Tracey Turnblad's hair's got roaches!

Inspired by a recent post by my fellow blogger Salty Sailor...I'd been meaning to say a few things about this myself. Yep, yet another re-make is about to be unleashed upon us, this time an "update" of the classic John Waters movie, "Hairspray". With an all star cast, including John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken. It's also meant to be more "musical" than the original and is based on the recent Broadway production.

Like my pal Salty, I'm not sure of the point of this. I can't really see why they're making a new version of a film which didn't come out that long ago. Actually it was 20 years ago which I suppose technically IS rather a long time, so I take that back slightly. But it doesn't SEEM long to me. The original John Waters movie was slyly subversive and as a director he had a great twisted slant on things (even if "Hairspray" was considerably more "respectable" than some of Waters' earlier experimental movies which were positively outrageous e.g. one early film had a character eating dog poo).

I'm just worried that the new version will be diluted down into your average teenagers-in-lurve type rom com that we've seen so many times before. Maybe not entirely - after all, having John Travolta in drag as Edna Turnblad is an interesting enough proposition - see above for proof - although no-one can beat the late, great Divine in my opinion. As I was just saying about "The Devil Wears Prada", Hollywood does have a habit of "sugaring the pill" and I'm concerned that all the bite of the original will be lost.

Ah well. Will probably get my butt down the cinema this coming weekend and see for myself. After I've sprayed my hair and put on my dancing shoes, of course.