David Cronenberg stunned many with his decision to remake his own film The Fly, involving himself as writer and potentially director of Fox’s reboot effort. But this certainly isn’t a bad idea. After all, Cronenberg’s version is already a redo of Kurt Neumann’s 1958 sci-fi/horror classic of the same name, and it’s considered one of the best remakes of all time. It is very likely that he will now also deliver one of the best examples in which a director remakes his own film.

Sure, there are plenty of bad examples, especially when it’s a French filmmaker attempting to translate his hit comedy for Hollywood (see Three Fugitives and Just Visiting) or a Japanese filmmaker rehashing his own horror sequel in the States (The Grudge 2 and The Ring Two). And let’s not forget the unnecessary redundancy of Haneke’s Funny Games U.S.

But some of the greatest directors have made remakes of their own works that are at least as good, if not better than their originals. We take a look at five examples that Cronenberg could learn from — though he probably doesn’t need the help.
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Marilyn Chambers was the first porn star I knew by name. My mom’s boyfriend had an autographed copy of “My Story,” her ‘erotobiography,’ which wasn’t shielded from my young eyes, and I recall being told that she lived in my neighborhood. The latter part was probably false (and/or remembered incorrectly), though she was apparently born in my hometown, so who knows?

In any event, I never did see any of her films (I swear!), not even her early non-porn titles, which include Herbert Ross’ The Owl and the Pussycat and David Cronenberg’s Rabid. According to her Wikipedia page, she might have pursued more of a mainstream acting career if Hollywood hadn’t been so nervous, and she had even recently appeared in some more non-pornographic films, such as 2008’s Solitaire. Now, on the day after her death, I’m wondering if she could have had another life in the movies had she not been convinced to star in Behind the Green Door.

I also wonder if today it’s any easier for a woman to find a balance between the two film industries. For instance, will it be possible for Sasha Grey to continue finding dramatic roles after starring in Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience?

Here are some quotes from the blogs that are paying respect — or at least some sort of notice — today:

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Riding a wave of critical good will that began at Fantastic Fest ‘07 and continued through this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo’s zippy Timecrimes finally arrives commercially this weekend. Recalling both Philip K. Dick and David Cronenberg (who, along with Steve Zaillian, has been mentioned as a possible helmer for a planned English Language remake), this time bending thriller is the brain child of the ever prolific master of the low-fi, who spoke with us about wanting to adapt Steven King, his favorite genre traditions and getting Gasper Noe a time machine. …Read more

• Hancock made $107.3 million over the five night weekend, giving the Will Smith fractured superhero tale the third best July 4th opening of all time. It’s considered a victory for Smith’s star power, but it’s still almost $50 million less than Spider-Man 2 managed in a similar time frame. Meanwhile, The Wackness enjoyed the highest per-screen average of the weekend, earning $24,177 on each of its 6 screens.
• SAG is expected to make an announcement today about AMPTP’s “final offer”––although they might just announce that they need more time to think it over. Meanwhile, at a press conference at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival over the weekend, Robert DeNiro argued against a strike, accusing his fellow actors of not having “done their homework” on the economics. “I do not know if it is the right time to be doing this at all with the economy the way it is,” he warned.
• The opera directed by David Cronenberg based on his movie version of The Fly is bombing with French critics. Though complaints regarding the score’s “lack of expertise and imagination” have damaged ticket sales somewhat, apparently “Cronenberg diehards, Paris’ trendy 30ish art crowd and a sprinkling of goth girls” are still coming out in full force.

Twitch has linked to a Spanish-language interview with Nacho Vigalondos, in which the Timecrimes director says David Cronenberg is in the running to direct the English-language remake of his time travel film–-that is, since Mario Bava is not available. Vigalondos also says Timothy J. Sexton, one of the writers of Children of Men, is writing the English language adaptation, and that if he were to have his dream cast, it would involve Joan Allen, Adam Brody, and either Bruce Willis or Kurt Russell. After the jump, you’ll find Babelfish’s translation of the relevant portion of the interview. Linguistics are funny! See also Kevin’s review of Timecrimes and interview with Nacho from Sundance.

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• As if the neverending scrapple between the WGA and the AMPTP wasn’t bad enough, enter the DGA, who are impatient to begin contract negotiations of their own. They’ve agreed to hold off their talks with the AMPTP until January in order to give the studios one last chance to hammer it out with the scribes, but after that, “With so much at stake and no end to the standoff in sight, we can no longer abdicate our responsibility to our own members.”
• Variety asks Golden Globe nominees if they’ll cross picket lines to attend the awards. David Cronenberg, James McAvoy and Mad Men star Jon Hamm (swoon) emphatically say no; two Juno nominees pretend like the strike will be over by February; and Ryan Gosling says he’ll do whatever Tom Hanks tells him to do. 
• Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the Variety review of Alvin and the Chipmunks is in! Says Joe Leydon: “New pic is the chipmunkish equivalent of Batman Begins, re-imagining the mythos while re-introducing Alvin, Simon and Theodore as madcap forest denizens involuntarily relocated to Los Angeles…Lively hip-hop and techno-pop versions of Chipmunk standards only add to the fun.” He almost makes us forget about the coprophagia.

Some of these links still date back to before the weekend. What can I say? It took a couple of days to make it all the way through my feeds. Only freshies tomorrow, I promise.

