American Hustle (2013) - David O. Russell
As I watched the movie, I was expecting someone to die. A bullet to fly, sudden death, I kept that expectation during True Detective season 2. Nobody died in that movie, I don't even remember if there was gunshots. I was expecting that. It's a film of dialogue and characters, so at least that made up for my gun related expectation. Awesome film.
Anyways, I saw Body Double. When I learned of its existence not too long ago, I was thinking Bedroom Eyes. That's a low budget softcore thriller where the main character was a peeper. Since those kind of movies tend to rip off a bigger and better one, like how every single erotic thriller ripped off Basic Instinct in one way or another during the 90s, I figured Bedroom Eyes ripped off Body Double. They did come out in the same year though.
The name alone of "Body Double" indicates that because in Bedroom Eyes, the story involved a woman who is thought to be dead, turned out to be another girl made to look like her. So, a body double. But that's it, the voyeurism is even different, and the woman thought to be dead turned out to be a villain.
Still, it had to have borrowed from Body Double. Whatever the case, the movie is great. Brian De Palma is a great director, Scarface being his best. The story was very interesting, back to Bedroom Eyes, I thought the woman being peeped on by Craig Wasson's Jake Scully (who looks like David Duchovny), was doing a ruse. Like Bedroom Eyes, she's the mastermind and villain. It was not that, more simpler. The woman, Gloria, as played by the stunning [NOBABE]Deborah Shelton[/NOBABE], was just a rich girl with a mooch of a husband.
Jake's a struggling actor with claustrophobia. How De Palma treated it though, was a bit weird. It made for great visuals, but man. The very first scene where Jake is absolutely frozen and needs the film crew to take him out of a casket (filming a low budget horror), is weird because he really is frozen. No blinking, no movement, weird. Then in the chase with the Native American shady guy (who I thought for a second was someone with makeup on the face), he has a panic attack in a tunnel, that has an entrance and exit. I can understand the casket, but a tunnel? It's not small at all, but he panics at that. The final panic in the grave, makes total sense, which that made me worried because it goes into a movie set. As if to say the whole movie was just a filming, but then it switched to normal. But even that got into strange territory in how [NOBABE]the killer[/NOBABE] was stopped. [NOBABE]The killer[/NOBABE] wasn't even stopped by a human...
In hindsight, there's a lot of silly and ridiculous stuff here, leading to parts you can't take seriously. However, as a thriller, it does work so well. It has a bit of suspense, the acting's fine, but I think the best part of the film, is the music. It's so great and placed very well at the right times. The second panic attack was really saved by the music, although a mention needs to go to Wasson's acting. There's some recurring pieces, but from start to finish, the music was incredible.
And of course the porn stuff was awesome. That took the movie on a totally different turn. While the peeping stuff is perverted, I didn't think they'd go that perverted. It's like the first half of the movie was the serious stuff, you get sucked into the story. The second half, where porn is introduced, turns the film into a bit of a laugh.
[NOBABE]Melanie Griffith[/NOBABE] comes off as an attempt at comic relief, despite being the porn girl and body double. Her personality is exactly what her look indicates, platinum blonde rail thin California girl. A bit ditzy, a whole lot of whiney. Very hot for sure, but I think she's the weakest part of the film. She represents the silly and ridiculous stuff the movie threw. I'm surprised she got nominated for a Golden Globe. Not a bad actress, but dude, she could've toned down her character.
I breezed through imdb trivia, and this was most interesting, Brian De Palma wanted to cast [NOBABE]Annette Haven[/NOBABE] in the [NOBABE]Holly Body[/NOBABE] role, but Columbia Pictures of course didn't like the films she did. That's funny considering porn had a heavy part in this film. Shit they cast [NOBABE]Linda Shaw[/NOBABE] in a little role, and [NOBABE]Barbara Peckinpaugh[/NOBABE]. I don't know, she might've projected her classy nature to the role, because [NOBABE]Holly Body[/NOBABE] came off as typical porn girl. Haven was fine with not being in the film, didn't like its gore.
The gore only happened in the death scene of Gloria. It was teased and teased and was turning ridiculous, but when it happened, it was pretty fucking compelling, but sad. Gloria was hot, her accent was amazing...
and now I just found out through imdb, that wasn't [NOBABE]Deborah Shelton[/NOBABE]'s voice. [NOBABE]Helen Shaver[/NOBABE]. Damn, I should've known because I saw Nemesis, and Shelton (who was fit and nude in that movie, awesome) had a deep voice. Well, not too lady like, deep is a stretch I guess.
I spotted [NOBABE]Brinke Stevens[/NOBABE], I did hear about her being in here, unfortunately that was her most mainstream credit. So mainstream, getting her nipples licked by two girls in a porno ad. Awesome to see her though. Also [NOBABE]Barbara Crampton[/NOBABE], so surprised she popped up. She was Jake's wife, but was only scene so damn briefly, riding a guy all naked. Very hot, but very brief. A year later she made a longer lasting impression in Re-Animator.
Another interesting fact, De Palma wanted the sex scenes to be unsimulated. Freaking Columbia didn't want that.
Despite the ridiculous bits, the movie's absolutely awesome. It barely managed not to dip too into silly territory, and I think if Griffith's [NOBABE]Holly Body[/NOBABE] had more time and dialogue, the movie would've suffered. Thankfully that wasn't the case. The names that auditioned for the role, [NOBABE]Tatum O'Neal,[NOBABE] Jamie Lee Curtis[/NOBABE] and [NOBABE]Carrie Fisher[/NOBABE],[/NOBABE] would've taken the movie in different directions. I think [NOBABE]Jamie Lee Curtis[/NOBABE] would've worked so well, especially that [NOBABE]Holly Body[/NOBABE] had a bit of scream queen towards the end. Great acting, fantastic music, another classic by De Palma. For some strange reason, he was nominated for a Razzie! Damn, his direction's a major highlight in the film. Thankfully he lost out to John Derek for Bolero. I did see that. It was yummy, but I'm talking as a pervert, not a film fan.
I do have a sick interest in Bonfire of the Vanities. Despite it being panned, it had both Bruce Willis and Tom Hanks in one film, that's appealing no matter what the story is. But [NOBABE]Melanie Griffith's[/NOBABE] in it. Ehh, she's definitely a better actress than her daughter...
