|
BEWITCHED -- worst TV show to movie ever?
(click on the names to see responses)
Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:32:39 -0700
rec.arts.tv
previous
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
We watched BEWITCHED this week.
Brian Thorn...
David B...
|
Yeah, he almost ruined The Wedding Crashers. Good thing he only had two short
scenes.
|
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Caine was even good in Jaws 4, but as a new character here he was pretty
much a cipher. That said, they COULD have made him work if he'd been there
to the end of the film, and filled the imaginary Uncle Arthur role as well.
Instead, he just vanishes part way through the film. Kidman was AWFUL.
Beverly Hillbillies had 3 excellent casting coupes - Dabney Coleman as
Milburn Drysdale; Lily Tomlin as Miss Jane Hathaway; and Jim Varney was
great as Jed Clampett (that one surprises me too) with honorable mention to
Cloris Leachman as Granny. Bewitched stuck one good actor in the movie, but
it wasn't a good piece of casting, it's just that Caine is always watchable.
|
|
Putrid as "Bewitched" is, "Wild Wild West" makes it look like a Best
Picture Oscar contender.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
At least I understood WWW -- I have no idea what happened in the entire last
act of Bewitched, once the imaginary Uncle Arthur showed up. My best guess
is, Farrell went insane when Kidman proved she was a witch, and the rest of
the movie is his delusion in the madhouse.
wdstarr...
|
"Imaginary Uncle Arthur?" What, they couldn't afford a real one?
Jude Cormier...
|
and it seems he is like in every third Hollywood flick being released!
|
Jude Cormier...
|
oh how lucky you are.......so I take it you missed "Old School"?
FDR...
|
Or Anchorman. What a rotten one that was.
|
|
FDR...
|
Do you get a "I survived the Bewitched movie" t-shirt?
|
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
SPOILERS
You understand the conceit of the movie? They're making a remake of
Bewitched (Farrell is Darren) and he wants an unknown he can overshadow for
Samantha. He spots Kidman twitching her nose (they actually used bad CGI to
make actresses auditioning twitch their noses) and wackiness ensues. Kidman
is of course a real witch, looking for a totally worthless wreck of a man to
love. She's trying to 'give up witchcraft' without much success, and steals
and murders without hesitation or qualm.
Kidman has never seen Bewitched, but it turns out that in 'real life' she
has an Aunt Clara who is the exact same character from the TV show, and
Middlebrow...
|
Crow and Simpson are country singers like Michael Jackson is human.
(i.e. maybe sorta kinda if you squint and tilt your head)
quatorzejames...
|
crow and simpson *should* be country singers.
so should britney spears.
i guess they think they're too cool.
|
|
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
I thought Kidman's character seemed pretty surprised and confused about
EVERYTHING 'cause 1) she was written as a moron and B) the script didn't
make any sense anyway. You could have a point.
|
people even comment on this. I have no idea what they were going for here.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
You could have a point.
Then again, this would imply clever subtleties in the script that aren't
otherwise evident.
|
Anyway, the end of act 2 is Kidman telling Farrell she's a witch, and
Farrell running off in horror.
Act 3 begins with Farrell in the green room for Conan (as he's been played
as a big star making a HUGE comeback, you'd think he'd rate Leno) and Uncle
Arthur appears. He tell Farrell that when you fall in love with a witch,
weird things happen. Farrell says he has to go on the show. On the
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
So you're saying it's a Nora Ephron movie then?
|
monitors, we see him walk on stage naked (there's no indication that Arthur
did this though, or why it happened at all). Farrell suddenly wakes up and
says 'oh, thank God it was a dream' and then OF COURSE we pull back to
reveal Arthur in bed next to him saying "no it wasn't!" (In fairness, the
actor is doing a pretty good Paul Lynde.)
Arthur then explains that Kidman is going 'home' (wherever that is) and that
a witch rule is that if a witch goes home she can't come back for 100 years.
They go off to find her, Arthur driving. Arthur tracks her down to the
studio where they get together, blah blah blah. Except when Farrell tell
Kidman how he found her, and that he knows about the 100 year rule, she
tells him that that's silly, and she has no idea who Uncle Arthur is, and
Arthur has driven away by then.
