From: guest (charlie sorrell)
, 124 months, post #41 |
I hated Switch....what a negative mean spirited movie.......he
hated and fought thru the entire movie.....Goodbye Charlie was the
bomb also Here Comes The Bride......waiting for Miss Change on DVD
with subtitles so I know more.......
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From: Greg
, 124 months, post #42 |
I liked that aspect of the movie, and am often dissapointed when in
fictions or videos the changed character readily accept the
transformation.
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From: guest (thesaint)
, 124 months, post #43 |
Back when Switch came out it was the movie that kicked the door
open for my interest in TG, but over time I've come to realize it's
a very misguided movie. Ellen Barken does indeed give a fantastic
performance (so does JoBeth Williams) and Blake Edwards is a
legendary filmmaker but by 1991 his best work was behind him and
his script has a lot of fundamental problems.
First, for a movie that is suppose to have the the message "there
were a lot of good things about being a woman" there isn't a single
positive depiction of a women or female relationships in the movie.
Watch it again. JoBeth Williams murders, lies and manipulates (do
you know how many animals I had to fuck to get this coat). Her two
friends are airhead bimbos. T�a Leoni is a shallow, opportunistic
model. Lorraine Bracco is a cold, bitchy and manipulating even
though she has a good excuse for Amanda using her. Catherine Keener
as the secretary is an innocent but mostly abused assistant. Not to
mention the ending of the movie hinges on date rape as a joke.
Steve/Amanda basically has no arc until she becomes pregnant and
her redemption is not earned. She embraces motherhood becomes the
plot demands it but after everything we've seen of Steve do you
really think he wouldn't go through with the abortion? It's clear
he hates being a woman and there was nothing established before
hand (except eternity in hell) to give him the doubt to have the
baby. And that's just selfish and a pretty weak motivation. There's
so much about this movie that hasn't aged well.
I think (hope) Nicholas Brooks and John Gallagher understand this
and SAM will be better. There are little things in the tiny bits of
script I've read that show Sam genuinely develops empathy for women
and becomes a better person because of his transformation.
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From: guest (thesaint)
, 124 months, post #44 |
I'm enjoying all these little daily updates to the cast.
Veronica Reyes...The Pedicurist
Stephen Agosto...The Shoe Salesman
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From: guest (guest)
, 124 months, post #45 |
Thanks again for all of the updates, The Saint. And I agree
completely with your view of Switch. Ellen Barkin was one of the
hottest actresses in Hollywood at the time, and any movie with her
in a sexy role should have been -- at the very least -- a modest
hit. Instead, Switch bombed. I believe the things you pointed out
were the reasons why. I believe the Lalola TV series was popular
all over the world because it had a positive arc. In most (all?) of
the series, Lalola found being female frustrating, embarrassing and
challenging at first, and then she gradually came to prefer it.
Being female made her a better and happier person. I think that the
SAM director would be very wise to follow the same path. And thanks
again The Saint for the updates!
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From: guest
, 124 months, post #46 |
Why should a human that has always been a man be happy about
becoming a woman against their own will? I mean some men might see
womanhood as something better and positive while others may think
manhood is what they want since it's all they know. I just think
that not all men would adapt to womanhood and enjoy it. Some would
fight it and want to become men again. On a trivial note, I always
thought it was funny how Amanda/Steve wore the same black panties
and bra that Margo wore when she killed Steve.
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From: guest (guest)
, 124 months, post #47 |
This is all mere opinion here, and everyone is entitled to their
own. But, in the case of Switch, Steve was transformed into a 100%
biological woman. He suddenly had a female body, female hormones,
and most importantly, a female brain. All of which would have made
him a radically different person. But the big problem with Switch
-- in my opinion -- and why it failed both commercially and
artistically -- was that it was such a negative movie. For all of
the reasons thesaint pointed out. Unless the SAM producers want
another bomb on their hands they would be wise to go in a different
direction.
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From: Greg
, 124 months, post #48 |
Well to be honest, "man transformed into a woman" rarely makes for
a stellar movie, and I can't remember one that was a commercial
success except maybe Almodovar's La Piel que Habito. And that one
was about a doctor who lost his mind kidnapped a man and forced him
to have a sex change and plastic surgery to look like his dead
wife. Not exactly a positive movie.
