I like Steve Martin, I really do. I was in high school when he broke big on the scene in the mid-seventies. I bought the albums, saw The Jerk in the theater, owned two copies of King Tut. I intentionally bumped into my friends in the hallway, just so I could say "Excu–u-u-u-u-use Me-e-e-e-e-e!!!".
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid is still one of my favorite guilty pleasures when I just feel like wasting some time and giggling. Steve Martin may be one of the few people on the planet who could make the act of brewing coffee genuinely roll-on-the-floor-with-tears-in-your-eyes funny.
Kevin Kline is also a great comic talent. Who can forget his deranged, Nietzche-quoting, Ugly American criminal mastermind wannabe in A Fish Called Wanda? Funny stuff!
And now, they are doing a movie together!
So, why do I have this feeling of dull foreboding? Why do I find even short trailers for the new Pink Panther movie sort of painful to watch? It’s like this movie is radiating it’s badness right through my television.
I haven’t seen the film, so I admit I could be 180 degrees wrong.
I hope I am.
But how often do you need to re-make a classic film? Anyone seen the remake of Gone With The Wind? How about Citizen Kane or A Day at the Races? Good grief… remember The Wiz?
Steve Martin has had enough moments of celluloid brilliance to warrant great respect, but what made him think of taking on Peter Sellers in his most memorable role? Martin is great, but if you look up the phrase "comic genius" in a dictionary, you’ll see a picture of Peter Sellers. He is Clousseau, and Clousseau is Peter Sellers.
I just don’t know if I can bear to watch this new Pink Panther.
This is a job for the Decent Films Guide!
Surely Steven Greydanus will post and tell me that I really am not being fair to the film (not having seen it yet), and that it really can’t be that bad.
Say it ain’t so, Steve!
I’m with you, Tim. There have been two re-makes of “Stagecoach”. That’s a real good move for the lead actor: inviting comparison between himself and John Wayne in the role that made the Duke a star. Or that VERY short-lived TV series of the 70s titled “Casablanca”. Nothing against David Soul, but he’s no Bogie. There have been 3 remakes of “Miracle on 34th Street”. Maureen O’Hara has stated that she is happy to say that they have all been bombs. If people are going to remake old movies, they should remake the bad old movies and make them right.
My mind escapes me, but it seems that there are very few instances where a remake improves upon the original. This is most especially true when it comes to comedies: how can you remake a comedy when you know the jokes of the original?
In my mind, the best remakes are those which are sci-fi/horror based, in that the special effects have improved so substantially that they’re nearly seamless. And in some cases, like David Cronenberg’s “The Fly”, the effects become so realistic that the film takes upon itself new dimensions that the original never could have touched upon.
But here’s a question: if people want to encourage Steve Martin’s comedic genius, why was “Shopgirl” largely ignored by the masses? Why is his fantastic play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” in development hell? Why must he continue to embarass himself with paycheck roles like “Bringing Down the House” and those “Cheaper” movies?
Ugh. Rent _Roxanne_ or _All of Me_ or even _The Lonely Guy_. I can’t handle Steve Martin’s poor film choices anymore.
In my opinion, Martin’s remake of Father of the Bride was hilarious – much more so than the original. So I’m holding out some hope for his Pink Panther.
The Maltese Falcon is also a remake (I mean the Humphrey Bogard version) that is better than the original (non-Bogart) version.
“Three Godfathers” (the John Wayne version) is also a remake. But then, if you have Bogie or the Duke available, a remake just might be better than the original.
But even the Duke and director Howard Hawks made the remake mistake when they made “El Dorado”, essentially a remake of “Rio Bravo”.
I’m not against re-makes at all. I agree that Martin was great in Father of the Bride and that it compares favorably to the original.
But there are some things no prudent person should mess with.
As an artist, i would not want to tackle a re-make of the Cistine Chapel, for example. What would be the point?
The new Pink Panther is actually almost 2 years now. It was expected to be a Spring/Summer release in 2005 but MGM put it on the shelf for the entire year and is only now releasing it in one of the deadest months (box-office wise) of the year. If a studio doesn’t have any confidence in its own film why should the audience?
