What the Hell Happened to Matthew Broderick?

[tmc_6882]

http://lebeauleblog.com/2013/01/12/what ... broderick/

Having tasted success again on Broadway, Broderick returned to the big screen opposite Nicole Kidman in Frank Oz’s comedic remake of The Stepford Wives.

The Stepford Wives was a notoriously troubled production. Broderick stepped in after John Cusack left the picture. Oz feuded with several members of the cast including Christopher Walken and Bette Middler (who stepped in for Joan Cusack when she quit).

The original Stepford Wives had satirical elements, but was not played for laughs. It told the tale of a town in which the men replaced their wives with robots who made perfect housekeepers. It was creepy.

The remake couldn’t decide on a tone. Massive changes were made after filming was complete which resulted in some gaping plot holes. The film can’t even keep clear whether or not the wives have actually been replaced by robots.

The remake was a disaster in just about every way imaginable.

[DollSpace]

The review is true about the movie, but I don't think Matthew Broderick isn't a good actor any more; the script for this one just took out everything that was so intriguing about the original, and didn't put in anything intriguing (or anything else good, for that matter) in the remake. *sigh* It'd still be great to remake it, but I think Hollywood would automatically relegate it to D-list stars without even seeing a new script. If anything, it should probably be some kind of sequel for the 70s version of the movie, and make the last new version all a dream, but without Patrick Duffy peeking out from a shower curtain telling us that, wow, we *did* sleep really late!

[Svengli]

Like everyone said about the awfulness of the remake. the mind boggles.

It does make me think, I wonder if a fan-sponsored movie could go anywhere?

Amateur fetish producers seem to be improving steadily.

I see more women on youtube sharing their submissive and even robot-fetish interests.

It's probably a pipe dream but it might be fun to imagine what we, the fembot-fetish community, could do to put together an amateur Stepford Wives (which would probably also have to be named slightly differently - but if Bangkok Wives could be made, we could likely do something).

Just an idle thought, really...

[dale coba]

I can't figure how the plot is supposed to work anymore.

Metal detectors/body scanners are common, and a conspiracy of Men against Women that remains secret seems much harder to believe today. (Shh! There are sex-traitors everywhere.)

Make it a period piece? but we know the limits of robot tech in each year.
Set it in a whole other timeline/parallel whatever... now the eerie resonance with the familiar is lost.

It's hardly a satire, if it's not based on a real time/place/situation.
It's an easier sell as porn, since the standards of willing disbelief are so low.

- Dale Coba

[King Snarf]

I can't figure how the plot is supposed to work anymore.

Metal detectors/body scanners are common, and a conspiracy of Men against Women that remains secret seems much harder to believe today. (Shh! There are sex-traitors everywhere.)

Make it a period piece? but we know the limits of robot tech in each year.
Set it in a whole other timeline/parallel whatever... now the eerie resonance with the familiar is lost.

It's hardly a satire, if it's not based on a real time/place/situation.
It's an easier sell as porn, since the standards of willing disbelief are so low.

- Dale Coba

Magic, baby. Drop the science angle, and make them fem-golems, fem-homunculi, or something.

[dale coba]

Magic? Really?
I mean, I want the power and control,
but there's a price. That's no longer a world anything like my own RW or my mind.

Magic means some things are not knowable, their principles can not ever be sussed out by science.
I find that thought bizarre.

- Dale Coba

[Svengli]

I can't figure how the plot is supposed to work anymore.

Metal detectors/body scanners are common, and a conspiracy of Men against Women that remains secret seems much harder to believe today. (Shh! There are sex-traitors everywhere.)

Make it a period piece? but we know the limits of robot tech in each year.
Set it in a whole other timeline/parallel whatever... now the eerie resonance with the familiar is lost.

It's hardly a satire, if it's not based on a real time/place/situation.
It's an easier sell as porn, since the standards of willing disbelief are so low.

- Dale Coba

Hmm,

How to make the plot work?
Keep in mind, a good plot isn't necessarily something that could happen but rather something that *feels* like it could
(in fact, something that really do happen aren't good plots because they sound so implausible).

The tech: The biggest (or one of the biggest) investments these days in prosthetics, from the military. Also, there are huge number of different components of different sorts available. Combine prosthetics, game software, movie special effects software, Japanese robotics and handwaving and a fembot now or in five year could sound plausible (movies generally happen in fuzzy period. There's nothing the original Stepford Wives that says exactly when or how it happens).

Metal: Ceramics and Carbon nanotubes are moving ahead. I'd expect a modern fembot not to have metal parts unless someone wanted them.

The clique: The Internet lets a select groups of weirdos congregate. Clearly the clique would come from the sinister, "dark side of the Internets", LOL. Plus "the rich", the sinister rich are a fine plot device. I mean, the rich are under a lot of pressure to seem normal but, since they're rich, they want to enjoy a wide variety of perverse pleasures.

