Two Geeks Three Cats

Dear Hollywood,

Now you know I don't like to get my feathers all ruffled over rumors, but I heard earlier this week that Spike Lee is in talks to direct a Hollywood remake of Park Chan-wook's legendary revenge drama Oldboy. Now as I'm sure you can imagine, Hollywood, this rumor is eliciting a wide range of responses on the Internet from "Sweet, finally a Hollywood foreign film remake that sounds awesome!" to, "Oh, shit, not again."

Place me firmly in the latter camp. I suffered through years of your remakes of J-horror films, from The Ring to Dark Water, before realizing there wasn't much point in ever watching one of your foreign film remakes again. I didn't bother with Let Me In. Though many of my friends told me I should give you a chance on that one, I just didn't feel any real need to see it. I had the Swedish original, and it was enough for me. I will admit that the trailer for David Fincher's remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looks absolutely epic, but ironically it makes me want to see the original - which I haven't seen yet - not the remake. I am openminded enough to accept the fact that sometimes remakes can be good (especially when Tim Burton is not involved) but I'm sorry, Hollywood, the historical evidence is really stacked against you on this one.

It's not that Oldboy is perfect as it is, even though I believe it is pretty damned close. Park Chan-wook made a film as beautiful to look at as it is horrifying to watch, funny when it can be and brutal when it should be. Choi Min-sik delivers an incredible performance as Oh Dae-su, from his wild-eyed been-in-the-shit PTSD stare to his love for calling people "dickshits". And Yu Ji-tae is creepy and sympathetic at the same time as the film's antagonist. Aside from having figured out the "twist" early on, I really can think of nothing negative to say about the film. And it's arguable that Park's intention was to make the "twist" obvious from the beginning anyway: obvious, that is, to everyone except the main character.

The good news is, none of that stuff that made Park's Oldboy absolutely amazing will go away if you decide to remake it. I'll always have the original.

I'll admit that having Spike Lee on board for this would be a bit of a problem for me. It's not exactly profound to say that Spike Lee's work is divisive. You know, Hollywood, that I've always considered him to be incredibly overrated as a filmmaker. Yes, his films tackle sensitive issues - most commonly racial issues, but let's credit Spike with being attuned to other injustices as well - in a hard-hitting way. But that's the problem. Lee hits too hard. He hits us over the head. His films lack subtlety, and Oldboy demands subtlety. Not to mention that Spike Lee's directorial style (which seems to consist entirely of taking shots from exaggerated angles) is nothing to match against Park Chan-wook's. There's a scene in the original Oldboy that shows Dae-su taking down an entire hallway full of thugs armed with nothing but a hammer. I just don't see that working in a Spike Lee Joint. Let's hope that rumors of his involvement are, at this point, greatly exaggerated.

Even without Spike Lee, it's hard to see what good your American sensibilities could possibly bring to the story. No one does vengeance like South Korean filmmakers: they live it, breathe it. You must know that, or you wouldn't have your eyes on this movie, would you, Hollywood? Park Chan-wook loves revenge stories so much he made a thematic trilogy of them, of which Oldboy is the middle (and the only one that doesn't have the word vengeance in the English title). Trying to beat South Korea at revenge flicks sounds to me as about as intelligent as opening a Starbucks in Italy: you're just not gonna beat these guys at their own game.

So, what exactly is your take on Oldboy going to do that the original doesn't? There are plenty out there who say that when you remake foreign films, Hollywood, you're doing a good thing, by exposing American audiences to stories they wouldn't otherwise see because they "don't watch foreign films". Okay, that's partly bullshit, because anyone who can read a marquee should be able to read subtitles. But I realize that some moviegoers don't go to the theater to (*gasp*) read, and they love that you accept them for who they are. So I acknowledge the fact that remaking foreign films in English can expose a wider audience to the story, if the remake is good. But if the result is something as awful as your remakes of The Grudge and Pulse, aren't we working against this lofty goal by trying to win over American audiences with crap that's not worth their time?

And seriously, let's not kid ourselves about the real motivation here. You and I both know you're not remaking Oldboy because you want to expose American audiences to this story. You're not some cinematic apostle, seeking to educate and enlighten the American moviegoing public by translating this classic into the vernacular. Admit it, Hollywood: you're remaking Oldboy for the same reason you're rebooting every genre franchise and scraping the bottom of the Marvel/DC barrel; for the same reason TV execs are rolling out three new reality shows a week about cake and still more shows about ordinary folks singing and/or dancing: because that's easier than coming up with something new. And you should know how much that offends me, both as a film fan and as a writer.

