Category Archives: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Listmania ’11! Miscellaneous Movie Observations: Part Four

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Finishing this in February feels so wrong it’s almost right. By now I’ve actually seen movies released in 2012 and I’m still posting about last year (the movies from this year being The Muppets, which the UK got obscenely late, and Chronicle, which is fantastic stuff and well worth a watch). The Oscar nominations have also been announced, with the deeply-average The Descendants and the deeply-awful War Horse getting a few nods while Fassbender, Swinton and Brooks are snubbed. Disgusting. If ever proof was needed that the Academy doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have a whine about that before the award ceremony, so without any further ado, let’s end Listmania! with a bang. The only other posts that have taken me this long were my Lost finale posts, which took three months to write. This only took a month and a half, so I’m getting better at this. If you’re a fan of pointless miscellania, you’ve come to the right place.

Best Movies I Saw In 2010 That Were Released More Generally In 2011: Black Swan, 13 Assassins, Archipelago, Amigo, Meek’s Cutoff, Submarine

Best Scene: Rango walks through the desert during a crisis of confidence (Rango)

Honorable Mentions:

Tom Cruise climbs up the side of the Burj Khalifa (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol)

Matthew Broderick attempts to teach a class of precocious kids about King Lear and it doesn’t go well (Margaret)

Michael Shannon and his family attend a meal with their fellow townsfolk and it doesn’t go well (Take Shelter)

Jung tries to tell his new buddy Freud about synchronicity and it doesn’t go well (A Dangerous Method)

Kristin Wiig gets drunk on a plane and it doesn’t go well (Bridesmaids)

Best Action Scene: Tintin and Captain Haddock chase a hawk through the streets of Bagghar (The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn)

Honorable Mentions:

The final physics-mangling car chase in Rio De Janeiro, including some serious hardcore badassery from The Rock and Vin Diesel (Fast Five)

The longest and most explosives-packed train in the history of the world crashes for a long time (Super 8)

The Revolutionary Army of Apedom makes a break for freedom through San Francisco (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

Alex Pettyfer, Teresa Palmer and a big alien dog wreck a high school using telekinesis and big lasers (I Am Number Four)

Guy Ritchie goes crazy with ramping and cameras attached to people running and all sorts of tricks in a forest (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows)

Best Hero: Caesar – Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Honorable Mentions:

Captain America – Captain America: The First Avenger

Thor – Thor

Moses – Attack The Block

The Driver – Drive

Rango – Rango

Best Villain: Loki – Thor

Honorable Mentions:

Bernie Rose - Drive

Society’s indifferent or vexed reaction to those unfortunate enough to be afflicted with mental illness – Melancholia

The oppressive horror of modern life – Take Shelter

Rattlesnake Jake – Rango

Chris Cleek – The Woman

Best Couple: David Norris and Elise Sellas (Matt Damon and Emily Blunt) – The Adjustment Bureau

Worst Couple: Emma and Adam (Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher) – No Strings Attached

Most Doomed Couple(s) of the Year: Justine and Michael and Claire and John (Kirsten Dunst, Alexander Sarsgaard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Keifer Sutherland) - Melancholia

“I Hope These Guys Make It” Couple Of The Year: Russell and Glen (Tom Cullen and Chris New) – Weekend

“Please Bite Them And Get It Over With, Evil Colin Farrell” Couple of the Year: Charley Brewster and Amy Peterson (Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots) – Fright Night

“Okay, I Really Don’t Think He Should Be Attracting These Improbably Hot High School Hotties In These Movies, What With Looking Like A Surly Child Half The Time” Couple of the Year: Porter and Norah (Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence) – The Beaver

Greatest Disparity In Energy Levels Between Partners of the Year: Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris (Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively) – Green Lantern

Most Improbable Couple of the Year: Ernesto Botta and Laura Aliprandi (Toni Servillo and Sarah Felberbaum) – The Jewel

“Only In The Movies” Adorable and Romantic Couple of the Year: George Valentin and Peppy Miller (Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo) - The Artist

“Only In The Movies” Twee Asshole Couple of the Year: Enoch and Annabel (Henry Hopper and Mia Wasikowska) – Restless

“Rather Raunchy For A PG-13 Movie, Eh What?” Couple of the Year: Ren McCormack and Ariel Moore (Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough) – Footloose

Most Adorable Fuckbuddies of the Year: Dylan Harper and Jamie Rellis (Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis) – Friends With Benefits

Most Inappropriate Couple of the Year: Robert Ledgard and Vera Cruz (Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya) – The Skin I Live In

Worst Love Triangle of the Year: Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black (Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner) – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One for the third year running

Best Love Triangle of the Year: Brian O’Conner, Dominic Toretto and Luke Hobbs (Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson) – Fast Five

Most Satisfying Finale: The Artist

Honorable Mentions:

Attack The Block

Melancholia

Real Steel

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Arriety

Best Finale in a Bad Movie: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Least Satisfying Finale: Green Lantern

