Carrie and Halloween. (2 years apart) received attention because they were surprise hits. DePalma and Carpenter were directors on the rise at a time when being "stylish" was all the rage and a way to get attention.
I like the trailer, but it looks like they are Arima-fying the piece. Margaret will be crazy, but earnest shown dropping Carrie off at school. Carrie will be pretty but misunderstood. Out come the cellphones to post Carrie on facebook. It will try to make commentary on bullying and use effects not available in the 70s to truly make the prom a bloodbath. That's irritating.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/28/10
"Not for nothing, but Ebert was not at that time considered a serious film critic. He was a popular movie reviewer."
The movie CARRIE was released in 1976. Roger Ebert won a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism in 1975. As far as I know, no other film critic had ever won a Pulitzer at that time. Agree with him or not, somehow I think that winning the Pulitzer may have put him into the realm of "serious film critic".
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
I don't believe I saw a single obit that didn't mention that he and Siskel were criticized by the cinema establishment of dumbing down the craft of film criticism by bringing it all the way back to the Romans and the lions. I'm not saying he wasn't a serious critic and he certainly grew to be deeply respected and beloved.
I'm just trying to give some historical context so that people might realize that a good review for Carrie from Ebert then did not have the cultural impact of the Times pan.
That is all.
I want to see it...I hope it's better than "The Rage: Carrie 2".
Sympathizing and humanizing Margaret is a huge mistake.
^^ I'm not so sure. It depends on how they've constructed her character's arc. I would find her far more fascinating to see her set up as this slightly bonkers, uber-Christian traditionalist, and then watch as she goes further and further into la-la land with her daughter trying to run the other way as fast as possible.
Otherwise, Margaret just becomes a stock villain, and there's nothing really surprising there.
*shrugs*
I dunno... I'm still gonna watch it!
'^^ I'm not so sure. It depends on how they've constructed her character's arc. I would find her far more fascinating to see her set up as this slightly bonkers, uber-Christian traditionalist, and then watch as she goes further and further into la-la land with her daughter trying to run the other way as fast as possible.
Otherwise, Margaret just becomes a stock villain, and there's nothing really surprising there.'
Could not agree more, i don't know why so many people on here want to see her as a one dimensional villan.
There is a huge difference between being a villain or depicting someone as totally bonkers, and being one-note. Laurie found so many shades of crazy to play in her character, I mean, Jack Nicholson gave one of his great performances in THE SHINING where he was completely crazy, same with Glenn Close in FATAL ATTRACTION. These are villains and pretty nuts ones, but at no point would I describe their performances as one-note. They are wonderful performances that take huge risks by not attempting to appeal to the audience's sympathy in an obvious way.
The problem with this preview (I have no clue what the movie will be like so maybe it's just a marketing thing) is that they are trying to make Margaret a misunderstood mom who deep inside just loves her daughter like the good woman she is. That is possibly the most boring and safe interpretation of the role I've ever heard. It's simply not Margaret, read the novel, read King's comments about the character. Marin Mazzie's "And Eve Was Weak," for example, manages to get us to understand Margaret's actions without humanizing her in the most simplistic of ways.
DePalma was (and I wish still was--though I keep up hopes) a crazy director who has so many aspects I hate, not the least being his probable misogyny, but I think his craziness made Carrie work. As mentioned--elements like the sped up prom dress-up scene, the split scenes in the climax, etc, all work magnificently as some sort of fever dream.
My worry about the new version is that by making the story more realistic, its power is lost (just like the off-Broadway musical.) King's novel works so well (I think) because it's done as the voice of witnesses--we hear the story through nearly every possible voice except Carrie's. DePalma's detached way sorta works the same way (though is pretty different.) Getting closer to Carrie and her suffering doesn't seem to really add up to much to me.
...But I will see it regardless...
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
I just saw the original trailer for the DePalma version and it gives away just as much of the story as the latest remake and the new trailer uses many of the same lines as in the first.
One my pet peeves is how many people complain that modern trailers spoil too much. Except some clever Hitchcock trailers--I can't think of any classic trailers that didn't take people through the movie point by point.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
They've given the remake's writing credit to the guy they hired behind Julie Taymor's back to rewrite the Spider-Man book even though the same lines are in the previews from the first movie. They got the director of Boy's Don't Cry. It was supposed to come out last month. It's coming out in the middle of October. I wonder if there really is any confidence in this remake, I mean, since it's appears to be purely a business proposition anyway.
Namo he's also written a lot of Glee (I think I ranted on about this--he did the gay bullying episode.)
(to not be too catty--I should say he also has written a few really great comic arcs, especially with Spider-Man--ironically)
>> by making the story more realistic, its power is lost (just like the off-Broadway musical.)
The OB show was wrong-headed on so many, many, many levels. Being "realistic" was one.
It looks good. From what I remember about the original it was a BIG, BIG HIT. Everyone I knew went to see that film and it was always being talked about. Same thing with JAWS, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, STAR WARS and GREASE. The last three were not only BIG HITS but PHENOMENONS.
Updated On: 4/7/13 at 07:59 AM
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
I don't think Carrie belongs on that list. It did make 30 times its budget so it was a big big return on its investment, but it wasn't a blockbuster like those others.
I remember girls talking about not wanting to take showers after PE because of it.
Poor things stunk up the afternoon classes for months...
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
I'm assuming the things that most freak out the Carrie of the remake are the glowing rectangular glass bricks the mean girls have with them in the shower, which create graven images of witches and other evil entities and poor Carrie on the floor. I mean, they are marked by the sign of Eve's bitten apple, after all.
"Could not agree more, i don't know why so many people on here want to see her as a one dimensional villian."
I'm sorry, but I absolutely abhor how the revival tried to humanize Margaret. I'm not asking for Margaret to be a one-dimensional villian; in fact she's a very multi-dimensional character. But I think it is hard to justify - and even more so humanize her - based on her abusive and destructive nature towards Carrie. Margaret is a sick woman. Plain and simple. She does not answer to anyone but God, and she believes all of her motives in punishing Carrie (which includes killing her) are of his will. I don't think Stephen King intended for Margaret to even love Carrie in the first place, judging upon that final monologue in the book:
"I should’ve killed myself when he put it in me. I saw the way he was looking at me, in that sexual drunken daze. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, and I let him to it to me. After the first time, he said not until marriage. Never again. But then he…slipped. And I believed him. I felt the sin be expiated. By blood. But sin…sin never dies. The Lord works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. When the pain began, I went and got a knife. This very knife. And I waited for you to come so I could make my sacrifice. But I was weak. I was weak and backsliding, and I took this knife again when you were three…and blackslid again. But now the devil has come home. And we'll pray. For the last time, we'll pray."
That monologue to me proves that she clearly views Carrie as the manifestation of her sins. However, she does view Carrie as her responsibility, and that she must punish Carrie for her wrong-doings (locking her into a closet, literally beating her with the bible). If one were to make the argument that Margaret does love Carrie (which I don't think she does, as according to the original text) then clearly the love she has for her is very spiteful and distorted, and therefore should not be humanized.
Think of it this way - if the ending to Carrie were different, and Carrie and Tommy didn't win prom king and queen, there was no pig's blood, and Carrie came home a HAPPY girl - Margaret's plan was still to kill her (which arguably could be an even more tragic story). She decided to kill Carrie the moment she defied her and went to prom.
King's Margaret was deranged, abusive and hostile. If you strip that away from the character, the stakes simply aren't raised if Carrie's home life is not worse than her life at school.
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