stale, flat and unprofitable

I went to see Bewitched today, being more or less in the mood for something fluffy, and cherishing as I do a great deal of affection for the original series, which we used to see occasionally on TV in Zim.

• I like Tuesday morning movies: it's cheap, and usually there's only one other person in the cinema, which must be something to do with quantum. I am, however, still faintly stunned at the perspicacity of today's young lady, who arrived in the middle of that Vodacom ad with the barn full of hairy dishevelled rugby and soccer supporters squabbling over a TV, and breathelessly asked me, "Has it started yet?!" I'm not sure quite what she was expecting of Bewitched. Something very different to me. Or the rest of the planet.
• Postmodernism has a great deal to answer for. (This mantra is trademarked). This wasn't Bewitched, it was the ironic, layered, self-referential, witty, slightly jaded self-absorbed movie industry version, which would have gone down a lot better if the plot had had either intelligence or wit. Which it didn't. Also, the effect of a plot entailing a witch/mortal TV show relationship enthusiastically hammed by actual actors with appropriate ironic world-weariness, is to give their supposedly "real" emotional interactions outside the show-frame all the depth and sincerity of a cardboard collage.
• Today's exciting discovery: in the Great Divide which characterises my response to movie actors, Will Ferrell turns up firmly in the Tom Cruise camp. He played a self-absorbed asshole devoid of acting talent with suspicious virtuosity.
• Nicole Kidman was good, and she's cute when she does that nose-wriggle thing, but the script didn't give her much to do.
• The cat was also cute, and the lead's irritating manager parasite looks like a sawn-off Tom Cruise, which is a mental image rife with sadistic enjoyment.
• I darkly suspect that this movie would be best viewed when drunk.