They Should Remake Over The Top
I took a break from watching Arrested Development last night, because now that all of the episodes are here I suddenly remembered that THERE ARE OTHER THINGS IN LIFE GUYS LET’S ALL TAKE OUR CHILL PILLS. Just because there are new episodes of Arrested Development doesn’t mean we are allowed to cut down our dose of chill pills. If anything we should be taking MORE chill pills at least until our systems have neutralized the new episodes. Anyway, I watched Over The Top, the 1987 Sylvester Stallone drama about a father estranged from his son who also is a truck driver and who also wants to be a champion arm wrestler, and for all of the fun we have had over the years making fun of Hollywood for its incredible lack of new ideas (I read on Deadline that they just optioned Paul Newman’s Italian Salad Dressing for a trilogy!) I could not help thinking while watching the movie: someone should remake Over The Top. Hear me out! Over The Top is a classic at this point, but not a well respected one. (Not that you couldn’t remake a classic. They do it all the time. And for every complaint written on a blog, an angel gets its executive producer credit.) The reason for this is that the arm wrestling stuff is silly. The arm wrestling stuff is literally over the top. (LOL! Hire me to punch up your TWITTER.) But what I did not know, because I had never actually seen the movie before, because that’s just how things go sometimes and I bet there’s something you haven’t seen before that you feel like you should have seen but it just hasn’t happened yet so LAY OFF, is that the story is centered around a surprisingly sweet story about an economically troubled dad trying to reconnect with his son who has been raised in incredible wealth and privilege. That’s pretty good! Or it could be! Here is what I am thinking: you replace the arm wrestling with cage fighting, you know, for the kids. Oh, and this is going to be your favorite part: I never noticed until last night that Ryan Gosling is basically doing an impression of young Sylvester Stallone in all of his movies. So I say we get him. Seriously, imagine him saying all of this stuff:
Ryan Gosling as Hawk. Clint Eastwood in the Robert Loggia role. Selena Gomez in her Spring Breakers bikini for the kid. Are you kidding me? Home run. That ball is outta here.
Look, guys, here’s the thing: I can understand that remaking Over The Top might be unpopular with some of the purists out there. And even with some of the non-purists. It’s not the most original idea I’ve ever had. But since it is DEFINITELY going to happen, and cage fighting is almost for sure going to be part of it, so all I want is my share of the millions. Whether it’s a good idea or not doesn’t change the fact that I had it and I want my cut. Obviously, this is how Hollywood uses your own greed against you to turn you into one of their own, sucking all of the precious New Ideas Juice out of your spine to power their cocaine turbines. Oh well. Please come to my pool and keep me grounded.