What was the point in remaking The Pink Panther anyway? They tried to replace Peter Sellers in 1968’s “Inspector Clouseau” with Alan Arkin in the lead. Unlike Sellers, he didn’t get a sequel. Then they tried Roberto Benigni in 1993’s “Son of the Pink Panther”, that didn’t work either.
It really would have been more interesting to see Kevin Kline and Steve Martin in a whole new comedy together.
Zo, I gez you are trying to zay, “It is a bim!”
I really enjoyed both Cheaper by the Dozen movies. More importantly, so did my children – the intended audience.
Roxanne was a very nice film. Folks who are familiar with Rostand’s Cyrano know just how wonderful that adaptation really is; all the major speeches are there & the way they’ve been updated borders on inspired (so far a movies go). Martin’s great in it.
He’s also great in Bowfinger, which is definitely not for eveyone (some nudity, as I recall, & lots of swearing) but does make some very strong, practically anti-Hollywood statements. It’s quite a pointed & scathing satire. I’ve wondered if Martin hasn’t gotten good roles recently has something to do with that.
That this new Panther has been on the shelf for so long can’t mean anything good about it. But, if anyone could pull of Clouseau these days, it would be Martin, so long as the script is excellent.
I’m not holding my breath.
Miller is right re Father of the Bride. I like the Tracy version, we see it a couple times a year, but Martin (and even Keaton) are terrific in the remake. The only time a remake topped the original, IMHO.
Still, I worry a PP remake, even with St. Louis great Kline in it.
Note to SGreydanus: you underated JDepp’s Willy Wonka! We just saw it, terrific film, solid message. Watch it again, dude.
Feb is the traditional month for dumping film flops on the viewers. Not a good sign…
Barbara, Did you say “bim?” You said Bim.
Barbara, Did you say “bim?” You said Bim
Yes, zats vot I said, a bim. Special delivery.
Bill: actually El Dorado is not a mistake-it is consistently entertaining, has fun performances from Robert Mitchum and James Caan, and is NOT fawned over by the pretentious sorts. Rio Lobo-Wayne’s and Hawks’s THIRD take on that storyline-now THAT is a waste.
Hey Tim, thanks for the shout-out.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a gut feeling about a movie before seeing it. I have ’em all the time. Since I often have to decide whether or not a particular screening is worth my time long before there are a pile reviews to cross-check, I have to make that decision based on a blend of buzz and intuition.
And frankly, this does look terrible. Even the release date, in the dog days of post-awards season winter, suggests that the studio is unhappy with the film. As for Martin, he may have some great films under his belt, but his track record is mixed at best, especially of late.
Some good discussion at Arts & Faith
Aside to EPeters: You have fine taste in movies, and are an excellent canon lawyer. I, OTOH, am so, so right about JDepp’s WWonka. I will watch it again. But it will not change my mind.
Steve,
I watched JDepp’s WWonka once…and that was one time to many. Glad Ed enjoyed it but my kids were creeped out. We read the book before seeing the movie and enjoyed every scene that didn’t have JDepp in it.
Take care and God bless.
J+M+J
Thanks for confirming, Innocencio. My experience was slightly different: I read the book aloud to my kids after seeing and reviewing the film. My sense of the book at the time I wrote my review was based solely on my (fairly lucid, often word for word) childhood memory of the book, plus a couple of quotes I copied for my review from Amazon.com’s “Search Inside” feature, as I didn’t have a hard copy of the book. (To find Wonka’s first appearance in the book, I searched on the word “gate.”)
Anyway, the experience of reading the book aloud to my kids, which was tremendous fun, thoroughly reinforced my distaste the TBurton/JDepp WWonka. Granted that a film must stand or fall on its own, still when a film does fail as strikingly as this one does precisely where a far preferable alternative was manifestly available in the source material, you can’t help feeling that the filmmaker was led astray by personal obsession at best, hubris and narcissism at worst.
Frankly, I thougt J. Depp’s Willy Wonka was extremely funny and lovable in his own way. I really loved the movie, a lot more than the original one, and have been reccomending it to everybody I know. Nobody so far has told me they didn’t like it, far from it.