Dishonorable Mentions:

The Adjustment Bureau

I Don’t Know How She Does It

Blitz

In Time

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Worst Finale in a Good Movie: Source Code

Badass of the Year: Lisbeth Salander – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Best Double Act: Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Worst Hero: D’Artagnan – The Three Musketeers

Dishonorable Mentions:

Hal Jordan - Green Lantern

Mater – Cars 2

Theseus – Immortals

Joey the Super-Special Horsey – War Horse

Dagny Taggart – Atlas Shrugged: Part I

Worst Villain: Karl Hendricks – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Dishonorable Mentions:

The concept of generosity – Atlas Shrugged Part I

Hector Hammond – Green Lantern

The Red Skull – Captain America: The First Avenger

That sinful sexuality in any form it’s SO SINFUL – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One

Blackbeard – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Most Likeable Cast: Thor

Least Likeable Cast: Blubberella

Most Annoying Character of the Year: Sid – The Descendants

Dishonorable Mentions:

Moberg - The Rum Diary

Kate Reddy – I Don’t Know How She Does It

Dexter – One Day

Sean Cassidy (aka Banshee) – X-Men: First Class

Homer Yannos – Tomorrow, When The War Began

Best Live Action Animal: Uggie The Dog – The Artist

Best Animated Animal: Snowy – The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

Best Trailer: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Honorable Mention: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Best Poster: The Tree of Life

Worst Poster: Hall Pass

Limited Edition Poster I Wish Had Been Used: This superb retro Captain America: The First Avenger poster by Paolo Rivera

Most Profound Poster: Shame

No photo of it will do it justice, but the poster for Shame that we saw outside the London Film Festival screening had a reflective surface, but with the word “Shame” printed at the bottom. Because the movie speaks for all of us who have shame, do you see? Something to think about.

Most Misleading and Tonally Inaccurate Poster: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Nicest Photography In A Headshot Poster: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Most Defiantly Wrongly-Angled-By-90° Poster of the Year: Super 8

Most Fucked-Up / Desperately Controversial Poster of All Time: The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

Most Out-Of-Control Trend In Posters: Character variants (::deep breath:: The Adjustment Bureau; Arthur Christmas; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked; Bridesmaids; Cars 2; Conan the Barbarian; Contagion; Cowboys and Aliens; Crazy, Stupid, Love; Drive; Footloose; Friends With Benefits, Fright Night, Gnomeo and Juliet; The Green Hornet; Green Lantern; Hall Pass, The Hangover Part Two; Happy Feet Two; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two: Hop; Horrible Bosses; Hugo; Immortals; In Time; Johnny English Reborn; Killer Elite; Kill The Irishman; Mars Needs Moms; Margin Call; Martha Marcy May Marlene; Melancholia [!!!!!]; Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol; The Muppets; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; Priest; Puss in Boots; Real Steel; Red State; Rio; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; The Smurfs; Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; Spy Kids 4: All The Time In The World; Straw Dogs; Sucker Punch; Super; 30 Minutes or Less; Thor; The Three Musketeers; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Tower Heist; Transformers: Dark of the Moon; A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas; Warrior; Water For Elephants; Winnie The Pooh; X-Men: First Class; Your Highness; The Zookeeper)

How many of these posters ever make it into cinemas? How many of them convince people to go and see these movies? Do casual cinemagoers see any of these and think, “Well, I wasn’t going to see Green Lantern but now that I know Tomar-Re is in it I’m IN”? Will people really be excited at the array of not-really-that-well-known actresses in the cast of Bridesmaids before they see how funny they all are (scroll down for the full selection)? Do we really need 31 posters for The Three Musketeers? Do we need more than one poster for Melancholia? It’s not harming anyone, obviously, but it still seems like a waste of resources. If anyone can explain why we need so many variants, please let me know.

Best Publicity Campaign: Paranormal Activity 3

Usually SoC likes to praise a publicity campaign that successfully promotes a tough sell, but this year I have to give huge props to the makers of Paranormal Activity 3 for doing something that should’ve been done a long time ago. However, to do that I have to spoil, so please consider all of the text between these two scary-as-fuck trailers a huge spoiler for PA3‘s best trick.

I won’t lie. That first trailer for this franchise scared the absolute shit out of me when I first saw it, and it deserves some credit for making even this cynic forget about the overwhelming familiarity of the Paranormal Activity template and vow to see the third one as soon as it came out. In that sense, job done. However, what’s really great is that that scene doesn’t happen in the movie, and neither do almost all of the biggest shock moments in the trailer below.

Seeing that at home and getting annoyed at all of the spoilers is one thing; I switched it off halfway through as I was horrified at the amount of spoilage. But if you’re in a cinema and can’t escape, you’re going to absorb all of that information, and more than likely you’re still going to see it (because these movies make money hand-over-fist without even breaking a sweat). And yet all of that stuff you’re expecting won’t happen. Instead you’ll get a bunch of other scary stuff. And even better? You still got scared by those trailers, as if you’re watching a very very short horror movie for free. I’ve waited for a long time to see this done so well. The movie was okay too. That’s a bingo, I reckon.

