A shot-by-shot remake of Footloose

Footloose was the random movie I choose from Netflix for my pre-baseball viewing slot on Sunday morning of my Australian Father's Day garage movie marathon. When I do these marathons, I always like the morning movie to be cheery and upbeat, and this seemed to fit the bill. Besides, considering that Craig Brewer directed one of my 26 #1s (Hustle & Flow), I really owe it to him to see how he did with his Footloose remake.

I liked it more than I expected to and possibly more than I should have, though it still earned no better than three stars on Letterboxd. And part of the reason I think it did make that minimum star rating for a recommendation is that it reminded me so much of Herbert Ross' original.

How much? Well, it's basically a shot-by-shot remake. 

And here I thought that sort of thing was reserved for Gus Van Sant.

Now, I emphasize the word "basically." Obviously it's upgraded in certain parts -- though not as many as you might think -- to reflect the 21st century setting. And there are certain wholesale changes to scenes that serve the same function as a scene in the original movie, like how the tractor chicken fight has become a weird figure eight-shaped race involving school buses. Yes, you read that right.

But the vast majority of scenes, and character names, and memorable -- even unmemorable -- dialogue exchanges are virtually exactly the same. The scenes tend even to be shot from the same angles, and most of the songs in the original are either played or covered, though they are not necessarily used in the exact same parts of the movie.

It's a curious choice, and obviously, one that succeeded with me to enough of a degree that I enjoyed the movie. But there's also something a bit cynical about it. You could look at it as Brewer and his collaborators satirizing the very notion of remakes, saying, essentially, "You love the original movie? Well, here, it's basically exactly the same thing. Fork over your money!"

They didn't. It made only $52 million in the US, $63 million worldwide. That's not awful, but the budget was $24 million and it's reasonable to assume that the cost of advertising might have nearly doubled that. So really, not what they were hoping for.

I wonder if part of the reason it didn't resonate was the fact that Kevin Bacon -- who does not make the cameo you might expect -- is replaced here by a guy named Kenny Wormald, who was hired for his dancing skills, most likely, and maybe the fact that he could do the Massachusetts accent, being a native of the Boston area. Although he didn't stop working entirely after this movie, he clearly didn't take off as the producers likely expected he would. Maybe having Ren played by Zac Efron, who dropped out because he didn't want to be seen as only a song and dance man, would have brought this movie to a few more eyeballs.

So is a shot-by-shot remake the type of movie I really want to give my seal of approval with a three-star rating? It's an interesting discussion to have. You might call it lazy, however there's also a sort of formal diligence involved in making a loving recreation of something, with such fealty to the original. I might have called it cynical, but the other way to look at that is that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Craig Brewer likely loved the original Footloose as much as his peers, which include me. 

In any case, it made for an agreeable Sunday morning viewing. 

Why we're so upset about remakes

Remakes are nothing new in Hollywood.

We act as though Hollywood is completely out of ideas, but the truth is, Hollywood was always out of ideas. At least, you have to reach that conclusion about Hollywood's past if you want to reach that same conclusion about Hollywood's present.

Did bloggers scream and yell when The Jazz Singer (1927) was remade 27 years later in 1954? (And then, again, 26 years later in 1980?) Were there conniptions when Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was made in 1931 and again in 1941? The length of time between an original and a remake has even been much shorter -- the classic Marx brothers comedy Duck Soup (1927) was remade only three years later as a movie called Another Fine Mess (1930). Numerous films had multiple remakes before anyone reading this post was even born. (In fact, for a handy and close-to-complete list of film remakes, check out this page on the ever useful wikipedia.)

I think there are two reasons we consider the current spate of remakes to particularly offend our sensibilities:

1) The people with the loudest opinions on the topic -- people of my generation -- are finally getting to the point where the originals of these movies were made in our lifetime. You notice we don't get nearly so upset about remakes of movies we've never heard of.

2) The movies being remade don't really seem like classics, the way we've come to define "classic."

The remake of Point Break -- which has a screenwriter attached (Kurt Wimmer), and which everyone has been fretting about lately -- seems like a perfect example of both.

For those who can't believe they're remaking Point Break, it seems like all too recently to us that the original came out. Twenty years goes by in a flash, I guess.

But more than anything, it doesn't seem like a "classic" -- it seems like a guilty pleasure, a B movie people embrace as more of a cult film than anything else.

But who says you can't remake cult films? There are numerous examples of that phenomenon, too.

There are two schools of thought on when a film should be remade:

1) When the original was so great that it simply begs to be introduced to a new generation;

2) When the original was a good idea that was slightly botched, and someone wants to get it right.

Of course, this tends to open up the potential field of remakes to almost anything.

However, the difference these days may be that there's a third reason to remake a film: to reintroduce it to the same generation. With films like the new versions of Point Break and Total Recall in particular, the smart money is on the fans of the original films flocking to the remakes in droves. That's consistent with the general Hollywood mentality to reboot, repackage and rebrand.

I think Total Recall has caught some of us by surprise in part because, like Point Break, we don't really consider it a classic. Even though Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall is a film I love, I'd be hard-pressed to define it as a "classic." It may be one of the smartest films Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever appeared in, but it's certainly a lesser film in his canon in terms of sheer name recognition. Or maybe it's just that straight remakes of Arnold Schwarzenegger films -- rather than reboots, of which there have been many (The Terminator, Predator) -- make us feel old. First Conan the Barbarian, now this.

I think the reason these films make us despair about the state of Hollywood is that they make us ask this question: "What won't they remake?" There's an implication that if you remake Point Break and Total Recall, it's because you've gotten to the bottom of the barrel and already remade the more obvious, credible choices.

