Movies: A harvest of remakes, sequels, and series

As all students of the contemporary cinema know, and
most reviewers tediously reiterate, the change of seasons from summer to fall
should also signal a transformation in the variety of entertainment flickering
in the multiple tense darknesses of the megaplexes.

            Accepted
wisdom preaches that with the kids back in school and the weather turning
cooler, and perhaps freed somewhat from the desperate need to release some new
spectacular every week, Hollywood will serve up heartier fare than the usual
kiddie cartoons, raunchy comedies, exploding blockbusters, horror films,
science fiction, cop thrillers and of course, assorted teenpix.

            Empirical
analysis and the hard lessons of experience, on the other hand, suggest that
for the most part, we=ll
all be seeing the mixture as before. Of course, only time, that subtle thief of
youth (and hope), will tell.

            Perhaps
fittingly for harvest time, the fall season of 2002 looks to be absolutely
overflowing with product. Some of the fruits of the season, of course, actually
ripened at some point in the past, but for numerous unexplained reasons are
scheduled to appear this year, a not uncommon phenomenon in the film industry.
Some may be tasty and properly matured, but as experience teaches, many may
turn out to be, shall we say, somewhat overripe or, not to put too fine a point
on it, rotten, but whatever their condition or flavor, the following sampling
of the harvest may provide a useful guide for the consumer.

            To begin
with, the season promises a surprising number of remakes, sequels, and items
occurring in long and endless series. The series flicks will probably enjoy
what amounts to a guaranteed audience, most of them reared on the previous
movies and perfectly happy to accept any additions to the list.

            In two
ongoing sagas that have attained the level of a genre unto themselves, Pierce
Brosnan will return in yet another James Bond movie, the 20th mission of the
intrepid secret agent, Die Another Day, and while Bond
roams the world, Patrick Stewart and the crew of the Enterprise will rocket through the galaxies in the latest
installment of the most famous space voyages of them all, this one entitled Star
Trek: Nemesis.

            As a single
swallow doesn=t make a
spring, so two works don=t
exactly make a series, but the sequel to Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer=s Stone represents the
second in what will probably turn into a long string of successes. Due out
Thanksgiving, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — who=ll be the first to call it
the ChamberPotter? — is about the
nearest thing to a mortal lock I can imagine. The producers, in fact, made it
right after the first movie, using the same cast and presumably the same sets,
without waiting to see if The Sorcerer=s
Stone made money — there never was any question about that.

            Another
such sequel, Analyze That, will follow the profitable and funny Analyze This and will feature once again
the talents or Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, repeating their roles as
gangster and shrink. And though he=s
no De Niro (or Crystal either, for that matter), Antonio Banderas returns for
the third adventure of the guitar-playing gunfighter, El Mariachi, in Once
Upon a Time in Mexico, co-starring with such well known actors as
Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe; their presence indicates the usual ascent of the
writer-director, Robert Rodriguez, from low-budget outsider to accepted (and
funded) Hollywood filmmaker.

            The film
industry=s powerful
sense of itself, together with its need to repeat the past, sometimes bursts
forth in the full blossom of a remake, and the coming season, oddly, promises
from that flourishing a full basket of old wine in new bottles. Some of those
pictures expected in the upcoming season look most intriguing, even more
encouraging than the entirely new materialBat
least now, before their opening — because they derive from some important and
entertaining original material, both fictional and cinematic. On the other
hand, the tried and the true can sometimes turn into dull repetition and
questionable reinterpretation, as in, for example, Gus Van Sant=s bizarre replication of Psycho.

            Guy Ritchie
has written and directed a new version of Lena Wertmuller=s 1975 film, Swept
Away, starring Madonna, naturally, and Adriano Giannini in the role his
father, Giancarlo, created in the original. Its themes of sex and class worked
well in its examination of Italian society, but would seem perhaps less
fruitful in an American context.

            Madonna
seems unlikely to recreate the distant, icy manner of Mariangela Melato, so her
interpretation may differ strongly from her predecessor, and of course, so far
she has managed to kill or at least maim every movie she appears in, from Dick Tracy to Evita. And if you can believe that Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton
can measure up to Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, then Jonathan Demme=s remake of Charade, now entitled The
Truth About Charlie, is for you: good luck to them and you.

            Two more or
less literary colonial films will also appear, one based on a novel by A.E.W.
Mason and a simply splendid motion picture, the other derived from a rather
more literary work that was turned into a decidedly inferior movie. The first
is a remake of the wonderful desert epic The Four Feathers, directed by
Zoltan Korda in that miracle year for motion pictures, 1939.

            The other,
based on Graham Greene=s
brilliantly prophetic novel The Quiet American, surely must
improve on the 1958 movie, which starred Audie Murphy as a CIA agent in Saigon
when the French were fighting and losing their version of the Vietnam War; in
this case the second film starts off ahead of the game, since it cannot treat
the novel more carelessly than the first.

