It's All Been Done

There's a saying that there are only 7 original ideas in the world and everything else is just a variation. That may well be true, but Hollywood seems to have ignored the second part of that statement.

The slew of rehashed ideas and plotlines is suffocating to those of us who enjoy originality in their cinematic experience. This morning a friend of mine sent me the link to the trailer for "The Manchurian Candidate". No, they aren't releasing the original with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. They have made a newer, more exciting, flashier version with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. With a 8 out of 10 chance that the average movie-goer hasn't seen the original, let alone heard of it, the producers want to take our movie ignorance straight to the bank.

This must be the reasoning behind other recent and highly unnecessary remakes such as "The Ladykillers" and "Connie and Carla". Till now, I've always respected Joel and Ethan Coen; in a mire of slapstick horrors or melodramatic shmaltz, the Coens have always managed to produce fine, quirky films that might have drawn on common genres (Blood Simple) or done an odd riff on a classical text (O Brother Where Art Thou), but they were always original. The original "The Ladykillers" is a brilliant old British movie with Peter Sellars and Alec Guiness, a movie that I have never watched and thought, "Man you know what this needs? Tom Hanks and Marlon Wayans!" After seeing the first trailer for the Coen's monstrosity, I kept hoping to run into them so as to be able to shake them violently by the collars and demand to know who took their souls.

"Connie and Carla" is another example of Hollywood bastardizing not only a great premise, but what AFI deemed the funniest movie ever. "Some Like It Hot" is the apotheosis of humor. Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe were all at the top of their game and with Billy Wilder at the helm, you were guaranteed nothing but absolute genius. Two jazz players disguised as women to escape the mob might not be the most inventive plot, but the movie itself was just the right combination of talent to make it utterly unforgettable.

However, along comes "My Big Fat Greek Cliche"'s Nia Vardalos, who thinks that she can write a script that, while not an exact rip-off is close enough that anyone with any sense can see what movie inspired her. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was cute, it was chuckle-worthy, and it was totally average. I consider much of its success due to the fact that the IQ of most movie goers is just high enough to make "Lord of the Rings" successful and "Wonder Boys" a failure. Never rely on the movie-going public to pick the true winners. (Same goes for the Academy but they aren't on my enemies list right now.) This mediocre movie spawned a TV show (defunct) and a media darling (highly overexposed). Ms. Vardalos is banking on her past success to make us forget that her talented is limited and her ideas stolen.

If it's not an old movie, it's an old TV show. "Starsky and Hutch", "Scooby Doo", "The Brady Bunch", "Bewitched"...I'm waiting for "The Facts of Life Movie" or "Different Strokes: The Movie". What happened to the spirit that created "Sunset Boulevard", "Chinatown", or "Citizen Kane". Even movies inspired by books can be good if the adaptation is worthy. But you gain nothing by remaking something in the same medium as the original. Just a rehashing of the ideas that someone else already said, probably much better too.