But deep down, I still love you, Hollywood. We've had some great times together. And I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I really do. I've just been burned so many times, I'm not sure I can trust you anymore. You've got a good heart, Hollywood, but sometimes you get lost. You get lazy. I know there are a lot of demands on you to be rich, powerful, famous, and I know sometimes the easy way out is to rehash something that's already been done; to copy and parrot and distort until all that's left is the shallow hull of an idea that offends as few people as possible and generates modest revenues for a minimal investment. I know you think nobody notices when you take the easy way out, but we do. We notice and we feel sorry for you, Hollywood, because we know you're capable of better. And the only reason you don't realize that yourself is because you haven't been paying attention to the world outside your own window. You haven't noticed that there are so many great original stories out there that haven't seen the light of day. That there are many well-meaning film lovers out there who have good ideas, have stories to tell, and some of which might even be in screenplay format already. If you saw some of these stories, you'd love them, Hollywood, and so would the rest of the world. You just need to look, and listen. You've been listening to the wrong people, Hollywood: people who don't care about you, who only care about your money. Listen to those of us who still love you, who want to make you great again. We still care about what's best for you, and if those other guys walk out on you, we'll still be there. We've got ideas, Hollywood. And many of us will let you have them for cheap.

Seriously. Don't be a dickshit.

Love, Shawn

And no the title does not refer to Sam Worthington (though I suppose it could.)  I admit that I do not like Sam Worthington.  I think he is pretty talentless and not even good looking enough to be eye candy.  I cannot believe he was rumored to be a finalist to play James Bond before Daniel Craig won the role. 

Shawn has already written a rather scathing review of the film, so why am I adding my proverbial $.02?  I loved the original film - lame Perseus, the addition of the Kraken(um that's not Greek) and all.  It made me interested in Greek mythology from a young age.  And Harryhausen's stop-motion effects were glorious.  Sure they may look cheesy to the modern eye, but they were magnificent and scary back in 1981.  But like so many current mainstream films, this was a soulless mess - millions of dollars poured into a film full of lame dialogue, empty machismo, and wooden characters.  Oh and they decided to put it into 3D after it was done.  I saw it in 2D since I had heard that the 3D makes it even worse and I wanted to try to give the film a fair shot . . .

To think that Louis Leterrier and the laundry list of screenwriters stuck with the general story, but then mucked around with the theme is ridiculous.  The new version basically fuses the original story of Perseus with Wagner's Gotterdammerung.  Sure that may sound good in theory, but it really is a mess. There was a lot of criticism over the decision to leave the gods out of the 2004 film Troy.  Anyone who has read the Iliad knows that the gods play a pivotal role in the story.  Clash of the Titans (2010) leaves the gods in, but makes them the antagonists which is a significant change from the original.  Perseus' main purpose is not to rescue Andromeda, but to prove that man > gods.

 One of my favorite things about the original was the petty interactions amongst the gods.  Sure, they all looked a bit long in the tooth - Lawrence Olivier looked more like a renaissance rendering of God than Zeus.  And Ursula Andress' Aphrodite was no longer the hot Honey Ryder from Doctor No, but somehow it worked.  I believed their bickering and favoritism. The new version basically focuses on two gods - Zeus (Liam Neeson) and Hades (Ralph Fiennes).  For some reason, Hades is always hanging out on Olympus and NOT in his OWN realm.  WTF?  They basically made him a Satan/Old Testament God figure with his tricksy nature and punishment of the mortals who do not respect and worship the gods.  I love both of these actors, but I felt like they were just in it for the paycheck - each of them hamming it up in ornate costumes.

Back to the effects.  Sure the new film's effects were good.  They had better be in this day and age.  But let's compare the new version's CGI Medusa with that of Harryhausen.  The Medusa from the original movie may have had some jerky movements which I find it not unlike the freaky movement you often see in Japanese films like Ringu.  While the movement may have looked unnatural, that is part of what made her so scary.  I remember closing my eyes as a child so as not to have to look at her horrifying face.  Compare that to the remake (reimagined?) version's Medusa, who looks flawless, but giggles like a petulant school girl and slithers seamlessly around the set like a young grass snake.  Sure, I don't like snakes much so the very lifelike snakes in her hair kinda bother me, but she was NOT scary at all.  Some may say, "Well duh.  You're also not six years old anymore."  I doubt even a six year old would be scared of the Russian Supermodel version of Medusa.  And in case you were wondering, the motion capture used for Medusa was based on a Russian Supermodel.

