Political correctness has destroyed our country. I don't care that it has destroyed college life. I don't care that it has destroyed the process of hiring employees. I don't care that it has destroyed going to the bathroom. But when it destroys a classic Western it is time for violence.
They remade the Magnificent Seven. The villains are not Mexicans. They are white guys. Actually a mine company who want to develop fossil fuels or something. The leader of the Seven is played by Denzel Washington. The premise is that a white woman in the 1880's went to a black guy for help. Right. You got your historical accuracy right there. The fact of the matter is Denzil would have been hanged just for talking to her but now he is her savior.
The other members of the Seven include a Chinese guy and a Native American. What no transgenders? No lesbians? WTF! This cannot stand.
The fact of the matter is I would have made a fantastic remake of the Magnificent Seven set in the present day that would have starred Denzel. Imagine this. A housing project is being terrorized by a Mexican gang led by a Cartel linked gangster called Talvera. A young black girl goes to the local drug lord played by Denzel and pleads for help. For the chilrens! Or maybe he is a retired drug/gang guy but has a fearsome rep. He goes out and recruits a bunch of other guys. Say a retired Mafia hit man guy who owes him a favor and hates his life now that the Mob is over and wants to go out in a blaze of glory.. A Puerto Rican ex boxer who likes knives and hates Mexicans. A big guy who is down on his luck but wishes he could have been a father to the babies he had with a bunch of baby Momma's. The Charles Bronson part. Make him a disgraced old football player with a fearsome rep like Jack Tatum or something. Man the possibilities are endless. You could have made a great action movie set in the present day using the tenplate of the Seven and had a great politically incorrect movie.
But Hollywood would never do that. I won't be going to see this piece of shit. Just like I won't go to see that Tarrentiono abortion the Hateful Eight even though some of my favorites like Russell and Goggins are in it. I have better Westerns playing in my head than they make these days.
Maybe I can make that story a continuing series here at Lems? Nah. Spinelli would get mad. He hates repetition. Never mind.
46 comments:
They're remaking Three's Company. They're out of ideas - but what aspect of America isn't these days? It's going to be about 3 transgenders sharing an apartment. One of them will be blonde with enormous boobs. There will be one who looks like a dude and one who is is kind of androgynous but cute. They will hit on each other and it will be leadenly humorous. The downstairs neighbor is an annoyed older gent who watches a lot of westerns named Trooper.
Just kidding.
Had you there for a second, though. And they are reportedly doing a Threes Company remake.
The only thing 'new" about all these remakes is that they incorporate women and non-caucasian characters. They mostly bomb which says a lot about how much people actually care about this, ie., are willing to spend money on a PC product rather than just virtue signal about it.
Well to be fair, the original was about Japanese guys. The 1960 remake had a Siberian Gypsy leader, a German guy playing Chico, a Brooklyn Jew playing a Mexican, and a Pennylvania Lithuanian playing a guy named Bernardo O'Reilly.
I bet the next remake has an all female cast saving a town of Illegal Mexican Moslems from a Duke Lacross team. All while riding bicycles backwards and in high heels.
That's the thing. They have no creativity. Only political correctness. It is just nonsense. I think if there was someone who did some real non politically correct stuff he would clean up.
Of course the actors wouldn't do it but still. Maybe you could do it with character actors who will get a starring role and be willing to risk it. Or start a stock company and remake classic in contemporary ways but in a politically incorrect way.
The series they tried a few years back was just as bad.
This will be another "Lone Ranger" or "Man From UNCLE" or "Batman and Superman" (or whatever it was called) or "Ghostbusters" with girls. We will hear endless, breathless reports of how awesome it will be, it will come out, and it will flop just like all the others I mentioned. It's a deal movie, lots of deals made around it, but it's something nobody wants to see.
The Real "Seven" has a heart and a soul. One of the best lines in the movies (and it had quite a few good ones), when the villagers offer Chris what they could scrape together, everything they had, and, genuinely moved, he says, "I've been offered a lot for my work, but never everything".
The new one will every four letter word you know, but will it have any lines like that?