Cut to 6 months later and Farrell and Kidman move into their new house --
across the street from the Kravitz's.
But who, or what, was Arthur? Kidman doesn't know him. The stuff he told
Farrell wasn't true. He drove Farrell around town tracking Kidman. And yet
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Yeah. Pointless, but weird.
See, if Michael Caine, instead of vanishing, had decided to get the guy his
daughter likes for her, at least it would have made SOME sense.
|
he seems to have been a figment of Farrell's imagination . . . who's still
out driving his car around Hollywood. Nor does Kidman do anything to find
out; she just looks bewildered, like Farrell is crazy.
Brian Thorn...
|
Okay, here's my way-too-much-effort-for-this-lost-cause hypothesis...
Shirley MacLean's character was behind the weirdness in Act III. This
is badly explained by the surprise revelation at the end that she is
really a witch.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
And oddly Michael Caine figures out the reason he's in love with her is
because she put a spell on him (and in fact, he's wrong) but decides he
doesn't care. And neither he nor Kidman seem to think there's any way to
figure out if someone else is a witch (how about, teleport them over a pit
of boiling snakes and see if they save themselves?).
|
The movie had a weird, not fully elaborated upon, premise that the
original "Bewitched" was secretly based on true events. (This explains
why Kidman says she was not allowed to watch the show as a kid, and
why Clara and Arthur show up as real people.)
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Okay, that's very very very VERY interesting. But is it actually in the
narrative in any way, or did you come up with it yourself?
Brian Thorn...
|
No, its totally an interpretation that I came up with myself,
essentially for the same reasons you came up with "Act III is
Ferrell's insanity". There had to be some explanation for what was
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Damn. I was hoping I'd missed something. :\
There had to be some explanation for what was
|
going on, so I just figured "okay, the original Bewitched was supposed
to have been true." Basically, I figured that because Arthur and Clara
showed up as real people and that all the witches act pretty much the
same way they did in the original show (Caine appearing on soup cans
and such) as opposed to witches in "Witches of Eastwick", "Practical
Magic", or "Charmed". Ferrell being insane never crossed my mind,
although his dreaming it all up did.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Your explanation is great, if only the Ephrons were that clever!
|
I wonder what the history of this movie is. I'd be willing to bet that
it got trashed when Will Ferrell joined the cast, and the studio
insisted on a re-write for more Ferrell shenanigans.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
It smells more to me like the 'written and directed by' curse where there's
nobody in place to tell you that that joke you think is so brilliant doesn't
make sense to anybody else.
|
Jude Cormier...
|
The movie had been in development since the early 90s with Ted Bessel at the
helm as director. But his death put the project into hiatus until Nora
Ephron got her hands on it.
From what I remember-- his vision was more true to the original show, but
alas we will never find out what could have been.
|
|
|
There really had been a Samantha. Kidman kept talking to Elizabeth
Montgomery's photo, asking "what would Samantha do" and such. Was
Kidman's mother the inspiration for Samantha? Maybe, they never say
anything about Kidman's mother, but she's evidently out of the picture
(no pun intended.)
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
We hear about Mom just the once, when Caine first appears and asks where she
is, right before (IIRC) the line about 'now you live down the street from a
Denny's' that didn't pay off 'cause there was no set up or later use for
it). But, yeah, that whole 'mother took off again' bit that never paid off
either was really weird. And stuck out.
Brian Thorn...
|
I don't remember that at all, but then I haven't seen the movie since
I wasted two hours of my life seeing it in a theater last year...
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Lucky you. The pain is still fresh for me.
|
|
|
Shirley MacLean's character is somehow connected to the original
Bewitched (inspiration for Endora, maybe?) and this connection is why
the actress stooped to doing a weekly show (she was supposed to be
famous and getting her was a coup.)
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
That . . . sort of works, but of course, once you find out she's a witch,
you figure THAT was her motivation. Frankly, I thought she was Caine's wife
in disguise.
