A woman cowering in fear. A masked madman brandishing a butcher knife. "Demons long locked in the depths of the mind come out to destroy the weak and believing!" Explore "the outer limits of fear". That's the poster. I don't think I've ever seen a movie so misrepresented by the advertising. Or happier about it. Not another tired, early 70s slasher film by any means, this riot is about a sleazy side-burned lounge singer (Peter Carpenter) picked up by a sleazier female record promoter (Dyanne Thorne) who sees something special in the guy. We can guess what it is, since most of the movie is shot at Carpenter's crotch level. Meanwhile, Thorne's jealous wheelchair-bound husband isn't going to take his wife's infidelity sitting down. Enter Thorne's kittenish daughter Lots of wonderfully bad faux 70s pop songs, over-heated dialogue and teeth-gnashing, and two outlandish murders. Dig it.
Reviews
6 Reviews
Small Town Gay Bar
(2006)
no thanks
21 November 2008
Maybe it's unfair to dislike a movie for what it isn't, rather than what it is, but I approached this hoping that finally a filmmaker would make a movie about small-town rural gay men and women. Instead, the focus is primarily on the outrageous bigotry (big news!) of the locals (and those in outlying areas) and the really gruesome torture/murder of a young gay man.
So much time devoted to stupid people squawking about AIDS, sin, hellfire, and perverts. So much time devoted to the ghoulish preacher ranting about the Bible and gay people getting what they deserve.
I wanted to see more of the people that came to the "small town gay bar", not those who opposed it. In addition, the young man who was murdered isn't even from this town.
The whole movie works as a warning rather than a celebration, and it's very suspect.
So much time devoted to stupid people squawking about AIDS, sin, hellfire, and perverts. So much time devoted to the ghoulish preacher ranting about the Bible and gay people getting what they deserve.
I wanted to see more of the people that came to the "small town gay bar", not those who opposed it. In addition, the young man who was murdered isn't even from this town.
The whole movie works as a warning rather than a celebration, and it's very suspect.
Girl 27
(2007)
David Stenn, Boy #1
16 November 2008
What self-respecting documentary filmmaker would appear on camera to quote his book editor (Jacqueline Onassis): "She said, 'if anyone can tell this story, you can, David.'") or go in for the close-up to feature a testimonial from his subject ("Thank God for him")? It's an obnoxious way to, respectively, begin and end, a potentially compelling documentary about an incredibly brave woman.
The first half is a rather sloppily edited view of Hollywood in the 1930s with a lot of misguided film clips used to illustrate the worst of celebrity and power (and a lot of footage of director Stenn pacing and fretting and worrying and sitting with every tangential revelation cued with ominous music). The hotel room scene in which Steen anxiously awaits his first face-to-face meeting with Patricia Douglas is embarrassing. So is the admission that he offered to scrub out her toilets to get her to talk. It's important for her, of course. A catharsis, he says. You can't help but feel that Douglas is being exploited all over again so Stenn can get an "exlcusive" for his lip-smacking tabloid story.
When Douglas, as well as her family, are finally allowed to speak for themselves in the second half, it becomes a more focused and moving look at the subject herself, and the life-long ramifications of sexual assault. But Stenn can't help but to throw himself in at the end again, as savior, when he includes Douglas saying, "They should make a documentary about him."
Well, he has.
The first half is a rather sloppily edited view of Hollywood in the 1930s with a lot of misguided film clips used to illustrate the worst of celebrity and power (and a lot of footage of director Stenn pacing and fretting and worrying and sitting with every tangential revelation cued with ominous music). The hotel room scene in which Steen anxiously awaits his first face-to-face meeting with Patricia Douglas is embarrassing. So is the admission that he offered to scrub out her toilets to get her to talk. It's important for her, of course. A catharsis, he says. You can't help but feel that Douglas is being exploited all over again so Stenn can get an "exlcusive" for his lip-smacking tabloid story.
When Douglas, as well as her family, are finally allowed to speak for themselves in the second half, it becomes a more focused and moving look at the subject herself, and the life-long ramifications of sexual assault. But Stenn can't help but to throw himself in at the end again, as savior, when he includes Douglas saying, "They should make a documentary about him."
Well, he has.
The Man
(1972)
The Man plays safe
17 August 2008
Warning: Spoilers
After the President and the Speaker of the House are killed in a building collapse in Germany, and the Vice President is too ill to fulfill the duties, the position falls into the lap of the seemingly ineffectual Douglas Dillman (James Earl Jones), president pro tempore of the Senate (and who's own party affiliation is never mentioned).
Almost immediately there are problems with The Man. The death of the President is treated as more of an inconvenience than a major tragedy, at least within the confines of the White House. And the bizarre reason, the collapse of building, is brushed off with "well those old palaces..." And perhaps because of the budget limitations (it was intended as a made-for-television movie of the week) we never really get outside the White House, and thus are never given any indication of what Dillman's appointed position means to the rest of the world.
