Mona Lisa Smile vs. Miss Jean Brodie

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 1/4/04 at 9:50pm

Question: Do screenwriters see plays?
Perhaps had Julia Roberts been talking to her beautiful and talented brother, Eric, he could have informed her of the existance of a play, even a film called "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie." Basically the same plot as her, "Mona Lisa Smile," it is slightly superior, however, in that the schoolteacher in that version is absolutely delicious; charismatic, impossible, hilarious, wise, idiotic, heart breaking, in short, INTERESTING! There is no denying Ms.Roberts is a pro and always a pleasure to watch, but even she cannot be expected to charm us into believing this paint by numbers crap is anything but uninspired Hollywood hacks at work. Other than providing Marcia Gay Harden and Maggie Gyllenhaal (who easily walks with the picture) and Dame Marian Seldes a chance to strutt their formidable stuff on the silver screen, there is no reason for this film to have ever seen the light of day.

Air kisses to all,
Gladys Updated On: 1/4/04 at 09:50 PM

[BwayLover]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 1:23am

You are absolutely right, and I must say I also thought about "Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" when I heard about "Mona Lisa Smile". Don't get me started on how Hollywood remakes and rehashes the same old stories all the time...
Because I mean....What were they thinking? The notion that Julia Roberts could be as good as Maggie smith was in that movie is absurd. Dame Maggie, who won a much deserved Oscar for the role, is no match for miss big smile. People should just go see the original -they'd have a better time, that's for sure.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 9:59am

What in the previews for that movie could have ever implied to you that it was going to be an original or good movie?

[logan30]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 11:22am

There is a big difference between the two films -- Jean Brodie is a fascist while Katherine Watson is not.

[newyorkuniq]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 3:03pm

I thought Julia Roberts and Kirsten Dunst were outstanding in Mona Lisa Smile.

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 8:35pm

Logan dearest,
My point exactly, SHE WAS NOTHING!
Oh, Bohemian, I think they told us in the first shot she was Bohemian.

To all those who find my choice of movies questionable, may I note, it was a multi-plex and I had just finished seeing "Calendar Girls" (because of Julie Walters and Ms. Mirren) and noticing there was no one checking tickets at the door of "MLS," I couldn't help myself, I just shot in there like a thief in the night. I must confess I am prone to this sort of thing, which is why I have seen many films in multi-plexes I wouldn't be caught dead even renting. I just can't resist it. And now that I've given up smoking and don't find myself "jonesing" for a cigarette after just one film, I can go on dashing from one screening room to another until the theatre closes for the night, or I'm found out and thrown out by the scruff of my neck. It's sort of like I'm a movie audience kleptomaniac. But as I said, I recently gave up smoking, so I take absolutely no responsibility for my irrational behavioir.

Gladys

[moljul]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 9:02pm

Gladys, there's got to be some sort of support group you could join.

And weren't Julie and Helen just fab?

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 9:28pm

Honey, It must be eveident to every poster on this board, Gladys is a member of every support group this town has to offer. But, yeas, Julie and Helen were just the tonic to cure this seasonal depression thing. I saw Julie Walters do Sam Shepard's "Fool For Love" in London once, complete with a flawless American accent. She's a pissa! You can keep all your Dame Judi Whatsits, gimme a real dame in the old tradition with a great set of great big untraditional British . . .
But I digress . . .
Dame Gladys

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/5/04 at 10:34pm

Gladys, I'm with you. Forget about the delicious moment-to-moment pleasures of "Brodie" (say, Dame Maggie's bravura way with the word "Stuarts" ... or a zinger like "Miss M. seeks to intimidate us with her use of the quarter hour!"),Erin Brockin-hooha is just too safe and the phony 50s our-hymens-uber-alles milieu portrayed in "Mona Lisa" too studied and arch for anyone to buy a second of it. Feminism lite, who was kiddin' whom?

As for remake-itis, has anyone else seen the previews, and noticed this bald, bald, bald "now for the female version" remake of "Big" with the adolescent version of Jennifer Garner waking up at 30 and wanting to date 13 year old boys? It's got everything but Mercedes Ruhl in tears.

Updated On: 1/5/04 at 10:34 PM

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 10:12am

Auggie, honey,
Did ya see the coming attraction for the remake of the Alec Guinness film "The Lady Killers," now set in "the hood" with the lovable old lady now a black mama who bitch slaps the various perps planning the crime in her root celler? Tom Hanks, fat as a pig, doing some stange thing with his mouth is playing the Guinness role; either with a lisp, a British accent or a Southern one. I couldn't tell quite what he was going for. I could tell, however, that the subtle English charm of the original had been replaced with adolecent and stereotypical ethnic vulgarity.
Revolted,
Gladys

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 10:17am

There were three or four age-displacement movies when 'Big' came out originally. It might not be a remake, just an unoriginal movie.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 11:32am

Papa: I didn't mean a "Big" remake in the literal sense. What was staggering was the use of parallel scenes to build the story arc, the wake-up, the shock, the lookatme,I'm an adult, the I'm-really-an-adolescent-eek-sex freaking out, blah blah. Maybe it will be charming, since Garner certainly is -- but it all demonstrates a predictable lack of creative thinking. The "Big" formula is a particularly tired fantasy, long exhausted.

But those of us at this board see enough of that syndrome evidenced on B'way, where we've all been footloosed and fevered up the damn millie.

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 3:27pm

Exactly, Auggie, and Julia Roberts is charming, and there is no denying she's got "it" (whatever the hell "it" is) in spades, which is why they pay her the big bucks. As crappy at "Mona Lisa Smile" is, and as poorly developed as her character is, you care about what happens to her, because it's something Julia Roberts just brings with her, it's part of the package, maybe it's "it." My question is, she is not a stupid woman, and she's obviously got clout, why the hell can't she develop a project maybe a little off center, with originality and daring? I'm sure, even if it fell on it's face, it wouldn't take her career down with it. Look at that stupid stab at commercial crap thing she did with Brad Armpit. Her career survived that, right?

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 3:29pm

She also did 'Mary Reilly' hoping to get some more indy cred but that too was an awful movie.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 6:56pm

Yep, Gladys and John, Roberts has floundered since Erin. Seems to me she is so concened with staying a Player, a power broker, a commodity who can open a movie and wipe up on a weekend, she's stopped looking for projects that might stretch her. I saw her on Oprah, and she said her staff had to talk her into this, and then she helped "develop" it. That may explain its blandness, since anything offbeat in the first drafts that might've made it ... well, something besides a Julia Roberts movie ... was filtered out.

This syndrome affects many. It has already become Halle Berry's issue, as her follow-up to Oscar has been Bond Girl and "Gothica." She's systematically obliterating her Oscar performance from the public's impression of her, actually now back to her pre "Dorothy Dandridge" profile.

[GladysBumps]

Posted: 1/6/04 at 9:05pm

And just to think Lili Taylor, sticking to her integrity, aware that the mainstream would destroy her, does plays and worrys about paying the rent.

PS
Notice how I brought this whole inappropriate movie post back to the New York Theatre? Support integrity, go see "Aunt Dan and Lemon."