Then and Now

Who Am I To Judge?

Most of us love to watch movies. I have always considered myself a fan, but as the years went on, I thought I just might promote myself to “enthusiast.” This is a made up and unofficial title, but it is a better way to describe my level interest in the details of filmmaking. Even with all that interest however, I never actually made a real effort to critique films. I just liked what I liked and left it at that, never really getting to the bottom of the how’s and the whys. I realize now, after attempting to compare and contrast six sets of original films and their remakes, that the life of a film critic is not as enviable as I might have once thought.

My task was simple one. Watch twelve films and compare the original version to its remake. And while the movie watching was simple, I did not realize how the act of seriously examining the positive and negatives in each film would alter how I view movies. In creating my list I had tried to select films that I had never seen before. It was tough but with one exception, The Departed, I was able to select all never-before-seen-by-myself-movies. This helped me enter into each comparison as fresh as possible, reducing the unavoidable bias and preconceived notions we have of films, to a minimum.

Comparing the films was only part of the idea, I also wanted to try and answer a couple of questions: which film was better (strictly from my point of view, of course) and was it necessary to remake it? From film match-up to film match-up, those answers varied, as you might guess. What was always the case however, was how difficult it is to judge films. When you watch a movie strictly for entertainment reasons you allow yourself to enjoy the movie without picking it apart, something that cannot be avoided when you need to review the movie. What I found out at some point was that all of these films, the great ones all the way down to the ones I wished I never watched, had good and bad points. It is not a simple matter of saying this one is good or this one is bad, since those labels are subjective terms. Even so, what we can do is look at the bones of the work, all the parts that make up the finished product. Does the film have the qualities that are present in the films we all consider to be exceptional films? Does it have a smart, engaging plot or does it operate on autopilot? Does it have characters we can relate to and care about or are the characters shallow caricatures? These are just a couple of examples, but without some of these key components it might be fair to label a movie as bad. However, even if all these key components are absent, there is still one big factor to consider, personal taste.

There are times you may know that mechanically a film is bottom of the barrel, but you still love it. We all have what people like to call “guilty pleasures,” when it comes to movies. Personally, no mater what people say, I can’t help but like Night at the Roxbury. A completely stupid movie with very little redeeming value, but if I am always entertained by that movie, is it still bad? Here lies the main problem with film critique and on a philosophical level, the question of whether we or not we even need film critics.

Over the course of my quest I started to see that the only real value in film criticism is mutual taste. That is to say, if individual cannot determine for you what is good or bad (since you have your own personal taste), the only thing left is film recommendations based on a history of shared opinion of films. Therefore, the only good film critic is one that shares your personal taste in films. If you normally agree that certain films are good, you can safely take that critic’s recommendation to go out and spend your hard earned money on that new Hollywood blockbuster. Having come to this conclusion, I started to wonder about the distinction between film review and film critique. Perhaps film review is simply a way to summarize and recommend a film to a reader, while film critique is the place where discussion about the technical and emotional aspects of movie making can be discussed.

All these points, undoubtedly, have been discussed at length by people who are much more knowledgeable on the subject of film than I, but in attempting this quest, I have been given a glimpse into the act of film study. That has opened my eyes to what actually goes into doing responsible, fair film reviews.

The bigger names in film critique need to watch practically every movie that goes into theaters. After my attempt at film critique , I have sympathy for them. Part of that is sympathy is for the fact that they need to sit through movies like, Life As We Know It or Saw 3D; just a couple of examples of poorly reviewed movies. Life is short, and that is one of the truest clichés there is. To spend almost two hours of one’s life trying to find the redeeming qualities of the latest Katherine Heigl movie must be painful, on many different levels. My heart goes out to them, but I also have to keep in mind that some people out there actually enjoy that latest Katherine Heigl flick, as hard as that is to believe.

This is where the rest of my sympathy lies. As a professional, you would have the difficult task of finding and describing the positive aspects of a movie you despise. Because you had a job to do, you would find the reasons why someone that actually enjoys that type of movie, should go see it. I experienced just a touch of that challenge in my own quest as I tried to review and compare films without my personal feelings getting in the way. It is for others to judge how successful I was in that attempt. Feel free to be a critic yourself, go ahead and judge my ability to judge. It’s not so easy, is it?

