“Innovation is not always embraced and art is to be interpreted… I’ve had a career of making classic movies that weren’t critically received…”
– “Him” actor Marlon Wayans, comparing its critical disparity to the ‘cult’ status of 2004’s frequently-cited ‘worst movie ever’ “White Chicks”
[cont’d]
“Kissed” is a bizarre but on-brand Canadian film, with Molly Parker (from Global TV’s “Doc”) in her first major appearance. It’s a drama that skews closer to video art, with a striking premise that eventually plays second-fiddle to a middling obsession plot.
But damned if it exists at all: a straight-faced movie about necrophilia. Jörg Buttgereit’s “Nekromantik” this is not – though both films share the same fleeting duration of just over an hour: an unheard-of runtime in today’s feature market. Plenty for director Lynne Stopkewich to poke her head in, make her points, and leave, in – fingers-crossed – the most memorable way possible.
In that regard, its prologue is laudable: a snapshot of heroine Sandra’s youth & learned Wiccanness: evolving from a respect for the dead, into intimacy. Getting these character beats so early made me emotionally invested in the unorthodox subject matter – as did Parker’s fearless, Genie award winning performance as the adult Sandra (Genies are the Canadian Oscars, now called the “Canadian Screen Awards”).
[cont’d]
To paraphrase Tarantino, a movie that successfully uses a piece of music, owns that music. Likewise, 1981’s docudrama “Mommie Dearest” (or MD) belongs to its lead actress, Faye Dunaway.
Audiences are fickle. As a broad example (pun not intended), Sydney Sweeney is objectively attractive, but sometimes we need to be reminded that her place in history – as a babe – will only occupy a small space: one inhabited by the ghosts of celebrity babes past, like Farrah Fawcett or Marilyn Monroe.
Same goes for legendary performances: they only become discourse if viewers put the proverbial poster on their wall. As much as I admire Dunaway, there’s only a handful of movies out of her six-decade career I can definitively name – most from one era.
[cont’d]
theory of a daskeman 