The sequence of events: Middle class panic chasing people away from the city is a bit old but it still could be used. But this could be combined with a very modern theme of the super-rich wanting to buy a life worth living after they've screwed everything up for everyone else. Institutions like gated communities and war-on-terror fighting secret agencies would seem to open more possibilities for conspiracies of the wealthy even as they make a conspiracy of "average guys" less likely. One funny way to start the movie, in fact, would be for the guys to introduce themselves, each saying, "really, I'm average guy" and give details of wealth and/or technical know-how that makes this clearly false. After all, the rich these days don't want to say they're different even thought they want exclusivity.

The place itself would have to be called "Stepford Acres". Like any good gated community, it would be built on speculative finance. In fact, you'd see it being built in bubble with maximum security just for the hack of it. Then it would go broke and be bought for cheap by dark-and-mysterious-forces on the condition that every single person living there be evicted. Then the new couples would move in.

So that's my scheme. If I was really ambitious, I'd put together a real script. Who know...

[King Snarf]

Magic? Really?
I mean, I want the power and control,
but there's a price. That's no longer a world anything like my own RW or my mind.

Magic means some things are not knowable, their principles can not ever be sussed out by science.
I find that thought bizarre.

- Dale Coba

Ah, but John Dee didn't think so! Take a gander In fact, the notion that magic and science are mutually exclusive is a relatively recent one.

[dale coba]

Ah, but John Dee didn't think so! Take a gander In fact, the notion that magic and science are mutually exclusive is a relatively recent one.

Given how little was known, compared to today, about how,
well, everything works,
is sounds to me like he took a prudent position.

In that scenario, I'd have kept my options open.
Once the low-hanging fruit are picked away, purported "magic" has a greater burden to not conflict with what has been established. For me, that room for magic was probably over by the time industrial-scale inorganic chemistry is harnessed in the late 19th c. Seances, mediums all that hoo-hah are part of the backlash against the triumphs of materialism, like dynamite and Bessemer steel.

John Dee was no fool, and he wouldn't believe in magic, were he brought to life today (by technology!).
He would staggered with wonder, at our potential to manipulate the physical world.

Don't you?

- Dale Coba

[King Snarf]

Ah, but John Dee didn't think so! Take a gander In fact, the notion that magic and science are mutually exclusive is a relatively recent one.

Given how little was known, compared to today, about how,
well, everything works,
is sounds to me like he took a prudent position.

In that scenario, I'd have kept my options open.
Once the low-hanging fruit are picked away, purported "magic" has a greater burden to not conflict with what has been established. For me, that room for magic was probably over by the time industrial-scale inorganic chemistry is harnessed in the late 19th c. Seances, mediums all that hoo-hah are part of the backlash against the triumphs of materialism, like dynamite and Bessemer steel.

John Dee was no fool, and he wouldn't believe in magic, were he brought to life today (by technology!).
He would staggered with wonder, at our potential to manipulate the physical world.

Don't you?

- Dale Coba

If you want a more recent example of a scientist who believed in magic, there's John Whiteside Parsons. (Seriously, why haven't they made a movie about that guy yet? It'd be awesome! He even looks like Tony Stark's dad from the Captain America movie!)

[WilloWisp]

From that Wikipedia article:

...born Marvel Whiteside Parsons...

I don't know whether to be impressed at the coincidental resemblance to a Marvel Comics character, or seriously question the man's intelligence and judgement for changing his name from "Marvel" to "John."

[King Snarf]

From that Wikipedia article:

...born Marvel Whiteside Parsons...

I don't know whether to be impressed at the coincidental resemblance to a Marvel Comics character, or seriously question the man's intelligence and judgement for changing his name from "Marvel" to "John."

Well, it didn't seem to put a crimp on his sexual endeavors any, so I'm guessing he made a good call.

[tmc_6882]

http://lebeauleblog.com/2013/04/20/what ... le-kidman/

In 2004, Kidman starred opposite Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler and Christopher Walken in Frank Oz’s remake of The Stepford Wives.

The original Stepford Wives was a creepy Twilight Zone-like tale of a town where the feminist movement never seems to have happened. It combines a sense of dread with cutting social satire. The remake gives up trying to duplicate that delicate balance and instead goes for broad comedy.

The Stepford Wives was a notoriously troubled production. John and Joan Cusack were originally supposed to co-star, but they both pulled out and were replaced by Broderick and Middler. Oz clashed on the set with several members of his cast including Kidman, Walken, Middler and Glenn Close.

After filming was completed, the script was rewritten. The rewrites created some serious plot holes. The original film had a chilling and memorable ending. But the remake just didn’t make any sense. Kidman was so dissatisfied, she considered leaving the project.

The Stepford Wives received terrible reviews and flopped at the box office. With the inclusion of international ticket sales, the movie barely broke even. Oz took the blame for the movie’s failure saying, “I f***ed up… I had too much money, and I was too responsible and concerned for Paramount. I was too concerned for the producers. And I didn’t follow my instincts.”

This is where Kidman’s burgeoning career starts to implode.