Kaskade1309
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Warner Bros. included this on the House of Wax DVD, as the feature on the flip side...OCTOBER 15:
11) Mystery of the Wax Museum* (1933) (Blu-ray Disc) 3/5 stars - Directed by the great and very prolific Michael Curtis, Mystery of the Wax Museum just underwent a major restoration from what I understand, and it looks... good. I can only imagine what shape the elements were in! Basically setting the template for the genre, this movie revolves around the basic plot of a master sculptor working in wax, who is double-crossed by his business partner and left to burn in his London workshop when said partner commits arson to collect on the insurance. Horribly disfigured, he recreates all of his works years later in New York, and turns to using real human bodies for the basis of his wax figures. Highlighted by some very interesting cinematography for its time, and a delightful performance by Glenda Farrell as a plucky newspaper woman who refuses to be dominated by the men she comes up against. Fay Wray does Fay Wray.
A VERY Good film but if you must pick, watch the original.
OCTOBER 15:
11) Mystery of the Wax Museum* (1933) (WAC Blu-ray Disc) 3/5 stars - Directed by the great and very prolific Michael Curtis, Mystery of the Wax Museum just underwent a major restoration from what I understand, and it looks... good. I can only imagine what shape the elements were in!
October 15: Let Me In (2010) – 4 out of 5
Young Owen, shy and bullied, meekly contends with ruthless school kids and the cold of the Los Alamos, New Mexico winter. One night be meets Abby and they become friends. He soon comes to learn Abby is a vampire, but their bond has become strong and their lives and futures will never be the same.
This American-English remake of the extraordinary Let the Right One In is in many ways a triumph. It retains much of the spirit of the original, selects terrific talent to take on the key roles (Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins), and makes some narrative adjustments that never betray the original but rather work better for the American setting. A few of the changes come at the expense of some of the original film’s peripheral characters who all had presence enough to feel real and not simply dressing on the main course. Still, that aside, Let Me In captures the essence well.
Directed by Matt Reeves, who would go on to direct the last two masterful installments in the recent Planet of the Apes prequel films, and is now handling DC’s The Batman, his visual style is all over this film. This remake stays very close to the elements of the Swedish film so that, watching it back-to-back with the original dulls the experience some, but Reeves has a little more visual flair in some moments, particularly a car crash sequence (new to this version) which is terrifically done and doesn’t betray the more muted tone innate to the story.
A VERY Good film but if you must pick, watch the original.
I think Let Me In is extremely good. I own both movies and I'd seen Let the Right One In a couple years before Let Me In. I've also never understood the attitude of "I love movie 'a' so I refuse to see movie 'b'." There's no reason both can't occupy their individual space. They are the same, but they're also different. LMI is a little more outright horror and LTROI is a little more philosophical. LTROI has a ray of sunshine with Oscar's father where LMI is just darkness. They both have earned space on my shelf.I love the original so much that I never could see how it could be improved upon. As a result I shunned this version from the get-go and have never seen it. Maybe I should give it a chance.