Fatal Attraction
Overall, I found this film pretty... okay. It wasn't particularly amazing but it wasn't bad either. I didn't really like it much, but then I didn't dislike it either. (I have no idea if that makes sense).
While Fatal Attraction is a very good example of some film theories put into practice (which, I will post something about later on) I had a few issues with some of the narrative events in the film:
1) Why would Dan (Michael Douglas) go after Alex (Glenn Close) in the first place? His wife is prettier than Alex, and Alex's hairline was just scary in the first scene we see her in.
2) The rabbit. That poor, poor rabbit. That was just plain mean! If Alex wanted to go hurt Dan or his wife, that's fair enough (well, not really, but it's a bit more understandable) but leave the rabbit alone! :( I was very sad when that poor defenceless rabbit got boiled. I hate it when bad things happen to animals in films/on TV.
3) Not so much a narrative event issue, but more a dress code type issue: why did they have to cut the little girl's hair like a boy's? At first I thought she was a boy :S
I thought it was very interesting how Alex was wearing white in the final scene, which is often a signifier of purity, when in terms of this film, Alex had totally lost it by this point and was going to kill Dan's wife (which, is clearly not a very 'pure' thing to do).
Memento
Memento was really great when it came to being innovative and making the film really different from most films, since it was a non-linear film. The idea/storyline itself was really good too. But, by the end of the film I was thoroughly confused. I suppose that's sort of the point, I guess they want you to wonder if Leonard/Lenny's wife is really alive or if Teddy's just saying that... with this film you could never really tell who was lying and who was actually telling the truth. Again, I guess that's the point, but I don't like it when that happens! I don't like being confused! I could follow the whole storyline fine, it was just the unanswered questions at the end that bothered me. But, if the creators of Memento were hoping to confuse the audience by the end, then well done to them, they managed it quite well...
Scream
Definitely my favourite out of the thrillers I've seen recently. It was a bit yuck at times (like the cat flap on the garage door thing... blegh) but also quite funny, which was something that I thought was cool. I liked how funny things were said at the times that should theoretically be the most tense/scary times. I thought it was interesting how they gave an indiciation of who the killer was fairly early on in the film, but then they made it seem as if Billy was falsely accused when he was in fact the killer. I also liked how Scream was almost a parody of most horror films, since it was all about the rules (or conventions). I did guess after a while that there must have been more than one killer, since some of the stuff seemed a bit too geographically impossible for there to only be one. I thought the casting of the film was pretty good too.
[And a similar note, here's a random/slightly irrelevant bit of information for you: Neve Campbell was in the ballet chorus of The Phantom of the Opera in Toronto when she was 15, which earns her some brownie points from me :P]
Also, according to Wikipedia:
- Scream is one of the most successful horror franchises of all time, rivaling classics Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Sreet, Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Alll together nationally grossing more than $293 million. In the US Scream grossed $103 million, Scream 2 $101 million, and Scream 3 $89 million.
- Altogether, the series used 90 gallons of fake blood. Scream used 50, Scream 2 used 30, and Scream 3 used 10.
So basically, Scream was my favourite, and Fatal Attraction and Memento were both alright.
On a different note, there's a new thriller called 'Rendition' coming out tomorrow. I think I might go see it at some point soonish. And it has Jake Gyllenhaal in it, which is always a plus. Hopefully during the half term I'll have time to watch a few thrillers :)
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