The Devil Wears Prada(2006)

[peter johnson]

Technically, this may belong in Reader Reviews, but I won't be reviewing this film so much as simply whaling on it:
We've been pretty much snowed in here for weeks, if y'all follow the national news, you know --
About the only place we can reach for vids is the Red Box outside the local McDonalds.
We'd heard good things about Meryl Streep's performance, so decided to give this one a try.
Boring, formulaic claptrap!!  It only cost a dollar, but I want my dollar back!!  Bad bad bad without being amusingly bad.  Streep is good, but she is given almost NOTHING AT ALL to do, and the film instead focuses on this twit intern and her "struggles".  Now, based on what I'd read about the film, I was sort of expecting a good stab at the Fashion Industry, perhaps ala Robert Altman's "Pret A Porter" -- No dice!  Not only is the attitude towards the Fashion Industry reveretial, we get not one, but TWO droning speeches by different characters as to how really important and valuable the Fashion Industry really is -- Both speeches delivered with not one speck of irony or satire.  As if this weren't bad enough, we have to endure really illogical and horrible Product Placements for Coca Cola and Starbucks!!  Example:  There is a scene where this giant bottle of Coke is turned so even on the reverse angles, the Coke logo is visible straight-on into camera -- A physical impossibility in any world, real or imaginary.
Starbucks:  It is established fairly early on that Meryl Streep's character expects her morning latte at a precise time & very hot.  In order to do this, the intern has to go waaayyy down the street to a STARBUCKS, which is again equipped with magic cups that are always turned to camera so that you can see the STARBUCKS logo really really well.  Now, not only would the coffee NOT be very hot by the time the bumbling internt gets it to Streep's desk, what the hell is a fussy elitist like Streep doing drinking proletariat, peasant-food STARBUCKS???
If the movie payed any attention to its own premises, then the only acceptable coffee would be from Pierre on the ground floor of the office, who hand-squeezes his own beans through the antique silk stockings of his grandmother, etc.
And the music . . . Christ, the music . . . There is a man given music credits in the end credits, as if he did a musical score.  As best as I can tell, this "composer" tuned his radio to whatever the local Top 40 Cheeseball Pop Radio station was and pushed "record" on his tape deck.  Waayyy too many scenes of people walking, changing clothes, vaguely moving, with whatever was passing for trendy pop when the film was made.  Wanky, awful, unlistenable pop . . . Genuine pop not being bad enough, apparently, there are even REMAKES of bad pop on the soundtrack, presumably by "modern" artists.
      When you find yourself repeatedly hitting "fast-forward" to get through these charming musical interludes, you know the film is now dead in the water.
     The film contains bad elements of "Maid in Manhattan", "Pretty Woman", and just about every other "fish out of water" story you can think of, and adds nothing to them.  Why this film is getting good press is beyond me --
peter johnson/denny crane

[Joe]

i was hoping you were going to tell me that the devil actually makes an appearence in this film and kills that girl from princess diaries, make it somewhat amusing, but i was dead wrong. i stayed away from it anyway considering i wouldnt even think about wasting my time with this worthless garbage like this, i knew it was a waste of film without even seeing it.

[ulthar]

That's really funny, because just the other day, we were in a department store and someone was buying a movie.  I overheard a conversation about it - one of those

"Have you seen it yet?"
"No"
"Oh, it's really good.  You'll like it"

type conversations.  Anyway, I took a peak to see what movie it was and could not believe TDWP was what they were gushing about.  I have not seen it, but sometimes you just have an instinct about these things.  Thanks for the 'review;' my instinct has been validated.

(I become more and more convinced daily that people are told what to like, and like it.  This movie, and others of recent years, serves as good evidence for that conclusion).

[peter johnson]

Given the ranges of tastes displayed on the board here, I have no doubt that someone here will have something nice to say about it -- And as I said, Meryl Streep performs very very well -- It's not her fault that the movie is a STEAMING PILE OF STARBUCKS -- and I hope she gets more jobs in better films because of it --
Obviously there is a huge market for boring romantic "comedies", just like slasher films, otherwise they wouldn't get made as they weren't making money.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Shadow]

I hated this movie. It's filled with the sort of rude, self absorbed, self important, pretentious people that I utterly despise. The Other Half insisted I add it to the Netflix queue and bump it to the top. Naturally she loved it and even bought it afterwards. 

[ulthar]

I hated this movie. It's filled with the sort of rude, self absorbed, self important, pretentious people that I utterly despise.

That's exactly how I felt about THE FAMILY STONE.  Man, I HATED Diane Keaton's character in that movie, and the fact that she was sick (which was only a plot device to keep her sympathetic, imo) made no difference.

[Yaddo 42]

Chick lit turned hit flick. Haven't seen it, probably won't unless my best friend's wife gets us to watch it, or if I have another movie night with the "not girlfriend/we're just friends" girl (last night was Little Miss Sunshine, what a hoot).

Stuff like this irritates me less than stuff like The Breakup or other chick flick/romantic comedies that go through the same old paces of keeping or tearing two people apart that will get together anyway because the movie has to end.

I know you said the product placement was over the top with the way it was shoehorned in, but was there anything in the film to indicate the Streep character drank Starbucks for ironic or condescending reasons?

Related to ulthar's comment, back just before X-Mas I bumped into an old high school friend at Best Buy. She was there to find a movie for her daughter as part of her Santa presents? When I asked what movie, she said Lady in the Water! she said they both loved it, I commented that I guess somebody had to somewhere.

[Viktorcrayon]

Christ... reading your review almost made me annoyed, because even tho i haven't watched the movie (and hopefully never will) i can tell that your review is spot on.

How come girls always wan't to see this sort of movie?

