19 September 2007

Is there an original thought to be had?



Now that we've just about burnt out every comic book character with their own movie, I think Namor may be the only dude left who hasn't had his own film, and remade every old TV show into a movie, now we're remaking Grey Gardens?!!?!?!!! Is anything sacred??! Is there an original thought left in this world?

How could we make Grey Gardens any better than it was and why, why, WHY are we dramatizing a documentary?!?! Have you ever heard the adage "sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction"? Well, that proverb was written for the Edies and there is really no reason we need to have a fictionalised version of this tale; it will add nothing.

We're hearing HBO Films has green lighted "Grey Gardens," a movie starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange that's based on the 1975 documentary about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' eccentric cousin and aunt who spent most of their lives in a decaying mansion on Long Island.



Jessica Lange will play "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" Beale will be played by Barrymore and her weird stroke lip.

It's yet to be determined if the movie will be released theatrically before it airs on HBO.

Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale made national headlines in 1971 when the Suffolk County Health Department raided their dilapidated East Hampton mansion -- named Grey Gardens -- and found more than 50 cats, raccoons, fleas, piles of garbage, human and cat excrement and no heat or running water.

The health department threatened to kick the pair out of the 28-room mansion before Kennedy Onassis stepped in and paid to help clean it up.

Big Edie died in 1977, and Little Edie sold the house to Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn two years later. Little Edie went on to become a nightclub singer before eventually moving to Florida. She died in 2002.

In spring 2006, "Grey Gardens" opened as a musical at Playwright Horizons before moving to Broadway in November at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The show, starring Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson -- both of whom won Tony Awards for their roles -- ended its Broadway run in July. Ebersole will reprise her role when the show opens this season in London.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Drew Barrymore is going to personally suck Tom Green's left nut (again) in this movie. He is making a cameo as the reason Little Edie goes crazy and is resigned to live out her days with her mother in squalor. Oh and she's turning in her grave thinking Sluttymore is playing her.

Anonymous said...

Namor and the Edie's in a single blog entry is cooler than a zipper tie (I happen to think zipper ties are the coolest invention ever.)

I guess everything on Broadway eventually becomes a movie. Can't wait for Jersey Boys.

Anonymous said...

The movie has been in the works since right after Little Edie died and is being done with the full cooperation of her heirs, unlike the musical. It is based upon Edie's own journals and family archives and will try to answer all the questions we had after watching the original documentary.

I believe Tom Green has been dropped in favor of Justin Long who will play Whiskers.