June 4, 2003

I was supposed to have written a best remakes column to tie in with The Italian Job. However, I've been kicking this list around for a while and while the remakes column will get written, catfights are just a more fun topic. Some of the less fan-oriented BOP staff have rather pointedly noted that I could have written a much shorter and easier column on the topic of Charlize movies that don't suck. Instead I would rather choose to take the high road(?) of catfights.

Death Becomes Her:
Meryl Streep vs. Goldie Hawn

Undercover Brother:
Aunjanue Ellis vs. Denise Richards

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
Michelle Yeoh vs. Ziyi Zhang

To Catch a Thief:
Grace Kelly vs. Brigitte Auber

The film finds Grace Kelly's socialite Frances Stevens and Brigitte Auber's overtly sexual and impetuous Danielle Foussard fighting over the same man, Cary Grant's John "The Cat" Robie. The two ladies meet at a sunbathing platform in the ocean and proceed to trade barbs while Robie uncomfortably watches on.

With the whip-smart dialogue one would expect from a Hitchcock film, the women both get in their fair share of jabs with Foussard winning the battle. Her assault on her competitor's age is brutal. "Why not get a younger model? It will run faster and last longer." Of course, Stevens wins the war as she is the one who winds up kissing The Cat beneath the fireworks of a beautiful night on the French Riviera.

2 Days in the Valley:
Teri Hatcher vs. Charlize Theron

Keith wrote with the rather appropriate question: (The below contains possible spoilers, if there is such a thing for a nearly 15 year old movie)

Why all the love for "Heathers"? Reading once again BOPs effusive praise for Heathers in your column of black comedies leaves me to think y'all haven't thought about how much of a cop-out its ending is. Sure, this was my favorite movie when I was in high school, but that was a long time ago, and now I feel that the movie didn't follow up on its wicked premise. Wouldn't the movie be even more deliciously, bitingly bleak if it actually took the story to its logical conclusion? Shouldn't the filmmakers have blown up the school, instead of chickening out in its third act? I dunno, but the ending feels like such a disappointment now, like director Michael Lehmann didn't have the nerve to go all the way.

I will admit that my initial reaction when seeing the initial question as the e-mail header was one of "What? This is clearly a clueless soul that needs to be enlightened."

However the expanded question shows an above average familiarity as well as possible love for the movie. I actually agree with the criticism of the movie and the disappointing ending. However, I am a big enough fan of the movie that I haven't moved on (make whatever conclusions you want about the sadness of that statement) and it's still among my favorite films.

Further, I will even justify the choices made by the filmmakers (I don't think it was Lehmann's decision alone to go with the watered down ending that was filmed) as far as the ending. Yes, I've seen the movie enough times to acknowledge that it kind of loses steam toward the end which is probably due to heading toward the lesser ending. However, I also think that ending was a compromise needed in order to actually make the movie and get a release, even if the release was as small as the less than 1 million gross would indicate. Unfortunately, due to the real life events that have occurred since 1989 and the release of the movie, Heathers is probably a singular movie event that could have only been made and released when it was. After the mostly sugar coated Hughes films but before the headlines were filled with real life school violence.

Of course, in a less biased view, Keith's criticism is perfectly valid.

On a yes, it's a good film, but there's only so many spaces on the list: Dan wrote in that Grosse Pointe Blank is very deserving. Mea Culpa, you'd think that the film that I listed as my #1 John Cusack film could have received some type of mention so here it is.

Finally, in house, I received vigorous dissent that the black comedy was a recent genre: I would emphatically disagree with the notion that the black comedy has its genesis in the 1960's. There are all kinds of earlier examples, such as Marcel Carne's 1937 vegetarian serial killer flick "Drole de Drame", Lubitsch's 1942 comedy about the Nazis "To Be Or Not To Be", or the 1955 Brit comedy that the Coens are remaking "The Ladykillers".

There was also the nod that the Mel Brook's remake of "To Be or Not To Be" would be a worthy entrant to the list.

PS. About that alternate topic for this week: My list would go as follows: 2 Days in the Valley, Devil's Advocate (yes, I expect dissenting views on that one), That Thing You Do!, Cider House Rules and the Italian Job. I'd also mention Celebrity but only for Charlize's hypersensitive model sequences.