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October 2024 Halloween Programming: MaXXXine, Scream and Psycho

posted a month ago by roger1 (3626)
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Well, it looks like there's a whole line of "Roger 1" OPS in a row here, which means its probably time to go to some other boards for awhile.

Funny thing: for the first time in a long time, I indulged some OT posts, which should not really be considered part of the Psycho discussion. In other words, I have purposely elected to show that there are OTHER movies of interest to me, both new releases (Saturday Night) and selected older films I've been looking at lately(Day of the Jackal 1973.) I also elected to report on a couple of streaming series (The Gentlemen, Only Murders in the Building) as I am into those types of entertainment as well.

Moreover, even if my name turns up a lot, I don't. I've been away from this board for weeks at a time, but if no one posts, it looks like I'm here all the time. And I'm not.

All that said, this being the month of October, all the channels are pumping out "Halloween movies," which really means horror movies, with really includes EVERYTHING...from slashers to supernatural ; from Dracula to Jason...just a whole lotta horror. Max put up The Exorcist, The Shining and Poltergeist(the latter almost a "kids horror movie" -- a key glimpse at that "infantalization" that Spielberg was accused off. Netflix has Psycho, Psycho II, and The Birds(and Jaws.)

But last night, I chose to watch two specific horror films for two specific reasons. And I'm posting again because well -- October won't last much longer and horror will be taken away in such doses for a year. Just like Christmas films(which are already here.)

Note in passing: back in the 90s, in October, the "old" AMC(American Movie Classics) ran a weekend of black and white 50s horror movies and called it "Monstervision." Very nostalgic for me. For these "cheapie 50s horror movies" were THE horror movies of my childhood -- alongside the Universal "Shock Theater" package of the classic monsters and -- well, the 50s stuff just looked pretty silly in the 90's. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Attack of the Crab Monters. Voodoo Island. Frankenstein 1970(made in 1958). The Giant Gila Monster.

Now some of these were Roger Corman pictures but there were LOTS of folks making these cheapies.

And William Castle was in a class by himself. in his heyday, "SciFi" wasn't his thing -- reality based mystery horror was. Yes, he did the "gimmicks" in theaters -- the electrified seats(The Tingler), the skeleton floating above the crowd(House on Haunted Hill), the death insurance policy(Macarbre.) But his horrors were "grounded" -- a LITTLE bit of supernatural but mainly murderous plotters -- and from William Castle in particular -- and that 50's horror craze in general -- issued Psycho(with some Diabolique thorwn in.)

Over the years however, Monstervision changed. They pulled all that sweet cheesy black and white 50's stuff and started putting in the blood and gore and violence of the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. I recall it felt as if an atmosphere of "safe" 50s horror seemed to switch overnight to "the porn of violent gore." THAT wouldl be horror from now on, THAT would be the content of most of the horror movies to be released. Not for kids (the 50s stuff WAS.). But for...who? Teenagers? Gorehounds? Closet sadists? "Halloween month" movies suddenly became the stuff (as Psycho was once called by Time) "a spectacle of stomach churning horror."

With that as the backdrop I chose (WE chose) to watch two horror movies last night, both on Max . (And a part of a third.) Psycho mattered in all three.

MAXXXINE.

I sort of stumbled onto what is now known as "the X trilogy" -- three movies released within two years, in 2022 through 2024. Swanstep wrote about the first films a bit and I found the first one -- "X" -- to have a nice come on: set in 1979, an isolated Texas Chainsaw Massacre location and ambiance -- and the kicker premise: some young men and women use the isolated barn to make a porn film and we get to see JUST enough of the porn filmmaking to get titillated. And then the gory murders begin. Truly a film with sex AND violence.

"X" had a "hidden new star" in it -- young Jenna Ortega , now in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. She skipped the nudity etc in X and it was left to two other actresses the film to strip down and go to it, most noteably the true star of the movie, one "Mia Goth."

And it is Mia Goth who has carried the entire run of three films in the X trilogy, as TWO characters: (1) Maxxxine Minx, young porn star(she starts amateur and goes pro) and (1) Pearl -- the very old, very psycho, and distressingly sexual woman who haunts X as an old person and then anchors a "prequel" (Pearl) as the psycho young woman who becomes the psycho old woman.

Pearl having dominated "Pearl" (set in the 30s and filmed in the Technicolor glories of the 40s and 50s), Maxxine Minx gets to dominate the "X" sequel Maxxxine.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Maxxxine trakes us away from the Texas setting of the first two films and plops us down in Hollywood, 1985. Yep, its an 80s nostalgia picture in a time where we are getting a lot of that. I am starting to wonder: is the 80s going to be "the dead end for nostalgia?" We had 30s nostalgia (The Sting), forties nostalgia(Summer of 42), fifties nostalgia (American Graffiti even though set in 62; Grease) 60s nostalgia (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) 70s nostalgia (Boogie Nights first half, Licorice Pizza) and now 89s nostalgia -- and each decade was well represented in music and hair styles and visuals.

But...can 90s nostalgia be done? Can 2000s nostalgia be done? I'm not so sure. Things got awful controlled and corporate after the 80s.

Anyway, "Maxxxine" splits its time between Hollywood Boulevard(showing us much the same sights -- including the Vine movie theater -- that were shown in OATIH) and Universal Studios. In short -- the "fake tourist Hollywood" (Boulevard) and the "real working Hollywood"(the movie and TV studios where the real work gets done.)

It sure all came back. I always view the 80's through a filter of : neon; the colors green and blue(often IN neon), the rather "Euro-electronic" music that replaced the 70's stew (Led Zepplin, The Eagles, Disco) and...for me...the AWFUL hair worn by the pretty ladies of that decade: frizzy, piled high, shaved a bit on the side. (I still remember my sigh of relief in the 90s when women started wearing straighter or better coiffed hair -- that 80s stuff was mess. As always, men couldn't do much to change, decade to decade. Short or long,.)

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

And the 80s was VHS tape and VCRs: "The miracle of the ages." I could tape a show or a ball game -- go out for the night -- and watch it later. MIRACLE. I could bring Psycho and North by Northwest and The Wild Bunch(and eventually Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars) into my home and watch them ANY TIME. MIRACLE. And yeah hey --for some -- VHS porn . No longer did men(mainly) and couples(sometimes) have to go to creepy porn theaters -- you could rent or buy the tapes and bring them home. I went to a few 80's bachelor parties that started with some VHS viewing before we went out....

