Angry Embassy: Argentina
The Original: Fabian Bielinsky’s Nueve Reinas aka Nine Queens (2000), about a veteran con artist who takes a protégé under his wing to plot an elaborate scam.
The Makeover: Gregory Jacobs’ L.A.-set remake, co-written under a pseudonym by remake whore Steven Soderbergh, buddies up cynical pro John C.Reilly with fresh-faced pipsqueak Diego Luna.
Their target: the wealthy residents of Beverley Hills, the class-war element providing a vague echo of the original’s subtext about Argentinian recession but also, conveniently, bringing that Hollywood bling.
Moment You Know You’re Watching a Hollywood Movie: The bizarre change of Macguffin from rare stamps in the original (the Nine Queens of the title) to some old currency.
The only reason we can think of is that studio execs took one look at the script, thought it was about stamp collecting and ordered a rewrite.
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Comments
Orbish
Jan 22nd 2010, 11:34
No Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars/Last Man Standing?
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mitchsn
Jan 23rd 2010, 2:29
With the exception of 1 or 2, all the american remakes sucked a*s.
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sunnyrandall
Jan 25th 2010, 9:40
What about Haneke's Funny Games? Yeah, I know he directed both but . . . .
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jimclark54
Jan 25th 2010, 15:45
Seven Samurai -> Magnificent Seven -> Battle Beyond The Stars (writer: John Sayles, art director: James Cameron)
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Ihatethis
Jan 25th 2010, 18:33
La Femme Nikita = Point of No Return
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BaldMelon
Jan 25th 2010, 23:51
You forgot "Three Men and a Baby" and "Three Men and a Little lady" were originally French. Disney bought the North American distribution rights of the French sequel to cut down on competition. They also did the same thing for the Japanese version of "Shall We Dance". You can't even find it on DVD and it is a far superior film to the Richard Gere version. Oh, and shall we not forget the Jodie Foster/Richard Gere flop "Sommersby" is a watered down version of the French "The Return of Martin Guerre". Not to mention "La Femme Nikita"/"Point of No Return" and "Les Diaboluques"/"Diabolique", etc, etc...
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metalgatesolid
Jan 26th 2010, 20:26
The Grudge/Ring remakes where, I think we cn all agree, no where near as terrifying as the original versions. The biggest travesty in my eyes is Rec and Quarentine. Rec is amazing!!!
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tacroy
Feb 8th 2010, 14:03
Where is "The Invisable" on this list? It's a bad remake of the swedish movie "Den osynlige". And they even had to make a bad (and I mean really really bad) ending to it. They changed the whole outcome from the original one. Someone should be punished for that
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