I haven’t seen the miniseries remake of Rosemary’s Baby. I have no idea what other people thought of it, but I’m at least curious. Same with the miniseries remake of Bonnie and Clyde(although calling that a remake is a dodgy concept to embrace). There’s not a frantic need running through my heart’s deepest desires to see them, but I’m still interested on some vague, “How bad did they fuck it up?” kind of level.
In the week following the release of the film Star Trek Into Darkness, I wrote a long essay comparing and contrasting the two Star Trek IIs. My thesis was that, compared to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Into Darkness was a study in experience over engagement and was ultimately meaningless and forgettable.
Sergio Leone made small, gritty films, but he also had vision enough to make a number of epics. Of those epics, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is his best known. It’s largely remembered now for two things: Clint Eastwood (or at least his wardrobe) and Ennio Morricone’s iconic score. That song plays along the film’s bloody, breathless opening credits sequence. That song gets you ready for a sweeping, ugly, funny, and violent story of three men and their interactions with each other over a matter of buried confederate gold.
In 1994, Steve James directed a documentary calledHoop Dreams, which followed two young boys and their hopes to escape their gang-infested Chicago neighborhood through basketball. Today it is widely regarded as one of the greatest films—of any genre—ever made, a reputation it owes, in large part, to film critic Roger Ebert. Ebert championed the film from the beginning, calling it, “one of the best films about American life that I have ever seen”, and selecting it not only as the best film of that year, but of the entire decade. Now, twenty years later, James has a unique chance to return the favor, with Life Itself, an elegant documentary portrait of Ebert, a year after his death.