Fool Me Once

Some movies are perfect. They get it right the first time. Please do not remake them! When some Hollywood upstart decides to update a favorite film of mine, I hesitate to view it. Sometimes I find a dvd of the updated effort in a bargain bin. Then I stare disdainfully at it in its shrink wrap that I hesitate to release it from. When I can't stand it any longer, I open it up, and settle in expecting to be disappointed. Why do I punish myself like this, you might ask. I'm sure the source lies somewhere in the fact that I'm half Norwegian and was raised Lutheran. But sometimes my carefully made plans fail. I love the 1995 Sydney Pollack take on the 1954 classic Sabrina, directed by the masterful Billy Wilder. Then a few days later I adored the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair even more than the original. I know. Blasphemy. John McTiernan messing with Norman Jewison. These two wonderful remakes have another interesting thing in common. Anyone who has watched a movie with me knows I'm a credit junkie. I remain glued to every word that crawls by to the bitter end. Makes it even better when a great song plays over the seemingly never-ending credit crawl, and this is where it gets interesting. If you've read this far, clearly you're interested, too. Gotcha! Anyway. When the action is over at the end of The Thomas Crown Affair, the theme song from the original movie is reprised, The Windmills of Your Mind. And I can't figure out who is singing! I'm really good at this! When the music credits finally arrive, there it is. Who else but Sting can croon that smooth and sexy? Doh. Of course! Then, over the closing credits of Sabrina, once more I am puzzling over who is singing Moonlight. And it's Sting. Again. All I have to say is, if there had been a third incidence of one of my fave films re-imagined into an updated version that I miraculously enjoy where Sting serenades me over the closing credits and I don't recognize his voice, that would have constituted a conspiracy. Twice is merely a coincidence, thrice a conspiracy makes.