Embracing the Melodrama #43: The Piano (dir by Jane Campion)

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently watched the 1993 best picture nominee The Piano and all I can say is that it is going to be a struggle to put into words just how much I loved this film.

Taking place in the 19th century, The Piano tells the story of Ada (Holly Hunter), a Scottish woman who hasn’t spoken since she was 6 years old. Like many things in this enigmatic film, the reason why Ada stopped speaking is never clearly stated. What is known is that she communicates through sign language and by playing her piano. While Ada is usually a black-clad and somber figure, she comes to life when she plays the piano. Ada also has a daughter named Flora, the result of a brief affair that Ada had with one of her teachers. Unlike her mother, Flora (played by 10 year-old Anna Paquin, long before True Blood) is rarely silent and delights in telling elaborate lies about how her father died.

Ada’s father sells her into marriage to a New Zealand frontiersman named Alisdair (Sam Neill), a man who Ada has never even met. When Ada and Flora first arrive in New Zealand, they are dropped off on the beach and forced to wait a night until Alsdair can meet them. In the film’s most hauntingly beautiful scenes, Ada plays her piano on that beach while Ada dances in the surf. It’s during those scenes that The Piano reveals three of its greatest strengths: the lush cinematography of Stuart Dryburgh, the haunting score composed from Michael Nyman, and the fact that Hunter and Paquin are totally believable as mother and daughter. Not only is it easy to imagine Paquin growing up to look like Holly Hunter, but the two actresses even manage to perfectly imitate each other’s gestures and facial expressions. Most of the reviews that I’ve read of The Piano tend to emphasize the film’s focus on the conflict between the sensual and repressed but to me, the film works just as well as an exploration of the strong bonds that naturally exist between mothers and daughters. I’m not ashamed to admit that when I look at the picture above, I reminded of how, when I was Flora’s age, I also used to hide behind my mom whenever I saw anyone that I didn’t know coming our way.

When Alisdair does finally show up to take them to their new home, he proves to be a rather cold and distant figure. It would have been very easy for the film to portray Alisdair as being a completely heartless villain but, as played by Sam Neill, Alisdair is potrtayed as being less a traditional villain and more as just being a painfully unimaginative man who is incapable of understanding why Ada’s piano is so important to her. To Ada, the piano and its music equals the life and freedom that she’s not allowed to experience. To Alisdair, the piano is simply a bulky object that will not fit into his small house. Over Ada’s objections (luckily, Flora is on hand to translate her sign language), Alisdair first leaves the piano on the beach and then agrees to sell it to Baines (Harvey Keitel), another white settler who — unlike Alisdair — is comfortable with the natives and their customs.

Baines, however, allows Ada to come over to his hut and play the piano. He offers to give the piano back to her — key by key — if she agrees to continue to come to his hut and play while he watches and “pleasures” himself. Reluctantly, Ada agrees but soon, she and Baines are falling in love.

Needless to say, when Alisdair finds out what has been going on at Baines’s hut, he is not happy. As he largely considers to be his property, bought and paid for, he also feels that he has the right to decide whether or not she’s capable of playing her piano…

The Piano is a simply an amazing and visually sensual film that is blessed with excellent lead performances from Hunter, Keitel, Neill, and Paquin. As directed by Jane Campion, The Piano plays out as both a delirious homage to gothic romanticism and a feminist parable about the way that even women who aren’t mute are still punished for expressing their honest desires.

And, of course, there’s that amazing score:

Embracing the Melodrama #42: Indecent Proposal (dir by Adrian Lyne)

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This one is just dumb.

First released in 1993 and something of a perennial on AMC, Indecent Proposal tells the story of David (Woody Harrelson) and Diane (Demi Moore), two kids who meet in high school, get married, and end up living what, in Hollywood, passes for an average, middle class lifestyle — which is to say, Diane is a successful real estate broker, David is an architect, and they’re in the process of building their dream house on the beach. (Just like everyone else you know, right?) However, the economy goes bad, David loses his job, and they find themselves deep in debt.

Desperately, they decide to take a gamble. Literally. They go to Las Vegas and, at first, it seems like everything’s going to be alright. David has a run of luck and makes a lot of money. They make so much money that David and Diane end up having sex on top of it. Now, I have to admit, if I ever won $25,000 dollars in Vegas, I would probably spread it on a bed and roll around naked on it as well. But only if it was paper money. Coins would probably be uncomfortable and I’d hate to end up with a hundred little impressions of George Washington’s profile running up and down my body.

