| a |
"Eye of the Beholder", from
Johnny Web
Ashley Judd is a serial
murderer. Ewan MacGregor is a surveillance agent,
"The Eye", who sees her commit a murder
while he is working on a case. Instead of turning
her in, he starts to follow her full time. At
first we wonder if he is a mere voyeur, but it is
more than that. She meets a need in his life.
Many years earlier, he
lost his wife and his daughter. The wife took the
girl away. The girl woke up one day and had no
daddy. The thought of his missing daughter haunts
him continuously. He still buys her souvenirs.
She appears to him in physical form and they hold
down conversations. He has spent seven years this
way, brooding, and bereft of human contact except
through a computer screen. Clearly, by any
reasonable definition, he is mad.
The killer's (Judd)
psychological problems were generated by a single
incident in her childhood when, on Christmas Day
and without warning or explanation, her father
abandoned her in a dark alley and doomed her to a
life as an orphan, never understanding why it all
happened. As Ewan says to her, late in the film,
when they finally meet, "I'm a daddy looking
for a lost girl, and you're a lost girl looking
for a daddy".
So he spends the entire
film shadowing her through exotic and beautiful
locales, removing the evidence whenever she
commits a crime, causing a distraction or
creating an escape route whenever the law's noose
becomes too tight around her, protecting her when
she is in other danger, and even killing two men,
one of them an innocent and sympathetic character
killed out of jealousy. Judd is not really aware
of his presence, although she later acknowledges
that she must have had a guardian angel.
This movie generated
powerful extremes of opinion. IMDb viewers tended
to rate it very high or very low. Those who hated
it disparaged its incoherent structure, plot
holes, and ambiguous ending. Those who loved it
praised its sheer cinematic quality, its imagery,
and its acting. In a sense, both points of view
are justified. The director displays some
dazzling visuals of spectacular locales, and
continuously challenging minimalist explanation
shots that force your mind into the fray.
You know what I mean.
Two feet are seen under a bench in a train
station - between them appears a paper. You fill
in the blanks. That sort of thing.
Count me in the camp
that found it invigorating and fascinating. I get
tired of the same old formulae, and this one
follows no formula at all. If it sometimes makes
no sense, well, so be it. It's not necessary to
have all the details about everything and, after
all, we see much of the movie through The Eye's
P.O.V., and he's mad as a hatter anyway, so we're
going to see a skewed view. I don't think you're
supposed to think of it as a thriller, but as a
bizarre Electra love story between a madman and a
psychotic serial killer, so how much do you
expect to be able to relate to it?
In my mind, the weakness
of the film is that the characters are too aloof
from our involvement. MacGregor is a hopeless
dweeb to begin with, and we lose any empathy for
him when his jealous gunshots cause the death of
the blind man. Judd - well, she's cold,
unapproachable, and a serial killer, so it's not
like we're going to dig for her secret like we
would for Ilsa in Casablanca. After all, Ilsa
left our hero and made him bitter, but this lady
would have killed him and gutted him like a deer.
So we, the viewers, never get drawn into the
story in the way we would if there were a
sympathetic protagonist. We just watch it as an
intellectual exercise and as an exercise in
style. Not everyone will enjoy that, because the
movie experience is generally about the heart
more than the mind. So, I'll say I really liked
the film, but I can't recommend it because most
moviegoers hated it, and the vast majority of
critics also despised it, so there are great odds
against your liking it, no matter what I say.
Here's the Rotten Tomatoes page - their
summary: 3 positive reviews, 40 negative. The
domestic box office was an uninspiring 16
million, virtually none of it after the first
three weeks, because of poor reviews and poor
word-of-mouth.
Mark my words, director
Stephen Elliott ("Priscilla, Queen of the
Desert") will have a monster mainstream hit
someday. He's only 36, and he has talent up the
wazoo.
Director's commentary on
the DVD
Ashley Judd (or stand-in
Isabelle Gendron; impossible to tell in some
shots) (1,
2,
3,
4)
"American
Gigolo", from Johnny Web
For me this movie just
doesn't work. As a murder mystery, it is
slow-paced and sloppy. For example, i still don't
know what happened to Gere at the end? Did Hutton
lie to give him an alibi, or did she simply tell
the truth that she had previously agreed not to
reveal because her husband was a Senator? When
Gere heard the news, he reacted like she had
simply told the truth, but that can't be, because
in a previous scene Gere tested her by saying
something like "can you look at me and be
absolutely sure I am innocent?" That
question makes no sense if she was with him. So I
guess she lied, but it sure is convenient that
nobody else can refute her alibi with her real
whereabouts that night, since she wasn't really
with Gere.
