"The Producers" Movie Reviews Thread- Page 2

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 11:25am

That's a great line The8re plan!

[Theatreboy33]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 12:10pm

A.O. Scott's review is a rediculous rant by a man who clearly would not have cared for the stage production even if he had ever seen it. His complaints of crassness, loudness, and obviousness exemplify exactly the type of person who never liked any Mel Brooks material in the first place. I must say, the fact that this film is being so drastically split down the middle in terms of raves/awful reviews, it's not a matter of is this a good film or not, but rather a question of taste. Brooks' humor is a distinct and specific brand. It NEVER has appealed to all. Not even close. So I would just recommend--if you like Brooks, see the film. If he's noy your thing, this won't be either.

[thirtythirtyninety]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 12:16pm

Here's another scathing review:

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2005/12/16/producers/index.html

Excerpt:
"The movie's oversize scale works at cross-purposes with Mel Brooks' story, about a Broadway producer and an accountant who set out to get rich by staging a flop. (Their vehicle of choice: A musical called "Springtime for Hitler.") Part of Brooks' genius is the way he tosses out little bits of ridiculousness whose brilliance doesn't hit you until a few beats later. But there's no breathing space in this version of "The Producers" -- every line feels like a fastball. The musical numbers are assaultive without feeling lavish or exhilarating. And I'm still puzzling out how one of the big numbers, "Make It Gay" -- featuring an array of prancing, preening extras, as well as Roger Bart in a black turtleneck outfit laden with chains and pendant-style magnifying glasses -- is supposed to be anything other than homophobic, or at least just assertively clueless. I suppose this display is potentially defensible as a so-called celebration of stereotypes, but I'm not buying it."

or

"...watching "The Producers" is simply exhausting. I counted numerous shots that were puzzlingly out-of-focus -- the movie has two experienced cinematographers (Charles Minsky and John Bailey), so it's hard to know who's to blame."

or

"The Producers" is so aggressively fun that it never lets you forget what a bad time you're having. It's about as subtle as a crashing chandelier -- maybe less so."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 12:21pm

Has anyone posted the Post review? It's a parody lyric to the tune of "Comedy Tonight."

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 12:59pm

The Post review is very funny.


http://www.nypost.com/movies/59740.htm

IT'S A FLOP!

By KYLE SMITH

(Sung to the tune of "Comedy Tonight")

Something fiasco
Something disast-o
Something just tedious
A musical that bites!

(On) Broadway, it's money
This time, not funny
You'll flee the multiplex
This movie is a blight!

There's Nathan Lane,
Why he so lame?
Hey, Susan Stroman, you get the blame

She's the director
You'll disrespect her
Notion that cinema's like stage
Please move that camera
Try to earn your wage!

Matthew's a robot
Uma's a sexpot
Pratfalling everywhere
With all of their might!

They're so frenetic
It's anesthetic
Acting like tryptophan
You'll sleep through the night!

Shtick that's so broad
(It's) funny - like, odd
Inviting wrath from comedy's god

Will Ferrell's Nazi
Isn't so hotsy
But he beats the swishy, mincing gays!
Camping it so queerly
Redefining trite

Staging that's static
Jokes from the attic
(Of) Borscht belt comedians
A masterpiece! (Yeah, right)

Numbers as hokey
As karaoke
"Springtime for Hitler" is
The only bit that's right!

Yes it's peculiar
How a familiar
Story that used to work
Can tumble from such heights

Broadway's forgiving
(Of) gags that aren't living
Theater's so phony that
Your fancy takes flight.

Here's news that's grim:
This one's so meek
Screen musicals get canceled next week.
After "Chicago"
There was a warm glow
Now it's all over, say goodnight!

"Sweeney Todd" and "Les Miz,"
(in) turnaround, that's showbiz!
"Mamma Mia" so dead,
Couldn't get arrested
"Guys and Dolls"
Will take the fall
In 3-1-0
Because this blows
It tanks, it's rank
Sinks, stinks -
Slapstick so thick the hicks won't stick.

From bad to worse
Even in verse
"The Producers" moves like a hearse
Mildness and blandness
Mugging like madness
Who knew that "Rent" would win this fight?
Murdering a genre's just not all right!

[e-mail]

[The8re phan]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 1:00pm

thou the writer notes Stro's weaknesses, overall the film scored a B on E! online.....

http://www.eonline.com/Reviews/Facts/Movies/Reviews/0,1052,89083,00.html

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 1:03pm

Updated On: 12/16/05 at 01:03 PM

[Fosse76]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 1:15pm

"(CNN) -- It's impossible to imagine any movie getting as much advance publicity as Mel Brooks' 'The Producers.'"

What publicity? At least RENT was being advertised since summer. Barely anyone has known about The Producers until just last month. CNN needs fact checkers as much as Fox News needs real journalists!

