Hollywood and Remakes

Dear Hollywood,  why all the horrible, horrible remakes?  I guess you did okay withTrue Grit,  But Arthur?  War Games? All these Exorcist rips?  Clinging to the National Lampoon brand? Scary Movie 28? Who funds these flaming piles? Why, if you arent original enough to come up with something on your own,  don't you at least remake movies that have socially redeeming qualities?  Kids right now are deprived of anything with any educational value, they don't even read in school anymore.  So why not remake movies that actually make you think, instead of all this brain numbing fluff with hack actors (Paris Hilton, im talking to you, House of Wax Blasphemy). 

If I ever come into money i will personally fund a remake of Catch 22.  A great novel, but not so great a movie.  Its a massive book and they did an okay job w/ Garfunkel and Norman Bates (I always forget his real name) but SO MUCH was left out, I think a condensed but more engrossing version could be done.

Or what about Fahrenheit? 1984? Grapes of Wrath?  Animal Farm?  Brave New World?  I bet anyone that happens to read this thats under 20 years old won't even know what i'm talking about. Its so strange to me that in the decade since i've been in high school the quality of education has plummeted . . . I'll save that debate for another blog...

Maybe if kids could see some of these classics we wouldnt be on the trajectory to utter failure like we are now. I'd bet money that if one of these tax-payer-funded studies were done on kids raised on reality TV and Jonas Brothers movies versus kids that had been exposed to literary masterpieces the differences would be night and day.  Todays films, excluding only a few, seem to feed our apathy and cut off our curiosity, our search for knowledge, and the natural cynicism that used to be in all of us.  Not to go Jesse Ventura on anybody but it's really getting easier, since the same corporations that run the government also run the FCC, Motion Picture Board, and Hollywood in general, to think they are dumbing us down on purpose.

My favorite quotes from the book, about how the war is not meant to be won but is used against the people to keep them in line...  I was talking to a kid about politics on the light rail the other day and just made the remark "its getting more like it was in 1984 every day",  he goes "oh, i wasnt born yet".  ARGH.


Or even the politically charged movies that might not make it on Fahrenheits burn list, 12 angry men, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,Inherit the Wind, Citizen Kane, Defiant Ones ... theres too many to list but what happened to those kinds of movies? Now it's all love stories, based on teenagers, blowing crap up, and fart jokes. Would it just take more talent than we have available to touch any of these?

I need a time machine.  I was born too late.