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Get Smart (2008)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 9:25 pm    Post subject: Get Smart (2008) Reply with quote



I was never a fan of the TV show, but this movie did a magnificent job of presenting a clever version of the show's most popular elements . . . while changing one thing I didn't care for.

In the show, Maxwell doesn't impress us with his intelligence. That's why he does funny things. But in this movie, the funny things happen to him despite the fact he's actually a mighty bright fellow.

And because the people around him often sell Max short, he has to hold his head high and believe in himself without much encouragement.

That's much more enjoyable to me than a character who thinks he's smart . . . when he isn't.

The movie is filled with extremely clever dialog and dynamic action scenes. This is one of my favorite comedies. The music by Trevor Rabin is a big plus, and it picks all the right moments to cut loose with the series' original theme.

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Brent Gair
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really enjoyed this and I was a bit surprised there was no sequel. Most attempts at movie versions of old TV shows are either insulting or pathetic. GET SMART did a good job.

One small thing kinda' bothered me though. There's a full 20 year age difference between Hathaway and Carell. She was 26 when the movie was made and he was 46. That's getting close to "creepy" territory. Hathaway was great but I would have cast somebody a bit more age appropriate (maybe Elizabeth Banks?)


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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 12:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brent Gair wrote:
She was 26 when the movie was made and he was 46. That's getting close to "creepy" territory.

I thought it was standard procedure these days.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________

Oh, right. Elizabeth Banks looks MUCH closer to 40 years old. Gosh, she could practically be Hawthaway's mother!

And poor Steve — all those wrinkles and that gray hair. A younger man would have been much better. Somebody like . . . well, how 'bout Justin Bieber?

Wait, what am I saying? He's twenty-one now! We need young blood for this role, not some geezer who's so old he can drink and vote!

Let me get back to you on this . . . Cool

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Krel
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 12:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Get Smart (2008) Reply with quote

I liked the movie better under it's original title..."Johnny English".

Bud Brewster wrote:
In the show, Maxwell doesn't impress us with his intelligence. That's why he does funny things. But in this movie, the funny things happen to him despite the fact he's actually a mighty bright fellow.

The whole point of the original series, is that Smart wasn't 'smart'. Smart is a bumbler in a world of bumblers, he was just the most competent bumbler. The only non bumbler in the show was Agent 99, and even she had some moments.

The tv series also had a very dark streak of humor running through the series. Max kneels over a dying man, and listens to his dying words. 99 asks what he said. Max replies, "Take your knee off my chest". Max knocks the gun from the Villain's hand into a pit of molten lead. The Henchman screams, "I'll get it!", and climbs into the pit. I don't think you could get away with that sort of thing in a tv show nowadays.

The movie also didn't have the word play, and unusual names like the tv show.

The GS movie Producers gave the same excuse for the change, that Daniel Craig has given for the change in the Bond movies. They blame the Austin Powers movies.

BULL GUANO! That is just an excuse, and self justification for being lazy. If that were true, then the Bond movies would have been over in the 60s, with all the other movies, and tv shows copying, and making fun of the trappings.

David.
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 1:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
. . . well, how 'bout Justin Bieber?
Wait, what am I saying? He's twenty-one now!

You mean The Bieb is now old enough to drink?
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Brent Gair
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 2:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Oh, right. Elizabeth Banks looks MUCH closer to 40 years old. Gosh, she could practically be Hawthaway's mother!

And poor Steve -- all those wrinkles and that gray hair...

Well, it's not so much about looks as reality.

I mean, I look like I'm 22 but it doesn't change the fact that I'm 56 Smile.

Steve Carell was in college before Hathaway was born.

Elizabeth Banks looks young and hot as Agent 99 should...but she was born in 1974 so there's no creepy factor problem.
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Krel
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
A younger man would have been much better. Somebody like . . . well, how 'bout Justin Bieber?

Then I would have been rooting for Rudolph T. Sebastian, the ruthless Kaos killer.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brent Gair wrote:
I mean, I look like I'm 22 but it doesn't change the fact that I'm 56 Smile.

Steve Carell was in college before Hathaway was born.

Elizabeth Banks looks young and hot as Agent 99 should...but she was born in 1974 so there's no creepy factor problem.

Brent, if you get a chance to date Hathaway, I hope you won't pass it up just because her class reunions are a few decades behind yours! Very Happy

As far as the age difference between two folks in a relationship is concerned, it isn't really creepy if at least one of these two conditions are present:

(1) The older guy looks much younger than he really is and therefore seems about the right age for the gal, or —

(2) The guy has a butt-load of money and can afford lots of face lifts to prolong the illusion of his youth — as well as holding the young wife's interested, at least in public.

