Reviews

This one works if you can suspend your disbelief just a wee bit more than you'd normally allow. The reward is a twisty ride through smoke and mirrors, stopping along the way to ask some pretty hefty questions.

Jamie is an aspiring actress who is long on ambition but short in the confidence department. Out of desperation, she hooks up with a brilliant but eccentric acting coach. He teaches her that nothing is what it seems, but what she really learns is that if you're good enough at deception, you can get away with murder. However, the real lesson here is that success achieved by becoming more ruthless than your enemies makes you the enemy.

Because your sympathy is with Jamie at all times, you are encouraged to believe that she is forced to take this position by people more evil than herself. This is a highly suspicious concept, I think. But it is an interesting idea and fairly well presented in a funhouse structure with enough surprises to keep you intrigued.

This is modern, skeleton Noir. Within that framework, it is certainly viewable, with Tilly a standout as the femme fatal. In monochrome color, first-person narrative flashback, a jazzy soundtrack, interesting camerawork, and betrayal themes, it appears as a true genre piece. Unfortunately, the script plus the filmmakers' glint toward Schwarzenegger-like action, ruin any dark ambiance they establish. It's all here: the tough but soft-hearted hero, viperous femme, over-the-top bad guy, the black sidekick slated for torture/death. And it all rapidly blows away like gunsmoke during the cartoonish shootouts.

Madsen is in typical Rourke-mode, but with a little more compassion squinting his eyes. Tilly is all whiskey-throated slur as Rina and little-girl whine as Cathy. The movie definitely needs more of Rina, because, with the exception of Busey's Wild Man, she's the cast's only interest. The giveaway is in the prologue, where, in sepia-tone, slow-mo, and voice-over narrative, Madsen labors his death scene, blazing away with dual, silver-toned guns and a monotone from a mortally-wounded script. Ultimately, it boils down to the bullets and body count, without enough desperation or resignation to warrant the blood.

I read somewhere that when director Lizzie handed in this film, the producers so objected to her ending that they sniped it before release. Granted, it concludes abruptly, but the reason we're left hanging is far deeper than that. Sean Young is so puckered, she barely squeaks any personality into the character. We are left with puzzling, blue-tinted flashbacks of a sexually traumatic event, that, possibly ends in a death, I'm not sure. There's a story here--especially in the photographer/seducer--it just wasn't filmed.

But bad writing and acting are only the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. Titanic is overall cinematic style. I'm not sure if Lizzie was going for a gritty, quasi-documentary look, but the over-lighting and shoulder-high camera angle make the film look just amateurish. Even the dark scenes at the cabin incorporate the light source in the frame, effectively ruining any atmospheric interiors. Thematically, this is about assigning blame when things go sexually awry--a very interesting and exciting subject. Fortunately, the script doesn't accept the "fry 'em" attitude of date rape that is currently correct. Unfortunately, the visual argument is hopelessly bogged down in misdirection.

At best, it's a hung jury.

Fantasies pose as realities in this film of double personalities double crossing themselves. When aspiring "too soft" writer meets sexy actress next door, he rises with inspiration as she plays great reach-withdraw games to keep him creative. But when the writer's screenplay gets bought, intent, motivation, and fantasy all meld into one, big potboiler. The beasts of lust, greed, and ambition surface within the characters, souring to a conclusion.

Some pretty talented people cut their teeth on juicy, B-characters and seedy situations in this film. Namely, Teri Hatcher, Robert Patrick, and the writer-director, Erik Anjou. There is even a possible subtextual argument on the dangers of secondary experience supplanting primary experience. It also goes out of its way to damn Capitalism A La Hollywood. After all, the screen writer is merely making his material saleable. It's not his fault that he can only write about what he experiences.

All in all, this is quite a respectable entry into the late-night Cable Hell of the Sleaze-B, Thriller genre.

The director allegedly vowed to make the sleaziest movie he could as a condemnation of Hollywood. He succeeded admirably, but it feels more like homage to me.

Dialogue example: "I guess killing your sister, burying your dog, and losing your virginity all in one day is a lot for a girl."

