Posted on 06/10/2005 2:27:42 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Reviews: 'The Honeymooners' Just Junk
June 9,2005
Both critics who love the updated movie version of the classic Jackie Gleason series The Honeymooners and those who hate it (and there are far more of the latter than the former) agree that the movie has little in common with the TV show.
"Change may be good for the characters, but not necessarily for the audience," writes A.O. Scott in the New York Times. And it's not just that the movie has an all-black cast, headed by Cedric the Entertainer. "Badly paced and leadenly scripted, with jokes that only register because characters pause for the expected laughter (almost nonexistent at the screening I attended), The Honeymooners is one of the biggest disappointments of this still-young movie year," writes Chris Kaltenback in the Baltimore Sun.
"The Honeymooners doesn't work because of an extremely lame script attributed to four writers, which takes a concept that would barely have supported one of the original 'Classic 39' episodes and stretches it to a 90-minute feature that ... feels at least twice as long," comments Lou Lumenick in the New York Post.
Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News doesn't mince words. "This new version of The Honeymooners stinks," he writes. "There is no reason for it to exist other than cashing in on a brand name." Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, one of a handful of black film critics, begins his review by remarking, "An uncle of mine used to joke that he'd know racial parity had been achieved in Hollywood when black people started making movies as bad as white people's. I always thought his joke aimed too low. But according to his logic, the predominantly black update of The Honeymooners would be an achievement. It's not as bad as the average Hollywood movie, it's stupendously worse."
However, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times calls it a "surprise and a delight, a movie that escapes the fate of weary TV retreads and creates characters that remember the originals, yes, but also stand on their own." Lowe Returning
Is Roger Ebert Preferential to Black Films?
http://weblog.bbzzdd.com/archives/000314.html
Ebert is the perfect reverse barometer. Anything he likes, I hate and vice versa.
Three big boobs!
One thing was he several times said the next James Bond should be Black.
LMFAO
Geez - he's starting to look like the odious Bill Press!
Then I guess that he will LOVE the new version of KOJAK!
***
I have tried to watch the new Kojak...and it really isn't all that bad, except my brain keeps trying to compare it to the original...and in that respect, I find this Kojak very wanting.
If they had just called it something else, it might be ok.
Some things should never be remade and the Honeymooners is one of them. I will go out of my way to avoid this.
***
My sentiments exactly. The original was a classic.
I'm guessing some of these studios are banking on attracting the youngsters who never saw the original.
My advice to parents for movies like these would be to skip the remake, then rent or buy the originals and show those to the kids instead.
Has Hollywood run out of original ideas? What's next, remakes of "Mannix," "Night Stalker," and "Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo?" They better not touch "Emergency" though.
Has Hollywood run out of original ideas? What's next, remakes of "Mannix," "Night Stalker," and "Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo?" They better not touch "Emergency" though.
***
Shhhh....someone from Hollywood might be reading this. You're giving 'em ideas. :)
Do you ever suspect that they get paid to say crap like this?
LOL
Can't black screenwriters come up with their own original ideas? Black Cinderella (Hmmmm.... last time I checked, Cinderella was Italian... unless she was Sicilian maybe), black Nutty Professor (who can improve on Jerry Lewis? I mean, come ON!), now this. Are they going to remake All In the Family? Will Archie Bunker be a Louis Farrakkhan-type who hates all whites?
These types of movies do NOT enhance blacks culturally. Stop trying to interject yourselves into stories which are obvious about white society and white culture (no more blacks in European-based fairy tales, PLEASE!) Find your own stories and make them GOOD and people will see them and admire them.
Do you ever suspect that they get paid to say crap like this?
***
I've wondered sometimes whether Hollywood has some sort of payola thing going on...something like the music industry.
I remember the hoopla over Titanic, and that movie bored me to tears.
And that Celine Dion song played over and over and over and over and over and over. Gag!
Even Gleason remade them in the 1960s in colour with Sheila MacRae as Alice on his show then. You never see those colour versions anymore although I remember watching them as a kid. The Flintstones were sort of patterned by it. Audrey Meadows wasn't even the first Alice but that said the Audrey Meadows Honeymooners in glorious black and white are peerless. Gleason and Carney at that time in the 1950s were at their height and that version of the show is what people a hundred years from now will still be watching.
The earliest editions were done on some kind of wire -- not film, which kind of gives those episodes an overexposed look. A number of years ago, I know there were some "experts" trying to figure out how to restore the wire versions...don't know if they ever found a way, but I think you may be able to find some tape or dvd copies.
What I remember about the color versions were that they were part of Gleason's variety show. I remember Gleason would introduce the cast at the very end of his show...and Carney always got the biggest applause.
Carney was probably the best, or certainly one of the best, second bananas ever. His comedic timing and mannerisms were just impeccable. One of my favorite running bits was his Ed Norton character about to, say, sign something or play the piano...he would go through this elaborate preparation -- cracking his knuckles and the like -- till the very impatient Ralph Cramden would just explode. Funny every time.
Or my other favorite -- the time Ralph and Ed were going to learn how to play golf. The instruction book says, "address the ball." So Ed gets on his hands and knees up to the ball and says, "Hello ball!"
Doesn't sound so funny in print, but to see it on the screen, it's a hoot.
And Alice -- some femnists complained that she was abused by her husband. But if you watch these shows, you know this woman always in some way got the best of him. And despite all of Ralph's bluster, he loved his wife deeply.
One of the all time classics. No remake will ever come close.
Thumbs up to Black Knight !??!?!! Yeesh Ebert.
I can't wait till they make a movie version of Manimal.
Oh come off the generalization, I'm married to a black woman and have never felt the need. We both hated
Soul Plane
Barber Shop II
Bad movie=bad movie and we both agreed this one would suck.
BTW We are both really big orginal Honeymooners fans.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.