Well ya'll, The Dukes of Hazzard opened yesterday to mostly sour reviews. I would imagine that its box office will be satisfactory, though, since both Spike TV and CMTV have been promoting the heck out of it.
A few weeks ago, actor and former Georgia congressman Ben Jones ("Cooter" on the original "Dukes" TV series) had some unkind things to say about the movie. Jones was upset at the profanity and recklessness in the movie script, and the fact that the new movie's producers wanted absolutely nothing to do with the original cast and crew of the TV show. You can view Ben's statement, as published on his own website, here.
For some truly unknown reason, earlier this week I watched a "making of" TV special about the new movie. It was nice to see, as I had always expected, that they wrecked a lot of General Lee's while filming those outlandish and ridiculous car jumps. Not that I have anything against MOPAR cars or the trusty General - it's just that on the TV show, you could always just barely see the front end of the car start to crumple -- before they cut away to a shot of the car driving away without a scratch.
I was also sadly disappointed at the performance of Jessica Simpson as Cousin Daisy. As perfectly-sculpted as she is, her fake tan/fake hair/fake smile/fake boobs/fake body look is just wrong. A department store mannequin would have been more charming.
For us old-time Dukes fans, those of us who made sure that we had NOTHING to do at 7:00 PM central time on Friday nights, the real Cousin Daisy is the lovely, down-home Catherine Bach. Sure, she looked a little hard-ridden, and that tank top probably smelled a little funky after an all-night shift at the Boar's Nest, but dang, she was some kind of woman. The kind of gal who could fix a whale of a home-cooked country breakfast, then fix her own car, and then give any man a good old-fashioned thumping if he deserved it.
As high school football games and other activities began to overtake Friday nights, my love for the show waned. After "The Incredible Hulk" left the air, the Dukes was about the only thing I would have watched on Friday nights anyway. I wasn't a "Dallas" fan. And I suppose after you've been in a few car crashes of your own, they lose the goofy slapstick appeal that they had in the days of your youth.
But I still love Cousin Daisy.
I've put together a nice little gallery of hi-res pics of Catherine Bach as Cousin Daisy. You can enjoy them below the fold:
A lover of all things vintage, I see. About the movie: They should have at least kept the essence of the original Dukes of Hazard in the new film, and added it with a little bit of new age stunts and effects. Anyway, despite the sour reviews of some movie critiques, I think there are still some people who would give this a good rating just because of the car stunts, right?
Posted by: Blake Reina | June 21, 2011 at 02:43 PM