CAILLEY:

Why hello again.

Yes, yes, yes, this is in fact the second PCP in one week. And yes, we do in fact have a guest star for this week’s PCP: Joey Schroeder, who happens to be our resident design director and self-proclaimed boss of the century. He also happens to write for Arts when he feels so inclined and is incredibly passionate about movies.

And it’s not just Tony’s laziness that calls Joey to today’s debate, it’s the subject at hand. With the weekend’s release of the remake of “Nightmare on Elm Street” coming this weekend, we’re feeling yet another PCP coming on. So the question at hand: What’s the “best” remake?

I know you’re new to this, Joey, but don’t think I’m going to be nice on you. My pick this week: “Wicker Man.”

The original 1973 film told a story of a man who investigates the disappearance of a little girl on an island that celebrates pagan rituals in a way that’s just generally creepy. Mix in a twist ending, a human sacrifice (and really, we don’t have enough human sacrifices in movies these days) and a giant wicker man, and you have yourself a cult classic.

But then one man came to really do this film justice: Neil LaBute. Yes, the genius behind such legendary works of art as “Lakeview Terrace” and the newly-minted “Death at a Funeral” graced us with the beauty that is “Wicker Man.”

Yet LaBute is not just a director, he’s a bona fide Renaissance man who both penned the script and directed Nicolas Cage’s luscious head of hair into a movie that doubles as an artfully captured struggle of solving a mystery as well as an economics lesson about how to create a society that functions entirely on honey.

However, the wonderful thing about this movie is how one can teach an entire society how morally acceptable it is to pull a gun on a woman just to steal a bike. Or how it’s totally okay to punch, kick and scream at women, especially when you’re authentically costumed as a bear.

This film is an invaluable part of cinematic history. I really just don’t get why it didn’t win any of the Razzies it was nominated for. Those are good, right?

JOEY:

Whoa, whoa, whoa…let’s stop and think rationally for a moment, Cailley. Often I find filmmakers place far too much emphasis on the competence of the actors within a film; spending months working on contracts and then hundreds of thousands of dollars securing the talent…fuck that noise. Since when has acting ever been important in filmmaking? And that’s why I credit Burton for his 2001 remake of “Planet of the Apes.” I mean, fuck…I know the original is great, but so is “The Godfather,” and I, for one, cannot wait for Michael Bay’s 3-D adaptation starring Channing Tatum due out next summer. But that’s beside the point. Burton made the bold, and ultimately more appropriate decision of casting Mark Wahlberg as the lead, making me wonder why Cecil DeMille hadn’t considered a budding white rapper — admittedly the genre was still in it’s earliest stages of development — to portray the Exodus lawgiver in his colossal, Biblical classic. I agree Nicolas Cage’s acting has a certain sloppy unpreparedness that may rival Wahlberg’s, but when placed opposite the acting chops of xenophobic monkeys, Wahlberg shines.

Burton’s remake updates that bullshit 60s version with special effects that I’m sure made James Cameron regret his incongruous decision to drop out of the project in 1997 to make that bomb about a big fucking boat that sank (a.k.a. “Titanic”). One cannot overlook the philosophical and socio-political motives housed within Burton’s retelling, either. Let’s forget continuity and logic for a second and imagine a world in which the Great Emancipator was a fucking monkey: Bwhaa? Did Burton just blow your mind? Yes. Best ending in cinematic history? Please…Burton’s “Planet of the Apes” puts “Sleepaway Camp” to shame.

“The Wicker Man” may have been the Academy’s most blatant oversight in 2006 — we all know those biased mother-fuckers only gave Scorsese his Oscar because they thought he might die before he made another film — but, sorry Cailley, the two MTV Movie Award nominations for “Planet of the Apes” speak for themselves.