Funny Games U.S. remake of Funny Games 1997 V.O. German.

Chillingly good stuff. This film made me double check the door locks before bed.

I want to see this remake, too. It has to be hard to top those 2 creepy guys in the original film, tho?

havnt seen the original yet, but plan on doing so pretty soon.

You'll like it. I don't want to give away the ending(although, if you saw the remake, and they stayed close to the original, you know how it ends anyway) but it is a very quiet film. Which makes it all the more nerve-wracking. None of that overly dramatic music to give away the next scene. One of the best foreign films I've seen in the past 10 years. I understand the original director made the remake.

yes, i read somewhere that he remade it frame by frame, only in English.

Has to be better than that Psycho remake from a few years back. That was terrible.

I agree with you Joseph...Psycho should have been left alone...

how could they think that the original could be improved or modernised...

I mean its timeless directed by the master himself Hitchcock.

They tried do it with 'Rear Window' also...another dissaster starring Christopher Reeve..was shown on English TV last weekend I cant believe I watched it to the end...

Maybe its the critic in me or...

I obviously had nothing better to do

Disturbia is another remake of Rear Window. It failed to impress me, but it wasn't too bad (for some viewers, Disturbia is likely a better film due to the faster pace.)

Speaking of remakes, I just got a 3 disk version of Bogart's Maltese Falcon which it turns out... to be a remake (twice over). First was Maltese Falcon in 1931, then a 1936 remake with Bette Davis (Satan Met a Lady), then finally Bogart's version in 1941. I have not seen the Bette Davis film yet, but the original, certainly was not inspiring... (interesting, but not great). Sometimes, a remake is a good thing...

"Disturbia is another remake of Rear Window. It failed to impress me, but it wasn't too bad (for some viewers, Disturbia is likely a better film due to the faster pace.)" ......

Ive not heard of that one... I'll have to look it up and see if I can watch it....

Thanks for sharing Antony

The Rear Window remake was obviously a ham-handed attempt to give Reeves some work, after his accident. I mean, who else would be willing to sit in a wheelchair all day long?

Remakes, movies based on TV shows, comic books, sequels.....It's all because they don't have any writers with an original thought, anymore.

The golden compass was okay, more interested in the design of the world. But it was great to see Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise working so closely together after their divorce!!!!!

There are plenty of writers with original thoughts, but it seems the cash flow can get in the way of making a good movie. First a brand new script is unproven to be a hot seller. A movie/book/short story/TV show that was a hit or a minor hit has a built in audience to watch a movie based off it. So, for the suits, a remake is a better bet. The real failing it seems to me though is that so many remakes loose the passion of the original, and they fall into the trap of being produced with an eye to audience numbers, and not towards creating a good film. So we get formula based movies. (The movie X had good numbers, so lets emulate that movie and well get the numbers too...)

Remakes have been around since the beginning of film history. (Ok, not the horse running film, that was pure original, but it's been remade since.)

Small film companies who invest thousands instead of millions of dollars into a film are more apt to make a film with passion and not a formula. The bigger the budget, the more damaging low audience turn out can be.

I enjoyed Golden Compass, but I hear to gain audience count, they sadly toned down the anti-organised religion slant.

Another Nicole movie I liked is Invasion with the Daniel Craig. A good remake in my books.

The Coen brothers haven't made a sequel or remake in their 20+ year career. Even tho a few of their films beg for it - Big Lebowski, Fargo and even their latest film. Clint Eastwood hasn't. Neither has James Cameron(although, I guess Titanic could be viewed as a remake), Roman Polanski, Bernardo Bertolucci, Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg, Jean Luc Besson or David Lynch. Even Spielberg(other than the Indiana Jones films, which were designed as a serial anyway) hasn't really made any. So there are some big names, with bigger than average budgets, willing to risk presenting original fare. It's the spinelessness of the studios, that rely on hack writing and tried and true formulas.

Scratch what I said about Cameron. He made Aliens and Terminator 2. Both were so good, they seemed like originals.

Super Hero movies are hit or miss with me, but I just saw Iron Man and it was a very good movie. Smart, fun, well paced and a good story.

I generally agree with Joseph about sequels. I like to see new ideas and sequels seem like just milking the cash cow. I don't even mind as much when they take an old idea and make it their own with a new twist. But all the remakes make me crazy.

Cheers all!

Spielburg has lots of sequels under his belt. Jurrasic Park is on it's third sequel, Back to the Future came back twice, Men in Black revisited us once...

Roman Polanski has several screen adaptions of books that I can think of (likely more). The Tenant (a good film even though the dubbing damages the experience), Rosemary's Baby, and Oliver.

Without remakes or adaptions, we would be missing out on some good films. The Cleopatra fiasco (where the suits made it one film instead of two, a choice which damaged the film, but the result is still fairly good) was a remake (and has since been remade several times again.) Maltese Falcon with Bogart was the third adaption of the book. The recent film Beowulf has brought the epic very difficult to read poem to a whole new audience. The horror film The Ring brought the Japanese film Ring (Ringu) to a whole new audience too (even though in my books, the original was much better.)

Sequels have value, but less so when they are not made with passion. ("Oh, that movie made lots of money, lets do another.")

Spielberg did not direct those sequels, they were made thru his production company. Producing, and directing are two different things.

Most, if not all, of Polanski's work, is made from literary sources, which still makes his directorialship original. MacBeth is the only film he's made, where someone made it prior to him. And he made it completely different than anyone else had ever made it.

A producer helms the film project, and the director works for the producer. Without Spielberg green lighting a sequel, it would not happen. Actually sitting in the directors chair or not, it's his.

But anyway... there are plenty of sources of good material out there, be it adapted from books, TV, older movies, foreign movies, or (gasp) original screen plays. Directors, producers, writers, and actors alike can shape a movie into a dud or a success.

Appling formula and paying too much heed to test audiences or studio pressure can be worse than the source of the material (comics, TV, older or foreign films.)

From the profit aspect, it's the producer's film, from the creative aspect(most of the time) it's the director's.

Yes, many different cogs going at once, the producer owns the scope of the project, the director: the shape, and the actors: the texture.