Movie remakes I better never see...

Is Hollywood really that dry on ideas that they can't make anything new anymore? I swear, sitting in the previews for War of the Worlds about two weeks ago, I was bombarded with a string of movies that never needed to be redone (hell, I'd just paid eight bucks to go see one as it is). King Kong? Bad News Bears? Dukes of Hazzard? Batman Begins was at least a unique take on the entire Batman series since it focused on the beginning of Bruce Wayne's transformation, but some of the movies coming down the pipe there is no excuse for. Are you aware that Ellen Degeneres is going to be playing George Burns' character in a remake of Oh God!? I cringe to think who might be playing John Denver's character...

So after a conversation about this with my roommate, this is the beginning of what will probably be an ongoing list of classics that better never be remade (but probably will be):

It's a Wonderful Life - If The Manchurian Candidate isn't safe from reproduction, then I can't imagine this would be. Rand McNally and I agree that Tom Hanks is the likely choice to reprise Jimmy Stewart's original George Bailey, but he's convinced that Donna Reed's Mary Hatch Bailey will be someone like J-Lo. But come on. Tom Hanks in a classic romance? Clearly they'll book Meg Ryan. I think they have a contract together or something. As for Clarence the Angel, he'll have to be played by either Morgan Freeman, who will morph the character into the wise old African American pseudo father figure, or by Ellen Degeneres who will pretty much preserve the same loveable, somewhat bumbling angel that Henry Travers played, with the exception that Clarence will now be a loveable, somewhat bumbling, lesbian angel.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - The Simpsons did a spoof on this a number of years ago where Mel Gibson played Mr. Smith and allowed Homer to rewrite the ending with a massacre on the Senate floor rather than a sudden confession by the corrupt senior senator. Given current remakes, this is no laughing matter. They'd probably try to make it into a comedy like they did with Starsky and Hutch with Jim Carrey or someone like that. Imagine that: some Canuck puck-chaser playing Mr. Smith. Not in my America.

Citizen Kane - Not too worried about this one getting remade. No one liked it the first time around and you'd have to rewrite the script in order to have a different ending, much like Manchurian. That never ends well. Neither does keeping the ending. I found out why War of the Worlds sucked so much: Spielberg kept the same ending as the book. They had the red weed growing over everything, then eventually turning white and dying off because of microbes that the aliens weren't immune to. In a modern context, it was crap. As for Citizen Kane specifically, we're probably looking at some Christian Bale type taking on Orson Welles' character in a modern context. And yeah, this time, at least one of his wives will be played by J-Lo.

Bullitt - Or any other Steve McQueen movie for that matter. I can see Ford Motor Co. salivating over the product placement potential from this one, what with their new Mustang and all. Quite frankly, there is no modern actor who can come even remotely close to taking on this role. If they ever do decide to desecrate the sacred Bullitt, they better dig up Steve McQueen's rotting corpse and strap him into that Mustang because that would be far superior to some douche bag like Brad Pitt doing it.

A Clockwork Orange - I'm actually a bit torn on this one because there's a lot of things that some modern movie tech could do for Clockwork. That, and Stanley Kubrick left out the original ending that appeared in the British print, instead opting for the much darker ending found in the version originally printed in the U.S. I'm afraid that anyone who got their hands on it would overdo the techy crap though. Lots of Aronofsky split screens, etc. That, and who out there could play Alex on par with Malcolm McDowell? That guy creeped the hell out of me.

More to come...