But anyway, David and Diane make the mistake of sticking around in Vegas for a second day and they end up losing all of the money that they previously won and you better believe that when the chips are pulled away, Diane is shown trying grab them in slow motion while going, “Noooooo!” Soon, David and Diane are sitting in an all-night diner and trying to figure out what to do next. A waitress overhears them and sadly shakes her head. Obviously, she’s seen a lot of movies about Las Vegas.

Anyway, this movie is too dumb to waste this many words on its plot so let’s just get to the point. David and Diane meets John Gage (Robert Redford), a millionaire who offers to give David a million dollars in exchange for having one (and only one) commitment-free night with Diane. David and Diane agree and then spend the rest of the movie agonizing over their decision. Eventually, this leads to Diane and David splitting up, John Gage reentering the picture and proving himself to be not such a bad guy, and David eventually buying a hippo.

It’s all really dumb.

Anyway, I was planning on making quite a few points about this set-up but, quite frankly, this film is so dumb that I’m getting annoyed just writing this review. So, instead of breaking this all down scene-by-scene, I’m just going to point out a few things and then move on to better melodramas.

1) Every character in the movie has a scene where they eventually ask what we (the viewing audience) would do if we were in a similar situation. “Would you have sex for a million dollars?” Well, let’s see. Basically, the deal seems to be that you have safe, non-kinky, missionary position sex with a millionaire who you will never have to see again after you get paid. And you’re getting a million dollars in return. Would I do it? OF COURSE, I’D DO IT! It’s a million dollars, it’s just one night, and it’s not like you’re being asked to fuck Vladimer Putin or something. If the film wanted to create a true moral dilemma, they should have cast someone other than Robert Redford as John Gage and they should have had Gage propose something more than just one night. If Gage had been played by an unappealing actor (or perhaps if the film were made today with Redford looking as craggly as he did in Capt. America or All Is Lost) or if it had been a million dollars for Diane to serve as a member of Gage’s harem for a year, the film would have been far different and perhaps not any better but at least all of the subsequent angst would have made sense.

2) What really annoyed me is that, after Diane returns from her night with Gage, neither she nor her husband ever cash that million dollar check. If you’re going to agree to the stupid deal, at least take advantage of it.

3) Finally, why would you accept a check for something like that? Did Gage write, “For letting me fuck your wife” in the memo line? Why not get paid in cash so, at the very least, you don’t have to deal with IRS?

Seriously, this movie is just dumb.

Embracing the Melodrama #41: Poison Ivy (dir by Katt Shea)

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I still think about her. I guess, still love her. She might have been even more alone than I was. I miss her.” — Syvlie Cooper (Sara Gilbert) reflects on her murderous BFF Ivy (Drew Barrymore)

1992’s Poison Ivy is narrated by alienated and confused Sylvie (Sara Gilbert), a teenager who describes herself as being “the politically / environmentally-correct feminist poetry-reading type.” Syvlie has issues. Her father (Tom Skerritt) is a self-righteous television pundit while her mother (Cheryl Ladd) is stuck at home, confined to bed and slowly dying. Ivy’s only friend is her dog, Fred. Sylvie deals with her alienation by constantly lying, often claiming that her real father is actually a black man who had an affair with her mother.

When Sylvie sees a girl (Drew Barrymore) brazenly swinging on a rope with her skirt around her waist, she is immediately fascinated. After spending a while obsessing over the girl’s physical appearance, Sylvie tells us, “Maybe I’m a lesbian…no definitely not. I really wish we could be friends.” Her desire for friendship continues even after Sylvie witnesses the girl violently euthanize a dog that’s been hit by a car.

Later, at school, Sylvie finds herself sitting in detention for calling in a bomb threat to her father’s show. When the girl joins her in detention, Sylvie strikes up a conversation with her. It turns out that the girl knows who Sylvie’s father is and that she considers him to be “an asshole.” However, that still doesn’t prevent the girl from accepting a ride home with Sylvie and her father. When introducing the girl, Sylvie calls her “Ivy,” presumably after one of the girl’s tattoos. What’s interesting — and probably often missed — is that the girl herself never introduces herself as Ivy. It’s a name given to her by Sylvie.

