Apparently Hollywood isn’t happy enough ruining my generation’s childhood, so it’s now also reaching back to my dad’s. Steven Spielberg is set to direct a remake of the 1950 classic Harvey , which stars James Stewart as an alcoholic who talks to an invisible, 6½-foot-tall rabbit. Based on Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the movie kept “Harvey” the rabbit up to viewers’ (and Stewart’s) imaginations, but many are fearing that this new version will feature a computer-generated character. Because that’s how Hollywood ruins childhoods best, with CG.

But this is Spielberg we’re talking about. No stranger to remakes — he redid A Guy Named Joe as Always, gave us an updated War of the Worlds and apparently did some second-unit work on Jan De Bont’s The Haunting — he’s still a lot classier than most Hollywood directors. He may go a somewhat boring route by casting either Tom Hanks or Will Smith in the lead, but there’s no way he’d show us Harvey. I think.

Check out what the rest of the film blogosphere is saying about this news after the jump:
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This is interesting: Variety reports that I Love You Phillip Morris, a comedy in which Jim Carrey plays Ewan McGregor’s boyfriend which debuted at Sundance and shocked people who get shocked easily by leaving without a distribution deal, has been picked up by Consolidated Pictures Group in advance of its premiere in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes.

Consolidated’s Randall Miller and Jody Savin had an indie hit last year with the Miller-directed Bottle Shock, another title that premiered at Sundance but didn’t land an ideal offer there. According to a profile in Screen, after self-distributing Miller’s film the duo teamed up with Bottle Shock releasing partner Freestyle Films as well as the company formerly known as Leonidas films and, armed with equity financing, sought “to do for other peoples films what we did for Bottle Shock.”

Of course, some people might say that a Jim Carrey comedy shouldn’t need the lo-fi, grassroots treatment that netted Bottle Shock a whopping $4 million at the domestic box office. But those people probably haven’t heard that the sky is falling, we’re all going to die, and that the only recourse is to take refuge under new models and to set expectation bars low enough that they can be easily cleared.

Even if you love the original Escape to Witch Mountain, you have to welcome a remake. The 1975 sci-fi Disney film has some very dated special effects — though the visible wires used to “levitate” a handgun and a harmonica give it a campy charm — and it’s not exactly the well-respected classic that The Black Hole or Old Yeller is, anyway. So, better a remake (or “modern re-imagining”) of a slightly beloved movie, which has already been redone once, to give The Rock another fulfillment of his Disney contract and utilize all the “perfect” digital effects now available.

While it seems that eventually all Disney live-action classics will be remade, potentially rendering obsolete the careers of Dean Jones, Kevin Corcoran and those ugly kids from Mary Poppins, there are some that may, like Witch Mountain, deserve to be recycled. Disney has previously erred in reworking films like The Absent-Minded Professor (Robin Williams is no Fred MacMurray) and The Shaggy Dog (Tim Allen is no MacMurray, either, nor even is he Tommy Kirk), and it’s mistakenly producing new versions of Swiss Family Robinson and 20,000 Leauges Under the Sea. But there are so many other films, most forgotten, that would better lend themselves to remakes.

Here we’ve selected 10 such classics, all but one live-action features, and we welcome you to suggest any others you may wish to see updated and/or re-imagined.
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This has been a good week for remakes (or a bad week, depending on how you feel about them), but while announced redos of our beloved mystery comedies, sci-fi actioners and neverending fantasy flicks are shocking enough, there’s not a blogger in the world who saw a new “contemporized” version of Damn Yankees coming. Let alone one starring Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mr. Applegate (aka Satan) and soul-selling baseballer Joe Hardy, respectively.

Yet Hugh Jackman and the rest of the all-singing-all-dancing stars of Sunday’s Oscars telecast did tell us that the musical is back, so maybe we should be making bets on what classic songfest gets reworked next (I’m putting money on West Side Story). This isn’t even the first musical remake we’ll be seeing in the next few years. New films of My Fair Lady, Carousel, Bye Bye Birdie and Jesus Christ Superstar are apparently already on their way to theaters. Anyhoo, let’s see how the ol’ blogosphere reacted to the Damn Yankees news today:

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Move over Milk. I Love You Phillip Morris does the gay rights movement one better, using in-your-face comedy and mainstream casting to defuse whatever anxiety the Heartland might have with guy-guy relationships — the irony being that this outrageous conman comedy from Bad Santa scribes Glenn Ficarra and John Requa was originally supposed to be directed by none other than Gus Van Sant. When Van Sant dropped out, the writers stepped in to shoot their own screenplay, resulting in a first-time film that feels more polished and professional than 90% of the studio comedies in theaters these days.

