Here is a follow up list to my Top 10 Films. This post contains spoilers. :)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) and Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) are best friends but also rivals. Helen decides to take her fiance Dr. Ernest Menville (played by Bruce Willis) to meet Madeline before she marries him because Madeline has often stolen men from her in the past, and she wants to see if Ernest can pass the Madeline "test". The couple go to watch Madeline in her (terrible!) musical. Unfortunately for Helen, Ernest is completely smitten with Madeline and ends up marrying her instead, thereby confirming Helen's worst fears!
This sends Helen into a depressive, psychotic state and 7 years later she ends up in a mental hospital, fixated on how much she hates Madeline. She doesn't seem to be making any progress until something the doctor says causes her to have a breakthrough.
Another 7 years later, Madeline and Ernest are unhappily married. They live in a mansion in Beverly Hills but Madeline is having an affair with a much younger man and is fixated on her fading looks, while Ernest is an alcoholic who's gone from plastic surgeon to mortician. He often falls asleep in his own quarters. Madeline receives an invitation to a book launch of Helen's new book Forever Young and decides to go along and see what Helen's like now.
Before the party she goes to a beauty salon to have treatments, only to learn that it's too soon for any more. She starts to have a meltdown but is stopped by the owner who gives her a card for Lisl von Rhoman (Isabella Rosellini), who offers very exclusive beauty treatments. Madeline isn't interested.
However, things change after she and Ernest attend the party and discover that Helen is a lot thinner and more beautiful than she used to be and looks much younger than her age (50). Naturally, Madeline is horrified to see her looking fabulous and is further upset when she finds her young boyfriend Dakota with a younger woman. In desperation, she finds Lisl's card and goes to see her.
Lisl reveals that she has a potion that will not only make you look younger and more beautiful but also cause you to live forever. Madeline buys it (at a very high price) and is delighted with the results. Her joy doesn't last for long though, since when she returns home, she gets into a fight with Ernest and he pushes her down the stairs. She doesn't die but her body doesn't look or feel quite right....
Meanwhile, Helen has been forming a plan to kill Madeline. She visits Ernest in an attempt to persuade him to help her finish Madeline off and when she comes back to the house, she thinks Ernest has gone ahead with their plan. But then Madeline comes downstairs and shoots her. While Madeline and Ernest are making preparations to dispose of Helen's body, she gets up again and seems alright apart from a massive hole in her stomach! The two women realise that they've both taken the potion. After initially fighting, they change tack and decide to join forces to convince Ernest to join them, so that he can help patch them up forever. Will it work?
Clip from the film
This is a black comedy, weird but funny. One of my favourite bits is when Helen and Madeline are fighting after Helen's been shot. "You're a fraud, Helen, you're a walking lie and I can see right THROUGH you! Ha ha ha!"
Falling Down (1993)
On a very hot day in Los Angeles a man named William (played by Michael Douglas) is stuck in a traffic jam on his way to work. The heat combined with the traffic and the noise all around makes him suddenly snap and abandon the car to go "home".
Police detective Prendergast (Robert Duvall) who is about to begin his last day of work, happens to be in the traffic jam and helps a policeman move the car. He notes the registration D-FENS and later uses it as a nickname for William. D- Fens sets off through the city, with a plan of going to visit his estranged wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) and daughter Adele, since it's Adele's 6th birthday. Along the way he meets some annoying people who further enrage him, leading him to cause havoc.
One of his first victims is a Korean shopkeeper who pisses D-Fens off because he believes his prices are too high. D-Fens wrecks his shop and takes a baseball bat but pays for a Coke (at the price he wants to pay) before leaving. He then comes across some gang members who tell him he's on their land and has to pay a toll. D-Fens loses it and attacks them. They run away, leaving their bag of guns behind. Later they try to gun him down, but are very bad shots and end up injuring other people instead while completely missing D-Fens!
Deciding he's hungry, D-Fens goes to a burger place but is incensed when he's told that they only JUST stopped serving breakfast. He pulls a gun out and demands that the staff give him a breakfast, only to change his mind at the last minute and order a burger instead. His exceptional day continues with more escapades, including a visit to an army shop with an unpleasant racist and homophobic owner who has a secret Hitler room and spends far too much thinking about what certain men will do to him in prison (!), and an encounter with an angry old man, who objects to D-Fens walking across "his" golf course.
Prendergast is hot on his tail; he moved to desk work years ago after his wife was frightened something was going to happen to him (she hasn't been the same since their daughter died of cot death as a toddler), but he now returns to the streets in an effort to catch D-Fens. He discovers that William lost his job as a defence worker months ago and his ex has a restraining order against him, due to his unpredictable behaviour. Along with his former partner Sandra (Rachel Ticotin) he races against time to stop D-Fens before he catches up with Beth and Adele.
Whammy Burger scene
This is a good film, some parts funny, some parts sad. You can understand why D-Fens acts the way he does and some of the people he comes across do seem really annoying! I like Prendergast and Sandra. Sandra's current partner is really obnoxious!
U-Turn (1997)
Bobby (Sean Penn) is a drifter who is involved in some shady things. After getting himself in debt and losing some fingers because he can't afford to pay back Russian mafia boss Mr. Arkady (Valeriy/Valery Nikoleav), he goes on the run but his car breaks down and he ends up stuck in a small town in Arizona. The U-turn he makes shortly before breaking down turns out to be the worst decision of his life!