Not wasting any time, Ivy is soon Sylvie’s best friend and is even living in Sylvie’s house. At first, Ivy is exactly the best friend that Sylvie needs, encouraging her to come out of her shell, take chances, and even get a tattoo. However, soon, Ivy is not just helping Sylvie do everything that she’s ever wanted to but she’s also acting on all of Sylvie’s subconscious desires as well. Ivy first manages to bond with Sylvie’s mother and then proceeds to seduce her father. Finally, even Fred finds himself preferring the company of Ivy to his original owner…

Is there anything more wonderful than female friendship? I think not but then again, that’s really not relevant to Poison Ivy because this film has not interest in being a realistic look at the relationship between Sylvie and Ivy. Instead, it’s a hyper-stylized take on the type of material that you would normally expect to find in a trashy novel and the movie is all the better for it. Fortunately, the movie was directed by Katt Shea who brings a sensitivity to material that a male director would probably only view as an excuse for titillation.

I think the film is best interpreted as being Sylvie’s fantasy. In fact, I would argue that the case could be made that the entire film takes place in Sylvie’s head. It’s her fantasy of having the type of uninhibited friend who will encourage her to conquer all of her fears and who will accept her for all of her strange quirks. However, that’s not just Sylvie’s fantasy. That’s a universal fantasy that every teenage girl has had (and probably a few teenage boys as well). Is there any wonder that the film ends with Sylvie admitting that she still misses Ivy?

Embracing the Melodrama #40: Bugsy (dir by Barry Levinson)

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s continue to embrace the melodrama with the 1991 best picture nominee Bugsy.

Gangster Benjamin Siegel (Warren Beatty) may be known as Bugsy but nobody dares call him that to his face. Siegel may be best known for his quick temper and his willingness to murder anyone who gets in his way, but Ben insists that he’s not as crazy as everyone considers him to be. Instead, Ben knows that he’s a very special person, a visionary businessman whose business just happens to be organized crime. Along with his childhood friends Lucky Luciano (Bill Graham) and Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley), Siegel is one of the founders of the modern American crime syndicate. Unlike his more practical-minded partners, Siegel revels in being a public figure. Bugsy examines how Siegel became a celebrity gangster and how that celebrity eventually led to his downfall.

As the film opens, Luciano and Lansky send Siegel out to Los Angeles, specifically to look after their west coast business operations. Before Siegel leaves, he is specifically told to keep a low profile. So, of course, as soon as Siegel arrives in Los Angeles, he starts hanging out with actor George Raft (Joe Mantegna) and having a very public affair with actress Virginia Hill (Annette Bening). Siegel quickly falls in love with the glamour and glitz of Hollywood and starts to think of himself as being a movie star. When he’s not working with violent gangster Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) to control the Los Angeles underworld, Siegel is attending film premieres and even shooting a Hollywood screen test. Back in New York, Luciano and Lansky can only watch as their childhood friend goes out of his way to defy their instructions and become the most famous gangster in America.

Eventually, Siegel goes on a gambling trip to Nevada and comes up with an idea that is destined to change America forever. With funding from Lansky and Luciano, Siegel begins construction on the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, Siegel’s plans are so extravagant and, in many ways, impractical that the budget soon soars out of control. Not helping matters is the fact that Virginia is embezzling money from the casino’s budget. Even after Siegel finds out, he can’t bring himself to be angry at her. He understand that he and Virginia are essentially cut from the same cloth.

However, back in New York, Luciano grows more and more frustrated with Siegel’s wasteful ways and Lansky comes to realize that he can only protect his friend for so long…

Bugsy is a big, extravagant movie that tries to be a few too many things at once. Over the course of two and a half hours, it attempts to be a love story, a biopic, a classic gangster film, an allegory for the American dream, a history lesson, a period piece, and finally, a metaphor for the act of filmmaking itself. (When Siegel complains that Luciano and Lansky don’t understand why the Flamingo has to be huge, it’s hard not to feel that he’s meant to be a stand in for every director who has ever had his budget cut by a meddling studio executive.) When a film tries to be so many different things all at once, you can’t be surprised when the end result is a little uneven. Bugsy starts out slowly but gradually picks up speed and the final part of the movie is everything that one could hope for from an epic gangster film.

The film works best as a character study of a man who, in the best American tradition, attempts to reinvent himself by moving out west. Back in New York, Ben is known as a cold-blooded and dangerous killer. However, once he arrives in Los Angeles, Ben attempts to recreate himself as a celebrity and then as a visionary. For him, the Flamingo is about more than money. The Flamingo is about being remembered for something other than his nickname. The Flamingo is his way to escape from his past. However, as Bugsy makes clear, the past can be ignored but it never goes away.

