I used to really like Neil LaBute. Well, that may not be the best way to phrase that. I thought In the Company of Men was an amazing gut-punch of a movie, and I thought Your Friends & Neighbors, while not nearly as impressive, was a good expansion of the same sensibility into more of an ensemble piece. And though I haven’t seen it since it was first in theaters, I thought Nurse Betty was a huge leap forward for him, marrying his misanthropy with a story of hope to great effect. He was the kind of writer/director who I thought had something going on, and I was looking forward to where he would go next.

But ever since then, wow.

I was willing to write off Possession as a noble attempt to expand his pallet in directions that he just couldn’t handle, but The Shape of Things was a disaster, a sub-par “return to form” script ruined by the stage-bound affectations of a cast that had been performing the play together for too long. I haven’t even been interested in seeing his last few films (especially The Wicker Man — why anyone would want to remake that abomination is beyond me). And then I saw this trailer for Death at a Funeral. Maybe that title is familiar to you. I thought it rang a bell, but then figured it might be just one of those titles. It wasn’t until near the end of the trailer, when the gay lover arrives, that it clicked. This movie came out two years ago. The trailer is even built almost exactly the same.

It’s just a disappointment. Have we really accelerated the remake wheel to 1940s era speeds? And if we’re going to remake something, is it really enough to do essentially a joke for joke remake of a movie with black American characters instead of white British ones (and Peter Dinklage in both)? Lazy.

In other news, I am not the least bit interested in seeing the new The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but I am excited to see my subway stop (that production essentially shut down for a week) featured so prominently in the trailer.