Slither and The Shining at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

We should focus some Intermission time to this, though, I think. Maybe we do a couple of those this weekend. Frame it as "after nearly two entire weeks worth of talking about movie structure, how would you approach __________" questions.

None of us are out to write a book, but I think we could at least discuss the thought process and order of operations we'd use personally.

I will be killing Matt.

Everyone can play a game, though, try to guess the year.

Huh?

Also, The Island was a remake.

The Bald Black Bones is the name of a girl's favorite poem, which turns out to have convenient meaning in her life over the course of this film sharing its name.

The poem has something to do with a poem-girl's pet poem-bird, which was left in its cage by the fire for too long and poem-girl was devastated by the discovery of a cage containing naught but a few bald, black bones.

The film tells the story of this girl (who likes the poem, not who is in the poem) as she deals with her various indie film bullshit, something something relationships, and is thematically trapped in everything she does. Perhaps job, therapy, school, social circles, blah blah, indie film bullshit - and believing the story is of a bird trapped too close to such a destructive thing that dies before escaping, extricates herself thusly. It is only near the end that she realizes the second meaning of the poem, which is not written here but would be presentably stirring to the Notebook crowd.

Just add sentimental unknown piano-based indie band and attractive, sharp-witted unknown indie actress and you've got yourself a ticket to SXSW.

Your movie is Signal.

Really?

A new version would have as much fantastical story of a girl going to a magic world where she learns the value of friendship, courage and smarts, just, less dust bowl.

I'm definitely not advocating a script remake of The Wizard of Oz, where they adhere to the original document written for a 1939 audience. It would make more sense to modernize the circumstances for the audience at the time, and have more value as a cultural yardstick to say "crazy, in 1939 it was the dust bowl and in 2025 it was evacuated Mexico."

Well. Eh. To answer the question, Star Wars is the only movie I've ever explicitly wanted to see remade, but not because I'm aching for new Star Wars or carrying a little hate-on for George. I laugh along and poke fun at him with everyone else, but I'm not really outraged by the special editions or the prequels, just a little...you know, exhausted by it. (The closest he ever got to hurting my feelings, or anything that real, was Star Tours, and I'm over it. Whatever.)

It's mostly because of another thing, which is I wish the concept of "covers" was more prevalent in movies. I love cover songs, as a concept, and I often enjoy the covers as much as the originals. This has to do with the way I categorize songs in my head, which is not as a system of interlocked artists, albums, and songs - though I'm slightly obsessively interested in maintaining that so I can beat you at guess-that-artist in the car - but as executions of chord progressions and melodies and key changes. I'll hear a song and instantly make an empirical statement about it, if I like it. (Not the other way around; too many slow-burn songs have grown on me.) I heard "Say Yes," and said "that is a melody, yes please." Aside from the fact that Elliot Smith wrote it and sang it beautifully, it really has nothing to do with him. He found a device - a melody - that works like a fucking machine, it's perfect, it's a simple and elegant and timeless melody. And every time I hear someone sing it, in any style, even with varying degrees of technical ability, it does the same thing for me.

I feel that way about stories and settings, they're modular. To give an extreme example of what I'm saying, I wish the system in place would celebrate two directors coming out with the same movie in the same year.

Obviously that makes zero financial sense in this market, but I think everyone would learn a lot about how storytelling works, how films work, and especially how directors and actors work by doing it that way. (And something like it has been going on in the live theater world for ages.) And it would underline the great stories and sift through the original ones for new gems.

I don't know. I don't have a list of movies I think should be remade, I think there should be a massive list of movies being remade. The credit for The Wizard of Oz should remain in the hands of L. Frank Baum and the forty thousand people who directed it, just like the credit of Hallelujah stays with Leonard Cohen, but I don't quite understand the virtue of holding up a seventy year old piece of art and saying "this one will always be better." Obviously that's how it works now, but it's arbitrary. It's not that way with music, why is it with films?

Because it's good for you? Sure. I agree, having a broader sense of culture than current culture is an important value. But what's the virtue in making a kid watch The Wizard of Oz, if an equally engaging, modern version comes out? (Return to Oz is not a part of this or any conversation.) I dunno. I think if Pixar felt comfortable doing The Wizard of Oz, they'd do the shit out of it, and it'd result in a fantastic version of the story, with similarities and differences to the original film, but not necessarily any less enchanting.

I used Star Wars as my answer for the same reason I used Wizard of Oz as an example. In my head, the most immediately important thing would be not getting intimidated by the everlasting megahits, afraid to touch them, but to keep covering them. Keep them in the modern culture, not as modern things, but as timeless things that have existed in various forms for years, like stories, parables, songs, that sort of thing.

Why do we think of films as events in history, not as evolving pieces of culture? Why is it that in a hundred years, just like you need to be an art historian to fully appreciate Van Gogh, will you need to be a film historian to fully appreciate Star Wars? Come on, people, it's a great story, it'll work for centuries - it has worked for centuries - why do we give such a shit about the original? (As compared to the four remakes made in the following decades that I suppose should exist, not the special editions.) We don't give a shit about the original apple pie, or Hansel and Gretel, or Bible, or performance of the Star Spangled Banner.

...

And Footloose, definitely Footloose, that's a movie that will definitely resonate with kids today.

There's one that Dorkman says a lot, "it's the sort of thing where." Usually followed by "like," usually followed by something about pedophilia.