I am not from the it's-so-bad-it's-good school of movie watching. "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" or even "Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill" (which, by the way, is saluted in this film), has always been just too stoner-stupid for my taste. However, if you create off this concept, well. . .

This film is shot in the colors of sleaze--from Sabra's day-glow spandex to the hues of the trailer court. Everything is there to enhance the camp. This is side-spliting sleaze all the way. I mean, how about the scene where he takes Danni out to dinner with handcuffs on? Or, Sabra's come-on line, "down deep I'm a sensitive and vulnerable girl. Don't let my vibrators and dildos fool you."

Symbolism? How 'bout the Barbie dolls?

Inference with Import? How 'bout the scene where pink-spandexed Sabra walks Gus down the SPCA promenade of death? That'll make you give up topless bars and stroke mags, man.

Hidden treat? Buy the soundtrack. It'll fit nicely next to "Copulatin' Blues"

Weak link? Timmy Leary. The only acting he does effectively is playing dead.

No, it ain't "Body Heat", or even "Double Indemnity", but it is a viewable femme fatal vehicle, although it borrows from the above-mentioned films, and even a little from "The Last Seduction".

With the exception of a heavy-handed soundtrack, the production value is appropriately murky as the plot twists back on itself.

All bases get covered by the time the deceiver gets deceived, and its only weak moment is when the filmmakers tag on a bogus "hope" ending.

A good watch. Not outrageous, but it'll leave you with a smirk.

Starts out like a Black Mask Roman noir story with illicit love, a heroic shielding, and a brutal murder. Everything becomes quickly complex with hidden motives and a lot of plot red herrings. Icons of classic noir even show up--the Maltese Falcon is on the hero's bosses' desk, an hysterical conversation between the lovers is backdropped at the aquarium a la "Lady From Shanghai", and Edgar's bar is flashing "Nevermore" in blue neon constantly. At this point everyone is suspect, even our victim hero. After all, he's been at all murder scenes.

Then Boom! The film drops all its change and turns into the dull, copper penny of a straight-up, stalker thriller. It's bet is further lost down the gutter, then reverting to the much-trampled road of terror for its finale. Talk about a mess. Nothing ends up plausible. This is shmuck-quester trash. Kinda like Jerry Lewis going after Hannibal Lector where suspense is built solely on stupidity.

When a client turns up dead from an overdose of designer drugs, psychologist/sex therapist Rebecca goes under investigation by detective Nick Sharkey. She's got a sleaze-ball husband who's blackmailing her patients and having an affair with her assistant. She's got an ex-hooker for a surrogate who turns out to be the mainplot's plant. She's got a lot of two-way mirrors so she can "monitor" the action. And she's got a lot of nude scenes with tilted camera angles, slo-mo panning, and colored lights. Fortunately, she's the Tweedster, so she's pretty easy on the eyes.

It seems like a perfect set-up for an erotic thriller. But, like most of them, it quickly debilitates into cliche and melodrama. Hudson almost saves it with his portrayal of the Sharkman. He's rough and tumbled-looking like Bogie, and carries a Philip Marlowe soft spot. Natch, he falls like a skydiver for his prime suspect. The plot seems to be just staging for the ample nude scenes which could definitely use an IV of Erotica. But since the characters don't have any depth anyway, the depicted passion is merely air bubbles in the injection.

Pretty standard fare about a metal sculpturer who gets dragged into the murder of his unscrupulous, female art dealer. The psycho, nerdy killer gives the film its only watchable moments--suffocating the art dealer with a rubber shroud, and using channel locks on Gregory like a clip-on earring from Hell. The photography, script, acting, and lighting is strictly TV Movie of the Week send-up, giving the dark emotions, dysfunctional characters, and seedy situations a Beaver Cleaver patina. Our artist hero is a big, burly, and not too bright Fabio-type, so fortunately the writers bless him with favorable plot twists (girl hits his car, girl turns into lover, girl just happens to be daughter to biggest gallery owner in Santa Barbara). The killer's psychosis is explained in one scene with his overbearing mother and something about moving brain plates, covering both the psychological and physiological in one, quick swoop. His wanna-be-an-artist-wah! motivations are even more obscure--something about hoarding art so the rich, tasteless dummies won't despoil its purity. Looking out of this film, he doesn't have to worry about anything remotely resembling Art.

