Saturday, January 31, 2009

Remakes: They ain't just for genre pictures.

Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as two intelligent young adults who share a night of charged conversation and romance amongst the streets and river walks of Vienna, Austria. It's a film full of realistic optimism and philosophical musings.
Would the youth of today go for such a film? The simple answer is, no they would not.

Linklater's film came out in 1995, well before the advent of ipods and web 2.0 social networking, and thus it has dated poorly, translating to near complete gibberish in 2009. The sight of this strange world without camera phones and skinny jeans make heads spin in confusion.
So the first thing to consider when financing a remake is this... Let's have Levi's, American Apparel and H&M provide the wardrobe for the movie. It's healthy product placement. Don't doubt such a thing.

The next thing to consider:
We're in an economic downturn and college and European travel are really out of the question for many young people these days. They won't be able to identify with things that promote forward thinking and growth, let along something that uses one's earnings for anything other than itunes downloads, so it is far better (and safer) to set the film in an "everyman's" suburb. Hell we know it'll just be shot somewhere north of LA, so why not just set it in the valley... and have the young adults *ahem* kids work at the mall. There, location problem solved.

Now, the young people in question... Hawke and Delpy were 23 when they made the '95 flick; far too old.
Though they are getting close to 23 (they wouldn't look it!) let's have High School Musical alumni Zac Efron and Vanesse Hudgens headline this time out. Heck, they're a couple in real life, so the chemistry is already in place... boom.
They can trade hair care tips over playlists and peach smoothies with protein boosts from Jamba Juice.

Side note: Efron is in fact appearing in Linklater's forthcoming Me and Orson Welles!

You might ask what would keep two fine young wax figures like Efron and Hudgens working in a mall till sunrise... the mall is having some midnight madness salesathon for the kiddies to celebrate the advent of summer break. It could even feature concert appearances by fellow Disney commodities Miley Cyrus and (the) Jonas Brothers, and how about a pesky mall security guard played by ex-husband of Roseanne, Tom Arnold or better yet current U.S. Box Office champ, Kevin James.

The one thing I can't figure out is what kind of role facebook and myspace would play... Perhaps after hours of tween safe lusting and surface chatter about polar bears dying out in the arctic, Efron and Hudgens can come to the sensible agreement that it's best to "friend" each other online in six months. Scratch that, six weeks. There, that sounds reasonable.

Kenny Ortega get crackin'!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This idea really should be set in motion by some Disney commodities! I can't wait! ;)

bagels said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagels said...

Hahahaha hilarious! And depressing. I love 'Before Sunrise' and it feels like my generation are completely bereft of the spirit encapsulated by Jessie & Celine.

And I just turned 23. Damn it, I'm going to Europe anyway.