I think you could remake the Magnificent Seven in Dearborn Michigan with Muslims in place of Mexicans and the Seven could include Whites, Blacks and Spanish guys. Hey if you want to throw the politically correct a bone you could even include a gay guy who had his lover murdered by Muslim fanatics.
Remaking it in the present lets you open it up. But setting in the historical West makes the political correctness laughable and ridiculous. I bet this movie is a dismal failure.
Bollywood did a fantastic remake of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
I don't mind a remake. I don't require that the race/sex/etc. of the actors match up with the original. But if they're just going to crank out re-written history ... now with POCs and gays and chicks in speaking roles, then don't bother boring me. It's actually a bit bigoted that they can't come up with compelling new stories for the more diversified acting talent.
The main problem with Hollywood these days is what Amartel is talking about. A lack of talent and imagination. Even if you are going to make a remake use a little freaking imagination.
I can give you a great premise for a movie with a gay/lesbian/transgender theme. In the Civil War there were many cases of women fighting for the Union by pretending to be men. The men in their company knew it. Not the officers of course. But the grunts did and they protected them. There is a great movie in there. It just can't be sappy and message laden Coppola.
I meant Crapola. But Coppola works too.
Spell check can be scary sometimes.
The director's name is Antoine Fuqua. Seems fitting.
I wonder if he is French Fuqua's grandson and if he knows what happened to the shoes with the wedges in the back that had the fish in it?
Tell you something about the original that makes it so good and I don't think we even recognize it.
All the Lefties in Hollyweird even then and this is one of the rare pictures that treats Mexicans like real people. No victims, they want to fight for their homes.
You'd think the Left would do this as a matter of course, but all we see is the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Pardon my rant.
It is the same thing with John Ford's movies. He is portrayed as a racist when his portrayal of Indians and blacks were very enlightened and historically accurate.
Of course he always made the Irish guys drunken buffoons. The miserable shanty Irish bastard that he was.(TM Spinelli)
Trooper York said...
The main problem with Hollywood these days is what Amartel is talking about. A lack of talent and imagination. Even if you are going to make a remake use a little freaking imagination.
It's all about the deals now. Merchandising, product placement.
Of course there aren't any names any more. Nobody with a reputation to bring people in. No real stars, Johnny Depp is about as close as you come. And forget actresses. Real ones. Yeah, the old days had glamor girls that put JLaw and the rest to shame, but there also first rate actresses who were lookers - consider the fair Olivia DeHavilland, approaching her second century, or Deborah Kerr.
All the money goes into special effects and we get the now standard blather about how awesome they're going to be.
I still prefer The Seven Samurai. Nick and I will be sitting over here in the snob section.
But the Magnificent Seven had its moments.
Next up - The Fabulous Seven - it's to die for!
Will you ever see a film about a white worker destroyed by a conspiracy of negro supervisors and workers? Of course not.
I rest my case, flimsy though it may be.
Trooper York said...
It is the same thing with John Ford's movies. He is portrayed as a racist when his portrayal of Indians and blacks were very enlightened and historically accurate.
Of course he always made the Irish guys drunken buffoons. The miserable shanty Irish bastard that he was.
You couldn't trust the water in them thar days.
But they built the railroads in this country. And won wars from Matamoros to Chateau Thierry.
And made sure their kids had it better than they did. Even if it meant scrubbing other people's floors.
I'm on board with the seven samurai.
Seven Samurai is a superior Movie.
From Film Stage;
"Akira Kurosawa worshipped legendary American director John Ford, his primary influence as a filmmaker, saying “when I’m old, that’s the kind of director I want to be.” He called My Darling Clementine a model of what cinema should be. When the two met in London, Ford was uncommonly pleasant to the younger Japanese filmmaker and after wards Kurosawa dressed in a similar fashion to Ford when on film sets."
One of the things that was great about the Seven is that it copied some of the scenes from Seven Samurai. Captured it's sensibility and translated it into historical correct imagery and action true to that era.
"The Magnificent Seven" can be enjoyed as a simple action movies but also as a clever homage to the original source material.