It helps that Ficarra and Requa went in with a proper script, an ingredient too frequently missing in Judd Apatow and Adam McKay’s improv-happy method, where a cocktail napkin sketch of a plot seems to be all the team needs. No doubt Ficarra and Requa allowed their leads, Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, a certain flexibility in interpreting their parts, but it’s refreshing to find a comedy that cuts together, where one scene sets up the next and ideas planted early in the film pay off for bigger laughs later on. The final gag, which shows an unmistakably phallic-shaped cloud, completes a joke set up in first-act flashbacks to Steven Jay Russell’s childhood.

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I Love You Phillip Morris is based on the true story about a Texas policeman named Steve Russell, and the relationship he falls into with fellow inmate Phillip Morris. Its Sundance premiere attracted a lot of attention because of the on-screen relationship between Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor who play Steve and Phillip, respectively.

Producers Andrew Lazar and Luc Besson, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Renqua, and stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor spoke at a press conference at Sundance, and discussed how Besson and Carrey met on the set of Ace Ventura, why the criminal who inspired the story will never see it, and the evolution of gay relationships on screen.

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• Though five new wide releases open on Christmas, Yes Man is expected to do better in its second weekend because the weather will be better and because it’s still a comedy. Of course, two of those five new films are also comedies. Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories is expected to be the champ of the long holiday weekend, with Marley & Me coming in second.
• If you’re not into laughing, however, either during the holidays or during a recession, let Liz Smith guide you to all the depressing films out this season, including that disappointing movie about suicide from the otherwise “great comic star” Will Smith and that marital angst film that will apparently have you never wanting to take on a serious relationship again.
• Clive Owen, who was once thought perfect to play James Bond, has been cast as another international agent in the Colombian drug cartel film Cartagena. I’ve lost count, but this will be at least Owen’s fifth Bond-like role (not counting the look of his character in Croupier).

• Bad weather is being blamed for weak box office results this weekend from new wide releases Yes Man, Seven Pounds and The Tale of Despereaux, all of which performed worse than expected. Because there’s no other reason why moviegoers would just choose to avoid seeing lame-looking movies from Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Universal’s animation department. It is actually sad for Smith, who hasn’t seen an opening this bad since 2001’s Ali. And Seven Pounds marks only his third film to debut with less than $20 million since his blockbuster breakthrough in Independence Day.
• Apparently snow couldn’t stop The Wrestler from achieving a screen average of more than $52,000 over the weekend. But isn’t that just because people in NYC don’t have to drive to the movies? Fox Searchlight’s other film, Slumdog Millionaire, finally broke the Top 10 after expanding to 589 screens. And although Searchlight’s stellar buzz team claims the Oscar-contender was “selling out everywhere,” its own average was actually embarrassingly below that of Seven Pounds.
• We’re going to need a modern day Edward Arnold if Bernard Madoff-types are going to be the hot villain for ‘09.
• You know your comic book publisher didn’t get the best production deal when it announces that its first adaptation stars Kevin Sorbo. Meanwhile, you know you’re experienceing a slow news day when that’s one of four stories worth bulletpointing.

• Tom Cruise is potentially re-teaming with Valkyrie screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie on up to three projects, including another WWII flick that would put Cruise in the pilot seat again, Flying Tigers. Cruise is likely happy with the initial reception of Valkyrie, though sticking with McQuarrie for so long may keep him from diverse roles. The other two projects include the espionage drama The Tourist and the adaptation of the 60s TV show The Champions, which deals with super-powered spies.
• Frank Miller is re-teaming with Odd Lot Entertainment for a dark Buck Rogers movie that he’ll write and direct. The announcement comes just in time, before an onslaught of bad reviews of The Spirit join Variety’s pan.
• Stephen Chow will no longer direct but will still co-star in The Green Hornet. Apparently his creative differences don’t extend to his onscreen role of Kato. Maybe this is co-scribe and star Seth Rogen’s chance to try directing?
• Clearly wise to how The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is beating Australia in the kudos department, Baz Luhrman is taking on his own F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation: The Great Gatsby.
• Jim Carrey will beat Will Smith at the box office this weekend, simply because his film, Yes Man, is a comedy. In other theatrical release news, the four-hour version of Che has been so popular that IFC is keeping it in cinemas another two weekends before separating it into two films.

