Tag Archives: 1990’s

#291- Lone Star

Quick recap: Everyone has daddy issues- a deputy, the owner of an historic bar, an officer in the Army. Practically the whole town could use some counseling.

daddy issues, both of them.

daddy issues, both of them.

Fun (?) fact: The movie playing when young Sam and Pilar are making out is Black Mama White Mama, a nod to Pilar’s secret heritage.

It's Bailey from Grey's Anatomy! She probably has daddy issues also, although it's never stated outright

It’s Bailey from Grey’s Anatomy! She probably has daddy issues as well, although it’s never stated outright

My thoughts: SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. 

I watched this movie almost a week ago and, except for the DVD skipping at the end, had a pretty uneventful time. I started writing my review the next night, as I am wont to do and as I looked up trivia, I noticed people discussing the ending and debating what happened. It was very obvious to me that the two main characters ended up together and everything was nicely tied up so what’s the controversy? That’s when I realized that the DVD skipped at the exact moment Sam revealed that he and his lover Pilar were Luke and Leia-ing it up as half brother and sister. And in the end decided ‘screw it!’ and stayed together. The lesson of this tale is that maybe it’s time for the DVD to die out. It makes me wonder how many critical scenes I have missed in the past due to a scratched disc.

So, weird French Film twist ending aside the movie was just ‘meh’ for me. The bulk of Lone Star is about Sam coming to terms with who his father, a police officer, really was. The town saw him as a saint but Sam only knew him as a person he clashed with in his teenage years and didn’t feel close to. There is one scene when young Sam and Pilar are at a drive-in and the police break into the car and separate the two of them. Grownup Sam uses this scene as a way to show how strict his father was, but knowing the ending that they are actually siblings, totally makes sense why he wouldn’t want them together. And then there’s this mystery about an evil, racist deputy that goes missing and Sam thinks his father may have killed him, which would prove he wasn’t such a good guy after all. But really, that proves nothing because the deputy in question murdered a lot of innocent people and needed to be stopped.

There were all these other characters in the town that had their own issues with family and everyone is of course connected somehow in the end. Most of the time I felt like I was watching a television season than a movie. Maybe that would’ve been a better format for this story because it just dragged on and on at times. There were a few revelations that I would label shocking, but I could see them rolled out as a season finale or something, not all thrown into one heap.

Final review: 2/5

Up next: The Graduate

 

 

Leave a comment

#290- Glengarry Glen Ross

Quick recap: Real estate agents race to close on deals anyway they can. First prize is a car, second prize is a set of steak knives and third prize is you’re fired.

Y'all got anymore of those good leads?

Y’all got anymore of those good leads?

Fun (?) fact: From IMDb, ‘Every since its release, this film has been used to train real life salesmen how to sell and how not to sell.’

I have a new appreciation for Gil now

I have a new appreciation for Gil now

My thoughts: From the millions of career choices out there, I think sales sounds like the absolute worst. You may say, ‘But, Mary, what about the person who has to clean out septic tanks?’ Yes, that job is gross, but it wouldn’t send me into a panic like sales. I worked at an H-E-B back in college and just offering the sale item as people checked out was enough for me to have a panic attack. And before that,I worked at a pizza place where I was always encouraged to ‘upsell’ by offering a large for just a few cents more. Did I do even that most simple task? Nope. Sales is the worst. Case closed.

That’s why I loved watching a movie about salespeople because they are so drastically different than my life. Every character in Glengarry Glen Ross is the worst. There is literally no one to root for by the end of the movie. They spend the entire film out-slimeballing each other and it is so fascinating to watch. It also helps that the cast is phenomenal- Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris and my favorite-Alec Baldwin, who I thought would be the villain, but who turned out to be a perfect motivational speaker. I’ve sat through sales pitches before and as frustrating as they are, now I can imagine the hoops they must be jumping through to get me to commit and what glorious prizes await if I just say yes (coffee’s for closers, you know).

I think what I loved most about the movie was that I kept thinking someone would snap and it just never happened. ‘Surely this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ I said over and over again, but the race to the bottom continued. And the best part is knowing that this was just one slice of a day for these real estate salespeople. How many times have they had these arguments? How many times have they conspired to steal leads? How many cars have been given away as incentives? It’s this perspective on the American Dream I can’t stop thinking about. It seems such a miserable existence and yet these guys live on it, thrive on it. And I’m so grateful I don’t have to do that for a living.

Final review: 5/5

Up next: Lone Star

Leave a comment

#280- Man Bites Dog

Quick recap: A documentary crew follows around a serial killer and it’s all fun and games until they are expected to help with the murders.

making the film crew a drink, like any proper serial killer host should do

making the film crew a drink, like any proper serial killer host should do

Fun (?) fact: Ben’s family (who played themselves in the film) knew nothing about the plot of the film, and his mother’s shock of seeing her son behind bars was real.

