Swedish film director Tomas Alfredson makes a good argument for why his 2008 film Let the Right One In shouldn’t be remade. “If one should remake a film, it’s because the original is bad. And I don’t think mine is,” he told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (The Evening Sheet). It certainly was not, and has the awards from Tribeca, the Swedish Film Institute, and the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation to prove it. However, we have hope that writer and director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) can bring something special to his version, Let Me In. At the very least, viewers of his previous film won’t have to worry about getting dizzy at this one.But there’s more to recommend it than that. The film stars talented child actors Chloe Moretz (Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass) as Abby and Kodi Smit-McPhee (the unnamed boy from The Road) as Owen. For those unfamiliar with the plot, Owen is a 12-year-old victim of bullying who befriends Abby and discovers that she’s actually a vampire. The names have been changed from the original, along with the setting being transported to New Mexico. (more…)

Overall, it’s probably a good thing that The Social Network is being released. As a country, we know far too little about the technologies and tools we use every day, focusing instead only on the results. As The Social Network shows by describing the story behind the development of Facebook, this can be a dangerous attitude.Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) stars as Mark Zuckerberg, the soft-spoken, outrageously rich Harvard dropout and co-founder of Facebook. Even the most disconnected viewer has by now heard something of the sour history behind that status, with several other Harvard students claiming that Zuckerberg misrepresented his role in the project. Zuckerberg himself has expressed unhappiness at the fact that a version of his life will be put on display in the film. He’s right to worry, considering that Eisenberg has called Zuckerberg the most “overtly insensitive” character he’s ever played. (more…)