Monthly Archives: April 2009

Remake overkill redux

I just don’t understand why when something is done, why not leave it alone.
A few weeks back I commented on the Ab Fab reboot which has me nervous. But as I scanned the news blurbs at EW.com today, I just got more and more annoyed that Hollywood seems to be stuck in this remake glut.

Case #1: Russell Brand, that one trick pony from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is considering a remake of 1991’s Drop Dead Fred. Does anyone else see the problem with this? First of all, does anyone remember this movie? If you did and saw it in the theatre, I’m sure you wanted your money back. If you caught it on cable, I’m sure you were begging Cinemax for 90 minutes of your life back. This movie was a FLOP, and now they want to subject us to a remake? Where is the logic here?

Case #2: the Star Trek franchise reboot, although I’m torn about this one. It looks really good, I mean REALLY good, and has a pedegree cast. And the story line is technically a reimaging of the introduction of Kirk to the lore. Okay, maybe this one is a necessity.

Case #3:  A Nightmare on Elm Street is being reborn, this time with Jackie Earl Haley as Freddie Krugger. Intriguingly, it is filming here in Chicago, so I’m kind of interested, in a sheer curiosity factor of where are they filming kind of way.  But after, what, 6 of them in the original series, why go back and redo it? And barely 2 decades later? Halloween and Friday the 13th remakes we never as good as their orginals, although yes they made money, they were simply less invested in character and more invested in gore. Is this Freddy really going to do anything different? Really, does ANYONE remember the girl who played Laurie Strode in the Halloween remake?  But everyone knows who Jamie Lee Curtis is, right? Point.

I can go on. They are reviving the Predator franchise (although that one never really died, it just kind of hung on life support painfully with the Aliens), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming back (please. kill. me. now.),  and in the greatest sin of all they are redoing the Karate Kid. Jaden Smith (Will and Jada Pinkett’s son) is the titular kid, and Jackie Chan… oh yes, Mr. Rush Hour himself… is Mr. Miyagi. Pat Morita is SCREAMING from his grave over that one.

What is it, not only are we in a financial economic crisis, but an idea crisis as well? Why are we recycling the stale and half baked ideas that didn’t fly the first time around? I mean, to try and improve may be a slight justification, but shit is shit folks, even when you spray Lysol on it.

Please Hollywood, the remakes must stop. Now.

In a moment…

From the Free Dictionary: A moment, in context with time, is an indefinitely short period of time. Sometimes defined as zero seconds long.

So I ask, do you ever think how long a moment is when someone tells you, ‘I’ll be with you in a moment” ?

My colleague from work Karl always brings this up on our train ride home, when the announcer says “we expect to be moving momentarily.” Some days, a moment is a minute. On others, it’s 45 minutes in the turn around at the Howard station on the Purple Line, ‘Waiting on signal clearance’.

Last week, “We’ll be with you in a moment” at the doctor’s office was only 10 minutes. Yet downstairs at X-ray, a moment was an hour. On the same day, I had a work conference call, and waiting for it to start was 12 minutes. That’s not a long moment in most terms, but sitting on your cell phone it can be.

I always use “We’ll be with you in a moment” when I’m busy at work to at least acknowledge other customers, simply because you can’t say “I’ll be with you in 2 minutes and 39 seconds”. I mean, one, how do I know that the rest of my time with the customer in front of me is only going to be 2 minutes and 39 seconds? What if it’s 3 minutes and 8 seconds, then I’m a liar. Or why am I quantifying that  the customer in front of me is only worth 2 minutes and 39 seconds of my time? I would be offended if someone said that while helping me out. Well, depends, but now I’m getting existential… point being, ‘a moment’ is a great generic term to give you time to finish up with someone and yet let someone else know you know they are there.

It even happens on TV. ‘General Hospital will return in a moment, here on ABC.’ And a moment tends to be approxiamately 4 or 5 minutes of commercials, news blips and TV previews. I love how they tell you on what network too, because i’m always afraid that one day, they’ll say ‘General Hospital will return in a moment, but on Lifetime.’ But if there is breaking news, all bets are off! That moment can turn into 24 hours, because what if the press conference runs overtakes the rest of the show’s time? How will I know what happened to Sonny and Carly if I’m missing the last 30 minutes because some asshat got indicted on charges that we knew about for 6 months? Luckily I have SoapNet, so a moment can only be 5 hours.

I think the worst instigator of all of this is the home computer. Loading, just a moment… and 30 minutes later the disk search is done and you have nothing. See I think computers have this moment thing down, because truly their moment can either be instantaneous or an hour later, depending on the task. And you can be as pissed as you want, because they don’t care. They know you are dependent on them, and they have all the power. Sneaky, huh?

Rants of a Misanthrope will return… in just a moment. Time it and see what it turns out to be.