"A Cinderella Story"
Jul. 16th, 2004 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swordmageIs most definitly not on my list of movies to see.
The following (under the cut) is the New York Times review of it.
Shattered Pieces of a Glass Slipper
Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray in A Cinderella Story, set in high school.
Ron Batzdorff/Warner Brothers
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
If adolescent rebellion were channeled toward a useful cause, the tweener consumers for "A Cinderella Story" and the recent "Sleepover" would march to Hollywood en masse to protest the cynicism, sloppiness and condescension of the toxic fantasies being hurled at them.
Because "A Cinderella Story," which opens today nationwide, stars the talent-challenged teenage goddess Hilary Duff, it will probably gain more notice than "Sleepover," which bombed at the box office in its opening weekend. But "A Cinderella Story" is even worse, crudely relocating that classic fairy tale to the San Fernando Valley: "my kingdom," as its modern-day Cinderella, Samantha (Hilary Duff), calls it in her introductory monologue.
The movie strains to bend the fairy tale to accommodate another coarse high school comedy of air-headed teenage vixens ganging up on a meek little angel. Samantha, or "Diner Girl," as she's jeeringly called in her tormenters' abrasive, mean-spirited harangues, is a pariah because she drives a battered old car and toils like a slave in her evil stepmother's hideous, pink-painted diner.
That stepmother, Fiona, who suggests a nightmarish hybrid of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Tammy Faye Bakker, in a perpetually foul mood, is a greasy-looking sexpot manquée whose comic potential largely eludes the usually funny Jennifer Coolidge. A Botox- and liposuction-obsessed slob who feasts night and day on salmon and waddles about in fur-trimmed dresses, Fiona announces her stupidity by declaring that Norwegians come from Norwegia. Her poisonous daughters, Gabriella (Andrea Avery) and Brianna (Madeline Zima), who force Samantha to do their homework, are squabbling twins who fly at each other's throats whenever Samantha is not around to abuse.
The fairy godmother. Rhonda (Regina King), is the salty, good-hearted African-American manager of Fiona's diner. She lends Samantha her unused wedding dress on the night of the Halloween ball at which our Cinderella makes her grand entrance, a dream in white lace. The film's resident Prince Charming, Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), who falls under her spell, is the courtly captain of the football team and student council president. He, too, is persecuted at home. Against the wishes of his father, who expects him to join the family's car-wash business, he dreams of fleeing to Princeton.
Outside school, Cinderella and the Prince have already fallen in cyber-love. The sweethearts spend hours billing and cooing via instant messages on the Internet, where Samantha goes by the name of "Princeton Girl" but refuses to divulge her true identity. Princeton, you see, is the movie's equivalent of Happily Ever After. And Austin, by the way, isn't really a dumb jock but a closet poet who quotes Tennyson.
Even for a fairy tale, "A Cinderella Story," directed by Mark Rosman from a screenplay by Leigh Dunlap, fails to make sense. In an environment where looks are everything, no one notices that Samantha is far and away the prettiest girl in high school. Only a blind person could fail to guess the Girl in White's identity when she makes her entrance wearing a tiny white mask. And a dropped cellphone as a substitute for a glass slipper simply will not do.
Hollywood be warned: teenagers hate being taken for fools.
"A Cinderella Story" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for mild innuendo.
I really can't say I disagree with them. The concept for this "adaptation" is so thin and lame, that I shudder. seeing the pair on trl only made me shudder more
Maybe I should blame Disney for making that pathetic (Perrault) version the one most people know.
But then again, Grimm is bit toogrimviolent for the squeeky-clean tastes of Disney. Even if it is a better version. it's the one used in into the woods
On a side note - Should I be worried that the baristas in Starbucks know me and can now ring up my pre-work coffee without me telling them?
The following (under the cut) is the New York Times review of it.
Shattered Pieces of a Glass Slipper
Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray in A Cinderella Story, set in high school.
Ron Batzdorff/Warner Brothers
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
If adolescent rebellion were channeled toward a useful cause, the tweener consumers for "A Cinderella Story" and the recent "Sleepover" would march to Hollywood en masse to protest the cynicism, sloppiness and condescension of the toxic fantasies being hurled at them.
Because "A Cinderella Story," which opens today nationwide, stars the talent-challenged teenage goddess Hilary Duff, it will probably gain more notice than "Sleepover," which bombed at the box office in its opening weekend. But "A Cinderella Story" is even worse, crudely relocating that classic fairy tale to the San Fernando Valley: "my kingdom," as its modern-day Cinderella, Samantha (Hilary Duff), calls it in her introductory monologue.
The movie strains to bend the fairy tale to accommodate another coarse high school comedy of air-headed teenage vixens ganging up on a meek little angel. Samantha, or "Diner Girl," as she's jeeringly called in her tormenters' abrasive, mean-spirited harangues, is a pariah because she drives a battered old car and toils like a slave in her evil stepmother's hideous, pink-painted diner.
That stepmother, Fiona, who suggests a nightmarish hybrid of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Tammy Faye Bakker, in a perpetually foul mood, is a greasy-looking sexpot manquée whose comic potential largely eludes the usually funny Jennifer Coolidge. A Botox- and liposuction-obsessed slob who feasts night and day on salmon and waddles about in fur-trimmed dresses, Fiona announces her stupidity by declaring that Norwegians come from Norwegia. Her poisonous daughters, Gabriella (Andrea Avery) and Brianna (Madeline Zima), who force Samantha to do their homework, are squabbling twins who fly at each other's throats whenever Samantha is not around to abuse.
The fairy godmother. Rhonda (Regina King), is the salty, good-hearted African-American manager of Fiona's diner. She lends Samantha her unused wedding dress on the night of the Halloween ball at which our Cinderella makes her grand entrance, a dream in white lace. The film's resident Prince Charming, Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), who falls under her spell, is the courtly captain of the football team and student council president. He, too, is persecuted at home. Against the wishes of his father, who expects him to join the family's car-wash business, he dreams of fleeing to Princeton.
Outside school, Cinderella and the Prince have already fallen in cyber-love. The sweethearts spend hours billing and cooing via instant messages on the Internet, where Samantha goes by the name of "Princeton Girl" but refuses to divulge her true identity. Princeton, you see, is the movie's equivalent of Happily Ever After. And Austin, by the way, isn't really a dumb jock but a closet poet who quotes Tennyson.
Even for a fairy tale, "A Cinderella Story," directed by Mark Rosman from a screenplay by Leigh Dunlap, fails to make sense. In an environment where looks are everything, no one notices that Samantha is far and away the prettiest girl in high school. Only a blind person could fail to guess the Girl in White's identity when she makes her entrance wearing a tiny white mask. And a dropped cellphone as a substitute for a glass slipper simply will not do.
Hollywood be warned: teenagers hate being taken for fools.
"A Cinderella Story" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for mild innuendo.
I really can't say I disagree with them. The concept for this "adaptation" is so thin and lame, that I shudder. seeing the pair on trl only made me shudder more
Maybe I should blame Disney for making that pathetic (Perrault) version the one most people know.
But then again, Grimm is bit too
On a side note - Should I be worried that the baristas in Starbucks know me and can now ring up my pre-work coffee without me telling them?
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