Gothamist reported yesterday that Denzel Washington will be starring in a remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Under Tony Scott’s direction, Washington will play Lt. Zachary “Z” Garber, a detective tasked with rescuing hostages from the New York City subway.

I have mixed feelings about a remake. Some aspects of the original haven’t aged very gracefully, such as the scene in which Matthau shepherds a group of Japanese transit experts through MTA headquarters. But there’s no denying that the 1974 version offers a vivid portrait of New York City in crisis; you can practically smell the city’s decaying infrastructure as the movie unfolds. The principal cast, too, is uniformly good, from Walter Matthau as a rumpled cop to Lee Wallace as a mayor who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ed Koch.

WILL I WATCH IT? Washington brings both gravitas and pulchritude to a role originally played by Walther Matthau, so perhaps all is not lost. If Scott has the good sense to cast a top-notch character actor like Chiwetel Ejiofor (or, hell, Alan Rickman, he of the world’s sexiest voice) in the Robert Shaw role, this remake might not devolve into a boring, Michael Bay-esque spectacle.

In other film news, ICv2 reports that Viz Pictures has acquired the rights to Funky Forest: The First Contact, a surrealistic film from the director of A Taste of Tea:

The two-and-one-half hour film contains 21 loosely connected sequences that, in the words of Variety, “occasionally intersect, but scarcely hint at any game plan.” … Viewers who enjoyed the humorous surrealistic touches in Ishii’s delightful The Taste of Tea (2004—also licensed by Viz Pictures) will recognize many of the cast members from that film in Funky Forest (2006) as Ishii is evidently developing a “stock” company of favorite actors who suit his unique filmmaking style. Hideaki Anno, the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and his wife Moyoco Anno, whose manga Happy Mania is published here by Tokyopop, also play prominent roles in Funky Forest.

I’m incredibly curious about this title. As ICv2 describes it, Funky Forest sounds like Stranger Than Paradise by way of Happy Mania with a forest spirit or two tossed in for good measure.

WILL I WATCH IT? Could be wonderful, or it could be one of those titles that only film students adore…

UPDATE (3/2/08): Viz Pictures will be screening Funky Forest in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. Click here for further details.

angryasianman has the scoop on Justin Lin’s latest film, Finishing the Game, a mockumentary about Hollywood’s ill-fated attempt to complete The Game of Death. Fresh off the summer festival circuit, Lin’s highly praised movie promises lots of laughs, some pointed social commentary, and a cameo by… Ron Jeremy?! (On hand to lend some seedy seventies cred, I guess?) The movie officially opens at the IFC Center in New York on October 5th; click here to find out when it hits your neck of the woods. The trailer looks pretty damn funny:

WILL I WATCH IT? Without the burden of answering to a big Hollywood studio—as he did for Annapolis and The Fast and the Furious: Gaijin Takes on the Yakuza in a Muscle Car—Lin may well deliver a worthy follow-up to his dark comedy Better Luck Tomorrow.

And for those of us who are anticipating the new Sex and the City movie with as much enthusiasm as we’d muster for, say, death or taxes, I offer you two fine examples of snark blogging from the Fug Girls (who better to critique the movie’s terrifyingly bad fashion sense?) and digital femme. Go. Read. You won’t be disappointed.