Let Me In

[Stefen]

She hasn't hit her awkward stage yet. Every kid hits that age at the onset of puberty where they're not cute and not good looking. Just awkward. It lasts for about a year which is an eternity in kid actor time. Dakota Fanning ended hers and is now picking up the pieces and seems to be on the right track.

Leo Dicaprio still might be going through his awkward adolescense phase. It's hard to tell. 

[Pubrick]

Leo Dicaprio still might be going through his awkward adolescense phase. It's hard to tell. 

hahaha, i think it has gone on so long he had to employ michael pitt to take on some of his excess awkward adolescence.

and despite my comments in the 500 days of summer thread regarding her HUGE nostrils when she says "hey, you're sketching agian!", and the shittiness of her character in general, i don't think chloe moretz has made a bad choice since she broke into the big leagues (or at least her mum hasn't).. i saw an interview with her on ellen and she seemed genuinely charming and alert in a much more relaxed way than dakota fanning and less spaced-out than abigail breslin.

whether she sells out as soon as she is allowed to make independent decisions, or never recovers from her awkward phase like anna chlumsky, time will tell. i just hope she doesn't go the way of lohan.. such a shame.

[MacGuffin]

Matt Reeves to genre fans: 'Let Me In'
He's probably best known as director of 'Cloverfield.' That has some fans worried he'll go flashy on a remake of 'Let the Right One In.' He makes the case for giving him a chance.
By Mark Olsen, Special to the Los Angeles Times

It's an uncomfortable position for any filmmaker to be in — having to defend your new movie against angry attacks while you're still making it.

The director in the crosshairs is Matt Reeves and the movie in question is "Let Me In," the American remake of the Scandinavian art-house hit "Let the Right One In." Seen by many fans as something of an antidote to the broader passions of the "Twilight" series, the original 2008 film is a delicately told preteen horror-romance revolving around a lonely 12-year-old boy who discovers that the sweet, shy girl next door he has become smitten with is also a vampire.

From the moment that it was announced, Reeves' "Let Me In," scheduled to hit theaters this fall, has garnered intense scrutiny from the online genre community. Debates rage as to whether the project should even have been undertaken, and the writer-director — whose previous film was the frenetic camcorder monster movie "Cloverfield" — has been doing his best to assuage fan fears, recently participating in a panel discussion about horror films at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

A respectful devotee of both the original novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist as well as the first film, Reeves understands the concerns of those with strong feelings for the original. He had his own reservations about the remake and corresponded with Lindqvist, who also wrote the script for "Let The Right One In," before taking on the project.

"I think because of 'Cloverfield,' people have an assumption, which is, 'Oh, crazy handicam, he's going to jazz it up,' " Reeves said. "And I think that's probably what a lot of people were afraid of when they thought of the most cynical version. And that's the last thing we tried to do. We tried to create the approaching, foreboding dread of movies like 'The Shining,' where you feel like something wicked is unraveling and it's not going to end well. That's what I responded to about the original, the juxtaposition of those tones, this very disturbing story but at the center of it there are these very tender emotions. That's a very unusual mix, and that's what drew me in and dug into me."

In March, just a little more than a month after shooting wrapped in New Mexico on "Let Me In," Reeves was fiddling with the controls on an editing console in a North Hollywood post-production facility. While confident about what he had captured on film and willing to show some scenes to a visiting journalist, he still seemed anxious, clearly wondering how others will respond to his version of this much-loved material.

Reeves' own background — he co-created the TV show "Felicity" with boyhood friend J.J. Abrams and directed and co-wrote the 1996 David Schwimmer-Gwyneth Paltrow rom-com "The Pallbearer" — certainly lends itself more to character studies than hard-core action. Anyone expecting the frenetic pacing and whiplash visuals of "Cloverfield," which did more than $160 million at the worldwide box office, will be shocked by his new film's stillness, as well as the patient and exacting mood that Reeves is working to create.

"It's a slow-burn kind of thing," Reeves says of his take on the material, "which the original was, in a way."

The casting alone should help quell fan trepidation that this is some sort of smash-and-grab adaptation. The central trio of characters — the boy, the girl and the man who takes care of her — are played by Kodi Smit-McPhee ("The Road"), Chloe Moretz ("Kick-Ass") and Richard Jenkins ("The Visitor").

Reeves was approached for the remake — distributed by Overture Films and produced by Exclusive Media Group's relaunched Hammer Films — even before the Swedish film had opened in the United States. When that film was released to intense acclaim from stateside critics and fans, Reeves knew that the bar had been raised.

"It was doing all the things I am interested in, having gotten into genre films," said Reeves. "One of the fun things about doing genre is you can kind of smuggle in real stuff, so it kind of charges the metaphor. It's a giant monster coming down the street, but it's really about anxiety. This is a vampire movie, but really it's about the pain of adolescence. And that kind of thing is really exciting to me."

When shooting his version of the scene in which the boy and girl first meet, in the courtyard of their apartment complex, Reeves captures much of what inspired such loyalty to the original — the emerging desire and confusion of early romantic feelings underscored by the tension of a horror tale. If there is something more, it will come in no small part from the assured performances by Smit-McPhee and Moretz.

Overall, Reeves wants the look of the film to have a startling naturalism, to evoke a stylized reality, and so he chose to work with the young Australian cinematographer Greig Fraser, who previously worked on Jane Campion's evocative period drama "Bright Star." Although there are some 300 visual effects shots in the film, Reeves instructed visual effects supervisor Brad Parker that he doesn't want people to notice.

"In the same sense I want the photography to have this kind of messy realism, to be beautiful but gritty," said Reeves, "I want the effects to feel believable. I want people to think back later and say, 'I don't even know if that's an effect.' I don't want anything that pulls you out.

