First Trailer for LIFETIME's

[FOAnatic]

The Dollanganger saga continues.

Memorial Day Weekend.
Trailer

[AEA AGMA SM]

They really didn't waste any time on this, did they? I mean less than six months between installments seems pretty speedy to me.

[JerseyGirl2]

Considering I started reading the next book seconds after finishing the first, it makes perfect sense to me. lol. Ah, middle school.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I know what you mean, Jersey. I read them all back to back the first time. I just hope Lifetime understands what people want is camp and nonsense. The first movie lacked a lot of that, but the trailer for this one looks promising. It also probably helps that Petals on the Wind is arguably the most bananas book in the series.

[EricMontreal22]

I hope they listened to complaints that the first one was surprisingly kinda boring, as well. I see they have the same screenwriter, but a new director. Love Will Kemp, have ever since I saw him dance in Matthew Bourne's company so I guess they are using his dancing skills... I think the only movie I've seen him in was Van Helsing which didn't exactly show if he could act, let alone play a camp villain (he's playing Julian,) but... I only remember some details from when I read the first three books (I think I stopped there) when I was 11, but apparently for TV they aren't setting it immediately after the first, but ten years in the future.

[Jordan Catalano]

Hopefully after this, Lifetime will remake AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY with Ellen Burstyn as Violet, like it should have been made in the first place.

[AEA AGMA SM]

But do you really trust Lifetime to get anything right if they took on a remake of August: Osage County?

I admit that I haven't seen the Lifetime version of Flowers in the Attic yet, but I will admit that one of my guilty pleasures is watching the original version on Netflix and reveling in its true awfulness.

And I never read the Dolllanganger series, when I was in middle school the Cutler series had just come out and that's what my friends and I passed around in secret. I did finally read Flowers in the Attic earlier this year, when the Lifetime remake re-piqued my V.C. Andrews interest. I might have to get Petals on the Wind now, if it's as bananas as Phyllis says it is.

[Eris0303]

Anybody watch?

[songanddanceman2]

Yes it was laugh out loud bad, bring on the next one.

[JerseyGirl2]

Watching now. They are doing the next two AND My Sweet Audrina! YES!!!

[JerseyGirl2]

That was over the top, silly and EXACTLY what I would hope a movie from that novel would be. It was as melodramatic as the text. Perfection.

Heather Graham is really a horrible actress.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

It was a lot more fun than the first one. I appreciated them attempting to hit many of the major points of the book, even if they couldn't go full stop (RIP, two-headed fetus in a jar!) Every few minutes I would laugh out loud, though, because it was all so delightfully stupid, which was pretty much all I wanted out of it.

[songanddanceman2]

I agree, you have to laugh at it because it's so daft but as are the books. Luckily Lifetime seemed to be in on the joke with this one. I'm now obsessed with Graham (a legend in her own right haha). I also loved how 10 years later Graham looked no different at all.

[east side story]

Totally forgot about this. Luckily my DVR did not.

And yes, Heather Graham is an atrocious performer.

[Eris0303]

For those who haven't read the books
The Complete Annotated VC Andrews - Blogorama

[EricMontreal22]

I admit, I kinda thought this was wonderful. I haven't read the book since I was in grade 6 or so, and didn't really remember all the details (I think I stopped at the third book, if that's the one narrated by Cathy's two warring sons.) Didn't the man who adopted the three kids end up having an affair and marrying Cathy before, on his death bed, telling Cathy to be with her brother? Probably smart to cut that and just have him dead from the start of the movie... I also seem to remember that she got raped, a *lot* in the books--even by Bart, her, I guess, step-father despite the fact that he is meant to be sympathetic--which I guess jives with her brother not raping her in the movie of the first book either but making it consensual. Incest is crazy enough without showing Andrews' love of having rape constantly turn into love.

I'm sure there were many other changes (I don't even remember Christopher having a fiancee, but they probably wanted to show someone walking in on him and his sister--and why shouldn't they? That's great tv,) and I could have been happy with a two part miniseries, myself. That said, shoving as much story as possible in 2 hours helped add to the crazy--I particularly like the five minutes or so where Cathy had her Romeo and Juliet premier (oddly not using any of Prokofiev's music despite it being in the public domain,) her brother walked in on her boyfriend molesting their younger sister, Cathy revealing that she was pregnant and immediately her husband dying in a car crash.

I've always been a big fan of Will Kemp ever since seeing him in some of Matthew Bourne's ballets, though I'm pretty sure with Cathy they tended to use a ballet double, because when you did see her dancing her ballet technique was awful.

And I'm not starting to think Heather Graham is simply a brilliant actress. I was on the fence after the first movie, but now... (Still the best moment was near the end where she goes crazy and thinks her son is her dead husband and they cut to the grandma who shrugs and says something like "I'm as lost as you are.") It was smart to change directors (probably because this was so rushed, but whatever) and use Karen Moncrief who, after directing Six Feet Under episodes and writing and directing the pretty great Toni Colette indie film The Dead Girl is definitely slumming, but I know she started off as a soap actress and the movie was definitely much more of what I wanted and didn't get in Flowers in the Attic. I'm bummed that the next one won't be till 2015--can't they crank it out faster?

Ratings were, as would be expected, not nearly as strong as with the last movie but still make it apparently one of the top five original tv movies of the past year.