Why someone would want to remake it: As Christopher Nolan's reputation as one of the most financially successful filmmakers of all time grows, so too do the reputations of his earlier films. It's easy to imagine, someday down the road, an exec viewing 2001's "Memento" as an imperfect, low-budget blueprint for a much larger, big budget, star-driven remake -- even one that somehow sheds the original's twisty, backward narrative drive in order to make it more conventional.

Why they shouldn't: What made "Memento" so memorable was that it caught audiences by surprise. A then-unknown director adapted his brother's short story and cast a hunky Aussie and two "Matrix" supporting players in an art house action movie. But once the film started, er...ended, viewers loved unlocking the film's mysteries and trying to piece together its temporal dislocations. It's the kind of specific cinematic event that can't be accurately copied. The result would doubtlessly end up like one of the myriad Polaroid photos carried around by the film's protagonist Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) -- a cheap, faded copy of the real thing. 

-Dave Lewis