The Pink Panther...it moved Steve Martain a few places up on my 'hate their alive' list for pissing right on Peter Seller's grave. Jene Reno just betrayed me...french bastard.

wings of desire into whatever bad nick cage/meg ryan POS that was. um, transformers? and insomnia.

Two words: Tim Burton. You can claim that Willy Wonka thing wasn't a remake, but let's face it, it was, and it was vastly inferior to the original. Crimeny, it didn't even LOOK as good as the original. And Planet of the Apes. What a nightmare. Why, Tim, why?

"When A Stranger Calls"

"Wickerman"

"Flight Of The Phoenix"

Psycho, I mean I like Vince Vaughn usually, but why was this remake necessary? A shot by shot remake the only difference being different actors? What's the point?

I actually find the remake of Cape Fear by Scorcese to be superior to the original, but that's just my opinion.

I really think this primarily stems from the fact that few people in Hollywood can come up with an original idea anymore.

This is a common argument, but really there are very few basic ideas for stories to begin with. If you think about a Hollywood movie, there are really only 3 or 4 different movies that are virtually remade with different filmmakers and character names (with a few variant scenes here and there).

For instance, if you look at your typical romantic comedy. You pair a woman with a man, put obstacles in between them, and in the end they fall in love. That's virtually every romantic comedy/love story ever made.

The basic horror movie: some supernatural force kills people until a hero (in slasher movies particularly usually a woman) defeats/kills the villain.

If nothing else, at least remakes are an acknowledgement that there are no "original" stories left to tell.

Joe that reminds me of that scene in the film Adaptation where Kauffman says at that seminar. How can I write about this when nothing happens, and then Mr. Mckee basically goes into this rant about how incredible things happen to people every day on every street corner, you should never run out of material.

I basically believe Mr Mckee,

Not gonna lie, I like the Tim Burton Willy Wonka movie. I think they both have some really great qualities. I grew up with the older one and I LOVE it. But I also really enjoy the new for entirely different reasons. The new one is much closer to the book both are based on and I was a huge Roald Dahl reader as a kid. I also think the the use of color and the characters are really cool in the newer version. It will never replace my love for the old one, but it has a whole seperate love from me.

Oh baggles, baggles, baggles.

You can think of it this way: including my indy.com only reviews, I will be seeing more than 100 films released this year, and there are many each year that I miss, including your typical big-budget type of movies. How many different stories are there in that lot?

I think saying there are 3-4 stories is maybe a bit simplistic, but my point is that virtually every film made in the past 40-50 years or so is derivative in some way or another of another. At this point in the system we're not breaking much new ground, and remakes at least offer the opportunity to look at a certain film or situation within a film or a character within a film, putting a fresh spin on that character or revamping a little bit isn't always the worst thing in the world. For instance, I'll tie in with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, since Drinky brought up how much he didn't like it, and baggles disagreed. I liked it myself, and I thought it was fun and interesting that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton threw some Michael Jackson into Willy Wonka, and had a few different bits here and there. And the Oompa Loompas were VERY different in Charlie than in Willy Wonka, but they were equally creepy in each.

Yes I see what you are saying, I'm guessing that on the page a lot of movies probably want to do something different, but eventually the studios push them into these cookie cutter molds because of marketing and whatnot,

So I will concede that every action/horror/chick flick/ is basically the same film, but I guess I would say in the DRAMA category the parameters can be stretched a little farther than the norm.

Let me add a little here as well. I think the biggest problem with remakes (aside from the sheer number of them) is that they throw them willy nilly at a bunch of hacks to remake rather than trying to really devote time and care to making good ones. For every "Dawn of the Dead" (which to me is the best recent remake I can think of--different in many ways but entertaining in its own right), there are probably 10 "House of Wax"s out there.

Walking Tall (never saw the remake, but there is no way in hell it's as good as the original)

All those Asian horror movies: The Ring, The Grudge...etc.

Come one...any movie where watching a video will kill you...should never be remade!

Dang Joe, when you break it down like this, it kind of looks like what's the point of seeing movies if we usually already know the endings/synopsis.

Quite interesting.

Wow. I guess you're right, but that's certainly not what I was shooting for.

What I was really shooting for was for people 1) look a little deeper at films and try to find other things to like than just explosions, Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence in a fat suit, and smoochy-smoochy happily ever afters, and 2) go see a wider variety of movies at places where they do still make an attempt at making something different (for instance, checking out films at Key Cinemas and Landmark Keystone Art from time to time).

Even when the general structure of the story is the same, which it is going all the way back to fairy tales, there are certain nuances in films, just doing one or two things a little bit differently, that makes a big difference if you look for it.

One more point...in a way scully was right that Hollywood has no new ideas, but partly I was saying they never have. It's getting away from Hollywood or going for those films where Hollywood doesn't have as much of a hand in making the movie (things like "Once," "Teeth," and the recent Helen Hunt film "Then She Found Me" are examples of the kinds of things I'm talking about).

Not that "Teeth" is for everyone, and if you haven't heard of this movie, look it up on imdb before you just take my recommendation, please. It's pretty out there, but enjoyable in its own way.