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It's A Wonderful Life

Here's another movie that, you would imagine, would never be remade. How could anyone touch the ultimate Frank Capra movie? Who could perfectly emulate George Bailey better than Jimmy Stewart? And yet, though we've never seen an exact remake, haven't we seen the basic idea - that of a man or woman finding out what life would be like if they'd never been born - done to death? You could even argue (though it'd be a very iffy argument) that the new season of Lost, in which - spoiler alert! - we are presented with a parallel timeline in which Oceanic Flight 815 doesn't crash on the mysterious Island, has a similar storyline, in that we are invited to see the other side of the coin. Still, Lost's exploration of multiple worlds is a little deeper, to say the least.

Movies as recent as Click have attempted to show its main characters how terrible life would be if only things went one way, not the other. Not all of them are as drastic as in It's A Wonderful Life, but the basic idea is to have George Bailey, or his stand-in, to realize that life is better the way it is, and he shouldn't squander it. But the very idea is one of the most standard and lazy clichés, as predictable as the sun rising every morning. I grant you, unlike The Wizard of Oz and a few other films on this list, It's A Wonderful Life is not currently (to my knowledge) ready to be remade. No one's attempting to throw this one out in multiplexes. But after The Wizard of Oz, executives may just pick and choose as they like. It's bad enough that the overall storyline has been overused for decades. I don't want to imagine what a new George Bailey would look like.

A Christmas Carol

I talked about Ebenezer Scrooge a few months ago, but I'll reiterate here: this has to stop. Is it when Michael Caine interacts with the Muppets that we should be aware that things have gone too far? Is it when Mickey Mouse plays Bob Cratchit? Is it when Scrooge sings? Or is it when Jim Carrey plays Scrooge and all three ghosts who visit the miser? Because, as much as I love the Charles Dickens novella, this story has been done so many times, there's no excitement left. The real problem is that Hollywood has chosen to always do variations on the story. There are so few true versions of A Christmas Carol, versions that don't have 3-D effects, versions that aren't animated, for kids, starring a woman as Scrooge, or a musical. The two most notable recent versions that were faithful were both on television.

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