A very serial killer-y way to describe love, no?

A very serial killer-y way to describe love, no?

My thoughts:  Oh boy, was this movie dark! And disturbing. And hilarious. Obviously, I’m a little conflicted here. I’ve always been drawn to dark comedies but I never knew just how dark they could go until this list. The violence in Man Bites Dog is about as bad as it gets- murdering old ladies, children, and random innocent people. And the deaths are rather realistic too, which adds another layer I wasn’t fully prepared for. But the movie is also really funny. There is one scene where, right after Benoit kills an old woman, he wants to go out and celebrate. He invites the film crew, who, as if finally realizing they are hanging out with a serial killer, politely decline. It becomes this big awkward moment where they feel bad passing up the invitation and Benoit tries to play it off like it didn’t just hurt his feelings. It’s so human and yet he’s so evil.

What I really loved about this movie was how real it was, which is also coincidentally why I didn’t like it. Man Bites Dog is shot in a documentary style so while the audience is treated to many murders, we also get helpful tips about how to murder and how to hide bodies. I can see the why the filmmakers want to continue shadowing Benoit, even at the risk of their crew. A sound guy is killed during a scuffle and Rémy, the director, dedicates the film to him. But then another guy is accidentally killed later on and it becomes a situation like the interns in Welcome to Night Vale, where we all know no one is going to survive this, so don’t get too attached. By far, the most disturbing scene was the rape sequence when the film crew gets drunk with Benoit and ends up breaking into a couple’s home. They all have their way with the woman and the next morning,wake up well rested among the dead bodies. It made me sick to watch, which surprised me because I’ve seen so many disturbing things on the list. Apparently, in real life, the actors were disturbed by the scene too and the woman being raped felt the need to comfort them so they could do the scene.

Final review: Screw it. 4/5. I’d watch this again, but with someone who has never seen it to see their reaction

Up next: HORRORFEST

 

Leave a comment

#272- Happiness

Quick recap: Netflix says this is a movie about a dysfunctional family but I beg to differ. . These people are the most awful and miserable I have encountered in this list and that’s saying something, considering I have watched Downfall.

pshhappinessh2014jpg-887138_610w

Kind of odd, but I used to have a thing for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Glad that’s been cured!

Fun (?) fact: Many well known actors refused to play the part of Bill, who is a pedophile. It didn’t bother Dylan Baker, however, who claims his career never suffered and he moved on easily from the role. Who is that, you might ask? Exactly.

happiness001

How about a lovely scene with Jon Lovitz, who is apparently posing on the same couch my mom had for over 30 years.

My thoughts: When a movie goes with something as bold a title as Happiness, I knew it would be anything but. And considering how rough the last few weeks have been, I wanted to wait until I was in a better state of mind before watching something so mind numbingly awful. I’ve seen some bad stuff on here, mind you (El Topo, Murmur of the Heart, The Tin Drum), but Happiness is on a whole other level of messed up.

One weird game I like to play when watching movies I’ve never heard of before is to think about what kind of person would list this film as one of their favorites. Because you know that somewhere, someone LOVES the hell out of Happiness and can probably quote it word for word. That concerns me, naturally, but I guess I can see the possibility in the kind of person who loves black comedies. And buddy, this is the blackest comedy there is. Unlike American Beauty where I could never figure out what the ultimate message was, this one was simple: The suburbs suck and the nuclear family is a myth. Heartwarming, no? Maybe not, but it makes the film much more tolerable to think of it as a farce, rather than a legitimate story.

So, what exactly is so bad about Happiness? I’m not really going to go into detail about it because I don’t want this blog to turn into ‘for mature audiences only’, but here’s a quick rundown on a few characters:

Allen- a sad sack of a man who has a crush on his next door neighbor but who also gets off calling random girls and saying super inappropriate things to them

Kristina- has a crush on Allen and when they finally go out (a rare moment of happiness for me because I felt sorry for her) reveals that she killed the doorman who raped her and cut his body into little pieces.

Helen- whom Allen has a crush on. She wrote a book about being raped as a child but that never happened and now she wants nothing more than for that to happen.

and finally Bill- a therapist who is a pedophile. He enjoys drugging his young son’s friends and raping them.

And to top it off, none of these people ever really learn a lesson, except maybe Kristina who was arrested. The movie ends with the family sitting around the dinner table and continuing their misery exactly as before. The only thing that surprised me as the credits rolled was how the movie didn’t just end with everyone killing themselves.

Final review: 2/5

Up next: Vinyl

 

Leave a comment