(ed. note: This post was accidentally published at 1AM, instead of 1PM, so we're re-publishing it at the correct time.)

I've been thinking about the largely negative response to Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights (6 screens), a film I quite liked. As of today it's at 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, though it opens wider this weekend (including here in the Bay Area) and more reviews are surely coming in. Most critics I've spoken with around here likewise didn't think much of it. What are the reasons for all this disappointment? The main reason has to do with its weight. It's a lightweight movie, a trifle, flimsy, vapid, thin, etc. Wong is considered one of the world's greatest filmmakers, a maker of "weighty" works of art, and so this "lighter" film is beneath him. It's a letdown, a step backward.

Well, I say that's nonsense. Many great filmmakers dallied in lightweight, lesser trifles during their careers, and it didn't make them any less great. Martin Scorsese has made lots of them. After Hours (1985) and The Color of Money (1986) may not pack the punch of Raging Bull, but they are quite enjoyable, and pure Scorsese. (His current Shine a Light, 277 screens, feels like a trifle.) Fritz Lang came to the United States from a position of great power and unlimited resources in Germany and found himself assigned cheap crime pictures. Yet few critics today would complain about the "lightness" of The Big Heat or Scarlet Street. Max Ophuls also made crime films in Hollywood (Caught and The Reckless Moment), and his reputation remains intact. Some consider John Ford the greatest American director of all time, and even though his goofball Donovan's Reef (1963) isn't counted among his classics, I love it just as much. It has moments of great beauty that reflect its maker's personality. My Blueberry Nights may not stand up to In the Mood for Love, but it's unquestionably a Wong Kar-wai film.

Faced with the prospect of checking out several new releases or luxuriating in a new print of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, audiences overwhelmingly chose Godard's 1963 classic. Playing at a single location (Film Forum in New York City), Contempt earned $13,100 over the weekend, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady of Movie City News. Distributor Rialto Pictures has the film booked at Film Forum until March 27, and then perhaps will tour the print, though no details are provided on their site.

Indie holdovers also did better than the newest offerings. David Gordon Green's Snow Angels (Warner Independent) made $8,666 per screen at three theaters in its second week out, per Box Office Mojo, while Oscar winner The Counterfeiters (Sony Pictures Classics) pulled in $6,263 per-screen at 72 locations in its fourth week. Ira Sachs' Married Life (Sony Pictures Classics), Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park (IFC) and Jacques Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais (IFC) also performed well; the first two in their second week of release, and the latter in its fourth week.

Michael Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games (Warner Independent) did very little business, grabbing just $1,800 per screen at 289 engagements, which is disappointing since our own James Rocchi called it "a great film ... it's hard to say which Funny Games stirs up more -- your guts, or your brain." Meanwhile, Bill Maher's Sleepwalking (Overture) was right behind at $1,640 per screen at 30 locations. In the review by Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson, he concluded: "Worst of all is that title, which is exactly the kind of title that filmmakers should stay away from if they want to avoid a fairly obvious one-word film review."

(Funny Games opens in theaters this weekend; below is Cinematical's Review from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.)

Michael Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games is a great movie. It's also a great film. It's also a great piece of commentary on film. It's hard to say which Funny Games stirs up more -- your guts, or your brain. There's a line about how the film criticism of Manny Farber "played both brows against the middle." Funny Games smashes lowbrow violent entertainment and highbrow thoughts about violent entertainment into each other, hard, over and over again until the resulting wreck of bone and flesh and blood glistens like a sharp-edged gem. It gives you what you want and asks why you want it in the first place, and it does both those things superbly. It is cruel, cold and darkly thrilling.

The Farber family (played by Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart) are getting away from it all to their lakeside vacation home. They're going to relax, meet friends, play golf and enjoy good food and good music. But they're not going to get to do any of those things. Two polite young men (played by Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt) drop by; they're guests of the neighbors, and the neighbors sent them over to borrow four eggs. Watts is glad to help. But the eggs break, and they'd like to borrow another four. Watts is less glad to help, but still polite. And then second set of four eggs are broken, and then it's not about the eggs at all, and politeness becomes irrelevant. Which, really, it is in the first place. Soon the Farber family is bound and frightened and hurt, and the two young men stay cool and courteous and curious, proposing games and posing probing questions. Roth chokes out a simple question: "Why are you doing this?" Pitt's answer is simpler: "Why not?" Pitt spools off a long series of complex and contradictory rationalizations for his associate's part in events that are rapidly going out-of-control for the Farbers, closing by noting that " ... he's jaded and disgusted by the emptiness of existence. It's hard." None of it is true, and what would it matter if it were?

