Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong #3

Handmade Films are plundering their back catalogue in order to shit on the memory of... sorry, I mean to say remake some classic British films for a contemporary international audience.

Among the titles up for ruination are Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (with - woohoo - Larry "Kids" Clark at the helm) and - I can barely bring myself to say it - The Long Good Friday...

... relocated to contemporary Miami.

... and directed by... directed by... oh, for fuck's sake... Paul WS Anderson.

The London setting and the IRA are intrinsic elements of the original film; they're what the film is about. Transposing the story, the mere sequence of events, to Miami strips away everything that raised the original above and beyond a generic gangster flick. And allowing Paul WS Anderson, the hack who brought us such timeless classics as Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil and Alien Vs. Predator, to direct... that's just an insult to humanity.

What next? A remake of Withnail & I with Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Simpson? "Yeah, see, let's make Withnail a girl and they can fall in love. It would be a smash hit romantic comedy: When Withnail Met I!"

There are some studio executives out there who need to have a few things explained to them with a very heavy piece of wood with a nail in it.