David Cronenberg stunned many with his decision to remake his own filmThe 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. …Read more
The Sundance Film Festival had it’s first major deal go down Saturday night as young distributor Senator Entertainment (in a co-venture with Sony Pictures Worldwide) picked up North American rights to Antoine Fuqua’s admittedly unfinished Brooklyn’s Finest for a price tag of less than $5 million (with a marketing commitment of $10 million).
Other acquisitions made just before and since the festival began include the following:
Another doc, Brothers at War, was bought by Samuel Goldwyn Films for a U.S. theatrical release.
Danish documentary Burma VJwent to HBO for a theatrical run at NYC’s Film Forum and cable broadcast.
E1 Films Canada picked up Canadian rights to Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls.
Sony Classics finally confirmed that it had indeed bought North American rights to Carlos Cuaron’s Rudo y Cursi.
All these pickups have been added to SpoutBlog’s Sundance Deals chart, which will continue to be updated throughout the festival. So remember to keep checking back and bookmark the post if you haven’t yet.
For those of us who are still completely enamored with Audrey Tautou in Amelie, seeing the actress in Pierre Salvadori’s Priceless(original title: Hors de prix) could possibly be unsettling (the old international trailer is embedded above, but you can find the new American-release trailer on Moviefone). In the film she plays a character who is the very opposite of Amelie. She’s a shallow gold digger rather than a selfless romantic, the whore rather than the Madonna. She’s also sexy rather than cute, which is only a matter of antithesis in the movies.
Is this going against type? Or does she not necessarily have a star persona to begin with? After falling in love with Tautou in Amelie, I watched every one of the actress’ films available in the States, and I quickly realized that she rarely resembles Amelie. Only in Happenstance, which was sold in some markets as Amelie 2, was she close to acting like that beloved, iconic character. And she certainly wasn’t all whimsy and sainthood in either of her English-language films, The Da Vinci Codeand Dirty Pretty Things. So why do I still have this idea of Tautou being Amelie in the same way we think of Chaplin as the Tramp or any of the other many movie stars who consistently play(ed) themselves and/or a recognizable persona throughout their career? Why do I expect her to be a sweet, innocent type in every new role?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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The Sundance Film Festival had it’s first major deal go down Saturday night as young distributor Senator Entertainment (in a co-venture with Sony Pictures Worldwide) picked up North American rights to Antoine Fuqua’s admittedly unfinished Brooklyn’s Finest for a price tag of less than $5 million (with a marketing commitment of $10 million).
