Hollywood is losing the Art
lot of recent movie releases from Hollywood have not been original pieces of art, social commentaries or original ideas. Many movies being released are remakes. A remake is a shameful cheap and quick way to make some money. You don’t have to come up with an original idea since you’re just copying another idea, changing some details and calling it a remake or a “revision” or a new look at something old, or a waste of celluloid.
Some of the remakes (not the most recent, but ones you can rent now) include Bad News Bears, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Fog. There was absolutely no reason to remake these movies. The originals were already good movies and entertaining to watch.
The original Bad News Bears is a classic comedy, so is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Fog was a cult horror classic. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may have gotten good reviews and Bad News Bears might have gotten ok reviews but The Fog got terrible reviews.
The original Fog was a terrific film made on a low budget with plenty of real scares and real characters. To make money is the main reason for why Hollywood has been remaking these movies. If the original movie was terrible and the remake made it better, that would be ok. But since that’s not the case, these remakes are inexcusable.
Filmmaking should be about self-expression and creating art, not making money. Sure you can make money by making a movie and if you’re in Hollywood you can make a lot of money.
What you mainly see in the theaters is what Hollywood has made, with the exception of a few independent made movies that got lucky.
Those independent movies carry the heart and the passion of dedicated directors, screenwriters, crew members, and actors who most frequently work for free. These independent movies are a pure example of what a movie should be. A movie should be what comes from the heart, not from the wallet. Robert Rodriguez, who made El Mariachi and Sin City, said this in his ten-minute film school:
“.[I]t’s not your wallet that makes the movie, no matter what they tell you in school or in Hollywood . Any monkey can tap himself out financially while making a movie. The idea is to tap yourself out creatively first.”
He goes on and says that the method of movie making in Hollywood is wasteful and inefficient. He has proven this when he made his first feature movie, which was an action movie called El Mariachi and he made it for $7,000. This film came out better than many Hollywood action movies like Bad Boys 2 and The Punisher (both the original and the remake).
In conclusion, if you see a Hollywood remake and the original was a good movie, then there’s no reason to watch the remake. If it’s not broken then don’t fix it. The Hills have Eyes is a remake, but the original had a not so good ending, so the remake gets a little leeway.
If you see any Hollywood movie that looks like it was made only to make money, don’t watch it. That is what Hollywood wants you to do. They want you to spend your hard earned money on their films that aren’t even worth watching. Hollywood spent