"Death at a Funeral" Remade...

Like Eddie Izzard said... any British film that meets with any kind of success in America will soon be remade by Hollywood. "Room With a View and a Staircase and a Pond" will be amped up into "Room With a View of Hell... Staircase of Satan... Pond of Death..."

I quote Eddie because, firstly, the man is outright hilarious. Second, he's absolutely correct.

Take, for example, a movie trailer I saw last night while waiting for "The Book of Eli" to start (which was not half bad, but I was disappointed by the ending. He should have exchanged the pages. It doesn't really make sense the way it is. Can you tell I'm really not trying to give away the ending here?).

Chris Rock stands at a coffin. He looks down sadly. Then he reacts. "Who is this man? This man is not my father." Immediately bells are going off in my head. This seems awfully familiar. While I'm still thinking about this, we meet Martin Lawrence, who plays Chris Rock's brother, a man who is more about money and girls than he is about responsibility. Again, entering an uneasy realm of recognition. Soon any doubts I may have had about "have I really seen this before" were completely erased. We see James Marsden take a pill he believes to be valium and start to trip out, we meet Danny Glover (Uncle Alfie, the mean old man with the cane and the bad bowels), and finally... Peter freaking Dinklage is standing by the coffin.

Peter... Freaking... Dinklage.

Officially, this is no longer a question of have I seen this before. This is a question of why the hell is Hollywood remaking "Death at a Funeral"?

The original, a very funny little black comedy, is undoubtedly going to be better. As much as I like Martin Lawrence (he's just a likeable guy), there is no way he is going to play the brother as well as Rupert Graves. He was just perfect as a slightly sleazy novelist. And let's not forget the absolutely marvelous Alan Tudyk. I adore Alan Tudyk. His high Simon was an absolute laugh riot, and there is no way on God's green earth that James Marsden will be able to compete with that.

The recurrence of Peter Dinklage amuses me. He's playing the same character both times, that of the deceased father's, ahem... well, to use the little I remember of Yiddish, he's his "don't ask." He really is a good looking guy, and not a bad actor either. He's younger and less scruffy in the British version (it was made in 2007).

I will most definitely skip this remake.