Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
Summertime and the movies are easy:
The Stepford Wives, The Chronicles of Riddick
6-16-04 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
“Pity the poor soul that has to rinse out that lingerie,” Bette Midler once quipped about Madonna, not realizing
that she was also making a prescient comment about Paramount’s marketing department as they tried to
perform damage control on all the rumors dirtying up their troubled remake of The Stepford Wives. But
the tinkering has paid off and the film, though underwritten in terms of character, is consistently funny and
enjoyable. For liberals, it's also a plus that the film can be read as quietly subversive – a warning of what four
more years of a conservative world emphasizing what the movie spells out as “tuxedos and chiffon” could bring.
The by now overly familiar male revenge story of men literally turning their suburban wives into robots was
originally adapted from Ira Levin’s novel into the 1975 paranoid thriller that starred the somnambulistic, though
ravishing beauty, Katherine Ross. As New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael pointed out, there wasn’t much
difference between Ross the person and Ross the robot, so who cared what happened to her?
The remake has luckily fallen into the nimble fingers of openly gay, mostly successful screenwriter/playwright
Paul Rudnick. Rudnick, who did spectacular, uncredited work on The Addams Family, went over the top with the
sequel, Addams Family Values and finally wrote his own magnum comedy opus with 1997’s In & Out. He has
again teamed with In & Out director Frank Oz (voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy) and together, they’ve turned the
paranoia of the original into a creamy, dark pastiche of a comedy.
If Nicole Kidman, at the center of the film as failed television executive Joanna Eberhart, doesn't ever seem to
connect with anyone around her beyond the opening scene, at least she gets out of the way of Midler, Roger
Bart, Jon Lovitz, and especially Glenn Close – the resident comic pros. Matthew Broderick and Christopher
Walken, unfortunately, aren’t given much to do.
As in the book and the original, once Joanna arrives in Stepford, WASP central, with her husband and barely
glimpsed children, she hooks up with sloppy loudmouth (read: Jewish) Bobbie Markowitz (a self-help writer
here) played by Midler. Rudnick ratchets up the comedic possibilities (and the stereotypes) by adding a gay
couple to Stepford, Roger and Jerry, and Roger hooks up with Bobbie and Joanna to help them figure out what’s
going on.
Roger’s the first to have “the change” as Bobbie and Joanna quickly realize when they find that conservative
Jerry has dumped Roger’s framed photo of Orlando Bloom, his hot pink Versace pants, and other treasures in the
garbage. Worse, he’s turned into a gay Republican. “That’s like being gay with a bad haircut” Bobbie comments
but soon she and Joanna are in line for the robot changeover themselves.
The remake is more explicit about the reason why the husbands want robots in the first place: “We’re tired of
being the wind beneath your wings,” namby-pamby Broderick explains to Kidman before he allows main baddie
Walkin to throw the switch and kick start the many delightful reversals that take up the last part of the film –
making all the reported re-shoots and edit room tinkering worthwhile.
When Kidman at last emerges as the stunning, curvy blonde we know from Moulin Rouge she finally connects
with the audience. This does not surprise. I don’t think Kidman is an actress of much versatility. One has only
to imagine Cate Blanchett taking on Kidman’s role in The Others, or superimposing a young Vanessa Redgrave in
Kidman’s place as Virginia Wolf in The Hours to give that idea credence. But she’s a superb Stepford Wife type
actress, not an unknown commodity in Hollywood (and one need look no further than her ex to find the perfect
Stepford actor), and ironically, it’s her robot transformation look that is being used to sell the movie.
The comic ironies don’t get much richer than that. I eagerly await the sequel – The Hollywood Stepford Wives.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There’s something for gay movie-goers of all persuasions this week, it seems…Just in time for the sequel, The
Chronicles Of Riddick, Pitch Black (the unrated Director’s Cut) arrives on DVD with lots of cool extras.
This pretty good sci-fi thriller from 2000 made Vin Diesel a momentary star and forever an S&M gay icon: when
first seen he’s strapped to a pole, gag in place, blind folded and hunched forward at the ready. You do the math.
Riddick finds himself in the same position about halfway through the sequel but by that time I had drifted away
into hyperspace, numbed by this confusing computer game…er movie.
As in most sequels, the size of Chronicles has expanded tenfold, leaving the forced inventiveness of Pitch Black’s
little or no budget to give way to the empty spectacular much in evidence here. Diesel, who could use a hit
movie after two mega action flops in a row, might get one this time out – but I can’t wait until, like
Schwarzzenager before him, he makes a desperate attempt at comedy – and pray to the Gods every night that
he teams up with The Rock in a remake of The Odd Couple. That would be a chronicle worth paying for.
