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Sam (2013) possible update?
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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.......

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

From: guest (Jayzie) , 124 months, post #52
I think my comment was lost... oh well, it wasn't important anyway.

Cheers, everyone

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From: Greg , 124 months, post #59
How do you know Samanta did't have the brain of a FTM transexual ?

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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