I got home from work after midnight, and turned on the TV to unwind for a few minutes. I had left it on HBO, and as the screen warmed up I saw that a movie was just starting: Consenting Adults, from 1992, starring Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and directed by Alan J. Pakula, who has fallen from the mighty heights of All the President's Men and The Parallax View to stuff like The Pelican Brief and The Devil's Own.
Anyway, I had no idea of the film's plot, but decided to watch for a few minutes to see if it lived up to its late-night HBO slot and pseudo-sensual title, or at least had some violence or Casio scoring or something I love about '90s movies. I admit, I'm a sucker for the glossy junk movies of mainstream American cinema from the early to mid-'90s. How can I resist it? From lazy-eyed Forest Whitaker working a really bad Southern drawl to the predictable but inexplicable presence of Mastrantonio, who was in pretty much everything from 1989-1995, it's just too good/bad/good to pass up.
It took a hard left turn about half an hour in, though, as Spacey tried to convince Kline to swap wives, only to take advantage of Kline's insane lusts to set him up for murder. Turns out Spacey hired a lookalike for his wife to sleep with Kline, and then Spacey killed the lookalike and pinned it on Kline. Spacey then moves in on Mastrantonio, and Kline tries to fix things. He tracks down Spacey's non-dead wife, and in one of the film's dumber plot turns, they actually talk for a while before Spacey leaves her alone to get Louisville Sluggered to death by Spacey, who's been tracking them both.
Yada yada yada, Kline corners Spacey and Mastrantonio at Spacey's house and kills him. I had really hoped Mastrantonio would be in on the set-up, and that Kline would wind up dead at the house or dying in prison, but Pakula, a little too trusting of Mastrantonio's character, had a happier ending in mind.
Which brings me to this:
Am I the only one who thinks of Scott Bakula when I hear the name Alan Pakula? It's like I can't help but do it. When I see "Pakula," I don't think of movies, I think of Sam Beckett stuck in time. Weird.
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Los Angeles, California I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic. This Month
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Thursday, February 9
I Was Playing It So Loud The Whole Neighborhood Could Hear
by
Dan Carlson
on Thu 09 Feb 2006 04:04 PM PST
I've decided to start a band. Probably just straightforward indie pop but with hints of steel guitar. Currently accepting applications for the following positions:
Lead guitar Rhythm guitar Bass Drums Keyboards Pedal steel I will stick with vocals and the triangle. Possible names include Horace Greeley & the Chubby Chasers, or Prince Mongo & the Krystal Chiks. Needless to say, those are up for debate. |
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Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. — John Stuart Mill We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy. — August Van Zorn There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way. — Stephen King Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. — Ask the Dust, John Fante |
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