Friday Freeday: The Best & Worst Movie Remakes!

This Friday Freeday is a BLOGFEST!

I didn't have time to watch all of the originals or remakes of the movies I've seen (I've seen so many movies), so I will have to go with the movies for which I have seen both the original and the remake. That narrows it down to like 5 movies.

Best Movie Remake: Beauty and the Beast
Weren't expecting that, were you? I was 7 or 8 when Disney put out this tale as old as time. From the opening tale of the mean prince turning away a fairy queen disguised as an ugly, haggard woman and being cursed until someone could love him for his inner beauty (or something, it's been a while), to the spectacular fight scene and the revelation of the hot prince Beast was (yes, even for a cartoon, the Prince was sexy), this movie captivated me and became my favorite Disney movie. Now, what made it better than the 1946 Jean Cocteau French film? What the heck didn't? I saw the original in my History of Film class, and my teacher for some reason hated the Disney remake. Admittedly, the set was beautiful (there were people in the furniture if I remember, so the candles were moving around, etc.), but the movie was boring. Even worse, the Beast was so not scary. When he first appeared, my classmates and I laughed. He looked like a regal Zoobilee-Zoo character. There was also some elaborate story about a rose garden (is this in the original story?) and when Avenant (Gaston in the cartoon) goes after Belle (I'm not sure he was rescuing her at this point; it's been 9 years), the garden turns him into the Beast, who gets Avenant's handsome features, at which Belle wasn't all that happy. At least in the cartoon, Belle is happy to get the Beast she fell in love with and his true hot self. lol

Worst Movie Remake: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
I had originally chosen The Wiz, but then I remembered this tragedy (You get to live another day, The Wiz). I actually wrote a review about this on IMDb.com; that's how much I hated this movie. I find Tim Burton highly overrated anyway, and this might have been the first time I thought, "You know what? Johnny Depp is, too!" Apparently, Roald Dahl didn't like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and neither did Burton, but the original is a classic, and I love Gene Wilder. I've only seen him in two movies, and I absolutely love him. Johnny Depp's Wonka was (as I described it) Stepford Wives meets (as others described it) Michael Jackson. The rush to get to Wonkaland and the lack of mystery sucked all of the magic from the movie, and the Oompa Loompa pop songs ruined the rest for me.


BONUS: The Best & Worst Song Remakes
Being a big music lover, this one was a little harder, because I've heard A LOT of remakes (sometimes haven't even heard the original first), so I had to go with what popped into my head first, because your first instinct is usually the strongest thought.

BEST: (I Believe I Can)/Fly by Glee (orginally by R. Kelly/Nicki Minaj)
Buy it on iTunes, look it up on Youtube, SOMETHING! DO it! Glee's really cheesy (it's like FOX's version of Kids Incorporated), especially when a student breaks out in song, and the others jump in as back-up like they knew the arrangement already (c'mon man). But sometimes, the remakes they come up with melt my heart! The one above was a mash-up of R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and Nicki Minaj's "Fly" in a way that when it started with "Fly," I didn't expect "I Believe..." to come in, and when it did, I almost went into worship. It's beautiful.

WORST: Papa Don't Preach by Kelly Osbourne (originally by Madonna)
I think everyone scoffed when Kelly decided to do this. First, the child can't sing all that well. Second, I haven't heard it in years, but I remember being SO bored, and her staccato "Ooh-ooh" is now playing in my head over and over. This was a big moral-of-the-story moment that screamed "just because Daddy could, doesn't mean you should."

Thanks, as always, to the great Ninja Alex-Sensei and his co-hosts, Stephen Temp, Livia Peterson, and Father Dragon Al, for doing this blogfest. <3 Stop by their pages to find the other contestants, as well as their Best & Worst Remakes!