[chasgoose]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 1:32pm

The Producers is by far the worst of the recent movie musicals, while none have approached the go-for-broke movie-magic artistry of Moulin Rouge! (the only one that is important" as a film), the others have at least succeeded in making the translation from stage to screen (Chicago most successfully). The Producers is absolutely tone-deaf in the language of film and movie musicals. Susan Stroman's direction (not her innovative choreography, but her film direction) has to be some of the worst film direction I have seen in my entire life. She has no idea what movies are supposed to look like and ends up just putting a dreary version of the theatrical production on stage, with occasional ill-advised directorial flourishes that are some of the only consistently laughable parts of the movie. While that may sound like exactly what you theater buffs want, it fails because what works in a live production with a live audience does not work in a film setting. It's a bad sign when Will Ferrell and Uma Thurman (well not so much Uma) are the only bright acting spots in the film. Unlike the returning actors who all look terrified now that they have no audience to play off of, Thurman and Ferrell, are comfortable in their roles. Crappy set-pieces like the writers Nazi pigeons look cheap and stupid, not cute and funny. The filmed version of The Producers also highlights the many problems inherent to the musical itself that were easy to ignore given the many successes in the stage version, most notably the borderline offensive gay humor that wants you to laugh at its antiquated presentation of gays as over-the-top flaming queens while it also wants you to laugh at the very people that find that funny. In the play it works because its so winning and innocent, in the movie, its just offensive. The Producers does not hearken back to the old 50's movie musicals, because the magic of those was that they felt anything but stagey, their sole reason for existence was the break the play out of the box of theater and let it out into the real world.

The worst thing about this musical is that it really highlights the growing artistic gulf between the film world and the Broadway world today. The Producers represented the best version of everything that is wrong with musical theatre today: cheesy humor playing to the lowest common denominator, serviceable but not special scores, spectacle over substance, plays that rely too much on one set of actors rather than being good no matter who plays the roles, etc. While the stage version overcame those flaws, most other recent shows on Broadway haven't. While there will always be a few Light in the Piazza's or revivals like the recent Sweeney Todd, it's hard to ignore that the recent seasons of Broadway musicals have paled in artistic merit to even the twenty best movies released in the past few years. While nothing compares to live theater, the theater world needs to stop resting on that laurel and actually produce more things that are artistically valid rather than just fun and full of spectacle. The hollow film version of The Producers all too successfully underlines this void between film and stage, and until someone does something to fix the stage, it's just going to get worse.

[Marquise]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 2:34pm

The Siegels over at Theatremania.com need stop stop being bitches and hold back from putting down award winning movie musicals in a desperate attempt to make a case for another:

"Unlike the film version of Chicago, which was sliced and diced in the editing room, the integrity of each scene in The Producers remains intact. There are long takes that allow the actors to act, and plenty of wide shots to make it clear that it's the actual actors who are dancing, rather than doubles."


Updated On: 12/16/05 at 02:34 PM

[Fan2]

Posted: 12/16/05 at 3:16pm

Synopsis of reviews:

http://www.movieweb.com/news/news.php?id=10257

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE PRODUCERS
There is a scene in the Producers in which the title characters, who had hoped to produce a bomb in order to keep the investors' money, discover that their production is actually a hit. Unfortunately, the producers of the film version of the Broadway musical version of the 1968 movie version of The Producers are likely to have the opposite reaction when they read today's reviews: their sure-bet hit, many critics are suggesting, is likely to be a flop. A.O. Scott in the New York Times comments that the film version may in fact expose the fact that Broadway musicals now "represent the lowest common denominator: theme park attractions for tourists" and that the screen version of The Producers actually exposes "the real essence" of the Broadway musical: "its vulgarity, its cynicism, its utter lack of taste, charm or wit." Joe Morgenstern writes similarly in the Wall Street Journal that the movie is a "head-bangingly primitive version of an overrated Broadway show that grew out of a clumsy 1968 movie with an inflated reputation." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News, who calls the movie "less an adaptation than a gigantic blowup," concludes that it's "nearly unbearable." Likewise, Michael Phillips remarks in the Chicago Tribune that the movie "does not work. It is not very funny. It doesn't look right. It's depressing." Peter Howell in the Toronto Star puts his finger on the problem this way: "The voyage from Broadway to Hollywood has been accomplished without heed to the essential differences between the stage and the screen. The former requires volume and projection; the latter needs modulation and nuance. In a film, it is not necessary to holler every line as if you are attempting to reach the back row of the St. James. Nor is it kosher to make facial gestures that could be read by an orbiting spy satellite. And yet that's exactly what everyone in this egregiously over-amped production does. The movie is a textbook example of why the stage is a very different medium from cinema." Not all of the critics disapprove. Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News, acknowledges that is presented "like it's still taking place on a live theater stage. ... But anyone who can let themselves be had by Max Bialystock and his mad band of extreme caricatures is in for a pretty good time." And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times suggests that his main difficulty in reviewing the movie is his memories of the original, which he regards as "one of the funniest movies I've ever seen." He concludes "f I had fun, most other viewers are likely to have more fun, because they won't have my baggage."

