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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
As someone who loves musicals, I feel like I have been waiting for years for the return of the movie-musical. I was first excited by Moulin Rouge, with it's campy glitter, and when Chicago followed, I was sure something good was coming. The line of poor adaptations that has followed Chicago has me very upset. Not only because it means that I am not getting the beautiful movie-musicals that I so desire, but because all of them are working from such great stage productions. The source materials are for the most part very good, but the adaptations seem unwilling to take the artistic chances to translate the shows apropriately to film.
To me, this seems to tie to an observation that Stephanie Zacharek made in her review of King Kong - that movie companies are looking for sure-fire hits these days. As opposed to taking a chance and maybe writing a musical for film, of seriously rewriting a show so that it will take more advantage of the medium, all of the shows that have come out recently are things that are HUGE hits, have won major awards, and have tremendous fan bases. So to buy into the success of the original, the film-makers seem to, for the most part, just do a straight production of the show. Both Phantom and Rent had little things they did to make the plot flow more linearly - flashbacks, montages, cross-country road trips. But these things just bogged the films down in facts, losing some of the soul of the shows. Combined with other elements of stage productions that will never translate well to film (unless you just film the stage show, stage and all), these adaptations have all seemed to take their original and maim it.
I haven't seen The Producers yet, but I was already worried, and now I am even more so.
Next they'll make a film of Wicked. Wait and see how bad that can be.
It seems as though Ms Zacharek hates every movie that I ultimately love (and really hates most movies in general, although apparently liked King Kong, which looks hideous to me), so her negative endorsement of The Producers makes me all the more anxious to see it.
Please, ms Zacharek, grow a sense of humor, you might be able to do that with stem cells now.
I preferred The Producers when it was an outrageous cult classic by a first-time director who could still teach Woody Allen a thing or two about how to make people laugh out loud in a movie theater.
But Mel Brooks jumped the shark a loooong time ago -- basically when he stopped making movies with Gene Wilder. Now he has become the George Lucas of comedy. He endlessly recycles his old material, each time making it more generic, more obvious, and less challenging. A recipe for mainstream success perhaps, but not without its artistic price.
I can’t wait for the Blazing Saddles remake with Will Smith and Adam Sandler.
I'd never seen the original film but I'd heard the show was good and the performances legendary so when Nathan Lane stepped into the London production replacing Richard Dreyfuss at the last moment, I thought it would be worthwhile to see the show.
I found the entire thing incredibly homophobic and, honestly, never cracked a smile. I am not a humorless person and currently really enjoy all the cutting edge, un-PC humor that can currently be found in podcasts but The Producers just seemed dated like a minstrel show.
It doesn't surprise me to hear that this is how it now comes across on the big screen.
I haven't seen the movie, and I'm not going to. The original movie was perfect, so why on EARTH would anyone remake it?
Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. ZERO MOSTEL and GENE WILDER! That says it all. No offense to Nathan and Matthew, but they could practice for a hundred years and never be one-TENTH as good as Zero or Gene.
Now I'll have to put up with a media blitz of reviews that ignore the elephant in the room - that remaking the original version of The Producers is like remaking Casablanca (which was also done). Stupid, pointless, and utterly venial.
Side note: I couldn't agree more about Andrea Martin - she's wonderful, and all too often wasted. That seems to be the curse of all alumni of the brilliant and underappreciated SCTV, with the possible exception of Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara.
I saw it in a theater, and was looking forward to seeing the movie version with Broderick and Lane, but when I saw the commercials, I could tell the acting hadn't been scaled down for a movie audience. You have to act "big" on stage so people can see you way back in the cheap seats. You have to tone it down for a movie. I can't believe the director didn't know this.
"The Producers" was directed by Susan Stroman, the Tony Award-winning director and choreographer who has never made a movie before. Watching it, I began to wonder if she'd even seen a movie before.
Didn't Pauline Kael use this same line in her review about Hal Prince's direction of the film version of A Little Night Music?
Don't know how the previous letter writers missed this, what with it winning 11,000 Tony Awards and all, but this "Producers" movie is based on the "Producers" Broadway musical, which was in turn based on the original "Producers" movie.
OK, so maybe it's a little confusing. Still, not a remake.
The first thought that came to my mind after reading this review was-why didn't Martin Short get this part like Mel Brooks wanted him too?
I remember seeing him on Letterman and Mel Brooks coming on and telling him to sign a contract to star in The Producers.
I think this would have made the stage play and movie more tolerable and gave him the fame he so deserved. Now, I like Matthew Broderick as much as the next guy, but he just isn't a showman, he's just an actor. There is a big difference. A showman can bring charm,warmth and (for the lack of a better word)pizazz to a performance in this type of no holds barred performance show, and an actor can just do the part and go along for the ride in hopes of trying to match his lead.
Gene Wilder was a showman, and was great for the original and only could be followed by someone with creds like Martin Short. I hope someone elses brings this up in public reviews and we can start the dislike(not hate since Mr. Broderick is a great guy but no showman. It's like getting Chis Klein to play Buffalo Bill In 'Annie get your gun.') for this performance since no one seemed to mention it in the reviews for the play. Furthermore, this is not a sole person's belief. I know many actors well versed in musical theatre who feel the same way but whose voices are not heard.
Sincerely,
Alfred Ramirez
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