Time for a remake?

Uhmmmm.....yeah. I've been through film theory classes as well as film analysis and the like. I'm 20. Pretty much every remake that Hollywood has churned out recently has been beyond terrible. But you shouldn't criticize an entire group of people who have little to no effect on the industry that churns out this garbage. I choose to watch older films in my spare time and get out to the indie theater (45 minute drive ain't that bad!) when I can, but the truth is, most of the movies that come out at the theaters around my town are all the cliche trigger-happy action movies, dumbed-down comedies, bad horror remakes, and everything else you accuse us of liking. The truth is, these are the movies from the biggest companies, with the most money, and therefore, the highest theater counts. They are pumping this ocular excrement into as many faces as they can and force-feeding the public mass quantities of stupid.

The problem is that small town life offers very little excitement and with a society that is so focused on entertainment, the cinema is one of the easiest forms to have access to. People in my town on a Friday night either go to a movie, play mini-golf, or do mass quantities of high class drugs (or they do the drugs before engaging in one of the first two options). Then we all end up at a party, where we collectively work on forgetting our dull weekly Friday night ritual.

I can't believe you brought Bush into this argument. Stating that his departure from office (1/20/09 for those wishing to start planning their celebration party) would allow our country to regain "our strength and innocent feel for the media..." seems a little outlandish. Art tends to work against the established government, regardless of who is in power. That being said, I'd be hard-pressed to classify most of what hits theaters these days as "art" (although the term is objective).

The truth is, this derailment of cinema didn't happen overnight and it won't find its way BACK to the tracks in the same fashion. Until theater-goers stop seeing trash, the industry won't stop churning it out. But if that's all the Hollywood players churn out to the big theaters, then that's all a lot of America CAN see. It's a horrible reality that, until Hollywood finds something original that also brings in a plethora of cash, we'll still see the same schlock over and over again. Then, Hollywood will drain that original property and fire out hundreds of similar movies until they stop making money. Then they'll find something new and bankable again and do the same.

The true heart of filmmaking can be found in indie theaters these days, with only a couple movies really crossing into the mainstream. Movies like this year's Pan's Labyrinth and Little Miss Sunshine (which I found grossly overrated) managed to garner some attention (and with Little Miss Sunshine's success, I expect to see plenty of Hollywood attempts to capitalize on dysfunctional family road trip movies!) but nothing really brought about a huge change.

My thought is that it will either take a VERY long time for the industry to really change OR it will all be with ONE movie.

For reference, I'd list my top 3 movies (at this moment in time) as

1. Fritz Lang's "M" (which Neil Burger's new film plot seems to liberally take from)
2. Antonioni's "L'Avventura" (which features some of the most beautiful cinematography in a movie NOT MADE by Kurosawa)
3. Leone's "Once Upon A Time in the West"

Sorry that I got long-winded or defensive, but when people blame the trash that's being fed to theater patrons on the patrons themselves, they completely lose sight of the problem. Theater patrons can't stop the flow of *beep* they're just stuck to wade through it when there's little else to swim in. Doesn't it make more sense to blast the company who fills the river with *beep* than the people who swim in the *beep* filled river? You could tell them to stay out of the water, but, come on, who doesn't like swimming?

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