Lars Von Trier remaking Taxi Driver with Robert DeNiro on Planet Bullshit

File this under 'Oh God I've got a story to write before 3pm and my internet isn't working and oh shit what's a good film I could pretend someone is remaking'. Unless it turns out to be true, in which case, my bad.

Here's some hot news from the Berlin Film Festival, which they should now rename the Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry Festival. According to Danish film magazine Ekko, Martin Scorsese is gearing up to remake Taxi Driver, but with Antichrist funster Lars Von Trier in the director's chair and Robert De Niro back playing Travis Bickle. 66 year-old Robert DeNiro. Some day a rain will come and wash all the dye out of his hair.

Now, while this rumour is undoubtedly at least 99% cock, balls and shaft, let's not toss off the other 1% out of hand. So to speak.

First, Scorsese has often spoken of his desire to revisit Travis Bickle and see how old age has treated him. The ambiguous and highly suspect ending to the original Taxi Driver is far too happy clappy to be The End. DeNiro has also stated in past interviews that's he's not completely adverse to making a Taxi Driver sequel, though neither man has ever confirmed anything was, or ever would be, in production.

It's the talk of a remake that doesn't quite chime. Would Taxi Driver be even half as effective is Bickle is old enough to claim his bus pass? Wouldn't it just be a belligerent old man shaking his walking stick at kids playing their iPhones too loud? Even if it's done seriously, it'll be accused of ripping off Harry Brown, which itself ripped off Gran Torino et al.

And Lars Von Trier? Psychological torturer Lars Von Trier? The man who robbed Hollywood of the talents of Bjork? Something about this stinks of hog shit. Why would the guy who created the 'anti-rules' of Dogme go from a firebrand film like Antichrist onto a remake of a stone-cold classic? To use the Wookiee defence: that does not make sense.

Still, with Von Trier in the director's chair, at least we'd finally get to see one of Taxi Driver's biggest mystery's in the flesh: what Martin Scorsese's .44 Magnum would do to a woman's pussy.