The graphic is too classic to pass up, but does anyone really still listen to this guy?

Check out Kanye West’s new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

I hope it’s a spoof. I really do. I hope that someone dared the author to commission an infographic about Justin Bieber’s haircut. The last sentence in the two-sentence story-section says, “The Post investigates.” That leads me to believe that it is indeed a spoof, but the graphic took a decent amount of investigation, thought, and artwork to design. Too much for a Bieber haircut story.

Here’s the graphic.

In 1985, John Hughes wrote and directed The Breakfast Club. It helped push the careers of five rising stars to achieve relative success. These members of The Brat Pack were quoted, emulated, and launched into the yearly playing schedule on TBS 24 years after the film was made.

In this era of unoriginality in Hollywood, they really should considered making a new version that takes everything about the movie a little closer to the edge. Why?

Why not?

Claire Standish – The Princess

While Molly Ringwald did a fine job playing the spoiled but sensitive popular girl in the original, her problems were just too minimal. The teenage angst she portrayed was so… 80s.

You didn’t really feel that she was that snobbish, that pressured, or even that popular.  She also didn’t quite fit the bill to truly pull off the lipstick trick.

For the updated version, plug in Lindsay Lohan and make her a real bitch. In other words, plug in Lindsay Lohan.

First, you have to make her more evil. Moviegoers love a pretty girl they hate (though the “pretty” part is arguable these days for LinLo).

It isn’t that we have anything against pretty girls, but the ones who start off mean, learn their lesson, then befriend a geek or two are the ones who make today’s movies more enjoyable. It’s corny but true.

The new version of Claire made it to Saturday detention because she spread photoshopped images of her ex-boyfriend and her ex-best friend engaging in Paris Hilton style activities.

Brian Ralph Johnson – The Brain

He was troubled by getting a B, so he decided to try to kill himself with a flare gun. Sadly, comically, it went off in his locker.

Anthony Michael Hall played this role as perfectly as anyone could have. He had the credentials through nerd role after nerd role before buffing up and turning psychic around the turn of the century. It will be hard to beat his performance, but we have someone in mind who should give him a run for his money.

Insert Michael Cera and you have a new age of nerd. Today’s nerds aren’t socially clueless like they once were. The Internet itself gives them resources for being semi-cool that they never had before as well as the communities and methods of communication to “practice” their social skills.

Now, at least, they can turn “hip” into a research project and have all the answers they need.

With Cera, the I-got-a-B-so-now-I-must-die argument doesn’t play. No, it needs to have more substance, more reality, more 21st century teen turmoil. Our nerd is a hack. He did get a B, but instead of ending his promising future with Apple, he created a worm that hacked Twitter accounts and posted Tweets about fake celebrity deaths. Not sure where the idea came from, but it seems to fit.

Andrew Clark – The Jock

Yes, wrestling is a sport, and wrestlers are jocks. Yes, Emilio Estevez could have been a wrestler. Still, it’s just hard to imagine calling Emilio Estevez a jock.

But, throw in a sporty tank top in the 80′s and you’re a jock, so we went with it. This version of Andy picked on a younger member of his wrestling squad and duct taped his ass cheeks together. Funny, mean, but it just wouldn’t fit in today’s world.

In 1985, it was a prank. In 2009, it would be a sexual assault and Andy would have spent detention in jail getting his pretty-boyness hit on rather than in a school library picking up weird chicks.

No, our choice for jock will be more focused on the end goal. He wants to make it to college sports and on to professional football or basketball or whatever (no wrestling), so, in keeping with the news of the era, our jock gets caught with performance enhancing drugs.

Tom Welling played a jock in Cheaper by the Dozen and a super jock in Smallville. Why not be a Breakfast Club jock as well. As a taller, more muscular actor than Estevez, it will be more believable coming from him when he says, “Two hits. I hit you, you hit the floor.”

Of course, he could also add the line, “I can burn you to death with my frickin’ heat vision coming from my frickin’ eyes.”

Allison Reynolds – The Basketcase

Here is a big challenge. Where else can you find an actress who can shake her dandruff onto her paper so convincingly? Ally Sheedy played the role in a way that left you wondering, “Was she acting or is that how she really is?”

This character was different from the beginning. Once we find out the reason she was in detention (she had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon), we started thinking that there was some kind of mental issue here. She ended up pretty normal by the end of the movie even though her parents still ignored her and she most likely reverted to her black mascara.

The new version needs more issues. Getting ignored is normal for teens in the 21st century. We need something juicy. A drug addiction makes the most sense here. Our reinvented Allison is a meth-head. Basketcase means something totally different, but at least we won’t be whining about where this character fits into this group.

Now, the actress: Julia Stiles. I know — too clean cut, too well spoken, too old, too… whatever. My only reply is: exactly. She needs a role that takes her to the edge. There is talent there, we just haven’t pushed her yet. This role will. It could easily be the central role in the whole movie.

John Bender – The Criminal

This one is the most important roles in the new film, just as it was in the old film. It represented the real issues of the 80′s. It wasn’t the most common person from the perspective of teens being able to relate to him, but John Bender was the guy we rooted for.

He was the jerk, but with a good heart.

We liked it when he was right and the jock was wrong. We loved him when he then took the heat for it to allow the others to escape. Self-sacrifice. John Bender, the Judd Nelson version, was the first teen anti-hero (arguably).  He delivered the best lines in the movie and wore combat boots like an absolute champ.

