Some people suggested that I slap myself this go around, but I'll leave that to them in the Fan Speak.  This week I have to get something off my chest. Something that has been bothering me for a while and I just can't hold it in any longer: Hollywood is becoming like the modern music business.  

I'm not just talking about them shoveling entertainment for the lowest common denominator down our throats. The music business has been doing that for years and Hollywood has been plying us with mindless blockbusters and popcorn movies since they discovered that sitcom audiences also go to the movies.  My bitch is that Hollywood is following the music industry's policy of OVER filling the market with rehashed material.  

I used to go to the movies almost every weekend. There was always something cool coming out. It may have been a cool indie movie or a big studio film. But I spent my money and most of the time I walked away having been entertained.  Then about the same time that tickets jumped to $10 a pop, Hollywood appeared to stop trying to come up with new and interesting stories.  Instead the started mining "Nick at Night" for ideas and came up with the brilliant idea to produce bad remakes of bad 70s TV shows. 

"Pulp Fiction", "Donnie Darko" and "Fight Club" were replaced with "Charlie's Angels", "Starsky and Hutch" and "Scooby-Doo".  The originals sucked so what gave Hollywood the idea that big budget movie adaptations would be any better? And you know what is worst? The films aren't better, they are worst! 

Has Hollywood ran out of ideas? Or are they just lazy?  Even Spielberg can't come up with a decent movie these days.  What is alarming is this trend seems to be picking up speed. There is no shortage of bad 70s show slated for big screen remakes. Do we really need to revisit "Hawaii 5-0"?  What's next? "Good Times", "Welcome Back Kotter", and "The Jeffersons"?   Or will they try and screw up "All in the Family"?   

Wait! They have another stupid trick of late, adapting video games to the big screen.  And should I mention bad sequels?  Could we have lived without a "prequel" to "The Exorcist"? And why make a sequel to a really bad movie--"Anaconda" is a good recent example of this.  

I know that Hollywood adapting TV shows is a common practice but over the past few years it seems to be more and more common. They take things to an even worst level with all of the film remakes.  "Manchurian Candidate", couldn't even compare to the original. Did you hear they are actually remaking "King Kong"� again!  If some Hollywood bozo gets the bright idea to remake "Citizen Kane", I'm gonna go postal!  

The problem isn't so much that Hollywood puts this crap out. The baby boomers obviously love their nostalgia but what pisses me off is that we get these bad TV rehashes instead of real movies. Every weekend we get the latest action blockbuster or big budget Hollywood remake or sequel. But very few really good movies are being released in the process.  This makes otherwise "just okay" films seem better. "The Village" was okay, but hardly worthy of the hype it received.   

Maybe it's because we live in troubled times and people want to go to the movies and escape. The last thing they want to do is think. But I'd rather wrap my mind around "12 Monkeys" than "First Daughter". Didn't Mandy Moore make this movie last year? I hear Hilary Duff is reading the script right now for next year's version.  

I know I really went off on a rant this time but this has really bothered me for a long time. I love movies almost as much as I love music and it's sad to see the direction Hollywood is heading in. It used to be that I'd flip to the movie reviews in Rolling Maxim (is there really different these days?) to see what was coming out and get excited. Now I only get as pissed off as I do when reading the CD reviews.  

We need to get back to the day where it was all about the quality, not the quantity of tickets sold. What's worst is if they actually spent the marking money on the few quality releases, they would fill the seats and not have to wait for us to "run across" them on DVD or HBO.  Just think about how "Fight Club" was marketed; a great movie, but the marketing made it look as about as intelligent as a Steven Seagal movie.  

So it's not only the music biz that's going down hill and filling the market place with crap, Hollywood is doing their part too.  The entire entertainment corporate complex needs to be slapped.   And last but not least, ENOUGH WITH THE REALITY TV!