically in an attempt to get more people to see movies, as lately things haven't been going all that well for the cinematic industry. For example, The Island only made around $A1.3 million in its opening weekend here. And that's something that's been happening for all of the other 'blockbusters' that have been coming out lately.
Are you surprised? I'm not. Honestly, how pathetic have movies been lately? I can honestly say that there has not been a single movie that I've wanted to see in cinemas since... hmmm... My Big Fat Greek Wedding in 2002. Well, I have wanted to see a whole heap of arthouse stuff, but never get anywhere near an arthouse cinema, so there goes that desire. Although I can't wait for the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe *lol*
But lately? Ha! All we're getting at the moment are movies made from old movies or TV shows that utterly desecrate the old movies/shows. Considering that there's a Smurfs movie in the pipeline, I hate to think what dreadful things are going to be done with one of my favourite childhood anti-Communist American propaganda pieces (yes, it seriously was) *sigh*
How many remakes have there been recently? Hmm... let's think about it, and in no particular order, we have had...
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
War of the Worlds
Bad News Bears
Dark Water (another rip off of a Japanese horror/thriller)
Bewitched
The Longest Yard
Fever Pitch (stolen from a Brit movie staring Colin Firth I do believe, and all about soccer)
The Amityville Horror
Assault on Precinct 13
The Manchurian Candidate (altho wasn't that last year or something?)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Starsky and Hutch
Garfield
Thunderbirds
Vanity Fair
The Grudge
Alfie
And let's not forget the follow-up flicks, like Batman Begins, Miss Congeniality 2, xXx, Fast and the Furious, Chucky, Herbie, Star Wars, Exorcist, The Mask, National Lampoons Going The Distance, National Lampoons Gold Diggers, Scooby Doo, Spiderman, Princess Diaries, Blade blah blah blah!!!
And coming up we have... Drum roll please, Wilfred...
Batman vs Superman (yes, indeed - WTF!?)
King Kong
The Smurfs
The Dukes of Hazzard
Oliver Twist
Pride and Prejudice
Fun With Dick and Jane
More follow-ups with: Jurassic Park IV, Spiderman 3, Superman Returns, Indiana Jones 4, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Saw 2, Batman Year One, Legend of Zorro, Harry Potter, Big Momma's House 2 etc, etc, etc... hmm!
The problem with remakes is that they lose the context of the original movies or shows. Political situations have changed and something that made a statement in the past now sort of hangs limply, in need of serious movie Viagra.
And it's a shame that the arthouse cinema mentioned at the end of that article is going to close. However, I don't think that the man who owns and runs it blaming a lack of good arthouse work being out there at the moment is quite right. In fact, I'd use the words of Bernard from Black Books: 'RUBBISH! Absolute rubbish!' There's been some fantastic stuff out there. It's just that people are generally wary of arthouse and it's basically never promoted well enough, if at all. Which is a shame, because I think it offers so much more than Hollywood ever could offer, and that people are missing out on the opportunity to be inspired, challenged, uplifted, puzzled or whatever else they might feel after seeing something different.
Oh well, the movie industry will probably never learn :)
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