Christopher Orr on 'Just Go With It':
Most of the depressing trends in contemporary Hollywood—the sequels, the reboots, the inferior remakes of foreign-language films, the gradual (if likely temporary) 3D-ification of genre after genre—are easily explained by greed, lack of imagination, or some combination thereof. But a reliably disappointing subcategory that lacks any obvious rationale is the reimagining of good, if perhaps not quite classic, films associated with the latter 1960s and early 1970s.
...
To this unhappy fellowship may now be added Just Go With It, a remake of the 1969 Gene Saks film Cactus Flower. The movie differs most appreciably from its recent forebears in two ways. First, it had the decency to forego the title of the original film in favor of something more aggressively generic. And second, Just Go With It—the title itself seems a plea to audiences—is so unremittingly awful that it makes nearly impossible any meaningful comparison to the original.
Well. Par for the course when it comes to most Jennifer Aniston products.
Orr's write up is a gem. I usually don't like to cut/paste too much -- feels icky -- but this turn is too good:
The structural alterations, however, pale in comparison to the tonal ones. Cactus Flower was not a "serious" movie, but it was a grown-up one. Just Go With It, by contrast, offers an interminable (and, for our purposes, necessarily incomplete) litany of jokes about breast implants, penile implants, butt implants, erectile dysfunction, irritable bowel syndrome, testicular injuries, erections, masturbation, overweight women, old women, women with big noses, men with big noses, gay men, lazy Hispanic nannies, lazy Hawaiian nannies, sex with sheep, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of sheep, coconuts rubbed against breasts, coconuts rubbed against crotches, coconuts gripped between ass-cheeks, hands accidentally placed upon boobs, hands accidentally placed in toilets, hands accidentally shit upon, precocious children blackmailing adults, precocious children mimicking cockney accents, and precocious children dropped on their faces in the mud.
Wow, funny. Okay, that's all the text I'll be lifting from this particular piece. (Technically, above paragraph is only a few sentences). Please go read Orr's work. It's very nicely cut.
Did not know JGWI is a remake of '
Cactus Flower'. I don't go in much for older movies, usually. They're just so dated in most cases. Got curious and checked it out. With Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, and Goldie Hawn, this one looks like required viewing. Will check it out.
Really. Go read Orr's review. It'll make your day.