Worst Publicity Campaign: X-Men: First Class / Green Lantern

Nerds are hard to please; I know because I am one. Thor and Captain America did a mostly good job of introducing two less well-known characters, with the non-mainstream Thor making $450m worldwide and the super-patriotic Cap overcoming some of the anti-American prejudice that could’ve prevented it making any money at all ($370m’s okay. Green Lantern wishes it made that much). If they’re an example of how to do it right, the other two big superhero releases of the year show how to do it wrong, thus squandering all of the nerd energy they needed to stay alive.

Each campaign commits a different crime that has the same result; underwhelming box office. X-Men: First Class‘ promotional crime was to destroy a lot of good will towards a franchise that desperately needed it, even more than the previous X-Men movie did. Wolverine should have killed X-Men dead but Fox wasn’t going to let the franchise go to waste when it could release yet another movie and maybe resurrect it for another few sequels. A lot of good decisions were made regarding casting and crew choices, but all of that was hobbled by some terrible promotional errors.

One was to have the only convention appearance take place at the inaugural London Comic-Con, with an appearance by co-writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz. Other than that, the production and release schedule meant they unfortunately missed out on those opportunities, and had to rely on trailers and posters. While all of the trailers are good enough, if a little calm, the first leaked picture of the cast was a disaster. Even worse were the posters: the ones above were two separate teasers, with little heads gestating inside shadowmen; the one below is an advert for X-Men-themed bobbleheads. I can’t understand why someone would sign off on it.

Only one of the posters was any good, but if you look at the bottom of the page you’ll see even more awful examples, including some shocking Japanese ones. XM:FC was considered enough of a success to warrant a sequel (it made less than Cap and cost a bit more, but it’s not a dramatic difference), but that success was only because of the (bafflingly) good reviews and the fact that it had the weekend to itself. Though it’s not a representative sample, there were a number of X-Men fans of my acquaintance who were burned out on the franchise after Wolverine and even the raves for this couldn’t persuade them. Who knows what that opening weekend would have looked like if Fox had done a better job of getting my nerd brethren off their sofas?

Warner Bros., on the other hand, couldn’t do anything to get anyone into the cinema to see Green Lantern. I only went because I try to see as many films as possible, and we’re talking about my favourite superhero of all time here. To be fair to the folks responsible for promoting GL, they were dealing with a (relatively) obscure character with a mythology that’s hard to explain in posters and short trailers, plus it was saddled with a cast and team of writers that didn’t excite the fans either, so they were trying to ice-skate uphill from the start. The posters were okay, I guess. They were nice and colourful enough, though that fucking stupid mask really doesn’t help.

The mainstream audience doesn’t love Ryan Reynolds or Blake Lively enough to take a risk on a movie that looks like the adventures of a rubber-bodied space man versus a creature made of sentient dreadlocks, but readers of the comic weren’t likely to show up either. Most of the initial reports on the movie made it seem like the filmmakers were trying to be loyal to the comics while getting the tone entirely wrong. There was also barely any sight of Oa or the Corps early on (most likely because the FX weren’t finished), so the fans felt even more nonplussed. When footage was released at Wondercon the fans justifiably went nuts. Sadly, that was almost all of Oa / Corps footage that appeared in the finished movie. WB shot their wad in desperation. The movie opened to at best, indifference; at worst, derision. Was that the fault of the promotional campaign? Well, it certainly didn’t help.

Best Hair: The assorted period-appropriate ‘dos in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Worst Hair: Daniel Craig – The latter half of Dream House

Most Appropriate Hair For A Cancer Patient: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s unnerving shaved head – 50/50

Least Appropriate Hair For A Cancer Patient: Mia Wazikowska’s tasteful pixie-cut – Restless

Best Facial Hair: Dominic Purcell - Killer Elite

Worst Facial Hair: Clive Owen - Killer Elite

Scariest Hair/Make-Up Combo: Tom Hanks - Larry Crowne

Best Wig (Actor): Nicolas Cage – Season of the Witch (possibly borrowed from the set of last year’s winner The Sorceror’s Apprentice)

Best Wig (Actress): Emily Browning – Sucker Punch

Worst Wig (Actor): Logan Lerman - The Three Musketeers (actually they were glued-in extensions but you get my point)

Worst Wig (Actress): Cate Blanchett – Hanna

Wig I’m On The Fence About: Justin Theroux – Your Highness

Best Hats: The Adjustment Bureau

Honorable Mention: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Best Dressed Chap in Sweden: Daniel Craig – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Worst Casting: Sensible Reese Witherspoon as a PG-13-raunchy and unpredictable acrobat in Water For Elephants

Most Scatological Movie of the Year: Spy Kids 4D: All The Time In The World

I’m kinda glad I didn’t see this at the cinema with the Smell-O-Vision scratch card; if the middle section of this movie is anything to go by, I’d just be sniffing a piece of cardboard soaked in Essence of Fart. But I’ll be honest; the cavalcade of poop, barf and fart jokes made me laugh more often than most adult comedies released this year. Shame about that incoherent final act, though.

