Friday, May 9, 2014

I think I'll skip Rosemary's Baby this weekend

From the moment I heard about it, I was hostile to the idea of a TV remake of Rosemary's Baby. You can't remake perfection. Roman Polanski's movie based on Ira Levin's novel is a faithful visual presentation of the book. Scene for scene, it's the book come to life.

It seemed to me the TV remake would be like the sad and embarrassing remake of Psycho in 1998. Seriously, you cannot remake perfection. You just have to move on. So I was predisposed to dislike the "new" Rosemary's Baby, which will debut Sunday at 9 pm on NBC. (The next episode will air on Thursday night at 9.) Hashing it over, I decided not to watch the show. And maybe that's a sound decision, in light of this review of the mini-series in today's SF Gate.

I liked the following snippet from the review. Dave Weigand, the reviewer, is dissecting the fact that the press release for the TV mini-series failed to mention the earlier perfect movie by Roman Polanski.
Then again, why mention the baked Alaska from last year's gala dinner party when you're about to serve Hostess Twinkies at this year's pot luck?
Sounds about right. So, are you going to watch it?