I know a girl with otherwise excellent film taste, but she succumbs to bad movies like this, like some kind of addiction. I think it's sort of the same with men and porn or something.

I looked through her movie shelf recently, and Ichi the killer, Requiem for a dream and Hellboy, stands alongside Garden state and The lion king!

It's a mystery.

 I can see out of this thread, that it's probably women that keeps these sort of movies alive.

[Ash]

Seems like Ebert sort of disliked this film as well.
READ HIS REVIEW HERE

I haven't seen it and don't plan to.

I've also gotta agree with ulthar on The Family Stone.
I just watched that film for the first time a few weeks ago and all I can say is, what a s**tty & judgemental bunch of characters to spend Christmas with!
AHHHH!

[peter johnson]

Re.  The Starbucks Question --
No, there was no actual plot reason for Streep to drink STARBUCKS, quite the opposite, in fact.
Re.  Makeup/breakup --
This film had that weak element as well.  She had this boyfriend who we're told repeatedly, and sometimes tearfully, by other flat characters in the film, that she "loves" passionately.  She has a brief fling with a less-flat stock-character man from THE FASHION WORLD, so I guess she "loves" him too -- and by film's end she's back with her original flat boyfriend.
Another really really annoying thing about the original flat boyfriend is that he's aspiring to be a gourmet chef -- he even says at one point that he's doing "port reductions" --, yet he exhudes the same contempt for, and lack of understanding of, THE FASHION WORLD that you'd expect from a bowling-alley attendant.  This makes no sense on any level.  If you are a gourmet chef, or aspiring to be one, in New York City (!!), then you certainly WOULD have knowledge of and at least a passing understanding of THE FASHION WORLD, as these are the PEOPLE WHO EAT YOUR FOOD!!!
The more I think of it, the more gaping, huge, hideous plot holes like that I can find -- It's as if the film-makers didn't read their own script!
Re.  My remark about different tastes on the board:
I, for one, did NOT find "Lady in The Water" to be all that annoying.  Certainly not as annoying as "The Devil Wears Prada".  "Lady in the Water" at least established its Rules of Engagement and stuck with them.  I actually enjoyed almost all of it, finding it evokes a sort of Neil-Gaimanish Fairy Tale quality.  Fairy Tales, for the most part, like Genesis Myths, don't make sense.  "Lady in The Water" was a pleasant way to spend a snow day.  "The Devil Wears Prada" was all about COCA COLA!!
PS:  Ash:
Nice new nasty Gojira --
peter johnson/denny STARBUCKS!!

[CheezeFlixz]

I watched this so called movie, and while Anne Hathaway is not hard on the eyes. Her whiny ass friends, and gourmet chef boyfriend got on my nerves. I agree if you are a gourmet chef in a 5 star joint then you'd have an understanding of the fashion world, and I have no idea where he is buying his Jarlsberg Cheese as he said that a grilled cheese sandwich he made had $8.00 worth of a Jarlsberg on it. Well that's like a over 3/4 of a pound of Jarlsberg and doing port wine reductions is about as complex as boiling water. (No I'm not a chef, but I can cook!)
Come to think of it, every time he cooked, didn't he make a grilled cheese sandwich?
As far as Starbucks go that stuff is just gross. I like coffee but I have yet to find the allure of Starbucks, it's just bitter. But it was about product placement, after all there was a product name in the title. Likely, Parda fronted a bunch of cash for the movie along with all the over brands listed and therefore they couldn't really bite the hand that feeds them. But it makes me wonder, did the people in that room pick out my bluejeans and t-shirt too?
Sad thing is there are people out there that think they are really just that important... little to they know there are people oput there like me that could care less if they are on the planet or not.

[Dennis]

This is one of those movies that I thought I might like, my wife thought it looked good and I've found out that usually she's right about what's at least enjoyable, sadly that was not the case here, the high point of the movie, at least for me was the following exchange,

"You have no sense of style"

"Well I think that......"

"It wasn't a question"

I saw this in the trailer so I really had no need to see the rest of what is a really blah type movie.

[Torgo]

I hated this movie.

[Yaddo 42]

I've seen the chef/boyfriend problem Peter had with the film discussed in reviews and on other boards. Bad writing to have a character who wants to be a gourmet chef in NYC badmouth the fashion world pretty much cutting his own throat professionally. He'd need them to develop a clientele of loyal diners either for his own place or to get on in one of those trendy eateries that people in those circles eat at. And like high end restaurants in NYC aren't just as frivolous, petty, and shallow in their own way.

Figured there was a strained romance subplot, you can't write/make these kind of books/movies without them.

CheezeFlixz, the source novel for the film was called The Devil Wears Prada as well, so no direct product placement there, maybe for Prada items or mentions in the film itself. It was a very popular but badly reviewed chick lit novel, they kept the name I sure since it was so well known and would pre-sell the movie to readers of the book and people who were aware of it. The author wrote a roman a' clef, a novel using real people and events as source material thinly disguised. She used to work for Anna Wintour, a big name in the fashion magazine world who is notorious for being hard to work for and her aloof snobbishness. That I know this stuff is my punishment for reading the New York Times Book Review.

[peter johnson]

I had no idea this was based on a roman a clef!
So . . . What do we then assume?
The filmmakers took a unique memoir & turned it into a cookie-cutter generic Comedy Romance movie, or that it was simply a bad book to begin with?
I opt for the film-makers ruining the book -- not even having read it, just based on experience:  "Now if we just change this part here . . ."
* * *
Reminds me of the Woody Allen gag about his friend who was taking all the music out of "My Fair Lady" to turn it back into "Pygmalion" . . .
peter improvement/denny screenwriter