OK, ads for "Bonnie and Clyde" have been all over the place . . .

[Brigid]

And before it even airs, I see a problem: They're just too glamorous. IRL, neither of them was exactly a looker. I'm no expert on Bonnie and Clyde, but I do know that much. So I dunno how accurate this is going to be.

[frogmarch]

1. Hollywood likes to glamorize crime and

bad guys.

The real Bonnie and Clyde:

[Brigid]

2. See what I mean?

I'm curious to see what they do with this.

[frogmarch]

3. I read that the new one is

going to have a modern setting. I saw a play based on Shakespeare's Richard III once that was set in modern times. Seeing the male characters in modern business suits was a turn-off for me.

The new Bonnie and Clyde movie won't really be about them, any more than the play I saw was really about Richard III.

[onager]

10. Try Ian McKellen's updated "Richard III!"

When a "Shakespeare movie" starts with a tank busting thru a wall, you have my attention...

The whole movie is full of fun in-jokes, jabs at Hollywood and the British upper classes, etc. It's set in a sort of alternate universe of the 1930's.

The script was published in book form, with McKellen's notes about why he did certain things.

e.g., he had been performing the updated version as a play in London. When he tried to get Hollywood money to make the movie, 20-something studio execs kept telling him Shakespeare was "too old" and "irrelevant to modern moviegoers," etc.

So the opening credits are a series of gunshots spelling out "Richard III" - a direct ripoff of the opening credits to the "Die Hard" movie franchise. LOL!

Business suits? Bah! Try spiffy black-and-silver uniforms with armbands. Very much like the duds sported by Oswald Moseley and his Blackshirts when they paraded thru London in the 1930s. For a good reason...

McKellen knew that some of the British upper classes supported Fascism in the 1930s and considered democracy "no longer relevant." So that was a way to say, "Hey, One-Percenters, some of us still remember!"

McKellen had never worked with Jim Broadbent, and thought he might be "too nice" to play the slippery Lord Buckingham. That all changed when he saw Broadbent in costume with - in McKellen's words - "his Himmler eyeglasses and Hermann Goering smile."

This part was a little confusing, but McKellen spelled it out in the book - Queen Elizabeth Woodville (Annette Bening) and her brother Lord Rivers (Robt. Downey) are supposed to be Americans. There aren't too many clues, other than Rivers arrives in London on a Pan American airplane. And both use American accents.

Oh, and McKellen delivers one monologue while standing at a urinal. So yes, all in all, a great watch!

[Paladin]

12. GREAT version of "Richard III." Sir Ian really delivers. (nt)

[transient]

4. Yeah

Our modern Bonnie and Clyde:

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

After seeing them all over the place, the pictures make me a little nauseous.

[nomorenomore08]

5. Bonnie looks like a brunette version of somebody I know...

[Art_from_Ark]

7. So Bonnie didn't look like Fay Dunaway

[ailsagirl]

6. I heard in an interview

that it's going to be a lot bloodier/more violent than the original (as if that weren't bloody enough).

Remakes seldom are better than the original but who knows? Perhaps the original is too boring for today's audiences.

[onager]

8. For accuracy, here's a good book...

"Go Down Together" by Jeff Guinn, published just a few years ago. Guinn interviewed family members, former cops and really dug into the historical archives for new information about this pair of over-rated losers.

Or as John Dillinger put it, they were "punks" who "gave bank robbers a bad name." In fact, despite the myths, B&C didn't rob all that many banks. They mostly robbed small "Mom & Pop" grocery stores etc. So much for their image as a pair of Robin Hoods. And one of their worst killings, of 2 motorcycle cops in Texas, was completely unnecessary.

I'm also irked by the non-stop TV spots for this thing, and will probably give it a miss.

If you want to see a good historical overview of that era on TV, watch for a rerun of the History Channel (IIRC) show "Crime Wave." It covers 18 months between 1933 and 1934, when major crimes were happening every few days all over the country.

[Brigid]

9. I saw that a while back.

The '30's is a fascinating era.

[CTyankee]

11. My mother told me of people in Texas lining up to view their dead bodies...

evidently, this was the thing that people liked to do...geez...

I remember having this discussion with her when the 1967 movie came out...

[kwassa]

13. They also liked to go to lynchings, and commemorative postcards of the event were sold.

Just bring a picnic lunch and make a whole day of it.