Disturbia VS Rear Window

What is your take on the whole Disturbia 'ripping off' Rear Window thing? When I saw the preview for this movie i thought it looked bad and instantly thought of Hitchcock's Rear Window. Now i've seen some parts of Disturbia when i was working but not the entire thing in full. Has anybody seen this? I've been getting mixed reviews from people. If you have seen Disturbia, have you seen/heard of Rear Window?

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Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. ~ Jimi Hendrix

The minute I heard the premise of Disturbia, "Teen under house arrest suspects his neighbor may have killed someone," I thought "Andy Hardy meets Rear Window."

I marvel at the gall of today's 20-something actors and directors remaking classic films that invite direct comparisions with the industry's giants.

I don't know how much gall it takes when probably 90% of the audience who flocked to see it this weekend haven't even seen Rear Window and 99.99% don't know Andy Hardy from Howdy Doody. That we "real" movie fans and every critic who sees it are going to note it, what does that matter to them? The Studios and hacks are in it for the money, of which they already have a return on their investment after three days on screens.

So...yeah.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

heh "Marvel at the gall"? Seriously?

Rear Window came out 57 years ago. Remakes are pretty common. I marvel at your marvelling.

Rear Window is an all time favorite of mine. It is Disturbia that I have never heard of. Then again, I despise most remakes.

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The defining point of the matter is no one can mess with Alfred Hitchcock. No one can direct a movie quite like Hitchcock, and no one has as much intensity as James Stewart. I like Shia Labeouf though, but I'm assuming Disturbia has more of a slasher film/modern horror element, while Rear Window is rooted in suspense, and not so much make-you-jump horror.

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Like Nadal, I'm a spin doctor.

This is like comparing oranges to apples. It's not a competition in any sense of the word.

All I can say is, it is all very disturbing

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Okay, say you're a bright young up-and-comer in the Hollywood movie business, would you as an on-your-way-up director want to make a film that you know is going to invite comparisions of your abilities with those of Alfred Hitchcock among critics and friends and people who provide the jobs in the movie industry? Or as an actor, would you want to trapped forever in fllm for an onscreen comparision with James Stewart or Grace Kelly or--mother of Gawd!--Thelma Ritter? After all, unlike most of the snot-nose kiddies who fill movie theaters today, you as a director or actor would have studied film, you would know the work of Hitchcock and Stewart and the others, you almost certainly would have seen the original Rear Window, perhaps often, perhaps studied it in film school, and discussed it with your friends in the film business. I can understand the studio bean-counters wanting to take a previous box office hit to the bank one more time, but their names and faces won't be up there on the credit roll with those of the director and actors. So would you as a director or actor want to be associated in any way with such a remake? Especially since, as you pointed out, there have been so many remakes in recent years, none of which have been very successful, much less as good or better than the original. Therefore, I marvel at the gall of the directors and actors who sign on for such projects in the vain hope of catching any of the original lightning in their inadequate bottles.

Of course, remakes have been around from the start of the movie business. Cecil B. DeMille did Ben Hur a couple of times. The director (I forget his name) of Rio Bravo did 3-4 versions of that same movie under different titles but all with Wayne. High Sierra with Bogart was reshot again as gangster story with Jack Palance and as a western with Joel McCrae. Broken Lance with Spencer Tracy was the third remake of a film that starred Edward G. Robinson as a banker who dominated his sons' lives. But all of those remakes involved people of the same or nearly the same abilities. Today's remakes are more on the level of monkey see, monkey do.

I'll stick with Rear Window. Hitch was the MAN.

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But you're assuming that this director is a) bright and b) gives a fart. If he makes some great little movie that no Studio exec ever sees, doesn't do him a lick of good. If he does a wash on Rear Window and the thing surpasses its budget in the opening U.S. weekend alone...that guy is going to have executives returning his phone calls and lining up to work with him. They'll probably be lining up to make more crap, sure, but D.J. Caruso just did more for his Hollywood career in those three days of box office than The Salton Sea - which didn't even crack a million, will ever do.


The system is clearly fu*ked when a Disturbia is rewarded, but it's hardly the director's fault for taking advantage of it. I don't think gall ever entered into it.

As for Shia LaBeouf, the kid from a Disney Channel series who's trying to transition to older teen and hopefully adult roles...how does this take gall?


Hey, believe me I'm with you that Disturbia and all the other witless remakes and reworkings that abound are totally unnecessary and a waste of time and money. But I don't then make the leap that because somebody who has ambitions of actually working in the industry is some kind of twit who has perpetrated a great affronery to the grand history of cinema for playing in that system. The studios are the ones with the toys, after all, so if you want to play on a certain scale you have to take things as they come for a while.


I would hope a director like D.J. Caruso now takes the little bit of heat he has from this box office success and translates it into better, more original projects down the line. He may very well squander this opportunity, but doing what he had to do to get his foot in the door hardly took gall.




ANYway, we all agree Disturbia isn't worth our time, yeah?

Sure. As one example, Brad Pitt, early on, was dubbed "the next Robert Redford". Many young actors and directors (and others) careers have benefitted from comparison and association with The Greats. Nobody expects the current generation to be as revered (though you've certainly perfected a level of disdain to which few would aspire), so do they suffer from comparison? I think not. And as an added bonus, they're seen. And as another nifty perk, they can buy groceries that week.


