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Photo of Sissy Spacek and Chloe Moretz as Carrie from the NY Daily News.

– Whyyy?
– WHYYY?
– Why bother remaking a movie when the copy is inferior in every way to the original?
– Okay, name some remakes that are as good as or better than the original.
– Uh…I can’t think of any.
– Because they don’t exist!*
– Kaloka! Ang taas pa naman ng tingin ko kay Kimberley Peirce because of Boys Don’t Cry.
– Is it still believable in this day and age that a teenage girl doesn’t know about her period? Sure, she’s the extremely sheltered daughter of a religious nut, but she goes to school and has internet access.
– Bongga talaga si Sissy Spacek. She was in her 20s and 30s when she played teenagers in Carrie, Badlands and the start of Coal Miner’s Daughter, but we never doubted she was an adolescent.
– Maganda yang actress in the Amy Irving role. Ang kagandahan niya lang ang pinag-iba ng pelikulang ito.
– Yan ang kontrabida?? Si Nancy Allen, gusto mong sampalin, sabunutan at sipain. Her, I can’t even tell her from the other mean girls.
– May igu-guapo pa si Tommy Ross.
– Remember the original Tommy Ross? William Katt at his Redford-est.
– Baka naman tayo lang ang ganito. Maybe viewers who never saw the Brian De Palma Carrie will enjoy this.
– I don’t know. There’s no tension. It’s entirely predictable. I don’t feel anything except Whyyy.
– Ngek. The mirror scene was the eeriest bit in the old movie, and they dumped it.
– “Eerie” doesn’t apply to anything here.
– Isn’t anyone going to sing “I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me”?
– Korek! Tayo na lang ang kumanta.

– Dapat super-kilig yung prom. From a downtrodden outsider Carrie is raised to great heights, so when the fall happens, we totally understand her wrath.
– Ano ba, walang 360 pan??
– Hindi sapat ang teen angst niya para mangyari yan.
– Aba, superhero ang dating niya. Jumi-Jean Grey??
– Suddenly I understand why Gus van Sant did his shot-for-shot Psycho remake. There’s no point in redoing it!
– What’s your nominee for worst remake ever?
– Sabrina. They even got the dress wrong.
– Wala akong maramdaman.
– Wait, the movie can still redeem itself. Remember that famous last scene?
– (Reaction to the last scene) YECCH!
– The best thing I can say about this remake is that it makes me feel like I’m seeing the original for the first time! Sissy Spacek deserves an Oscar award. I hope they nominate her at least, but I’m not holding my breath since this is a horror movie. Piper Laurie’s over-the-top performance is so enjoyable and somehow fits her character’s over-the-top psychological dysfunction. I hope they nominate her as well.
– Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore are both wasted in this.
– I love Chloe, but she doesn’t need telekinesis. She could kick all their asses.
– They should’ve made Carrie a boy and cast Dane DeHaan from Chronicle. He has Sissy-like fragility.
– They could’ve made Carrie a girl and still cast Dane DeHaan. Kaya niya!
– Pino Donaggio’s excessively lush, excessively melodramatic score is excessively apt, overscoring the movie’s over-the-topness. It’s one of those rare instances when you don’t miss subtlety at all.
– Yeah, a movie like this calls for music that’s big and operatic. Not that generic stuff.
– And De Palma knows how to make our hearts beat faster with the most excruciatingly slow slo-mos. Better yet, he makes us feel like we’re almost invading a scene with his repeated use of the 360 degree camera pan.
– You can’t take a realistic approach to material as weird as this. It must be over-the-top, or what is the damn point?
– I bet this movie is going to be as hard to remake as…Psycho!
– What’s that other Brian De Palma telekinesis movie?
– The Fury!
– Where Kirk Douglas and Andrew Stevens were perfectly cast as father and son. Pareho silang mga panga na tinubuan ng tao.
– I suddenly realized that the best remake of Carrie is…Chronicle!

Rating: Skip.

Noel recalled an Almodovar movie that features telekinesis: What Have I Done To Deserve This?

Get the English translation here.

* * * * *
– Reader diaw says David Cronenberg’s The Fly and John Carpenter’s The Thing are superior to their originals. True, clunky old B-movies can be improved with higher-grade directors and technology.

Noel agrees that the technicals of The Fly remake were a vast improvement, but doesn’t necessarily agree that it’s a better film. There’s nothing more disturbing than that last shot of the man-fly saying “Help me! Help me!”—the kind of disturbing that makes you think about it for years after. (Heelp meeeee!)

– turmukoy writes that Martin Scorsese’s The Departed improves on its source, Lau and Mak’s Infernal Affairs. Expect heavy opposition there, but we think that in this case, outside of the basic premise, the original and the remake are two completely different animals.

– We just remembered James Toback’s Fingers and Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped. Both intense and brilliantly-acted, but again, different animals. Fingers is about the disintegration of a personality, Beat is a very smart gangster movie.