Chinese director Hou Hsiao Hsi has reinterpreted the classic short film, The Red Balloon, inflating it with all kinds of powerful statements about childhood and bad parenting and home-done hairstyles and stuff. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t make any real judgments about it, although I feel like the whole “Juliette Binoche is always an amazing actress no matter what” cachet kind of wore off for me 8 years ago. Besides, I’m pretty sure I already saw this movie, and it was called SherryBaby, and I turned it off halfway through because I GET IT, LIFE IS HARD AND SHERRY’S SKIRTS ARE REALLY TIGHT.

The original is still pretty good, you know. I’m not convinced it needed all that pathos and heavy handed “maybe the parents in the paintings are ghosts I’m going to look out the window now” stuff.

Maybe Hou Hsiao Hsi should have just made his own movie, and left the tasteful, heartfelt reinterpretations to a real master.