And don't forget that women mature earlier than men — so a twenty-year difference puts them about even-steven (Carell) I figure. Very Happy

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scotpens
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Brent Gair wrote:
Bud Brewster wrote:
Oh, right. Elizabeth Banks looks MUCH closer to 40 years old. Gosh, she could practically be Hawthaway's mother!
And poor Steve -- all those wrinkles and that gray hair...

Well, it's not so much about looks as reality.

When The Graduate was released, Dustin Hoffman was actually 30 and Anne Bancroft was 36.

59-year-old Lorne Greene played the father of 51-year-old Ava Gardner in 1974's Earthquake.

Robert Wagner and Spencer Tracy played brothers in The Mountain (1956). They were nearly 30 years apart in age.

Movies aren't reality. They're movies.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's exactly how I feel. Actors create characters. An actor whose 30 can play someone who's been around for 200 years. Michel Rennie was from England, but he played an alien.

If an actor looks 35 but he's really 49, there's no reason why he can't play a 35-year-old character. It's no different than a 35-year-old actor being made up to look 49 so he can play the husband of an older woman.

Hell's bells, a 35-year-old actress can be made up to look like she's 49 and play the wife of a 55 year old actor.

Would that be creepy? Not to me.

It's all just make believe. Good grief, Hathaway and Carell were playing characters — not planning a family! Very Happy

I'm 66, but I'm dating a woman who's 35. Is THAT creepy?

(Yes, of course it is. I was just kidding. I haven't dated anyone since 1976. And that's the creepiest thing of all! Shocked )

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 1:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Let's not forget Angela Lansbury playing the mother of Laurence Harvey's character in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). She was three years older than Harvey.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 2:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hollywood is so youth obsessed it isn't even funny.

You look at foreign films & they are so superior regarding their view of age.
They allow older actors to have romance stories & be the center of a film or tv series.

America only wants to appeal to the almighty advertising demographics.

In the 60s we weren't supposed to trust anyone over 30.
Yet they still had films & tv shows with the leads over 30,40,even 50.

Not anymore.

How pathetic.
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don Adams was 42 and Barb Feldon was 32 when the series premiered.

BTW Don Adams spent his early years as a Marine Corps drill instructor!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is one of my all-time favorite comedies, partly because I respect the original show, even though I rarely watched it when I was young. I just didn't care for a show about a bumbling dimwit who wanted to be brilliant — but rarely managed to be average.

What the movies does that makes me love it so much is portray Max as a good man who is MUCH smarter than anyone around him . . . but they never give him credit for his intelligence! And yet, Max refuses to be daunted by the countless embarrassing situations which life frequently inflicts on this poor, brave man.

Max has the unshakable confidence of James Bond — but he simply doesn't live in the world where nothing embarrassing ever happens to 007!

Here's a few of the 33 trivia items offered by IMDB. Enjoy!
____________________________________________

Barbara Feldon, the original Agent 99, allegedly turned down an invitation to appear in the movie.

Note from me: I'm not sure this was really a bad thing. Our feelings about Barbara were based on the young-and-lovely actress from the 1960s. Seeing Miss Feldon in 2008 might have been a nice gesture on the part of the filmmakers, but I suspect we'd all feel a touch of sadness at seeing Barbara so far past her prime.

_

When the project was in development in 1998, Jim Carrey was attached to star.

Note from me: The only Jim Carrey movie I really like is Bruce Almighty because he seems a bit more reserved than usual in that one — and even then, his performance is self-indulgent and over-the-top. But Steve Carell is flawless in the role, and he transforms Maxwell Smart from a bumbling man who creates his own mishaps to a brilliant man who bravely deals with the frequent mishaps he encounters.

Will Ferrell was briefly cast as Maxwell Smart before dropping out.

Note from me: Dear lord . . . as bad as Jim Carey would have been in this role, Will Ferrell would have been much worse. I can't stand that guy! My apologies to all the fans of Mr. Ferrell, but . . . thank God he wasn't in this movie!

Don Adams, who played the original Maxwell Smart, was born Donald Yarmy. The airline that took Max and 99 to Russia was called Yarmy International as a tribute to him.

Note from me: This is just one of the many ways this movie honored the original series while basically "fixing" what was wrong with it. This version isn't the story of a hapless dimwit who can't bend over and tie his shoes without straightening up and smashing someone in the chin!

It's the story of an intelligent man who bends over to tie his shoes while some dimwit walks up but doesn't realize that if he stands in the wrong place he'll get smashed in the chin!

The difference between those two situations is the heart and sole of his movie.

The five-minute skydiving scene, where Maxwell Smart falls from the airplane, and is saved by Agent 99, was actually shot in real-life. Led by Norman Kent, a world famous skydiving photographer, a team of professional skydivers shot the entire sequence over a total of seventy jumps during a four-week period, always jumping during sunset and sunrise, to keep continuity in the scene.

Note from me: OMG! This scene is astounding, and knowing that it was done at such great expense and at such personal risk just makes it that much more amazing!

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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