The Experiment's End

As you might have noticed I finished up my experiment this past weekend, Halloween as it turned out. Is it fitting that I finished this little task on a scary day like Halloween? Well, not really, I actually enjoyed the experience and I plan to do more of the same in the future. For now though, I will recap a bit, this first movie match-up experience, before moving on to another.

I went into the experiment with some definite ideas on how I would react to the films I was going to watch. Across the board I assumed that I would either like or find the originals to be acceptable and I would hate the remakes. I figured that, if a movie was going to be considered for a remake than it had to be good enough to warrant a remake. For the most part, this was true. With a couple of exceptions, the originals were good movies and held up well over time. When it comes to those exceptions, one could argue that it was just my personal feelings that made them less than worthy for remaking, but thats the beauty if movies, they can cause almost endless discussion.

So, I determined in my infinite wisdom that these original films were worthy of remakes, what else did I find? As it turned out, of the movies I watched, not every remake was a disaster. That was another preconceived notion I had going in, that all the remakes would be pointless cash grabs. I did count, however, that only one film seemed to me, to be an improvement over the original. That was the case for The Departed. In all other cases, the remakes were at best, only equal to the original. The rest were those pointless cash grabs I mentioned earlier. I have to say though, with the exception of Disturbia and The Amityville Horror, the rest of the remakes had, if examined close enough, something to offer.

So what does this all amount to? Hopefully I caused someone (anyone? Bueller...Bueller...) to take a look at this blog and think a bit more deeply about the films on the list. Perhaps caused them to discuss with others, their own thoughts. Because if nothing else, all film criticism aside, one of the greatest things about films is our desire and need to discuss them. Good or bad, there is almost always something you can say about a movie you just watched. Some argument in favor of why you think it was worthwhile.

If nothing else, this experiment did shed light on a act that, for me, I had previously only superficially considered: the act of film critique. When you look closely at any film you can better see the motivations of the people that put it together. What were they trying to do here? Did they pull it off? Was it entertaining? All very important questions to ask yourself when trying to criticize a film. When we watch movies with just entertainment purposes we can let all of that go, but to watch a movie with the intention of criticizing it, you need to keep those questions at the front of your mind.

As I mentioned earlier, I plan to continue to match-up movies from time to time. I know I plan to catch Let Me In on DVD as soon as I can. This is a remake of a foreign film called, Let the Right One In and from what I have heard, the remake is quite good. We'll see about that...

The Match-Up and it's Effects

Recently, I was asked to try and quantify some effect my movie match-up experiment has made on my daily life. That's a hard one. I realized that I rarely go to see movies in the theater, so my experiment didn't cause me to dig into my pockets for movie money. Like many people these days, I used Netflix to watch to movies on my list. Again, this didn't really effect me too much since, with some careful planning, I was always provided the next movie on my list. Did it have any effect? Yes, but only in a more philosophical way.

What's most valuable thing to every one of us? No, not money, and shame on you if you answered that way. The correct answer is TIME. Out of my typical week I probably watch 1 movie a week. Sadly. There are times of the year that the number goes up quite a bit, but for now I rarely get the chance. The way this experiment was planned out, I needed to watch 4 movies a week, and that is not even counting the time I required to write the blog content. Which, I hate to say, doesn't coming flowing out of me in a rush. So, this means that I had to increase my movie watching by 4 times! And at about 2 hours a piece, my typical 2 hours a week of movie viewing turned into 8 hours a week. Also, you can figure about 30 minutes per movie to write about them (and sadly that's a generous time estimate.) So, we are really looking at 10 hours a week.

We are all short on time and it felt even more painful to sit and watch a movie I knew I didn't like from the first 15 minutes, because I needed to review it for my experiment. I honestly have sympathy for professional film critics now. We are all short on time, that big clock hanging over our heads is always ticking away, and some things just aren't worth our valuable time. To think I was originally planning on reviewing a total of 30 movies! At an average length of 2 hours, I would have spent about 90 hours watching/reviewing them! That's 22.5 hours a week, or 3 hours a day! Ummm, no thank you.

The Amityville Horror (1979) vs The Amityville Horror (2005) - The Match-Up

Well, we are not going to be discussing extremely thought provoking subjects here. These two movies don't provoke that sort of response. They are just horror flicks, after all. I already admitted that I don't care about horror movies, but it's time for Halloween and it seemed like the thing to do. Even if I can't find much to love in these to films, that's OK, I'm actually just here to compare them. Comparison is comparison, even if you are comparing to pieces of coal.

