Now showing: nothing but retreads

At the theater this weekend, I was amazed by how many films were retreads of things I've already seen — "Bewitched," "The Longest Yard" and "Herbie: Fully Loaded." Of my eight movie choices, I counted six that were either sequels, prequels or remakes.

A strange coincidence, I thought, until I saw the huge posters pushing the movies coming soon — "The Pink Panther," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and "Bad News Bears." I pondered this as I bought my ticket to one of the original movies and sat down just in time for the previews.

It was then that I learned that the impending "War of the Worlds" is not a remake, it is a "reimagining" through the eyes of Steven Spielberg. When I saw the preview for "The Dukes of Hazzard" make no attempt to hide that it was just a two-hour version of the TV show with a liberal dose of potty humor sprinkled over it, I knew this was no coincidence.

I understand the desire to cash in on the Batman franchise, or the need to come full circle with the Star Wars saga, but do we need "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo?" Hasn't Rob Schneider said all he could about male prostitution in the first movie? Need he go transatlantic?

There will be a "Big Momma's House 2." Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defense rests.

Unfortunately, these movies will haul in billions of dollars collectively and thus spawn more like them. I know it is a tide that I cannot turn, but it scares me.

I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I'm afraid of what these movies signal about us, about a culture that is increasingly taking shelter in the stories of our past, rather than seeking out new ones.

The low-water mark came when we turned a powerful Sidney Poitier film about interracial couples ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?") into a trashy Ashton Kutcher vehicle ("Guess Who?"). What is next — " Apocalypse Later," a slapstick reimagining of the Vietnam War classic with Will Ferrell as Willard and Adam Sandler as Colonel Kurtz? It's not that farfetched.

There is a precedent for this lack of imagination. Ten years ago, every song that hit Top 40 radio seemed to use a sample from The Police, Led Zeppelin or some other original act. Soon, Puff Daddy and his ilk exhausted every single catchy hook since Chuck Berry and musicians were once again forced to create original sounds. Music has pulled itself out of its stupor and (while not as important as it was in 1968) is light-years ahead of where it was in 1998.

Hopefully, filmmakers will soon dry the well of nostalgia and will then be forced to seek out fresh ideas.

But one of the biggest differences between movies and music is that songs rarely have sequels, movies do. I'm afraid our culture has caught a mean case of Herbies, and it will continue to recur no matter how much I would like to cure us of it.

Brandon Swanson is the assistant editor of The Columbia Basin Herald.