CSotD: Great Expectations
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An interesting interplay — nearly a "juxtaposition" one might say — between Sally Forth and Heart of the City today. And, no, I don't want to know what a strip would be like if Ted were the father and Dean were the kid. One of them per strip is probably enough.
So, the studio embargo keeps me from providing a link yet, but I've got good news and bad news for Ted. Our reviewer liked the new Godzilla movie a lot. That's the good news.
The bad news might be that he's 12 years old and starts his review "Warning: This is not your dad's Godzilla."
Which is to say that the question becomes whether Ted really wants to see a new take on Godzilla or if he is actually hoping that it will recapture his experience of having seen the original at a young and impressionable age and then having grown up building a lot of his inner life around that experience.
(I'm interpreting the Mechagodzilla reference as a clue.)
And Dean's question is central, because the idea of re-assembling the cast of the original Star Wars is exciting, but I wonder if they're in danger of skipping over the first re-assembled Star Trek movies, which were pretty good, and heading straight to the ones at the end where you wondered why they didn't simply adjust the gravity simulator so they didn't all need walkers to get around on the Enterprise.
Thing is, neither real life reunions or remakes of good movies have much of a track record, and combining them seems like playing Russian roulette, but only taking out one or two of the bullets instead of five.
Which brings us to Anne Bancroft, who provides two examples of remakes, one good and one bad and, as is probably the way it works a lot in Hollywood, a case study of how the bad remake does much better box office than the good one.
In 1983, she starred opposite her husband, Mel Brooks, in an excellent remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 classic, "To Be or Not To Be," which not only required sacrificing the immediacy of mocking Hitler while he was still overrunning Europe but equalling the combination of Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.
It was not shot-for-shot, but it respected the original, it captured much of the fun and focused more sharply on some of the issues and got great reviews. And meh.
Box office aside, the artistic achievement makes up for the fact that, in 1959, she had a leading role in Ben-Hur, an immensely popular but bloated and inferior remake of the 1925 classic with Ramon Navarro as Judah Ben-Hur and Francis X. Bushman as Massala, neither of whose sandals Charlton Heston is fit to buckle.
Not kidding. It's available at Amazon Prime and probably several other places as well and well-worth checking out. (Now quit trying to pause it at 1:55. Yes, they are. Were. Let's get back on topic here.)
Granted, remaking a black-and-white, silent film in color and Cinemascope is probably a good bet, and they didn't have Oscars in 1925, nor did they do much tracking of box office receipts.
Moreover, I'll admit that the remake did pretty well at the box office and in the awards. (Though, come on, we all know the Oscar goes to the film that employs the most people who vote on Oscars.)
And the truly relevant point here is that the fans of these films aren't expecting Kurosawa or Truffault. There is a certain style to Biblical epics — like having Edward G. Robinson directing the building of the pyramids and, by golly, there's ol' Heston gnawing on the scenery again — that would not be tolerated in films with a more artistic goal.
Which brings us back to Star Wars, which was a pretty good futuristic western with cool special effects when that first star cruiser rumbled over the audience in 1977 but quickly settled into the same sort of formulaic film making as Cecil B. DeMille had brought to scripture.
As an adult taking my kids to Star Wars, I had a different experience than they did. I loved the first one, was disappointed in the second and then appalled by the shortcomings of the third, but I certainly accepted that my kids were having a different experience and that, after all, it was their deal and not mine.
Still, come on.
(You will thank me for suggesting you click here, and start reading.)
Maybe Ted and Dean will each walk into the theater with enough pixiedust in their eyes that they'll dig whatever is thrown up on the screen for them.
Still, a film maker takes the same risk screwing around with the Bible as he does screwing around with the Force.
Meanwhile, back on the journalism beat
He's right, you know.
The fellow should have added an "arguably."
"Arguably one of the most recognizable …"
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