But thankfully, that's not the case. Back to the Future has not been remade, and has in fact not even had a new installment since 1989. (Let's not ponder the role of Michael J. Fox's health in that particular decision.) Ditto Ghostbusters, whose last (and, modestly, only its second) entry was also in 1989. (I'm well aware that Ghostbuster 3 is moving forward, but at least it's not a remake.) And we can even go back to older movies. Citizen Kane turns 70 this year, and has yet to be remade.

And some of the movies being remade actually do seem like obvious choices. The remake of Footloose, which comes out next month, is one such movie. I guess that means it qualifies as a "classic" in the way Point Break and Total Recall do not. While the appeal of those movies was somewhat selective, simply everyone saw Footloose. And especially with Glee doing as well as it has, Footloose meets the classic definition of needing to be introduced to a generation that hungers for it. Likewise, it does not surprise me that a Dirty Dancing remake has been greenlit.

And if it's really an issue of considering it blasphemy to remake the movies in question, consider it a compliment. Nothing commits a movie to the annals of film history more than to be revisited down through the years with new versions. With any luck, it'll actually introduce fans of the new films to the films that inspired them.

So as you are bemoaning the decision to remake films from your childhood, consider where you'd be without the remakes you grew up on: Little Shop of Horrors, The Fly, Scarface, Three Men and a Baby and The Thing.

Oh yeah, stay tuned for the second Thing remake, also coming out this fall. Actually, it's a prequel, and actually, John Carpenter's 1982 The Thing may not have been an actual remake of The Thing From Another World (1951), since both films were different interpretations of John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There?

It gets messy. So let's just take the movies on a case-by-case basis, and see how they go.

Lord knows, we'll have plenty of opportunities to do so.

Oh, Slumdog!

The Producers may have seemed like just the latest in a long line of films trying to capitalize on the renewed viability of the movie musical. But it was actually a unique cinematic creation: As far as I'm aware, it was the first story to start out as a film, become adapted as a Broadway musical, and then become re-adapted as a film again. (Others may qualify, but they don't jump to mind -- feel free to set me straight in the comments section). As of last weekend, I've now seen all three incarnations.

Mel Brooks directed the original Producers in 1968, and it was considered by some to be the funniest film ever made. (I disagree, and in fact I prefer Blazing Saddles among Brooks' own work, but everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion). Then in 2001 Brooks had the masterstroke of bringing it to Broadway, and with a bunch of catchy new songs, it became one of Broadway's most popular modern phenomena. When I saw it at LA's Pantages Theater in 2003, it featured Jason Alexander as Max Bialystock and Martin Short as Leo Bloom, and I quite enjoyed it. But when Brooks tapped Susan Stroman to direct a 2005 film adaptation, they got original Broadway cast members Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick back together to reprise their roles. I found this version just a little flat, but certainly enjoyable enough. Uma Thuman is the real standout as Ulla.

A couple years later, Hairspray followed in The Producers' footsteps. John Waters' 1988 film became a popular Broadway musical in 2002, and a film again in 2007, directed by Adam Shankman and featuring John Travolta in drag. In this case I've only seen the first of the three.

So it got me wondering what other properties we might one day see join this fraternity, properties that become different enough with the inclusion of songs that they'd warrant another run at the big screen. Since Broadway has fallen on hard times with the economy, none of these may ever transpire. But this post is more about supposing than actually predicting. If any of these films is already in production, I know nothing about it.

1) Footloose. Herbert Ross' 1984 audience favorite ran on Broadway as a musical between 1998 and 2000. Since it's been nine years and there's no sign of a movie, this probably won't happen, but can't you just see it being remade as a vehicle for Zac Efron?

2) The Full Monty. Peter Cattaneo's 1997 Oscar nominee ran on Broadway from late 2000 for 770 performances. The end of its run is a little fresher in people's minds, but we still probably won't see this movie materialize. If it did, I could see Hugh Jackman starring, especially if the object was to drive the female fans (and, more to the point, the gay male fans) crazy.

3) Legally Blonde. Robert Luketic directed the 2001 film, and it made it to Broadway in the fall of 2007, running for only a year-and-a-half, but then launching a national tour. If Kristen Chenowith is too old to play Elle Woods, maybe someone like Amanda Seyfried could step in, after starring in the film version of Mamma Mia!

Okay, now on to the movies that haven't made it to the stage yet ...

1) Slumdog Millionaire. Last year's best picture winner has got "Broadway musical" written all over it. They'd probably have to write some songs with English lyrics, but some of A.R. Rahmen's score could stay. They could wheel the Millionaire set in and out, and the set designers would have a super fun time creating an Oliver! version of the Mumbai slums. When it inevably becomes a movie again, maybe Kal Penn could star. Okay, he was the only prominent and relatively young Indian actor I could think of.

2) The Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates have a great tradition in Gilbert & Sullivan, but haven't been seen on the Broadway stage lately. Isn't it about time? You could have ships coming at each other from opposite sides of the stage, kind of like the pirate show outside the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas, and there'd be plenty of opportunity to sing about the cruelties of fate. Maybe Lion King creator Julie Taymor could supervise the creation of the skeletonized soldiers. Johnny Depp can sing alright, but he's probably got better things to do, so Neil Patrick Harris takes the role of Captain Jack Sparrow in the new film version. I don't know, why not?

3) The House Bunny. Okay, I'm only suggesting this because it has that Legally Blonde feel to it, though it's a lot better than Legally Blonde. But the Playboy mansion aspect of it gives it some of the cheekiness that Broadway audiences love. Besides, you might get a line a mile long of actors wanting to play Hugh Hefner. As for the ousted Playboy bunny herself ... well, I guess whoever doesn't get cast as Elle Woods can take up the role.

That's all I got ... please return to your regularly scheduled Saturday.