"Maxxxine" gets all that. The now-primitive looking act of "forcing" a filmsy VHS tape into that VCR hole(and hoping that the tape wouldn't jam) is referenced throughout "Maxxxine" and the final image on the screen after the end of the credits is "BE KIND REWIND."

But the movie does reflect what VHS brought. You could put a tape of a "new" movie(say, Back to the Future) in your VCR, or a tape of an "old" movie (Casablanca)in your VCR, but you could also put a tape of "Debbie Does Dallas" in your VCR. Suddenly your VCR was a legitimate movie theater, a revival theater, and a porn theater "all in one."

"Maxxxine" posits something that happened only rarely from the 80's on: a porn actress "moving up" into "major motion pictures'(REAL movies)...if only at the indie level. Traci Lords wsa one. Indeed some porn actresses simply moved up to....slasher horror.

And Maxxxine (the person, not the movie) is trying to do that. Well, supernatural horror in her case: "The Puritan 2."

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Having taken in the entire trilogy now, I find that the "X" films maintain an uneasy mix of sex(in more-than-the-average movie dollops), horror(all three films have psycho bladed attacks) and an ongoing stomach-churning queasiness that issues both in "things" (a dead cooked pig for the eating- if you can stomach maggots) and people -- both Maxxxine and Pearl , as played by the same actress, mix a certain beauty with a certain blotchy borderline "ugliness" (borne more of the the mental issues of both Maxxxine AND Pearl.)

I don't even much feel like getting into the plot of "Maxxxine," other than to say, eventually, some people do get stabbed and slashed -- and shot and eyeball-impaled.

During the first murder, I flashed back on something funny to me:

I often cite the end of the Arbogast murder as the most savage moment of Psycho -- he's fallen on the floor, the "mystery Mother" has pinned him down, knife upraised, fade out on the man's horrific gutteral scream(a mix of terror AND pain.)

And yet...we never see the detective get stabbed. Its 1960, he's below the frame. Its the SOUNDS (the knife puncturing flesh and heart, his scream) that creates the terror. Plus the surreal idea of an OLD WOMAN with such psycho viciousness, speed and strength.

But...a guy gets stabbed to death early on in Maxxxine and -- its as graphic as 2024 can be. the 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond removed all barriers. There isn't just stage blood on the victim(ala Arbogast's face)...we see bare skin split open as the knife rips it apart. We see each deep stab BEING MADE into the man's back, drawing blood. And the knife tears right THROUGH his eyeball (with Arbogast, the knife rather "bounced over his eye," slashing only forehead and cheek.)

We've come a long way baby.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

But this: I still see the horror of Arbogast's slashed face and Arbogast on the floor getting finished off THROGUH THE VIEWPOINT of 1960. I go BACK and experience that scene not as "mild as it looks today" but as horrific as it was IN 1960(when Psycho was released) or 1967 (when a boy who saw Psyhco told me, "and...the WORST PART is..she JUMPS on him on the floor and stabs him over and over and over!") and 1968(when Hitchcock/Truffaut had a freeze frame of Arbogast's slashed face and Arbogast on the floor and THAT kept me awake nights.)

In much the same way I can ONLY see Psycho "through the eyes of 1960" and what it was THEN, I can ONLY see North by Northwest through the eyes of 1959 when it was, simply, the most ACTION-PACKED chase thriller ever made (to that time.) And it STILL has the unique climax on Mount Rushmore(never repeated) and one can note that both Die Hard(1988) and Batman (1989) use the climaxes of Saboteur and North by Northwest as their text( Norman Lloyd fallling away from us on Lady Liberty becomes Hans Gruber falling away from us in Die Hard; Martin Landau, stepping on Cary Grant's hand while Grant holds Eva Marie Saint's hand with the other as she hangs beneath him; becomes Jack Nicholson stepping on Michael Keaton's hand whil Keaton holds Kim Basinger's hand with the other as she hangs beneath him.)

Back to the murders in Maxxxine -- and X -- and Pearl. Watching all those killings -- and plenty gory they are -- I reassured myself that Psycho in certain ways was both the beginning AND the end of the slasher movie. Simply put, there are only so many ways to portray people getting stabbed, or slashed, or getting their heads chopped off.

What was "My God, are they going to go THAT far?" in Psycho is now..."of course they are going to go that far..and farther." But..I expect that new generations of teenagers are coming along every few years who need/want/crave THEIR slasher movies, THEIR gory murders for THEIR talks.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

This: horror movies don't much scare me anymore, but they sure can GROSS ME OUT. And Maxxxine has an "outta nowhere moment" relating to "violence applied to penis" very much designed to sicken the viewer. I guess that's horror, too - but Hitchcock never would have filmed it.

The Psycho connection in Maxxxine is strong. Maxxxine lands her role in a horror movie and her arrogant, self-worshiping female British director drives her around the Universal lot in a golf cart and eventually they reach: the sets for the Bates Motel and the Bates Mansion, carefully introduced with a camera move not unlike the one that opens Hitchcock's 1960 trailer. Its interesting to me: what what Hitchcock called "our composition -- a horizontal block(the motel) and a vertical block(the house)" will ALWAYS be iconic, and yet Maxxxine reminds us that the composition is NOT ENOUGH. In 1960, Hitchcock made sure to film that house for "maximum atmoshere" from the rather bleary shots of storm clouds floating behind the house(in Marion's segment) to the crystalline power and perfection of the (day for night?) shots of the house in the Arbogast segment.

And in 1960 the motel was made of WOOD. In Maxxine, its more of a pink and blue stucco thing -- rather 80s. Psycho III was MADE in 1985 for 1986 release, I suppose Maxxine is meant to be viewing THAT version of the house and motel (I"ve often wondered how long it took for BOTH the ORIGINAL 1960 house and the ORIGINAL 1960 motel to decompose and fall away -- to be replaced by new structures. And then maybe replaced AGAIN. Its been 64 years.