The trouble starts when Bobby meets an attractive young woman called Grace (Jennifer Lopez). He agrees to help her hang some new curtains at home. She leads him on but then they're interrupted by her much older husband Jake McKenna (Nick Nolte).
Bobby leaves but his luck really doesn't improve as he encounters the strange inhabitants of the town, including a homeless blind man (played by Jon Voight) and his dead dog, ditzy Jenny (Claire Danes) and her crazily jealous boyfriend Toby N. Tucker (Joaquin Phoenix), who is nicknamed "TNT" because he's "just like dynamite and when he goes off somebody gets hurt!" and mechanic Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton), who doesn't seem the sharpest tool in the box.
The weirdness continues when Jake offers Bobby money to kill Grace. He is unable to do it, since he's attracted to her and she tells him that if he kills Jake instead, they can both share the money he keeps hidden. Grace reveals that Jake was her stepfather and she thinks he killed her mother, who was found dead at the bottom of the cliffs. It turns out that their relationship is even more complicated!
After a series of bizarre incidents leave Bobby with no money to fix his car, no bus ticket and no money to buy another one, he decides to take either Grace or Jake's offer. But which one will he kill?
U-Turn is a really weird film but funny. Everyone double crosses each other and Bobby isn't the nicest of characters but you still hope he'll manage to get out of Superior.
Romy & Michele's High School Reunion (1997)
Fun loving party girls Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow, best known for the hit comedy series Friends) have been best friends since high school. Romy works for a car servicing company and Michele is currently unemployed. They live together, love fashion and like to go clubbing.
Romy meets old schoolmate Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofalo) at work one day. She's now a successful businesswoman after inventing quick burning paper for cigarettes. Heather tells Romy about their high school's 10-year reunion. Romy is enthusiastic to go but thinks they haven't been as successful since graduation as she would like. So, she sets out on a mission to help them lose weight, get boyfriends and get Michele a job.
She hopes to impress their former classmates, especially the popular, bitchy Christie Masters (Julia Campbell) and her friends who bullied them both at school (due to Romy's weight and Michele's back brace that she wore because of scoliosis), and Billy Christianson (Vincent Ventresca) Christie's boyfriend, who Romy was in love with. She's never forgotten being humiliated at their senior prom, when Christie led her to believe that Billy liked her back and he promised to dance with her but then left with Christie.
Sandy Frink (Alan Cumming), another old classmate of the girls, is also attending the reunion. He used to be a geeky boy who was desperately in love with Michele but she never paid much attention to him. Unbeknownst to Sandy, Heather was in love with him and was crushed when he hardly noticed her. In turn, Heather didn't have much time for Toby Walters (Camryn Manheim) and a mysterious cowboy (played by Justin Theroux) who used to torment her by throwing cigarette ends on the ground when she asked for a light!
However, things don't go as hoped, so in the end Romy decides that she and Michele will pretend to be successful businesswomen who invented "Post-its". Michele goes along with the plan but on the journey to the reunion in Arizona, she falls out with Romy. Can they keep up the lie and will their friendship be repaired?
Romy, Michele and Sandy's dance
I got this on video for my birthday (my 15th, I think). I now have it on DVD. It's a feel-good film, a bit silly but fun. I'm sure a lot of people love seeing Christie and the other bullies get their comeuppance! Romy and Michele already have a pretty good life by their own standards, even though it might not necessarily be other people's idea of "successful".
There's a sequel called Romy and Michele: In the Beginning but I've never seen it. It won't be the same because it's different actresses (Katherine Heigl as Romy and Alexandra Breckenridge as Michele) but I might watch it sometime.
Rita, Sue and Bob Too! (1987)
Schoolgirls Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes) are best friends. Rita lives with her brothers and mum (I couldn't remember seeing her mum but someone on IMDB pointed out that she's in one scene) in a council house and Sue lives with her mum and alcoholic dad in a flat.
One night they go to babysit for couple Bob (played by George Costigan) and Michelle (Lesley Sharp) who are a bit more "middle class" and end up both having an affair with Bob! He gives them a lift home after they've been babysitting and takes them up on the moors for a "jump"!
Michelle is already suspicious of Bob's relationship with the girls, since Bob has cheated on her before. She eventually finds out about the affair and leaves with the kids. Rita moves in with Bob since she's pregnant.
Meanwhile Sue has moved in with her Pakistani boyfriend Aslam (played by Goodness Gracious Me actor Kulvinder Ghir) but things go downhill when Aslam becomes possessive and hits Sue. The threesome started off as a bit of fun but now things aren't same as they were before.
Note: This next section contains a spoiler about what happens at the end. :)
"We're having a gang bang!" lol. Rita, Sue and Bob Too! is a strange film, a comedy but with bleak moments too. It deals with serious issues such as domestic abuse and miscarriage but never gets too depressing. I also don't like the racism in it (the casual use of the word "P*ki" and Sue's dad ranting at Aslam) but I suppose it was reflective of the attitudes in Yorkshire (and maybe England generally) at the time.
One of my favourite bits is the confrontation scene, when Michelle rounds up Sue and Rita and has a go at Sue's parents about the girls' behaviour, watched by a mad man in another flat who keeps shouting! Rita is then rescued by her brothers' motorcycle gang, lol. The film ends on a lighter, funny note, with Rite and Sue deciding to share Bob like before!
Hope you enjoyed the list! :)
Comments
Post a Comment