Dear Hollywood, Please Fire Everyone And Start Over

Is it me, or has the drought of movies that are actually worth paying to see gone on long enough. I'm not sure what is going on in the world of film making but I demand some worthwhile entertainment.

Ugghh...King Kong. Was that the last movie on the planet that hadn't been remade in the last 5 years? Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson, are you telling me that you had $89,000,000,000 to spend on that film and you picked Jack "School of Rock" Black to star in it? My, my, my, what has become of Hollywood...

Maybe I am too particular about movies, maybe I expect too much, maybe I want perfection. But, as it is, every year that goes on without anything that I feel is worth my $10 to see makes me lower my standards even more. I have now seen all of the Harry Potter movies in the theater, mostly because a) I have read the books and b) they are about the best things being released nowadays. (Barring independent films, which are occasionally not based on violence, drugs, depression, angst, or a pleasant mixture of all four.)

Seriously, the remake trend is getting to be ridiculous. Are there any British classics that Hollywood hasn't destroyed yet? Get Carter (yep), The Italian Job (yep), The Ladykillers (yep), wait, maybe it's time for a version of Withnail and I set in Greenwich Village in the 70's starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller. I am too scared to check the IMdB to see if the rights have been bought up by Universal. I won't even go into remaking of American films, by just mentioning The Bad News Bears I think I sum it all up.

Comic Books...COMIC BOOKS. What the hell is that about? Are we done with those yet? Have we made all of them into feature films...Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, X-Men, Hellboy, Catwoman, Daredevil, The Punisher, Dick Tracy, Garfield... and coming soon The Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Flash, Silver Surfer, and Aeon Flux. That pretty much covers that, expect for a movie about Archie and Jughead.

Old TV shows, god help us. I think we've killed off most of them, thankfully. By casting Johnny Knoxville in that poor excuse for Southern white trash they called The Dukes of Hazzard they may have effectively run the gauntlet. We have been treated with such classics as McHale's Navy, The Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, The Honeymooners, My Favorite Martian, Starsky & Hutch, Sergeant Bilko, The Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver, and Charlie's Angels, no doubt I have forgotten a few...dozen.

What's left, oh yes, when you really have no new ideas, why not make a movie version of a cartoon. Most recently added to the list of awful movies in this genre Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Are they serious? How did that get greenlighted? Is there really an audience for that? Well, not more so than there was for Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, Inspector Gadget, Josie and the Pussycats, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, Mr. Magoo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Honestly now, who is running things in Tinsel Town? A bunch of 11 year olds? Stop feeding us this vile regurgitation of crap. No more Ocean's Sixteen, no more Batman Before The Beginning, no more movies with animals that play sports (especially freakin' monkeys), and for goodness sakes no more remakes of Japanese horror films. YOU ARE DESTROYING THEM! The Grudge was a great movie, in fact the sequel was even good. But then you had to put Buffy in it and take out all the parts that were actually scary. Granted it had the same director, but what was wrong with the originals? Most people will never know, because they will now never see them or the original version of The Ring or Dark Water for that matter. Isn't there anybody in that town that has an idea for a movie that hasn't already been made?

I am perplexed. I really didn't think that new ideas would ever run out when it came to making films. But, I'm not so sure anymore. A quick look at upcoming releases reveals an astonishing amount of sequels, adaptations, and remakes. Big Momma's House 2, Curious George, The Pink Panther, The Shaggy Dog, Ice Age 2, Basic Instinct 2, Scary Movie 4, Mission Impossible 3, X-Men 3, Garfield 2, Pirates of the Carribean 2,and yes, Superman Returns, to name but a few.

I must admit, this kind of depresses me. Sure, I don't expect life changing movies anymore, but I would certainly like to go and see something in the theater. Is something with some originality, decent actors, and a realistic plot and storyline asking for too much? Any more of this and I'll start making movies myself, and then things will really get bad...

K. Panda