As for Steve Martin, I think he is hilarious. “Bowfinger” is, in my opinion, a work of brilliance. I nearly cried in laughter at most of the scenes (that parody of Scientology ‘MindHead’ was priceless!). I haven’t seen the previews for PP, but my brother told me it looked excellent. I need to see them to tell if he’s right, but it doesn’t seem too bad an idea to put him in the role.
I would still prefer it if he had done something else rather than replacing Peter Sellers, though.
The TBurton version is an improvement on the 1970s version with GWilder, I’ll certainly give you that.
My biggest complaint with both movies is that they had “modified” their plots to give the story some additional dimensions.
In the Gene Wilder version, there was someone pretending to be a rival candy-maker, Mr. Slugworth, trying to cajole the 5 children to steal an everlasting gobbstopper from Wonka’s factory so that Wonka could test the integrity/loyalty of the kids. While this plot strand is foreign to the book, I find it far less egregious than the backstory in Burton’s version, where Wonka’s childhood is written in (a falling out with his dentist/father makes it hard for him to relate to other people-a plot point that requires resolving and is completely unmentioned or unimplied in the book).
I also couldn’t stant the fact that they tried to turn the Wilder version into a musical, and I felt that, despite the dentist/father piffle, Burton’s version was able to capture the fantasy of the book better (which is probably more of a testament to special effects than anything else). You got to see things in Burton’s film like the Indian palace made of chocolate and the homeland of the Oompa Loompas, etc. I also felt that Burton did a better job of making it seem like it was a chocolate factory that they were touring, not a movie set. Were it not for the plot changes, Buron’s movie would have a much stronger endorsement from myself.
There are two words which will forever ruin anybody’s ability to enjoy the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka: Michael Jackson. If you have those words in your head when you see the film, it will destroy absolutely any entertainment value the movie might otherwise have.
Re: Martin. Bowfinger contains a truckload of offensive stuff, but also a truckload of really, *really* hilarious stuff.
For a chance to see him in an interesting *serious* (non-commedic) role, try The Spanish Prisoner.
And as Tim said, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid is really funny. My favorite line is: “My plan was to manuever her over to the bed, marry her, and start the whoopie machine.”
Oh man yeah, the Wilder version is unwatchable.
Two of my absolute favourite actors of all time are Steve Martin and John Candy (RIP), and how much better could it get than to have them both starring in ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’?
This can only marginally be topped by the comedic duo of Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal in, ‘Throw Momma from the Train’.
…What can I say, I’m big on transport…
God Bless.
p.s. Johnny Depp is great as a fruit-cake in ‘Secret Window’, but I haven’t yet seen him in the Choccie Factory film (although of course, he did play that dishevelled gypsy fellow in ‘Chocolat’ so I suppose he’s not in altogether unfamiliar territory) so I’ll reserve judgement on that ’till we buy it on dvd…what I will say, is this, he has a hard act to follow, because Gene Wilder as WW is firmly ingrained upon my brain.
I, too, am a big fan of John Candy and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”.
Both Candy and Martin put more into the roles than the script might have called for at first glance, and the Hughes formula transcended itself, turning the movie into much more than just a wacky series of comic mishaps.
It was actually a great buddy film, with satisfying character development. What’s great is, I think every guy has a little of Candy and Martin’s characters in them.
I haven’t seen Depp’s Wonka. I have fond memories of the Wilder movie (childhood sentiment), though the book is far better. My second grade teacher read it aloud to the class, and I never forgot it. The old movie is creepy and cheesy, at times, but it has some good performances. Veruca Salt springs to mind.
Steve, I recently read “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” aloud to my kids, partly inspired by the film. It was a great experience for me, and they loved having it read to them.
ukok: have you considered a cranial scrape? GW’s WW should not be ingrained in anybody’s brain. JDEPP rocks in WW. well, he does in anything, even a useless film like Chocolate. GW is hit and miss, great sometimes, excessive screaming others.
Ah, then we’ll have to differ in opinion, because I believe that GW portrayal of WW falls into the classic ‘great sometimes’ category!
I could probably have used the cranial scrape before I married my now ex husband, however.
God Bless.