I just saw "The Loved One" on TCM,last week,I believe and I had be harboring this idea for a while,could the,"The Loved One" be re-made or maybe restructured for today's standards?
Any idea who might want to tackle this as for director? the writer? or stars?
considering what a bugger up they made with the remake of "Bedazzled" (Cook/Moore 1965?), i dread them doing a remake of this hilarious movie.
if they must, however, i suggest Orlando Bloom as the gormless Dennis Barlow and Reese Witherspoon as Aimee Thanatogenous.
If they remake it I hope it's set in the 1940's as the book was. I want to be Aimee for Holloween. I'd base it on the move but do 1940's dress and hair.
"One road is paved in gold One road is just a road."
---Patti Smith
I don't know. This is a remarkably intelligent movie, and a remake would probably try to dumb it down for the CGI crowd.
shareWow...it would be pretty hard to come up with worse people than you suggested.
shareThey shouldn't 'remake' it.
They should just do an actual adaptation of the book.
I want to be alone... ~Garbo~
Why would you want to? How could you possibly improve upon perfection?
-J. Theakston
http://centraltheater.blogspot.com
You do have a point there.
shareYeah, I pretty much like it just the way it is...and I have read the book.
Oh Lord, you gave them eyes but they cannot see...
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Ooooh, I love your casting choices, even though I don't like the idea of a remake. Sadly, Harold Pinter would have to take another role in this film these days. ;-)
I haven't read this book in 25 years, but I remember this film being much different, with more slapstick and less subtlety.
More than anything, I'd love to see a modern-day satire of the funeral industry. Other than "Six Feet Under," the only one that hits me at the moment is "Death at a Funeral," which was more about a bickering family.
One should watch the extra 15 minute "making of" that comes with the DVD.
There are so many factors that cannot be reproduced. The 60s was caught perfectly, in the 60s. The statement was made, and cannot be made again, since what they were doing was tearing down barriers. Actually, you could say the film is dated, but not for me, since I am 66. So, if you can take yourself back, either by way of memories, or your imagination, you can feel the impact of it.
What is this mania for remaking films? I think sometimes it is young people wanting to stick their own favorite actors into a film because they are more comfortable with them, rather than adjust to another generation of actors and their styles and ways.
To see the absurdity of it, try taking a favorite film of today and imagine sticking actors from 50 to 70 years ago into it.
I write adaptations, just as a hobby, and I am doing mainly things like Maugham stories written in the 20s and 30s, Guy Gilpatric stories written in the 30s.
I imagine actors of those time periods in the scripts, so it is an exercise in futility, but it is a great time machine escape for me.
I admit to having dreamt up a few remakes, like "I Know Where I'm Going". What sacrilege. It is self indulgence. I just want to slow it down by about ten minutes so I can indulge myself in the "magic nests", as Pressburger called them.
Sometimes I consider making a different film, like Grapes of Wrath. Imagine a 6 hour adaptation, like PBS always did. It would be a different film, not a remake. John Ford's film is un-remakeable. It is made only from the first half of the book plus some additions from the second half. So, you make the whole book and have six hours.
Could 'Loved One' be re-made?
No. It would never get past the ratings board. Today's Hollywood says "yes!" to needless graphic gore, but "no way" to intellectual cynicism. Go figure.
I don't want it remade. They'd surely eff it up.
They're remaking everything else.
Maybe Tim Burton should try it as a musical.
What's the deal with this unceasing desire to remake movies? I can understand it coming from out-of-work Angelenos pitching veiled make-work projects to timorous, bean-counting executives, but from people who actually relish the art of creative film? Do you ever hear museum patrons saying, "Gosh, I'd love to see another 'Déjeuner sur l'herbe'. Do you think we can get that up on the wall, alongside the original?" or "I loved 'Guernica' but could you make it, like, happier?"? Sorry, but God invented chalk and sidewalks for that sort of coin-eating thoughtlessness.
Otherwise, this particular film, even if remade, could never recapture the easy, insouciant satire that defined it at its original release. Cinemagoers today, having gone down through all nine levels of irony and then back up through a (not-quite-true) 'seen it all' self-satisfaction, couldn't possibly recapture the same shock of the new that this film provoked.
Regardless of the black-and-white thinking about classics being perfect and "un-remakeable" (I wish this browser had an emoticon with crossed eyes), TLO is a cinch as a remake. This is, as we used to say before almost any of you were born, a "comedy of manners" (and values). Our values may be different, but they are still every bit as suspect as they were in '64. The high concept and the plot still hold water, and that's really all that matters.
Pity Terry Southern is lone gone (he expired in '95), but there are writers around who could cook this up into something contemporary and quite tasty. Mike Tolkin did a nice job on "The Player," and he's still kicking. Anybody got his cell number? Those "Six Feet Under" people, like Alan Ball, might do a nice job, too.
One of the contrivances that makes TLO interesting is all the star power. This is a flick that got a lot of talk on the street in pre-pro like "Nashville" and "The Player." People wanted to be in it to be seen as cool, and likely worked for scale, instead of dragging the CDs through the muck. That's part of a renown formula for at least first-weekend success, so it's probably a good idea for a remake.
Nice to see Robbie Morse is still poking his finger into the establishment's shoulders in "Mad Men."
"I just saw "The Loved One" on TCM,last week,I believe and I had be harboring this idea for a while,could the,"The Loved One" be re-made or maybe restructured for today's standards?
Any idea who might want to tackle this as for director? the writer? or stars?" - bannercaptain 2000
Doubtful. Too many in Hwood are overly image-conscious to do broad satire and lampoon themselves in the bargain. Besides, there's no Steigers, Liberaces, Winters, Standers, Morses, Morleys, etc. even around in the cookie-cutter mannequin valley. "restructured for today's standards" You mean dumb it down? Literally pull the guts out of it, and make it a morally rewarding family friendly experience? I can feel Terry Southern spinning in his grave.
It's only a movie...