With Halloween and the election over, and the world returning to normal (as much as is possible), we resumed movie night this week with an eclectic mix of features.
Movie #1: The Star (1952, with Bette Davis and Sterling Hayden)
Bette Davis is a bit older in this movie. Portraying a washed-up starlet whose aging has alienated her from the glittering Hollywood circles she used to move in, this movie follows our desperate leading lady through bankruptcy, family dramas, and finally being thrown in the drunk tank following a minor car accident brought on by intoxication. She’s subsequently bailed out by a former pool boy (Sterling Hayden) that she gave a break to in one of her earlier films. Joe (the former pool boy) tries to impress upon Margaret (our aging starlet) the futility of pursuing a career in Hollywood now and tries hard to make her see the merits of living a more “normal” life. Needless to say, our starlet’s ego can’t even comprehend that she’s unwanted in Hollywood. She’s flubs up a screen test by trying to play it young and sexy—in direct contradiction to the sullen old maid that’s required of the character. Naturally, she’s passed over and the favor provided by the gift of a screen test proves futile. This seems to bring about either a nervous breakdown or an epiphany….we couldn’t really tell which it was…very unclear.
Issues: 1. For one hour and 28 minutes, Bette Davis desperately parades herself around Hollywood practically begging for a movie. She is completely fueled by her ego and has deluded herself into thinking she’s not “aged out”. In the last 55 seconds of the movie, she gives all that up and runs to Joe with her long-lost daughter seeking family over fame. I don’t buy it. This was a cop-out to end the movie and was cooked up by some Neanderthal male sitting in a huge office wanting to reflect the “correct way for women to behave”. 2. We assumed from the movie’s intimations that Joe was supposed to be in love with Margaret. Well, other than seeing his wish to help someone who had once helped him and a fond remembrance for his crush as a very young man, we didn’t see any kind of chemistry between these two that would make anyone believe they were in love. At all. Huge problem in buying that they wanted to be a family and were in love.
Things We Loved: Bette Davis was made up as a very dowdy and old woman for her screen test. She then locked herself into a dressing room and redid her costume to reflect sex and youth. Our favorite—she TOTALLY did Joan Crawford hair & bangs!!! We think she did it to mock Joan—they were such rivals, you know….
Ratings: Jason 2; Kathy 2.5; Me…1.5 –I just had a really hard time buying what they were selling.
Movie #2: Sharktopus (2010, with Eric Roberts)
Okay—ever since we started “Movie Night”, Kathy has been insisting that we need to see this movie. She has talked about how awesome it is for two years. We have been trying repeatedly to catch it on streaming or as a DVD. Well, the wait was over. It finally came to us as a Netflix DVD. IT SUCKED! All that buildup---all that “foreplay”, and it was as bad as a gym-sock flavored ice cream cone. I was on my phone looking at Pinterest almost the entire movie, and Jason was just sitting there with his eyes glazed over. I think his brain actually stopped working for a bit due to the mind-numbing suck-ness of this movie. Most creature-features have horrible CGI—you come to expect it really—but this was just really, really bad. Really. Bad. Also, you didn’t give a flying donkey’s right ass-cheek if that stupid fish/octopus/metallic teeth-gnasher ate anybody or not. There was not one character to remotely be interested in much less want to root for. The thing Kathy loved about it was the Sharktopus could go on land… how the hell it could do that, no one knows. For one, it doesn’t have lungs, so how could it breathe indefinitely on land while attacking Mexican coastal resorts and eating burrito and tequila filled tourists? And two, it doesn’t have legs or feet. Just tentacles. How can you walk on tentacles? They don’t have bones.
We still maintain that The Swarm is the absolute worst movie of all time… but this is definitely the worst creature-feature ever. Eric Roberts really, really needed $62.43 so that he could get some groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. I’m sure Julia Roberts would decline to comment if I could ask her about it due to the embarrassment of having a relative actually film this. (Not that she’s all that great herself, but then…. she’s not in Sharktopus is she????)
Kathy---you lied. What the heck were you on when you saw this the first time that you fell in love with it so much???? I think you’d had a bit too much Miller Lite—you saw this through beer-goggles, didn’t you? That’s the only explanation….
Ratings: Jason 0.5; Kathy 1 (but she wants it known that she still loves the Sharktopus); Me….0.2 maybe
Well I did not lie - I liked it - it was horribly good. No beer goggles but just pure horrible fascination of the movie - it was my first creature feature you never forget your first.
ReplyDeleteLMAO!!!! This is the most hilarious review you've written so far!!! I was dying.
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