A Cinecle View – The stupidest reimagining in a long, stupid history of stupid reimaginings
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I blame the rap music. And Quentin Tarantino.
Ever since the practice formally known as “theft” was renamed “sampling” and became a not only accepted, but respected form of art – and one of the anchors on my own personal Mt. Rushmore of Auteurs adapted the practice to filmmaking (seriously, Tarantino has been known to describe scenes in his movies as “like that scene from [fill in the blank]”) – Hollywood has had the clone machines cranking nonstop on high.
Please don’t take that “theft” comment seriously; I WAS JOKING! I’m actually not opposed to the concept in music or film. A well used sample in music not only reinvents the familiar or forgotten and gives it new life, but can also cross pollinate audiences and open people’s ears and minds to artists and sounds they may otherwise have never discovered on their own.
The same thing happens with movies. I never would have explored the works of Sonny Chiba without his appearance in Kill Bill, the books of Elmore Leonard without seeing Jackie Brown or the origins of the character Django in Sergio Corbucci’s film if Tarantino hadn’t allowed Jamie Foxx to steal the role from Michael K. Williams in his homage, Django Unchained.
AGAIN, I’M JOKING! I kid because I love; Foxx was great in the part.
But how bad ass would this have been …
“DJANGO COMIN’, YO!!!”
This week, a singularity of dumb that threatens to swallow the careers of two men when Warner Bros. announced Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s remake of Lord Of The Flies … with an all female cast.
Hey, guys … Rupert Sanders called, he said that he thinks that you may not have the best grasp on the source material.
“Hurry up and release this thing so that people finally stop talking about Ghost In The Shell. And that other thing that I did.”
Hoai-Tran Bui of slashfilm.com, you’re up; Testify, sister:
In a fundamental misunderstanding of the message of Lord of the Flies, Warner Bros. is moving ahead with an all-female remake of the literary classic — written by two men.
Gender-bent remakes are not uncommon in Hollywood, allowing filmmakers to re-examine stories from a female perspective and give meatier roles to women in an industry where there are very few. But not all stories are suited to be gender-swapped: case in point William Golding‘s novel about the barbarism stemming from systemic toxic masculinity …
To tell that story from a female perspective would require a complete [overhaul] of the story, and not one that just reduces the characters into feminine, backstabbing stereotypes …
But all this asks a bigger question: is a female-centric Lord of the Flies possible at the hands of a female filmmaker? Or is the story too ingrained in its depiction of toxic masculinity?
Wow, thanks for chick’splaining it to all the dumb men at the giant, greedy, soulless movie studio.
STOP MAKING PROTEST SIGNS, OF COURSE I’M JOKING! I obviously quoted her because she’s summed up the situation as well as anyone could, her insights are all dead on and since she already did the heavy lifting, I’m happy that the only typing that I had to do was control+c followed by control+v to say what pretty much everyone is thinking:
This has got to be the stupidest Hollywood reimagining in a long, stupid history of stupid Hollywood reimaginings.
Thanks for letting me sample you, Hoai-Tran!
Warner Bros., if you’re reading this, (and let’s be honest, if this Lord of The Flies nonsense is indicative of the level of pitch that you’re green lighting, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that you are reading this) fear not; I have the solution:
MORE SAMPLING!
What this reimagining needs is an injection of contemporary but not current, classic and identifiable but not over exposed characters thrust into this time honored tale of ego, emotion, and masculinity unchecked by the constraints of polite society and the laws of man.
Now, you’re going to have to get all Marvel/Sony with Disney and Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions to make this happen, but it will be worth it to inject the four most bad ass bitches in television history into a Game Of Thrones-like battle for the conch shell …
My money is on Sophia and a poisoned cheesecake.
I’m thinking Helen Mirren as Dorothy, Rhea Perlman as Sophia, Kim Catrall as Blanche and, of course, Betty White as Rose.
Tell me we’re not one Dwayne Johnson cameo away from box office… bronze, probably, if we dump it in a week on which the Russo Brothers or James Gunn haven’t already called dibs.
Blanche has to sleep with someone, his guns may as well be as killer as his Q Score.
Still, with the online hate and dismissiveness that McGehee and Siegel’s idea is already receiving, could any of my suggestions really hurt?
Tony Marion is a writer and filmmaker who splits time between Lancaster, PA and Baltimore, MD. He lives for the work of Descendents (the band), Chuck Palahniuk and Rian Johnson. Check out the digital embodiment of procrastination he calls his website here.