You have to hand it to Roland Emmerich, his marketing for 1998’s “Godzilla” was fantastic. Before “Cloverfield” enforced not showing the monster until you had your butt planted in seats in theaters, Emmerich and Tristar applied the same marketing with just as much mystery. I fondly recall many of the early trailers for “Godzilla” being packed with questions about what the beast looked like rebooted. Hell, in 1997, I bought the movie book that explored the making of “Godzilla,” and there wasn’t a single picture in the book that gave a clear picture of the new Godzilla.
Tag Archives: Remake
Frankenweenie (2012)
As far as animated efforts from Tim Burton goes, “Frankenweenie” isn’t such a bad bit of fan service. Director Tim Burton has always expressed interest in remaking his short film “Frankenweenie,” and it’s a shame since the original short isn’t a bad movie. All things considered, it’s short, sweet, and to the point. Not to mention it’s cute, sad, and has that Burton American Gothic whimsy we’d later see in “Edward Scissorhands.” With 2012’s remake of “Frankenweenie,” director Tim Burton is able to do pretty much whatever he wants, while expanding on an already interesting twist on Mary Shelly’s story.
LOL (2012)
In vogue bright eyed teen stars are a dime a dozen in America, and they have a shorter shelf life than a can of beans. Often times a teen star can rise and fade before anyone even remembers their name, and it’s a struggle to fight for career success beyond being young and beautiful. What’s worse is teen stars are more and more presenting talent and aren’t the manufactured product that Disney keeps churning out. Miley Cyrus has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that, like most teen Disney stars the studio churns out year after year, she’s pretty much fading in to the background.
Silent Night (2012)

“Don’t put avocado on the burger!”
You just can’t take a movie like “Silent Night” all that seriously. It’s twisted, demented, and weird, and features a small town with a perverted priest, and a slew of gorgeous women sauntering about like it’s just another day. Jaime King is the sheriff, Ellen Wong is her secretary, single moms are attractive, and the slashing Santa spends most of his time murdering good looking women in the most sadistic ways imaginable. It’s a splatter film and an exploitation film first and foremost, so if you’re expecting high art with complex themes about Christmas, you should look elsewhere. Director Steven C. Miller knows exactly what kind of film he’s directing, and he never holds back from delivering the gore and the torture in all of the most convenient forms possible.
12 Angry Men (1997)
The real reason to watch 1997’s remake of “12 Angry Men” is to see Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott share the screen once again as they did in the very entertaining remake of “Inherit the Wind.” This time Lemmon replaces Henry Fonda in the role of Juror 8 while Scott is Juror 3. For a film directed by William Friedkin starring twelve very notable and prolific character actors, this version of “12 Angry Men” is very vanilla and absolutely forgettable. Friedkin never quite opts for subtlety with this reworking of the stage play, so he walks around with his camera, and films the teleplay like it’s an episode of “Law & Order.”
Deadly Weapon (1989)
Allegedly Michael Miner’s “Deadly Weapon” was supposed to be a sequel to Charles Band’s notoriously awful cult riot “Laserblast.” But when Empire pictures fell, Band basically turned the sequel in to its own film. Really, “Deadly Weapon” feels so much like a remake of “Laser Blast,” and an unnecessary one at that. Like its predecessor it’s hilariously bad and filled with so much horrible editing and acting, it’s more funny than it is entertaining.
An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
This movie proves without a doubt that just because you have a snazzy set of computers and artists, doesn’t mean you can replicate good old fashioned special effects. Sometimes the actual material and human actors can be much more effective than dapper computer animation that, even in 1997, looked like cut scenes from a Playstation video game. Of course it’s not like studios ever really learned their lesson after “An American Werewolf in Paris” landed with a thud in 1997. They just tried and tried until they succeeded. Supposedly in development for six years, “An American Werewolf in Paris” feels as if someone had the bright idea to remake the John Landis eighties classic “An American Werewolf in London,” backed out, and then kicked up production again once computer technology advanced. And then somewhere along the line a remake of a classic horror comedy became a stale and brutally underwhelming horror comedy that failed to amount to even an ounce of the charisma and brilliance that the first film did.