As the junior partner in the pair of white-clad killers in Michael Hanekne's English-language remake of his own Funny Games, actor Brady Corbet may be one of the lesser-known names in the cast, but his work as a smiling, shy sociopath makes for a haunting performance. At the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Corbet spoke with Cinematical about Haneke's working process, what it's like to play someone who's already playing a role, and his take on Funny Games's combination of entertainment and commentary: "The first (version) asked the question 'Why are you watching this?' And the new film asks 'Why are you watching this again?'"

This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:

After a startling, striking debut in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Michael Pitt wound up having what many young actors would consider a dream career, mixing parts in big-studio films (Murder by Numbers, The Village) with parts in independent movies by legendary directors (The Dreamers, Last Days). As the ringleader of the murderous duo in Michael Haneke's Funny Games, Pitt combines charisma and coldness to create a truly unique and riveting villain. Pitt spoke with Cinematical about breaking the fourth wall, playing a psychopath and how while working with Haneke made him feel excited, it also left him more than a little bit nervous: "I was constantly on my toes ... just always working on it, always. I knew I needed to do that." This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:

Michael Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games is a great movie. It's also a great film. It's also a great piece of commentary on film. It's hard to say which Funny Games stirs up more -- your guts, or your brain. There's a line about how the film criticism of Manny Farber "played both brows against the middle." Funny Games smashes lowbrow violent entertainment and highbrow thoughts about violent entertainment into each other, hard, over and over again until the resulting wreck of bone and flesh and blood glistens like a sharp-edged gem. It gives you what you want and asks why you want it in the first place, and it does both those things superbly. It is cruel, cold and darkly thrilling.

The Farber family (played by Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart) are getting away from it all to their lakeside vacation home. They're going to relax, meet friends, play golf and enjoy good food and good music. But they're not going to get to do any of those things. Two polite young men (played by Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt) drop by; they're guests of the neighbors, and the neighbors sent them over to borrow four eggs. Watts is glad to help. But the eggs break, and they'd like to borrow another four. Watts is less glad to help, but still polite. And then second set of four eggs are broken, and then it's not about the eggs at all, and politeness becomes irrelevant. Which, really, it is in the first place. Soon the Farber family is bound and frightened and hurt, and the two young men stay cool and courteous and curious, proposing games and posing probing questions. Roth chokes out a simple question: "Why are you doing this?" Pitt's answer is simpler: "Why not?" Pitt spools off a long series of complex and contradictory rationalizations for his associate's part in events that are rapidly going out-of-control for the Farbers, closing by noting that " ... he's jaded and disgusted by the emptiness of existence. It's hard." None of it is true, and what would it matter if it were?

There are only a handful of examples out there of a director who has chosen to remake their own movie. But I guess if Alfred Hitchcock can do it, why not someone else? MSN is now hosting the trailer for Michael Haneke's remake of his own film, Funny Games. Starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, the update follows the same story as the original; a family vacationing at a remote country home is terrorized by a psychotic duo -- this time around it's Michael Pitt (Last Days) and Brady Corbet. Judging from the trailer, it's going to be a tough sell to North American audiences. Mainly because you can't tell whether the film is going for pitch black comedy, or a straight thriller. Not to mention (Warning, spoiler ahead), the ending might be a little hard for US audiences to take. Unless, of course, Haneke had some major changes up his sleeve.

This is just the first remake of a Haneke film slated this year. Rumors of Ron Howard taking on Haneke's thriller Cache with long-time production partner Brian Grazer surfaced back in February, although there has yet to be official confirmation. Haneke is also slated to start production on The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale, a period piece set in a German village pre-WW1. Since I haven't seen the original Funny Games, I can't say whether or not the remake is a good idea or not; although experience has taught me that most remakes can never live up to the original -- even if they are made by the same person.

