Comments on: Rocky Horror…Horror…

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:26:53 +0000

Groundless rumor, they’re now saying.

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:57:22 +0000

On a similar note, Quentin Tarantino is reportedly casting Britney Spears in the homicidal exotic dancer role made famous by Tura Satana in _Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!_:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2509196/Britney-Spears-to-play-lesbian-killer-in-Quentin-Tarantino-film.html

This may be one of those cases where both remake and source material create too many levels of irony to judge, though. Yet I contend the same is _not_ true of Rocky Horror — let history judge.

By: Diana

Diana — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:49:57 +0000

You think that the audience antics should be dispensed of?! What right do you have to talk about RHPS! The only reason that artsy fartsy types like RHPS is because it gives them an excuse to ham it up. Also back in the day liking RHPS was a secret way of saying you were ok with sexual deviance which there is no point in anymore since people announce it openly.
I might also mention that the second half of RHPS from the pool scene on is just the most boring bit of film ever. If they made that totally different it would be fine by me. Perhaps some Hollywood aliens and UFOs?
Well, all us old timers will be spinning in our wheelchairs and graves when nobody remembers the original RHPS any more. *sigh*

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:41:23 +0000

Shadow as free bonus: OK. Shadow cast as ten-dollar item without accompanying original film: lame. That’s my general thinking.

Similarly, I would not pay $10 to see people do songs from _The Wall_ in karaoke — but I’m happy to applaud people who do Floyd songs without charging me at Iggy’s Karaoke tomorrow night.

By: Red Stapler

Red Stapler — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:12:14 +0000

I can’t explain or define Shadow Casts (the “official” term for the miming), all I can say is that I enjoy watching them. When they’re well done, anyway.

I’d try and explain myself in some fashion, but given that it’s something I started watching and enjoying when I was 15, I find explanations sort of out of my reach.

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:27:41 +0000

P.S. By an odd coincidence, I actually thought I recalled Meatloaf, Little Nell, and Dick Cavett _all_ being dead, but they’re all alive, various travails notwithstanding.

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:23:06 +0000

The narrator is dead, alas — although people might enjoy seeing Dick Cavett from the recent stage version (which I saw, by the way).

WEIRD TRIVIA FACTOID: An acquaintance of mine overheard Heath Ledger being treated rudely in 2005 by a real estate agent who didn’t recognize him and Michelle Williams and demanded to know their salaries before showing them apartments. That same year, presumably without help from that agent, Ledger ended up buying the Brooklyn apartment of…Little Nell.

(Ledger will also not be appearing in remakes or sequels of anything.)

By: Xine

Xine — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:27:46 +0000

A better idea, then: remaking it *with the original cast members*! Meat Loaf could still fit into his original denim vest, likely, but late-model Tim Curry and the corset….?

By: Todd Seavey

Todd Seavey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:04:50 +0000

I neglected to mention that, heretically, I think the audience antics should be dispensed with entirely.

Using the recent stage musical cast, including Joan Jett as Columbia, might almost make sense — but it still wouldn’t be an improvement, just forgivable as a sort of filmed stage play version instead of a remake of the film (based on the original play script, of course).

Would you pay to see those idiots miming the movie _without_ getting to see the actual film? That is the stark question before us, in essence. It’s as if the entity called the Police that I’m going to see in their final concert were touring without containing any of the original members (a fate that sometimes befalls old Motown-era bands with shifting lineups, albeit gradually in most cases, like the philosophy problem about the ship gradually replaced plank by plank that may or may not constitute a “new” ship).

But all this talk is madness — Tim Curry is Frank-N-Furter! All else is idle prattle!

By: Xine

Xine — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:33:34 +0000

Well, I’m not in favor of it, but how is a remake of RHPS any different, philosophically, from the annoying yahoos who perform along with it in a theatre dressed as “their” characters (by which I do *not* mean the standard audience participation, but the miming of the entire film in front of the screen as it’s happening, of which I’ve never understood the point). One might argue that this manifestation of audience participation (so venerable it appears in *Fame*!) lends RHPS even better than other films to a remake–as it’s emphatically a film where one of the whole points is to “recreate its moments.”

Or am I being too cultural-studies?