As if Toy Fair 2008 wasn’t reminding us enough about the intermingling of Hollywood and the toy and game industry, Hasbro and Universal had to go and announce a six-year partnership, which will result in at least four (mostly) board-game-inspired feature films. It wasn’t that surprising, considering the success of Transfomers and the anticipated success of G.I. Joe, both of which are based on Hasbro properties, and the still-shocking news from last summer that Ridley Scott is developing a Monopoly movie (not to mention that Hasbro had previously announced its intentions while switching from CAA to William Morris last year). Plus, this comes as a perfect follow-up to the recent Mattel/CAA team-up.

Personally, I’m wondering why the deal is so exclusive against brands that aren’t board games (Stretch Armstrong being the exception). I would love to see movies based on Mr. Potato Head, Lincoln Logs and Easy-Bake Oven. And as far as the games that aren’t getting any love, I’d be interested in movies based on Guess Who, Mouse Trap, Jenga and Risk (the Australians take over the world!!). Like me, the rest of the blogosphere has gone ga-ga for alternate ideas. Also, a lot of bloggers have been overly critical of the deal and have had some harsh responses to the list of properties that were optioned for the partnership. Check out some of my favorites after the jump.

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I’ve been slowly gathering material for an academic article about the film references used by both bloggers and “real” journalists to talk about MTV’s The Hills. Stories and blog posts that discuss the show using the language of academic film/media criticism, some likening certain aspects of the show to the films of Michelangelo Antonioni and Eric Rohmer, have begun to stack up. Now, Jim Carrey and Peter Weir have been thrown into the mix, with a post on PopWatch titled, ‘The Hills’ is Like ‘The Truman Show’, Only Awful.

This cinematic reference is, in terms of the literal conditions of The Hills‘ production, probably more accurate than most, but when held up to any sort of scrutiny in terms of the content of the show, it’s proven to be off the mark.

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In an apparent bid to play every villain that, as a child, I found weirdly sympathetic (after the Grinch and, um, Andy Kaufmann), Jim Carrey will star as Scrooge in a Robert Zemeckis adaptation of The Christmas Carol. Zemeckis, who has spent the past few years mired in his soon-to-be-released motion-capture adaptation of Beowulf, is setting upCarol as another CG/motion-capture/3D stereoscopic extravaganza.

Todd McCarthy assesses Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. “Pottermania will reach a peak in July with the nearly simultaneous release of the fifth film and the seventh and final book, and only commercial concern for Warner Bros. may be that, after the second or third week, curiosity about the concluding tome could overshadow interest in the film.”

Is Phil Donahue the next Al Gore? The Man Who Fell To Oprah is shopping around a documentary, which he co-directed, called Body of War, described by Variety as “an unashamedly partisan film arguing the folly of the Iraq campaign.” The pic apparently paints most Democrats as ineffectual yes-men, while trumpeting Senator Robert Byrd as the lone maverick who dared to go against the pack.

***”McClane, who has handily defeated effete Eurotrash in the past, is destined to find himself overshadowed this weekend by a Parisian rat with a refined palette.” Gregg Kilday can’t hold back the snark in reporting that Ratatouille is looking likely to beat Live Free or Die Hard at the box office this weekend.

***Variety seems to think the odds are with McClane. Pamela McClintock notes that Live Free’s $9 million opening day is not only Bruce Willis’ best opening since the mega hit Armageddon, it’s the best first-day tally for a Die Hard film, ever.

***What kinds of unsavory things did Marc Forster have to do in order to get two jobs in two weeks? The newly anointed Bond director is partnering with Mandate Pictures to develop Land of Roses , about “a suburban mother who, with the support of her fellow outraged townspeople, attempts to exonerate a hardworking Middle Eastern father falsely imprisoned as a terrorist by Homeland Security.”

***Speaking of unsavory, Jim Carrey has been hired to star in and produce Sober, a Universal-based comedy poking fun at addiction. According to Variety, hilarity ensues when “a hard-partying software exec [is] assigned a court-appointed Sober Buddy to keep him under control during a critical business trip to Las Vegas. A perfect plan falls apart when the Sober Buddy (Carrey) falls off the wagon.” Delightful!