Observing the art form of mid-budget Hollywood remakes.

This afternoon, I saw Kimberly Peirce's (BOYS DON'T CRY, STOP LOSS) remake of Stephen King's CARRIE--the definitive version was made in 1976 by Brian De Palma, with a star making lead performance by Sissy Spacek,

When the preview trailers were playing, I saw other remakes to come in early 2014.  ABOUT LAST NIGHT (based on a David Mamet play titled SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO and a 1986 Rob Lowe/Demi Moore yuppie romance smoothed out from the apparently darker and more cynical play) has been moved from Chicago to L.A. and seems to be mostly a vehicle for super hot comic Kevin Hart in the role once played by Jim Belushi.

And then there was the trailer for ENDLESS LOVE, a remake of Franco Zeffirelli's 1981 teen sex drama with Brooke Shields (a film which is half-forgotten now and not as successful as Shields' previous teen sex drama THE BLUE LAGOON).  In the new version, Brooke Shields' role is taken by Gabriella Wilde--who plays Amy Irving's old role of well-meaning teenager Sue Snell in the remake of CARRIE.

Following the current logic of mainstream films made by Hollywood studios, I'm expecting GabriellaWilde to appear soon in a remake of THE BLUE LAGOON.

Nude photo of 10-year-old Brooke Shields at London's Tate Modern museum.

Regardless of one's position on Roman Polanski's arrest and possible extradition to the USA, there needs to be some additional mention of the wink-wink attitudes regarding sexualization of young girls that was pervasive in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Currently on AOL's PopEater blog, there's an article on the display of a nude photo of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields in a gallery exhibit (with a warning about "challenging imagery") in London's Tate Modern museum: http://www.popeater.com