I don't care what anybody says, this is the best, big-screen sci-fi epic to hit us since we saw the last of the Star Wars episodes. Yeah, it's schlock and predictable, but it's also unabashed fun and great eye candy. Subtextual lines can be set to the future in anticipation of the holocaust disaster films heralding in the new decade, and backwards to America's hypocritical prejudice towards its takeover by aliens of another breed (read illegal, here). Wrap it all up in the flag-waving mythos of "Mr Smith goes to Washington" and Hans Solo rebel forces of "Star Wars", and you've plucked about every heartstring out there. The cast of characters is equally diametric and dysfunctional, ranging from an alien-abducted drunk to a woody-making stripper, and passing through a scientist that's the incarnation of Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Leary. There's no love lost on the young here like "Titanic" or "Deep Impact", but the film has plenty of mature sap between its token black couple, its divorced-estranged, career-vs-heart pair, and even a tear-jerk cameo from the President and his dying wife, appropriately played out in the hugging encounters from their young daughter. Typical set pieces like the nagging, Jewish father, the steady, steel-jawed General, the endearing but doomed wingman, and the conniving, weasely ex-CIA director act as anchors for the other, more fleshed-out stereotypes to breathe. Admittedly, Goldblum resurrects is too-many-brain-cells-make-you-depressed doctor from "Jussasic Park", but he's soooo smoooooth at it. Pullman's dedicated-but-troubled President is steady if boring, but he's effectively played off Smith's vivacious, life-loving pilot who gets to split all the good lines with Quaid's more besotted flyboy interpretation. After all the pyrotechnics and special effects have fizzled down, the film's still standing from the weight of its characterizations. And that, as the President patriotizes in his Fourth of July speech, is all that ultimately matters.

This is slick 'n sick, a wannabe "Bladerunner" and "Tron" via "Lawnmower Man". Not to say it isn't effective. But the borrowings, oh my. Sid 6.7 is T2 on laughing gas--mercury metal effects replaced with silicon slither. There is parody here, along with massive doses of black humor (sorry, Denzel). "Death TV" with it's rating board turning the viewing public into writhing snakes is certainly memorable. But the real villains are the programmers with their motivation of omnipotence. To hell with the consequences. Let's do it just to see it done! Didn't any of these guys see "Jurassic Park", for heaven's sake! Pervading the industrial-cyber-sets is the cold feeling of inhumanity at work. Reality is being re-fabricated and the "computernoia" is that it's a world designed for Sid 6.7s, not us.

"Yes, I am afraid of you. Afraid of looking at you too long. Afraid of standing too close to you. Afraid that right now I could justify almost anything," says Alex Weston, the young yuppie patriarch of the film, making the pivotal point just before he sinks his 8 ball in Amanda's rear pocket. Although he doesn't understand it yet, his Gleem-clean, Tide-sparkling, perfectly dysfunctional American family is being methodically diced like a finger caught in a Cuisineart. The horror is in its ease. Trained by ruthless advertisers selling consumerism, the Westons are so part of the circus they don't even see the greasepaint. Amanda does them a favor, really. By bringing things to a quick boil, she diverts them from the slow burn.

Sure, this film's derivative of "Hand That Rocks The Cradle". And it's a bad copy. But that's just why it's so good. In mainstream films with solid, well-acted characterization, you spend your time in motivation and visually-drawn psychology. In "Scorned", the characters are mere sticks moved by the plot, and their symbolic import becomes quickly apparant. Tweed's such a drool, you can't take your eyes off her. And that's just the point. You chide the Weston's fixation for the proverbial carrot and call it, snobbishly, a shallow root, yet you're waiting to see what Amanda's gonna wear--or not wear--in the next scene. Figure it out, Doctor. Feels like Gotchaitis to me.