Posted on 05/01/2005 10:59:33 AM PDT by John Robertson
I'm sending this to all my discerning friends.
There is a very special movie on television tonight. Please make time for it in your schedule.
Rosie O'Donnell costars with Andie McDowell in a CBS Hallmark presentation of "Riding the Bus With My Sister," the story of a fat-ass retard who is so effing obnoxious you want to shoot her in the back of the head, but political correctness demands that we air stories where we find value, and learn lessons from, people we wouldn't want carrying our morning paper in from the curb. Perhaps you have seen the promos on TV the last few days. Rosie, who apparently took the role because it would require her to gain weight, does a blank-eyed stare and speaks in a honking voice that seems to issue from both the top of her septum and the bottom of her throat at the same time. It sounds like a dying sea lion, but without the dignity. She also waddles down the street like a walrus, great gobs of flesh pounding the concrete sidewalk shores as she moves (and showing impressions where she passed?). Andie McDowell, the beautiful normal sister, in a closeup in the promo, tries to show concern for this literal albatross of a sister she can't get away from (I don't know the story, but I think it's about the Andie character trying to flee this piece of family crap, and the Rosie character hijacks buses and chases her down, so there's no escape; apparently she needs a bus because no other vehicle will hold her), but Andie's eyes betray her: They shout, What the hell am I doing in this turd, trying to look like I care?! Apparently O'Donnell took the role not only because it was "important," but because playing a fat-ass retard didn't require her to stretch at all. The lighting looks flat, the dialogue sounds stilted...the special moments are going to gag 90% percent of the audience (if they hang in there long enough to see them), and make the other 10% feel really, really...no, really, really sensitive to the...uh, plight of these people with very special needs.
The only people who come off looking good are the millions of truly impaired/special needs people, who have never once been portrayed accurately in either a feature or a television movie. Actors take these parts because they need to rehabilitate or get an award nomination, or both. Rosie WILL get awards nominations for her "courageous" portrayal of an incredibly fat woman with an annoying voice. Some of the noms will garner actual awards, and she will land on the cover of one or more of the weeklies, and the headline will run something along the lines of, "Rosie's Back!"
Thank you, CBS, for airing one version or another of the same movie for four decades.
If you want to double dip - she's also on Fox's Geraldo tonight.
I would call it perfect casting.
Rosie could do a one-woman show called "Dumb and DUmber," she keeps topping herself with stupidity.
ROFLMAO, that was mean, but very funny.
I actually read this story in Reader's Digest, years ago. It was sweet but kind of boring, iirc
Andie MacDowell is hot; dumb as a stump, but hot. Still won't watch, though.
Oh, Rosie's autobiography on Hallmark.
I never watch the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Nothing every blows up, there are no automatic weapons. How boring.
As a kid I beat the tar out of other kids who teased or derided the mentally retarded. As an adult I joined my city's advisory committee on the disabled. My sister is mentally retarded, and if you met her you would think she was one of the sweetest people on earth.
You may still meet her some day, if you haven't already. My Mom is a freeper in the Seattle area, and my sister has attended some FreeRepublic events with Mom.
And the goal of the Hallmark shows is, apparently, to make you feel awful.
"i'M SPECIAL!"
I'll respond as kindly as possible.
I have special needs people in my family, too.
I ranted here because I HATE it when actors try to portray these people, and really get it all wrong. Since I especially dislike Rosie, that's why I took off.
But I closed with an explanation. I think you may have reacted with your heart, rather than your head, and I do not mean that as an insult.
checked out the posts.
hysterical.
"The only people who come off looking good are the millions of truly impaired/special needs people, who have never once been portrayed accurately in either a feature or a television movie."
Watch Door to Door starring William Macy sometime. One of the best (made-for-TV I think) movies about a "disabled" person I've ever seen.
I know that movie, and in my rage it slipped my mind. But as I recall, Macy is the one actor who played it right. That is, as a human being one or two beats behind everybody else, but viable just the same.
I had the same reaction, expecially when she's hanging out the bus with such a grimaced grin, which seems to be an oxymoron. And I guess that is appropriate, since Rosie is just a moron. I didn't laugh to make fun of the mentally disabled, just at the extremely poor acting. If this was the good part they chose for a promo, then the actual film has to be a complete dud.
Really, what is your point? That if medical technology had been able to tell the mother that this child would grow into a "fat-ass retard" her mother should have aborted her?
What an embarrassment your post is to the decent folks here at FR. I hate censorship, but part of me hopes the moderator will remove it.
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