Story-wise, the two films are pretty consistant in their situation. One family, one evil house scary stuff happening. Blah,blah,blah. There are some considerable changes in the in the remake though, and none of them are for the better.

First off, in the original we had the house as a character. A house that was inhabited by an evil presence, which we found out was generated by one particular evil man. However, it was pretty much a given that the idea was that the house over all was evil. In the remake we get a evil house acting out, but we also have the ghost of a little girl, Toby, who was killed the year before in the tragic murder of her family at the hands of her older brother. This makes for a confusing situation where you are not sure if the house is trying to get the main characters or is it Toby? We also are not sure if Toby is a evil presence or is just misunderstood. She seems pretty friendly to Chelsea, the family's young daughter. As I mentioned in the review of the 2005 version, I have a feeling that the Toby-ghost aspect was added in for the sole purpose of having more opportunity to flash images on the screen of a young dead girl in various representations of dead-ness. Movies like The Ring and others, have established a certain visual style for horror movies and this movie seemed to be borrowing that style. It could just be me, but that doesn't make a movie more frightening, just annoying.

Another differnce in the two films is the treatment of the father character going mad. In the original, it seemed to be a much more solitary experience. He would withdraw from the family and when he did interact with them he would lash out in frustration. With the remake's version of crazy dad, he seemed to be looking for reasons to torture the kids. There is a scene where he makes the oldest boy help him chop wood. In the most unsafe way you could chop wood. He forces the boy to hold the small pieces of wood with both hands for him to chop. If he wants to kill the kid, just chop the kid up. I'm being sarcastic, but it shows a difference between the two dads. In the original, father was sick and troubled and he eventual lost it completely, but there always was a sense that he knew that he was a kind man. In the remake, they have the father wandering the house finding ways to scare and abuse the kids throughout the whole story. You don't get a sense of him "losing" his mind, he is mental from almost the start. And this leads to the last bit about the differences in the father character. I explained that the original film ended somewhat abruptly. The "s" hits the fan, with the house falling down around them and you are ready for the father to chop up his family with an axe, but he comes to his senses are rescues his family from the house. I said that this must represent the events of the real family's account. In the remake however, they probably realized that is this is an anti-climactic way to finish a story, so they jazzed it up. In the remake, the father does his darnedest to kill that pesky family of his and fails, but not for lack of desire. This is a strange way to end it too. Even though they escape, how could any of those kids still live with that guy. Sure he was influenced by an evil house, but he also mentally tortured you for weeks and then tried REALLY hard to murder you with an axe. And he didn't stop trying because he came to his senses, he stopped because he fell off a roof. This seemed like it was trying to be more of a The Shining, ending but you would need to have the father die in the end for it to make any sense. Silly.

I have already admitted to hating horror movies, that might have colored my judgment of these two films, I'm pretty sure it has. It's hard to be objective when it comes to this genre. Like love stories. Which one was better? I would have to say, even with all it's flaws, I liked the 1979 version better. It had problems but I don't think that all of them were it's fault. Just unfortunate circumstances. It had a much higher creep factor than the remake, since it had to rely on creating a eerie feeling for the movie, over special effects. Did it need to be remade? This is another one I can say, that this is a definite, no. On paper it probably seemed to be a good idea to remake this one. We'll get more money and special effects to throw at it and we'll have a winner. That's probably what they thought. Ironically, it's is exactly what caused it to fail.

The Amityville Horror (2005) - The Mini-Review

Ugh. I shouldn't use that word in a written review, it is really just an exclamation, but it's what it was feeling when I was watching the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror. I wasn't real impressed with the original, so I approached the remake with some optimism. A good sized budget with modern style and computer generated effects. What could be wrong with that? Turns out, a lot. Those things that should have been advantages were the main problem with the remake.

As before we see George and Kathy Lutz shopping for their dream home. They are hoping that finding the right home for their patchwork family will be the key to their happiness. That might have worked, but not with this house. There is something evil here and the family realizes it almost too late. Events unfold with much screaming and crying and we eventually see the family at wits end, ready to attack each other.

The family of the 2005 remake is subjected to similar progressing craziness as the family of the original, but the remake focuses more on the idea of a ghost of a murdered girl (Toby, the young girl that was murdered there a year before) as a plot point. We can't really tell what is going on from moment to moment. Is the girl's ghost harassing the family or is it the evil presence of the house? It seems like the evil house is driving the father crazy but the girl ghost is just being a prankster. Evil presences are cool and all, but how about giving us one to focus on?

