Remakes

A few weeks ago I was talking with a good friend of mine that I often see movies with and the subject of Will Smith's new movie ( I Am Legend ) came up. I had said that I wasn't sure I wanted to pay to see a Will Smith movie at the moment because of the talk that he was wanting to remake Karate Kid. I just felt that in a round about way paying to see a movie he is staring in is a way supporting him. Now it does look like the Karate Kid remake isn't going to happen ( thank goodness ) I'm still like in some ways I don't want to help support someone that would want to remake a film that was perfect the first time. I understand that many people feel that I may be overreacting to this situation however it did start a whole other line of thinking about remakes. So now that you know what spurred on this topic that I am going to be writing more about you can give a comment or two.
In the past few years there have been quite a lot of remakes. My question is why? After talking to people about it I have heard many different answers to this. One friend seems to think the film industry is just plain out of ideas and is now taking from old movies, everything has been done. Another person said if it worked once it has to work a second time with better technology. There is also a popular response of "this generation must be introduced to the ideas of the original movies but in a way they will understand it". Is this true? Would today's generation not understand Hitchcock's Psycho, and that is why a new one had to be made? How about Yours Mine and Ours, or Footloose ( currently being remade )? There are few remakes that are as good as the first and I can't think of one that is better then the original.
So what is your opinion on this? I would love to hear some feedback on this.

Dan in Real Life

I saw this on Monday and I'm still having problems writing this review. I guess I'll start off with saying this was a really well acted film, interesting storyline, and will at times really make you laugh. First problem I am not a fan of film that like to have a lot of those really ultra sweet moments. Few times is fine because you will find those in life, but in this film it seem to happen every few minutes. Second problem with what the trailers had portrayed it seemed to be about a single dad ( Dan/ Steve Carell ) raising 3 girls, and while that is a part of the story it is not the focus of the movie. The film is really about Dan meeting a woman ( Marie / Juiette Binoche ) and falling in love with her soon after. Problem is they can't be together because she is already with someone else. I can't really go in to the story more then that as it will ruin it if you choose to see this. Third and tiny little gripe I have is not all of the things that were in the previews are actually in the movie. I know it's a little thing but it still bothers me. I do love the fact that Dan is suppose to be a advice columnist for parents and does seem to have some basic problems in this area of his own though. So I'm giving this film a B-.
If you see it I would love to know what you think.

http://daninreallife.movies.go.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480242/