When Vanilla Sky came out I thought it was awesome, very original and it became one of my favourite films.
I just loved the mixture of dark sci-fi, romance and psychological thriller.

Then I saw the Spanish original: Amenabar's Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) and realised that Vanilla Sky was just a copy of this film!!! Cameron Crowe, the director, only added a nostalgic soundtrack and stars!

Don't get me wrong, I still really like Vanilla Sky being a Tom Cruise fan and all but I just don't see the point of copying a film!!!!

Also, if you want to talk about the ending (twist?) go ahead!

Hollywood has another recent thing they've been doing. They remake foreign films into American ones, often very quickly. They did that with "The Vanishing" (even with the same director!) Here, they used the same actress. I seem to be drawing a blank right now, but I know that there's a few more coming this year.

As far as specifically discussing these two films, which I have seen, I'm going to temporarily refrain. There were some changes, especially at the end, but I don't think it's fair to discuss that right now. I'd have to hide everything. I'm just not sure why they thought it would be that interesting to remake it. I don't think they thought it would be a commercial success.

La Femme Nikita/Point of No Return is another one. I remember loving "The Vanishing" and being sooo disappointed by the remake. I don't mind remaking foreign films AS much as I mind remaking classic American films, because there's a good chnce that people have not seen or will not get a chance to see them.

On the other hand maybe the money spent making and promoting a whole new movie could be better spent putting out and promoting the original foreign movie. Especially if the new version isn't going to be as good.

It is cynicism to suggest that studio executives don't believe the American movie viewing public is willing to sit thru subtitles, but true.

Or that same audience is so complacent that any American release is preferable to anything foreign, is also equally true.

And since wide release has come to be the dominant marketing strategy for much of the industry, is proof that these executives could care less whatever we thought.

To wit Vanishing, Vanilla Sky, Point of No return, Ring.

Or at home, as knuckleheaded as Van Sant's Psycho.

Or Payback for Boorman's Point Blank. Gibson's Ransom to Glenn Ford's. Against All Odds for Out of the Past (painful).

But not to generalize:

Our Lady of the Assassin is excellent, better than Visconti's Death in Venice (after Thomas Mann).

The Country Life is as faithful a reading of Chekhov as you're likely to get.

Also, I believe that the Americans are planning to remake the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, with Scorsese probably directing.

There will be an American remake of the excellent Japanese horror film Dark Water.

I don't mind remakes, as long as they are improvements on the originals or reinventions of the originals.

I just don't see the point in almost copying the same film!!!

What's the premise of Infernal Affairs? Is it crime/Yakuza?

And Dark Water? What's the idea there and who's directing?

Infernal Affairs is a film about 2 guys: a cop (detective) and a guy from the Yakuza who are both moles in each others sides! Both of them start to be aware of each other and that's when the fun starts!

As for Dark Water, simple story, a woman and her little girl go to live in a new apartment at the top of a tall building but turns out the ghost of a little girl is roaming around the elevator and the corridors! It doesn't sound like much but it is really creepy and scary. It's from the same guy who did the Ring.
the remake will be directed by Walter Salles,for more info go to:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382628/

Cool,

Will check out both originals if I can. I would imagine the remake of the crime drama, especially w/Scorsese will have a dark edge to it.

The ghost story, on the other hand, may not translate across the cultural divide. I'm not convinced the American remake of Ringu made it intact, some of the fear/occult elements seem to have an odd disconnect.

quote:

---

As for Dark Water, simple story, a woman and her little girl go to live in a new apartment at the top of a tall building but turns out the ghost of a little girl is roaming around the elevator and the corridors! It doesn't sound like much but it is really creepy and scary. It's from the same guy who did the Ring.

---

Oh ... I think I've seen a preview for this ... was it the original version that I saw a preview for, or the remake? In other words, has the remake already been done? I belive I saw it before The Corporation. It definitely had Japanese actors, although I can't remember if there were subtitles and it looked really interesting to me ...

I have seen both Ringu and the Ring and enjoyed both. I saw The Ring first, and wonder how my perceptions of both would have changed if I had seen them the other way around.

Well KT,

I think they just finished the remake of Dark Water so I think you may have seen the trailer for the original. The atmosphere of the film, just like in Ringu, gets creepier and creepier and at the end all the scary moments come one after the other. The ending is a bit more satisfying, I thought, than the one in Ringu.

The Ring and Ringu are equally good but I thing that even though The Ring is much more stylish, Ringu is a bit creepier. Also, There has Been a Japanese sequel to Ringu and it was really great, scarier than the original, you have to see it!!!

But lets go back to talking about Vanilla Sky because the conversation has gone another way!!!

What do you think the ending means? Anyone?
Did Sofia (Cruz) freeze herself too for 150 years? Was it all just a dream?

I loved ".....sky", against some heavy opposition, and the reason that it hit me so much was seeing Tom Cruise transformed from the mattinee idol he is to.....

From what I heard, Cruise himself wanted to remake/copy this film into English, and Cameron Crowe agreed to keep it as close to the original as possable. I wonder how much all this had to do with Cruises attraction to Cruz?

As for the ending, he reprogrammed his "dream", but in order to do this, he had to kill himself out of his existing dream, by the classic "waking up from falling" dream. Or was it all just a dream. Thats the point. What is reality after all, but, as Poe would say "...a dream within a dream"?

When illusion spin it's net,
I'm never where I wanna be.
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free.
Watched by empty sillouettes
Who close thier eyes yet still can see.
No one taught them ettiquete,
I will show another me.
Today I don't need a replacement.
I'll show them what that smile on my face meant.
My hearts going BOOM BOOM BOOM
Hey! I said
"You can keep my things
They've come to take me home".

Solsbury Hill
Peter Gabriel