A Movie to Catch In a Dead Week: The Week of November 27
This week, titles like U.S. Seals 2, Made, and Pootie Tang will be hitting the shelves of the local video store. In other words, not only will I not waste my time in reviewing these films, I advise you don't waste yours (or your precious money) on these titles. As an alternative, I recommend a few modern classics for viewing. Plus, at Blockbuster, they're cheaper than the new releases anyway!
Heavenly Creatures (1994) Pete Jackson will no doubt receive the red carpet treatment in Hollywood for helming the upcoming Lord of the Rings. But before he took on one of the most eagerly anticipated films ever made, he was an independent filmmaker directing low-budget films in New Zealand that are only now being discovered by the general public. My personal favorite, Meet the Feebles, is an X-rated spoof of "The Muppet Show", complete with huge animal puppets, ever body fluid imaginable, and lots of social commentary crammed into 90 minutes. It's a bizarre film that once seen is not easily forgotten and a hard one to top, but gore epics like Bad Taste and Dead-Alive have earned him a huge cult surrounding. Heavenly Creatures was a huge departure for him, a true-life drama with real actors, a modest budget, and relatively high production values.
The story of Pauline Rieper and Juliet Hulme is based on actual diary entries written by Pauline in the early 1950s. Pauline (Melanie Lynskey) is an introverted outcast at a New Zealand private school. Completely without friends, Pauline's world is brightened by the arrival of Juliet (Kate Winslet), an extroverted socialite who, despite her wealth and chipper personality, is also without friends. Pauline and Juliet base their friendship on their love for Mario Lanza, and soon become the best of friends. The two co-write a fantasy novel of lovely princesses, dashing knights, and multiple love triangles, and escape to their fantasy world whenever life becomes too much for them to handle. But this friendship becomes something more when the two girls simply cannot live without each other, bursting into tears and fits of rage when they are apart and convincing themselves one cannot live without the other. The possessive relationship hits its zenith when Pauline feels it is necessary for the two to dispose of her overbearing mother in order for the friends to escape to South Africa.
Jackson's direction of actors is a talent he was only able to establish with this film. Lead actresses Lynskey and Winslet are simply mesmerizing as the two young maniacs and neither actress has gone on to better work. Despite Winslet's Oscar nomination for Titanic (please, don't make me laugh), her work in Creatures was unjustly ignored by the Academy. Lynskey hasn't graduated to bigger and better roles as Winslet has, but she is just as sickeningly realistic. Encouraging the film's aura of disturbing realism is the fact that this is based on an actual true story! Juliet actually was revealed to have grown up to become mystery writer Anne Perry!! What a world.... Jackson's flair for wicked humor manages to weasel its way into the film, and it's a welcome presence in some of the darker scenes. The final coda before the credits will undoubtedly provoke a few nervous chuckles among mixed audiences. Some will laugh out loud, or at least Jackson's die-hard fans will (I did). Watching Creatures will leave you clutching the nearest object with tension and as the credits roll, you will pray that Jackson will not be bound to Hollywood productions following the (projected) success of LOTR.
Heavenly Creatures didn't do well at the box office, and became a sleeper on home video. A film brimming with Oscar-worthy performances and production values was snubbed by the Academy (who tossed it an Original Screenplay nomination) and every other major awards committee. The critics loved it, audiences didn't know what to make of it. It has found a healthy audience through home video, and might be considered one of few modern "cult classics". Join the cult and track this little gem down, you will not regret it. And you most certainly will not forget it.
Only available on VHS; would be located in the Drama or Sundance section of your video store; DVD due early 2002.
Switchblade Sisters (1975)
Jack Hill is one of the best directors of cult films. Directing films for Roger Corman's New World and James Nicholson's AIP (two major exploitation companies), Hill's films were geared for drive-in markets. They had to deliver sex and violence, and plenty of it to keep audiences interested and spending their long green. But Hill had a particular talent that not many other exploitation directors had: his films had intelligence. Hill's love for Shakespeare and flair for modern politics and social movements shone through the usual drive-in elements. He worked in every cult film subgenre, and all of his films are sterling examples of exploitation that works. Not only did it deliver for the audience with low intelligence who wanted tits and ass coupled with gory shoot-outs, it also appealed to the intelligent filmgoer who craved good story, fine acting, and social importance. Blaxploitation films like Coffy and Foxy Brown both featured elements of "Henry V" and tackled the womens' movement. The fact that Pam Grier (star of both) was a talented actress was not lost on anyone, which is why she made a big comeback with 1997's Jackie Brown. The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage were both above-average women-in-prison entries, ranking with Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat! as the best films in the genre! All three come highly recommended, smart and witty films packed with action and social commentary! 1964's Spider Baby commented on mental illness and reeked of sharp black humor. The Swinging Cheerleaders, despite its title, was not back-to-back sex scenes. In fact, in-between the three or four nude scenes, the film discussed womens' rights, politics interfering with sports, and women breaking from an unfair bimbo image. Switchblade Sisters was Hill's last (official) film before he retired to write novels. As with Hill's previous films he personally wrote and directed, it is a perfect mix of exploitation with intelligent filmmaking, in fact so good that Quentin Tarantino whisked it from obscurity into revival theatres for a 1995 re-release!
