The Remake

This romcom was surprisingly good!!! All the characters were well developed and funny. One of the very few classy and charming romcoms that I haven't seen in years!!!

Dreadful vanity production written and directed by and starring some woman I never heard of. Her co-star is some guy I never heard of. Terrible actors.

Plot has two middle-aged has-beens reuniting for a movie remake of something they made in 1979 when they were teenagers. Ya right. Try 40 or 50 years ago. The woman is a vengeful snot who's never forgiven him for leaving her at the altar after the cops apparently dragged him away for being an illegal alien and deported him back to Italy. Oh?

Her Italian looking daughter daughter (ahem) is getting married. If only her WASP daddy (ahem) hadn't died before he could see her get married. Huh? She already has a kid. No matter.

As soon as you get the set up you know where it's going. The leads couldn't act their way out of a paper bag. Intro this drek step Patrika Darbo as the woman's sister, Sally Kellerman as Aunt Peg, and June Lockhart as the grandmother.

Bravo to 90+ Miss Lockhart for breathing some life and acting skills into this morass. She only has a few scenes but you'll be grateful for them if you make it that far into this one.

Whoever did the sound and the music track should have their union cards revoked. Half the dialog can't be heard because of terrible sound and terrible music. Oh well, considering how bad the dialog is, maybe that's a blessing.

I can't stop thinking about this movie, so there is that. The entire thing seemed like a vehicle to get the 2 lead actors more work, when they are plum awful. He says everything with the same blah voice and facial expression, she on the other hand rolls her big eyeballs in every direction to she whatever emotion she thinks should happen. I can't believe anyone produced this thing, nor WHY. They are horrible actors, yet most of the movie the characters fall over themselves to tell them how wonderful they are. Yet her credits are mostly "woman at bar" and such. Seriously, it's so bad. Better go see a high school play, ANY high school play. How they got famous actors to do this I'll never understand.

Low budget doesn't always mean low quality, but in this case, sadly, it does.

The tone is set from the very first badly paced and awfully shot scene, and it seems to never recover, if that's the right word.

If you can forgive the awkward stilted performances of most of the actors (mercifully the daughter is good!), and the dreadful camera and sound work, then there is a pleasant potential story hiding in there somewhere, smothered by languid and clumsy pacing and forgetful, incoherent actors.

Perhaps a remake of Remake, with real professionals and a budget next time?