It’s been a year today since the horrific wave of tornadoes that swept through Alabama and other states, changing lives forever.

James Spann says it best over at his blog

Remember the lives lost, the heroes and the power of people to help themselves and their neighbors in times of tragedy.

We are Alabama.

Sometime last week I saw some my fellow southern belles tweeting the names Claree, Ouiser, M’Lynn, Truvy, etc, etc preceded by an “I am.”

Names ring a bell? They should. They are some of the characters in the timeless Southern classic “Steel Magnolias.” Turns out, they were tweeting their frustrations at finding out that Lifetime TV is remaking this gem for a TV movie to be shown later this year. I dropped my sweet tea on my delicately manicured toes and said some very unladylike things when I heard the news. There are just some things that should NOT be messed with. It’s bad enough that a great movie comes out and then the sequel sucks, or that they take a great book and make a shit movie, but this is kind of going a bit too far. And oh yes, let me mention that I was outraged even before I knew the details! YES, I JUMPED THE GUN AND PASSED JUDGMENT BEFORE HAVING ALL OF THE FACTS. But in my heart I knew it was WRONG. Then I discovered that the cast, led by Queen Latifah, is comprised of all black actresses. Well that’s just fine, I don’t give a shit if it was comprised of oompa-loompas or an all male cast that looked like Warren Beatty in his glory years, NO ONE of any color, race or creed needs to remake certain movies that are perfect. Queen Latifah has made some good movies, I think, though most of the ones I remember are the last few stinkers she’s been in. But M’Lynn she ain’t. That’s Sally Field and no one else. Forever.

Would you reshoot “Coming to America” with Adam Sandler and his idiot buddies that are in ALL of his movies? I think not.

Would you remake “Jaws” using a goldfish cracker? Hardly.

Hell let’s redo Bambi using a longhorn steer instead of a fawn. Friday the 13th and give Jason a water gun instead of a knife. Let’s film the Blues Brothers in LA and make them non-smoking hippie poetry readers.

Get my point?

And I don’t mean adapting a foreign film to an American one, or a book, etc. What I mean is lazy Hollywood taking something that was good and regurgitating it. 21 Jump Street anyone? It would be like today’s Saturday Night Live cast redoing all of the classic skits like  Roseanne Rosannadanna, Gumby, or any of the other classics. Can you see anyone but Farley and Swayze doing the Chippendale’s dance? No, and you shouldn’t.

I asked some friends and they pretty much agreed with me that most great movies should NEVER be tampered with, and we all agreed that shitty movies need not even bother. I even asked about movies that have been remade, and we agreed that there are very few that stand up to the original, and those were True Grit, Cape Fear, and Ocean’s Eleven. Wikipedia has lists here and here of all movies that have been remade if you want to check them out.

Here, in no order, is a short list I compiled from the replies I got and my own personal opinions. What do you think? What movies were good remakes, and what movies did we forget to put on the list?

• Jaws
• Steel Magnolias
• Terms of Endearment
• Anything by John Hughes
• Blues Brothers
• The Great Gatsby
• Dirty Harry
• Outlaw Josey Wales
• Tommy Boy
• Dirty dancing ( havan nights? HORRIFIC)
• One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest
• Sling Blade
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Silence of the Lambs
• Se7en
• The Shining
• The Godfather
• ET
• Top Gun
• Gone With The Wind
• Fletch
• Caddyshack
• Stripes
• Porky’s
• The Blues Brothers
• Wizard of Oz
• The Color Purple
• Coming to America
• Full Metal Jacket
• Blazing Saddles
• Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Goodfellas
• Scarface
•  A Bronx Tale