Embracing the Melodrama #39: True Colors (dir by Herbert Ross)

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past 9 days, I’ve been posting chronological reviews of 54 of the most (and least) memorable melodramas ever filmed. I started with a film from 1916 and yesterday, I completed the 80s. Today, we start in on the 90s with the 1991 political drama True Colors.

True Colors tells the story of two ambitious law students. Tim Gerritty (James Spader) is a wealthy idealist who wants to work at the Justice Department so he can uncover and prosecute political corruption. His roommate and eventual best friend is Peter Burton (John Cusack). Although Peter initially lies about his background, it’s eventually revealed that he comes from a poor family and the result of growing up in poverty has left Peter with an obsessive desire for revenge on everyone who has ever looked down on him. And how is Peter planning on getting that revenge? By marrying the daughter of Sen. James Stiles (Richard Widmark) and eventually running for a seat in the U.S. House. Despite the fact that Tim happens to be in love with Sen. Stiles’s daughter as well, he still supports his friend Peter and even agrees to be his best man. However, as Peter gets closer and closer to achieving his goals, Tim starts to reconsider their friendship….

There’s a scene about halfway through True Colors, in which Peter Burton attempts to blackmail Sen. Stiles into supporting his political career. Stiles agrees but then angrily adds, “God help you when the people find out. They always do, you know.” I was naturally waiting for Peter to come up with a properly sarcastic response but instead, Peter simply looks down at the ground, properly chastened. It’s a jarringly false note and, unfortunately, everything that comes after this scene feels equally false. The film, which starts out as such a strong portrait of what happens with friendship comes into conflict with ambition, ends up turning into a painfully predictable political diatribe, the type of thing that makes the portrait of politics in The Adjustment Bureau seem subtle and nuanced by comparison. When Tim decided to betray Peter, it should be a moment full of moral ambiguity. Instead, we’re expected to ignore their long friendship and just be happy that Tim is willing to do the right thing and protect the integrity of the American political process.

And, who knows? Maybe that’s the way people viewed politics back in the early 90s. But for audiences today, it all feels really naive and simplistic.

But, if you can manage to look past the film’s weak’s script, you can enjoy the acting. John Cusack is wonderfully intense as Peter, making the character compelling even when the screenplay lets him down. Watching him in True Colors is like watching the performance that he should have given in The Butler. James Spader is sympathetic as Tim and, like Cusack, his performance almost allows him to overcome a script that doesn’t seem to realize that Tim is essentially a self-righteous jerk. And finally, there’s Mandy Patikin who has a lot of fun playing the local crime boss who sponsors Peter’s career and who, in one memorable (if out-of-place ) scene beats up a shark that’s jumped up on the desk of his yacht.

Much like High Stakes, True Colors is one of those obscure films that occasionally pops up on cable, usually late at night and usually serving as filler between showings of better-known films. Keep an eye out for it, if just for the chance to enjoy the performances.

Trash Film Guru Vs. The Summer Blockbusters : “Transformers : Age Of Extinction”

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

You can accuse Michael Bay of many things — overblown spectacle, formulaic hackery, using CGI as a massive crutch, general lack of anything resembling original vision — but false advertising ins’t among them : when you go see a Bay-directed flick, particularly a Bay-directed Transfomers flick, you know exactly what you’re in for.

Oh, sure, his latest — Transformers : Age Of Extinction — alters the basic cosmetic trappings somewhat, most notably by banishing Shia LaBeouf to whatever hell for dead careers Megan Fox was earlier castigated to in favor of proven “action hero” star Mark Wahlberg, and yeah, Stanley Tucci is about the only major holdover (as far as human beings go) from previous entries in this series (look for more newcomers in the form of Kelsey Grammer and Nicola Peltz as Wahlberg’s daughter), but this is no reboot, by any stretch.

For one thing, the story continues directly on from the previous efforts, with the Transformers having been “driven underground,” so to speak, thanks to a government witch-hunt until no less than Optimus Prime himself is discovered and “resurrected” by Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager (there’s a focus-group-tested name if I’ve ever heard one) character, who —

Oh, fuck it. Does this even matter? Does even the most hard-core fan of this franchise — and that’s precisely what it is, a franchise — care what the plots of these films are about? If so, you have to feel a sort of pity for them, because Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (who was supposed to be the “next big thing” once upon a time for a few minutes there) clearly don’t. Every single “slow” or “quiet” scene is obviously just set-up to carry us into the next big CGI set piece, so we won’t waste our time here with a terribly detailed breakdown of the story. Sound fair?

