At The Movies with Bryan, the Wannabe Filmmaker

Alexander Korda's  The Thief of Bagdad is a straight forward a fairy tale, a relic of a bygone era. Hollywood has no interest in making simple fairy tales, they either inject them with steroids by turning their protagonist into a sword wielding bad ass, or they infuse them with irony by constantly having characters make asides to the camera. If The Thief of Bagdad were to be remade, no doubt the character of Ahmad would be transformed from a gaunt, ineffective protagonist into an ass kicking, muscle bound man of action. There would be action scene piled upon a action scene, and the movie would end with Ahmad, on a magic carpet, chasing the evil Jaffar, on his flying mechanic horse, across the skies of Bagdad. The character of Abu, if he survived the adaptation, would be relegated to comedy relief and that's about it. The Thief of Bagdad itself was a remake of the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks film of the same name. Fairbanks stars as a Ahmed, a thief that lives a rather leisurely

When it comes to the Amityville Horror, I take the claim that it was "based on a true story" with a grain of salt. In his book, "The Amityville Horror Conspiracy," Stephen Kaplan does an excellent job of pointing out the many inconsistencies in George Lutz's account of the haunting. However, The Amityville Horror needs to be judged as to whether or not it succeeds as a horror film, rather than if it's an accurate depiction of a supposedly true event. The Amityville Horror is an infuriating film, in that it has the makings of a classic horror film, but is often undermined by the hammy performances of James Brolin and Rod Steiger, and some rather questionable directorial decisions. The first half hour is wonderfully effective, the director, Stuart Rosenberg, does a wonderful job of hinting at the paranormal by often framing his shots with doors or windows, often given the viewer the unsettling feeling that the Lutz family is being watched an external for