I suppose the cabinet members, staff, and other members of the senate could be seen as a microcosm of the American people (the sympathetic one, the bigoted senator, the callous D.C. hostess, Dillman's own activist daughter) but they don't come close to reflecting the political implications, race relations, ambitions, fears, courage, or impact of such an historical event.
The film's central conflict comes when a young black man is arrested for assassinating a white racist dictator in South Africa, and those in Dillman's closed circle wonder if the President's judgment for extradition of the accused will be influenced by a deep-rooted empathy for a black man's rage. Keeping in mind his own proud daughter's fierce activism, Dillman's choice, regardless of what it will be, will certainly cause alienation in someone, publicly and privately.
Never having read Irving Wallace's nearly 800-page whopper of a bestseller (written in 1963), one can only imagine what Rod Serling cut to fit it into this very brief film, or what Otto Preminger might have done with such potentially explosive material. Although The Man seems skittish when it comes to controversy (odd, because Serling often courted it), it's worth seeing if only because of its timely subject matter and Jones's stately, if overly controlled, performance.
After it ends with a bit of a whimper, you just wish it had taken more risks with the material--the kind of material that could suit a remake.
Almost immediately there are problems with The Man. The death of the President is treated as more of an inconvenience than a major tragedy, at least within the confines of the White House. And the bizarre reason, the collapse of building, is brushed off with "well those old palaces..." And perhaps because of the budget limitations (it was intended as a made-for-television movie of the week) we never really get outside the White House, and thus are never given any indication of what Dillman's appointed position means to the rest of the world.
I suppose the cabinet members, staff, and other members of the senate could be seen as a microcosm of the American people (the sympathetic one, the bigoted senator, the callous D.C. hostess, Dillman's own activist daughter) but they don't come close to reflecting the political implications, race relations, ambitions, fears, courage, or impact of such an historical event.
The film's central conflict comes when a young black man is arrested for assassinating a white racist dictator in South Africa, and those in Dillman's closed circle wonder if the President's judgment for extradition of the accused will be influenced by a deep-rooted empathy for a black man's rage. Keeping in mind his own proud daughter's fierce activism, Dillman's choice, regardless of what it will be, will certainly cause alienation in someone, publicly and privately.
Never having read Irving Wallace's nearly 800-page whopper of a bestseller (written in 1963), one can only imagine what Rod Serling cut to fit it into this very brief film, or what Otto Preminger might have done with such potentially explosive material. Although The Man seems skittish when it comes to controversy (odd, because Serling often courted it), it's worth seeing if only because of its timely subject matter and Jones's stately, if overly controlled, performance.
After it ends with a bit of a whimper, you just wish it had taken more risks with the material--the kind of material that could suit a remake.
Fashion Victim: The Killing of Gianni Versace
(2001 TV Movie)
Clip show
11 August 2008
"Fashion designers aren't supposed to die. In fact, it's probably the safest job in the world. They don't die in airplane crashes, they don't die in car crashes, they don't choke while eating a piece of steak." This profundity(from the editor of French Vogue) makes you wonder what the filmmakers chose not to include in this slapdash "documentary" that plays more like a poorly edited E! Hollywood True Story. It tells you very little about Versace (he was rich, he was nice, he liked beautiful people, he will be missed) and even less about his murderer, Cunanan (he was a "boytoy" whose dark side emerged when he gained weight). His father is convinced Cunanan was not gay but rather "enacted the role of a homosexual for his superiors"--whatever that means. Or even that he was murdered. He blames "organized crime." Cunanan's stepmother, "Boots" Cunanan, hauls out a phone and says, "this is the phone that Andrew called me on." She beams. The tragic, and sensational, true story has potential: sex, celebrity, fame, wealth, ambition, high style, low lives. Fashion Victim squanders all that, and wastes a pretty good title, too.
Harlow
(II) (1965)
Fascinating curiosity
25 December 2007
More of a curiosity than a movie, this shot-in-8-days quickie was made to beat the release date of the big budget Joseph E. Levine production of Harlow. Lasting in a few theaters for just about as long as it took to shoot it, it utilized the experimental "Electronovison" process (as was The T.A.M.I Show and Richard Burton's Hamlet) which was basically a step up from kinescopes. The effect is like watching a shot-on-video soap opera from the 60s and one not quite as polished as say, Dark Shadows. As for the content, this Harlow trivializes the image of the great 30s star as much as the Carroll Baker Harlow yet in different ways. Here she's petulant, demanding, and obnoxious. With its shot-on-the-fly direction, writing, and performances, it doesn't get much deeper than the video tape allows. Oddly enough, what this movie most reminded me of was Inserts, the low-budget Richard Dreyfuss movie about the shady adult-film industry in the 30s. Yet, if you get a chance to see it don't miss it. It's one-of-a-kind.
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