Most Weather: Wuthering Heights

Best Recasting: The mostly awake and reasonably charming Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replacing orange-hued erotic rabbitbot Megan Fox on Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Messiest Eater: Mickey Rourke - Immortals

Most Expressive Fist: Ryan Gosling - Drive

Biggest Build-Up For Least Payoff: The appearance of Kominsky – New Year’s Eve

Midway through Garry Marshall’s fractured compendium of schmaltz, Hilary Swank decides she needs to hire the legendary Kominsky to fix the broken new year ball in Times Square, and this causes a ripple of excitement to run through the extras clumsily assembled around the set. Kominsky, they whisper with amazement, she’s getting Kominsky. There is much fuss, palaver and hullabuloo about the imminent arrival of Kominsky. It’s infectious. This is, after all, a movie that features a dazzling array of cinema legends like Lea Michele and Josh Duhamel, while filling the smaller roles with yer DeNiros and Pfeiffers. So what legend will they get to play Kominsky? Pacino? Cruise? Hanks? No, silly! It’s Hector Elizondo! For fans of Garry Marshall I’m sure this was a big deal. For the rest of us? Even those of us who have nothing against Hector Elizondo? Not so much.

Most Admirable Commitment To Onscreen Skeeviness: Ben Foster (duplicitous assassin in The Mechanic, wheelchair-bound substance-abusing snitch in Rampart, convicted sex offender and possible murderer in 360)

Most Convincing Lust Object of the Year: Michael Fassbender – Shame (And also X-Men: First Class, A Dangerous Method and Jane Eyre)

Honorable Mention: Hayley Atwell – Captain America: The First Avenger

Least Convincing Lust Object of the Year: January Jones – X-Men: First Class

Dishonorable Mention: Ryan Reynolds - The Change-Up

Most Obscenely, Depressingly Beautiful Cast: Immortals

Ugliest Contact Lenses: The Rum Diary

Honorary Manuela Velasco Award for Services to Scream-Queen Culture: Florencia Colucci - The Silent House

Most Depressing Mise-en-Scène: Tyrannosaur

Honorable Mention: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Use Of Split Screen: The Green Hornet

Worst Use Of Split Screen: 360

Most Depressing Depiction of a Sexually Aggressive Woman: Jennifer Aniston – Horrible Bosses

Dishonorable Mention: Marisa Tomei – Crazy, Stupid, Love

Cheapest But Most Effective Device In A Horror Film: The swiveling camera in Paranormal Activity 3

It’s just a camera on the bottom half of an oscillating fan, but that simple trick, with the camera panning back and forth very slowly, amps up the tension more than any expensive CGI trick. Kudos to Henry Joost, Ariel Shulman and Christopher Landon for coming up with it.

Worst Product Placement: New Year’s Eve, because nothing says New Year’s celebrations like those joy-embodying products from Toshiba, Phillips and Nivea.

Worst Manners: Jason Statham – Blitz

Weirdest Impersonation of What Sounds A Bit Like Ray Winstone: Mel Gibson – The Beaver

Weirdest Impersonation Of What Sounds Like Jennifer Jason Leigh In The Hudsucker Proxy: Andrea Riseborough – W.E.

Most Logistically Impressive Movie: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Honorable Mention: Battle: Los Angeles

Most Unusual Fighting Implement Wielded by Zoe Saldana In An Otherwise Forgettable Luc Besson/Robert Mark Kamen C-Movie Actioner: A toothbrush (Columbiana)

Best Location Shooting: The Descendants (Hawaii)

Honorable Mentions:

Blitz (London)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Chicago and many other parts of America)

A Dangerous Method (Germany, Austria)

Wuthering Heights (Yorkshire)

Thor (Asgard)

Worst Cinematic Trend of 2011: Underwhelming third acts – Insidious, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, The Ides of March, Hugo, The Silent House, The Eagle, Dendera, Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, Warrior, Paul, Cowboys and Aliens, The Adjustment Bureau, The Skin I Live In, Source Code, The Descendants, War Horse, Super 8, Drive, In Time, Trespass

Anne Billson wrote this great article on the problem of the bungled third act, and though I enjoyed a couple of her examples, there are a few there that cannot be argued with. Too many movies this year fell apart in the last 20-30 minutes, sometimes so badly that the rest of the movie was irreparably damaged. I’m not sure what the reason for this is, other than that too often films aren’t rewritten often enough before reaching the set, but whatever it is, three-quarters of each of the films above were reasonably-good-to-great, and that’s a very frustrating fraction.