The motel and house figure in a second sequence in "Maxxxine" as a truly sleazy New Orleans based PRIVATE DETECTIVE (played by Kevin Bacon -- they got a few "names" for this sequel) chases Maxxxine all over the backlot with a revolver and intent to kill and -- she ends up hiding in the Psycho house as the private eye approaches the door.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

There are a couple of shots the summon up "memories of Arbogast at the door," but we see inside the house WITH Maxxxine that it is only a bunch of scaffolding -- wood boards . I visited that locale in 1982 when Psycho II was being filmed, went in there and yep -- just a bunch of boards -- plus one set of boards leading up to a platform near Mother's window for filming "her."

Anyway, "evil" private eye Kevin Bacon is about to breach the house and shoot Maxxxine when a security guard approaches him. "You aren't supposed to be here."

Bacon: (Amiably) Oh, there's just something that draws me to this place. You know a lot of brutal murders took place in this house in the movies." (Yeah, starting with the most famous murder of them all.)

Earlier the British director makes note of Psycho(in dialogue I just can't remember in detail): "The house from Psycho. A movie about a serial killer who dresses like an old woman. Audiences simply didn't expect it...I'm going to try to make a movie like that too."

SO: Psycho gets a lot of airtime in Maxxxine. And it is all the better for the references.

(And Detective Bacon's fate is...most gory indeed, with a touch of "Goldfinger" to it. You'll know it when you see it.)

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

It was in Pearl that Mia Goth got two BIG "actors moments" -- a long, long long monologue near the end, and an "end credits long" final shot holding on her face as she grins a way too wide, way too scary smile. (Never doubt the power of a bad smile to terrify us: there are two movies with POSTERS that creep you out -- Smile and Smile 2 -- out right now. And of course Norman's evil closed mouth leer(with mother's dead teeth superimposed) at the end of Psycho.

Goth doesn't quite get those "power moments" in Maxxxine, she is more subsumed by a plot that gets more banal and ridiculous as it goes along (to rather a bit of surprise: an action movie SHOOTOUT?)

And the very first one -- "X" -- made a powerful statement about sex -- if sex is "the practice of the young"(all those hot body porn actors going at it) what happens if you still have that sex drive in your 80s when the flesh has gone wrinkled and old? (We SEE that in X -- with an old married couple -- and it gives pause for thought...should WE really be horrified by this? THEY aren't...)

I think the big question coming out of the 'X" films is: Will Mia Goth become some sort of star? Irony: Jenna Ortega already has -- without showing any skin at all.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

A switch to "Scream" (the first one and a bit of the second one) and quicker I shall be:

Looking at the menu of horror movies , I chose Scream intending mainly and only -- to watch that long and nicely scary opening with Drew Barrymore taking that call all alone in her richly appointed family home.

I felt the first time I saw that scene(opening night, 1996) that I was watching an iconic scene -- something new and different that fit the time and would be long remembered. I was right. That the scene would also lead to the usual REQUIRED number of sequels -- 2, 3, 4...5...6? was at once expected and, of course, kind of depressing. I guess I know Psycho I, II, II, and IV well enough to understand that someone ELSE could know all the Scream sequels but...how nice it would have been to just have one.

Scream was wonderfully self-referential to ALL the slasher movies and other horrors that came before it (Halloween, Friday the 13th, Elm Street...Carrie and yes Psycho a ll get their riffs) , and it was plotty as all get out and yes, I was pretty impressed by the twist they came up with(SPOILERS: there isn't ONE Killer, there are TWO working in tandem,...which is why "Ghost Face" can suddenly turn up behind you right after he was in front of you.)

But...but...but:

The simplicity of something like Psycho was long gone. The climax goes on and on and on and on, VARIOUS characters get killed all at once, dead characters come back to life (except for one who is prevented by our heroine: "Not in my movie" -- and its really about teenagers(some of whom are a bit long in the tooth) and my biggest complaint then and on re-watch:

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

In Psycho, after the big shower murder shocker, Mother is an "unseen maybe out there threat" all through the movie , for a long time until...finally...Arbogast heads upstairs and mother comes barrelling out that door in what one critic called(the overhead shot)..."the greatest moment in horror history." Yeah -- its one of them -- but also because Mother has been WITHHELD for so long that we just look down in "weird awe" as she stomps/marches/sashays at Arbogast with knife held high. In 1960(and 1979 in revival) the whole audience screamed.

In Scream, the various attacks of the "Ghost Face" killer(killers?) doesn't convey the robot-monster like stiffness of Mrs. Bates -- rather this is clearly a man(likely) who chases his victims all aover the place, keeps getting punched back at, tripped, thrown down, but eventually gets the upper hand and stabs the victim to death. But all the mystery is gone. The murder attacks in Scream are staged like fight scenes -- we sense a PERSON, not a monster. And on the reveal...it turns out that both of these twin psychos are pretty regular guys -- one of them, a real dummy -- a MASSIVELY irritating person even as a psycho.

No matter. Scream reactivated slasher horror for the 90's -- actually rather set the stage for the Van Sant Psycho greenlight two years later -- and the Drew Barrymore scene is one of our tropes(immediately spoofed with the Scary Movie series, in which Ghost Face stabs that Baywatch chick in the chest and pulls her silicone pad out with the knife.)

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I then watched the opening of Scream 2 -- I wanted to remember who the pre-credits kill was. It was two victims, a man and a woman, both African-American in a nod to "slasher diversity": Omar Epps(stabbed through the ear in a movie theater bathroom stall ) and his date Jada Pinkett Smith -- stabbed in the movie theater auditorium amidst a CROWD of guests in Ghost Face masks. -- As she is stabbed to death by ONE of the many Ghost Faces, the crowd applauds, thinking it is a performance. Cool enough on several counts. I SAW Scream 2 in a theater, I REMEMBER that opening, and nothing else about it.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

But this, on THIS viewing: the movie premiere crowd is watching a movie called "Stab" (based on Scream) and Heather Graham plays the Drew Barrymore part and -- they add something that wasn't in Scream: Ms. Graham prepares to take a shower and a flurry of "Psycho" shots begin: Shot of her bare legs, curtain pulled open, shot under the shower nozzle, etc. But she runs away before she can take the shower.

Yes, even in spoofing the "Scream" opening, Scream 2 just couldn't help itself: they had to spoof Psycho as well.

Let the influence of Psycho live on. Scream then. Maxxxine now. Happy Halloween for a couple more weeks...

