:thumbsup:

I don't care for either of the stars that much. I wouldn't pick a movie because of them. Nor would I run screaming from the theater if they were onscreen. BUT...

I really enjoyed watching Bewitched!

Can't remember laughing this hard since I took my neice and nephew to see Shrek.
(Embarrassed the heck out of 'em! :jest: )

If you never saw the old TV show you might miss out on half the humor. Not a minute goes by without some wink at the old show. But it works! And works very well!

It isn't a remake and, again, it is. "When you fall in love with a witch, things get weird."
That pretty much explains what happens in the movie without resorting to spoilers.

One little in-joke among many! Kristin Chenowith plays Isabel's nextdoor neighbor in the movie.
She won a Tony for playing Glenda the Good Witch on Broadway in WICKED.
Wonder how many other witches or witch references I didn't catch...

If I say anything else I will have to resort to spoilers. So I will end by saying that this is another in a series of movies that I will rate "better than STAR WARS EpIII".

-Leelan

I have absolutely zero interest in seeing this. Everything I'd read about it previously convinced me it was a disaster in the making. And from every review I've read of it as well as the promos I've seen in theatre I'm even more convinced than before.

I have a slight interest in seeing it only because Amy Sedaris - who plays Gladys Kravitz - was a high school classmate of mine. Her brother David was in the class behind us.

I have a slight interest in seeing it only because Amy Sedaris - who plays Gladys Kravitz - was a high school classmate of mine. Her brother David was in the class behind us.

You went to school with Gerri Blank? That explains a lot :tongue:

I've been waiting for the "Strangers with Candy" movie since LAST FALL!! I heard it sucks eggs. they did a tired rendition of the TV show.

You went to school with Gerri Blank? That explains a lot :tongue:

You know, I've never seen that show. At the time it was on, I didn't realize who Amy was. Her brother - David Sedaris - is an absolutley brilliant writer and humorist who has written 5 or 6 autobiographical books now - always about his own life and many of those stories are about growing up in his very strange family in Raleigh. The only reason I actually remember David is that he and I both took guitar lessons from a dwarf who worked at a music store at the local mall. For years, those guitar lessons were a cloudy 7th grade memory for me which included a very strange, effeminate, high voiced student whose lessons were scheduled right before mine. He would be leaving just as I was arriving - and he was one year behind me all through junior and senior high school, but he was definitely not the kind of guy I wanted to hang out with or even know - in fact I don't think he had many friends at all. Anyway, flash forward a couple of decades and my wife and I are out driving on a Saturday afternoon. We've got NPR on and this high voiced guy on the radio starts telling this absolutely hilarious story about taking guitar lessons at the local mall when he was in the sixth grade from a dwarf named Mr. Mancini. I nearly wrecked the car from the realization that this was that weird kid who had his lessons before me and that he had turned his memories into a viciously funny monologue about a kid who liked boys more than girls taking forced guitar lessons (the guitar was a gift from his father - David would have preferred a brand-name vacuum cleaner) from a 4 foot 6 inch adult who purchased his very hip clothing ensembles from "The Young Squire" department at JC Penny and who instructed David how to play "Light My Fire" (the Jose' Feliciano version - not the Doors version) by thinking of his guitar as "a stacked woman" and to "grab her by the neck and make her holler". By the end of the story, David is sitting at Scotty's Chuckwagon - a little burger joint in the mall food court that was still there until they tore the mall down two years ago - singing the "Oscar Meyer Weiner Song" in the voice and cadence of Billy Holiday. I soon found out that David had been reading that day from a short story he had written called "Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities". The amazing thing about that story is that all of it is absolutely true - Mr. Mancini, the clothes, the Jose Feliciano version of "Light My Fire" and the instruction to treat the guitar as a woman were spot-on exactly the same experience that I had. Needless to say I am a fan for life and I highly recommend his books if you appreciate a certain intelligent, sardonic, profane, and occasionally even poignant humor. It was only much later that I realized that Amy was David's older sister and that I had actually had a couple of classes with her. She sort of ran with the "drama club crowd" - another group I didn't hang out with. My wife and daughter and I are going to see the movie in a half hour. My daughter will like it for sure and I get a certain satisfaction from knowing that Nicole Kidman secretly wants to sleep with me and has probably communicated that desire to Amy - who no doubt will be calling her old classmate with that revelation any day now.

I get a certain satisfaction from knowing that Nicole Kidman secretly wants to sleep with me and has probably communicated that desire to Amy - who no doubt will be calling her old classmate with that revelation any day now.

I like Nichole too, though sadly she's never looked as good as the first time I saw her, wearing those cut-offs in Dead Calm. Though the opening shot of Eyes Wide Shut wasn't too shabby, too bad about the movie.

Boy, on a related note, I bet serious money Mimi Rogers and Nichole are giggling their respective shapely @sses off this weekend.

I like Nichole too, though sadly she's never looked as good as the first time I saw her, wearing those cut-offs in Dead Calm. Though the opening shot of Eyes Wide Shut wasn't too shabby, too bad about the movie.

Boy, on a related note, I bet serious money Mimi Rogers and Nichole are giggling their respective shapely @sses off this weekend.

Nicole just does it for me - clothed, naked, inbetween, I don't care. I hadn't read any reviews of "Bewitched" and figured it was worth a shot just as a family outing. I mean, written and directed by Nora Ephron, strong cast, everybody loves the original - how could it go wrong? Sorry modelnut - but this movie belongs right up there with "The Cat in The Hat" as a big concept project that somehow went horribly wrong. It absolutely reeks of re-writes, re-shoots, and re-edits to try to get some semblance of an actual story-line, characters disappear and reappear (or don't) for no apparent reason, Kidman and Farrell have no chemistry whatsoever - and the movie is endlessly padded with cutesy pop music choices and apparently improvisational schtick that is just deadly unfunny. This movie is an absolute trainwreck. Don't say I didn't warn you. Oh yeah, Amy was on screen for all of 15 seconds.

