Yesterday Is Too Late

Today’s Google search was entitled ‘Movie Remakes’ after the recent re-release of Back To The Future, as I wondered if this was in any way a sop to the die-hards ahead of an updated version. I came across an old piece of news on the BBC website that almost sent me into an apocalyptically bad mood. This level of mood is usually in directly inverse proportion to the validity of the existence of the subject, and this concept was rarely better illustrated than the fact that I found an old reference to a mooted remake of the movie Grease, starring the uber-foetal Justin Bieber and the significantly-more-painful-than-a-nail-gun-through-soft-tissue-Miley Cyrus.

What a veritable smorgasbord of hatred and invective was before me….crappy juvenile IKEA-pop stars, Hollywood blockbusters, musicals (!), I was happier than Heather Mills at the World Hopping Championships. However, after this initial rush of biley giddiness I was somewhat becalmed by the fact that this was actually all made up - but it didn’t hide the wider issue ; celebrity media get wound up as their latest sales-drones are linked with……

YET.

ANOTHER.

REMAKE.

If ever there was a crystal clear example that Hollywood is, first and foremost, a slave to the mighty dollar this is it. There is NO good reason to remake this movie at all. And I’m hardly a card carrying fan Grease fan club member – sure, in 1978 I was taken to see it, and did come home and turn my tiger t-shirt with the white back on it round the wrong way and get my bomber jacket with absolutely NO leather at all on it and insist I was Danny Zuko, but this didn’t last once I remembered the movie didn’t have any light sabres in it.

In and of itself, while probably not being any less a primarily money making venture than its suggested 21st Century update would be, Grease doesn’t make any great negative dents in my psyche. I even like some of the songs, though in typically contrarian fashion not the ones you’d expect – that one that Rizzo did about how she wasn’t a skank is the best tune in it by a country mile.

However I’m not one to let facts get in the way of a good rant. It’s not just about asking why THAT movie should be remade, it’s questioning why pretty much ANY movie should be remade ; and there’s the rub – WHY!!!!!!!!.

Sure, the remakes of various Japanese Horror/Thriller films like Ringu (The Ring) may have at least brought some people around to the originals, but even this wears a bit thin after a while. There is only one motive – money, fast and quick. There is no art in this.

Take the Uber-Uber-Uber King of the cack-handed remake – Psycho (1998) directed by Gus Van Sandt. First, what balls!!! Second, WHY??? How do you improve on Psycho??? You bring Vince Vaughan and Anne Heche to play Bates and Marion Crane respectively – yes, that works!!!! But then, there’s Gus Van Sandt’s astonishing decision to remake the entire movie, shot for shot, line for line – but in colour! Yet even then the (very tenous) ‘it’s an homage’ line is somewhat undercut when the only shot that is actually changed is to morph from Perkins’ sinster peephole leerings at Leigh (which is a narrative device, and a key part of the character arc) to Vaughan chubbily manipulating himself to issue over Heche - ‘cos maybe we never got it first time round – that was always Hitchcock’s problem, not enough money shots…..

I mean, this movie has the following people in it…Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen and William H. Macy!!! What were they THINKING??? It makes no sense at all that people who have been in movies like Boogie Nights, Fargo, and A History Of Violence would countenance this movie as a good idea, a valid artistic enterprise. EVERY film-maker should be forced, as soon as the remake idea springs into their mind, to watch Psycho (1998) and then write down how very sorry they are.

This is important because the problem is getting worse. These are some of the mooted and actual remakes in the pipeline:

Arthur – clearly a failed pop star is looking for a vehicle. And they have Chico’s number.

Barbarella – just because we have CGI now doesn’t mean you have to do this ; Barbarella was all about kitsch, camp, drugs and sci-fi, and these things were all relatively new in 1968. Why don’t they just change the bad guy’s name to Snow Patrol and be done with it

The Birds – did they not get it with Psycho?

The Dambusters – if previous events are anything to go by, expect some plucky Yanks to have invented the bouncing bomb and save our Limey asses AGAIN. Ben Affleck , nailed on…….

Deathwish – I fear casting meetings with the words “I see Vinnie Jones in this….”

Fletch – originally a vehicle for SNL mainstay Chevy Chase – what are they doing now, are they still trying to push Seth Myers as a star??

Gremlins – Verne Troyer, step AWAY from the script meetings…..

Highlander – and we all thought there could be only one….

Porkys – yes, the Mike Hunt gag will be so much funnier delivered in 3D by Katy Perry

Suspicion – did they not get it with Psycho? II

Videodrome – in order to "infuse it with the possibilities of nano-technology and blow it up into a large-scale sci-fi action thriller." – Cronenberg’s movies are so indented with his own stamp it would be crazy to even try….but they are.

The answer?? Why not have more national theatre screenings of the originals? Invest in a national chain of BFI cinemas dedicated to presenting original movies from every decade in their theatrical form. Surely this would represent a better endowment for future generations of both film-makers and –goers than plexes and plexes of lax facsimiles which are nary more than a series of action set pieces (I’m pointing at you Mr.Bay, Mr. Schumacher), without a definable plot, or reams more of “Here’s Selena Gomes, we need a rom-com script pronto!”. I bet someone somewhere can “see” her as Tippi Hedren…….

How is it made any better if old movies are constantly resurrected? Why would anyone then be inspired to write something new? This could lead to the cinematic equivalent to the dearth of truly home grown English football talent or the swathe of X Factor covers of Westlife b-sides constituting the future of pop music. Kierkegaard was right when he said “Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward”. Yesterday is too late.