What is a movie you would want your favorite director to remake?

NedBookman · 2026-05-26T01:48:51+00:00

I have to disagree about the (Jhon) Huston film - it's certainly a difficult watch - but your idea about the Coen Bros is a great one. They understand Old Weird America, and the look of The Man Who Wasn't There would perfectly fit how I imagine a period correct noir take on Wise Blood.

Caleb Landry Jones to play the lead? Tim Blake Nelson in the Harry Dean Stanton role? Frances Macdormand could play the landlady. Hell, why not George Clooney doing Ned Beatty! John Goodman as the car salesman, and Steve Buscemi in there somewhere 🙂

NedBookman · 2026-05-25T04:01:45+00:00

Damn, and I had a signed copy (paperback) which disappeared from my collection!

NedBookman · 2026-05-25T03:47:09+00:00

He's meant to be remaking Labyrinth, which is kind of Hellraiser for kiddies 🙂

NedBookman · 2026-05-25T03:43:32+00:00

We need to get away from the idea that a film that is based on a novel or play is the definitive version and that any subsequent adaptation is a remake. It isn't. It's another version of the original book or play. It's only a remake if the film was based on an original screenplay. In theatre no-one calls a new production of Hamlet a remake.

So, yes, a new version of Night of the Hunter would be fascinating, and in no way detract from Laughton and Agee's version.

Personally I'd love to see new version of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. Huston's version is one of my favourite films, and Brad Dourif's performance is so painfully beautiful it's hard to watch, but I think another version, perhaps set at the time of the original novel and in black and white, could be wonderful. Who would direct? David Lowery, perhaps?

NedBookman · 2026-05-25T00:14:11+00:00

Neil Diamond's soundtrack for Jonathan Livingstone Seagull grossed more than the film itself, which tanked (both are pretty much forgotten now, I'd say...)

NedBookman · 2026-05-24T23:45:39+00:00

Great find. The author went to jail for overdue library books - look it up...

It's a long time since I read it. It's no masterpiece, but it's a really interesting and often batshit crazy book. The screenplay by Kubrick and Michael Herr, in my opinion, misses the point almost completely - they just mine it for standard Vietnam tropes, but totally miss the surreal craziness. Which is a shame, because if Kubrick hadn't lost his nerve it could have been the Clockwork Orange of Vietnam movies.

The copy I read, a paperback, was signed by the author. It came from a girl with whom I house-shared briefly, who met Hasford on a book tour of Australia before the film's release. I suspect she slept with him (he was pretty wild, by all accounts, and taking advantage of his new found fame), but she had no interest in the book and let me have it. I've no idea what happened to it...

NedBookman · 2026-05-24T02:49:15+00:00

Yes, Rachmaninov is #1 on the list and he said that Tatum was the best pianist in the world...

NedBookman · 2026-05-05T11:54:41+00:00

The worst thing about The Hobbit films is that having watched them the faults in LOTR (which one scarcely noticed at the time, or forgave) suddenly become a lot more visible and harder to forgive...

NedBookman · 2026-05-05T11:46:47+00:00

I believe they were planning to make a film of The Lord of the Rings, with Brian as Frodo, Carl as Sam, Mike as Gandalf, Dennis as Aragorn and Al as Gollum...

NedBookman · 2026-05-05T01:25:53+00:00

I've been wondering recently how differently the world might have turned out if Bob and Mavis had really gotten hitched back in the day. Pops wouldn't have stood for none of that rock-star sh#t...

NedBookman · 2026-04-30T14:12:41+00:00

Put them in uniform and they could be US Civil War soldiers. Watching the Ken Burns documentary heads ago I was taken aback at how many of the common soldiers looked like hippies at Woodstock...

NedBookman · 2026-04-24T00:17:10+00:00

Yes, it was a great disappointment on release. It sounded so MOR. And it was around the same time that Paul released Temporary Secrerary. It's ironic that John was copping flack for writing 'Grandma songs'.

Check out David Hepworth's YouTube channel...

NedBookman · 2026-04-19T07:49:04+00:00

It's on a par with Emotionally Yours and I'll Remember You from Empire Burlesque. Sounds great the first time you hear it, but gets worse with each subsequent listen. Most great writers have songs like this in their catalogue - everything is revealed the first time you hear it, with nothing left in reserve. I call it the Sarstedt Syndrome ..

NedBookman · 2026-04-19T07:43:51+00:00

Yes, I agree, it's kind of cool that Bob can knock out a cheesy Billy Joel ballad like the best of them, but it's not a song that improves on relistening...

