Oh yes. It's terrible in ways both profound and choice, folks: the first turkey since Killing Me Softly, or maybe Equilibrium, that I think I'm going to be actively recommending to everyone I know. There will be Basic Instinct 2 DVD parties round our flat in three months' time, you just know there will. I don't want to spoil too many treats, but the movie is deliriously, off-the-wall bad in ways that only crazy-tawdry production-line sequels to already dire films can be: self-parodic from the off, cretinously illogical, and kitted out with unimprovably absurd performances. I'm not entirely sure when it was that Sharon Stone turned into a scowling waxwork, but she's got the job for life, as far as I'm concerned; David Morrissey, as the hot-shot psychologist being lured into her web, ages about 12 years trying to smuggle out his dialogue, and the gallery of supporting “characters” makes the average Mel Brooks film look like peak-period Eric Rohmer. It’s the kind of movie in which Charlotte Rampling, playing a lesbian shrink called Milena Gardosh, is unable to answer a crucial phone call because she’s plugged into a Hungarian-for-Beginners tape — swotting up on that family background, perhaps? — and indeed the kind of film in which every single character has a “past record” instead of, you know, a past. Pauses between lines are pregnant with embarrassment, mainly because we know another line’s coming, and it might just be even worse. (“Too many questions, too many answers, no one gets laid” — Stone’s problem with psychiatry, in a nutshell.) The Gherkin, becoming the de rigueur London landmark for filmmakers who have no idea what the hell they’re doing here (see also: Match Point, V for Vendetta) thrusts upwards into the City skyline and gets, about fifteen times, the biggest giggle for a phallic symbol since the climactic red lighthouse in In the Cut. “What happened?” asks Morrissey, entering the bedroom of a sleazy journo (“Urbane Magazine”) who’s been throttled by a bondage strap. Er, he slipped? And so on, and so on. I’m giving it its own grade twice, because it’s golden turkey, fortissimo terrible, and it shouldn’t be missed. FF
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Basic Instinct 2: Brisk Shag
Oh yes. It's terrible in ways both profound and choice, folks: the first turkey since Killing Me Softly, or maybe Equilibrium, that I think I'm going to be actively recommending to everyone I know. There will be Basic Instinct 2 DVD parties round our flat in three months' time, you just know there will. I don't want to spoil too many treats, but the movie is deliriously, off-the-wall bad in ways that only crazy-tawdry production-line sequels to already dire films can be: self-parodic from the off, cretinously illogical, and kitted out with unimprovably absurd performances. I'm not entirely sure when it was that Sharon Stone turned into a scowling waxwork, but she's got the job for life, as far as I'm concerned; David Morrissey, as the hot-shot psychologist being lured into her web, ages about 12 years trying to smuggle out his dialogue, and the gallery of supporting “characters” makes the average Mel Brooks film look like peak-period Eric Rohmer. It’s the kind of movie in which Charlotte Rampling, playing a lesbian shrink called Milena Gardosh, is unable to answer a crucial phone call because she’s plugged into a Hungarian-for-Beginners tape — swotting up on that family background, perhaps? — and indeed the kind of film in which every single character has a “past record” instead of, you know, a past. Pauses between lines are pregnant with embarrassment, mainly because we know another line’s coming, and it might just be even worse. (“Too many questions, too many answers, no one gets laid” — Stone’s problem with psychiatry, in a nutshell.) The Gherkin, becoming the de rigueur London landmark for filmmakers who have no idea what the hell they’re doing here (see also: Match Point, V for Vendetta) thrusts upwards into the City skyline and gets, about fifteen times, the biggest giggle for a phallic symbol since the climactic red lighthouse in In the Cut. “What happened?” asks Morrissey, entering the bedroom of a sleazy journo (“Urbane Magazine”) who’s been throttled by a bondage strap. Er, he slipped? And so on, and so on. I’m giving it its own grade twice, because it’s golden turkey, fortissimo terrible, and it shouldn’t be missed. FF
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4 comments:
I. can't. wait.
I can't believe I neglected to leave a comment and tell you how effin' brilliant this review is. I didn't even see the first BI until a couple of years ago, when I saw it with some good friends on TBS or TNT or some other channel where they had to white out the swearing and the sex, which makes the movie both very short and mighty incoherent. But the line "fuck like minks and have lots of babies" became "_____ like minks and have lots of babies," which was precious. There was just nothing in that space, so it sounded as though their plan was to like minks and procreate. Awesome.
I'm glad that this one will probably hit DVD right around the time our semester is ending...
Beautifully written. Found you through fabulosity comments.
Great bllog
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