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Topic: The Stepford Wives (2004 film)


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In the News (Sun 12 Oct 08)

  
  THE STEPFORD WIVES (2004)
THE STEPFORD WIVES remake, under the often gifted and confident hands of Oz, is a misguided mess, one that tries to be too much a calculated comedy and less a nail biting feminist satire and psychological thriller.
At the beginning of the film she attends a gala and unveils her network's newest shows, which largely are of those shady and sleazy reality shows that too many people view these days love.
So, in a stroke of inspiration, he decides to move the whole family to Stepford, Connecticut (that state is the punchline for one of the film's other big laughs, but shall not be spoiled by me in an effort to preserve the secret of the film).
www.craigerscinemacorner.com /Reviews/stepford_wives.htm   (2074 words)

  
  The Stepford Wives - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Stepford Wives is the name of a 1972 novel by Ira Levin, as well as two movies of the same name based upon the novel, the first released in 1975, with a remake of the film released in 2004.
The protaganist is Joanna Eberhart, a new arrival to Stepford from New York City with her husband and children, eager to start a new life.
A 1996 version called The Stepford Husbands was made as a third TV movie with the gender-roles reversed, and the men in the town being brainwashed by a crazed female clinic director into being perfect husbands.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/The_Stepford_Wives   (743 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the 2004 film, the town's women were formerly successful and powerful figures in their industries - scientists, politicians, television moguls - and their husbands, feeling inferior and threatened, brought them to Stepford to have brain chips implanted to make them docile, subservient, and good at sex.
The film is reported to have done very poorly in test screenings and to have required significant editing and additional filming before its general release.
It's only at the film's climax that it is revealed the women, albeit in android bodies, still have their brains intact, controlled by microchips, and that this control can be reversed, giving them back their original personalities in their new bodies.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/The_Stepford_Wives_(2004)   (374 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Stepford Wives is a 2004 comedy and science fiction film based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives.
The majority of the film was shot in Darien, Connecticut, New Canaan, Connecticut, and at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion in Norwalk, Connecticut.
The editing can also be seen in the cinematic trailer, which features several clips of footage not seen in the actual picture (the character of Bobbie being whacked on the back of the head after she starts repeating 'goodbye!' over and over again).
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/The_Stepford_Wives_(2004_movie)   (374 words)

  
 the f-word - The Stepford Wives
When William Goldman wrote the screenplay for the original film version of The Stepford Wives back in 1975, he did not intend the robotic, 'ideal' women of Stepford to be prim and proper housewives in floral dresses and frilly aprons.
Thus the original film, which had the potential to provide a thought-provoking commentary on male fear of feminism at the height of the second wave movement, ended up being kind of ridiculous because few people could relate to the men's desire to transform their wives into Martha Stewart.
After all, one of the more jarring aspects of the first film was its simplistic representation of patriarchal society as a conspiracy of men against women, an idea which third wave feminists are perhaps even more likely to critique than their second wave counterparts due to the influences of postmodernism on contemporary feminist theory.
www.thefword.org.uk /reviews/2004/07/the_stepford_wives   (1194 words)

  
 TheMovieBoy Review - Stepford Wives, The (2004)
1975's "The Stepford Wives" (and the novel by Ira Levin from which it was based) were dark, unrelenting, and cynical, a comment on the post-Nixon era, when feminism was just breaking out and men were attempting to come to terms with their opposite sex's newfound liberation and independence.
The talented supporting players include Glenn Close (2001's "The Safety of Objects") as Claire, the cheerful leader of the Stepford wives; Christopher Walken (2004's "Man on Fire") as her daunting husband, Mike, the head of the men's association; and country star Faith Hill (in her feature debut) as Sarah, a frequently malfunctioning Stepford wife.
Sleekly shot by cinematographer Rob Hahn (2000's "Loser"), "The Stepford Wives" moves at a bright, fast clip for its first two-thirds, rarely faltering in its amalgamation of the mystery and comedy genres.
www.themovieboy.com /reviews/s/04_stepfordwives.htm   (941 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004) - About the Production
Filmed on a country property amid rolling hills in rural New Jersey, the fantastical atmosphere of a huge red barn draped in red, white and blue bunting was only heightened by the picture-perfect food, game booths and gingham-dressed Stepford wives teetering around on high heels.
Making her feature film debut in “The Stepford Wives” is Grammy Award nominee Faith Hill, who portrays Sarah Sunderson, the former CEO of an airline whose husband turns her into a “robotically challenged” model of a Stepford wife.
She made her professional debut in the Australian film “Bush Christmas” at the age of 14, but it was her role three years later in the miniseries “Vietnam” that made her a virtual overnight star in Australia.
www.hollywoodjesus.com /stepford_wives_about.htm   (5174 words)

