Re-making Italian movies

Peggy told us about a new Robert DeNiro film that's a re-make of an Italian film she saw in college.
So I went to Netflix and instead of finding the DVD I found this grumpy Netflix review:

Why are studios remaking so many movies? Can't they find an original decent script? Everybody's Fine is a remake of the Giuseppe Tornatore film (the director of Cinema Paradiso) called "Stanno Tutti Bene" which translated means - hold your breath - "Everybody's Fine". The Italian film is charming, and beautifully shot. Why not just watch the original instead - rather than some Americanized remake. It would be a great addition to the library here.

So maybe they'll take this guy's advice. I have seen Cinema Paradiso and it was pretty good, but a real tearjerker.

BTW: Netflix lists "Everybody's Fine" under "Tearjerkers"

It's a fact: some very good re-makes of Japanese films have been made, but when anybody tries a re-make of an Italian movie, the results are usually pretty terrible. (Can anyone think of a good one?) On top of that, every movie where Robert DeNiro plays somebody's father has been bad so far, so I'll struggle to be open-minded about "Everybody's Fine." The omens are not good.
I wasn't going to bring up "Harry and Tonto" (1974) although I just saw it last week for the first time, but it fits the pattern. Art Carney won the Oscar that year (he beat Al Pacino in "The Godfather" and Jack Nicholson in "Chinatown") by playing an old man who's evicted from his NYC apartment and goes on a road trip - yes, it's a road movie. It's slow-going and poorly made and while I'm watching it I realize that the director, Paul Mazursky, took the subject matter of "Umberto D" (the indignities of modern old age), the structure of "La Strada" (a road trip with a lot of kooky characters) and the ending from "La Dolce Vita" (the beach - with all its fuzzy symbolism). Sure enough, yesterday I read the synopsis of a documentary about Fellini and it includes an interview with, you guessed it, Paul Mazursky, no doubt talking about Fellini's "influence."

A feminist critic from the 70's or 80's once said that if they re-made "Bicycle Thief" (1948) with a mother and a daughter instead of a father and a son, the movie would just be a tiresome melodrama and - maybe not for the reasons she was thinking of - she was right.