The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing and early reviews are good for LET ME IN, the remake of Swedish vampire flick LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. The new version stars Kodi Smit-McPhee (Viggo Mortensen‘s son in The Road) and Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass). But honestly, the first one is barely two years old and it’s *so* good that I highly urge all of you to watch it before it gets ‘replaced’. That’s the saddest thing about the remake and reboot craze. You can even see Let the Right One In on Netflix Instant Watch right now. Highly recommended!
As you can tell, I’m not a big fan of remakes. Eventually someone will threaten to remake Lord of the Rings, Mean Girls and Moulin Rouge!, Slumdog Millionaire, Million Dollar Baby and The Devil Wears Prada and every other movie that was widely beloved in the past ten years. I don’t even love all of those movies but all of the inevitable remakes will be unnecessary. On rare occasions a remake will win as much acclaim as the original. Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (2006) a remake of a fine crime drama called Infernal Affairs starring two of Hong Kong’s biggest movie stars Andy Lau (The House of Flying Daggers) and Tony Leung (Hero).
In recent years people have threatened to remake everything from Rosemary’s Baby to Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds and The Manchurian Candidate. Thankfully they haven’t done so … yet. Oh no wait, they DID remake The Manchurian Candidate. But nothing in the 2004 version was half as scary as Angela Lansbury in the original.
† First Clip of Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
† Love and Other Drugs‘ Sexy Poster
† Trailer to Mildred Pierce Starring Kate Winslet
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