The Greatest Movie Remakes and The Reboots that Nobody Asked For

Guest speaker: film critic Adam Nayman  

Delve into the complex and contradictory history of movie remakes, and examine the impulses and factors that influence filmmakers trying to make lightning strike twice. From A Star is Born and West Side Story to Psycho and Scarface, what makes a film a classic, and how that status can help or hinder attempts to remake and remodel it, will be looked at through a variety of lenses, with special emphasis on remakes that alter or deepen the meaning of their original source material.

Adam Nayman is a well-respected film critic, author and lecturer. He has been a member of the Toronto Film Critics Association since 2002, and he has programmed and hosted films for the Toronto International Film Festival’s Reel Talk series. Adam regularly writes about film for publications such as The Globe and Mail, The Ringer, Sight and Sound and Reverse Shot, and his reviews have been published in The Walrus, The Village Voice and Film Comment. He is a contributing editor for Cinema Scope and POV, has reviewed books for Quill and Quire, and was a staff writer for season one of The Vice Guide to Film. He has also written three books: It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls; Confusion and Carnage: Ben Wheatley; and The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together. Adam regularly lectures about film at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. At the Miles Nadal JCC, Adam has programmed and hosted films for the Toronto Jewish Film Society, and taught the very popular series “In Nayman’s Terms”, “That’s Entertainment! The Evolution of the Hollywood Musical”, “The New Hollywood of the 60s & 70s: Geniuses in the System”, and most recently, the virtual series “Revenge of the Studios: Hollywood Strikes Back”.