My Childhood, Bastardized

After all the rumors and the stops and starts, Hollywood has indeed decided to proceed with ripping out the soul of my childhood once again. This time, they are moving ahead with the remake of Footloose.

When they couldn't find a director for the longest time, and when that Disney-fied little bubblegum boy Efron bailed on playing the lead role, I thought maybe everything would work itself out and the Hollywood brass would leave a classic 80s franchise alone. But alas, it was not meant to be, because sadly all the jackasses who run Hollywood are just old enough to remember how great all those movies were but just stupid enough to never be able to come up with anything original, and instead falling back on the classics as source material.

Damnit, I don't want another rendition of Ren. Kevin Bacon's most defining role is hallowed ground, at least when it comes to iconic 80s films. I'm not saying he's Brando or De Niro in this movie (far, far, faaaaaarrrrr from it). It's just sad how they are going to take a story that probably could only be told in that time and try to update it to modern standards.

A kid from rough-and-tumble metropolis makes his way to a small rural town where music and dancing is outlawed and the town is held sway by the weekly rantings of a bitter and emotionally distraught religious leader. Ummm, sounds like something they'd film in the Middle East, not in America in 2010. Yeah, I know I'm being a little jaded about it, but you can't make a movie like Footloose in 2010. People in small-town America know shit about big cities now. It's called the Internet and Cable TV and DVR and MTV and Facebook and blogging and a whole bunch of other shit that didn't exist in 1984.

Ren looked out of touch because he wore a skinny tie to school and drove a yellow VW bug. Kids in Nebraska are buying skinny ties at American Apparel and Urban Outfitters. Unless the new Ren shows up driving a Maybach, I don't think farm boys are going to be surprised by whatever he rolls up in.


In 2010, they won't be doing chicken races with tractors. They'll probably have them doing text-offs on their iPhones or instead just slamming each other on Facebook until one of them gets upset and cries to mommy. There are just things that make this a quintessential 80s movie and once you remove the spirit of that it's not even Footloose anymore. Think I'm being a little crazy, the populace is shelling out wads of cash over a Karate Kid remake that isn't in America, isn't karate and doesn't have Billy Zabka. Game, set, match, victory for Campbell in the argument.

Damn, I cannot believe how riled up and how much my stream of consciousness is getting the best of me. For instance, I bet it won't even be a town full of god-fearing white folk, either. Ren's best friend will probably be a misunderstood musical genius who is unfortunately a hispanic day laborer's son, whose family is threatened with jail and deportation, and only Ren and "the music" can save the day. And Dennis Quaid is playing the role made famous by John Lithgow!?!?!?!!? Lithgow's still alive for fuck's sake! I hope he comes out and bashes Quaid's interpretation and we have a Rev. Shaw Moore throwdown over burning books.

Beyond Quaid, they've announced that Kenny Wormald is playing Ren. So they're going the newcomer route, but sadly he's toured with Timberlake and competed on MTV dance competitions. The role of Ariel (classically played by the frighteningly thin Lori Singer), is now being remade by Julianne Hough. I don't know her from a tree stump, but apparently she's won Dancing with the Stars twice and is an up-and-coming country singer. Great, that's all we need, a fucking foxtrot in Footloose.

And the final dance scene. I mean, come on, you're not going to get much more hilarity than that. Chris Penn could not look more uncoordinated, and the dancing is much looser and undefined. Now we'll get big dance numbers choreographed by Lady Gaga or some shit, and instead of a classic Kenny Loggins song, it'll be something by Carrie Underwood or Justin Bieber or some other modern person that'll have a blend of country, rock and hip hop that way everyone is satisfied and yet no one is.



I'm just saying, Footloose is one of those classic movies that should have been left alone. If an older movie still holds its ground two decades later, and the entire fucking cast of that movie is still alive, there is no reason to piss on that classic by remaking it for no good reason other than being greedy and unoriginal.