A Brief Rant About Movies

Sometimes I find myself complaining about the fact that there is little originality in movies lately.  Its all incredibly formulaic, or simply remakes of old movies.  From time to time this probably makes sense.  For example, there's a great number of Stephen King movies that had little or nothing at all to do with the original story, so they could make a version of The Lawnmower Man that resembled the actual short story.  Actually upon reading that description, maybe that's not such a great idea.  I don't read Stephen King, what the hell do I know?

More often than not the old movie remakes are simply unnecessary.  Even worse, they are often remakes of old television shows.  So according to the Internet, CHiPs may be headed for the big screen.  Arrested Development, which would make a fantastic movie, I am actually hearing less and less about.

Let's think about CHiPs for just a moment, shall we?  When I was seven, I thought this show was fantastic.  Now I'm 38 and I'm just in awe of the fact that there was one TV show where both of the following statements are true:

1. Erik Estrada was sewn into his pants by a costume technician (or whatever you call such a person)
2. Bruce Jenner was an actor
3. OK, I know I said there was two things.. but how the hell did that happen?  "He won a decathlon, so we figure he can handle playing a highway patrolman"

The real problem with this, which I will state without humor, is that the remakes are generally bad, or at least not as good as the original.

One of my favorite 80s movies was Urban Cowboy, a story of a man who falls in love with a woman, and then a mechanical bull, then another woman, then the same woman all over again.  I appreciate its originality. The first time I watched it, I found the story arc surprising.  Its very original.  And "original" may well mean "stupid", I'm not sure.  It was 1980, it was a different time.  Country music was very popular, and apparently the powerful mechanical bull lobby had gotten its hooks into Hollywood.  At least I haven't heard anything about this one being remade.

While I was sitting here contemplating what to write about, I saw a commercial for a movie called "Tooth Fairy".  In this movie, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a hockey enforcer sentenced to make amens for beating people up on the ice by being a tooth fairy.  This movie sounds awful to me, but I can't figure out anything that it is a remake of, and the idea is fairly original.  So they've got that working for them (this is a vague reference to Carl in Caddyshack.  Watch the movie again, its funny.  I think there's a remake planned).

Think this is funny?  Please tell a friend.  Think its terrible?  Tell me.  Just leave a comment.