The original, 1968 version of Mel Brook’s The Producers and its 2005 remake naturally have a lot in common. But there are almost as many differences. As I mentioned in my original review, the biggest change is the expansion of the storyline to include a love story for Leo.
These changes alter the dynamic […]
After a long, strange journey from stage to screen, Evita finally reached theaters in 1996, twenty years after the original concept album was released.
I think things really started going with the selection of director Alan Parker. With a strong background in musical films that are not really musicals (Pink Floyd: The Wall, Birdy, The […]
Don’t Drink the Water is a film based on Woody Allen’s Broadway play of the same name. The action takes place in a US Embassy deep in the throes of the Cold War. The Hollander family, Walter (Jackie Gleason), Marion (Estelle Parsons) and daughter Susan (Joan Delaney) find themselves in the middle of […]
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a brilliant film by writer/director Tom Stoppard based on his play of the same name. If you are unfamiliar with the work, the basic premise is that the film follows the activities of Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) as they weave their way in and out […]
I’ve never been a big fan of Disney’s Peter Pan. I don’t know what it is about the film, but I always viewed it with detachment. My recent viewing has done little to change this impression. Maybe it’s the story itself that leaves me a bit cold, I don’t know. Still, […]
The 1964 film Hamlet is a filmed staging of the play straight from its contemporary Broadway production. Directed by John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton in the title role, the play was a sensation in its day, not for a little because of Burton’s affair with Elizabeth Taylor that was heating up at the […]
Heaven Can Wait has always been one of my favorite films and it’s the one that made me an unabashed fan of the great Charles Grodin.
But there’s so much more to this film than just that. Heaven Can Wait (for those of you who don’t know) is a re-make of a popular (and excellent, […]
Viewed December 20, 2006
Naughty Marietta marked the beginning of one of the most successful film pairings in history, that of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. MacDonald was already a popular film star when seh was paired with Eddy, who was a well-known (but not super-famous) singer. All that changed after this film and […]
Viewed November 20, 2006
One way to judge the quality of a film is to judge the quality of its remakes. For The Shop Around the Corner, its progeny couldn’t be of higher quality. Its story of two disparate people who fall in love through the mail was first remade in 1949 as In […]
Viewed August 27, 2006
Another in the BBC’s line of “ShakespeaRe: told”, The Taming of the Shrew is much more successful than the last one I watched, Macbeth. I think this is partly because Shrew is a comedy and so therefore lends itself more naturally to adaptation than a drama that was based on historic […]
Viewed August 13, 2006
BBC America is currently showing a series of films under the banner “ShakespeaRE: told”, where classic Shakespeare stories are reworked into modern settings. This week, I watched Macbeth, and it couldn’t have been more wrong-headed if they tried.
First of all, they set the film in a restaurant. Joe Macbeth is […]
Viewed July 4, 2006
The 1910 silent short The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is, perhaps, the oldest film version of L. Frank Baum’s famous ‘Oz’ stories. It is almost certainly the oldest one extant, as the other two made that year, The Land of Oz and Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz, are lost.
The Wizard […]
Viewed May 19, 2006
The Ghost Breakers is a fun outing starring Bob Hope. It doesn’t exactly break any new ground, but it catches Hope in his full stride, with an excellent supporting cast.
The story revolves around a typical Hope device: the somewhat cowardly dupe caught in the tide of bigger events. In this […]
Viewed April 19, 2006
The Importance of Being Earnest is the first filmed adaptation of the famous play of the same name by Oscar Wilde. Earnest has always been one of my favorite plays, ever since I saw it when I was in high school. I even played the lead role of Jack Worthing […]
Viewed February 28, 2006
I had so completely prepared myself to be disappointed by The Producers that I was shocked by how much I liked it. Whoever was in charge of marketing this film should be fired. I watched it with a modest-sized audience in a discount theater and they never stopped laughing. […]
Viewed February 2, 2006
The melancholy Dane’s thoughts on acting and their relevance to Hamlet (2000):
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you,
trippingly on the tongue.
In other words, don’t mumble, like Ethan Hawke and most of the cast does throughout the movie.
But if you mouth it, as many of our
players do, […]