In Contention

Tag: Sam Peckinpah

  • Lurie’s ‘Straw Dogs’ finds its own way

    I should really write something about Rod Lurie’s “Straw Dogs” remake, which, naturally, has been met with a lot of skepticism ever since it was announced. “How dare someone tinker with Peckinpah,” etc. As if Peckinpah is beyond reproach. He’s not, I’d argue, and Lurie’s version of the novel that Peckinpah’s film was based upon — Gordon Williams’s “The Siege of Trencher’s Farm” — works in ways that film didn’t really want to.

    The film features some dynamic acting from James Marsden and particularly Alexander Skarsgård (recognizable to most from TV’s “True Blood”). Marsden finds a lot of interesting rhythms in the re-purposed Dustin Hoffman role, this time set as screenwriter David Sumner, who heads off with his wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth), to her bayou hometown for a change of pace and scenery. And he carries the overall theme of the film well: fighting for one’s principles (which, interestingly enough, is a recurrent theme in Lurie’s work going way back).

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  • ‘Straw Dogs’ remake moves forward, some feel the need to bitch about it

    James MarsdenIt seems the knee-jerk reaction to director Rod Lurie’s decision to remake the Sam Peckinpah film “Straw Dogs” is just as you’d expect.  Certain outlets see red and use their web space to bitch about the necessity of such a film.  The Playlist and Rope of Silicon have rants up about it, if you want to wallow in the views of a couple of guys who have apparently conditioned themselves to call foul at the gall of a move like this.

    Thing is, Lurie is more than aware of the predicament he’s putting himself in by moving forward on this project.  Though it cracks me up that the film is being held on high as a gem of cinema not to be tampered with.  But some of these folks don’t seem to get what Lurie is going for with this film.  How could they?  They haven’t bothered to pick up a phone or get the goods on his view of things.  Take this aside from the former:

    The whitebread milquetoast of James Marsden playing Dustin Hoffman, in a remake of a controversial and acidic Sam Peckinpah classic about wimps and the savage nature of man? Sacrilege!

    The last time I talked to Lurie about this project, he said he was remaking “Straw Dogs,” not Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs.”  Lurie wasn’t raised like Sam Peckinpah and he doesn’t have the same outlook on life as Sam Peckinpah.  He also never intended for his David Sumner to be a Jewish mathematician (though I think there’s plenty “wimp” stuff to go around with a silver spoon type).  He wants to investigate how the events of this narrative would affect a different set, hence the casting of the “whitebread” Marsden and the role change to a Hollywood screenwriter.

    Bottom line, I’m glad Lurie’s doing what he wants to do.  In this age of remakes aimed at cashing in, I think it’s safe to say reworking a 38-year-old thriller that no one particularly loved when it was released is nothing if not a passion project, so good on him for doing what he wants to do.

    For more even-handed viewpoints: Devin Faraci has an interesting take on how to change up the events of the narrative at CHUD, while Jeff Wells writes that Marsden’s casting means Lurie “naturally doesn’t want his film to be compared too precisely” to the original.  But I think the reasoning is much more thoughtful than that.

    (P.S.: I’m more than aware of my own tendency to knock films or ideas in advance based on my own views and opinions.  This one just rubbed me wrong this morning, so I had to be a hypocrite for a spell.)

  • The western keeps on truckin’

    It’s no real secret that yours truly is in the tank for the western genre.  Being brought up on the films of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood tends to make an impact in a young man’s life.  I watch Charles Bronson square off with Henry Fonda on a daily basis.  I’m knee-deep in research on the genre for a grad school thesis.

    I dig it, okay?

    The resurgence of saddles and spurs on the big screen has been moving steadily through the industry.  I don’t think anyone expects a return to the 1950s, with pistol-toting heroes plastered on every television screen and nearly every silver screen across America, but I see these efforts taking on more introspective subject matter, perhaps giving way soon enough to the neo-western.  And it is, after all, time.

    Today I see that screen tests may have been revealed of Thomas Jane in the upcoming DC Comics adaptation “Jonah Hex”  The film is set to be directed by the team behind “Crank,” Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  This might be real, might not, since the duo is filming “Crank 2” in Los Angeles at the moment.  But I can’t say I’m loving it…seems quite amateurish.  Regardless, “Hex” is a hell of a property with some storylines that just sing, and seeing it on the big screen will do this western fanatic a lot of good.

    Meanwhile, of course, Ed Harris is set to release “Appaloosa” later this year, formerly under the New Line Cinema banner and now, presumably, as another in a long tradition of genre entries from Warner Bros. Pictures.  Harris stars along with Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger.

    These efforts are coming on the heels of a tweak in the genre as of late, with the more abstract works of Cormac McCarthy making their way to the screen (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Road” and, soon, “Blood Meridian”) and David Milch showing in the sadly cancelled HBO series “Deadwood” that the genre could be taken to levels almost Shakespearean.  Meanwhile, a revamp of “The Lone Ranger” is looking like a go, with the team behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films hoping to bring an element of sensationalism into the mix.

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