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| Marj |
 Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:02 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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I am, Joe.
Btw, I think I may be the only person here who loved The Black Dahlia. Wait, I think Marc did too. But we'll get to that .... |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:12 pm |
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I've mentioned this before. The producers, or whomever can do that kind of thing, butchered The Black Dahlia. BDP was very upset. I read the book and the movie was chopped up. There were some very good sequences but it was all over the place.
Ellroy (sp?) saw the movie when it was in the rushes and was very happy with it. When he saw the final product he said that he couldn't even figure it out and was very disappointed. So BDP's complaints were obviously well founded.
I didn't hate the film, but I was very disappointed. I was expecting another L.A. Confidential. James Ellroy is a favourite author of mine. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 10:48 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| I guess I'm not saying it right, the movie was offensive to me. I'm not sure I was personally offended. It's been so long since I've seen it, I can't provide specifics, sorry. All I know is whenever I hear the title or it's mentioned somewhere I get a major feeling of unease. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Thanks. That does clarify things a bit for me. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Marj wrote: I am, Joe.
Btw, I think I may be the only person here who loved The Black Dahlia. Wait, I think Marc did too. But we'll get to that ....
I should say I love the look of the movie. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| Marj |
| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:56 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Joe Vitus wrote: Thanks. That does clarify things a bit for me.
It does for me too!
So, is anyone else going to discuss Body Double? Anyone? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marj wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: Thanks. That does clarify things a bit for me.
It does for me too!
So, is anyone else going to discuss Body Double? Anyone?
I'm just about to start watching it. Hold your horses!  |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| I have no access to it. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| Marj |
| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:48 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: Marj wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: Thanks. That does clarify things a bit for me.
It does for me too!
So, is anyone else going to discuss Body Double? Anyone?
I'm just about to start watching it. Hold your horses!
Well, OK! LOL
I think Betsy is trying to get it from her library too. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 4:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Body Double. What's to say? It's one of the silliest movies I've ever seen. Which doesn't make it bad, exactly, just sort of a waste of time. The best thing about it is its sense of humor about itself. It really really doesn't take itself seriously, and that's refreshing. But when you invest yourself in a mystery and characters, you (this means I) don't appreciate having the rug pulled out from under you by the jokey, ironic tone of the movie. Except that without that tone there'd be very little to recommend it. Certainly not the very predictable plot, where the villain is so obvious he might as well be played by John Lithgow. Certainly not the Hitchcock riffs, which are in full swing and not all that great.
The best things about the movie are De Palma's use of Hollywood locations--the house, the Rodeo Drive shops, etc.--and some of the performances. Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith, and Dennis Franz all were very amusing. I'm not sorry I watched BD, but I did spend some time wondering why it existed at all. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 12:06 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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LOL Billy,
I guess if I had guessed the villain, I'd have been pretty disappointed too. Truth is, I didn't. And I like having the rug pulled out from under me.
I suppose I'm so tired of mysteries that follow the same old tired pattern that having the rug pulled out from under me was a relief. But as I said, it couldn't have been a fun experience if you knew the villain from the outset.
I know, I'd have been pissed. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 12:46 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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One problem with Obsession, Dressed To Kill and Body Double is that there are so few characters that it's not hard to figure out who the hidden villain must be. This is particularly true for Obsession, where I think it was a real flaw. D to K at least tries to throw the viewer off track by positing some as yet unknown "other" patient. Body Dub doesn't really offer up anyone else as the potential killer/villain.
I'm not big on trying to guess, preferring to see where a thriller leads and how it gets there. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 5:03 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| With Body Double the whole deal seemed like such an obvious set-up from the get-go anyway. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 2:21 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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| I can promise you that had I seen the set up from the beginning, I'd be feeling the same as you, Billy. I know it. |
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| Earl |
| Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:48 pm |
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Joined: 09 Jun 2004
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Location: Houston
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I loved the first hour or so of Body Double, but ended up merely liking the rest. So, overall I was happy with it. Of the movies we've screened so far on this thread, Body Double certainly contains some of the best looking locations and De Palma (as has been noted by others here) makes excellent use of them. It wasn't just that the locations looked great on their own, but De Palma utilized them in a way that fit in with the voyeurism theme.
The climactic sequence, though, became distractingly silly. The notion that Jake was telling a cop, "Hey, a woman is getting beaten and maybe killed in that vehicle right over there!" and the cop not only doesn't investigate it, which would have required him to walk only a few steps, but treats Jake as if he were a suspect, was ludicrous.
I got a kick out of a line of dialogue spoken by Melanie Griffith while the final credits are rolling. In the sequence we see the process of an actual body double being used in a movie scene. The female star, I suppose, didn't want to do nudity, or maybe she could act but didn't have the right body, so the body double with bigger, perkier breasts is brought in. Griffith says to the actress, "You're gonna get a lot dates when this movie comes out." Except, she's saying this to the actress, not the body double. And it was presumably the body double's physical attributes which prompted the comment. The fact that Griffith made the comment so matter-of-factly and the actress took it as such amused me a little. They had accepted the illusion (that the actress had a better body than she actually had), which they had helped to create, as reality. Or, more acurately, they had accepted that others would accept it as reality, so that made it real in a way to them. It's a theme De Palma seems to enjoy exploring. "What you see isn't really what you're seeing. Or maybe it is." |
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