"It's not going to feel like a movie with a crazy number of effects. It's, hopefully, going to feel like an intimate coming-of-age story."

[Stefen]

 

[Captain of Industry]

Another balless filmmaker being applauded for catering to source material.  Let the Right One In got it, I would have much preferred a Keep Hollywood Weird remake.

[Robyn]

I wanted to kill myself because it was so bad. I hope the remake will be better.

[Pozer]

why kill yourselves when you can simply FLUSH yourselves

[Reel]

I wanted to kill myself because it was so bad. I hope the remake will be better.

it wasn't bad, maybe a little slow. The english dub makes it seem bad but I don't need to watch a movie set during the heart of winter in Sweden and have to read too! I realized today while watching it, that the feeling it evokes that makes me want to commit suicide through every passing minute might be all that it has going for it. Its one of the only movies in recent years where I don't want to see the violence, its too icky and weird. But if this remake skimps on all that buildup and goes straight for the gore to make American audiences happy I'd say it really missed the mark. But wait, you're from Sweden, yet u still didn't like the original. What's wrong with you? Or is that a joke..

[Robyn]

Did you see it dubbed? Holy fuck, that must be annoying. I would never, and I mean NEVER, see a movie dubbed. It ruins everything and is much more annoying then to read the subtitles, which is something I always do.

Anywaw, yeah, I'm from Sweden, which is why I see it differently from your guys. The thing that irritated me the most was the actors. Okay, Eli was awesome. But the rest was terrible. In particular the child actors, which did everything sounded so fake and bad. And while I have nothing against slow movies, this was just boring and uninteresting. Though, I think it's great that a modern film from Sweden is such a hit worldwide. Couse, you know, apart from Roy Andersson and perhaps Ruben Östlund and Jesper Ganslandt Sweden sucks at making movies nowdays.

[Pubrick]

The english dub makes it seem bad but I don't need to watch a movie set during the heart of winter in Sweden and have to read too!

i echo KarlJan's statements regarding this.. holy FUCK. what the hell? you must be the only person i've ever heard of that watched this film dubbed, worse than that, WANTED it dubbed. i mean watch a movie however you like, but i seriously didn't even know a dubbed version was out there.

i can only imagine how fucked up the dialogue must have been, as is always the case when ridiculous choices are usually made to fit the mouth movements more than actually carrying any nuance in meaning, and especially consdering the furore that occured over the different subtitle versions.. wow.

and i can totally understand KarlJan not liking the film since his comments are based on the line delivery of the kids. it's kind of a disturbing truth that a person can't REALLY judge the merits of a film completely if it's in a foreign language. it's bad enough that each film carries its own cultural baggage, western/eastern ideas, histories, etc, but when it comes specifically to the delivery of dialogue and the quality of acting, it's impossible to guage this accurately if all you've got to go on is subtitles.

often the genius of a script is lost due to untranslatability. any spanish speaker familiar with the work of Cantinflas would know that his films are quite hilarious but that it's just impossible to translate the insane ways he constantly plays with the vocabulary. you can only compare it to other ppl who do sort of the same thing in english, like the marx bros. the advantage of some genres of course is the ability to communicate narrative points without dialogue, using a universal shorthand endemic to say action films, or horror. silent films never had a problem for this reason, and i think that's part of the charm of Let The Right One In.. slow film means little dialogue!

but seriously, dubbing only works on animated films - no one is watching them for the performances.

[Pas]

The only case where dubbing is good is for these "so bad it's good" movies. Steven Seagal in french is something else.

[socketlevel]

or watching "a better tomorrow" and "a better tomorrow 2". those movies are so fucking awesome dubbed, a couple times i've made it a night with friends. drinks, laughs and horribly awesome dubs.

however films like this dubbed it can only work against the experience. i remember i started watching "intacto" (one of my hidden gem loves) dubbed and turning it off 10 mins in because i didn't want to ruin it. found the dvd with the original language track (for some reason there were two different dvds) and it was easily one of my fav films that year.

[Fernando]

The only case where dubbing is good is for these "so bad it's good" movies. Steven Seagal in french is something else.

arnie in spanish is hilarious, the one-liners in commando are priceless.

the only great thing I like better dubbed are the simpsons, and it's a rare case where the ppl in charge of dubbing really put a lot of thought in translating the jokes, and while some of the simpsons jokes fall into the category of untranslatable, the dubbing team did a great work into adapting the jokes to our culture, hence the enormous success of the series here.

one that didn't work at all is seinfeld, watching it dubbed was painful and not funny at all and so it disappeared real fast, however, on cable when it had subtitles was a huge success.

[Captain of Industry]

Fundamentally I agree that original language is the way to go, though a funny problem I sometimes run into is bad original language adr - especially 60s-70s Italian genre films.  When the words don't match the lips in any language I find it really doesn't matter and I'm free to choose.

And on topic,  

And while I have nothing against slow movies, this was just boring and uninteresting.

Isn't it?  I rewatched it the other day and found myself wondering what I initially liked about the film.  I'd prefer the Keep Hollywood Weird remake.

[Pozer]

The english dub makes it seem bad but I don't need to watch a movie set during the heart of winter in Sweden and have to read too!

i echo KarlJan's statements regarding this.. holy FUCK. what the hell? you must be the only person i've ever heard of that watched this film dubbed, worse than that, WANTED it dubbed. i mean watch a movie however you like, but i seriously didn't even know a dubbed version was out there.

the version i netflixed when it first came out had english dub automatically turned on. watched about two minutes of that atrocity before going in to manually turn off. id have surely flushed myself if i kept watching it that way.