At The Movies with Bryan, the Wannabe Filmmaker

Remakes aren’t new to movies– they have been around since the invention of the medium. It is also a fallacy to suggest that the original is always better, as there are examples of a remake being just as good, if not better than the original; The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Ten Commandments (1956), and The Thing (1982), come to mind. Unfortunately, The Fog doesn’t belong in this category and, is in fact, one of the worst remakes of all time.  It is an extremely ill conceived remake, complete with an attractive, but bland, cast and some of the silliest looking CGI in film history. The original movie, while not a classic, was still an effective horror movie filled with genuinely haunting visuals and a better than average cast; the only real misfire is Jamie Lee Curtis, who, as the hitchhiking artist, Elizabeth, is given very little to do.  The script is filled with holes, but John Carpenter’s efficient direction, plus Dean Cundey’s moody photography, help smooth things ove

Bob Hope, despite being one of the most beloved comedians of all time, never made a genuine masterpiece. He turned out some very good movies ( The Ghost Breakers, The Cat and the Canary, Son of Paleface, Road to Morocco, and The Princess and the Pirate, to name a few), but I would hesitate to call any of them classics. This is largely due to the fact that Hope’s greatest strength, his voice, lent itself better to the radio than it did to the movies; the humor is in the delivery of a joke, not so much the joke itself.  Therefore, it’s not surprising that by the 1960s, Hope’s humor was extremely antiquated; his inoffensive brand of humor (one liners, good natured ribbing) was out of place in a decade that produced Dr. Strangelove, The Graduate, and Head. The less I say about his Christmas Specials, especially in the 90s, the better. The Ghost Breakers and The Cat and the Canary are easily Bob Hope’s best movies, for two important reasons: 1)       They both play on Hope’s r