• John Brownlee offers a sneak peak at Ghostbusters 3, the videogame-only continuation of the saga, featuring a script by Dan Ackroyd and the voices of Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson. “Will Ghostbusters 3 be a worthy successor to the franchise? It’s still too early to say, but early game footage of Ghostbusters 3 has leaked out, and it looks incredible.” That footage is embedded above. The footage has been removed from YouTube. Boooo.
• We’re sure Ronnie Bronstein is very excited about his Spirit Award nomination, but Frownland is also up for an award at the Gothams, the New York-centric film awards put on by Find Independent’s former parent company, IFP, which takes place tonight. And as if the stakes weren’t high enough already, Michael Tully has declared, “if Frownland doesn’t win the Gotham tonight I will eat my iPod.” Of course, we’d rather see Ronnie win, but should the iPod eating actually go down, I’ll try to get photo evidence.
• What’s this? High praise for Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, which was almost universally dismissed at the Rome Film Festival? Hmmm. Jurgen Fauth says: “I know, I know — there’s nothing duller than listening to other people’s dreams. And yet… the shared fantasy Coppola created from Mircea Eliade’s novella weaves a strange magic, mysterious, playful, philosophical, and loopy with romance. I’d like to hold on to that gossamer enchantment for just a little while longer, privately, before it’s time to take out the stainless steel critical apparatus and cut this one open.”
• Speaking of Coppola, The Playlist weighs in on FFC’s One From the Heart: “This neon, highly stylized break-up film might be a failed experiment, but man, is it one of the most pretty failures to look at ever.”
• Ray Pride passes along exciting news: David Cronenberg is writing a novel. Says Nicole Winstanley, the Penguin Editor who nabbed the rights, “I wrote David Cronenberg several months ago to inquire about whether or not he’d consider writing a novel. His films demonstrate a deep understanding of the human condition that could translate into fiction brilliantly.”
• “Noah Baumbach is one relentlessly bleak filmmaker, and that’s not a compliment,” writes Daniel Carlson at Pajiba. “It’s not that his films are necessarily evil, or even completely off-target; rather, one of the things that makes Baumbach so slippery is his habit of stumbling onto moments of slight emotional truth in the middle of a film completely devoid of it.”

• Ben Affleck was secretly an auteur, even when blingin’.
• Why The Hills is more like L’eclisse than The Truman Show.
• David Cronenberg–the video tribute.
• Darren Aronofsky has fallen far.
• David Lynch has a shoe fetish.
• Ze Frank returns to assess the writers strike.
• Jack Nicholson talks about the trilogy that he wanted to make but didn’t. No, it’s not Batman.
• Kevin looks at a list of “entertainment geniuses” and finds, “Our priorities are thus: first, drugs, then the Internet, then money, then the Simpsons, then the abolition of racist regimes.”
• Amy Taubin tried to revive the Mumblecore backlash. Karina poked holes.
• On this week’s podcast, we track Tom Cruise from teenage pimp to midlife crisis.
• Kevin wonders if there’s a Bob Dylan that Todd Haynes left out of I’m Not There: corporate shill.
• Lions For Lambs: Tom Cruise puts the media in its place. It’s just as laughable as it sounds.
• Steal a Pencil For Me: A documentary about love in a concentration camp.
• The director of Xanadu complains about boobs on Fox News.

“No filmmaker has more daringly and relentlessly explored what it means to be human than David Cronenberg,” writes Jim Emerson at Scanners. He’s put together a 12 minute highlight reel to prove that point. Written in the Flesh: A Crash Course in David Cronenberg incorporates images from nine Cronenberg classics, including Videodrome, The Fly and A History of Violence.  It doesn’t seem to be embeddable, but you can watch it here.

• With The Brave One’s $14 million, first-place opening weekend, we learn that audiences would rather see Jodie Foster as a mother than as a vigilante. Meanwhile, both Eastern Promises and Across the Universe managed smashing per-screen averages in limited release.
• David Cronenberg’s Russian mob movie was a hit with Toronto audiences, too: it picked up the audience prize for best film at the Toronto Film Festival over the weekend, edging out runners-up Juno and Body of War.
• In Toronto acquisitions news, IFC picked up Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, and in what is being billed as the Festival’s biggest sale, First Look Studios purchased the Aaron Eckhart/Jessica Alba comedy Bill for at least $3 million.
• Southland Tales and Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly is launching Darko Entertainment, a production company designed “to back modestly budgeted, director-driven films.” Their first venture will be Dirty Girl, a co-production with Christine Vachon’s Killer Films.
• MTV Films and Old School director Todd Phillips are producing a feature around YouTube sensation Million Dollar Strong (aka Mike O’Connell and Ken Jeong). O’Connell is writing the screenplay with Peter Kline.

***The National Legal and Policy Center has released a report intended to “shame” Google for failing to block access to pirated films on Google Video. Among other things, the NLPC charges that Google gives preferential treatment to copyright holders “it makes business deals with.” In response, a Google spokesman implied that some companies don’t want their copyright material removed from the site. “Copyright status can only be determined by the copyright holder, and their preferences vary widely.”

***Michael Tolkin, the author of The Player, has been hired to adapt the Fellini-inspired Broadway musical Nine for the screen. The Weinstein Company is producing the film; Chicago helmer Rob Marshall will direct.

***September’s Toronto Film Festival will host a Gala screening of David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. The thriller re-teams the director with his History of Violence star, Viggo Mortensen.