Secondhand Stories

Remakes are all the rage in the film industry at the minute. I went to see Batman: The Dark Knight yesterday and it was quality. Some remakes are just brilliant, better than the original, better than the remake of the original! This was one of them. There is good room for another one or two Christopher Nolan takes on the Batman, I'm hoping for two, with plenty of characters still to draw on. Robin, Batgirl, and Bane being the obvious options. Heath Ledger's performance is just about as good as it's cracked up to be and between the psycho acting and the dying thing he's probably got the Oscar locked up.
"Why is he running?" "Because we have to chase him."
On the subject of remakes, I've been wondering what happens when we run out of stuff to remake..? Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. No new idea's, no new thought's (yes those are the same thing, shuttup) no new movies? The classics, the greats, the fiction that is accounted the top of its class nowadays is mostly old. It's Tolkein, it's C.S. Lewis, it's cartoons that started in the fifties, it's Peter Pan and Robin Hood. The new stuff doesn't seem to seem to cut it. But what I want to know, is what is the stuff that is being written now that will be the gold of the next generation, slash my generation all growed up. Where is the brilliance? There is good stuff out there, and at some point the film industry will work it out and stop with the remakes and start with the new stuff, but in the mean time I'm looking for the next Tolkein (Robert Jordan?), the next C.S. Lewis (Pullman?) and the next Batman (Bourne?). Personally I want Lewis' spot.
Also, I watched a great film called Secondhand Lions. It has Michael Caine as a crazy old American who shoots at travelling salesmen with his brother. They end up looking after their nephew and buying a lion and flying a plane upside down into a barn.
"Ok. We'll see what he's selling. Then we shoot him!"
Speaking of crazy Americans and shooting things... Back home I copped some flack over a couple of the things I did with the youth, mostly from stuffy anal types for things like sock wrestling at the boys night (which wasn't actually my idea, I just took umbrage to the criticism and took up the argument) but I got nothing on these guys. I wouldn't mind pinching their budget though!