So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[vitanola]

"The (insert classic film title) for a new generation!"

Somehow I cannot quite imagine "The Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition for a new generation!!"

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cronenberg's "The Fly" was a far better film than the 1950s version, for my money. Stomach-turning, but a far more serious film.

It's impossible to do "The Little Rascals" successfully in a modern setting, for the simple reason that kids don't live like that anymore, and haven't for decades. Even the original "Our Gang" films made after mid-1930s lost the spirit and the feeling of the earlier ones, and were just cheap, often stupid and preachy, sitcoms. Setting the Rascals in a glossy MGM suburbia is like planting a dill pickle in the middle of a charlotte russe.

 

[Fading Fast]

...It's impossible to do "The Little Rascals" successfully in a modern setting, for the simple reason that kids don't live like that anymore, and haven't for decades. Even the original "Our Gang" films made after mid-1930s lost the spirit and the feeling of the earlier ones, and were just cheap, often stupid and preachy, sitcoms. Setting the Rascals in a glossy MGM suburbia is like planting a dill pickle in the middle of a charlotte russe.

Agreed re the illogic of placing them in modern times and, then, if you do them as a period piece, you need to offer something new, better, different with meaning than the original; otherwise, the silliness of the effort is even more obvious than when you pull the story forward to modern times

 

[HudsonHawk]

Agreed re the illogic of placing them in modern times and, then, if you do them as a period piece, you need to offer something new, better, different with meaning than the original; otherwise, the silliness of the effort is even more obvious than when you pull the story forward to modern times

That's why the Brady Bunch Movie was so awesome. It was set in modern times, but the Brady's were anachronistically still in the late 60s.

 

[p51]

Cronenberg's "The Fly" was a far better film than the 1950s version, for my money. Stomach-turning, but a far more serious film.

Good one, I'd forgotten that. I'd agree with all your points on that film.

 

[dh66]

Robert Mitchum was nothing short of awesome in the original 'Cape Fear' (1962) but DeNiro chewed it up and spit it out with a vengeance in the 1991 remake. Waaaaaay more intense. Nolte ratcheted up the skeeziness level of Gregory Pecks character a notch or two as well, really blurring the line between good guys and bad guys.

 

[dh66]

Oh...and yeah, Goldblum nailed it. The only thing keeping me from agreeing 100% is ......no Vincent Price in the reboot. The man NEVER made a dud.

 

[p51]

I was so thankful for the lack of the "Hellllllp meee!" scene in the remake of 'The Fly'.
That was, to me, the creepiest scene from any horror movie ever. Still sends chills up my spine just thinking about it. I'm not terrified of spiders but I really don't like them. I never want to see that scene again, even though I know it's pretty goofy looking in regard to effects, now.

One movie I think I'd like to see re-made if it was done well would be "Them!" Imagine that done with good effects, but it'd have to have a relatively serious plot (and loose the overused doddering old scientist and his smoking hot daughter shtick). Done tongue-in-cheek wouldn't hack it.

 

[ChiTownScion]

It's impossible to do "The Little Rascals" successfully in a modern setting, for the simple reason that kids don't live like that anymore, and haven't for decades. Even the original "Our Gang" films made after mid-1930s lost the spirit and the feeling of the earlier ones, and were just cheap, often stupid and preachy, sitcoms. Setting the Rascals in a glossy MGM suburbia is like planting a dill pickle in the middle of a charlotte russe.

I remember seeing the video of that 1994 remake with my (then) little boy of four, and the thing that I recall being most disturbing was the language of some of the wee rascals ("Finder's keepers, losers suck!" "Aw, BITE me!!" ). I remember saying to my wife that the original rascals would have gotten their mouths washed out with soap for saying that.

 

[sheeplady]

I think with the propensity for CGI in today's movies, most remakes will look quite poor in a few years time compared to originals that used non-computer generated visuals.

For instance, a CGI beginning to Blade Runner couldn't hold a candle to the original.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Though I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of Gone With the Wind with a more grittier appearance which would be more authentic to the time period.

 

[sheeplady]

Though I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of Gone With the Wind with a more grittier appearance which would be more authentic to the time period.

I'm pretty sure a remake of Gone with the Wind would never be made for budgetary reasons. It would be.interesting to see a remake that has more historically accurate in costuming and sets.

I don't imagine they'd get anyone to play Scarlett who'd work as cheap as Vivian Leigh. A second go around most certainly wouldnt have a mostly unknown actress play Scarlett or any of the roles.

 

[dh66]

Though I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of Gone With the Wind with a more grittier appearance which would be more authentic to the time period.

I'm pretty sure a remake of Gone with the Wind would never be made for budgetary reasons. It would be.interesting to see a remake that has more historically accurate in costuming and sets.

I don't imagine they'd get anyone to play Scarlett who'd work as cheap as Vivian Leigh. A second go around most certainly wouldnt have a mostly unknown actress play Scarlett or any of the roles.

Speaking of CGI-fests, a GWTW remake would probably be one of "Titanic" proportions.
Someone call James Cameron.........

 

[pawineguy]

Speaking of CGI-fests, a GWTW remake would probably be one of "Titanic" proportions.
Someone call James Cameron.........

Give him 10 years and 800 million and he can work something up. For now he's neck deep in more Avatar...

