Hey all — sorry for skipping the newsletter last week. As I mentioned when I moved from Revue to Substack, this is a side project and I don’t always have time to get it done, especially at the end of the week when I’m readying Follow Friday.
Speaking of which, there are two episodes of that show that have come out since my last email. The first is with Rachelle Hampton and Madison Malone Kircher, the hosts of Slate’s delightful internet culture podcast ICYMI; the second, which came out yesterday, features Helen Zaltzman, the host of a podcast about language that I love, The Allusionst. Both of them are well worth your time, so please check them out!
Over the past couple weeks, I unintentionally watched two different remakes and a reboot, so let’s start with those:
🦖 “You didn't ask for reality, you asked for more teeth.”
I wasn’t expecting much from the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to like it more than the original.
To be clear: Mark Wahlberg is a lousy substitute for the original’s star, Michael Caine. But unlike Caine’s version of Charlie Croker, he is surrounded by a crew of fun and likable fellow crooks, including Charlize Theron (who should have just been the protagonist, but whatever). This is more of a spiritual sequel than a remake: The main heist takes place in LA, not Italy, for starters!
Is it a great movie? No. It reminded me of Pierce Brosnan-era James Bond: Competently shot, fun and stylish, but laden with product placement and problematic jokes. Still, this is the style of remake/reboot that works best for me. It borrows what it needs to from the source material, and leaves the rest behind.
That formula isn’t foolproof, though. Case in point, High Society, a 1956 musical remake of The Philadelphia Story. On paper, it seems like a can’t-miss combo: Take a classic comedy, add Cole Porter music, and cast Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, and Louis Armstrong.
But watching it, I was reminded of Disney’s live-action remakes of its animated classics: Most of the material is unchanged and a pale imitation of the first film, and the new material doesn’t add much.
I think Porter phoned in most of these songs, which start and stop sporadically and without purpose, and the talented actors just aren’t as believable or charming as the original trio of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart. The raison d'être for this movie seems to be: Musicals! It’s the 1950s and people currently like those, right?
And then we come to the reboot, Jurassic World. It’s technically a sequel to the original trilogy of Jurassic Park movies, but it’s written to appeal to the largest possible modern audience, with frequent but irrelevant nods to the mythology.
And … oh boy. This one was much worse than I remembered it being. None of the Jurassic sequels have been very good; this one is overloaded with half-baked themes and subplots and zero actual wonder or believable character stakes. The winks at crass theme park commercialism and fickle consumers are cute, and the “raptor hunt” scene in the third act is genuinely thrilling, but very little of the rest works.
What all three of these movies have in common is a transparent desperation to appeal to changing sensibilities: Make it sexier! Make it a musical! Add more CGI! As I grow more curmudgeonly, with every passing year, I return over and over again to the fundamentals of cinema: A clear directorial vision, smart & sympathetic characters, and a script that has something to say. The rest is gravy.
The Italian Job ★★★½ - available to rent/buy on digital.
High Society ★★★ - on TCM, DirecTV, and elsewhere.
Jurassic World ★★½ - available to rent/buy on digital.
Other stuff I’ve watched recently
Fences ★★★★½ - A magnificently acted adaptation of the August Wilson play, directed by its star Denzel Washington, who largely chooses to let the powerful material speak for itself. The cast is absolutely perfect, with Washington as the embittered middle-aged garbage hauler Troy Maxson and Viola Davis as his wife, Rose. The coda is a little unsatisfying for reasons I won’t spoil, but I’m only familiar with the movie version, so I wonder if the play leaves you feeling the same way, on purpose. On Peacock, Sling TV, and elsewhere.
Wolfwalkers ★★★★ - The jaw-dropping hand-drawn animation alone makes this a must-watch. Luckily, the story and characters are charming and effective, too. Inspired by Irish folklore, this is a kid-friendly movie that adults can enjoy. Adorable moments are tempered with genuinely tense peril and several scenes of awe. On Apple TV+.
His Girl Friday ★★★★ - A wild and witty screwball comedy (check), starring Cary Grant and a quick-talking partner, played by Rosalind Russell (check), AND it’s a journalism movie with an amusingly cynical take on reporters (check). The ending is a total cop-out and denies us the catharsis of some seemingly obvious character beats, but 90% of the preceding movie is just short of perfect. On Amazon Prime, Hoopla, Kanopy, and many many other places.
I Confess ★★★½ - One of Alfred Hitchcock’s less suspenseful films, but no less morbid. This one concerns a soldier-turned-priest suspected of murder in Quebec, but it’s not a whodunnit — we’re told definitively at the beginning of the movie who the murderer is, which … I don’t know. There’s a solidly tense courtroom scene and a fine melodramatic love story, but I think the story would have been stronger had the audience had been left a bit more in the dark.
Donnie Brasco ★★★½ - A solidly made, but largely unremarkable crime drama about an undercover FBI agent and a mobster who becomes something more than a friend and less than a father to him. Johnny Depp plays the title role with a quiet and not-particularly-effective intensity, but the movie really belongs to Al Pacino as an aging mid-level gangster who’s always looking over his shoulder for threats. The story wasn’t especially surprising, but it’s always nice to see Pacino actually using his acting talents, rather than coasting on earned goodwill.
P.S.
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Leave your reactions, questions, recommendations, and favorite remakes in the comments below.