All in all, Transformers : Age Of Extinction is all about getting the job done, slapping the finished product up on the screen, and opening up those cash register drawers. In that respect — and that one only — you’ve gotta say “mission accomplished” here. This movie is making money hand over fist and evidently the public’s appetite for more and more robo-carnage is proving to be flat-out insatiable. We apparently love this shit.

The question I have is — who’s “we”? Like the ever-ephemeral “they” of “well, they say you should — ” and “they say it’s not good for you to —” fame, the target audience for these films eludes me. I don’t like ’em. Nobody I know likes ’em. Nobody whose reviews I read online likes ’em. Nobody anywhere seems to like ’em.

And yet there it is — an 87% CinemaScore rating and another sequel already germinating somewhere in the pipeline. How, exactly, does this happen?

The short answer is — I don’t know. There’s obviously an appreciative audience for these things out there somewhere, but I can’t figure out where it is, beyond perhaps in junior high schoolyards. That’s not enough to explain the phenomenon, though. I know it’s purely anecdotal, but when I went to see this film, the theater had maybe 30 or 40 people in it, and the crowd remained silent throughout. No clapping and cheering. No gasping in awe. No chuckles at the limp one-liners. And yet it wasn’t a rapturous, devotional silence these folks were in the midst of — it was just a kind of “blah” sense of resignation. We were here. This was happening. Everything, apparently, was as it should be. Until the end credits rolled, and we all left to do whatever it is we were supposed to do next.

And maybe that’s the genius and/or malevolence of what Bay and company have come up with here in a nutshell : Tranfromers movies, for all their empty-hearted and empty-headed spectacle, aren’t huge pop culture events anymore. But a lot of us — myself included — keep going to them because they’re supposed to be. And we’re supposed to be there for them. It’s almost like a kind of Orwellian mass conditioning going on : we’re told this is a big deal and, lemmings that we are, we don’t want to miss out on that. Final score : Michael Bay and Paramount Pictures 1, hope for humanity 0.

Pessimistic? Sure. But is there any reason not to be? A family of four left the theater at exactly the same time I did and their car was parked right next to mine. We followed the same route for a few blocks (I wasn’t purposely tailing them, I promise!) — until they pulled into a McDonald’s. And that pretty much says it all right there.

Embracing the Melodrama #38: High Stakes (dir by Amos Kollek)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I said that Dance or Die was the most obscure film that I would be reviewing for this series of melodramatic film reviews. Well, I may have spoken too soon. Originally, I was not planning on reviewing the 1989 film High Stakes for this series. Until a few nights ago, I had never even heard of it. However, I watched it late last night and I realized immediately that I had to include it in this series.

High Stakes is one of those odd, older films that occasionally pops up as filler on Encore, playing in between showings of movies that people have actually heard of. When I first came across this film listed in the guide, it was mentioned that High Stakes was Sarah Michelle Gellar’s film debut. However, before all of my fellow Buffy fans get all excited, they should be aware that Sarah was only 12 years old when she appeared in High Stakes and she spends most of her screen time going, “Mommy!” If not for her name in the credits, you would never suspect that the little girl playing Sally Kirkland’s daughter would later grow up to play one of the most iconic characters in film history.

Sarah plays the daughter of Bambi (Sally Kirkland), an aging New York-based prostitute and stripper who works for the demonic pimp Slim (Richard Lynch). Bambi hates her life but she does what she has to do to support her daughter. One night, Bambi finds a man passed out in the garbage across the street from her apartment. That man is John Stratton (Richard LuPone), a crooked stock broker who has recently grown disillusioned with his greed-fueled life. John is laying in the garbage because he’s just been mugged. Despite her natural instincts, Bambi takes sympathy on John and allows him to come up to her apartment. John and Bambi start to talk about their respective lives, just to have the conversation interrupted by one of Slim’s henchmen showing up at the apartment and demanding money. John and the henchmen get into a physical altercation and soon, he and Bambi find themselves on the run with $4,000 of Slim’s money.

