Does Jude Law think he’s Michael Caine?
Or what?
I heard there was a remake of Sleuth coming out, which appalls me, because it’s such a great movie and they should leave it the fuck alone. Then I watched the trailer and I saw it was Michael Caine in the Laurence Olivier role and Jude Law in the Michael Caine role. So that’s interesting in a post-modern sort of way, and it could work. (Plus, Kennth Branagh, Harold Pinter, worth an open mind, that.)
But then I remembered that Jude Law starred in a (reportedly terrible) remake of another Michael Caine classic, Alfie.
So now you have to ask, what next? Get Carter and the Italian Job have already been done. (Which leads me to wonder if there’s just a Michael Caine remake industry, of which Law happens to be a leading beneficiary.) He could go for Harry Palmer; edgy paranoid spies are in right now. The Man Who Would Be King is perhaps too ambitious, and who would co-star?
Who would co-star? Perhaps that’s a better question. Prevents me from just trailing off anyway. Obviously you could go right for the Bond connection and get Daniel Craig, but let’s at least try to be creative.
I’ve seen the Alfie remake, and, yes, it was bad, though it’s hard to say if it was Law’s fault. The tone was all off if you compared it to the original’s kitchen-sink early 60’s British realism.
My first thought to play Daniel Dravot is Russell Crowe. Don’t know if it would work (The Man Who Would Be King is one of my favorites, and I don’t want it remade), but Crowe feels right to me.
This question makes me wonder again what the movie would have been like if John Huston had made the movie when he first wanted to, in the early 50’s. His planned stars: Humphrey Bogart as Peachy and Clark Gable as Danny.
Oh, and as far as Law thinking he’s Michael Caine. maybe he was inspired by the praise Caine gave him when he beat him at the Oscars a few years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpMG0PHSFaQ
Russell Crowe feels right. I can see Bogart and Gable, yes, but the movie as it is, is perfect. Just perfect.
I remembered Caine’s speech fairly well but forgot that Law was one of the nominees.
If you are going to try and be someone, why not Caine? Jude Law is kind of brilliant, and he’s not going after pretty boy roles, which he certainly could be. But they really need to be more careful with these remakes in general. From our (the viewers) standpoint, you just can’t predict. Manchurian Candidate was a pleasant surprise, though it raised the Is this really fucking necessary flag. But so. many. train wrecks. Stepford Wives?
And as if remakes were ever necessary, the re-remakes are killing me. The Invasion? Because the first one was brilliant and remarkably, astonishingly, so was the second one. So why why why why why?
Years ago, I read a piece by NY Times critic Vincent Canby that suggested that. instead of doing remakes of successful films (which, obviously, have already been done right), Hollywood should remake unsuccessful films, ie., interesting properties that got messed up on their first try. The only one I remember him mentioning was Tobacco Road, but their must be lots of good books and plays, as well as biographical and historical subjects, that got turned into bad movies and could be re-made into something better.
Sorry about the bad typing and grammar. It should be a comma, not period, after “suggested that,” and it should be “there must be,” not “their must be.”
I didn’t read that article, but I’ve long been a proponent of the same thing. So many times a script loses its way, or f/x are poor, or censorship is tight, and you walk out of a movie thinking, Well it had potential.
I think Damn Yankees, for example, is ripe for remake. Oh sure, the original had Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon. It also soft-pedaled the sexual content (including cutting the entire song “I Thought About the Game”), it used stiff non-dancer Tab Hunter, and the show’s greatest number, “Those Were the Good Old Days,” was done with Walston sitting in a chair while cheesy thought balloons floated over his head.
Don’t ask why I got here today. But I never saw a lot of these comments. One reason Damn Yankees deserves a remake is because the movie never did quite work. It was at the end of the movie musical era, one that is only recently finding its… legs, if you will, again. Fosse was highly disappointed with its box office floppiness.
But I have concerns with this ‘new era’ of movie musicals. I want them to proceed cautiously. I don’t want Baz Luhrmann anywhere near Damn Yankees, and I have my concerns about Tim Burton and Sweeney Todd. (But have you seen the cast!!!)
A lot of people think Damn Yankees is an untouchable classic, but they are wrong, wrong, wrong. What I’d like, especially in a Damn Yankees, is a more dance-y approach. Arthur’s dance teacher was infuriated by Chicago (so was Bob) because there was so little real dance; Bob noted how the footwork was hardly shown, and the teacher was more on the “Why didn’t they hire dancers instead of teaching Richard Gere three steps?” I loved Chicago, but they both have points. I’d like a “conventional” musical approach to DY, a lá Chicago, but with better music & dance integrity.
The Tim Burton Sweeney Todd may be amazing. Sweeney Todd lends itself to an unconventional treatment.