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The Producers
By Michael Flanagan
I saw this on Broadway at the same time as
it was playing in theaters. God I wish I were able to reverse
the sentence. Basically, it’s the exact same thing. Same
actors (except Thurman and Ferrel), same director, same set
design, same costume, everything’s the same. Some might wonder,
isn’t that a good thing? Well, see, different mediums exist in
entertainment, and usually you need some adjustment to make them
transfer. For example, you wouldn’t release a movie version of
War and Peace that included every single accurate detail of the
book because the movie would be five days long. So, you
adjust. At least to some degree. And this adjustment allows we
the audience to say, “The book was better,” or, “very different
from the TV show, but I liked it a lot.” By not adjusting
anything, you get two very bored looking actors acting for an
audience instead of a camera.
I like Broderick and Lane. Really I do.
It’s obvious in the stage production how everything was built
around those two. No actors replacing those parts can really
replace them, and nor should they. Like Richard Kind, who took
over for one of the roles on Broadway and in London and has a
cameo in the film. He got good reviews, and there’s no way he
can be either of these two guys. But they need to adjust too.
To the fact that they’ve been doing it for so long. To the fact
that it’s a movie. To being in a flop of a film. Skip it, and
skip the staged version too. See the brilliant original,
though. |
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