Reviews

In the tradition of "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" and "Shortbus," this film is about 3 heterosexual couples who get together for a partner-swapping evening, at the behest of Ted, a manipulative sociopath, played by the film's writer. Laura Silverman plays his wife, an obviously damaged woman whose dialog mostly consists of banalities. Gordon, a slightly charming alcoholic is played by Jordan Kessler, who also produced the film. He is initially partnered with Aimee-Lynn Chadwick's Rachel, the putative "hot chick" of the movie. Alan (Adam Busch) is the bespectacled intellectual paired up with Yasmine (Yasmine Jackson) despite the torch he carries for Rachel. The characters are by turns lovable & odious and things go desperately wrong when Ted pushes things too far.

Even though this film definitely has several laugh-out-loud moments, I don't think it is necessarily a comedy. The sexually explicit dialog highlights the misogyny, racism, homophobia, and anti-semitism that is pervasive in 30something white liberals of our day & age.

This a thought-provoking while not provocative film. The director treads the fine line between voyeurism & cinéma vérité very skillfully as he cuts away from certain characters at just the right moments, leaving us to wonder what happens while we aren't watching. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes a film that doesn't give easy answers.

Steven Weber wrote & starred in this eppy of of MOH & if you ask me, he should have stuck to acting. Dario Argento's direction here seems to be focused on gross-out shock moments & not providing us with a coherent narrative. I read on IMDb that this is based on a horror comic from the 70s, and it shows. The story opens with 2 cops eating Chinese food in a car under a bridge. One (Weber) steps out to relieve himself & spots a man with a cleaver dragging a bound woman down by the water. Just as the man is about to chop this woman up, Weber calls out for him to stop. The man replies, "you don't know what she is" and is about to return to his task when Weber shoots him. Turns out this woman (the eponymous Jenifer) has a gorgeous body but a terribly deformed face & animalistic tendencies, and the system throws her into an asylum. Our "hero" feels bad for her so he takes her home. His wife & stepson leave him when they discover Jenifer eating the family cat in the bathroom. Jenifer goes on to dismember & eat at least 3 more ppl by the time this hour is over, yet no one asks any questions. It seems not to bother Weber's character that this ugly woman is a murderous cannibal, since she's got a "nice rack" & likes to have lots & lots of sex with him (she's always on top, naturally). The end of this story is (predictably) the same as the beginning. If all you want is a lot of gore without any redeeming features, this is for you. I'm not familiar with Dario Argento, but after this, I'm not impressed.

***Warning Spoilers Ahead*** This movie just made me cringe, with its depiction of the "gay experience." I am not sure why this film got funding because the screenplay is a boring mess! All this SM nonsense feels very contrived & completely unnecessary, & the protagonist is the most pompous jerk I ever saw! His "closeted best friend's" death is completely stupid & pointless, I don't understand why anyone loves this smarmy punk, much less feels the need to kill himself over him. There is no point in the whole film where I like any of the characters, much less sympathize with them. This is the kind of movie that you rent so you can talk about how bad it was later.

Pretty much everyone knows the storyline, but for those who are sticklers about this sort of thing, ***SPOILERS*** I was all set to hate this new adaptation of my favorite Stephen King novel, but i have to say that I was actually very impressed with the new film. There is so much of the novel that Brian de Palma omits in his film that is covered in this new version, such as the hail of stones that happened when Carrie was a little girl, and the destructive walk Carrie takes through town, before stopping her mother's heart. In de Palma's film, Carrie telekinetically "crucifies" her mother (if you look at the crucifix in Carrie's closet, you will see that the Christ figure is in the same position that Piper Laurie is in at the end of the film), while the new film retains Carrie's stopping of her mother's heart. The only problem I have the new film is that in the novel, Carrie's mother delivers one final monologue prior to stabbing her daughter & having her heart stopped, then Carrie bleeds to death. In de Palma's film, Carrie's mother delivers (more-or-less) the same monologue, stabs her daughter & then is skewered by practically every knife in the kitchen.In this new version, the monologue is concpicuous in its absence, and Margaret White drowns Carrie in the bathtub. I wonder why the new director opted to eliminate this very important monologue. Did he feel Patricia Clarkson couldn't deliver it? But I digress. The new film ends with Sue Snell reviving Carrie & driving her to Florida. HUH? The new ending has obviously been tacked on to appease TV viewers. Though I personally think the world is a scarier place with Carrie in it, I don't feel it is appropriate to the story. And now a word about the acting: Good to Excellent, across the board. Kandyse McClure brings depth to Sue Snell, a character that was just too sweet to be true as portrayed by Amy Irving. This was a surprising piece of non-traditional casting. Rena Sofer played the Rita Desjardin that I read in the novel, not the "Miss Collins" that sweetness & light Betty Buckley portrayed. I loved it when Miss Desjardin cornered Tommy Ross at the Prom and told him to show Carrie nothing less than the time of her life, not to mention when she throws a bag full of tampons at those nasty girls in the locker room.

Emilie de Ravin's Chris Hargensen is even more venomous than Nancy Allen, yet somehow more human. She actually hesitates and has to be convinced to go through with her horrific joke. The actor who played Billy Nolan is not listed on IMDB (oddly, Jasmine Guy is credited as "Ruby Moore" and I never saw her once in the film), but he was truly chilling. John Travolta's Billy gives no hint of how evil the character is in the book. Tobias Mehler is much cuter than William Katt. That's about all I can say there. Patricia Clarkson's performance as Margaret White is quite good, although the character is written differently. Where Piper Laurie was positively fanatical, Clarkson seems almost nice in comparison. One thing de Palma kept from the novel that the new version omits is Margaret's tendency to scourge herself. Perhaps today's audiences wouldn't understand it, but I feel that sort of behavior is key to understanding Margaret. Angela Bettis is no Sissy Spacek, but today's Carrie is not yesterday's Carrie. Bettis' seizure-like "episodes" go a long way toward explaining why Carrie is (and always has been) an outcast. Bettis' shaking, her crossed eyes, etc. are a far cry from the wide-eyed Carrie that Spacek gave us.

Overall, I give this movie 8 out of 10.