Brian Thorn...
|
That crossed my mind, too. I'd fogotten the references to Kidman's
mother, and was thinking perhaps we'd find out that MacLean was the
mother Kidman never knew or something (making Caine the inspiration
for Maurice, by the way.) Weren't Endora and Maurice estranged on the
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
yep
Weren't Endora and Maurice estranged on the
|
original show? We rarely saw Maurice.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Long time split, and Maurice was a womanize like Caine. I'm not sure they
ever said the word 'divorce' but I remember Endora saying about marriage
that she'd changed her mind a lot in 1000 years.
|
|
|
There really was an Uncle Arthur. He's Shirley MacLean's character's
brother (Arthur was Endora's brother in the original series). Since
Kidman is not MacLean's daughter, Kidman didn't know of him. But he,
like MacLean, were inspirations for the original Bewitched.
ANIM8Rfsk...
Arthur was lying to Ferrell to get him back together with Kidman at
the behest of MacLean for reasons never explained. (No, I have no idea
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
That's why I thought Caine wold have worked better here -- at least he has a
vested interest in wanting his daughter to be happy. But the movie
intentionally removes him for no good reason.
(No, I have no idea
|
what the naked-on-Conan-O'Brien's-show bit was about.) This works a
little better than the "Act III is Ferrell's insane imagination"
theory.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Yeah, if we assume the 'the TV show was based on real events' theory. At
least it explains the magical people, but not the Kravitzes.
|
There really was an Aunt Clara, and we meet her. She's evidently
Kidman's great aunt. I think the script was meant to eventually tell
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Within the framework of your theory, that works pretty well.
I think the script was meant to eventually tell
|
us that Kidman is somehow related to the MacLean and Arthur
characters, but if so, this was lost in a re-write in favor of more
Will Ferrell screen time. (We don't know anything about Kidman's
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Boy howdy, was THAT a mistake!
(We don't know anything about Kidman's
|
mother in the movie, only her father. Perhaps a witch world divorce?)
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Again, Caine asks 'where's your mother' and Kidman says 'she just took off
again' -- witch is worse than no mention, because you spend the movie
waiting for Endora to appear.
|
Ugh, what a mess of a movie!
ANIM8Rfsk...
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
I just checked out of morbid curiosity; the DVD is sold as a 'special
edition' but lists NO EXTRAS OF ANY KIND. So that won't help us, but at
least we don't have to bother with it either.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Yeah, but again, the part was so badly written, it wasn't any kid of a
casting coup; it was just putting somebody talented in the movie and having
the rise above the (total lack of) material.
Dame Edna -- now that would have been good casting.
|
Jude Cormier...
|
A BW fan group I belong to found her performance to be campy & insulting to
Agnes Moorehead's memory. She had never watched the show and therefore had
no love instilled in what she was doing. We now lovingly refer to her as
"Rancid Fruitbag" :)
|
FDR...
|
Elf was a cool movie. About the only thing I know he's done (other than the
voice in Curious george) where he had a good role.
|
I was hoping for "Audio interview with the Ephrons about why BEWITCHED went
so horribly wrong"
|
|
Which is exactly what I think happened. The end of act 2 is the end of
Farrell's sanity, and act 3 is entirely a delusion in the madhouse he's
locked in. Cut to the end of "Shock Waves" or Buffy's "Normal Again"
|
|
|
|
It took 4 sessions to get through it all.
larry legallo...
|
Try watching it as a double bill with the Kidman Stepford Wives
remake. And then watch them both again listening to the Nora Ephron
and Frank Oz commentaries. And then you come tell me about suffering.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
bwaahahahahahahahhahahaahaha
I can't imagine an Ephron commentary. It's either got to have nothing to do
with the movie, or be oblivious to the movie, or be an endless stream of
"this doesn't work 'cause I'm incompetent, and this doesn't work because
everybody else is related to me and can't get any other jobs, and this
doesn't work 'cause there wasn't anybody to tell the writer or director that
that didn't make sense 'cause I'm both of them"
Jude Cormier...
|
she had no real concept what "Bewitched" the series was about. Neither did
Shirley McClaine.
Jimmy...
|
If they had stayed true to the TV version with Jimmy Carey in the lead role this
could have been a huge success.
Jude Cormier...
|
exactly......but do you think Nicole Kidman could have played Samantha? Or
should another actress been considered had Jim done Darrin?
Jimmy...
|
Jim Carey even said once that the original Darren was one of his role models. He
would have been a perfect Darren.