            One other
remake belongs in an odd category, since it also amounts to a prequel. Thomas
Harris=s novel Red
Dragon, the first appearance in a supporting role of Dr. Hannibal
Lecter, was first adapted to the screen in 1986, retitled Manhunter.

            Hampered by
uninspired casting and a fundamental misunderstanding of a terrific novel, it
never engaged the attention of audiences or critics; now, however, under its
original title, and starring Anthony Hopkins once again as the ineffable
Hannibal the Cannibal, and Edward Norton as the FBI investigator Will Graham,
it will reappear, surely gladdening the hearts of horror/mystery fans
everywhere, including this one.

            In the
realm of original motion pictures, or at least new titles (and there is a
difference), naturally the film industry has churned out a great many
potentially wonderful worksBthey
all look good in the trailers and the press releasesBsome of which, we all devoutly hope, will
fulfill that potential. To begin with the unusual and unorthodox, Michael Moore=s new documentary, Bowling
for Columbine, examines the explosive topic of firearms in America in
his own inimitable style. The movie purportedly includes an encounter with
Charlton Heston, apparently post-alcoholism treatment and pre-Alzheimer=s, which may prove a
selling point.

            Aside from
those Graham Greene and A. E. W. Mason novels that inspired both the originals
and the remakes, a number of other upcoming films began life as literature. Personal
Velocity, written and directed by Rebecca Miller, who wrote the short
stories the film is based on, will star Parker Posey, Kyra Sedgwick, and
Fairuza Balk in what looks to be an intense, contemporary women=s picture. Another such
film, also based on contemporary fiction, a novel by Michael Cunningham, The
Hours, stars Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, who
plays, of all people, Virginia Woolf.

            A somewhat
better known writer, Charles Dickens, will probably receive at least a mention
in the credits for the new version of Nicholas Nickleby; because of his
stories and characters, the real stuff of movies, the great novelist remains a
treasure trove for filmmakers, so it=s
pleasant at least to contemplate the possibility of another adaptation of one
of his marvelous books.

            Gangs
of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese, originally slated for a
summer release, should appear in the fall or winter of this year. As the title
implies, it covers the familiar Scorsese territory and subjects, but in an
entirely different era, the New York of the 1860s, during the Civil War, and
the Irish gangsters of the notorious Five Points area, later the breeding
ground for Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. The picture, alas, stars Leonardo
DiCaprio, but may, for all that, turn out to be an absorbing work — remember
that this director made both Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead, which
demonstrates that nobody hits a home run every time at bat.

            Julie
Taymor, another talented and original director, who demonstrated a truly
remarkable vision in the staging of The
Lion King and the inventive and daring adaptation of Shakespeare=s Titus Andronicus, returns with another unusual offering, Frida.

            A number of
actors and self confessed art lovers, including Madonna and Cher, have spoken
about making (and of course, starring in) a biography of the painter Frida
Kahlo, the wife of Diego Rivera, whose fascinating art and tragic life have
turned her into something of a cult figure, but Selma Hayek will portray Frida,
while Alfred Molina plays Rivera. Antonio Banderas, unfortunately, also
appears, along with such fine actors as Geoffrey Rush and Edward Norton.

            Though
better known than Taymor, William Friedkin seldom receives the credit he
deserves, perhaps because some of his movies suffered Hollywood-style editing
and some ill advised and unfortunate publicity decisions. But the maker of such
important pictures as The Exorcist and The French Connection returns
with The
Hunted, a thriller starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benico Del Toro.

            Finally,
the new season promises a number of comedies, perhaps the most difficult genre
of them all. Scheduled titles include a couple of television-inspired films, The
Wild Thornberrys, from a kids’ show on Nickelodeon, and I Spy,
from the old Bill Cosby-Robert Culp series. One of the more unusual examples of
the form, A Few Good Years, follows the lives of a successful New York
family, played by many members of the Douglas family — Kirk, Michael,
Cameron, Diana, etc. (these guys even outnumber the Sheens).

            Saving the
biggest production for last, the smash hit musical Chicago has been adapted
for the screen with a most unusual cast that includes Catherine Zeta-Jones,
Renée Zellweger, and Richard Gere. Scheduled to open for Christmas, this could
be The Big One for the holidays; whatever else it accomplishes, it simply has
to be better than the last big musical, the overproduced and entirely wretched Moulin Rouge.

            Scores of
other motion pictures, many from abroad, many as yet unsung, unhyped, unknown,
will be arriving in the theaters in the coming season. Whatever the publicity,
the exaggeration, the disappointed expectations, the broken promises (and
hearts), the failures and futility of the past, some of those pictures should
be worthy of our money and regard; though movies, like many things in life,
often please more in the anticipation than in the fulfillment, something out
there just has to be good. Let=s
all hope so.

This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2002.