This is debatable. Remakes rarely ever attain the lofty status of the original, of course, but there have been some notable exceptions lately. The newest Batman franchise, as one example.

Beware, sir: looking down one's nose for too long can cause myopia.

Sorry, guess I don't spend enough time memorizing who directed what. I'm familar with Hawks' work, but at that moment I couldn't for the life of me recall the guy's name and didn't take time to look it up, figuring that most folks in this thread would know who I meant.

Caruso on the other hand is not a name I'll bother to remember. You're right, of course. It's not hard to make money if all you want to do is make money. But that argument sounds a lot like the director's version of the would-be starlet's fantasy that maybe a role in a porn film would get her noticed and launch her career in legitimate film.

Problem is, embarassing moments on film have a bad habit of hanging around forever. "Disturbia" will be out there forever. And there will always be film buffs who know it is a cheap version of "Rear Window" with none of the talent.

Brings to mind one of my favorite lines in the well-made and very funny My Favorite Year (1982) when Peter O’Toole, tied to a fire hose, hurtles past two men on a high-rise balcony.

First man: “I think Alan Swann is beneath us.”

Second man: “Of course, he is—he’s an actor!”

The only way to look at Hollywood schlock is down.

My favorite line from that one is "I am NOT a MOVIE STAR... I am an ACTOR!!"

The way I remember it, it was the other way around. Frightened at concept of performing on live TV, O'Toole as Swann says, "I'm not an actor--I'm a movie star!" But I've already demonstrated my faulty memory in this discussion, so I could be wrong.

The best line in that movie, however, was when the drunken Swann is in the women's bathroom. One lady informs him, "This is for ladies only." Swann replies, "So is this, madam, but I sometimes pass water through it."

I mean come on. How can you compare Rear Window with Disturbia???? That's moronic.

You were right about the line. I misremembered it. My point is actually clearer the way you have it: there's an industry making film, and they have more to consider than whether it's high art.

The comparison you've set up is faulty and your proof is carefully culled: your contention is that nothing is as good as the old films, and you point to a half-assed remake as proof of this while ignoring a lot of great film. See The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and tell me nothing recent can be great.

No such thing! The discussion was about remakes of classic movies with storylines and characters that are still part of the living memory of moviegoers who are familar with those films. Not just the mall rats who fill movie seats on weekends and in the summer. My claim is simply that there are some movies that are still so familar, and even so dear to a segment of the movie-going public (the older segment, to be sure, but we are still around) that the original films and stars are still the measures by which any remake is to be judged.

Unlike you, I'm not convinced that all young directors and actors of today are in the business just for the money. I think they want to make good movies, even great movies if allowed to. After all, many of those people have studied film in college and facilities like Sundance. Unlike some of the stars of yesteryear who sold insurance or shoes or worked in the prop room or as a stuntman before they became actors, many of the young directors and actors of today have been educated for such work and have experience in television or music videos or home movies or documentaries.

I don't think they want to start their careers with a bad remake that invites direct comparision of their directing or acting abilities with some of the greatest names in the business. It's not fair to the "kids" to pile all that excess baggage on them.

So happens I've seen The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. It's a well-made low budget film, starring a really good actor, Tommy Lee Jones, who is no newcomer by any stretch of imagination. Dwight Yokum also delivered another solid performance. The kid may become an actor yet. But that film was not a remake of a popular classic. It was the result of someone looking for some new material instead taking the easy way out of recycling the storylines or simply the titles of movies, TV series, and cartoons from their childhood.

I'm not even saying all remakes are bad. For instance, the remake of the Last of the Mohicans was a better film than the small budget Randolph Scott original that was shot on a back lot. (But the Randolph Scott original was never considerd a "great classic," either.) Still, that was an example of a producer and director taking some A-list actors and going on picturesque locations with a much bigger budget than the original B-movie version. Shows what can be done if someone gets off their butt and tries to make a good movie.

MUST you be so disdainful? The thing is, it's making it very difficult for me to take anything you say seriously. There are good things in bad films, and your easy dismissal of things, while you seem to be aiming for knowledgeability, smacks of aesthetic laziness. It's the people who know less about an art form who lack the ability to find the good in it.

Holden already pointed out that the target audience for Disturbia is the (rather large) segment of the population who have probably not seen Rear Window. If they have, it's surely been on DVD, not the big screen. Also, your notion that the new film is a "remake" of the Hitchcock is your story - there's a comparison to be made, but an actual remake will draw much more heavily on the older work as source material. This is a similar sitation, not a remake. So your judgement of it against that standard is unfair.


I've said nothing of the sort. YOU are the one using the words "all" and "none".

So, stop.
Reworking a story in a new setting is a very tried and true method of creating something new. Artists who bemoan that "it's all been done before" are one short step from working at Taco Bell.

Ok, I now understand that you were talking about remakes here.

So you're against the reworking of any recogniseable elements from any classical story, because the new thing will always suffer in comparison with the vaunted original. Here's the thing: the vaunting is, to a certain extent, in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I found Rear Window a bit awkward at times.