Am I Blue?

They're making a Smurfs movie. If you're scratching your head and saying, "Smurf?" you weren't around in the eighties, or you have a mouth full of peanut butter. Computer graphics have allowed filmmakers to digitally insert the blue-skinned devils into our modern world, though they will still only be three apples high. I suppose the fact that they have existed in the pop culture firmament for more than fifty years may have something to do with the reasoning behind the production of a new Smurf vehicle. There are those who would say it's about smurfing time.
I am not one of them. The great wave of Smurfmania hit American shores back in 1981, when we were all high on greed and cocaine. Somehow their simplistic life struggles against the authority, represented by Gargamel, captivated millions and a decade passed with no one questioning their existence. Almost no one. Andrew Dougherty wasn't fooled. He recognized these Euro-trash mites for what they were: card-carrying communists. Well, they would have carried a card, if they had any pockets.
And now everything old is new again. Oliver Stone put a fresh coat of Shia LeBeouf on "Wall Street," and there is wild talk of new features starring Voltron and Thundercats, respectively. Here, I use the word "respect" ironically. Have we really run out of new stories? Can we only look forward to focus-group blockbusters that mine our collective pop-consciousness? I am afraid of making jokes about a "Pillsbury Dough Boy movie," since saying it only makes it more likely.
I confess that I am the happy consumer of much of what is being shoveled my way, but I believe I can still smell a "Marmaduke" coming, and I will do what I can to save my family and friends from such a fate. In the meantime, Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg is marshaling all his creative forces to bring us a computer-generated Tin-Tin. Sounds a little smurfy to me.