To Be or Not to Be (1983)

MOVIE #1,817 • 🍿🍿 • 07.16.24 My total disdain for this was in no small part due to the fact that I watched the clearly superior original directly before it. They turned a legendary black comedy into a spoof movie? (See below) Look, I had no idea the wildcard entry for today's TWO 4 TUESDAY was a remake of the classic 1942 picture (and that’s my bad!). What made the original so thrilling was due in large part to its immediacy, coming out DURING the war. Mel Brooks didn't write or direct this second iteration but it's full of his brand of spoof-driven and visual gag comedy, which doesn't meld with this material at all. It's also just lazy and cheap (like inserting stock footage for no other reason than it was probably easier than filming anything new). I turned it off after 30 minutes.

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To Be or Not to Be is a 1983 American war comedy film directed by Alan Johnson, produced by Mel Brooks, and starring Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Tim Matheson, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, and José Ferrer. The screenplay was written by Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan, based on the original story by Melchior Lengyel, Ernst Lubitsch and Edwin Justus Mayer. The film is a remake of the 1942 film of the same name. It was released on December 16, 1983.