Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a remake can…
The Amazing Spider-Man is this week’s Film Club pick! And we reckon, as far as reboots/remakes go, it’s gonna be a pretty good one. A bit like this little lot…
THE DEPARTED The movie that FINALLY won Martin Scorsese a directing Oscar as well as the only one to win Best Picture, this is neither his best film nor his only remake (remember Cape Fear?) but it is really, super-duper good.
A remake of Andy Lau’s Infernal Affairs, it takes the Hong-Kong crime drama and adds an extra 50 minutes. The result is a flick that’s actually a mishmash of bits from the entire Infernal Affairs trilogy and is therefore kinda OTT, but the awesome performances and gritty Scorsese flavour help it succeed where so many others would fall flat on their celluloid face.
BATMAN BEGINS The first flick in Christopher Nolan’s Bat trilogy (the last, of course, is this summer’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’), ‘Begins’ is everything a reboot should be: a fresh take on an old story, and a movie that fully revives a franchise. Amazing, and yet it may go down as Nolan’s worst Caped Crusader effort. Which is kind of mental, when you consider how damn good it is.
TRUE GRITThe Coen brothers are known for their original stories, so them doing a remake at all came as a bit of a surprise. That it was the iconic True Grit was even more of a shocker.
Of course, it’s not their first. But The Ladykillers is awful so for the purposes of this post we’re going to ignore it. Like all Coen movies based on books, T-G uses much of the original dialogue and sticks like Superglue to the plot. It even keeps the ending that the ’69 version changed, so it’s actually a pretty different movie when you look at it. It’s also their highest grossing movie to date, so we reckon most people were into it. Too bad the same good will wasn’t expressed toward A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop 57, Zhang Yimou’s remake of the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple.
OCEAN’S ELEVENGeorge Clooney and Brad Pitt may never break out into song, but Steven Soderbergh’s remake of the Rat Pack’s 1960 Las Vegas heist film is just as much fun as the original was. There’s the same awesome characters, a whole bunch of fun and one of the starriest casts your local cinema will ever see. This is another remake that drastically changes the ending from the original, but hey, it’s Hollywood in the 21st century, and there’s got to be a possibility of a sequel. (Or, in this case, two.)
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Despite it’s tongue-twisting title (what were they THINKING?) Rise is actually one of the best prequels we’ve seen recently. Starring James Franco as a dude who just happens to have a pet chimp that thinks it’s a human, it’s not only a great film but a two-hour case for a ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Golf Ball Suit’ Oscar. Which might as well just be called the Andy Serkis Award.
So good is ROTPOTA that it’s getting itself a sequel, called Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. What’s the official name for a sequel to a prequel? Catchy suggestions welcome.
The Amazing Spider-Man is out now. Here’s the trailer:
But just what is this Film Club malarkey all about? It’s simples, really. Each week we send a pair of cinema tix (ODEON or Cineworld, whichever is best) to 10 of our most active Facebook/Twitter followers. We put the film we’re going to see to the vote, and the winning film is the one we all go to see. Then we all sit around on Facebook on the Sunday night (6.30) and chat about it. Magic. Sound like something you want to get involved with? Drop us a line at twitter.com/f_t_r_c or on Facebook at on.fb.me/d4dMv8
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