The budget for this remake [And let's be honest, that's what it is. 'Reinvention' is just a way to say 'recycled idea' without sounding as creatively desperate as you actually are,] is $25-million. Which in Hollywood terms is pocket change! And that’s another reason why every new Actor deserves the same kind of break as this movie should give those at its core.

Any Actor who demands $50m or more just to get out of bed is an over-sized ego, with legs. And whoever who pays it is that Actor’s fool. Give the freshmen a worthwhile chance and the results can burn holes in the screen. New Actors have a passion their more experienced peers ceased to feel or care about years ago. But the $50M guys put butts in the seats, so they get all of the breaks. And that’s sad.

For those too young to remember, ‘Fame’ is the story of the joys and despairs felt by hyper-talented teens and their mentors during a year of devotion [and copious sweating] at the High School for the Performing Arts in New York. The original movie set box-office records and quite rightly collected two Oscars. I hold no such hopes for its parody’s future.

The movie will debut on September 25 and I wish its new stars boundless success. I just think Hollywood should give its nascent new talent a more worthy, original showcase.

Photo by Megyarsh

Sorry…Just kidding – They’re going to remake Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The 1988 original, helmed by Frank Oz, is one of the most forgettable films to ever stimulate the human synapses. And now they want to do it again. And this probably won’t be the last time. No-one has signed on to have their careers blighted by this travesty yet, but A-list talent is [claimed] to be reviewing the project with interest.

And it doesn’t end there: MGM also have remakes of Red Dawn, Robocop, Fame and Poltergeist in development. Robocop I can almost understand – The original is a kitschy classic, but it was hollow. They made a good idea…badly. It might actually do better in remake. And Poltergeist has been re-made as every shlock-horror flick of the last twenty years, so that’s a moot point. Red Dawn was a good movie, but without Patrick it’s doomed to be a messy pastiche of its former self. Not a good idea.

But my favorite item from MGM’s public confession of creative inadequacy is Fame. Released on May 16th, 1980 it was a box office juggernaut and won two Oscars. So at 28 years old it was made years before any of the audience MGM hope to sell it to this time, so they’ll think it’s a new idea. Add the two Oscars and it doesn’t take a mental giant to see the appeal.

But the funniest part is the subject matter. Set at NYC’s High School for the Performing Arts, it [at least, the original of it] contains more action and movement in one scene than a 2008 teenager has experienced in their entire cosseted, Wii-thrashing lives.

MGM are clearly thinking it was huge in 1980, so it can be huge again now. Wrong! 1980 was a different world – Wii’s didn’t exist, PS3′s didn’t exist. Cellphones were the size of dictionaries, and computers were large, clunky boxes in the corners of science labs, and could only be touched by odd little men with white lab coats and terminal acne. A 2003 teen would call it the stone age. And looking back, I’d agree. But that’s just the point: Make a movie about ‘The NYC Academy of Txt Msgng’ and you’d have lines round the block! But show today’s teens a movie where intelligent people who are not on medication indulge voluntarily in frantic activity that leaves every inch of their bodies hosed in sweat, and they’ll think it’s a cult. Or some kind of torture.

They move their fingers to type, or their thumbs to talk. Show them more exertion than that and the only thing they’ll move is their butts…Towards another movie! I can only wish MGM well with their forthcoming flop…And feel deeply relieved it’s not my money at stake.

MGM Cat photo by: 00ucci
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It’s a highly enjoyable and well crafted movie, but let’s be honest; A major reason why Warners has already enjoyed a $900+ million Box Office haul is due to the public’s desire to see Heath Ledger’s mesmeric swansong as The Joker.

Now they want a re-run so they can earn even more.

January is the peak of voting season for the Academy Awards, so the Knight would then become a contender. And should the Producers be blessed with a little golden guy the attendant caché would not exactly hurt DVD sales. It already has the second-highest gross in history ["Titanic" earned $1.84 billion for Fox in '98,] and WB’s intent is clearly to use subtle exploitation of Heath’s premature loss to drive the movie past the mystical $1-Billion mark [I suspect some of Warner's execs were promised a rather nice bonus if that can be arranged.]

There’s a snag, though. Dark Knight is due to hit DVD in December, which would decimate the returns from a theatre release. The only way to avoid the damage would be to defer the disk until after the holidays. And that’s a bitter pill; Do you stall the DVD and miss the biggest cash-cow of the year, or release the disk and cash-in on the frenzy, then just hope for the best at the theatres?

The decision, along with the guilt for its cause are thankfully not part of my burden, and for that I’m boundlessly glad.

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The Oscars are a glittering celebration of a uniquely American industry that brings enjoyment and fun to every being on Earth, supports thousands of American jobs and creates countless more in other industries, and pours over $7-billion a year into this wondrous nation’s economy.

GM, on the other hand, is a brand that was revered worldwide as an American icon, and whose bosses recently rewarded thousands of industrious American citizens whose sweat and devotion built both that image and its related empire by discarding them to welfare and relocating the entire label to Mexico so they could use cheaper labor to make better profits.

The Oscars are among the most prestigious and highest-rated events in the entire US calendar and as resolutely American as Apple Pie, Baseball and Archie Bunker’s chair, and any firm that abuses this nation’s workers in such a despicable way has no right to be identified with such an event. ABC should wish them well and show them the door, then open discussions with a firm who still believe and invest in this country as strongly as they and their splendid parent company do.

If GM doesn’t want the workers, we can live without their ads…And the cars.