The Dagger Debs are the female counterparts of the Daggers, a tough gang who claim their high school and its surrounding neighborhood as their turf. The Debs are led by Lace (Robbie Lee), a child-like chick with a nasal voice, and her right-hand woman is Patch (Monica Gayle, who is excellent), a conniving schemer who is quite a master with a switchblade. Enter Maggie (Joanne Nail, a potential Charlie's Angel), the new girl in town who quickly works her way into the Debs by whipping Patch in a switchblade fight and showing her clout when harassed by a lesbian warden in a juvenile girls' home!! Maggie is raped by Lace's man Dominic, leading to tension between little Lace and sexy Maggie. And so starts "Othello" Jack Hill-style! A confrontation between the Daggers and a rival gang ends in death, distrust, betrayal, and back-stabbing. Throw in a militant black womens' gang led by Muff (Marlene Clark), a high school prostitution ring, and other surprise goodies and Switchblade Sisters packs more entertainment into 90 minutes than any action film Hollywood has made in years! Save for Speed, I haven't seen anything so wild, outrageous, or exciting in mainstream cinema that compares to Sisters.
The acting is below-average. The dialogue is laughable and cheesy. The exploitable elements seem dated today. But who the hell cares? If you're looking for entertainment, Sisters has it times ten! Starting with the credits (featuring a great rock song "Black Hearted Woman") through the Debs kicking the guys out of the gang and becoming the Jezebels to the showdown in the roller rink to the militant attack on the rival gang with tanks and guns and ending with a tense switchblade showdown, Sisters never lets up! The film is essentially "Othello" in a JD setting and with more interesting characters, and Patch makes an excellent Iago. Monica Gayle started out in hardcore pornography, then covered her tracks and proceeded to make a name for herself in drive-in films. She then promptly disappeared and is now selling real estate somewhere. Imagine buying your house from Patch!! While films like Exit Wounds, Driven, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and various other actioners plague the new release wall, you can get Switchblade Sisters for half the price and you get the much more entertainment for your dollar!
Switchblade Sisters, for some odd reason, died at the box office upon initial release. Its original title, The Jezebels, drew a substantial crowd, but re-released under the new title didn't do the same business. It then drifted into obscurity, appearing on a few video labels in the 1980s before Quentin Tarantino realized its potential cult classic appeal and arranged for a theatrical re-release in 1995. This theatrical revival did quite well, and even received semi-positive reviews from nationwide critics (sure, Roger Ebert gave it one star, but he didn't like Tarantino's re-release of the masterpiece The Beyond either!!). Miramax finally released the film on DVD and VHS under Tarantino's Rolling Thunder marquee, and it's been hitting Blockbusters ever since.
Available on DVD or VHS; would be located in the Action or Cult section of your video store.
Advance Reviews of VHS/DVD Street Date: November 20, 2001
				  THE GRINCH (2001) 
Director Ron Howard's career has been severely uneven. Grand Theft Auto was Howard's mainstream directorial debut and what a great film that is. Drive-in car chase films are usually a dime a dozen, but this and Eat My Dust (starring Howard) were good places for him to start branching out past from the 'Opie' stereotype. During the 80s, he churned out a healthy series of guilty pleasures that feature onto any Generation Xer's favorite films list. Willow, Splash, and Cocoon are all good enough films that have gained cult status in modern times. Then Howard became pedestrian and churned out rather mediocre dramas like The Paper, Far and Away, Backdraft, and Parenthood. Followed by his action phase, during which he directed Ransom and Apollo 13. None of these films are really great, save perhaps Parenthood and certain sequences of Ransom and Apollo 13.  EdTV was so bland that Howard really needed to save himself with a good film. The Grinch almost makes the cut, but suffers from too many modern updates and an uncomfortable aura of political correctness.
Jim Carrey is his plasticized best as The Grinch, who sees fit to make life miserable for the Whoville residents during Christmas. Celebrities appearing in extreme Whoville make-up include Molly Shannon as little Cindy Lou Who's mother, Jeffrey Tambor as the Mayor of Whoville, and Christine Baranski as Martha May Houvier, the woman who loves the Grinch (???!!!). Sir Anthony Hopkins narrates the goings-on (I have to say it, though, Sir Boris Karloff did a better job in the original).
Those familiar with the 1966 animated TV special of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (face it, who isn't?) will immediately notice very unwelcome changes to the original source material. Where the original cartoon was quite faithful to the original book, Howard's film instead veers off into ridiculous "childhood trauma" territory. The audience is perfectly content being unaware of the source from which the Grinch's anger stems, but writers Jeffrey Price and Peter Seamen ruin the film not even 30 minutes in by writing off the Grinch as a poor victim of childhood jeering while trying to woo a female classmate. The reason behind this addition to the story is unknown, but it doesn't make a lick of difference, the audience won't buy it. In addition, instead of being a grumpy outsider viewing Whoville from his mountaintop, the Grinch (for some reason unexplained) ventures into Whoville, pulling pranks, and actually participates in a Christmas contest (!). Comparisons between the two films is rather unnecessary, as Howard's version can be seen as a new take on the book instead of a remake of the original film. But this "new take" shouldn't even credit Dr. Seuss, as the majority of his material is chucked out the window. The "new stuff" doesn't cut it, and is only kept interesting by the masterful visuals created by production designer Michael Corenblith and art directors Lauren Polizzi & Dan Webster. This is a film that DVD would do justice to, the colors are sumptuous and well-photographed by Donald Peterman. As a visual piece, the film succeeds. There are some amusing and funny moments here and there, but save for Carrey's wonderfully over-the-top performance, The Grinch isn't a very enjoyable viewing.
Parents are advised that the PG rating is valid. The Grinch is pretty darn scary, even for me, so children under the age of 8 will most probably be even more disturbed.
--Casey Scott