As directed by Amos Kollek, High Stakes is essentially two different stories. One of which is rather conventional thriller, in which John and Bambi have to escape from Slim. The thriller elements are rather predictable, distinguished only by Richard Lynch’s notably unhinged performance. The other part of the film is the opposites-attract love story between John and Bambi and these scenes work a lot better. LuPone and Kirkland have a lot of a chemistry and some of the best moments in the film are the ones where the characters simply talk about their different lives. Kirkland, in particular, does a good job and she manages to bring some unexpected shadings to a stock role. She’s especially good in her scenes with Sarah Michelle Gellar, radiating a very natural maternal instinct. By the end of the film, you truly like Bambi and root for her. Despite all of my natural expectations, High Stakes turned out to be a rather sweet and touching film.

High Stakes may be an obscure film but it’s definitely one to keep an eye out for the next time it shows up on Encore.

Sarah Michelle Gellar and Sally Kirkland in High Stakes

That concludes the 80s. Tomorrow, we’ll start in on the 90s.

Embracing the Melodrama #37: Dangerous Liaisons (dir by Stephen Frears)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When watching a film like the 1988 best picture nominee Dangerous Liaisons, it helps to know something about history. The film takes place in 18th century France and, even though it’s never specifically stated in the film, I watched it very much aware that the story was taking place just a few years before the French Revolution. Even the aristocratic libertines who survive until the end of the film are probably destined to end up losing their lives at the guillotine. Even though you don’t see anyone losing their head during Dangerous Liaisons (nor do you hear anyone say, “Let them eat cake.”), the film offers up such an atmosphere of decadence and manipulation that it leaves the viewer with little doubt as to why the people occasionally feel the need to rise up and destroy their social betters.

Dangerous Liaisons tells the story of the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) and the Marquise de Mertuil (Glenn Close), two amoral members of the aristocracy who deal with their boredom by playing games with the emotions of others. Valmont is a notorious womanizer while Mertuil is obsessed with “dominating” the male sex and “avenging my own.” At the start of the film, Mertuil has discovered that a former lover is planning on marrying the innocent Cecile (18 year-old Uma Thurman, stealing every scene that she appears in), who has basically spent her entire life in a convent. Mertuil asks Valmont to seduce and take Cecile’s virginity before the wedding. At first, Valmont says that Cecile is to easy of a challenge and declines. Instead, Valmont has decided that he wants to seduce Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Phieffer), a married woman who is renowned for both her strong religious feelings and her virtuous character. Mertuil agrees that she will sleep with Valmont if he can provide her with written proof that he’s managed to seduce Tourvel.

Tourvel is staying with Valmont’s aunt (Mildred Natwick), which gives Valmont — with the help of his servant, Azolan (Peter Capaldi) — several chances to try to trick Tourvel into believing that he’s a better man than everyone assumes him to be. (With Azolan’s help, Valmont finds a poor family and donates money to them. Of course, he makes sure that word of this gets back to Tourvel.) However, Valmont then discovers that Cecile’s mother (Swoosie Kurtz) has been writing letters to Tourvel, warning her about Valmont’s lack of character. To get revenge, Valmont agrees to seduce Cecile.

Dangerous Liaisons, which is based on a play that was based on a novel, is sumptuous costume drama. If you’re like me and you love seeing how the rich and famous lived in past centuries, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in Dangerous Liaisons. With the elaborate costumes and the ornate sets, the film is a real visual feast.

The film is also a feast for those of us who enjoy good acting as well. With the exception of a very young Keanu Reeves (who is oddly miscast as the poor music teacher who falls in love with Cecile), the entire film is perfectly cast, right down to the most minor of characters. (I particularly enjoyed listening to Peter Capaldi, even if his Scottish accent occasionally did seem rather out-of-place in a film about the pre-Revolution France.) For me, the biggest shock was John Malkovich. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve always felt that Malkovich was a good character actor but he’s never been someone that I would think of as being sexy. However, he gives close to a perfect performance as Valmont and, oddly enough, the fact that he’s not really conventionally handsome only serves to make Valmont all the more seductive. Purring out his cynical dialogue and openly leering at every single woman in Paris, Malkovich turns Valmont into a familiar but all too appealing devil.

Dangerous Liaisons was later remade as Cruel Intentions, which is a film that I’ll be taking a look at very soon.

Embracing the Melodrama #36: Fatal Attraction (dir by Adrian Lyne)

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(This review has spoilers because I felt like it and I’ll do whatever the Hell I want.)

