Toni Erdmann [Untitled U.S. Remake] (Lisa Cholodenko, 201X)

[Big Ben]

I wish you'd have remembered that before I googled "Lena Dunham Tattoos".

[Black Hat]

This thread has taken a horrifying turn.

[Omensetter]

Yeah, this thread turned downright nasty between implying she has a Nazi tattoo and critiquing her looks. Like many, I don't find her talented and I'm especially not a fan of her capitalist feminism, but there are some criterionforum.com-level posts in here.

[mfunk9786]

Yours is certainly at the top of that heap, insofar as there is one. Please don’t exaggerate what’s been a pretty reasonable discussion thusfar for no reason.

[domino harvey]

Hating Lena Dunham is one of this forum's oldest and proudest traditions

[Big Ben]

It was the insistence that I was an idiot for not liking Tiny Furniture that initially shat the bed for me. The same goes for Girls. It's the almost aloof worldview (In the sense of privilege her work espouses) that bothers me most though. That's my problem with Dunham. How this will translate to Toni Erdmann I honestly cannot fathom but I imagine I won't like it.

Remakes in my opinion, especially ones made from foreign films more often than not miss the cultural nuance because it's adapted by people who don't bother to understand said nuance. I often cite the J-Horror craze of the 2000's as an example. Will Dunham understand this? My gut says no.

But then again I'm just a country boy so maybe I don't understand nothin'.

[spectre]

She's just seen as an acceptable target for various reasons, at least some of which have to do with the fact that she's not a conventionally attractive woman and on TV in a time when many men think they have an entitlement to only have hot chicks within their line of sight at any given moment. Not accusing any of you of this, but I've seen enough of this crap on the imdb boards (RIP) to find any group two-minute-hate sessions against Dunham unedifying.

You don't have to like Girls – hell, I didn't a lot of the time – but tell me it's not streets ahead in quality than 90% of the stuff currently screening on American TV. Dunham's a flawed talent, but at least she has some.

[knives]

Definitely streets behind.

[mfunk9786]

Can we at least all agree that while not all criticism online of Dunham is fair, it is also not all baseless and sexist and centered around her appearance? She seems to think so to the detriment of people who were just minding their own business, but that doesn't make it so each and every time someone has the gall to say that they find her work below reproach, or merely just don't pay enough positive attention to her.

There's another locked Lena Dunham thread here, and I don't want to lock the thread for one of the finest films of last year (and our forum's current #1 by amount of topped lists, thanks swo), so let's please keep the discussion here civil or it'll just get lobbed off the end of this thread and moved over to the locked Dunham thread. Thank you!

[hearthesilence]

Just wondering, would it be worth splitting this thread into Ade's film and the coming remake?

[mfunk9786]

When the remake has a director, it'll be split. It doesn't really exist yet.

[domino harvey]

Agree, but I'd wait til it starts filming, as I have serious doubts this ever gets in front of cameras

[mfunk9786]

Remember when Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were going to adapt Cache?

[hearthesilence]

Remember when Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were going to adapt Cache?

Jesus, didn't even know about that one. I know what you mean though - Mike Nichols and Scorsese had been trying to do a remake of Kurosawa's High and Low for quite some time before Nichols died.

[Brian C]

Remember when Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were going to adapt Cache?

Hahahaha I'm still sad in a way that never got made. Surely it would have been the best example of the let's-ignore-the-social-context-remake genre since CITY OF ANGELS.

[mfunk9786]

Remember when Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were going to adapt Cache?

Jesus, didn't even know about that one. I know what you mean though - Mike Nichols and Scorsese had been trying to do a remake of Kurosawa's High and Low for quite some time before Nichols died.

At least that film has a more universal story to tell than Cache, something that is very specific to French culture and that doesn't have a proper US analogue

[Brian C]

Certainly Howard would have made it into a generic thriller about a guy getting tapes of his house, right? I always assumed that the basic premise was the entire appeal for a US remake. A guy gets surveillance tapes of his own house ... like Rear Window but in reverse!!

The idea that Howard was attracted by anything specific to French culture always seemed like a big stretch. There's just nothing in his filmography that would suggest he'd make something like that.

[mfunk9786]

Even more of a bummer.

[knives]

Isn't that basically just the first act to Lost Highway though? I think, actually, you could compellingly remake Cache to American politics with a little creativity. Certain the idea of guilt over racial and class destruction is something that ties very well into America's overall history. The only possible problem I could see is an event that is absolutely analogous to the one in the film. Maybe the Zoot suit or LA riots?

[Brian C]

I think, actually, you could compellingly remake Cache to American politics with a little creativity.

Well, sure, but we're talking about Ron Howard here.

[knives]

Um, er, well. You may have a point.

[Forrest Taft]

Maybe turn the Laurents into the Trumps, and "the others" into Mexicans?

[Black Hat]

Hating Lena Dunham is one of this forum's oldest and proudest traditions

My post sparking this tussle was actually in this line, but Omensetter had a point, Lena Dunham's awfulness defies description.

[spectre]

Remember when Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were going to adapt Cache?

Now that's a horrifying prospect.

[felipe]

Agree, but I'd wait til it starts filming, as I have serious doubts this ever gets in front of cameras

Doesn't it happen every year, these rumours that a critically-acclaimed foreign film will get an American version? Remember Force Majeure with Julia Louis-Dreyfus?