Nicole Kidman was wrong for the role, but I'm not up on my young actresses to
pick one. But I would recognize a good Sam if I saw one. Kidman wasn't it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was like "The Core" only not funny.
It was like a David Caruso vehicle, except with a lead that couldn't act.
Okay, it was like a David Caruso vehicle.
Up until now I'd have said THE AVENGERS was the worst TV show to movie,
but, wow, this was way way way way WAY worse.
Ian J. Ball...
|
I haven't seen this one yet, but I can't imagine it's worse than either
"The Avengers" or "Wild Wild West" (my vote for the worst of all).
Michael O'Connor...
|
I remember I went to a free radio premiere for the Wild Wild West movie
(only because I was there as an employee of the radio station) and I
left halfway thru and snuck in to catch the second half of some other
movie. I finally managed to sit thru the second half on cable one day,
but only to confirm it was one of the three or four worst big budget
(relatively) movies I've seen in the last 20 years. The casting of
Will Smith was the first big problem, along with a truly ludicrous
script which involved the giant mechanical spider and white people who
willingly accepted a smart, slick, black Secret Service agent in circa
1880. With a better script and somebody like George Clooney as James
West it could have been a pretty decent movie.
Jude Cormier...
|
George Clooney was indeed the first choice, but pulled out for some reason.
Brian Thorn...
|
Probably read the script and said, "are you kidding? no way!"
I'm sorry, I try not to discriminate, but a black man in the James
West role was just plain wrong. If they couldn't get Clooney (who
would have been perfect for the role, I think), they should have tried
for Matthew McConaughey or Kevin Costner. At the time, I thought maybe
Bruce Willis or Nicholas Cage would have been good choices, too. But
Will Smith? No, no, no.
|
|
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Granted, with a different cast, writer, and director, they might have had
something. :-)
Smith didn't bother me nearly as much as I'd have thought, but if they were
insistent on going 'off-white' with the lead, they could have gone with
Jackie Chan.
One big problem was 2 leads that don't LIKE each other -- who was there to
root for?
Blame Jon Peters for the giant spider. He'd been trying to stick it in
Superman, and finally got it stuck in WWW instead.
David B...
|
The beauty parlor fumes must've ruined his brains.
|
|
|
|
Mike O'Sullivan...
|
Don't forget "The Saint" as a contender.
Brian Thorn...
Jude Cormier...
|
they were thinking box office and not necessarily historically accurate :)
jimmy...
|
I don't think I'm a racist, but slick black cowboys 19th century are too much of
a stretch for me. Blazing saddles being the perfect exception. :)
Mike O'Sullivan...
|
Sidney Poitier in "Duel at Diablo" was another good exception. No
reference made at all to his race.
|
I loved the TV Show but never watched the Will Smith movie.
Michael O'Connor...
|
I think Blazing Saddles was more realistic in its depiction of how
white people in the old west would have responded to a black authority
figure when Bart showed up in town and you heard the guns being cocked
as Bart's reading the order from the Governor.
|
|
|
|
I thought "The Saint" wasn't that bad. Slow moving, no chemistry
between Kilmer and Shue, and none of the charm of the original, but a
fairly workable script as a reimagining of the series and decent
direction.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
That's more credit than I'd give it. That scene where Shue, the world's
dumbest physicist, treats Kilmer for a head wound and DOESN'T NOTICE SHE'S
TREATING A GASH IN A BALD CAP???
|
It just doesn't have that "appallingly bad" quality to it that "Wild
Wild West" or "I Spy" have in abundance.
ANIM8Rfsk...
|
Yeah, the Saint was mostly just boring.
|
|
Jude Cormier...
|
What about "Car 54, Where Are You?"?
|
Frank R.A.J. Maloney...
|
It would have been a major disappointment except for the presence of Val
Kilmer, always a bad omen.
|
|
weberm...
|
Oh well, thaks for "taking one for the team", as it were.
|
Can there have be any point, ANY, script, dailies, ANY POINT, that they
could have possibly thought this material was working?
Rich...
|
The Avengers holds that title.
|
FDR...
|
Now I have to watch it. I sat through many a bad movie on the US Network Up
All Night shows in the late eighties/early ninieties. I think if I could
survive them I could survive this.
|
|
|
