By Nick Sweeney, Grade 11
I go to the movies. A lot. So Mr. Smith said that since I was such a movie nerd and this is, like, the most important day of my life, that I could write about movies today.
One thing I noticed is that movies are, like, the only things that keep getting remade. I mean, remakes of things that never existed in any form before other than movies... not like the "good" version of the adaptation of Great Expectations and the one that totally blows... movies that are do-overs of movies. Like they didn't get it right the first time or something.
It's like handing in a lame book report at school and rewriting it so I can raise my C to a C+ (which is a "New and Improved" C).
It's kind of like putting the words "New and Improved" on a product, just so people will get recharged about buying it, even though the bottom line is that laundry soap is laundry soap is laundry soap.
So, just in going to the movies over the last couple days, I saw trailers and posters for the following do-overs: The Karate Kid, Free Willy, Tron, and Clash of the Titans.
It's like just when you thought laundry soap couldn't get any soapier. So, I decided to get together with my friends and start a Facebook group of people who refuse to spend money on do-overs. We're fed up with this nonsense. I mean, why is it that movies are one of the only creative forms of expression where people think it's okay to re-do them?
You don't see people rewriting The Catcher in the Rye and putting it out with modern, hipper, trendier content and still calling it The Catcher in the Rye, do you? And what would happen if someone came along and launched a new and colorful version of Guernica (that's a painting by Picasso)? You'd be offended. You'd call it plagiarism and forgery. Nobody would put up with that, so I don't understand why people are willing to tolerate having movies done over and over again.
That's my one shot at getting to write about movies.
I'd give you my Oscar picks for tonight, but I'd be so dead-on right that it would ruin three hours of the finest television about movies you'll ever want to spend three hours doing.
-- Nick S.