Seven Samurai was made by that crazy freaky Kurosawa guy. Crazier than Pink, crazier than Prince, crazier than Petula Clark.
I rest my case, flimsy though it may be.
When you adapt a classic you can update it or change the setting to make it something familar yet still new.
They copy "The Searchers" all the time. A superior version was made by the great Western Director Walter Hill in "Streets of Fire." It was pulp and had musical numbers but it was imaginative and allegorical and a lot of fun.
I love "Seven Samurai" but my favorite Kurosawa film is "Ran" which is his take on Macbeth. A
great epic film. If you haven't seen it check it out.
I really wish that Directors like Ford and Kurosawa and DeMille and Einstein had a chance to work with computer CGI that they have today. Imagine what they could have done?
"Ran is "King Lear", "Throne of Blood" is Macbeth, "Hidden Fortress is Star Wars", he sniffed.
Trooper York said...
I really wish that Directors like Ford and Kurosawa and DeMille and Einstein had a chance to work with computer CGI that they have today. Imagine what they could have done?
Be still, my beating heart.
And they would know enough not to make the CGI the focus of the picture.
PS It's Eisenstein. Einstein defined stupidity for us.
Do you mean Eisenstein? His movies were awesome. I mean who doesn't like a battle on the ice or Battleship Potemkin - and how many baby carriages have rolled down how many staircases since he filmed that? Don't bring a baby carriage to a knife fight, am I right?
As for film scores, they don't get much better than the music that Prokofiev wrote for Alexander Nevsky and his Lieutenant Kije Suite. Now that is some good music right there.
I don't know about the plot, but Denzel could do Chris. That's right in his wheelhouse acting wise.
His character in "Man on Fire" pretty much was Chris if I recall correctly.
I loved that Norweigan movie Dead Snow (Død snø) with zombie Nazis. If they did Magnificent Seven with seven militant lesbian kick ass bitches against ISIS some captured female war booty in Syria, I predict it would be a bit hit.
Yikes you are right. It has been a long time since I have seem it but I did mean King Lear. Those freaking daughters I tell you.
I have to put it on the schedule for a rewatch.
I will be relaxing on Sunday and I have set up a few favorites. Town Without Pity. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Naked City. The Professionals. Across 110th St. Gunfight at the OK Corrall. I have to add Ran to the list.
Also Sixty knows I can't spell for shyte so to speak.
Ran was kick ass (kick ass King Lear) and great cinematography. Kurosawa was a huge American film fan and a contemporary of the guys doing homages of his stuff which were homages to earlier Westerns.
Eisenstein scene on the ice is great.
2¢
Shut up.
10¢
I said shut up.
*empties pockets* $2.82
Fine.
They have no creativity. Only political correctness. It is just nonsense. I think if there was someone who did some real non politically correct stuff he would clean up.
I am not contradicting this. I am building upon this wisdom. Building upon this shining wisdom like a big ol' wart.
With a hair sticking out of it.
They are creating. And they are cleaning up. But I don't like what they're doing. And it is not politically correct. In fact, it's subversive. And these creations have tremendous followings. I am not among them. Two things in particular stick out for examples of new subversive politically incorrect creativity that I don't like.
1) Something Games
2) Walking Dead
1) Society broken down so teenagers compete for survival. The entire premise is so wrong. and 2) Society broken down so that neither death nor survival can bring peace and comfort.
Those two things could be just two crackpot shows that come and go but instead became popular. They and their like can be seen as subversive commentary on the way society is going. They're kind of like today versions of 1984 and Animal Farm. They're creative. They both have an impact. I hate both.
The Walking Dead pop-up book arrived today and I must admit it's outstanding. I hate the cost, I hate the content, but I'm forced to admit it's a tour de force. If you know anybody who follows that show, and it does have a solid following, then this pop-up book will make an excellent gift for them, and I don't care who ya are.
