It sometimes seems that as of late, every other movie that gets made in Hollywood is a remake. This is rarely a good thing, as your average remake is an unnecessary, clichéd, substandard film that ruins everything good about the original. However, it doesn’t always turn out that way.

There have been quite a few good or even great remakes over the years: "Scarface," "The Maltese Falcon," "The Departed," "The Fly," "Ocean’s 11," "The Magnificent Seven," "Dawn of the Dead." If done well, with a love for the original, a remake can turn out fantastically.

With this in mind, I got to thinking, “What movies are really in need of a proper remake?”

It can’t be something like "The Godfather;" regardless of how great the remake might be, it couldn’t possibly live up to the original and would therefore be destined for failure. It also can’t be a movie that was so rooted in its obscurity or weirdness that any attempt to bring it to the mainstream would ruin it, such as "Pi," "Oldboy," or really anything from the film noir era. No, it needs to be a movie that either was great but is forgotten or never heard of by the general audience, or one that had a lot of potential that wasn’t fully realized. And with that, I give you my choices:

Total Recall

Anyone who’s seen "Total Recall" probably remembers it as a typical '80s sci-fi/action flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, the director, Paul Verhoeven (who also made "Robocop" and "Starship Troopers"), has an unfortunate tendency of taking a deep and sophisticated sci-fi plot and burying it in a sea of cheese, sex and gore. For the careful viewer, though, particularly on repeat viewings, "Total Recall" reveals itself to be a fascinating play on reality as it drops subtle hints about what’s real and what’s not, and makes you feel like a genius for picking them up. If a remake focused on this rather than the ridiculous violence, it could result in a classic for the ages.

Mean Streets "Mean Streets" is one of Martin Scorsese’s first films, and while it lacks the polish of his later opuses, it still is very good. It’s a story of gangsters, as Harvey Keitel tries to help out his younger friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), who doesn’t restrain himself and is constantly getting into trouble. As the story progresses, Keitel’s character tries to balance and remain loyal to all of the assets of life, his mafia uncle and boss, his girlfriend, the Church, and most difficult, Johnny Boy. As the master of gangster movies, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Scorsese to remake his own film here (something he’s been secretly been doing for years, as anyone who’s watched "Casino" can attest). Also, it would be an excellent choice for Joel and Ethan Coen. There are plenty of interesting characters for them to have fun with and they certainly proved with "Miller’s Crossing" that they can make a good gangster film.

Eyes Without a Face This is by far the most obscure of the movies on this list. A French horror film from the '50s, it is one of the most beautiful and haunting movies I’ve ever seen. It is about a doctor who murders people and takes the skin from their face in order to graft it on his daughter, whose face was destroyed in an accident. The remake would doubtlessly end up pretty disturbing, as even the original is fairly bloody in a couple scenes, but it’s not likened to a slasher at all. The doctor doesn’t slice them to bits; he meticulously removes it with a scalpel that, while gory, is also magnificent. The beauty of it all, the whole film, is breathtaking. It deserves to be shared with a wider audience.

A Scanner Darkly

Rather than benefiting from its quirkiness, "A Scanner Darkly" seems to get lost in it. It’s done in an extremely weird cel-shaded style, sometimes is strange just for the sake of being strange, and the plot is cryptic and muddled at times. At the same time, though, it could be a masterpiece. For one, it’s hilarious, and full of a great cast of characters. Beyond that, it also has smart, twisting plot, set in a society centered around Substance D, a very powerful and dangerous drug that runs rampant, and focuses on both the purveyors of the drug and the intriguing and complex attempt to get rid of it. It is suspenseful, funny, exciting and thought provoking, and if it was cleaned up a little and had the weirdness toned down a bit, it would truly shine.

Following I can think of no movie better suited for a remake than "Following." The debut film of director Chris Nolan, who is best known for "The Dark Knight" but who also directed mind-benders such as "The Prestige" and "Memento," "Following" definitely is much more like the latter two. It does not take place in chronological order, but like "Memento," it’s done in a way that makes sense. It’s wonderfully twisty as it unfolds the tale of the pathetic protagonist that bites off more than he can chew, and while a little too complex and a tad contrived near the end, it's still a brilliant story. The most pressing problem results from both the shoestring budget and the complete inexperience of everyone involved in the project; the movie at times seems pretty amateurish. The dialogue and acting in a few scenes is pretty bad, and the fight scenes, while thankfully few and far between, are absolutely horrendous. Luckily, both of those problems could easily be fixed in a remake, so that extra polish combined with the one-of-a-kind story and a little advertising, you have a surefire success on your hands.

While these movies have lots of potential as far as remakes go, that doesn’t mean a remake would automatically turn out right. In order to create a great new film from one of these, it would have to be done with a combination of love and respect for the original, and an eye for what needs to be changed and updated. It would be simple to turn any of these films in formulaic, commercialized garbage, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope. Remakes were made for precisely that reason; to take a good movie and try to fix it up for a new audience. It’s a risky process, but the results can be phenomenal.

Josh Kaplan is a student at Pioneer High School.