 

[p51]

I'm sick to death of employers thinking that they can have 3/4 or less of the people they really need, then make everyone work overtime forever.
I'm over 5 years into working OT every week without fail. All mandatory, of course. They even changed the job description to include OT being a condition of the job and not an exception, after many people got doctor's letters stating they can't work OT. Some who really couldn't had to find work in other departments.
We're in the middle of a big change in how we do our jobs, company-wide, so nobody will discuss getting more people. "Wait until the change is done" they say. But this is one of a never-ending series of changes and we didn't have enough people before all this happened. None of the changes are even supposed to make less work for us.
When the heck did this become a normal thing for work? I thought businesses wouldn't want to spend unlimited amounts for OT. We're not a publically-traded company so there are no stockholders to answer to.
Oh, and we have fallen off the face of the earth in customer service from the latest JD Powers. We used to lead our industry for pretty much always. No longer and it happened as soon as all the changes started.
We've gone from "What can I do for you?" to, "Yeah, that's not my department" overnight.
And the people at corporate? They still say these changes will fix everything.

 

[tonyb]

Going solely on what you've told us, p51, I'm guessing that the company wishes to avoid putting more people on payroll because they don't wish to pay benefits for those additional workers, and their dependents. This, of course, is assuming that the benefits "package" there exists in anything but name only.

 

[p51]

Going solely on what you've told us, p51, I'm guessing that the company wishes to avoid putting more people on payroll because they don't wish to pay benefits for those additional workers, and their dependents. This, of course, is assuming that the benefits "package" there exists in anything but name only.

Yep, you've nailed it.
We were working between 10-20 hours per person, per week average for 2 years when they introduced a new computer system that took much longer for us all to do the same job the previous one did. It took that long for the company to realize they couldn't keep going on, especially when so many long-term people were quitting. An entire team of 12+ people in another office, and their manager, all walked out one day and never came back.
The problem is that there's nobody to answer to. There are no shareholders to explain tens of millions of dollars in OT being paid every year with no end in sight, and every 'improvement' so far has actually changed the job so it takes longer to do things and tougher to do them.
The JD Power rating plummeting should have lit some bulbs over some heads, but the 'drink the kool-aid' mentality led to conclusion that it was just because we have full implemented the full changes just yet.
Delusional. That's the only word any of us have.
Even management isn't bothering to argue the points people make anymore. That's when I knew for sure it wasn't just my perspective. Every company has managers who are in a cheerleader role and won't allow any negativity. Even those people would shrug after a while.
We also give time off based on manpower stats. But seeing that we're permanently understaffed, guess what happens? That's right, they pretty much deny any requests for time off. They even denied me for jury duty two years ago! :eeek: A manager had to go tell them that wasn't even legal. The same manager heard me telling the story to someone later and said I shouldn't be telling people that. I replied, "Then the request for jury duty shouldn't have been denied. You know I'm not lying." He knew there was no argument against that and just walked away without another word.
It's even worse where my wife works, in the same building. She's working at least 6 days a week solid now.
The OT at one point was insane, in that it wasn't waived if you went on vacation or got sick (it's still not but is slightly more flexible). A guy had his brother pass away, and when he got back from the funeral, was told he needed to make up the previous week's OT. How he didn't sucker-punch that person, is beyond me. I couldn't have shown that much restraint in that situation.

 

[Fading Fast]

My experience in corporate America is that all the benefit cost (some gov't required, some company policy) plus real estate costs (employees have to work somewhere) and computers (in my industry everyone needs one for work), etc., cause companies to do everything they can to work their existing employees harder / longer than hire new ones. I know that for my team, every employee cost 33% more than their salary in benefits and infrastructure costs.

I regularly worked 80 hour weeks and, like Lizzie, was a salaried manager so I didn't get overtime, but regularly approved overtime pay for many of those on my team. And management above me almost never complained about the OT as they knew the alternative was either hiring more (and incurring all those additional benefits and infrastructure costs) or not getting the work done. And when things like Blackberries started to become affordable, the company was only all to happy to give them to employees as it only increased the amount of time one ended up working. I had one boss who told me that he expected an email answered within an hour or two on the weekends. (He was a joy to work for in so many ways).

The hours were part of the reason I decided to work for myself about four years ago and while I have less security (no salary, no benefits, etc., ), having more control of my life has been worth it. I could only have made this choice at this time in my life and with nearly three decades of experience behind me - I understand completely that it is not a solution for most people.

I don't thing there are easy answers. We could say, let's pass a rule that requires companies to do this or that - pay even more in OT, for example, so that they were encourage to hire more, not just work the existing people harder - but nothing is free. The profit margins in my business are razor thin and if the cost structure is increased (by increasing the cost of OT), more companies would exit the business (this happened to many of the smaller competitors). And then there are less jobs in total (with or without OT).

Perhaps I am biased as the part of the industry I was in saw profit contraction and, thus, downsizing for decades, which is why I know that at least in some circumstances the OT work was the only thing that kept the lights on.

 

[Hercule]

People who don't drive up close enough to use the drive-up ATM from their car window. The funniest is when they are too close to open the door yet too far away to reach through the window.

 

[LizzieMaine]

People who register decrepit, rust-holed, fuel-leaking unsafe 1980s pickup trucks as "Antique Autos" so as to avoid the state inspection requirement, and then drive them as everyday vehicles. You're not fooling anybody, and you're ruining it for those of us who have and drive actual, well-maintained "antique autos." And eventually somebody's going to get badly hurt by your "antique."