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 4:33pm

Rex Reed reviewed the film this week.

http://www.observer.com/culture_rexreed-3.asp

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 5:05pm

I see Rex agrees cutting the King Of Broadway was a huge mistake. What is 5 minutes or less added on to the movie if this were included ?

Hopefully , when released to DVD , it will be re-edited back into the movie

Updated On: 12/23/05 at 05:05 PM

[Pinguin]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 5:15pm

The opening number was EMBARRASSING, and Stroman's direction was obviously lacking, but I still thought the movie was quite funny.

I still had a better time than when I saw Rent. Some of the reviews really kill the movie, so I was expecting a lot worse, but the writing and the actors help keep the movie going.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 5:33pm

Looks like Stro should not give up her day job

[loudasthehelliwant]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 8:45pm

"I see Rex agrees cutting the King Of Broadway was a huge mistake. What is 5 minutes or less added on to the movie if this were included?"

As I understand it, cutting the King of Broadway had nothing to do with time. I mean, if you're going to cut a number to save time, CUT ANY OTHER NUMBER!!!!! I heard that it had to do with rating. They were afraid the crassness of King of Broadway, combined with the crassness of the rest of the movie, would give them an R-rating. So they cut King of Broadway. :-/

I could be wrong, but that's what I understood to be the reasoning behind it.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 9:27pm

Does anybody else get the impression that this will be one of the rare movies that works better on the small screen than on the large? So many of the reviews have bashed the movie because it looks ridiculous when stage acting is blown up onto a giant screen. I don't really mind, because so many movies lose everything when you play them on a small screen; this one might make a more graceful transition.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/23/05 at 9:54pm

Mel Brooks worried about an R rating ?

I heard Stroman said it had to do with the fact she wanted the story to start right away - whatever that means. Cutting the song that totally explains the Max character made no sense.I have rarely seen a song in a musical which so defines a character from the beginning of the show

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/24/05 at 8:42am

I think it's about not getting an "R" as well. They're obviously trying to attract a younger audience with Will Ferrell as well.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 12/24/05 at 10:26am

The official reason given for cutting KOB was that the creative team and Universal decided that the movie started too slowly with KOB in place (and that movie audiences wanted to get right into the movie). They also wanted to cut some time so they grabbed a few minutes at the beginning by cutting the song.

The cut had nothing to do with language or ratings. There is plenty of language in the rest of the film and the use of the work '****' would not place this in the R rated category unless it was said in a sexual conotation as an invitation, etc.

The movie has opened wide yet but the reviews from city to city have been varied. Some critics love it, some reported mixed reviews and some didn't get it at all. But as for Reed, I have NEVER liked this guy's reviews. Invariably if he HATES something, I like it...so even if I hadn't seen the movie already, I would now know that I'd probably like it.

My advice is not to judge it before you see it and if you plan to go see the movie over the holidays remember that it isn't a reconceived musical like Chicago....it is MEANT to be big, broad and borscht belt with theatrical performances, lots of close ups and a style that is 1930s. Don't expect it to be something it was not intended to be (a slick, MTV type musical with film adaptation). This is supposed to look like a theatrical show and while it takes awhile to get used to the 'in your face' style...it is a great ride!

[pab]

Posted: 12/24/05 at 10:43am

A review from the London Free Press and a Teen Review. Both Positive.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Entertainment/2005/12/24/1366818-sun.html

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/12/teen_review_the.html

[Act4ever]

Posted: 12/24/05 at 11:44pm

my two cents...

I hated the show --- loved the movie. Give it a chance.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/25/05 at 10:36am

Umm - isn't saying "Who do you have to **** to get a break in this town?" using it in a sexual context? Of course, couldn't they have just changed it to "bang" or, more likely since its Brooks, "schtup" and it would have maintained its PG-13 rating?

Oh, and F*** the critics, I can't wait to see it today.

[mentaltenant]

Posted: 12/25/05 at 4:19pm

meh. Golden Globe nominations are basically bought by the producers/studios right before a movie opens to garner buzz hence why a lot of the movies hadn't opened in major cities yet but were just about to...another reason why I don't think RENT got any because it's basically had its run and it was time to focus on THE PRODUCERS. just my opinion though haha.

[loudasthehelliwant]

Posted: 12/25/05 at 4:25pm

Well, whatever the reason, it was a bad move.

Jasonf- HAVE FUN SEEING IT TODAY! I'm seeing it today too...