Also, the explanation is
that gere has been framed for a murder committed
by another gigolo. But there is a slight problem.
The murder was accidental - the result of rough
sex games - so it wasn't premeditated and the
murderer didn't know it would happen. But Gere
was set up as a patsy two days BEFORE the murder
took place. How the hell did the murderer Gigolo
and his lover-pimp know that Gere would be
necessary if they didn't plan to kill anyone? As
I said, I'm still confused.
If the uninspiring plot
makes it a weak mystery, the lack of flesh also
makes it a loser as any kind of a turn-on. There
is almost no nudity in a movie about a Gigolo!
Well, unless you count Gere's usual exposure of
his well-worn pee-pee, which I presume you ain't
lookin'for. The only think I really liked in the
movie was Hector Elizondo as a cynical, real,
down-to-earth detective who is more than a bit
jealous of Gere's sexual conquests and lifestyle.
The obscure Michele Drake, who is in the Fun House for a
second straight day in two different movies by
the wildest of coincidences! Linda Horn Lauren Hutton. I guess it's really her chest
since the exposure is so modest and the pan up to
her face is smooth.
"Hide
and Seek", from Johnny Web
Daryl Hannah plays an
upper middle class woman trying to have a baby.
Jennifer Tilly and Vincent Gallo play a couple of
worker drones who decide to kidnap Hannah, fake
her death, and keep the baby for themselves
because they are childless and loony. Hannah
escapes a few times, they get her back, blah blah
blah.
It's an odd 1999 movie
that isn't even listed in IMDb. It keeps
vacillating from straight horror-thriller to
high-camp. Hannah's distraught husband, for
example, plays it totally straight, but Jennifer
Tilly goes for broad laughs with an over-the-top
character. For me, the inconsistency of the tone
was really distracting, and the resolution was
predictable. Hannah spends the entire movie in a
nightie and leg irons, but no flesh sneaks out.
Bare bones DVD, few
extras.
Hannah
"La
Grande Bouffe", from Tuna
Marco Ferreri is the
director, and he was one of the great
countercultural icons of the cultural revolution
in the late 60's and early 70's. He made such
iconoclastic films as Bye-Bye Monkey (In which
Depardieu talks with a whistle, has a pet chimp
who is eaten by rats, and makes love to ancient
Geraldine Page), and Tales of Ordinary Madness
(Charles Bukowski story in which Ben Gazzara
plays an alcoholic writer who has relations with
an underage girl, women who never bathe, fat
women, you name it, and some of the scenes quite
explicit). You may find both of these films in
the back issues.
Anyway, this is
Ferreri's masterpiece, I guess, and he's up to
his usual strange tricks here in this story of
four successful middle aged men who come together
to commit suicide by overeating. Of course,
before they get near death, there is plenty of
farting and shitting. I know it sounds like it
shoudl star Charlei Sheen and Dom Deluise, but it
isn't a grade-z gross-out comedy, but a serious
arthouse piece starring Marcello Mastroianni and
other distinguished performers, and if you're
into films you almost have to see it for the
shock value alone.
Well, luckily for us,
they decide to bring along some babes in the
adventure, and Tuna went above and beyond the
call of duty in capping this massive project.
Thanks again to Frodo for his assistance with
this one.
Tuna likes this movie
rather more than I, and I found that his defense
was quite eloquent: "It is definitely
bathroom humor, but with an all-star cast.
Several points make it worthy, in my opinion. The
acting is flawless, the set is intricate and the
images will be with me for a long time. The
literary allusions are obscure and mostly lost in
the translation, but must make it an intelligent
film for those who speak French. It does bother
me that they give no motivation for any of the
men to commit suicide. Seems odd that 4
successful people -- all friends -- should decide
to eat themselves to death.
Andrea is a fascinating
character, and made the film for me. She has
appetites, both sexual and gastronomic, that far
surpass any of the men, but is not
self-destructive. She is the only one of the
bunch that is giving by nature. The hookers and
the men are all self-serving. Maybe the message
is that you have to give great pleasure to
experience great pleasure."
Link to the IMDb user comments on
this movie, for other reflections and reactions. The top review is especially
literate and erudite, although I got lost in some
of his references. thumbnails thumbnails Andrea Ferreol (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14) Florence Giorgetti (1,
2,
3,
4,
5)
Monique Claumette (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9)
Solange Blondeau (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10, 11, 12)
|
a |
