Friday, July 20, 2007 Rant Archive
Having fallen asleep during the rape scene in the 2006 remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES, I thought I should at least give “2” a fair shake — especially after seeing the totally-wicked-awesome theatrical teaser trailer. I’d previously seen THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING with absolutely no expectations, so, I thought, how bad could this be?
Co-written by Wes and Jonathan Craven, HHE2’s cinematography manages to evoke the original HHE, THE HOUSE ON THE LEFT, TREMORS and even STARSHIP TROOPERS (military personnel that are a little too attractive).
The film stars … well, no one really, but they did at least manage to find a couple of big dudes (Michael Bailey Smith and Derek Mears) who look like they could be the offspring of the actor Michael Berryman, the monster mutant in Wes Craven’s original HHE; the pair are used to excellent effect. The rest of the cast consists of no-name, hopeful up-and-comers, which made me realize that even ALIEN VS. PREDATOR actually had some names in it (Lance Henriksen, Ewen Bremner from TRAINSPOTTING and Tommy Flanagan from GLADIATOR).
As a simple tragic romance, FACTORY GIRL may be appealing. As a moving character study of Andy Warhol and his eccentric entourage, it is not.
If this movie had tried to be a little less self-important, it could have been very, very good. Instead, the filmmakers seemed content to bat heavy issues around without really confronting them. FACTORY GIRL tells the story of Andy Warhol protégée Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller) and her tumultuous rise and fall in the mid-1960s New York hipster/art scene.
Sedgwick gained attention for being very pretty and starring in a number of Warhol’s very bad movies. Sedgwick and Warhol (Guy Pearce) had what could have been a romance, had he been interested in women, and if she hadn’t been brutalized by men. Instead, they built a relationship on appearances, affectations and possibly a genuine affection based on their inability to emotionally connect with anyone else. In this movie, they save their most intimate of conversations for the phone.
The story is essentially a love triangle, as soon as Bob Dylan is added to the cast of vaguely-disguised celebrity/characters that haunted this particular time. The movie wants to create this tension on a deeper lever, making Edie the tug rope between the shallow, ironic, disaffected pop art of Warhol and the earnest, issue-tackling, counterculture prophet that is Dylan. This would be great if the movie was at all concerned with the art of either man.
This week, one HouseGuest has to wear a red unitard for seven straight days. She’s like a dim-witted Bond villain. How do I know she’s a villain? Because she stole my heart.
My girl Jen may be as dumb as a box of rocks, but she can be my mob enforcer any day of the week. As Head of Household, she made the rounds to the other HouseGuests when the Golden Power of Veto was about to be played for, and told them not to try too hard, because she wanted her nominations to stand. When she confronted Amber, Jen said that if Amber won and used the veto to take down either Daniele or Evel Dick, she would immediately put up Amber’s closest ally, Dustin. (He happened to be standing right there.) Jen made sure to throw in a “No offense” to him. It was brutal and cold and made me tingly.
But, before I go on and on about Jen, or we get to the Veto competition, here’s a quick game: Two HouseGuests are having a quiet moment away from the action; one is a 6-foot plus, muscle-bound ex-pro football player, and the other is a waif-like 20-year-old girl with absentee daddy issues. Now, which of these two says the following in a sadly desperate, estrogen-soaked attempt to get any attention from the other...? “Like, please don’t tell anyone, this is my alliance (names three HouseGuests) … and … I’m gonna cry … I didn’t expect to like feel like this … about someone in this game.” If you guessed that this was Nick, blowing up his alliance and crying for a girl who has a boyfriend, then you win.