Today, we continue embracing the melodrama by taking a look at the 1987 best picture nominee, Fatal Attraction.

Fatal Attraction opens on a scene of domestic bliss, with lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) and his wife Beth (Anne Archer) in their luxurious Manhattan apartment, getting ready to go out for the night and waiting for the babysitter to arrive. Dan would appear to have it all: a successful career, a fat best friend, and a beautiful wife. However, when Beth and their daughter go out of town for the weekend, Dan ends up having an affair with Alex (Glenn Close). Dan assumes that it was just a weekend thing but Alex is soon stalking Dan. Trying to escape her, Dan moves his family out to the suburbs but Alex follows them. Soon, pet rabbits are being killed, Alex is breaking into the house with a knife, and it’s up to Beth to step up and reclaim her man.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about Fatal Attraction. On the one hand, it’s an undeniably well-made film. It’s well-acted and director Adrian Lyne pushes all of the right emotional buttons and keeps the action moving quickly. That the film is predictable doesn’t make it any the less effective. As a lover of horror movies, I appreciated the skill with which Lyne crafted the film’s scare scenes. Watching the movie, it was easy to see why Fatal Attraction was a huge box office success and why it continues to influence our culture to this very day.

And yet, at the same time, Fatal Attraction really annoys me.

The film is so well-made and so manipulative that it’s easy to miss the fact that Dan Gallagher is not only never punished for betraying his wife but he’s actually not held responsible for his actions in any way. Instead, the only person who is truly punished for their transgression is Alex. The film, after all, makes clear that Alex is the one pursuing Dan. In fact, it could be argued that when it comes to Dan and Alex, the traditional gender roles have been reversed. Alex (who, as opposed to the idealized Beth, has a name that is both masculine and feminine) is the aggressive one while Dan is the passive one who gives into temptation and, afterwards, feels guilty. After admitting his transgression, Dan is allowed to reclaim his manhood and continue on with his perfect life. However, Alex has no place in conventional society and therefore, she must be destroyed.

And so much the better if she’s destroyed by Beth, a woman who has no problem with accepting a traditionally domestic role.

Far too often, in the past, I know that my girl friends and I always assumed that men were simply incapable of resisting temptation. Therefore, if your boyfriend cheated on you, it really was not his fault. He was just being a guy. Instead, it was the other woman’s fault because she was the one who tempted him. (And, though we acknowledged this a lot less, it was also his girlfriend’s fault for allowing him to get into a position where he could be tempted in the first place.) But it was never truly guy’s fault and, as long as you made him suffer for a bit, it was always expected that you would forgive him and take him back.

That’s the same mentality that runs through Fatal Attraction (not to mention countless daytime talk shows where girlfriends and wives always beat up mistresses while their boyfriend or husband stands over to the side and watches, untouched). Yes, Dan did cheat on his perfect wife and yes, he feels terrible about it. But the real threat comes from the woman who pursued him despite knowing that he was married and then, afterwards, had the nerve to demand not to be ignored. (If anything, the film seems to be suggesting that everything would have been okay if Dan had just fucked someone who works in his office, as opposed to someone who he can’t control through money or the threat of societal shaming.) When, at the end of the film, Beth shoots Alex, it’s a crowd-pleasing moment but it’s also Beth’s way of reclaiming her man. Since Dan — being male — can’t be expected to exercise any sort of self-control, it’s the responsibility of Beth to step up and destroy the temptation.

For not respecting the vows of marriage, Alex is a monster who must be destroyed. Dan, on the other hand, is merely inconvenienced and ultimately, he ends up with a far stronger marriage as a result of having strayed.

In Fatal Attraction, the only thing more dangerous than sex with Alex is examining subtext.

Gone Girl – The 2nd Trailer

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Leonard Wilson

The 2nd trailer for Gone Girl was released recently. David Fincher’s and Gillian Flynn’s film adaptation of Flynn’s popular novel focuses on a writer dealing with the disappearance of his wife. While the trailer expands things a bit compared to the teaser (as any trailer would), there’s the strangest set of casting choices for this film. What I’m most excited about is Flynn handling her own screenplay. Movies are always different from books, but I’m hoping it works out. One fills in the blanks as they go through the story, and I read this before finding out anything concrete about the film. Additionally, I’m also curious about what Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are doing for the soundtrack, which also comes out around the same time.

Gone Girl premieres in cinemas on October 3rd.