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[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

I think the big question coming out of the 'X" films is: Will Mia Goth become some sort of star?

Between Pearl and Maxxxine Goth did a film directed by David Cronenberg's son Brandon: Infinity Pool. I've seen all of the younger Cronenberg's films and all of them feel like chip off his father's block - sort of body horror, sort of sci-fi, sort of intense Bergmanesque family drama. IP is his starriest, biggest budget film so far and Goth's performance in it is the one that jumps out. She's sexy but scary - unhinged and coldly smart and hateable. Goth may be slightly in danger of becoming typecast for her dark/extreme/twisted performances. There's never been an actual female *star* with that kind of profile - maybe Jennifer Jason Leigh is the closest (Karen Black and Kim Stanley are a few others). Early in her career, Goth was very fearless and naked in an art-film I actually hated, Lars von Trier's Nymphomania Vol 2 which starred Charlotte Gainsbourg. Maybe the most likely thing for Goth is that she becomes the kind of avatar of cool, director-chasing art-house darling that Gainsbourg or her mother Jane Birkin has been. Isabelle Huppert's kind of arthouse stardom is the maximal possibility perhaps. If Goth wants a broader, more ordinary Hollywood star-type career than that then I suspect she's going to have to find some warmer parts - simpler, sunnier characters - that she can live with.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

Alternative Halloween Programming: Woman of the Hour dir. by Anna Kendrick (her debut) is a '70s-set true-ish crime story on Netflix about a prolific serial killer who was a contestant (bachelor #3) on an episode of The Dating Game. Kendrick plays the real wannabe-actress whose agent booked her in as the choosing bachelorette on that fateful show. Kendrick talks about the films that influenced her film here (she's a smartie who's dated comparable cineaste male smarties Edgar Wright and Bill Hader):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc_iSHLuI3A

Kendrick does a solid directorial job in my view but I also felt that maybe some specific ideological commitments limited her a bit. She's obviously concerned not to make anything *too* horrific and she doesn't want to make the rapist-killer at all interesting or exciting. Creepiness abounds though, and whether that's enough for people is probably a personal matter. Kendrick seems most interested in painting the world of men in the 1970s as an extremely hostile environment for women that both enables the serial killer and that the killer apotheosizes. Klute, as she discusses in the vid. above is a key influence here. Every man in the film is pretty awful, and every woman we see is either a victim or a hardened anti-victim who's incredibly aware of the veritable war zone in which she has to live. I think people's mileage with the film is going to vary a lot. I may not be the ideal viewer but suspect that, for example, my sister (who's the same 5' 2" height as Kendrick) might be. In any case, the film's worth a look, and I suspect it's going to do boffo home business for Netflix, esp. with women.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Alternative Halloween Programming: Woman of the Hour dir. by Anna Kendrick (her debut) is a '70s-set true-ish crime story on Netflix about a prolific serial killer who was a contestant (bachelor #3) on an episode of The Dating Game.

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I took a look at this one. Watched the entire "Netflix sort of movie." It was short. That Dating Game "hook" has been mentioned off an on in the press for decades now, I know I read it somewhere. So I watched to see how that unfolded.

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Kendrick plays the real wannabe-actress whose agent booked her in as the choosing bachelorette on that fateful show.

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The world of actors and actresses submitting to dehumanizing auditions often for "nothing parts"(but they need SOMETHING to get SAG cards) with tons of competition, and being judged rather instantly("No thank you...next!") has been used in other films and TV series. I found an early rejection of Kendrick's character to match up rather neatly to a similar opening premise of the aspiring actress played by Alison Brie(Pete's upper class wife in " Mad Men") being similarly rejected in audition...she ends up on a "lady wrestling TV show" (GLOW -- the series name) to survive in the industry. (I'm reminded of Kim Basinger's Veronica-Lake cosplaying hooker and failed actress saying 'we still get to act a little.") Here, Kendrick ends up on The Dating Game to get one gig and exposure.

Both GLOW and this Kendrick film make the point that a lot of young lovelies flock to Hollywood to get work -- we've seen this story since the thirties -- and it can be humiliating, and, yes, sexually harrassing. (Young aspiring male actors have their own tales to tell.) The ones who break through become our TV stars, movie stars, and superstars. As for the rest...)

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Kendrick does a solid directorial job in my view but I also felt that maybe some specific ideological commitments limited her a bit.

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On balance, I think the film pretty much failed..for two specific reasons, probably personal to me:

ONE: I suppose at this time in my life, I'm much less interested -- actually rather revolted -- by films that recreate the crimes of REAL serial killers. Norman Bates was based on the "real" Ed Gein, but had almost nothing to do with the real life Ugly Guy, and Psycho gave us horror movie trappings(old house, fruit cellar, staircase, swamp) that were more in the fictional horror movie tradition.

Bob Rusk in Frenzy was much closer to the "real deal" than Norman Bates -- a sexual killer who raped, and then killed. Most of them DO that. (Norman did not.)Rusk, too was BASED on a few real killers, but was FICTIONAL as a being and in his crimes , however horribly rendered. And even in this more brutal and realistic psycho tale...Hitchcock couched it in style(neckties, Covent Garden)..."made a movie out of it."

Rodney Alcala was simply, too real for me. I didn't like seeing his murders recreated, and I didn't like one detail being dragged up: He would strangle female victims into unconsciousness(not death) and then revive them to strangle them some more. The true sickness of true serial killers and...I'm through being "entertained" by that. I just hated the character - the real man -- start to finish.

Near the end, some "post script" information notes that Alcala was let out on bail for certain sex murders -- and committed two more (one of a 12-year old girl) before recapture. An all too real aspect of how the legal system just can't deal with the animals it sometimes captures. (Norman Bates in Psycho II was RIDICLOUSLY RELEASED after 7 horrible murders but -- fiction. That 12 year old girl in real life wasn't so lucky. "Psycho and "Frenzy" may be sick, but they aren't REAL.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

TWO: I think that Kendrick's ideological agenda capsized the movie during the Dating Game segment.

Evidently, very little of the chit chat between Kendrick and "Bachelors Number One, Number Two and Number Three(psycho Alcala) is really what was said on that segment. I guess I could look it up on YouTube. Much of the Dating Game dialogue in the movie is re-written for Kendrick to insult the bachelors and for the serial killer to say something in public about Bachelor Number Two that would lead to on-air stopping of the show.

