RARA-AVIS: Re: Wild Things

Kevin Smith (kvnsmith@colba.net)
Wed, 30 Sep 1998 00:00:35 -0500 Mark wrote:
>The shot of Bacon's, uh, bacon was completely gratuitous, there is
>absolutely no reason the scene's conversation had to take place in the
>bathroom, but this very sleaziness was so completely in keeping with the
>sleazy nature of the film in general that is was totally appropriate.
>As I have said before, Wild Things is one of the greatest cheesy, sleazy
>movies in recent memory. It is such nasty fun it is a pure pleasure,
>not even a guilty one.

Well, I just watched Wild Things, and I guess I blinked cos I didn't even
see Kev's bacon...I wasn't that impressed with the film, to tell the
truth...I think it was the almost complete lack of style in it. I must be
getting old, or something, but I didn't even find it that sleazy. I found
it all curiously flat. Great ideas, lots of plot twists and turns, good
cast, particularly Dillon, Bacon and Campbell, but imagine how good it
could have been with a bit of atmosphere, a bit of mystery, a bit of
ambiguity, maybe the hot sweaty feel of Body Heat, or the dark shadowy feel
of all those noir classics. This had about as much zing as a platter of
shrink-wrapped ground beef on a styrofoam tray at the grocer's. I guess one
man's brie is another man's cheddar.

I caught the rather-dark-for-TV Vengeance Unlimited tonight. Michael
Madsen's pretty good as a sorta psycho Equalizer who goes around righting
wrongs in exchange for favors. There's a lot of black humour in it, and the
plot was like those old Earl Stanley Gardner pulp stories, maybe not
always great art, but usually great fun. Actually, pretty nasty fun, come
to think of it. I think it could catch on, or at least get a bit of a cult
following, but evidently its regular time is eight o'clock, starting this
Thursday! This is definitely a ten o'clock (or 11:30 show). My guess is
they'll try to sweeten up the show, try to make Madsen some likable goofy
eccentric (instead of the sick puppy we all know he can play) or it'll just
bite the dust (which is the most likely scenario-isn't that when Friends is
on?). Did anyone else see it?

And I think it's great that Antonia has left the monastery, come out of the
closet, and enlightened us all on the mammarial preferences of all
lesbians...:-)

Kevin

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