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Shelf Life: Carrie
Filed under: Fandom », Shelf Life »
In the previous two installments of "Shelf Life," we took a look at a couple of prominent Oscar winners that have been both canonized and churned up by the annals of history. Interestingly, both of them held up a lot better than we originally expected, primarily because of our own hazy memories of Titanic and American Beauty, but also because of the wealth of films their successes inspired in terms of characters, stories, styles and even spectacles. As such it seemed appropriate to go back and check out a movie that in no small way served as the foundation for literally countless imitators and rip-offs, potentially one of which, Jennifer's Body, opens this week. The film we're referring to, of course, is Brian De Palma's Carrie, and we recently rewatched this venerated horror classic to see if it's still as worthy of its classic status as it was when everyone and their insane, God-fearing mother decided to do their version of it.
Sundance Review: Adam
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Independent », New Releases », Theatrical Reviews », Festival Reports »
If I told you that Adam was about a man with Asperger syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism, you would instantly lose all interest in seeing it, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. If Fox Searchlight's marketers are smart, they'll keep a lid on that aspect of the film, because it's actually a humorously bittersweet story buoyed by likable performances, and not an oh-geez-here-comes-another-film-about-a-saintly-disabled-person movie.
The Adam in question, played by Hugh Dancy, is an electronic engineer whose current job has him working on a toy company's new talking doll. Adam's father has just died, leaving him alone in the spacious Manhattan apartment they once shared, with Harlan (Frankie Faison), a family friend, to keep an eye on him
Adam can mostly take care of himself, though. People with Asperger -- Aspies, as Adam calls them -- take things literally and have trouble knowing what other people are thinking, and they tend to misread facial expressions. Aside from that, they do OK. Adam is happiest when following a routine, and he gets particularly excited by astronomy. He doesn't seem much different from your average nerd.
The new tenant in his building is Beth (Rose Byrne), an elementary school teacher who is immediately fascinated by Adam's quirky personality, not realizing it's an actual mental disorder -- and after all, where is the line between "interesting" and "diagnosable"? Adam and Beth begin a tentative friendship and eventually a romance, though both are aware that such an arrangement will be difficult at best. Beth's father (Peter Gallagher), a corporate accountant who's just been indicted for shady bookkeeping, is adamantly anti-Adam for that reason.
Retro Cinema: Carrie
Filed under: Horror », United Artists », Retro Cinema »
In the spring of 1999, I had a unique experience. The Roxie Cinema (in San Francisco) was opening a brand-new print of Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976), which I suspect had been struck as a sort of apology for the now-forgotten The Rage: Carrie 2, released just a week before. I attended their press screening -- the very first unfurling of the new print -- but oddly enough, I was the only one to show up. Had the other critics already seen it? Or was there something else? The Roxie guys shrugged, asked if I'd like to go ahead, and I said yes. I sat in the middle, all by myself.
I've seen it again since then, and have become doubly convinced of its excellence. Along with The Untouchables (1987) and Mission: Impossible (1996) it was De Palma's biggest success and yet it's usually left out of diatribes calling De Palma a ripoff artist and a misogynist. Based on the first novel by Stephen King, Carrie uses virtually no Hitchcockian elements, and, actually, only about a half a dozen of De Palma's 28 feature films to date, do. Likewise, it's a fairly perceptive view, not of female sexuality in itself, but of the male fear of it. (And, more importantly, an awareness of this fear.) Moreover, both Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie received Oscar nominations for their performances, a justification for two strong female roles.
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