The bottom line is that Kendrick "courageously turns the tables" while attacking Bachelor Number One(as stupid) and Bachelor Number Two(as too smarmy) before finding connection with Bachelor Number Three(the psycho) and the psycho rats out Bachelor Number Two for sexual comments OFF-STAGE. This is like Joaquin Phoenix's Joker endlessly threatening talk show host Robert DeNiro at the end of "Joker": in real life, the tape would be stopped, security would be called in, people would be removed(likely even Kendrick for verbally attacking two of the three bachelors.)

Kendrick's delivery of her smarmy mocking lines towards Bachelor Number One (the stupid one) in particular seem to create a portrait of a "Karen" type who, in her quest to strike back at the male patriarchy, comes off as victimizer as much as victim(not to mention, The Dating Game WAS a smarmy show, where the contestants were FORCED to say stupid things, the questions written, the responses given. Didn't she WATCH THE SHOW? Didn't she UNDERSTAND it? And she still took the "part.") Its like the whole movie lurches AWAY from being about the dangers of a serial killer among us(Alcala is almost removed from the action during the Dating Game segment), and being about "bad men in general."

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Kendrick seems most interested in painting the world of men in the 1970s as an extremely hostile environment for women that both enables the serial killer and that the killer apotheosizes. Klute, as she discusses in the vid. above is a key influence here. Every man in the film is pretty awful, and every woman we see is either a victim or a hardened anti-victim who's incredibly aware of the veritable war zone in which she has to live

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All fairly put, but I felt by the time the movie was over, she had painted things with a rather broad brush and confused her message. The serial killer story (of which, we realize after awhile, the Dating Game part was a SMALL part) is more important than the "general social commentary about men versus women."

In general, I agree with a lot of what the film says about how women must negotiate the world of men. Men DO hit on women, and women have to very careful about to whom they choose to respond(Alcala was charming enough to pull it off; as Hitchcock said, "Killers have to be attractive so as to lure their victims.")

But: in real life: it was noted that a number of young Hollywood starlets moved pretty quickly on getting trustworthy boyfriends, both macho (Lee Majors for Farrah Fawcett) and "sensitive"(Michael Sarrazin for Jaqueline Bisset). These boyfriends provided "protection" and reason to turn down passes from other men.

Also in real life: on behalf of all men who have endeavored to be respectful of boundaries and genuinely desirous of relationships with women -- we aren't like those "bad men" and the proof is in the relationships that we have obtained. Its real nice when "the woman likes you as much as you like her.

In short, too much emphasis on "linking" sexual predators like Rodney Alcala to "bad men in general" is rather too broad an interpretation of real life and real life relations between men and woman. And "Woman of the Hour" was pretty broad and obvious in telling that story.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

And "Woman of the Hour" was pretty broad and obvious in telling that story.

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Except, sadly enough, in the scenes showing Alcala luring the ladies to isolated desert locations, photographing them...sexually assaulting and killing them.

That's always easy enough to dramatize.

PS. The most chilling scene between Kendrick and the actor playing Alcala -- the centerpiece of the Netflix trailer -- has Kendrick giving Alcala a fake phone number on a piece of paper and -- minutes later, he asks her to repeat her phone number WITHOUT looking at the piece of paper. For all women who have given out a false number(and Elaine on Seinfeld did this "funny")..its a chilling scene here, to be sure.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 22 days ago

Evidently, very little of the chit chat between Kendrick and "Bachelors Number One, Number Two and Number Three(psycho Alcala) is really what was said on that segment.

Yes, Kendrick seems to have worked with the screenwriter to pump up the historical Cheryl Bradshaw(?) into a version of Kendrick herself, hyper-verbal, -confident, and fully versed in the next 40 years of feminist theorizing and attitudes. My understanding from reading around is that nothing like the parking lot scene or even the 'Cheryl and Alcala get drinks at the Mai Tai bar' scene happened. Rather, according to the Rolling Stone fact check I read, it seems that Cheryl met Alcala for a few minutes backstage at which point Cheryl then told the producer that "she didn’t want to go on any date because she thought he was creepy.” So the film intensified everything - making Bradshaw more modern, confident and risk-taking, and making Alcala's surface more polished than it was so he could plausibly not creep out Bradshaw and actually manage to get a semi-date with Kendrick's feminist superwoman.

Interestingly, Kendrick's character was called 'Sheryl' not 'Cheryl'. Perhaps this was done in part to signal the level of dramatic license taken.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

Yes, Kendrick seems to have worked with the screenwriter to pump up the historical Cheryl Bradshaw(?) into a version of Kendrick herself, hyper-verbal, -confident, and fully versed in the next 40 years of feminist theorizing and attitudes.

----
Ha. Yes, if one analyzes this "movie"(I use the term advisedly, "Netflix movies" so rarely ARE fully fleshed out movies)...one can sense what happened: Kendrick or her production company employees(stars usually have these), came about the "serial killer on the Dating Game" historical story and decided that the young woman ON the show could be converted into a full heroine of sorts -- making sure to show her issues on the audition trail and with at least one too-solicitious (and "not hot") male neighbor coming on to her.

Then, the character goes "full Kendrick" during The Dating Game sequence(avenging women against men)...even as the REAL crimes, HORRIBLE crimes (strangling victims unconscious, then waking them up and strangling them again) SEXUAL crimes...sort of end up becoming a "backdrop to Kendrick."

At the same time -- and in a better way, I suppose(and I don't know if THIS happened either) we have the woman in the audience recognizing Alcala as the psycho who probably disappeared her friend and -- "she can't get anyone to believe her." (Yet another classic Hitchcock Trope -- just this side of The Wrong Man , in this case, its The Lady Vanishes: "I can't get them to believe me."

But, again: did such a woman ACTUALLY exist?, ACTUALLY recognize Alcala on the show? If she DID exist, maybe in real life she just watched him on TV. Did she HELP capture him in real life? Or was this, too, a "make 'em up""?

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

I must admit that, rather than taking much interest in the "made up" Kendrick side of the story, I'm more interested in the STATED REALITY that somehow an actual serial killer elected to apply to GO on a dating show, and then was CLEARED to appear on the show, and then DID appear on a dating show(indeed maybe exposing himself to thousands of people who might have recognized him from some "sinister" memory.)

