Posted on 09/18/2002 6:42:56 AM PDT by Lorenb420
THE Civil War ain't over yet, y'all, at least not according to the new Reese Witherspoon movie, "Sweet Home Alabama."
The Big Apple-bashing is as thick as Witherspoon's Southern drawl in this romantic comedy, opening Sept. 27, which boosts Dixie values by trodding on Yankee ones.
With the notable exception of a JFK Jr. clone played by Patrick Dempsey, nearly every New Yorker portrayed in this movie is either dishonest or moronic.
Gotham audiences surely will love the megalomaniac New York mayor and her crooked aides, the flaming gay best friend and the rooms full of empty-headed fashion types. What, no surly cab driver?
And Witherspoon plays an Alabama-born fashion designer who turns into a hideous brat when she moves to Manhattan.
But Witherspoon - who landed the plum role after "Legally Blonde" took off and Charlize Theron pulled out - claims the movie's not about bashing New York.
"My main concern was that the movie not represent Southern people in a way that I grew up looking at Southern people in movies - which is basically ignorant and inbred," said Witherspoon, 26, a Nashville native who lives in L.A. with her husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, and their 3-year-old daughter.
"I wanted to celebrate the eccentricities of Southern people - because there certainly is a lot of humor there - but also represent the values and morals they identify with," she said.
Witherspoon plays a designer pursued by the mayor's son (Dempsey). When he pops the question, he opens Tiffany's at night to offer her "any ring you want."
Before the invitations can be picked out, however, Witherspoon must first finagle a divorce from her long-estranged high-school-sweetheart husband (Josh Lucas) back in Alabama.
The South is lampooned at first - with its Civil War re-creationists and 'coon-dog cemeteries (no fooling).
But slowly its values reveal themselves as superior to the superficial values Witherspoon picks up in New York, where she learns to treat her old friends like "something she stepped in with those fancy shoes," as one puts it.
And let's not even talk about the morals of mayor Candice Bergen - the heroine's intended mother-in-law - who is obsessed with public opinion and with controlling her son.
"Sweet Home Alabama" did make one glowingly positive contribution to local culture.
Director Andy Tennant ("Anna and the King") filmed the New York segments during Fashion Week last year - just after Sept. 11 - heeding the real-life mayor's decree that the city remain "open for business."
Ssshhhh! As far as I'm concerned it's one of the best-kept secrets. And yeah, I've lived in NY, and elsewhere. AL is the place.
Truth in posting: Ahm frum Texuss.
That out of the way, I'm afraid you're too late by about eight years -- Rudy Giuliani stepped on a lot of the crime and trashiness and basically b!tch-slapped his burg back to some semblance of public order and commonsense.
'Course, the race pimps mewl and cry and try to start riots here and there.....but I think everyone is pretty tired of their lame act.
and they elected the beast and the gun control freak to the U. S. Senate.
No kidding... My fiancee lives in Huntsville, and I am trying like mad to get a job there rather than having her move here (I live in Arkansas, which is not too bad, but not as nice as 'Bama).
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