Most Publicity Pictures of a Director: Paddy Considine – Tyrannosaur

Last year (scroll down to the bottom) I noticed the IMDb page for Biutiful‘s images featured a lot of shots of Iñárritu (aka The Director Formerly Known As Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu), most of them featuring him pointing and looking very thoughtful on set. It struck me that he was going for the title of Most Pictures Of A Director Pointing And Looking Very Thoughtful on IMDb, a title currently held by Michael Bay. And yet this year there’s a new potential winner in the shape of Paddy Considine, with four pictures on IMDb, more than co-star Eddie Marsan (he gets one), and as many as Olivia Colman. Bear in mind, Considine’s not even in the movie.

Even more shocking, Bay only has three on-set photos from Transformers: Dark of the Moon on IMDb this year, the other 600 pictures being 67% shots of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley getting out of cars, and 33% images of smoking rubble. Considine even manages two more shots of himself than Bay got on his debut movie Bad Boys, though none of the shots of Considine are as moving as this ferociously erotic pic of Bay’s torso. So this race to the bottom of the ego continues, but with a new contender around, THIS SHIT OFFICIALLY JUST GOT REALER.

And with that, I’m finally done. Thanks to all who have contacted me about this epic series of posts, and to everyone who has made their way through this mass of opinion and bad jokes, I doff my cap, and say, until next time. ::theme tune plays me out:: ::collapses::

Listmania ’11! Miscellaneous Movie Observations: Part One

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Here’s my hasty explanation for this gargantuan post: I had originally meant to write quick capsule reviews of a few films that stood out this year, but the words, the words they kept coming, you see, and I couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard I tried. This is why I should blog more often. It’s a boil I should lance, a radiator I should bleed, but instead I just save it all up for the end of the year like an idiot who doesn’t understand his audience. I’m so sorry for using up all of the words. I had to, though, because these two movies prompted a lot of pondering, for good reasons and really really really bad ones. As a result, this part of Listmania, which has been a two-parter in years past, will now be a three-parter. Blame Rod Lurie.

Best Remake: Footloose

It was sad to see Craig Brewer’s Twitter timeline in the weeks before his remake of Footloose was released. For the majority of that period, he just retweeted people aiming baffling levels of rage at him for daring to remake what must, if they were to be believed, have been a modern classic of American cinema on a par with The Godfather and The Last Picture Show. “Another remake?” they asked en masse. “Hollywood has run out of ideas. Fuck this movie.” And yet Mr. Brewer continued to RT these negative opinions, interspersing them with the one or two tweets of praise from folks who saw preview screenings and enjoyed his work.

At this point I still hadn’t seen all of Footloose, but I knew that Chris Penn danced in it, Kevin Bacon looked like a 40-year old high school student, and the final scene in which the teenagers of Bomont danced at their prom was bafflingly directed by Herbert Ross so that you could barely see what was going on. I probably wouldn’t have ever watched it if it wasn’t for a strange confluence of events; namely the presence of Craig Brewer as director and co-writer (SoC is a fan of Mr. Brewer’s previous movies and TV work), and Daisyhellcakes’ enthusiasm for dancing.

The return of So You Think You Can Dance (US, not the miserable UK version) is a cause for celebration in one half of this household, but I’ve started to be pulled into watching it due to the obvious expertise of the contestants and the fair-minded assessments of the judging panel; a rarity in most reality TV, which has less interest in actual talent and a greater focus on spectacle and entertainment. Also a key factor were numerous rewatches of Step Up 3; 25th on last year’s Listmania: Worst Films list and yet I’ve seen it more times than about 90% of the Best Films entries.

So I watched the original Footloose as preparation, and was mostly unimpressed. The cast were game, with special mention to Penn, Dianne Wiest and the simply amazing John Lithgow, but it was flabbily-paced, and the relationship between Lithgow’s preacher and his daughter (Lori Singer) was overblown, not helped by the gulf in acting ability between the two of them. If it wasn’t for the wonderfully empathic work of Lithgow — who often seems to have wandered in from a different, better movie — I don’t think it would have any spark at all, and would only be remembered for the kitsch elements.

Thankfully Brewer gets that. Ross’ movie could have done with some subtlety, as shown by this far superior remake, which manages to amp up the energy of the original while dialling back the melodrama. A lot of its success is down to Brewer’s feel for Southern life, as shown in Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan. A New Yorker like Ross would never really be able to understand that kind of life in the bone-deep way that Brewer does, though he makes a good fist of it. Footloose ’11 feels more honest and raw even while it has a glossier sheen, thanks to the vibrant photography of Amelia Vincent.

Brewer’s movie is also raunchier, but then what do you expect from the man who filmed this brazenly filthy musical moment? The preacher character in both versions wants drinking and dancing and general carousing banned in Bomont in order to prevent another tragedy like the car crash that killed his son, but the dancing ban also “prevents” the sexualisation of teenagers so feared by parents. However, in Ross’ version the dancing is so tame and sexless that it makes the argument completely one-sided. When you see nerds frugging ineptly (though admittedly realistically) the message from Rev. Shaw Moore seems out-of-place. When you see Kenny Wormald bumping up against Julianne Hough in the remake, you know Moore is onto something, and that makes the fight to rescind the dancing ban more interesting, and the eventual victory fully earned.

