Picnic (2000)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I don't like the 1955 version. There. I said it. William Holden was great in movies where he played a guy who was too smart for his own good, but in Picnic he seemed to me like a guy who was given a pass on the brain problem due to his study bod. Maybe that's how it works but I don't have to like it.This remake takes the position that all these country-fried boobs could be brainy in a universe created by a playwright. So, in this version, they are. They're even pacifist and have weird liberal ideas and actually decide to reject things like materialism and money grubbing.Needless to say, this rubs some folks the wrong way. They prefer the incoherent 1955 version where everybody is motivated by good old American lust without the ding dang lib- tard poly-ticks.I boosted the rating for political reasons.

what a horrible treatment to a great script....all the characters are stiff and without any merit for the audience... how dare they ruin a wonderful story .. and especially try to duplicate a masterpiece.. with Holden and Novak... it stinks

Perhaps it's because I am so in love with the William Holden - Kim Novak version, or because I'm not a Gen-X'er, but this was absolutely the worst remake I have ever seen. Without the original's soundtrack, it just seemed like another typical TV movie...yes, about as bland as Kraft cheese.

The Czech director Ivan Passer is perhaps the most unfulfilled of great contemporary filmmakers. His masterpieces in America--BORN TO WIN and CUTTER'S WAY--were seen by almost no one, and I doubt he had much of an audience for this "Kraft Premier Movie," which belies Robert Altman's notorious remark about Kraft's television products--"as bland as their cheese." William Inge's study of stifled erotic yearning in a small town now takes on a mythic stature. But powerful as that mythos is, Passer doesn't turn the star-crossed leads (Gretchen Mol and Josh Brolin, both luminous) into statues. On the contrary, he just accretes amazing lyricism everywhere--it stacks up on the surface of the movie like so many barnacles. The ending is a blissful liftoff that may make you feel you're living in another time and place. Visually, the work may not be as distinguished as you might like, but in terms of intuitive rhapsodic skill, Passer is right up there with Altman. Somebody, anybody, get this man more work.