  
 The Day After Tomorrow (2004)   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
This film may be a modern blockbuster but in almost everyway it is a 1970's disaster movie where an event happens after some build up and we then spend the rest of the film watching the survivors trying to, well, survive.
After the initial danger has passed the film uses illogical and silly plot devices to put the survivors at risk – a cold eye of a storm, blood infections, creeping ice and wolves are among the problems.
Overall the first hour of this film is good on a blockbuster level, but it blows it's wad too early (don't ya hate it when that happens?!) and is left with a second hour that is right out of the 1970's with all the weaknesses that that entails.
imdb.com /title/tt0319262   (1150 words)

  
 SPLICEDwire | "The Stepford Wives" movie review (2004) "The Stepford Wives" review, Frank Oz, Nicole Kidman, Matthew ...
He can't even decide if the automaton wives in his "Stepford" are robots (impervious to fire and prone to shooting sparks from their necks) or real women (brainwashed with microchip implants) who are capable of snapping out of their halcyon daze if their programming fails.
The wives becoming the ultimate gadgets for their technology-happy hubbies is barely touched on, and the fact that all this is grounds for any divorce -- should the robotic spouses ever become human again -- is never addressed at all.
The film is largely built around a stereotype that is as bad, if not worse, than the outdated ones it ridicules: the sitcom-spawned Emotionally Immature Idiot Husband whose job it is, countless times a week on TV, to realize he's wrong and his wife is right, but not to learn anything from it.
www.splicedonline.com /04reviews/stepfordwives.html   (919 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004) - Ninth Symphony Films Review
If one were to assume the film was more of a drama than the farce it presents itself as, perhaps the staid quality of the jokes could have been overlooked since those tepid exchanges wouldn’t have been created as comedic material.
This film is a prime example that some films can’t be simply remade with the fashions of today and hope to retain any shred of their original theme and/or statement.
This sticking point might not necessarily be a problem if a film is well-made, regarding dialogue and plot, but the makers of this film have simply slapped the wardrobe of a 2004 cast of characters on the actors, hoping that this remake could duplicate the interest of the original.
regencylady.tripod.com /site/filmreviews/thestepfordwives.html   (974 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004)
Like the first film, an impossibly lovely woman is cast as the empowered lead to lend the premise a little more ironic horror, but Nicole Kidman, unlike Ross, is already an automaton and has been cast as such in films like To Die For and Eyes Wide Shut.
The sole irony of the film is that it's a Stepford Wife itself: scrubbed clean of controversy, stupid and servile, and only really ugly for the details and rationale behind its creation and the fact of its existence.
Expectations for it already low, The Stepford Wives digs deep and surprises with its ineptitude anyhow, dooming it to the fate that the studio's equally underwhelming Shrek 2 deserved.
filmfreakcentral.net /screenreviews/stepfordwives2004.htm   (468 words)

  
 Stepford Wives, The (2004) Movie film locations - 1000s of Famous Locations of movies, film stars, sites, actors & ...
All of the wives are far too perfect, and all of the husbands are way too happy.
While there is no real town of Stepford in the state of Connecticut, there are indications that Ira Levin, the novel’s author, was inspired by the small towns of Fairfield County, beautiful suburban communities with enormous homes and manicured lawns.
Built in the 1860s by financier LeGrand Lockwood, the 62-room mansion is one of the finest Second Empire-style country houses surviving today and was one of the grandest houses in the country during the seventeenth century.
www.famouslocations.com /movies/stepfordwivesthe2004.php   (367 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives: Facts and details from Encyclopedia Topic   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
A kiss before dying is 1956 color film noir directed by gerd oswald and based on the novel by ira levin....
An updated version of The Stepford Wives[Follow this hyperlink for a summary of this subject] was released in North America on June 11, EHandler: no quick summary.
Matthew broderick (born march 21, 1962) is an american film and stage actor who is perhaps most widely known for his role as the protagonist in ferris...
www.absoluteastronomy.com /encyclopedia/t/th/the_stepford_wives.htm   (1575 words)

