On April 10, 1953, the horror film The House of Wax, starring Vincent Price, opens at New York’s Paramount Theater. Released by Warner Brothers, it was the first movie from a major motion-picture studio to be shot in 3-D #OnThisDay
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Hateration holleration, oddball selections:
MOTHERS' INSTINCT (2024): Peculiar drama-cum-thriller, set in 1960, starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway as suburban neighbors Alice and Celine, whose friendship is disrupted when Celine's young son Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) is killed in an accident. Afterward, Celine becomes unusually attached to Alice's son Theo (Eamon O'Connell), who was Max's best friend, which begins to make Alice very nervous. Does Celine mean Theo harm, or is Alice's guilt (she was watching Max at the time of his accident) making her paranoid? The way the plot plays out offers little tension and few surprises — it feels a little twist-deficient as a thriller, attempting to compensate with a surprisingly dark finale — and it doesn't offer a lot of motive for the eventual drastic escalations beyond "sometimes motherhood makes women crazy." Also, while one can see why Chastain and Hathaway were interested in these parts as actors, they both seem a little too old for their characters, and Anders Anielsen Lie and Josh Charles are both wasted as their respective husbands. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Early on, it seems like there's something between Alice and Celine, but the movie isn't interested in exploring or even acknowledging that. VERDICT: Grim and gloomy, but never very exciting, and it keeps flirting with the idea of making some kind of point about the sexual politics of its time that never gels.
THE POKER HOUSE (2008): Lori Petty made her directorial debut with this semi-autobiographical drama, scripted by David Alan Grier from Petty's story about an eventful and upsetting day in the life of a 14-year-old girl named Agnes (Jennifer Lawrence), growing up dirt poor in a rough, mostly Black neighborhood, where her mother Sarah (Selma Blair) turns tricks when her boyfriend/pimp Duval (Bokeem Woodbine) isn't running illegal poker games, leaving Agnes in loco parentis for her younger sisters (Chloë Grace Moretz and Sophi Bairley), who hang out at the local bar while Agnes is at school. The story takes some dark turns — it centers on Agnes being sexually assaulted by Duval — but because it's based on Petty's own life, it's never indulgently sordid, and, with the notable exception of Sarah, it has a lot of compassion for the people in Agnes' neighborhood, who are doing the best they can with almost nothing to work with. As a result, the film is heartfelt if not particularly polished. (Curiously, it was produced by prolific TV writer-producer Stephen J. Cannell, best known for detective and action shows including THE ROCKFORD FILES, THE A-TEAM, HUNTER, and SILK STALKINGS, with a score by TV perennial Mike Post.) CONTAINS LESBIANS? Nope. VERDICT: If you like Lori Petty and can handle the subject matter (CWs apply for sexual violence), it's worth a look.
THE RAINBOW (1989): Earnest but somewhat awkward Ken Russell dramatization of the last section of the 1915 D.H. Lawrence novel, set around the end of the 19th century, about a young woman from Derbyshire, Ursula Brangwen (Sammi Davis), who has affairs with both her swimming instructor Winifred (Amanda Donohue) and a young soldier named Anton (Paul McGann), while striving for financial, intellectual, and romantic freedom that her era doesn't offer or encourage, especially for women. It's sort of a prequel to Russell's 1969 adaptation of Lawrence's WOMEN IN LOVE, which follows Ursula and her sister Gudrun 20 years later. I have not read either novel, so I can't say how Russell's versions compare, but taken strictly on its own terms, THE RAINBOW feels like something director Stephanie Rothman might have made for Roger Corman in the '70s, with dollops of Second Wave feminist idealism in what often plays like an exploitation movie. The uneasiness of that mixture leaves no space to interrogate some troubling aspects of the plot, like Ursula's racist ideas about moving to India with Anton, or her violent outburst at a student in the school where she becomes a teacher. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Ursula is bisexual, and part of the plot deals with her relationship with Winifred. VERDICT: At the risk of undermining my literary bona fides, I thought it worked far better as an exploitation movie than a feminist drama.
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My husband is watching the Internet complain about the accuracy of the D&D movie and thinks it could all be circumvented by adding this notice to the opening credits:
This movie was made using house rules.
(I admire his optimism that this would end the arguments.)
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