There is so much more I could say about this film, but I won't.  I will say that 20 minutes in I thought to myself that this film "needs its nuts cut off" for being so hyper masculine and boneheaded.  And while Avatar was in my opinion one of the worst and overrated films of last year, it was better than this.

There was exactly one thing I liked about the new remake of Clash of the Titans: Gemma Arterton's bare left shoulder.

All right, I'll admit that two other things in the movie were okay, but with qualifications. The boat of Charon, ferryman of the dead across the river Styx, was really spiffy even though it looked like it belonged in a video game. And Ralph Fiennes acted the hell out of a cliché role as Hades, even though fans of the Harry Potter films may find Fiennes' wheezing, icy-eyed villain irritatingly familiar.

That's it. That's all the film has going for it ... with sympathy for Liam Neeson, who delivers his lines as Zeus with the same sad resignation he wore on his face throughout Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, not even wasting the effort to use his considerable talent trying to redeem an underwritten part in an awful script.

Of these few positives in the film, the presence of Gemma Arterton was the only one that kept me from walking out of the theater. (Believe me, I thought about walking out a lot.) Arterton, whose brief turn as Bond girl Strawberry Fields was the best five minutes of 2008's 007 snoozefest Quantum of Solace, did a similar service for Titans, being the only thing on the screen I wanted to look at more than my watch. But don't mistake the object of my praise: Arterton is great, but her character Io – a once-human woman cursed with immortality and bearing no resemblance to the Io of Greek mythology - is one of the bigger problems with Titans. The victory she scores on screen is attributable not to the writers or director, but to some happy accident of Ms. Arterton's apparently superior genetics, which makes her incredibly easy on the eyes. She radiates in every scene, despite the best efforts of the filmmakers to make her not stand out with unbecoming costumes and several terrible hair moments. And this gets at the biggest problem I had with the film.

See, Clash of the Titans doesn't really suck for any of the reasons you may have heard or read. It's not because of Sam Worthington's poor performance, or because there's not enough of Neeson's Zeus or Fiennes' Hades. It's not because they made Pegasus black or because Andromeda – Perseus' love interest in the original film and the myth – is all but written out of the story. It's not because they kept in the worst crimes perpetrated against Greek mythology by the original Titans (Kraken, I'm looking at you) or because they took even more liberties with the source material. Yes, all those things suck, but they aren't why the film sucks. The film sucks because it suffers from an ugly, offensive and childish ideology.

Clash of the Titans takes place in an unrealistic ancient Greece where human beings have chosen to reject their gods in favor of a vague “freedom” that's expressed in overly simplistic terms. In this world, humans – no, men – think themselves above the gods, who need the prayers of men more than men need the blessings of the gods. Did the ancient Greeks ever have any such attitude toward their religion? Of course not, but that's irrelevant. The filmmakers are more interested in telling a story that resonates in locker rooms and playgrounds in the twenty-first century than they are in paying homage to ancient Greek religion and stories.

The result is a bullheaded, macho story that is as blunt as it is stupid. It is a world where Greek heroes wear buzzcuts and ride black horses because it looks more badass than curly locks and gleaming white steeds. It is a world where men vie for penile dominance by pushing each other around – literally – and insulting one another without remorse or humor. And most offensively, it is a world more misogynistic than anything the ancient Greeks left behind ... it does worse than objectify women; it marginalizes them.

This world has no use for women. There are exactly five speaking female roles in the film, and one of them has snakes for hair. With the exception of Arterton's Io, all of them have less than ten minutes on screen. And none of them does anything to move the story, including Io, whose primary purpose is to explain things to Perseus, and the audience, that we need to know. Cassiopeia (played by Caprica ballbuster Polly Walker, but with none of the matronly gusto of Siân Phillips in the original) does not enrage the gods with her pride; the gods were already angry at something her husband did. Andromeda (played by Alexa Davalos) does not win the heart of Perseus and urge him to complete his quest; Perseus does it for his father. Medusa is reduced from the nightmare-inducing monster of the original to a giggling snake-bimbo. And Io, for all her charms, does not belong in this film. She wanders through it, looking nice, yes, but mostly just keeping quiet and staying out of the way of the menfolk who are trying to work ... and the fate she suffers at the end of it might just be the most offensive thing of all.

Beware.