Even If You Remember The Past, You're Doomed To Repeat It

My freakin God, I am getting sick of remakes. Next month alone, hell, on the same day, we're getting remakes of Last House On The Left and Witch Mountain. Between remakes and sequels, there's very little on the big screen these days that we haven't seen before.

I was just reading today that plans are in the works for a remake of Total Recall. That was far from being a perfect film but do we really need to remake Schwarzenegger films? What if whoever ends up in the lead someday becomes Governor of California? Don't we want to ever give a non-actor a chance of being elected to that office? These are the things you have to think about. On the upside, maybe this new version will adhere closely to the Philip K. Dick story that the 1990 original movie was based on, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. That's a cool story with twists and turns and a memorable surprise ending. Yeah, I could live with something like that...

Surprisingly, Moritz isn’t planning to return to the original Dick novel for inspiration, but rather the Verhoven film, which he hopes to tell in a “fresh” way with modern CG effects.

Oh, screw you guys. If you want old science fiction, why not Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man? Or Jack Williamson's The Legion of Space? Or A.E. Van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher? Those are all great books and, unfortunately, the fact that we've never seen them on screen before means that now we'll probably never see them at all.

We've also now gotten the news that Cate Blanchett has been cast as Maid Marian to Russel Crowe's Robin Hood in the Ridley Scott directed Nottingham. I like how they're not at all deterred by the fact that every adaptation of the Robin Hood story since the Errol Flynn classic from 1938 has sucked donkey balls, thought the power of the suction and the size of the balls has varied. The only Robin Hood movie I like besides the Flynn version is a 70s film called Robin and Marian in which Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn play the characters in middle age during the Middle Ages and reunited after Robin spent twenty years fighting the Crusades. I especially loved Robert Shaw as the Sheriff of Nottingham, a man who had grown world weary during Robin's absence but found that the excitement had returned to his life when Robin came back. I am far from optimistic that the actor-director team that brought us the overrated Gladiator are going to be able to match the sheer thrills of Robin Hood or the wonderful romantic tone of Robin and Marian. Still, I'm assuming that this time around Robin's British accent won't be thought of as something optional.

Last and, almost certainly, least, God freaking forbid that we not get yet another piece of shit remake of a piece of shit 70s horror film. Yes, Pirahna is getting another shot at boring the crap out of people. The director is Alexander Aja, a douchebag best known for directing the shitty remake of The Hills Have Eyes which tells me that the movie's profit will come from the producers betting in Vegas on how much money the movie is going to lose. The movie stars...well...no one.

As it stands, casting is still up in the air despite a rapidly-approaching start date. “We’re talking to a lot of people,” Aja said, “but there is nothing official.”

The two possible reasons for this are that no one of even modest fame has gotten the "Please oh please be in my movie" letter from Alexander Aja yet or, more likely, they did get the letter, wiped their asses with it and flushed it down the toilet. Expect Aja to give an interview in the next few months about how excited he is to be working with a cast of energetic young newcomers.

There's even a remake coming out this Friday. Yes, I consider the Jonas Brothers' new concert film to be a remake of last year's Miley Cyrus concert film.