Exactly Barry!!! I watched this film earlier this morning on Cinemax 2 and figured I wasn't going to like it at all, and I could not have been more wrong in my entire life. From beginning to end, my eyes were glued to the television, not knowing exactly what was going to happen(especially after a magnificent psychotic performance by Harvey Keitel)and it was rated PG , so I had to keep checking the rating to see if it was really PG and the worst part was thinking it was a cheap horror flick when I first ran into it, but the title of the movie felt reminiscent of an horror movie in the 70's.
It's really not hard to understand this movie, but there is debate about Kris Kristoffersons character, but its under the surface of all the things Alice told him, about her husband, his observation with the kid and in the scene of the truck leaking oil and the birthday party scene, it's easily interpeted to David or obviously interpeted the kid has no discipline whatsoever, so he takes charge(and in the beginning it also depicts the father was as lazy as the mother in all this as David blares Mott The Hoople and the neighbor is beating down the door, ol' dads in the bedroom reading the newspaper and mom only takes action when it is alerted), and takes charge he does and smacks the kid on the ass, oh come on, if he hit the kid in the face or took the guitar that the kid didnt put any effort into learning, but just carrying it around like some caddy on a golf course, that started the whole thing and beat the ever loving crap out of him, then in my book Kris Kristofferson makes Harvey Keitel look like an pretty swell guy that she should've married near the beginning of the movie. I'm not getting into the discipline of a child, I really care less what people do to their kids, since I have no power to stop them, but Kris Kristofferson as in what barryshaft put above is filling in that daddy role, Ellen Burstyns character always tried to please her first man, wash dishes, raise Tommy, clean the house, make meticulous dinners for her man, etc, etc ,etc.. There was nothing there that indicated she was an good mother, she had intelligence, she knew how to talk to her son in a condescending kind of way to the point she made him look at the big picture and understand , like the scene in the hotel room of how spoiled he is and wanting a suprise or hoping she got him something and she sits down and nearly cries about having to find an job as a singer and that money was not going to be rolling in just like that, out of an magicians top hat, there was no flowers, or bunny rabbit or one million dollars and in Tommys mind that was to be expected(hell, I wanted to slap the little *beep* too).
But overall it was an good movie, I didnt see Kris Kristofferson being an evil monster because he used good, healthy observations and found what was missing and what was never taught or discovered. At the end , or even before it , when she stops the car after Tommy just in my opinion goes over the edge with his annoyance and makes those weird fruity little faces, she stops the car and she kicks him out, makes him walk till he runs into Jody Foster(who for most of the movie I thought was a guy, but good lord did Jodie make a wonderful performance), who gets Tommy wasted with wine and then the story goes again....she realized she made an mistake, I dont even think Kris Kristofferson would've done that, he was just making Tommy find his inner talent and that not trying was not going to make his fingers magically play Jimi Hendrixs "Purple Haze" automatically. Alice knew tho deep down inside she had made a far worse mistake than David(at the time I thought who in the world would dump their child off like that and then you always have these mothers half the time by doing *beep* like that bitch and complain because their sons and daughters are missing) had made. So she knew, the next day in the diner, David walks in and she confronts Flo, what should I do, what should I do, what do I say to him....all that jazz, with that, she wanted him back, but Flo's gaudy talk with her made her solid and react in an more nonchalant way, to have him fight it and as he leaves the defeat of rejection settles in and it was either now and never and to be honest, that is an hard choice to make , if the ending was a sufficient style of everyday life or far fetched and hampered down to us, I'll never know, but it did act out like an real life, piece of life art film that I really love so much and then you have the fairy tale ending....I could see it happening though, in all honesty, since the restaurant gave me this feeling that everyone knew everyone, like a Cheers grease pit or something or maybe I just thought it justified the means and they belonged together like Bogie and Bacall and the kiss was just a reminder to me that it made perfect sense!!!
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