some attempts have ended in utter, artis-

tic tragedy. Nothing fits that bill

better than Rollerball. (Oh, holy

hell, no! Please, God, let

them do this right...No,
man, that’s not right.
That’s really, really
wrong.)

Nonrim ao
Jewison’s 1975 film
was a science-fiction

masterpiece. Like Romero’s use
of zombies in Dawn of the
Dead, Jewison used _ his
brutal (and breathtaking-
ly realized) sport of
rollerball to supple-
ment his story about
one man standing
up for individual
rights in a corpo-
rate society. Not
only was the story
intelligent and the

 

   

performances, particularly by James Caan
and John Houseman, strong, but the three
rollerball matches in the film still, today,
seem so real.

The remake was a complete mess. The
sport, which in the original was a relative-
ly simple hybrid of football, motorcross,
and hockey, was played on a figure-eight
track and came with a ton of confusing
tules. The film was relocated from a cor-
porate utopia to, of all places, Kazakhstan
(no offence to the Kazakhstanis intend-
ed). Instead of John Houseman and his
quiet, refreshingly non-violent menace,
we got a murderous Jean Reno running
around screaming, “I want that American
cable deal!”

Do you know how hard it is to get an
American cable deal? It’s called Arena
Football.

The real tragedy here is that few young
viewers had ever heard of Rollerball. Now
they have, and think it’s a joke. If they see
the original in a video store, they’re going

HOORAY!

the other press is hirin
Apply Now!

Contact Amanda Aikman, Managing Editor at
othereditor@yahoo.ca
for more information.

   

to pass it by. Something unique has been
lost, or, at least, forever tainted. Digital
effects, name actors, and bigger, louder
explosions are replacing timely themes
and creative use of low-budgets.

This cash-grabbing lack of creativity is
nauseating. Though, personally, I appreci-
ate the attempt to avoid pissing off the
fans of the originals too much. For exam-
ple, in the new (there’s that word again)
Walking Tall, The Rock is striding into the
bad guy’s den with a shotgun. I used all
my willpower to avoid yelling, “No, you’re
screwing it up. The guy in Walking Tall
never used a gun, he used a really, really
big stick!’ But then, just in time, The
Rock stops, thinks about it, returns to his
pick-up truck, chucks the gun in the cab
and grabs a 4x4 out of the back. I relaxed,
sighed, and thought, “At least they got
that right.”

But I’m tired of feeling that way—I
want something new.

 
 

   
  

   
     
 
 

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Office Manager - Immediately

Layout - End of Summer

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May 11/2005 www.theotherpress.ca | 19