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From: guest
, 124 months, post #49 |
My guess is that's because of the poor ways the theme has been
executed in the past. As a one-joke movie or kind of depressing.
Hopefully Sam will get made and hopefully will be different.
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From: guest (thesaint)
, 124 months, post #50 |
First, I'm glad to see the site wasn't down for good. I really love
this site and appreciate the efforts of the administrators.
Second, here's your daily SAM casting update. James McCaffrey, the
voice of Max Payne, has been added to the cast as Seymour. In the
audition script he's the guy that says he'll speak to Samantha
about getting a makeover.
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From: guest (Karma)
, 124 months, post #51 |
You've made a good call on Switch, thesaint. I went to it in '91;
no solid tg movie had come out since Cleo-Leo, and no major release
since Goodbye Charlie, almost 25 years before. Edwards went into
the project considering it his remake of GC, but why did the story
appeal to him? Charlie adjusts easily; Amanda never does. Was
Blake's better idea? Charlie is selfish and mean-spirited; Amanda
is worse. Was that the big improvement? Charlie dies early but gets
a glimmer of insight, right at the end, that she has not lived
well; Amanda dies early but I didn't see even a glimmer of insight
at her demise. Edwards must have thought that his improvements in
the story would make box office gold. I agree that both movies fell
down because of negativity.
But the good thing about Switch is that it is certainly the direct
inspiration for Lalola. The basic settings are almost identical.
But where we never learn to like Amanda, we do like Lola. Lola
evolves from a man misplaced in a woman's body to a real woman.
Lola also gets a very different perspective on the world and
improves in character, until she becomes a person who deserves to
be loved. Her story doesn't end in death, but in a happy honeymoon.
It is so much better than Switch, but I suspect that if there had
been no Switch, there would have been no Lalola.
By the way, Wikopedia's entry on Lalola has been revised to
reference an English broadcast of the original Lalola in Zambia.
Unfortunately, this leads nowhere, since the station does not seem
to have a website that I can find. If a small, poor country in
Africa can have an English Lalola, why can't the rest of the
English speaking world?
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From: guest (Jayzie)
, 124 months, post #52 |
I think my comment was lost... oh well, it wasn't important anyway.
Cheers, everyone
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From: guest
, 124 months, post #53 |
Gender bender isn't a genre, that's why Switch doesn't work... What
is it? Situation comedy? Romance? Thriller? It's nothing, so it a
series of gags with a paper thin storyline... Same goes for those
that came before it.
For it to be any good it needs a environment,lalola is a soap opera
and would work well without the gender swap, heck it has many
similar shoes without the tg content. But the same can be said for
freaky Friday, Big and Vice Versa, though they are family comedy
and the trope is child watching can enjoy imagining not being
treated like a child for a bit.
For a film to do well it needs to be an aside, a superpower gone
wrong, a life saving regeneration, a body theft, a side effect in a
horror film but not just a curse for its own sake,, ... Or I'm sure
there are many others, side effect of cure for zombie apocalypse
maybe?
Just don't do another family comedy aimed at adults... Cause that's
just a fetish film, there is no comedy anymore saying life's
drastically different for men and women, it's not the 1940s when we
didn't know how each others bodies worked...
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From: guest (rush)
, 124 months, post #54 |
Switch is the type of movie that thinks it's both funny and helping
the relations between the two genders but it's neither. At one
point Amanda says "being a woman isn't half-bad" but we see no
evidence which would lead her to say that. In fact, we don't see
one minute of her enjoying being a woman. We're supposed to just
take her for her word. I mean, she's harassed by men all the time,
hit-on by the devil, and at one point raped by her best friend.
BTW, if you let a drunk guy who is grabbing at your ass sleep in
the same bed as you, you kind of deserve to be raped out of pure
stupidity. As a man I doubt Amanda would let her friend sleep in
the same bed let alone as a woman. Obviously the plot demanded that
she get pregnant but rather than letting her want to explore her
new sexuality, the writers conjure up this situation and make it
seem pretty much like an accident.
In spite of being female, she seems to be just as strong as her
former male self. I mean, is it really realistic for her to be able
to knock out two different men with one punch? Obviously it was
intended to be funny and challenge the notion that women are not as
strong as men but it's not funny because we all know that it can't
happen. I find it unrealistic in a way that makes it condescending.