But for other more gentile and erudite people then there is another new pop-up about the Odyssey. That too is good. It's rated 5 stars. History teachers like to use it. It is comprehensive. In comic book storyboard form. It puts the vignettes in place so even non-history buffs, once they get to reading the words, then can see where the cyclops fits and ship fits and where the trojan horse fits in the epic and without really trying then become near experts on the subject. And it's half the price of the Walking Dead one.
So I bought two.
Get this. A few people came over here. One was especially taken with my pop-up books. He sat there and flipped through them. I like that. His email name is starry eyed dexter. I don't know his last name. So I had the package sent to dexter starryeyed. Ha ha I hope it works.
Denzel Wahshington remade The Manchurian Candidate. The villainess was remade as a evil blonde U.S Senator. Sounds like a documentary.
The Odyssey is a story that has survived countless remakes. Everyone has done it. Seriously. Name one person who has not remade the Odyssey. Even The Simpson's had Homer in an Odyssey.
But the best one is O Brother Where Art Thou - which is the only movie I ever saw that captured the Delta. Sure, they screwed up when they mentioned Tishamingo, over there in the hill country, but otherwise, it was spot on.
It's clearly evident that the RMPC's in Hollywood believe that remaking movies that have been traditionally featuring Whitey the Cracka by having their modern plantation slaves in leading roles to agitate the plebes and rewrite movie history because they utterly believe in revisionism.
ampersand said...
Denzel Wahshington remade The Manchurian Candidate. The villainess was remade as a evil blonde U.S Senator. Sounds like a documentary.
I wonder if Training Day was remade with Whitey the Cracka and the rookie was black what kind of howling the RMPC's would make?
ampersand said...
Denzel Wahshington remade The Manchurian Candidate. The villainess was remade as a evil blonde U.S Senator. Sounds like a documentary.
Another flop remake.
I recently watched some of Ran again, the first time since I saw it when it came out in 1985. This time I was bothered by the old-man makeup on the lead; I kept thinking Johnny Depp.
O Brother Where Art Thou is a movie you can watch at any time, at any place in the movie, and it is still watchable, regardless of how many times you have seen it before.
Chip, I do not care for these "games" movies either. They got old very fast, and I agree they are subversive.
The zombie movies resonate, the whole dystopian theme, because people feel insecure. But if things were really, really bad, they would be going more with pure escapism.
But I love the Odyssey, including the Warriors and O Brother. What is the link for the pop up book?
Story lines for games are usually pretty slim.
You follow the trail to the end, maybe hit a few surprises, and that's it.
One of the few games that could have been done up right was the old DOS classic, "The 7th Guest", which was one of the first multimedia games (I made the mistake of playing the dungeon part in the dark around 1AM).
Those, comic books, old TV shows, and cartoons, are all they do now.
Another point about movies like this.
I think the dealmakers figure if the are a lot of different groups (black guy, Chinese guy and a Native American (no, American Indian - we're native Americans (sheesh))), they'll get those ethnicities to come in to see some sort of all star racial revenge.
Don't think it works that way.
Odyssey pop-up book Amazon $15.70 Prime.
YouTube 2.19 min video Odyssey pop-up book
The Magnificent Seven was a B western that struck gold. Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson were not major stars. I think Coburn and Bronson were more like bit players and horse holders than even featured players. They had no past record of magnificence. That's what made the movie so revelatory. Damn who are these guys..........Then there was that theme song. No Japanese movie ever had a theme song that good or, for that matter, good. That was one of the movies where all of the cylinders clicked and fell into place. If you make enough shitty movies, some of them turn out to be great. The million monkeys , million typewriters thing...........I saw the Hateful Eight. I'm a Netflix member. I see every movie ever made, or at least the first fifteen minutes. I got through the entire movie. Some crisp dialogue, but I don't think there's much point to setting a western in one cramped room. Murder mysteries work better on English country estates than on stagecoaches. Maybe Tarantino meant the movie to be a kind of post modern commentary on Ford's Stagecoach, but, if so, it suffers from the comparison. A fair amount of gore, but no real action sequences.......,The absolute worst remake of a western is Johnny Depp's Lone Ranger. It fails on so many levels that it has a kind of perverse fascination.
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