"Not nearly as smart..."

Once upon a time, a greedy and intellectually infertile Hollywood executive had a masterful idea. Since he could not come up with an original concept and his creativity was less than that of a rancid potato, he would take other people’s ideas instead. Anything that had had a modicum of financial success, he would buy and redo it… in his ignorant image. At first it was kind of fun and in some ways interesting. Then, like a rampant disease, it got out of hand. The age of the remake was upon us.

Foreign films were ripped from their native countries and bastardized into the “New and Improved” American rehash. Germany’s Wings of Desire became City of Angels, while Sweden’s Let the Right One In morphed into the ridiculously unnecessary Let Me In. God forbid they make people read subtitles! Even more distressing is that many of those foreign movies make reference to stuff that happens… elsewhere. Apparently it confuses most Americans if a story doesn’t take place in their own country. Besides… we wouldn’t want people becoming interested in other cultures.

Are U.S. audiences generally incapable of handling foreign films and independent features? Do they really need Hollywood’s help to dumb these movies down and spoon-feed them like cerebral baby food? OR does Hollywood underestimate its audiences’ intelligence thus producing these watered down versions of excellent films whose final result is creating a false sense of intellectual stimulation not unlike claiming to be a Shakespearean scholar because you read the fu**ing Cliffnotes?

In other words… do they dumb down the movies because people are too ignorant or do they make people ignorant by showing them diluted versions of the original?

Too harsh?

Death at a Funeral.

This movie was made in the U.K. in 2007. It was directed by Frank Oz. Aside from providing the iconic voices for Yoda and several of the Muppets, he is an accomplished filmmaker. A few of his previous endeavors include Bowfinger, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Score, The Dark Crystal and What About Bob. He is no stranger to mainstream appeal. His latest project was hilarious! The only thing truly foreign about the funeral movie was that it took place in England. What do they speak over there? English! Oh but wait… it’s that weird kind of English. NOPE! For an American audience they were going to have to redo the whole movie and translate it to American in order for it to make any sense. They needed famous people in it too. How could you even think of showing a movie with unrecognizable faces? They didn’t even try putting the original one in mainstream movie theaters because it probably wouldn’t make as much money that way. So… a hearty applause for the genius responsible for creating an American remake of an English speaking film that was only 3 years old. In 2010 we were blessed with the arrival of the “New and Improved” Death at a Funeral.

“Wait!” says the Hollywood serpent. “Let’s not just take another country’s ideas and make them our own… lets dive into our own cinematic history and shred it all to hell!” Apparently every goddam movie and T.V. show must be redone! Nothing is sacred. Our memories are being raped and pillaged by these corporate barbarians. Stories are being rewritten and heroes demolished into McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.

A country’s cultural maturity is measured by the quality of its artwork. This applies to all mediums including literature, music and film. Reproducing mediocre copies of other people’s ideas and smearing all the great things you have done in the past for a quick buck… says a lot.

Click here for an extensive list of remakes past.

Click here for a frightening view of remakes to come.