Talkin' Bout My Generation

Gen Xers are reaching the stage where we've settled down, signed mortgages, popped out a kid or five, developed crow's feet, gotten fat, gotten bald, and generally begun that rapid downhill slide towards middle-age. Predictably, Hollywood is looking to cash in on our nostalgia. According to various movie sites, here are just a few Reagan-era dead horses that are set to be dug up and beaten: Footloose (rumored to be starring--ugh--Zac Efron), Red Dawn, Top Gun, Tron, Short Circuit, The Goonies, The Karate Kid, and Weird Science.

And I just read over on jabootu that they're planning to retool Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, a 1985 film that starred a young Sarah Jessica Parker.

I remember seeing the original Girls in the theatre. I wanted to see it because I was a Cyndi Lauper fan and naturally assumed that the plot had something to do with her (it didn't). But Sarah Jessica was cute and likeable, her love interest was the perfect tough-yet-sensitive dreamy James Dean stereotype, Helen Hunt was enjoyable as the quintessential wisecracking best friend, the rival girl was cartoonishly bitchy, and the story--which revolved around the goody-goody heroine and her new wrong-side-of-the-tracks boyfriend competing in a dance contest--was total paint-by-numbers "Omigod, don't let the mean girl win!" broadly overacted 80's dramedy.

I shudder to think what they'll do with the new version. I'm guessing it will star one of the High School Musical kids, a Jonas brother, a Gossip Girl, Robert Pattinson, and a wink-wink cameo for us oldsters (something like Helen Hunt popping up as the heroine's music teacher), with soundtrack by Miley Hannah Cyrus Montana.

Hearing about this latest planned remake was the final straw for me. I would like to take this opportunity to implore all studio heads and the powers that be in Hollywood: on behalf of my generation, for the love of all that is holy, please STOP raping our childhood memories.

Or, at the very least, don't use a Jonas brother to do it.