Missing Ingenuity

       I’m wondering if I am the only one who feel the dumbification of the world is becoming more and more to the forefront. I look at Hollywood and see the creativity is gone as the only movies they can do are movies which have already been written. Do not the authors of today have thoughts and ideas of their own anymore? Is the talent of major studios lacking in aptitude?
       Looking at the upcoming cropping of films form the major studios I find without exception each one is putting money into two or more remakes. As a writer myself I take offence of the idea that there are not writers out there that could come up with ideas that are fresh and new. Also I feel the studios need to eradicate their writers who are guilty of butchery to classics.
       Great Expectations was the movie that caused me to run out and buy my first VCR. The 1946 version of Charles Dickens' classic tale of Pip, a poor orphan who befriends an escaped convict and who grows up in the company of a bitter old woman, Miss Havisham, and her haughty young ward, Estella., and ultimately Pip learns the rewards of both vindictiveness and gratitude as a result of these events, this original version touches me and moves me each time I see it.
       The 1998 version, a story of the love of a man for an unreachable woman, this updated version to modern day New York City, is a complete butchery of the emotions and feel of the original.
       Mr. and Mrs. Smith is another example of butchery of a great classic. In the original, a sophisticated New York couple David and Annie Smith have an unusual marriage with an inordinate number of rules and regulations. One rule entitles them to ask each other one question per month which the other must answer completely honestly. Annie asks David if he would marry her again if he could have the time over again and David confides that he misses his freedom and so probably wouldn't. Later that day, an official from the town where they got married calls to see David, he explains that owing to a state boundary dispute, all couples married between 1936 and 1939 in the county where not legally married. David decides to have fun with this fact, but unbeknown to him, the county official calls to see Annie too and disaster results.
       This movie touched me because of one of the couples’s rules. The movie starts out with them locked into their bedroom because the rule was that if they had a fight, they would not leave the bedroom until the made up. This could have been weeks. I love this rule.
       The 2005 version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith where a married couple are getting bored with their quiet domestic life, unknowing, however, is that they're both assassins, secretly hopping the world and killing for hire. But their separate lives are about to collide when each finds out their next target is their own spouse, is an abomination to the original.
       If it’s not broken, don’t fix it should be the model in Hollywood. The following are the top one hundred remakes showing the lack inventiveness in Hollywood.


1. Wizard of Oz (1939 musical remake of 1925 silent film) 2. The Ring 3. Magnificent Seven (remake of Seven Samurai) 4. War of the Worlds 5. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
6. Cruel Intentions 7. The Children's Hour (remake of "These Three") 8. The Thing
9. Father of the Bride 10. You've Got Mail (remake of Shop Around the Corner)
11. The Mummy 12. Heaven Can Wait 13. The Preacher's Wife (remake of "The Bishop's Wife"... 14. Dawn of the Dead 15. Cape Fear 16. Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey 17. Scarface 18. Freaky Friday 19. Doctor Dolittle 20. The Amityville Horror 21. Ocean's Eleven 22. 101 Dalmations 23. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 24. Little Shop of Horrors 25. Red Dragon 26. Gone in Sixty Seconds
27. The Italian Job 28. The Time Machine 29. Assault on Precinct 13 30. Bedazzled
31. House of Wax 32. Payback 33. The Longest Yard 34. Willard 35. Against All Odds (Out of the Past) 36. Body Snatchers 37. D.O.A. 38. Down To Earth
39. Flight of The Phoenix 40. Imitation of Life 41. Kiss of Death 42. Meet Joe Black
43. Point of No Return 44. Shaft 45. The Grudge 46. The Vanishing 47. Three Men and a Baby 48. Night of the Living Dead 49. House on Haunted Hill 50. Born Yesterday 51. Mighty Joe Young 52. Flubber 53. Invaders from Mars 54. Thirteen Ghosts 55. Thomas Crown Affair 56. Sabrina 57. The Haunting 58. Manchurian Candidate 59. Nutty Professor 60. Miracle on 34th Street (suggested by Jamie McBain)
61. The Birdcage (remake of La Cage Aux Folles) 62. The Fly 63. Godzilla
64. Invasion of the Body Snatchers 65. Cat People 66. The Ladykillers
67. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 68. Get Carter 69. The Jackal
70. King Kong 71. The Blob 72. Cheaper by the Dozen 73. Island of Dr. Moreau
74. Stepford Wives 75. Postman Always Rings Twice 76. Gloria 77. How the Grinch Stole Christmas 78. Village of the Damned 79. Planet of the Apes 80. Rollerball
81. Psycho 82. Walking Tall 83. Where the Boys Are
84. Parent Trap 85. The Out of Towners 86. The Wiz 87. Mr. Deeds 88. King Kong 89. Lost Horizon 90. Guess Who (remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) 91. Love Don't Cost a Thing 92. Vanilla Sky 93. A Star Is Born 94. A Star Is Born
95. Herbie the Love Bug 96. Solaris 97. The Bad News Bears 98. The Fog
99. The Getaway