Not to mention, THIS really scary thought: what if our sexual serial killer had indeed convinced the woman to go on the date with him to some distant locale? My understanding is that Dating Game dates(often turned down after the broadcast) had heavy chaperones along (like to Mexico or Hawaii). But maybe Alcala didn't know that.

Anyway, THAT side of the story (real) is more interesting than the "Kendrick" side of the story. (Fake). Except I can't say that and stand by my distaste for movies about REAL serial killers and their horrible deeds.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 21 days ago

But, again: did such a woman ACTUALLY exist?, ACTUALLY recognize Alcala on the show?

Here's what Rolling Stone's fact check said about that:

'Kendrick recently told Rolling Stone that while the character of Laura [the woman in the audience] is fictional, she represents the grief and frustration of the real-life people who tried to report Alcala.

There was, however, someone who recognized Alcala on The Dating Game: a Huntington Beach, California detective investigating him for the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, who caught a rerun of his episode on TV shortly after Alcala was named a suspect, according to a 2021 episode of ABC’s 20/20.'

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

But, again: did such a woman ACTUALLY exist?, ACTUALLY recognize Alcala on the show?

Here's what Rolling Stone's fact check said about that:

'Kendrick recently told Rolling Stone that while the character of Laura [the woman in the audience] is fictional, she represents the grief and frustration of the real-life people who tried to report Alcala.

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Well, I can't get too upset about that. Biopics(of which, I guess Woman of the Hour pretty much is), often either create a fictional character or "composite" several into one real one "to get the story told" (Example: Jonah Hill's character in Moneyball is based on about three different people, I think I read.)

And given the long-term nature of the Rodney Alcala story, I'll bet a LOT of people were suspicious of him and reported him -- to no avail -- because we know of the realities of modern life and the justice system -- and no, I'm not blaming it for everything (less a few political prosecutors here or there), I'm just saying...reality hurts (like those cops who handed back over a boy to Dahmer.)

---

There was, however, someone who recognized Alcala on The Dating Game: a Huntington Beach, California detective investigating him for the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, who caught a rerun of his episode on TV shortly after Alcala was named a suspect, according to a 2021 episode of ABC’s 20/20.

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Well, there you go -- you put someone into a video or film that ends up broadcast all over America SOMETIME and...it leads to a witness.

'

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[–] swanstep (2715) a month ago

Alternative Halloween Programming 2: The Substance. This film made a big splash at Cannes and I've been quite hyped up for it. Unfortunately, I find myself agreeing with the minority of critics who weren't that impressed (Dana Stevens at slate's review captured my initial feelings almost exactly).

The Substance is deeply indebted to things like Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) and The Thing (1982) and Requiem for a Dream (2000) as Demi Moore uses the titular goo to give birth to a 20-something version of herself (a prosthetically-enhanced Margaret Qualley) with whom she shares a consciousness on an alternating-weeks-in-each-body basis. Hijnks ensue as the consciousness in the in-demand Qualley body starts to cheat to get more time. The film's very earnest for the first 90 minutes but then some curious comic and fable tones start to predominate that made the film remind me of certain gross-out episodes of South Park and also of Peter Jackson's puppet film Meet The Feebles. The comic tones were accentuated by the film's use of both 2001 and Vertigo soundtrack pieces for strictly comic effect in the film's final Act. Writer/director Fargeat is clearly a talent but The Substance missed the mark for me. Subsequent viewings may redeem The Sub., after all The Fly and The Thing had to grow on me. But first time through The Sub. it had a clunky repetitiveness and obviousness and unresolved tone issues galore that killed it for me. A 6 out of 10 for me then.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

Alternative Halloween Programming 2: The Substance. This film made a big splash at Cannes and I've been quite hyped up for it. Unfortunately, I find myself agreeing with the minority of critics who weren't that impressed (Dana Stevens at slate's review captured my initial feelings almost exactly).

---

I'll take a look at that, though as I recall, Slate's gone paywall and I can't always get through. Too bad -- I used to read Dana Stevens reviews regularly. The funniest thing though: the poor woman get tired of Marvel movies after reviewing like, five of them ("Will this never END?" was her theme) and she didn't realize that 100 more were coming (We are in Marvel Phase 6, now?)

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The Substance is deeply indebted to things like Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) and The Thing (1982) and Requiem for a Dream

---

On the one hand, I react in initial revulsion to the term "body horror" (which usually has more to do with gross-out nausea than terror) and yet...well doggone it: The Thing was high on my list of favorite movies of 1982 and The Fly is a "wobbler" (alongside Ferris Bueller's Day Off) for my favorite of 1986.

About which. My own system of "personal movie favorite per year" often intrigues me with regard to the issue of some years, there is DEFINITELY and completely and indubitablly "that one movie that got me good," and OTHER years in which I struggle to decide on even one.

In the 80's, the final three years -- final three summers actually -- ran a perfect one-two-three run of big budget action thrillers with character: The Untouchables(1987), Die Hard(1988) and Batman (1989.) I recall that I did things in the 11 months between each of those movies but -- they are all jammed together now, a Big Three to finish out the decade.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

But 1986? I chose The Fly at the end of the year because I was intrigued by the "new take on old material" (our scientist does NOT, this time as in 1958, end up with a giant fly's head on a human body or a tiny human head on a fly's body -- rather he slowly deterioriates into a "goo creature" with characteristics OF a fly.)

I liked The Fly for its early "normal" sexual appetites (the on-screen affair between tall rangy Jeff Goldblum and tall, rangy Geena Davis became a REAL relationship), its movement into a truly tragic love story -- and the grossout "body horror" movie it became along the way -- as when Goldblum almost killed a male rival by VOMITING on his body parts (hand and foot as I recall, nothing more sensitive) on and dissolving them. the whole thing ended like a mix of "Terms of Endearment" and "The Thing" (compliments of David Cronenberg, director)

I do remember going to see "The Fly 2" (in those days, I just saw whatever came out, week to week) and I think the fly creature's killing abilities(and it was no longer Jeff Goldblum) DID go for more vulnerable parts -- the head?