It’s not Brewer trying to amp up the sexuality of the original in order to appeal to a modern palate, though. He gets what made the original work, and keeps those shining moments while fixing the stuff that misfired. In Footloose ’84 Ren (Bacon) relocates with his mother to Bomont to live with his aunt and uncle, who don’t really understand him or treat him well. Brewer changes this subtly; Ren is orphaned after his single mother dies, and finds a happier home with aunt and uncle (a Deadwood reunion for Kim Dickens and Ray McKinnon). Lessening the familial drama here paradoxically makes the rest of the drama work better. The effect of Ren’s rebellion on his now-sympathetic relatives — who find themselves treated as complicit in his campaign — heightens the stakes.

It also serves to create a connection between Ren and Rev. Moore, who have both suffered bereavement. One of the best things about Ross’ movie — and Lithgow’s performance — is that the conflict between the two main characters is so low-key, and the same thing happens here, but this little enhancement by Brewer really makes that muted antagonism, which morphs into respect, so much more affecting. It also makes up for the less compelling performance from Dennis Quaid. No knock on the guy; he’s very good here, and it’s great to see him cast in a real movie instead of guff like Legion and G.I. Joe, but he’s following in some pretty big footsteps.

One dramatic change in the remake paid unexpected dividends that I didn’t fully realise when I first saw it. Footloose ’84 features a scene in which Moore finds out the principal of the local school is burning books that he feels have a corruptive influence. This comes just as his daughter Ariel’s rejection of him reaches its sad zenith. Realising his attempts to protect the children of Bomont have gone too far, Moore’s enthusiasm for his ban is dented, and though Ren’s campaign to change the law’s of Bomont fails, the reverend “blesses” the prom and its dancing.

In the remake the book-burning is removed, and it’s more clearly shown that Moore’s endorsement of the prom is a sign of his recovery from his grief — a moment that is enhanced by Brewer’s choice to show the crash that inspires the ban. Moore’s sadness is a big element of the original, but the catharsis of his final speech doesn’t hit as hard when diluted by the bookburning. Though an atheist such as myself might appreciate a popular movie depicting a rejection of fundamentalism by a moderate preacher, this change is definitely for the best, narratively speaking. Moore grows past his loss, and his acceptance of Ariel is more meaningful.

I could go on listing all of the things Brewer does right. It’s easier just to say this; remakes don’t have to be cynical cash-ins. With the right filmmaker onboard, you can turn something familiar and underpowered into something fresh, something relevant, something that purrs like an engine. By tinkering with the plot, giving the story more focus, adding elements such as the different racial make-up of the new town — thus adding a new source of tension without distorting or overwhelming the plot — and polishing everything else until it really shines, you have a remake that renders the original surplus to requirements.

The leads are terrific, the dancing is thrilling, the music is eclectic but apt, and the cast is filled with dependable character actors and soon-to-be-stars — here I’m thinking of Miles Teller, who takes over from Chris Penn and delivers one of the year’s most entertaining performances. Footloose ’11 seemed to be ignored by most filmgoers, which is a crying shame. Even if you think a remake is an insult to the original, it’s worth giving this hugely entertaining crowdpleaser a try. It’s the definitive Footloose. Sorry, Kevin Bacon.

Worst Remake: Straw Dogs

Sam Peckinpah’s controversial thriller exploring the curse of masculine urges and the darkest consequences of territoriality might be the most profound and disturbing film of his short career. A very recent rewatch confirmed my feelings from my first experience of it, that it gets at the worst things about being a man in a patriarchal society; the relentless one-upmanship, the victimisation and dismissal of women and distrust of femininity in general, the malevolent urge to escalate conflict.

Straw Dogs is one of the very few movies that honestly portrays the cruel consequences of machismo, that distortion of masculine energy that ruins everything, turning normal people into psychopaths. Peckinpah was obviously troubled by his own impulses, if the excellent biography by ST:DS9 / Battlestar Galactica writer David Weddle is anything to go by. Straw Dogs was his best attempt at working through his heart of darkness, and spoke to me more about the effect of Alpha males on their fellow men more than any other work, except maybe Fight Club or A History of Violence.

I feared Rod Lurie’s remake would break completely that, but he keeps more of Peckinpah’s clever original than I thought he would. Co-protagonist David still exercises with an “effeminate” skipping rope, his relationship with wife Amy is still fractious (though less so, and with less childish acting-out by Amy), and the politics of small-town life is still dramatised well. However its the incomplete aping of Peckinpah’s original that sinks the remake as much as the differences, betraying that personal vision and eventually turning it into what the original version was described as by many critics; a celebration of violence as a way to resolve conflict.