  
 Amazon.com: Stepford Wives (2004) (Dol): Video: Nicole Kidman,Matthew Broderick,Bette Midler,Glenn Close,Christopher ...   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
But Stepford is a little strange: The schlubby husbands congregate at a closed-doors men's club, while the wives--all in bright summer frocks and air-brushed smiles--exercise to keep their hourglass figures and cook endless pastries.
The dresses of the robot wives are a riot of patterned gingham, the wives' exercises, as choreographed by Patricia Birch, imitate the gently spinning movements of washing machines, and the sparkling mansions are high-windowed and strewn with flowers.
She has a nervous breakdown and hubby Walter, (Matthew Broderick), moves the family to the upscale, gated suburban community of Stepford, CT for R&R. The Eberhart family soon discovers that life in Stepford is a bit on the twisted side.
www.amazon.com /Stepford-Wives-Dol-Nicole-Kidman/dp/B0002Y69PO   (2020 words)

  
 Amazon.co.uk: The Stepford Wives [2004]: DVD   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
But Stepford is a little strange: The husbands congregate at a closed-doors men's club, while the wives--all in bright summer frocks and air-brushed smiles--exercise to keep their hourglass figures and cook endless pastries.
This film is played mostly for laughs and is full of all sorts of silly (shall I say stupid?) updates, like having a gay couple instead of a fl couple and making the wives (prior to their coming to Stepford) very accomplished--CEOs, scientists, etc., while the husbands are Neanderthal nerds.
In 1975, Katharine Ross starred in the original THE STEPFORD WIVES, in which an unsuspecting wife, Joanna Eberhart, moves with her loving husband to an idyllic town, where all the wives are suspiciously perfect and their husbands are up to something (besides Boys' Night Out playing cards) in a secretive men's association.
www.amazon.co.uk /exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006GCZZ6   (1453 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives film movie trailer review at The Z Review
The Stepford Wives will be released in the UK on R2 DVD on the 29th November 2004.
The Stepford Wives is about a couple who move into a new area where they discover that all of their neighbours wives are being turned into robots.
Filming on The Stepford Wives is thought to be being planned for Spring next year for Director Frank Oz for Paramount Pictures.
www.thezreview.co.uk /comingsoon/s/stepfordwivesthe.shtm   (1122 words)

  
 Film Review - The Stepford Wives
The original "Stepford Wives" was based on the same premise as the classic 1956 sci-fi Invasion of the Body Snatchers, albeit with one difference: In Stepford, only the women are turned into pods.
In the new film, the leadership is assumed by a happily married couple.
The original film had a point of view, telling the story from the perspective of Joanna, the threatened wife who made the audience feel the horror of suburban conformism and anonymity.
www.emanuellevy.com /article.php?articleID=17   (1273 words)

  
 Movie Review: The Stepford Wives
I remember it as being less a horror film onscreen than in its aftermath as you thought about everything that had happened and the implications.
Certainly, the film had horror potential it never reached, and it might be hoped that a remake - and all of the special effects capabilities we've learned since the original - could bring that horror to the big screen.
The Stepford Wives tells the story of the small town of Stepford, Connecticut where all of the men are manly and all of the women happily wait on their husbands hand and foot.
www.ladylibrty.com /movie_review_archives/2004/stepford-wives.html   (624 words)

  
 Slant Magazine - Film Review: The Stepford Wives
Promotion for the film has been reasonably intense and audiences, given their insatiable lust for horror films these days, should have no problem tending to it.
The transformation of the town's women into housewives and sex slaves is a business plan employed by a group of men no doubt worried by the effects of the feminist movement, symbolized by Joanna and her buddies Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) and Charmaine (Tina Louise).
Joanna's "consciousness-raising" friends seem as exaggeratingly grotesque as the film's Stepford Wives, all but threatening to burn their bras whenever one of the robot women begins to reenact cleaning product commercials, but Joanna's battle to be remembered is a stirring one.
www.slantmagazine.com /film/film_review.asp?ID=1121   (466 words)