Anyway, I put The Fly in as my 1986 favorite because I didn't really go for anything else that year. But I've never really watched The Fly since then, and ALSO since then, I've seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off a time or two and I decided: if I wanna pick ONE John Hughes movie of the 90s to salute, that one's it -- even as I find Ferris to be a pretty damn entitled and indulgent rich kid teen.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

Truth be told, one John Hughes production - that he actually directed -- is more of a favorite to me than Ferris Bueller and its: "Uncle Buck" (1989), with John Candy at full force as the star(not in support as in Splash, nor in a cameo as in Home Alone, nor having to share the movie as with Steve Martin in Planes Trains and Automobiles)....but the STAR.

He's funny , he's charismatic, the two little kids he has to baby sit are adorable, and one of them is Macauley Culkin just a year before Home Alone. (The older kid -- a teenage daughter played in full hateful dudgeon by Jean Louisa Kelly in a series of snobbish eyebrow raises and sideliong glances -- drives the conflict action.) A lotta funny stuff (for adults) in Uncle Buck and for some of us guys -- less the poundage -- a real identification figure IN Uncle Buck.

So broken down:

1986

Number One: Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Number Two: The Fly

1989

Number One: Batman
Number Two: Uncle Buck

A "Psycho/The Fly Connection": both The Fly remake and Psycho III came out in 1986, and a young screenwriter named Charles Edward Pogue got his name on the scripts of both: he co-wrote The Fly with David Cronenberg, and the Psycho III credit was his all alone.

And, well -- "The Fly" was seen as a very great horror entertainment, and Psycho III was seen by SOME(me included) as the best of the three Psycho sequels. (I just finished Psycho II the other day and WOW do I hate that one.)

I recall that -- rare for a screenwriter -- Charles Edward Pogue actually got a short People magazine article IN 1986 extolling his "double team" horror success via two 80s follow ups to horror of the 50s/60s cusp. The Fly and Psycho III were fairly big deals in 1986....especially The Fly.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

The Substance is deeply indebted to things like Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) and The Thing (1982) and Requiem for a Dream (2000) as Demi Moore uses the titular goo to give birth to a 20-something version of herself (a prosthetically-enhanced Margaret Qualley)

---

"Prosthetically-enhanced" Margaret Qualley -- by which you mean they give her big breasts? I recall her as rather the skinny little thing as the crazy Manson girl in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

--

with whom she shares a consciousness on an alternating-weeks-in-each-body basis. Hijnks ensue as the consciousness in the in-demand Qualley body starts to cheat to get more time.

--

Hijincks ensue. Ha. I think I understand the premise and yet...maybe not. I guess I'll just have to see it.

I do understand that both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley get nude to play some of this. I trust I'm not too much in alignment with my decades-younger male peers here to salute that. But on a higher plane(HA), Ms. Moore has prided herself on a certain fitness well into middle age, and Miss Qualley has been establishing herself as an important young actress if only via the projects she lands.

Briefly on Miss Qualley: she's a Hollywood nepo baby of which I say "so what?" and of which I further say that her model-actress mother Andie MacDowell, never seemed that skilled to me(and was one of the worst SNL hosts ever, I REMEMBER that) but, more to the point:

Miss Qualley some time ago became Mrs. Jack Antonoff. He's a record producer with close ties to Taylor Swift, which means Qualley married into some real wealth and power and thus becomes one of those actresses who is literally bigger than the movies she works in. (Tay Tay came to the wedding.) For now.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

Same: I saw Salma Hayek last week promoting some new movie, and using her married name: Salma Hayek Pinault. "Its about time!" some might say given that Mr. Pinault is a "French multi-billionaire." Will Salma be using this as her billing name too? I dunno. I DO know this: some years ago Hayek(Pinault?) starred in and co-produced "Frida," about a famous Marxist artist who bedded(among others) Leon Trotsky. Which adds Ms. Hayek Pinault to that interesting list of Hollywood folk who talk good Marx and marry good Billions. The world is a sweetly contradictory place.

But I digress. Handsomely.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

The film's very earnest for the first 90 minutes but then some curious comic and fable tones start to predominate that made the film remind me of certain gross-out episodes of South Park

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There's that phrase again: gross-out. Sometimes I can take it(The Thing, The Fly)...sometimes...not.

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and also of Peter Jackson's puppet film Meet The Feebles.

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Hmm. Good reference. I have to go look that up.

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The comic tones were accentuated by the film's use of both 2001 and Vertigo soundtrack pieces for strictly comic effect in the film's final Act.

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Note in passing: the (great) Herrmann soundtrack of Vertigo -- particularly its Tristan/Isolde-like love theme(when Stewart kisses the reborn Madeleine) and sometimes its vertiginous opening credits theme -- has been getting a workout over the decades: Twelve Monkeys, The Artist, now this. Its giving the Psycho music a run for its money.

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Writer/director Fargeat is clearly a talent

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Then we shall watch for her

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but The Substance missed the mark for me. Subsequent viewings may redeem The Sub., after all The Fly and The Thing had to grow on me.

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Hmm. I liked The Thing and The Fly right out of the gate -- I liked The Thing better than what it was copycatting(Alien.) As for "The Fly," the new one kept the great concept but rejected the clunky pay off of giant fly head on human body. (That said, the film's climactic attack by a spider on that tiny fly man screeching "hellllp me." is pretty shocking for 1958. Actors Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall(Foreign Correspondent) evidently couldn't help laughing through take after take of the scene where they had to stare at the little fly-man in the web.

--

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

But first time through The Sub. it had a clunky repetitiveness and obviousness and unresolved tone issues galore that killed it for me. A 6 out of 10 for me then.

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You're a tough critical taskmaster, swanstep. Me , I loved The Magnificent Seven remake of 2016 and it never got more than a two-star review anywhere.

PS. Demi Moore has acheived somewhat of a career comeback and has demonstrated how a really, really , REALLY good ex-wife can be: helping care for her so sadly reduced ex Bruce Willis while bonding with their daughters more closely and -- starting to emerge a little bit as "the one who tried to reigh in" another ex-husband; Ashton Kutcher -- who seems to be getting too close to the fire of the sex scandals of his 70s Show co-star(off to prison for rape) and P. Diddy(a party friend.) Ms Moore is a calming influence, it seems, on her exes -- and back in movies in a big way.

