Remake

From Fairy Tales to Facsimiles: Fizzling Disney Magic

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Why Live-Action Remakes Feel Fake and Hollow

I. Introduction – The Experiment That Broke Disney’s Spell

Disney’s live-action remakes of original animation began as an intriguing question posed in the language of modern filmmaking. What might it look like to re-stage an animated classic using today’s cinematic tools: digital effects, live-action framing, modern sound? The 2015 Cinderella answered with a polite flourish. It kept the bones of the original but dressed them in new fabric, nodding toward elegance and restraint. It felt like a thoughtful curiosity, charming in its own way, like a balloon released gently into the air.

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Electric Performances Propel “A Star is Born” to Rarefied Heights

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In film or on stage, performance is a strange thing.  Sometimes, the audience values showmanship and wants to see the raw talent of a performer laid bare under the lights.  Sometimes, we crave realism – some indefinable feeling that the thing we are seeing on screen is genuine and true, their soul laid bare instead. … Read more

“The Beguiled” Expresses Intrigue with a Quiet Lust and Sexiness

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Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, a remake of a 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood, was a bit of a darling at Cannes this year. Coppola took home Best Director at the festival, which was only the second time a woman won the award. The film itself is a peculiar kind of Civil War era drama charged … Read more

“It” Spoils Potent Storytelling with Commercialized Horror

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It appears to be one of the most crowd-pleasing horror films in recent memory. But a crowd-pleasing horror film is something of a contradiction in terms. If everyone finds it to their liking, then how unnerving, scary, or boundary-pushing can it possibly be? I’m not saying that every horror film has to have people throwing … Read more

“Beauty and the Beast” Pays Homage, but Can’t Compete with Better Films

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When remaking a classic, withstanding the inevitable comparisons requires either flawless execution or inspired novelty.  Disney’s latest live-action adaptation has an even greater challenge, as it must compete with two masterpieces:  the studio’s own animated feature from 1991, and Jean Cocteau’s magnificent romantic fantasy La Belle et la Bête (1946).  And though this iteration of … Read more