  
 The Flick Filosopher | The Stepford Wives   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
For from then on -- and those are the opening moments of the film -- almost every line or sight gag aimed at generating a laugh is at the expense of Joanna and women like her.
Worse, Broderick delivers the venomous words so plaintively, with such heartbreak, that it's clear we're meant to sympathize with his longtime tolerance of the archetype of wifely imperfection that is Joanna, and not with Joanna's bewildered amazement at her husband's sudden dissatisfaction with her.
The Stepford Wives is like an evil, sneaky scolding from a particularly obnoxious relative: You may think it's fine to go around wearing fl all the time and not baking cupcakes for your husband and running a Fortune 500 company, but don't think you'll be happy doing it.
www.flickfilosopher.com /flickfilos/archive/2004/stepfordwives.shtml   (899 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004) Movie Review   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
While it was far from a perfect film, it was a very effective mix of humor, social commentary and thrills.
Kidman’s character sees a robot of herself, as does (we are led to believe) the gay man. In other scenes, we see the women of Stepford used as an ATM machine or have their breasts enlarged by remote control.
Instead of the women of Stepford being anonymous housewives, all the women of the new Stepford are high profile professionals… lawyers, writers, doctors, television executives, business CEO’s.
www.popentertainment.com /stepfordwives.htm   (889 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives (2004) - The Hollywood News
Stepford becomes much more concerned with the chiller elements at that time, but its heart just isn’t in it.
The Stepford Wives appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions.
Overall, Stepford was a decent transfer with a few problems that knocked it down to a “B-“.
www.thehollywoodnews.com /dvd/stepfordwives.php   (2168 words)

  
 The Stepford Wives: Special Collector's Edition (2004)
There, the women have been transformed by their husbands into a totally submissive, near-robotic state in which they are blissfully happy doing housework and looking pretty, and are totally compliant to their men.
It turns out that there’s a reason why the women of Stepford seem too good to be true, as a dark secret explains their perfection.
They discuss the film’s visual look, the design of Stepford and its buildings, locations, the execution of the sets, costumes, and the specifics of some scenes.
www.dvdmg.com /stepfordwives2004.shtml   (2298 words)

  
 DVD Review: Stepford Wives (2004)
Once they arrive, the couple is confronted with a series of flowery wives who seem to be happy on a level that one would guess is drug-induced.
The film's twist in the second half would be a little more interesting had the trailer not shown it and had Paul Rudnick's screenplay not boldly hinted at it earlier in the film.
Once that twist hits, the film starts to run off the rails; Oz does a decent job holding the earlier, comedic half together, but once the film turns sci-fi, it seems to be at a bit of a loss where to head next or how to best wrap things up.
www.currentfilm.com /dvdreviews5/stepford2004dvd.html   (1007 words)

  
 Trouble in "Stepford"? - Jun 11, 2004 - E! Online News   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
The Stepford Wives, the $90 million, heavily promoted, big-name-cast comedy, debuts on 3,000-plus screens Friday with what can delicately be described as imperfect buzz.
Gray is looking at the film from a box-office perspective--he expects it to open no higher than sixth place this weekend, behind the two other new major releases (The Chronicles of Riddick, Garfield: The Movie) with a take of $15 million or less.
More formally, The Stepford Wives is a satiric take on author Ira Levin's best-selling feminist horror novel about a group of suburban men who replace their flesh-and-blood spouses with servile, apron-wearing look-alike robots.
www.eonline.com /News/Items/0,1,14295,00.html?newsrellink   (790 words)

  
 Film Comment
These filmsâ titles are particularly useful because they describe a feeling for which words donât exist - the feeling that weâve been overtaken by larger forces or gutted as part of a social plan or readied for the network or (and here the inheritor of this memeâs tradition becomes clear) the matrix.
The filmâs heroine, Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman), is a glacial TV network executive whose career has been destroyed by a string of exploitative reality shows gone bad and whose marriage has been whittled away by her burlesque workaholism.
The 2004 Joanna goes from network exec to Stepford bobo-bot and then is returned to her real self, finding a new career, wouldnât you know it, back in television.
www.filmlinc.com /fcm/7-8-2004/stepfordwives.htm   (1292 words)

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