Wow, I'm Going to Talk About Movies!

As usual, this is going to be about two things that are only sort of related. First of all, real quickly, I want to talk about Hollywood remaking stuff. Then I am going to talk about how Steven Spielberg is a pussy. But first, remaking movies. I was going out to see Nacho Libre, and that was a hair under okay, but it has nothing to do with this post. After a moderately successful World Cup party (and a barely successful World Cup game), my roommates were watching the remake of The Pink Panther. Well I don't even know if they liked it. I saw it in the theater, and I at least didn't feel like it was some sort of cynical thing. Steve Martin at least cares. He even cared about Cheaper by the Dozen. But that they had to make a new Pink Panther movie isn't exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm more talking about cashing in on our more dubious pop culture history. Like The Dukes of Hazzard, and crap like that. I mean how filthy is that? Swear to god, I never saw it. So here's the thing. My meager understanding of Hollywood burns this scenario into my bean. A long time ago, there was a story about two guys who drove fast. And when Johnny Badwriter pitches it, he says the magic words: "Sort of like TDoH." Well some jaded, jaded movie prick, the money guy, the producer (I wanted to italicize that, implying a sort of Mr. Burns evil to it...a heck of a burden to place on italics, and easily lost since with all the titles so far, it might not have the punch I was looking for) says, "Let's just make TDoH."

See, he, being so caloused, knows a secret. If it is sort of like some crappy old TV show, everybody, US, will just call it a rip-off of that crappy show. Hollywood remaking crap is just their pre-emptive strike. They take an arrow out of Ebert's quiver. He's going to hate it either way, and he's going to say it is unoriginal either way. Both criticisms are likely justified. But he can't say it's a rip-off, at least. Of course he CAN say, if somehow he is a purist, that it isn't enough like the original. But purists usually come off as fanatics, and those people are funny.

So yeah, either way, you were going to get a crappy movie about two guys and a fast car. It's just that in some way, being deriviative is about 1% worse than just bastardizing our childhood. It's a value judgement. An accountant probably makes the call. It's a fine line. The shorter path might actually also be, just maybe maybe maybe, the slightly less nefarious one. It's the Kobayashi Maru! Shortcuts just seem evil.

And it's not like you can rely on other aspects from the production. I mean, John Singleton went from Boyz in the Hood to 2 Fast 2 Furious. And Robert Rodriguez went from El Mariachi to Spy Kids...THEN TO Sin City! And 2 Fast 2 Furious had one character in common with the first movie. And the new one apparently has no common characters. Why not just call it Tokyo Drift? I mean sure, having it be part of the franchise is probably worth 5 million bucks, maybe more, so I should prolly just let the boys in accounting name every movie. But by wringing the last juice out of an older franchise, aren't they forsaking a possible new franchise? I mean I seriously doubt there will be a fourth Fast and Furious movie. But there could have been another Tokyo Drift... if it didn't suck and enough people bought the DVD.

Now, speaking of not being able to rely on other aspects of the production to decide what movie to see. Let's look at Steven Spielberg's new project. It's called Monster House and it looks awesome. To me, and it's probably because he hitched his wagon to Tom Cruise two too many times, but a lot of his recent summer movies have sucked. Yeah, I'll say it. War of the Worlds and Minority Report sucked. Passionless, cynical bullshit. But Spielberg has a studio to save. the $50 million bump you get from Tom Cruise even after his salary is real, cold business. I get it. But other than by Cameron Crowe, ONCE, Tom Cruise has never been directed.

And don't throw Magnolia in my face, because he was just acting like Tom Cruise. And I mean the real Tom Cruise, not Maverick/Cole Trickle, which is his character.

Back to Spielberg. I know he can still be involved in thoughtful and sincere projects. Catch Me if You Can, The Terminal, those were good movies. And not necessarily Oscar grabs or movies that he is sentimental about, like the good Munich and the obviously excellent Schindler's List.

First of all, how cool is it that he is so talented he can "turn it on" like he's an athelete. Like he's Jerry Rice. That he can go from summer blockbuster to Oscar-able is just frikking cool. But in some ways, he used to do both at the same time. We just didn't know it. He's responsible for some things that we all love. Yeah, he amazed us with Minority Report, but we love Indiana Jones. We love The Goonies. Test: Name the the lead character in Minority Report? War of the Worlds? Now name the computer programmer for Jurassic Park? Yeah, the correct answers are blank, blank and Nedry.

The Goonies brings me back to my original point, too. Monster House is about a house that becomes evil, not haunted, just evil, and eats things throughout a neighborhood. Three kids have to fight the house and save the neighborhood. This sounds like it should be just about the coolest movie he has done in a while (he's producing, along with Zemeckis, but I think he's always directing a little). Except for one catch. It's a computer animated movie. Now I don't know if it was pitched as an animated feature. The director has zero on his IMDb credits, and the writers have no previous movie or animated feature type experience. I mean if it comes out that the director was the character designer for Shrek or something, then I guess I get it, but still...

Doesn't this just seem like the sort of movie Spielberg could have thrown $40 million dollars at, got some cute kids, and just absolutely went to town. I guess we all would have just called it a Poltergeist wannabe. Well I'm going to see it. It looks great. I just hope I remember it. I hope I love it.

Dear Movie Making People,

We really want to love movies. You just make it so hard...