She was GREAT in pretty much the only female role of significance in the GREAT movie "Margin Call" of 2011. Recommended.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 21 days ago

1986 is one of those years when *my* official best picture goes to something I didn't see until later, at least March 1987: Lynch's Blue Velvet. Other things I rate highly: The Fly, Aliens, Decline of the American Empire, The Singing Detective, Stand By Me, The Mission (with its remarkable Morricone score). The Singing Detective is notable because it was a prestige TV miniseries, one of the greatest ever that got reviewed as if it was a movie-level event. Incredibly, all its episodes are watchable on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI10_bFyqig&list=PLxyYxI-hs0bAilZC2ol8OLYDxp4WNPXno&index=128&pp=gAQBiAQB

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

1986 is one of those years when *my* official best picture goes to something I didn't see until later, at least March 1987: Lynch's Blue Velvet.

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Yes, I saw that in 1987 as well -- on a rental VHS tape (remember those) -- and while it has my respect, it doesn't have my love.

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Other things I rate highly: The Fly, Aliens, Decline of the American Empire, The Singing Detective, Stand By Me, The Mission (with its remarkable Morricone score).

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Of that bunch, other than The Fly, I certainly found Aliens a great action film -- I was starting to figure out who this James Cameron guy was -- remember, this BIG budget Fox film was his first after the LOW budget Terminator -- it was that fast for him. And while I consider it (on quick memory) as the only TRULY major sequel to a major film other than Godfather II (The Psycho, Exorcist, and Jaws sequels need not apply).

Though even there I suppose "the mystery was over" we knew what the alien looked like -- now scores of them(favorite shot: someone looks over a celing grate and sees TWENTY of them crawling at him) -- we knew its gimmicks. It was still a sequel. Bill Paxon's "Game over, man!" became a catchphrase of every guy in my cirle for years after. Though Sigourney got the big catch phrase "Get away from her , you BITCH!" (And is my memory correct? Signourney spends all of the second film saving that girl and she is announced as dead in the third? SHAME ...on Mr. Fincher.)

The Singing Detective is notable because it was a prestige TV miniseries, one of the greatest ever that got reviewed as if it was a movie-level event.

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Read a lot about it, didn't watch it...plenty of time to catch up. (I just binged Northern Exposure this summer and its from almost 30 years ago.)

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Incredibly, all its episodes are watchable on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI10_bFyqig&list=PLxyYxI-hs0bAilZC2ol8OLYDxp4WNPXno&index=128&pp=gAQBiAQB

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Very good!

--

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[–] roger1 (3626) 21 days ago

I suppose I like The Untouchables, Die Hard, and Batman 1989 better than Aliens because I preferred human foes played by good actors, versus our heroes.

DeNiro's Al Capone and HIS gang vs Costner and Connery.

Alan Rickman(a "new discovery") and HIS gang vs Bruce Willis and his cop on the street.

Jack freakin' Nicholson as the Joker and HIS gang versus a surprisingly compelling Michael Keaton.

The "human factor" keeps movies exciting in a way that what Signourney Weaver called "all these rubber models for me to shoot" in Aliens was not.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Goth may be slightly in danger of becoming typecast for her dark/extreme/twisted performances. There's never been an actual female *star* with that kind of profile - maybe Jennifer Jason Leigh is the closest (Karen Black and Kim Stanley are a few others).

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Those strike me as apt comparisons. Kim Stanley's rather brief movie star career left her heralded(and in some quarters derided) as "the Female Brando of her time" -- the overemoting Method actress. I recall reading some article that included Stanley, Geraldine Page, and Julie Harris in that Method group -- the theme was "The ladies didn't hit as big as the men: Brando, Clift, Dean." I dunno. Maybe not as stars.

Hitchcock rather chose to work with Method actors in general and Actors Studio grads in particular rather than running away from them. He was brave that way. Examples include Montgomery Clift, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Balsam, and Paul Newman. I can't recall if Martin Landau was Actors Studio, but he was method. And some said that Anthony Perkins was method. Just a little, says I (He said he always asked to be forewarned for ten minutes before needing to come out of his trailer to play Norman Bates.)

IMDb says that Hitchcock asked the Grand Method Lady herself, Kim Stanley, to play Lila Crane in Psycho. Might have injected a big dose of Method power in the entire project. (Imagine Stanley in the hardware store with John Gavin and fellow Method Man Martin Balsam.) IMDb also says that Stanley turned down the part because she didn't want to work with Anthony Perkins. Hmm...some past slight? To my mind, I don't quite see the role of Lila Crane as having the "juice" to lure a big emoter like Kim Stanley in.

Mia Goth certainly does strike me as matching up with Kim Stanley and Karen Black and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh (another great "LEIGH" actress, huh?) as a type.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

Maybe the most likely thing for Goth is that she becomes the kind of avatar of cool, director-chasing art-house darling that Gainsbourg or her mother Jane Birkin has been. Isabelle Huppert's kind of arthouse stardom is the maximal possibility perhaps. If Goth wants a broader, more ordinary Hollywood star-type career than that then I suspect she's going to have to find some warmer parts - simpler, sunnier characters - that she can live with.

--

Well, some actors and actresses have "their personal taste" and are very willing to forego stardom (and bigger paychecks) in mainstream fare.

Example: (though she still gets paid pretty good.) I seem to remember Julianne Moore "deigning" to take a mainstream role in a mainstream "lawyers romantic comedy" opposite Pierce Brosnan.(OK, I looked it up : Laws of Attraction 2004) ...and...her intensity and Method-y acting style just didn't work in something that lightweight(I watched some of it on cable.)

Come to think of it, Julianne Moore's performance as...wait for it...LILA CRANE in Van Sant's Psycho was pretty much the performance that Kim Stanley might have given in the role.

Two points about Moore in Van Sant's Psycho:

ONE: She did it for a big paycheck -- to help allow her to take lower pay indie roles.
TWO: Once being paid the big bucks to play Lila -- she dissed the role("I have no role to play here") AND the story ("Why are we opening and closing drawers in this motel room?") So maybe Moore should stay out of mainstream stuff(ah, except for Jurassic Park 2 I suppose) and Mia Goth will be going that way, too.

I thought maybe thta Ty West was an amout of Mia Goth(hence his attempt to build her as a star) but it turns out she's married to the equally offbeat Shia LaBouef.

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[–] roger1 (3626) a month ago

bump

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