Farrell himself, alone, has no chemistry. Just another of the later-SNL cast who annoys the hell outta me, and made it big for reasons I simply can NOT fathom.

Farrell himself, alone, has no chemistry. Just another of the later-SNL cast who annoys the hell outta me, and made it big for reasons I simply can NOT fathom.

Oh my Gawd! I'm glad someone else said that. I have yet to understand this big attraction for Farrell. He may be a really great guy and everything but I have just never found him that funny. Of course SNL quit being funny after the original cast left. I keep putting it on and find myself turning it off way before it's over.

Or maybe I've just become a tired old poop. So be it.

I laughed, I cried. Mostly I cried, there's a chunk of my life someone owes me back.

<< Originally Posted by PhilipMarlowe
You went to school with Gerri Blank? That explains a lot

Zorro Posted back...
"You know, I've never seen that show. At the time it was on, I didn't realize who Amy was..."


Well if you could watch South park, and Ren & Stempy and can enjoy tastless funny and parody, you'll like "Strangers with Candy" They did a loose parody of all those stupid "Afternoon Specials" only you won't learn any good lessons from Strangers. She'll make your pinky all stinky! LOL There are NO GOOD ROLE MODELS IN THE SHOW!

As I said before, I don't care for the two stars so I did not go in expecting very much from them.
But I have enjoyed all I have seen of Nora Ephron's movies.

And Sir Michael Caine can chew the scenery like nobody's business! :lol:

So I went in hoping to be merely entertained and was very pleasantly surprised.

The movie is based on the gimmick of a real witch stumbling into a remake of the old sitcom. It is supposed to be all silliness and the movie delivered.

STAR WARS EpIII was based on the gimmick of Anakin's tragic fall from grace. You were supposed to care about the characters. It was supposed to be tragic as well as epic. I didn't care and the movie did not come close to delivering.

I have seen four movies so far this year. In order of their worth as far as bang-for-your-buck and best first, I would list them as BATMAN BEGINS, Bewitched, Madagascar, and, finally, STAR WARS EpIII.

I try not to listen to reviewers. They are often wrong and suffer from having to go see too many movies.
How many movies would you enjoy if you had to do it for a living?

Example: Ebert&Roper recommended EpIII and not Madagascar.

After the horror of EpI and EpII almost anything that George could do in EpIII had to be better. Just the simple fact of having the story resolved would be a relief. So only by comparison is EpIII a good movie.

As for Madagascar E&R just simply didn't get it. It is a kid's movie. You are not supposed to raise the question of cannibalism or expect to have it answered. Doesn't Ebert remember that Bugs Bunny cartoon where Canasta told him that "pen-goo-ins is prak-tically chickens"? Bugs is a vegitarian for gosh sakes! But he is drooling over a little penguin that he imagines is a dressed chicken. It doesn't make sense because it isn't supposed to make sense. It's funny! And that's all it is supposed to be. So Madagascar isn't as funny as Shrek. So what? It is meant to be funny and it is.

Sorry for the soapbox.

Just expressing my opinion that movies are meant to be entertaining
and that critics are not to be trusted - no matter the size of their paychecks.

I thought Bewitched was very funny and completely entertaining.
I may even see it again in the theater.

Just MHO,
-Leelan

Ferrell has always been the king of silly. Well, okay, maybe he's right after Ben Stiller. I've enjoyed his movies since I really enjoy silly stuff so this movie sounds like fun. The whole premise is silly, so that's an attraction for me right there.

My favorite bit in Bewitched has Kidman playing with the dimmer switches in her new house. As she slides them up and down she says "Beaming Up...Beaming Down" It was little touches like that and the "new" animated credits for the remade show that made me appreciate that at least the filmmakers' hearts were in the right place.

I hated the missed opportunities in the film, tho. Plus I'm still wondering what purpose Aunt Clara and Uncle Athur served. Also, Chenowith's character was really redundant to Heather Burns' once they became friends.

In my head, the justification goes like this. The reason Nigel had forbidden Isabel to see the original show was that it was based on their family (somebody sold them the rights) and he was bitter over how they were portrayed. Perhaps the "real" Samantha was based on Isabel's missing mother.

Anyway, all in all, it was a better adaptation then Stepford Wives.

Or...

I think she was forbidden because her imagination would cause her magic to fill in the blank spaces.

For example, "Uncle Arthur" tells Ferrell that he isn't real.
"Things get weird when you fall in love with a witch."

And isn't it convenient that "Aunt Clara" shows up just when she did?
In the same way that she shows up in the old show? Crash landing in the fireplace. She talks and acts like TOS "Aunt Clara" as well. And her hex goes wrong and Isabel has to fix it just as Sam always did.

And the Cravitts show up at the end right on cue as Isabel and ? (Ferrell's 'Darin') get married and start their new life together.

Instead of remaking the old sitcom, they become the sitcom.

Makes a twisted sort of sense. Instead of a straight remake, the movie is of the production of a remake for TV which becomes the remake anyway.

-Leelan

P.S. After talking with some other friends who had seen the movie, it seems that your expectations play hell with your enjoyment. If you go in not expecting anything or not much, odds are you will have a good time. :p
If you are expecting the great movie that Ferrell or Kidman might have made, you will be very disappointed. :mad:

If you expect a competently made film, you will be disappointed. The premise was fine - the execution was horrible.