the quiet Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday that nears, it seemed only fitting that our minds turned to those films for which we are most unexpectedly grateful, those flops and duds, those bombs and turkeys rife with unintentional humor and renewed entertainment values. Now, we've pretty much stuck with the past decade or so with our picks; anything before that has either been done right by MST3K or is probably titled Showgirls.

With that said, please enjoy this Cinematical Seven responsibly, and do feel free to contribute your own personal favorite howlers of late in the comments below...

1. Twilight (2008)

Oh, dear God, I'm kidding. J/K!

Nina Deer's (Elisha Cuthbert) life is infused with sex. At school, she is attached at the hip to her best friend Michelle (Katy Mixon), a girl who is seemingly unable to talk about anyone without announcing that she wants to "f*ck him," or demanding that know if Nina thinks he wants to do the same to her. When not talking specifically about sex, Michelle wonders aloud about the genitalia of the boys in the area, specifically that of basketball star Connor (Shawn Ashmore) who, yes, she also wants to do. At home, meanwhile, it's clear that Nina is being sexually abused by her father, a fact that dominates virtually every moment of her life. With Michelle, she plays the part of the easily-shocked, virginal friend. With her father (a miscast Martin Donovan, looking uncomfortable and out of place), she's something else entirely, and finds herself deeply conflicted about their relationship. She knows she's being abused, and fantasizes in great detail about killing her father, both to punish him and free herself. On the other hand, though, she's profoundly aware of her sexual power over him, and takes secret, forbidden pleasure in the way he responds to her. Throw into this mix a mother (Edie Falco) who prefers the oblivion of painkillers to the reality of her own household and a newly-arrived deaf and dumb godchild (Dot, played by Camilla Belle), and you've got the The Quiet, a movie seething with unrealized potential.

Who doesn't love "a Lifetime movie on crack?" That's what Variety's David Rooney called The Quiet when he reviewed its Toronto screening last year and, though he clearly didn't mean it as a compliment, Sony Pictures Classics (showing reassuring faith in both Lifetime and crack) acquired North American distribution rights to the film last week.

The film is described as a "sexually charged dramedy," which stars Camilla Belle as a teenager who, in addition to being deaf, hasn't spoken since she was seven, when her mother died. Orphaned, she is sent to live with her godparents (played by Edie Falco and Martin Donovan) who turn out to be just as messed up as you might expect in Lifetime movies on crack: Drug use, infidelity, and cheerleader fetishes are just a few of the quirks on display. The whole thing sounds not unlike The Opposite of Sex to me -- I wonder what it is about Donovan that gets him cast in dark, sexually frank movies about teenage girls.

SPC already has the film set up for release in LA and NY at the end of August; they're surely hoping for box office success, something that Rooney says is totally dependent upon "Teens dumb enough to buy [the movie's premise] or adults stoned enough to find it funny." Yikes. Hey, a voice-over has been added (again with The Opposite of Sex) since he saw it -- will that help, David?