Billy, Don't Be a Hero

This man is my hero

for so many reasons. At least three come to mind right now: 1) He married Angelina Jolie. Now, I'm not one to be talking--being that I look like Celine Dion and I'm always pounding my chest--but Billy Bob Thornton is one ugly sumbitch (sorry folks, but Branson-speak is apparently contagious). Using some high-octane Jedi-Mind-Trick-shit on Anjay, he slinked his way into her drawers and slipped a wedding ring on while he was at it. Sure, they are no longer together. Given Jolie's apparent mental instabilities, this should be taken as yet another sign that Billy Bob is a genius. [For the record, it should be noted that I'm so totally bi for Angelina Jolie. I love me some crazies!] 2) He makes Santa Claus into a character that I don't want to punch out. 3) He can be in a remake that I'll go watch, willingly. (Of course, it helps that the upcoming remake of The Bad News Bears is going to be directed by Richard Linklater.)

By the way, movie remakes are a cancer (seriously: I have photographs to prove it), and they are atrophying the brains of the Hollywood execs who greenlight them. [Note: this comment is not meant to pertain those rare films known in the biz as "halfway decent remakes" like The Italian Job, Oceans 11, Dawn of the Dead and The Thomas Crown Affair.] A movie-savvy reader of this very blog, Master of Surreality, sent me the following message through the patented Possible Elitists High on Coffee and Cloves Communication Machine 3000:

[We] have remakes of the following movies also coming out within the next couple years:

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Sunset Blvd., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Departed, The Bad News Bears, When a Stranger Calls, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Poseiden Adventure, The Shaggy Dog, Superman, Yours Mine and Ours, All the King's Men, The Producers, The Fog, The Hitcher, Don't Look Now, The Hills Have Eyes, Swiss Family Robinson, Porky's, Piranha, Day of the Dead, Adventures in Babysitting, Billy Jack, The Blob (2nd remake), The Bad Seed, Damn Yankees, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Bellboy, Dead of Night, Let's Get Harry, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (2nd remake), The Fly (2nd remake), Witness for the Prosecution, The Doberman Gang, Bride of Frankenstein, Logan's Run, Pet Semetary, The Man who Came to Dinner, Sharky's Machine, To Catch a Thief, The Crazies, The Entity, My Bodyguard, The Toy (a big WTF on this one!), Love at First Bite, Vanishing Point, The Warriors, Oh God!, Phantasm, Death Race 3000, Race with the Devil, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, All of Me, When Worlds Collide, Some Like it Hot, The Evil Dead...

Yeah...How 'bout some originality indeed???

The strangest one (except for "The Toy") has to be a remake of "Day of the Dead." So...they remade "Night of the Living Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," and now "Day of the Dead." So my question is when is the remake for the just released "Land of the Dead" coming out? [It should be noted that Master of Surreality did not mention the fact that The Crazies (1973) was also a George A. Romero film in its original form--albeit a very poor one. Holly, who really wants to see a remake of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004).]