Wednesday, February 25, 2009

This must be stopped

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/02/why-new-clue.html?cnn=yes&eref=time_entertainment

I'm hoping this is all just a hideous, baseless rumor with no grounding in fact. Remake Clue? That's just sacriledge. And I'm no-end please that the Popwatch column at EW is aghast at this prospect as I am. Remaking a great movie is always a risky proposition. People have expectations. And people are not kind when a movie falls short of a past favorite. Imagine if they remade The Wizard of Oz, and it sucked. The fur would fly.

But Clue is not a great movie. It is Clue. It was flawed and brilliant at the same time. It has one of the best character actor casts ever assembled, but some of the people in bit parts are horrifically bad. It has Tim Curry giving one of the greatest summations of "the story to this point" that has ever been committed to film, and a dog poop joke that runs too long. But it's the stupid parts as much as the lame parts that make it the sui generis classic that it is. Sure, you could take a B movie like Big Trouble in Little China and make it better. It wouldn't be hard to do. But then . . . it wouldn't be the whackadoodle masterpiece that is Big Trouble in Little China. And you could remake Clue and tighten up the script, and put in big-name stars, and, you know, pick an ending instead of throwing 3 at people. But, in the end it would be better, but as good.

All that said, if they ever turn Clue into a stage play, I will be front row center. It would make fabulous theater.

But movie? No. No. Definitely no. Put down whatever jacked up script you've put together, and whatever Zac Efron and Julia Roberts nightmare of a cast list you've concocted, and step away. And nobody will get hurt.

2 comments:

WashingtonGardener said...

I'm so miffed about other remakes - I'm not too worked up about Clue -only because I hold out hope that someone might actually doing something great like cast Dane Cook and Kathy Griffin in it. I hold out hope.

FirePhrase said...

Much as I love Kathy Griffin, she can't hold a candle to the incandescent Madeleine Kahn. And I can't think of anyone who could do the Tim Curry part. To me, they'd only have a shot if they went with a nearly unknown cast. And we all know that doesn't happy in Hollywood any more.

Now if we're talking Dane Cook - why doesn't anybody remake Meatballs? He'd be perfect as Tripper.

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