Lurie’s version keeps the idea of the wimpy intellectual coming into conflict with the macho Alpha males of a new town, but transposes this to the US, meaning this David (played by SoC favourite James Marsden, and hereby referred to as MarsDavid) is still aware of the customs of the Southern town his wife comes from. The original David (played by Dustin Hoffman; let’s call him DustDavid) is a total stranger in a strange land, which contributes to his unease. MarsDavid doesn’t feel the same disconnect; the strife between a city boy and a country dweller in the modern US doesn’t have the same oomph as DustDavid being in a land as alien to an American as Cornwall in the 70s.

MarsDavid and his wife Amy (Kate Bosworth; BosAmy) are depicted as being in love, with tensions between them growing as the movie progresses. DustDavid and Amy (Susan George; GeorgeAmy) are almost immediately at odds with each other, passive-aggressively sniping at each other in scenes that are sometimes taken word for word from Peckinpah’s movie but with the tetchy subtext removed. That snippiness in Peckinpah’s original is necessary to power GeorgeAmy’s attraction to her former lover Charlie. She’s still drawn to the man even though she loves DustDavid, and her feelings only strengthen as her relationship with DustDavid deteriorates.

This leads to the controversial rape scene, where she is seen to be torn between understandable horror and unexpected acceptance of the act. Charlie is, of course, 100% in the wrong, and it’s obvious that GeorgeAmy is upset by the event, but she is conflicted due to her feelings about the man. It’s a difficult scene to watch, and even more difficult (if not impossible) to defend, but at least in this dreadful moment there is something going on in her head. I’m not sure it counts as agency, but she’s more than a victim, is a complicated human being, until Charlie’s friend Norman appears and takes the scene into even darker territory, which also serves to alter the relationship between the two guilty men.

In the remake, we see BosAmy rejecting Charlie from the very beginning. She doesn’t warm to him at all, which means the fracturing of her relationship with MarsDavid serves no real purpose. When the rape happens it looks as if there will be no ambiguity there, that she is utterly opposed to the violent act, but then Charlie — here depicted as a shirtless buff hottie, bringing new variables about objectification into the equation — asks if she wants him to stop and she hesitates.

With no real set-up or build to that moment, the effect is to be far more offensive than Peckinpah’s original, if that’s possible. Without the obvious chemistry between the two, and no previous shading to the character, BosAmy’s moment of doubt legitimises the “women secretly want to be raped” argument. I just can’t imagine what Lurie thought he was doing. Did he think this choice made the scene less problematic? He then holds back from depicting the second rape in as graphic a way as Peckinpah did, compounding the problem by leaving us a mental image of the earlier, less violent act. It’s a monstrous miscalculation.

The end of the movie shows where Lurie was probably heading. In Peckinpah’s original, GeorgeAmy is traumatised by this act but never tells DustDavid about it. This means the final siege takes on a different meaning. Charlie, Norman, and the rest of the vile gang accidentally shoot the magistrate of the town before attempting to kill our protagonists to get at simpleton Henry, and DustDavid — who has fled America to avoid having to take a moral stand over the Vietnam war — becomes a killing machine to defend his house.

He’s not defending his wife’s honour, and it has been argued that his motivation in protecting Henry is to provoke his tormentors, allowing him to finally strike back. All he wants to do is kill, and there’s no glory in this, no higher purpose. Peckinpah, through his surrogate David, is expressing his fear of losing control, of becoming a murderous agent. It’s a critique of that male impulse for destruction and dominance; Hoffman plays David as a man who has turned a terrible corner, deriving a ghoulish glee from his actions. This is not a celebration of violence, and those who think it is have missed the point.

Lurie instead escalates the threat to MarsDavid and his home in a much shorter time, removing any hope of debate or escape. The gang become dangerous very quickly, with James Woods’ Coach Hadden intentionally killing the Sheriff in front of MarsDavid. This triggers a descent into violent retribution that’s sudden and borne as much out of necessity as male impulse. It might have worked if Lurie had been as interested as Peckinpah in exploring the subject, but the almost comical framing of MarsDavid — small in the frame with his face surrounded by either male torsos, arms, and groins with phallic beer bottles pointing out — is all we get.

Peckinpah’s film was soaked in machismo and commentary on male insecurities. Almost every shot and line strengthens the feeling that DustDavid feels emasculated by the power of the Alpha males, but Lurie has less time for this, and the finale is thus blunted. Even worse, BosAmy is an active participant in the finale, which turns a treatise on male violence into a mere revenge story. Don’t get me wrong, the sight of Kate Bosworth blasting her assailant with a shotgun has some power, some kind of basic balancing of the narrative scale, but for the first time ever in the history of storytelling, giving the female protagonist more to do makes a story less interesting and more conventional than a story in which the female character is sidelined.