It would be far more profound if there was a moment where Amanda
tried to knock out a guy and failed miserably only to realize she
is weaker now. Then there's that moment where Amanda realizes how
vulnerable women feel all the time. A lesson is learned.
And as bad as the women are portrayed, the men are portrayed even
worse. Every man in Switch is a scumbag. Every. Single. One. Surely
there would be a couple of decent guys?
The movie is better than nothing. But out of all the
English-speaking TG movies ever made, this one probably had the
most potential. So it's the most disappointing.
Lalola took the idea of Switch but executed it far better. Coming
from an area of the world that isn't known for it's good treatment
of women, this is all the more remarkable. Here's hoping that Sam
finds its spirit from Lalola and not Switch.
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From: guest
, 124 months, post #55 |
I can agree that Steve/Amanda is not a good person in Switch and
doesn't really learn anything. I can also agree that most of the
characters in Switch are pieces of crap and hardly any of them have
any redeeming qualities. I can't agree with saying that every man
would just suddenly adapt to being a woman and leave their manhood
behind. In Lalola, I agree that it's an interesting story but I am
just not sure if it's realistic. How can we really say if a man
would just throw away their manhood like that and completely adapt
to womanhood and start sleeping with men? We have no idea. All of
this crap is based on hypotheticals.
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From: guest (Robbie)
, 124 months, post #56 |
La Lola doesn't seem to be a direct comparison to Sam because Lalo
didn't just get changed into a female version of himself as Sam
appears to. Lalo swapped bodies and genders with Daniela/Josefina
depending on the version of the show being compared. He actually
became another person which to me would be much more difficult for
someone to accept in addition to the gender change. He also had to
deal with meeting his original body being inhabited by the former
occupant of his current one which to me would be hard for most
people to accept as well. I always liked the Chilean Lola because
to me it dealt with the content the most realistically while still
having a positive ending for all parties involved which Switch
failed to do.
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From: Greg
, 124 months, post #57 |
I agree with #53.
Plus, most of the time, when there is a switch of any sort it plays
on really painful stereotypes with guys obsessed with sex. From
personal experience women are as much "obsessed" about it as guys.
It is also always being presented as if both sexes were extremely
different. I've met enough "effeminate" men and extremely butch
women to think the difference is mostly cultural and not genetic.
I also am uncomfortable with the idea that a character should
accept his new sex after a while and not fight the changes. It's
more reflective of the watcher's own feelings that the character's.
It would be like me saying to a pre-op transexual: Deal with it
you're a guy you just have to accept it.
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From: guest
, 124 months, post #58 |
Regarding pre-op transsexuals, and it being totally wrong to say to
them "Deal with it you're a guy" that's the WHOLE POINT. Science is
increasingly supporting the idea that one is born with either a
male brain or female brain. There is a biological reason for
transsexuals wanting to change their sex. Which is one of the
reasons Switch was idiotic. Steve/Amanda had a 100% female brain
and body. As per the agreed-upon premise that it would be wrong to
tell a pre-op transgender "just accept your body" it is idiotic to
believe that Steve would have continued to act the same way as he
did when he was male.
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From: Greg
, 124 months, post #59 |
How do you know Samanta did't have the brain of a FTM transexual ?
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From: guest (TheSaint)
, 124 months, post #60 |
I'm not a fan of this debate. I don't read fictionmania for realism
but escapism. Sometimes i like a story where the transformation is
a dream come true, sometimes i like a story where the character
struggles the whole way through. This time im excited for a TG
romance where the macho womanizer realizes hes a better person as a
woman than a man, blossoms from someone shallow into someone lovely
and falls for his former best friend. SAM has the phrase "magically
transformed" in its description so I can suspend my disbelief.
Watch the movie I HATE MY BODY for a good, but depressing movie
about a TG brain transplant and a character that hates being a
woman, lives a hard life and then gets gang raped to death.
I'm excited about SAM because its been 30 years (Cleo/Leo) since
they've made a romance. And I like the twist that the best friend
knows his buddy is now a girl.
So, there's a small update today. The role of the dive bar
bartender has been ammended to read Post Game Bartender. Samantha
plays a pick up game of football, gets tackled, her ass grabbed and
called a bitch. I'm guessing they get a drink in the bar
afterwards. : )
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