What? Tilda as "updated" Mame Dennis?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 9:47am

In the unlikely casting department...

I was startled to read that she's in hot pursuit of the non-musical AUNTIE MAME rights. Though she might be funny as a Vera, I think, it's hard to fathom Tilda in an "updated" (what brings her down, the recession?) version. The idea of a "rock n'roll" Mame story is already scary.

[tazber]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 9:50am

Saw this earlier today and had the same reaction. She's a little too cool and detached to play Mame it seems.

[madbrian]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 9:54am

With all due respect to Ms. Swinton, Auntie Mame does not need to be redone or updated. It is about as close to perfect as a comedy can be. I credit her ambition, but she should channel it into some other project.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 9:56am

Fail.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:02am

The mind boggles at the rest of the casting...

I mean, if Tilda is Mame, who's Agnes Gooch? Linda Hunt?

Beau? Billy Bob Thornton?


Perhaps they'll make Vera a drag queen, and we might get Charles Busch to burn a hole in the screen.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:03am

I'm not sure this is a good idea, either, but I wouldn't mind seeing a new adaptation of Patrick Dennis' book, which is a lot funnier and more anarchic than that stodgy cobwebby play and that virtually unwatchable creakfest of a film.

Updated On: 9/8/09 at 10:03 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:09am

?

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:18am

Again with all due respect, Tilda Swinton is about the least funny performer on earth.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:33am

One never knows. There might be a comic genius waiting to be discovered. I'd rather see Tilda Swinton do comedy than watch most other actors do anything.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:34am

Fair enough.

She is a remarkable actor.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:46am

"which is a lot funnier and more anarchic than that stodgy cobwebby play and that virtually unwatchable creakfest of a film."

I thought I was the only one who hated that movie! Peggy Cass as Hooch was cringeworthy.

[D2]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 11:27am

Didn't anyone learn anything from THE WOMEN?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 11:34am

This is GHASTLY, just GHASTLY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj7i88LQ9DE

[D2]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 11:37am

Tilda: Roz, honey, I'm just gonna hold my breath until I get the rights to that film!

Roz: Do that.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 11:49am

StageManager, we should start a support group.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 2:04pm

I've always felt that Auntie Mame would make a terrific tv series. One of the key things would be to keep it 20s-30s and not update it.

The series would center on Mame and her relationship with the 10 year old Patrick with drop-ins by Vera, Mr. Babcock, Gooch and Lindsay Woolsey to name but a few. This could be a hour-long adult comedy with all the adult vocabulary that the novel contains.

The original novel of Auntie Mame could also work as a mini-series (or two if Around the World With Auntie Mame were also filmed).

In 1930 Mame Dennis was a character, but nowadays, well, we're all Mame Dennis Burnside. That is one reason she won't work set in the 21st century.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 8:11pm

D 2, you take the prize. I'm a sourpuss who never LOLs, and I sure as hell roared.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 8:18pm

Who will be the first to go after a "relevant" update of Gone With the Wind, set against the backdrop of the Iraqi War?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/8/09 at 10:30pm

Good points, WOSQ. Given the episodic structure of the novels, something like that could work really well.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/9/09 at 9:35am

How about Death of a Salesman, with Willy in real estate? Set in the fall of 2008, he cannot unload a slew of foreclosed homes in Florida.

Streetcar with Blanche another La Tourneaux? ('Course, in the update, she takes the paperboy to bed, and he slips out her window only seconds before Mitch arrives.)

Tea and Sympathy, wherein the kid really IS gay. Years later, he sues the Deborah Kerr character for pedophilia?

[GYPSY1527]

Posted: 9/9/09 at 9:54am

D2, I could hear Rosalind as I read it! Perfect!

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 9/9/09 at 10:09am

Joanna Barnes' performance alone, in the original film, cannot be equaled. Never mind Coral Browne's or Rosalind Russell's. I can't think of a remake more subject to failure. Unless, of course, somebody is arrogant enough to remake The Sound of Music.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/9/09 at 11:14am

"The Sound of Music," with a family of rappers and their volunteer nanny from a neighborhood church, set against the Rodney King Riots in L.A. back in the early '90s!

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 9/9/09 at 11:19am

Okay, so maybe I'm wrong about TSOM.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 9/9/09 at 12:00pm

Joanna Barnes' performance alone, in the original film, cannot be equaled. Never mind Coral Browne's or Rosalind Russell's.

While I'll give you Barnes and Russell, since Angie didnt get to do the film of Mame, I have to disagree about Browne not being equaled. She was wonderful, but so was Bea Arthur in the musical film. It was crappy, she was sublime.

I do love Glory's added line "I'm simply DRIPPING with oil" from the musical film, however...