I should have watched the original version of The Blob (1958 – Steve McQueen) before watching this version. It seems, to me, that if a movie is a remake, you have to see the original film first to see that movie. That is if you plan on watching either movie. At the same time, the original is often so much better than the remake that it might make you appreciate the newer version even less. And if you are a big fan of the movie, you might also go a step further and read the book (if the film was based upon a book). No matter how much we, at times, don’t want them to, Hollywood is going to keep remaking movies. Whether Hollywood is out of original ideas or they know that a newer version of a film is a fortune waiting to be happy, we don’t know. We understand that some remakes will be good, some will be bad, and some we will shake our heads and ask ourselves, “What were these movie studios thinking?”
Category Archives: Genre
Blue Valentine (2010)
Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine did nothing but further enhance my opinion that 2010 has been the best year for movie releases in my lifetime. Blue Valentine was one of the few movies of 2010 that I did not see in the theatre, and I can only imagine the impact it would have had on me had I seen it on the big screen. It is a raw, emotional antithesis of the ideal life. As the movie ends, you will be grateful that what you have just seen does not parallel your life and hope it never will.
Hard Candy (2005)
2005’s Hard Candy turned out to be a breakout movie for debut feature film director David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse), Patrick Wilson (Little Children, Lakeview Terrace), and Ellen Page (Juno, Inception). This was a highly controversial film at the time of its release and did not garner a lot of money at the box office. It is about a 32-year-old sexual predator named Jeff (Wilson) who begins an online relationship with 14-year-old Hayley (Page) that leads to a physical encounter.
Hurricane Season (2009)
2009’s Hurricane Season follows the true story of a small New Orleans high school basketball team following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The movie stars Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland, Panic Room) as Al Collins, a driven and resolute coach. His job is to unite eight players who went to five different schools before the hurricane and attempt to coach them through the Louisiana State High School Basketball Tournament. He must mesh the players’ unique personalities and hidden agendas and turn them into a united team with the same goal in mind. And if you already think this movie sounds like 50% of the other sports movies you have seen, I don’t blame you. However, there is one difference. For the players on the team, and many in the city, basketball was all they had to help them temporarily forget about the devastation that ravaged their city.
The Game (1997)
1997’s The Game was David Fincher’s film movie as a director, but the first following the highly successful and fan-favorite Se7en. Fincher’s first movie was Alien 3, which had many franchise fans wishing the series had ended with Aliens. With one flop and one success under his belt, Fincher needed to make a statement with his third movie to prove that Se7en was not a fluke. The Game grossed $48 million at the box office, roughly half of what Se7en brought in, but this was still considered a success. Moreover, perhaps more importantly, it was a success with the critics. Following this movie, Fincher became a household name. Still, he has picked his projects carefully. From 1993 to 2010, Fincher has directed just nine movies. However, His most recent films (The Social Network, 2010, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008) garnered him Academy Award nominations for Best Director.