This brings me to my main problem with this movie, the reliance on the special effects. The girl ghost, Toby, was a minor plot point in the original. Here she is one of the main evil elements and I feel like it was done for the sole purpose of providing more visual creepy moments on screen. More random moments of showing her hanging from nooses, covered in blood and general disturbing images. This makes the movie less about a ratcheting up of tension throughout the movie and more about visual gags to have the viewer jump at the right moments. The original had my things wrong with it, but it's lack of accesses to computers actually worked in it's favor.

This is a small gripe but it is more a problem with modern day moviemaking than anything else. Could we have MORE scenes of Ryan Reynolds with his shirt off? No, we probably couldn't, without it seeming silly. Hey, I respect all the working out he did around that time but it seemed obvious what they were doing there. And no topless scenes for all the guys? That's just unfair.

I try to find the best things in any of these movies but, to tell you the truth, I can't think of any right now for this movie. Save, possibly the performance of Chloe Moretz as Chelsea Lutz. Not an Oscar performance, but when child actors perform in an adequate way, it's impressive. Before I'm done, I can think of one nice thing about The Amityville Horror, it was a fairly brief 90 minutes. I thank you editor.

The Amityville Horror (1979) - The Mini-Review

I had seem bits and pieces of The Amityville Horror was I was a kid and my recollection was that there were a few spooky scenes but it wasn't the best movie ever. It was, however, one of the more well known "house-with-an-attitude-movies" of it's time.

The Amityville Horror is the story of Goerge and Kathy Lutz. Based on real events, by the way. Just married, they are looking for a nice home for their new family unit. George is a new father to Kathy's 3 children from her now deceased husband and this home might be just what they need to bring them all together. This house has a bad history, though. One year before, there was a multiple homicide. The previous family was shot while they were sleeping by their 23 year old son, who later told police that voices from the house made him do it. The house is roomy with a nice boathouse, so who cares if 5 people were killed there? That's what George and Kathy feel, but things begin to go bad for them as well. The first sign of trouble is a very unsuccessful attempt by the family priest to bless the house. As he is setting up his things to begin the blessing, he finds out that the family has a bit of a fly problem in one of their bedrooms. After getting swarmed by, what looks like all the flies that have ever lived, he is rushed out of the house by a demonic voice, "Getttt Ooooout!" He does as told. What follows is an escalating string of events that trouble the family and nearly drives the head of the household, George, crazy.

You might think that this story might end up in the same place as The Shining, but it doesn't end with George attempting to kill his whole family. I did not read the book that chronicled the "real" events in Amityville, but I suspect the anti-climactic, and somewhat sudden, ending to the movie has a lot to do with the way the family's story ended in real life. I give the filmmaker credit for sticking to the actual events, but it made for a strange ending.

Even for 1979, this movie has a cheap look to it, and that is most likely due to the low budget and rushed nature. James Brolin (George) and Margot Kidder (Kathy) do pretty well with what they are given in the film, but there aren't too many Oscar opportunities here. Rod Stiger as the priest has some of the best acting moments as the faith-challenged-Father.

The Amityville Horror aspires to be great, and that is commendable. However, with it's low budget and less than top-notch approach, it results in a story with really interesting idea coming off as a horror-movie-of-the-week. Many people consider this film to be a "classic", I have a feeling that some movies are considered better than they actually were because of the nostalgia that we have for them. I agree that it is a "classic", but that is because it was simply one of the first "mean house" movies of it's time.

The Amityville Horror (1979) vs The Amityville Horror (2005)

For my final set of films I thought I would go with a horror remake set. We've got The Amityville Horror. I should say going in that I just don't care very much about horror movies. They bore me usually, and I have seen a handful of the very best and I feel like that's enough. Maybe these will change my mind? Maybe one or both of these could be considered one of those handful of horror masterpieces? Hmmm, let's hope.

Based on real events, The Amityville Horror is the story of Goerge and Kathy Lutz. A newly married couple who have scrimped and saved their money to buy a dream house, but that house has a deadly history.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078767/

It's a dream house beyond their means, why is it such a bargin? George and Katy Lutz will find out soon enough. Based on the actual events of a New England family, The Amityville Horror is a modern retelling of the 1979 classic.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384806/