Today, it doesn’t necessarily take a tough guy to be tough, a hard guy to be hard. Today, the loose cannons in school are the ones that you see and say “he could be normal”, but there’s just something not clicking for him.

In what is bound to get the most “I hate that actor and he doesn’t belong in Breakfast Club or anywhere in Hollywood” responses, we select Shia Labeouf as our 21st century anti-hero. Remove your natural bias for someone who starred in mega-disappointment blockbusters like “Transformers II” and “Indiana Jones and the Bad Script”.  Open your mind, give him a clean slate, and listen:

Don’t think he could do it? Read about him. You’ll soon see that, if it wasn’t for his break in Hollywood, he may have become the character we are describing. One difference in the Labeouf version versus the original — this one headbutts the principal when he gets in his face.

* * *

Should “The Breakfast Club” be remade? Probably not. In fact, 99% of the movies that are remade shouldn’t have been. Still it would be interesting to introduce a new generation to that wacky Saturday in some random high school when coming of age happened for 5 unlikely friends.

Or something like that. In homage, here’s the original trailer:

* * *

This isn’t a blog about movies. Still, it has a movie section, so it’s okay to check it out every now and then.

Entertainment Weekly put out a surprisingly nice list of the 20 Scariest Movies of All Time. What they didn’t do is rank them. So, for our readers’ enjoyment and for the convenience of not having to click through 20 pages just to see the whole list, here they are, ranked by scary movie experts from across the globe (or at least by me).

The reason that magazines prefer lists over rankings nowadays is because these are opinions and everyone has a different one. They fear people reading the list and say “this is all wrong.” I have no fear of this, as I know that the list is wrong for most people. It’s just the way I see it using their list of movies ranked the way I would have ranked them.

20 – SEVEN (1995)
Directed by David Fincher

It just wasn’t scary to me.  Creepy, yes.  Disturbing, absolutely.  Scare… where? When?

___________________________________________________________________

19 – THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)
Directed by Jonathan Demme

Again, this falls into the ?scary? category.  Where are the frights, the chills?  Yes, Hannibal was one scary dude in our imagination, but other than the part where he bites the guy’s faces off, there were no moments that made me jump.

___________________________________________________________________

18 – JAWS (1975)
Directed by Steven Spielberg

This definitely deserves to be on the list, but more so for the suspense and the intense fear it provoked in beach-goers AFTER they watched it.

___________________________________________________________________

17 – THE THING (1982)
Directed by John Carpenter

It had its moments.  Carpenter has scarier movies, though.

___________________________________________________________________

16 – HALLOWEEN (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter

This one was pretty scary.  There’s the axe.  The chills.  Most importantly, there’s the converted William Shatner mask.  Terrifying and memorable.

___________________________________________________________________

15 – PSYCHO (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

The suspense in certain scenes (probably the only shower scene I didn’t really like) and the ever-creepy music makes this a certainty for any list.  I didn’t jump out of my pants (luckily for those around me) but it did make me shade my eyes a couple of times.

___________________________________________________________________

14 – THE EVIL DEAD (1982)
Directed by Sam Raimi

Brains. ‘nuf said.

___________________________________________________________________

13 – CARRIE (1976)
Directed by Brian De Palma

The finale made it worthwhile trudging through this lifeless and over-hyped flick.

___________________________________________________________________

12 – AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)
Directed by John Landis

Any movie that can make you laugh and scare the crap out of you seconds later – definite winner perfect for the top 20.

___________________________________________________________________

11 – ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968)
Directed by Roman Polanski

Probably the creepiest part of the movie other than the piss-inducing subject matter is the scariness of the director.

___________________________________________________________________

10 – HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1990)
Directed by John McNaughton

The reality aspect of this flick gives it a 5-place bump on the list.

___________________________________________________________________

9 – THE RING (2002)
Directed by Gore Verbinski

If there was ever a creepier way for an evil spirit that doesn’t sleep to attack her victims… well, there just isn’t.

___________________________________________________________________

8 – NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
Directed by George A. Romero

Brains. ‘nuf said again.

___________________________________________________________________

7 – THE OMEN (1976)
Directed by Richard Donner

Bad things should happen to the people who conceived and worked on this demented pic.  Oh, wait…

___________________________________________________________________

6 – POLTERGEIST (1982)
Directed by Tobe Hooper

For a movie that wasn’t rated R, there were some pretty terrifying moments.  Clowns.  Trees.  Swimming pools.  Ectoplasmic ooze.  This classic had it all, even the desecrated Indian burial ground.

___________________________________________________________________

5 – THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)
Directed by Tobe Hooper

The thump on the head with a hammer – who the hell wouldn’t be scared of inbred freaks in the Longhorn state?

___________________________________________________________________

4 – 28 DAYS LATER (2003)
Directed by Danny Boyle

Modern day classic.

___________________________________________________________________

3 – A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
Directed by Wes Craven

The gutting of Johnny Depp nearly moved this one down on the list, but Freddy held his own.

___________________________________________________________________

2 – THE SHINING (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

The man is scary enough in real life.  Why did Kubrick have to go and make him nutzerer?

___________________________________________________________________

1 – THE EXORCIST (1973)
Directed by William Friedkin

If this one needs an explanation… well, you probably shouldn’t see this movie.  In fact, don’t.  Pure evil.

___________________________________________________________________
My only question… where’s Friday the 13th?

* * *

This isn’t an Entertainment Blog, but I do like to be entertained, so read it often, please.