MTV highly suggests a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany's

MTV.com has brought up some interesting articles on Audrey Hepburn lately, but this one irritates much more than it amuses. In "'Deliverance' To 'Breakfast at Tiffany's': Movies We'd Like to See Remade," the author suggests a few classic movies that, in his opinion, could actually benefit from a remake. Some would do well with the better quality special effects that we have available now, and others would be just plain fun to see with today's stars (to him). The reasoning behind his idea to remake Breakfast at Tiffany's takes the cake, though:

Oh, we can hear some of you crying foul. Yes, Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly in the 1961 Blake Edwards original is one of the most iconic performances in film history. Yes, the movie is beloved and acclaimed and blah, blah, blah. It's also, honestly, not that great, and it bears very little resemblance to Truman Capote's 1958 book, a far more complex and melancholy tale for which Hollywood just wasn't ready. Sure, movies and books are different media and shouldn't be compared with each other, but in this case we'll make an exception. Why not take a stab at a more faithful adaptation with a less gazelle-like Holly (how about Elisha Cuthbert or Lauren Ambrose?), a less-straight Fred (played by Topher Grace? Owen Wilson?), no happy ending and, most of all, no Mr. Yunioshi. Hey, Sofia Coppola: Whattya think? Good follow-up to "Marie Antoinette"?

[Links to the actors mentioned in the article added by me.] For those of you who have read Capote's original novella, don't you think there's a reason why the film wasn't a faithful adaptation? I think it was lightened for the same reasons film adaptations of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame will never be true to their classic novel counterparts, and that is because they are too dark for the average movie audience. Perhaps today's audience is more sophisticated than the audiences of the 50s and early 60s, if only because we can handle a lot more sex and violence. But deep down, everyone still wants to see a happy ending. Films are screened and remade because test audiences still demand a happily ever after, even in our cynical age. Besides, practically everyone knows by now that Breakfast at Tiffany's isn't very true to the book, and I've met very few people, if any, that actually prefer the book over the film. Most of all, no actress could ever recreate Holly Golightly after Audrey Hepburn has donned her little black dress, and it has actually been detrimental to the few actresses who have dared to remold Audrey's classic characters (see Julia Ormond and Jennifer Love Hewitt). My opinions aside, please read the article for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

In other, better news, it's fashion week in India! More importantly, designer Shantanu Goenka has designed his fall 2007 collection on My Fair Lady, both the Audrey film and George Bernard Shaw's original Pygmalion play that My Fair Lady is based on. The soundtrack to the film played throughout the showing of the collection, and the models themselves went through a flowergirl-to-lady transformation. You can read more about Shantanu's show here.

Lastly, the shy translator who was good enough to transcribe the French interview clip from Sunday has come forward! So if you haven't seen the translation yet, click the link directly above to see the clip, click on the comments link to read the transcript, and leave a little thank you for Manuel Martinez for being so good as to copy out the entire conversation and then translate it for us. That's no mean feat! Merci beaucoup pour votre aide!