The complexity of GeorgeAmy in the original remains until the end, when she calls out to Charlie and not Dust David for help, and later hesitates before saving DustDavid from a final attack. This can be read a number of different ways. BosAmy is just out to kill her attacker; she (and her husband, who then finds out about the rape) has nothing on her mind except revenge. It pains me to say it as I’m thoroughly sick and tired of seeing female characters shortchanged by not being given enough to do; this is a timely point considering the release of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which regrettably depicts the abhorrent rape of Lisbeth Salander, a character otherwise wonderfully pro-active and dynamic) and Steven Moffat’s recent controversial imagining of the character of Irene Adler in Sherlock.

Peckinpah’s critical examination of the crimes of men is something that has very rarely been done with such anger, and to do that he had to give his female characters less to do or to treat them in a dismissive way that gave him room to make his argument that masculinity is a destructive force. It’s regrettable, but in its most vital moments, Straw Dogs ’71 feels like the raging Tasmanian-Devil-whirl of a man flagellating himself, and a consequence of that raging introspection is that women are sidelined or presented as a baffling threat to his masculinity. We may not like it, and for good reason, but Peckinpah is at least honest enough to present that for us to accept or reject as we see fit. Michael Bay — whose female characters are mere lust objects — would never look into himself long enough to realise that he’s part of the problem.

Lurie’s remake goes in a more conventional direction than Peckinpah’s, diluting that story into little more than another I Spit On Your Grave. I’m glad BosAmy gets to exorcise herself of the trauma she endured, but her cathartic destruction of her assailant is nothing we haven’t seen before, and represents another example of that miserable trope Rape And Revenge, where a woman becomes an agent only once she has been horribly violated. This is something that Drew McWeeny was railing against recently, and prompted a discussion about the overuse of this most awful of plots. It’s as if no one can imagine a woman being prompted to take drastic action unless she’s sexually assaulted first; anything less than that and she’s just being “ambitious” and we don’t like that, eh? ::Insert angry emoticon here::

Lurie has removed enough character detail from Peckinpah’s version to make a hollow facsimile, a rote action movie that sees violence as the answer to our problems, not the cause of our psychic pain. I could accept this as the consequence of hesitancy on his part, but I suspect he doesn’t understand the original, and has no interest in giving the story any dimension other than to provide rousing violent moments for us and the characters and then to cheekily pretend that this has damaged their souls in some way.

There are numerous details in the original that enrich or strengthen Peckinpah’s personal vision; his distrust of women is revealed in the fact that GeorgeAmy buys a man-trap for their home (geddit?), whereas in Lurie’s film the trap — now referred to throughout as a bear-trap — is just sitting around to be used as a mere weapon, stripped of its allegorical weight. He might have removed a clumsy and unpleasant metaphor, but he also loses the point of including the trap in the first place. He’s using the iconography of the first without wanting to bring in any themes that would complicate his vision.

And what about MarsDavid’s vocation? DustDavid is a mathematician, someone who lives in the mind and is thus perceived as feminine by the Alpha males, which obviously bothers him to the point that he happily abandons his anger at them when they suggest they go hunting, as it allows him to feel like part of the pack. MarsDavid is a screenwriter from LA who is writing a movie about the WWII battle in Stalingrad, and who is so repulsed by the pack that he resists the call to hunt until he thinks it will allow him to find out if they killed BosAmy’s cat.

Peckinpah’s David is a man of the mind who cannot resist the pull of macho pursuits; a perfect depiction of the war that raged within the filmmaker. Did Lurie make David a screenwriter as an autobiographical touch? If so then the co-opting of Peckinpah’s (and co-writer David Zelag Goodman’s) dialogue, plotting and imagery is especially cheeky. This is not a personal movie for Lurie. He’s living someone else’s life. Of course it might be that Lurie thought that this was a clever way to set up conflict between MarsDavid and the pack, by modernising the intellectual /macho man divide (because apparently there are no mathematicians any more, only Hollywood writers), which is the generous interpretation.

The less generous interpretation is that he thinks he’s making a movie that satirises the violence in modern movies, like he’s suddenly Michael Haneke. If so, the alterations to Peckinpah’s original are doubly stupid, considering the catharsis of the finale. It’s especially galling as he could have made a timely movie about the Red State / Blue State divide in America, which is alluded to in the movie without ever going too far. All he had to do was make David a screenwriter (or playwright, as Daisyhellcakes cleverly pointed out; that’s perceived as being even less masculine a profession than screenwriter) from New York making a movie about the American Civil War.

Instantly the movie is transformed, but Lurie is obviously not interested in making something that works on a number of levels, as Peckinpah did with a movie that used the Vietnam war and the US protests as basis for so much of his movie’s drama. And this is the most damning thing I can say about this misguided remake; this year Kevin Smith managed to make a movie about the Red State / Blue State divide, but Rod Lurie didn’t. Outdone by Kevin Smith. That’s gotta hurt.

Yet more to come. Not about remakes, though. You can relax.