River’s Edge | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome To The Dark Side Of Life

Ted K (2021) is a film about Ted Kaczynski, the overeducated loser who moved into a Montana cabin and who sent people bombs because of …. reasons, I guess? I know that Ted had a big manifesto and that there are people who claim to have found some sort of genius in his ramblings but truth be told, Ted was a second-rate philosopher who has been embraced by third-rate people. This film features Sharlto Copley at Ted and it takes an honest and unbiased look at him, his beliefs, and his crimes. If you’re wondering how we got to where we are, this is one of the films to watch. The film is on Tubi.

River’s Edge (1987) features Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, and Ione Skye as teenagers who learn that one of their friends (Daniel Roebuck) has murdered his girlfriend and who …. do nothing. Eventually, one of them does go to the police and finds himself being targeted by his former friends. Meanwhile, Roebuck hides out with a one-legged biker (Dennis Hopper). This is a disturbing and well-acted true crime film. We’ve all seen a lot of examples of bystander syndrome over the past few years. This week, I’ve wondered why so many people, on that North Carolina bus, just walked away after Iryna was stabbed. This is film examines an early example of that tendency. It’s on Tubi.

Blue Caprice (2013) was a film made about the DC snipers. It didn’t really get the attention that it deserved when it was initially released, largely due to the fact that 1) it starred Isaiah Washington and 2) it was such a disturbing movie that I imagine a lot of people had a hard time recommending it. But if you want to see a film about how a madman can find ways to justify his amoral behavior, this film provides a lot of insight. It’s on Tubi.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) tells the true story of an infamous social experiment from the early 70s. It examines just how quickly people will lose themselves in a situation. While the students playing the prisoners feel as if they are literally fighting for their lives, the students playing the guards enjoy their power trip and never seem to consider that things are going too far. This film features a great performance from Michael Angarano, as the most enthusiastic of the guards. It’s on Tubi.

Finally, Christine (2016) tells the story of Christine Chubbuck, the Florida news anchor whose on-air suicide partially inspired the film, Network. Christine is not a happy film but it does feature a great performance from Rebecca Hall. It’s on Tubi.

Welcome To The Ligher Side Of The Life

Good news! Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) exists! This film, one of the funniest ever made and definitely one of my go-to comforts, is currently streaming on Tubi!

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) remains the ultimate teen fantasy. Actually, it’s also probably the ultimate adult fantasy. Everyone deserves a day off. Ferris Bueller skips school and manages to fit a month’s worth of events into just 9 hours. We should all be so lucky. I love this film. Alan Ruck deserved all the Oscars in the world. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.

Burn After Reading (2008) never seems to get the respect that it deserves. The Coen Brothers followed up the award-winning No Country For Old Men with an absurdist CIA comedy in which no one learned anything and nothing was accomplished. It’s hilarious, as both a film and a concept. John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, J.K. Simmons, David Rasche, and George Clooney are all wonderfully used. Burn After Reading is currently on Prime.

Odds and Ends

12 Angry Men (1957) is a true rarity, a classic that everyone agrees is a classic. Not only are all 12 of the angry men perfectly cast (Henry Fonda, Jack Warden, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marhsall, Robert Webber, and all the rest …. I could go on for paragraphs about how brilliantly cast this film is) but it’s also still a thought-provoking look at the justice system. Personally, I think the kid was guilty. And I think that the men all deciding that the woman was too vain to admit that she wore glasses is a perfect example of why women should serve on juries. Henry Fonda talked them into letting a murderer loose! It’s still a great film though. It’s streaming on Tubi.

The Philadelphia Story (1940) features James Stewart, Cary Grant, and Katharine Hepburn. It also features a lot of great lines, a lot of funny moments, and — most importantly — Jimmy Stewart singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow! What more could you ask for? It’s streaming on Tubi.

In his film guide, Heavy Metal Movies, Mike McPadden describes the disturbing 1987 teen crime drama River’s Edge as being “666 Candles“. It’s a perfect description because River’s Edge appears to not only be taking place in a different socio-economic setting than Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club but perhaps on a different planet as well.

River’s Edge opens with a close-up of a dead and naked teenage girl lying on the edge of a dirty, polluted river and it gets darker from there. The dead girl was the girlfriend of the hulking John Tollet (Daniel Roebuck, playing a character who is miles away from his role in Cavegirl). As John explains to his friends, he strangled her for no particular reason. His friends, meanwhile, respond with detachment. Their unofficial leader, the hyperactive Layne (Crispin Glover), insists that since nothing can be done about the dead girl, their number one concern now has to be to keep John from getting caught. While Layne arranges for John to hide out with a one-legged drug dealer named Feck (Dennis Hopper), two of John’s friends, Matt and Clarissa (played by Keanu Reeves and Ione Skye), consider whether or not they should go to the police. Oddly enough, John really doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.

Seriously, River’s Edge is one dark film. If it were made today, River’s Edge would probably be directed by someone like Larry Clark and, in many ways, it feels like a distant cousin to Clark’s Bully. The teenagers in River’s Edge live in a world with little-to-no adult supervision. Matt’s mom is more concerned with whether or not Matt has been stealing her weed than with the fact that Matt might be covering up a murder. The local high school teacher is a former hippie who won’t shut up about how much better his generation was compared to every other generation. In fact, the only adult with any sort of moral code is Feck and he’s usually too busy dancing with a sex doll to really be of much help. It’s a world where no one has been raised to value their own lives so why should they care about a dead girl laying out on the banks of the river?

The film features good performances from Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, and Daniel Roebuck but really, the entire movie is stolen by Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper. In the role of Layne, Glover is a manic wonder, speaking quickly and gesturing even when he isn’t making a point. When Layne first shows up, he seems like he’s just overly loyal to his friend John but, as the film progresses, it becomes more apparent that he’s less concerned about protecting John and more interested in ordering other people to do it. For Layne, protecting John is ultimately about maintaining power over Matt, Clarissa, and the rest of their friends.

As for Dennis Hopper — well, this is one of those films that you should show to anyone who says that Hopper wasn’t a great actor. The role of a one-legged drug dealer who lives with a sex doll sound like exactly the type of role that would lead Hopper to going totally over-the-top. Instead, Hopper gave a surprisingly subtle and intelligent performance and, as a result, he provided this film with the moral center that it very much needs.