The Stepford Wives, The Chronicles of Riddick
6-16-04 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
“Pity the poor soul that has to rinse out that lingerie,” Bette Midler once quipped about Madonna, not realizing
that she was also making a prescient comment about Paramount’s marketing department as they tried to
perform damage control on all the rumors dirtying up their troubled remake of The Stepford Wives. But
the tinkering has paid off and the film, though underwritten in terms of character, is consistently funny and
enjoyable. For liberals, it's also a plus that the film can be read as quietly subversive – a warning of what four
more years of a conservative world emphasizing what the movie spells out as “tuxedos and chiffon” could bring.
The by now overly familiar male revenge story of men literally turning their suburban wives into robots was
originally adapted from Ira Levin’s novel into the 1975 paranoid thriller that starred the somnambulistic, though
ravishing beauty, Katherine Ross. As New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael pointed out, there wasn’t much
difference between Ross the person and Ross the robot, so who cared what happened to her?
The remake has luckily fallen into the nimble fingers of openly gay, mostly successful screenwriter/playwright
Paul Rudnick. Rudnick, who did spectacular, uncredited work on The Addams Family, went over the top with the
sequel, Addams Family Values and finally wrote his own magnum comedy opus with 1997’s In & Out. He has
again teamed with In & Out director Frank Oz (voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy) and together, they’ve turned the
paranoia of the original into a creamy, dark pastiche of a comedy.
If Nicole Kidman, at the center of the film as failed television executive Joanna Eberhart, doesn't ever seem to
connect with anyone around her beyond the opening scene, at least she gets out of the way of Midler, Roger
Bart, Jon Lovitz, and especially Glenn Close – the resident comic pros. Matthew Broderick and Christopher
Walken, unfortunately, aren’t given much to do.
As in the book and the original, once Joanna arrives in Stepford, WASP central, with her husband and barely
glimpsed children, she hooks up with sloppy loudmouth (read: Jewish) Bobbie Markowitz (a self-help writer
here) played by Midler. Rudnick ratchets up the comedic possibilities (and the stereotypes) by adding a gay
couple to Stepford, Roger and Jerry, and Roger hooks up with Bobbie and Joanna to help them figure out what’s
going on.
Roger’s the first to have “the change” as Bobbie and Joanna quickly realize when they find that conservative
Jerry has dumped Roger’s framed photo of Orlando Bloom, his hot pink Versace pants, and other treasures in the
garbage. Worse, he’s turned into a gay Republican. “That’s like being gay with a bad haircut” Bobbie comments
but soon she and Joanna are in line for the robot changeover themselves.
The remake is more explicit about the reason why the husbands want robots in the first place: “We’re tired of
being the wind beneath your wings,” namby-pamby Broderick explains to Kidman before he allows main baddie
Walkin to throw the switch and kick start the many delightful reversals that take up the last part of the film –
making all the reported re-shoots and edit room tinkering worthwhile.
When Kidman at last emerges as the stunning, curvy blonde we know from Moulin Rouge she finally connects
with the audience. This does not surprise. I don’t think Kidman is an actress of much versatility. One has only
to imagine Cate Blanchett taking on Kidman’s role in The Others, or superimposing a young Vanessa Redgrave in
Kidman’s place as Virginia Wolf in The Hours to give that idea credence. But she’s a superb Stepford Wife type
actress, not an unknown commodity in Hollywood (and one need look no further than her ex to find the perfect
Stepford actor), and ironically, it’s her robot transformation look that is being used to sell the movie.
The comic ironies don’t get much richer than that. I eagerly await the sequel – The Hollywood Stepford Wives.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There’s something for gay movie-goers of all persuasions this week, it seems…Just in time for the sequel, The
Chronicles Of Riddick, Pitch Black (the unrated Director’s Cut) arrives on DVD with lots of cool extras.
This pretty good sci-fi thriller from 2000 made Vin Diesel a momentary star and forever an S&M gay icon: when
first seen he’s strapped to a pole, gag in place, blind folded and hunched forward at the ready. You do the math.
Riddick finds himself in the same position about halfway through the sequel but by that time I had drifted away
into hyperspace, numbed by this confusing computer game…er movie.
As in most sequels, the size of Chronicles has expanded tenfold, leaving the forced inventiveness of Pitch Black’s
little or no budget to give way to the empty spectacular much in evidence here. Diesel, who could use a hit
movie after two mega action flops in a row, might get one this time out – but I can’t wait until, like
Schwarzzenager before him, he makes a desperate attempt at comedy – and pray to the Gods every night that
he teams up with The Rock in a remake of The Odd Couple. That would be a chronicle worth paying for.
A half-baked comedy and a sci-fi camp fest
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