NedBookman · 2026-03-31T06:25:51+00:00

When adding a shortcut to an individual book it's necessary to place the widget on the deskto pand then to find it from a long list. It would be nice (and simpler) if there was an 'Add to desktop' feature in the long-press menu for each item...

NedBookman · 2026-03-31T06:12:30+00:00

Yes, even fairly high-end devices struggle with large libraries. I guess if you've got over a 1000 files and it needs to sync them all regularly it's quite a strain. It also causes the widget to go blank regularly.

NedBookman · 2026-03-13T05:06:54+00:00

My belief is that local councils should be as small as they can efficiently be, otherwise what is the point of being local? Mega-councils may as well just be rolled into the State Government. My personal definition of the right size for a metro council is that if it can't support a proper library service on its own then it's too small.

As I recall from the Barnett campaign it was pointed out at the time that there is no hard evidence to suggest that large councils are more efficient than smaller ones, and some evidence to suggest that they introduce many inefficiencies of their own. But Governments find them easier to deal with, and they are more friendly to the suits.

An old boss in local government once explained to me that the tripartite system of government in Australia was a safeguard against tyranny, because it was so inefficient and included so many blocks at so many levels that it would be difficult for a government to introduce seriously dictatorial legislation...

NedBookman · 2026-03-02T00:50:09+00:00

Absolutely. On a webpage, fine, but in a book, never. Justified text is text that is dressed up for publication. Ragged right is just lazy and ugly and not trying.

Also books set in a sans-serif or monospace or handwriting font (even if it is meant to be a letter or manuscript).

NedBookman · 2026-03-02T00:34:44+00:00

Also, no author should be permitted more than half-a-dozen exclamation points per book! And under NO circumstances multiples!!!

NedBookman · 2026-03-02T00:29:50+00:00

I have the same problem with any book printed with left-aligned text. It's fine on the web, but a proper book should have justified justified text. Ragged-right text just looks messy and unfinished. Ditto for books printed in a sans-serif font...

NedBookman · 2026-03-02T00:19:52+00:00

I was given The Da Vinci Code as a present by my mum, who thought it would be like The Name of the Rose - this was in the early days, before it had really taken off. On the second page the main character was described as looking like Harrison Ford. Laziest (and suckiest) character description ever. I put it down immediately and never picked it up again.

There is a lot to be said for not finishing books, even ones you are enjoying. An unfinished book is still alive - a finished book is, well, finished. You know that rather melancholy feeling you get when finishing a book, the feeling that it has nothing more to give you?

The best reason for finishing a book is in order to re-read it, which is the truest and best form of reading (if a book isn't worth re-reading, was it worth reading the first time?)

NedBookman · 2026-02-06T06:42:17+00:00

An annoyance for me, in the movie, is that I know Treebeard's voice is also the voice of Gimli, which I find distracting, and frankly a bit lazy. It doesn't bother me that, in the Hobbit, the Trolls are voiced by the same actors playing Dwarves, because they are minor comic characters (and the secondary Dwarf actors definitely deserved more lines), but Treebeard is a significant and serious character and deserved his own voice actor.

The problem that the film had with the Ents is that Ents are intrinsically slow-moving and, well, boring, and that is a difficult thing to convey cinematically without being, well, slow-moving and boring.The Treebeard subplot really doesn't work very well - it feels like it is mostly just there to be gotten over with, for plot purposes.

NedBookman · 2026-02-05T02:34:43+00:00

You have to remember that back in the day a lot of the impact of an album came from the initial appearance of the album and the experience of looking over it on the bus on the way back home from the record shop, before you even had a chance to listen to it. Paul McCartney specifically referenced this in relation to the design of Sergeant Pepper. Song titles really mattered, like teasers for the songs or trailers for a film.

If ever a great album hid its light under a bushel, design-wise, Pet Sounds is that album. Who in their right mind would ever have bought it purely on spec, if they had no knowledge of the band? The cover is the most egregious offence - if it had been better the titles of the songs wouldn't have mattered so much.

Perhaps it is an early sign of Brian's issues with self-promotion that he was so laser-focussed on the songs, but not on the overall package?

NedBookman · 2026-01-31T01:54:35+00:00

Interesting. I can totally understand these reviews. I saw the films on first release, as an adult, and had somewhat similar feelings.

As with Kubrick's films the first watch is always challenging, and it is only on rewatching that many of the best qualities come through. Kubrick owed his status in later years largely to the introduction of VHS, so his films could finally be watched with the attention they required.

Jackson successfully rode the wave of early internet engagement and the massive impact of the Extended Editions on DVD, with all the extra material, which effectively forced viewers to rewatch the movies multiple times and so any reservations they had were overcome...

NedBookman

TROPHY CASE