Well, dear readers, I am hopping mad. Why am I hopping mad you might ask and I might tell you because who am I to keep such a thing from you? I am hopping mad because last night I watched this television movie of Mr. Stephen King’s Carrie. I had to restrain myself, dear readers, from throwing my shoe at the television. The obvious question, of course, is why remake Carrie? There is, unfortunately, no obvious answer that the people who remade it could possibly offer. I mean, it was so bad on every level I just sat there and started yelling. Who are these people who are allowed to make these things? This is why I never watch television and frankly I should have known better. The “director”, David Carson, should be tossed out of the DGA for his “work”. It was embarrassingly directed – full of all that five-year-old “hip” television style – from tilted cameras with no purpose, to endless shakycam shots with no purpose – it was just horrendous and made Mr. de Palma, not one of my favorite directors, seem like one of the greats. I know I’m being harsh, but this sort of thing just frosts me. It frosts me, do you hear, and now I’m frosted. The woman who played Carrie’s mother was so ordinary (I’m afraid I don’t know who it was – I’m sure it’s someone on some series, which is usually how they cast these stupid things), so boring – I mean, this is one of the great characters, how can you be boring? The girl playing Carrie was okay, but was working way too hard at it (Sissy Spacek, on the other hand, inhabited the character, was the character – as did the brilliant Piper Laurie as her mother). The rest of the cast was simply annoying – Sue Snell was a Debbie Allen clone, and the rest of the classmates were just awful (especially that over-directed girl who ate the donut while being interviewed by David Keith). Some of them, I’m sure, are decent actors, but with a “director” like this, who has a chance? The music was a lesson in how not to score a film – all jangly inappropriate music that just wanted to call attention to itself rather than actually serve the story. There was no style, no form, no point of view, no nothing. Can you tell I am hopping mad? Can you tell I am frosted? And I am not finished. I can’t be stopped now. And I am telling you I am not going. But first, I’ll start a new paragraph, because this here paragraph is becoming unseemly and way too long.
The prom scene was a perfect example of everything that was wrong with the television version. On TV, Carrie is so inner at the prom, she just never blooms. Just watch Sissy Spacek in the same sequence – watch her just light up and blossom – it’s just magical. Of course, she had the super-charming William Katt to play opposite instead of the too-old stick playing Tommy Ross in this new version. And then the “director” had the nerve to start ripping off de Palma shots. And the ending? We don’t get de Palma and Lawrence Cohen’s brilliant shock ending, oh, no, we don’t get that. We do get a surprise ending and the surprise is that this whole remake is a fershluganah pilot for a Carrie series. Yes, Virginia, Carrie lives and is on her way to Florida. Need I say more? Need I go on? Is it any wonder I am hopping mad? .
Has anyone noticed that silly-looking period just sitting there all by its lonesome? Well, as you may or may not have heard, I am hopping mad and I am frosted, so let’s just all click on the Unseemly Button below and be done with it.
I didn’t mean to go on at such length about something as silly as the TV movie remake of Carrie, but when I see something that inept it just frosts me, frankly, or even gregly. And now I’ve wasted a whole day’s notes talking about the pilot for Carrie Goes to Florida.
I actually got to come in a bit late to work yesterday, because David Wechter had to do some stuff with the editor I’m working with – so, I got my handy-dandy automobile washed. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too? Did you know that the word too spelled backwards is oot? My handy-dandy automobile hadn’t been washed in close to three months – it looks sparklingly clean now. Of course, they are now predicting rain – it hasn’t rained in a ‘coon’s age, but now that I’ve had my handy-dandy car washed, soon it’s gonna rain – oh, a Schmidt and Jones reference. What the hell am I talking about?
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must drive in my sparklingly clean automobile and then work all the live-long day. Yesterday, I had very few posts to keep me entertained (the posts that were there were lively and sparkling, though) – it was as if everyone were on vacation. Hopefully, today there will be more posts to keep me entertained, because I must be entertained and that is all there is to it. I do hope that the makers of Carrie Goes to Florida do some more remakes soon. I feel they should remake Romeo and Juliet next and I feel that Juliet should live and move to Joliet – ah, a Lost in Boston IV reference (and an obscure one at that) – then it can be a series, Juliet Goes to Joliet. Today’s topic of discussion: Wrong casting choices again – let’s do our own revival of Fiddler on the Roof, and cast the most wrong people from the world of stage or screen or television. Cast away, my pretties.