There is some interesting international news coming from Variety. They're reporting that Cache director Michael Haneke is gearing up for his next film, having just wrapped a U.S. remake of his thriller Funny Games. The new project is interestingly called The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale. Over at Variety, it's all in quotes, so I assume it's the full title, and not two possible titles. Very little is being said about the feature -- it will be co-produced by X-Filme Creative Pool and Les Films du Losange, and will be set in a Northern German village before the first World War. That's the only official news to go on, but there are a few more bits over on the IMDb message boards. It's going to be about the rise of the Nazis, and apparently, actor couple Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe were rumored to be starring. Obviously, with Mühe's passing this week, that won't be the case.

The other news bit is of the more classic variety. Daniel Brühl, who starred in Goodbye, Lenin!, is going to head a new adaptation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis as the giant insect previously known as Gregor Samsa. While I'm not a big fan of the story, it's looking to be an intriguing new project as both the ever-creepy Stephen Rea and one of my favorite young actresses, Anna Paquin, are also starring. I presume they will play Gregor's sister and father, which leaves his mother yet to be cast. Metamorphosis will mark the directorial debut for FeardotCom producer Limor Diamant, so hopefully this will be much, much better -- not that it would be hard to improve on the Stephen Dorff flop.

He may not be a great director -- perhaps not even worthy of his Oscar -- but Ron Howard is good enough at making the kind of movies he makes. His films are sufficient in quality for the masses who might not see a film by Michael Haneke, for instance. Therefore, Howard should be the one of the most suitable directors to strike a compromise between the demands of Hollywood and international cinema by successfully remaking a foreign film. Unfortunately, he's tried this before and failed miserably, with EdTV, which was a redo of Louis 19, Le Roi des Ondes (Louis the 19th, King of the Airwaves).

Now Variety is reporting that he may attempt to redeem himself by doing another remake, this time of Haneke's Caché. The original film stars Daniel Auteil and Juliette Binoche as a married couple who are terrorized by a series of mysterious videotapes, the first of which appears to be a surveillance tape of their home. It is a fairly slow, open-ended film that lacks the conventions that many Americans expect from a thriller, and obviously Universal, the studio releasing the remake, will want to amp up the suspense and consequences. This would be a silly approach, though, since Haneke's version is more suspenseful because it has few consequences.

As long as Haneke is going to be doing remakes of his own work, I have no reason to complain about other people redoing his films. And if those people who can't be bothered with the original Caché are interested in seeing a Hollywood translation, they are better off with Howard directing than most. They may even get to see it with Binoche reprising her role -- if producer Brian Grazer is smart, he'll ask for her. Now, if only Auteil could finally be recognized by the majority of Americans. Of course, he'll probably be replaced by either Russell Crowe or Tom Hanks. There is no timetable set up for the Caché remake, and if Howard is definitely interested, he'll have to sort out his future projects, which so far include Frost/Nixon, Angels & Demons, The Look of Real and East of Eden.

I was thinking about Tim Roth the other day, wondering where on earth he'd run off to. During the early 1990s (thanks to the one-two punch of Vincent & Theo and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead), he was my favorite actor on earth -- lately, though, despite the fact that the IMDb says he's been working pretty regularly, I've not seen him in anything. Clearly I've been looking in the wrong places -- not any more, though!

According to today's Variety, Roth not only stars in Francis Ford Coppola's recently-wrapped indie flick Youth Without Youth, but will also be in two other features due out in the next 18 months or so. Though not big studio releases, both films are the work of major international directors, so it looks like Roth is still choosing primarily projects that just interest him, whether they're going to pay a lot or not. Which, you know, is pretty damn awesome. And if that's not the case, I think he's made a tragic mistake -- there's no way he's going to get several million, for example, for appearing in Wong Kar Wai's road movie, My Blueberry Nights. (WHY did we not know he was in this before? I could so have been part of the blogger-stalking of the NYC set. For Cinematical, I mean.) Then, after Blueberry Nights finishes shooting (which, knowing Wong, could be in 2010), Roth will move on to a starring role alongside Naomi Watts in Funny Games, Michael Haneke's remake of his own 1997 film of the same name.