Flashback Friday: Fatal Attraction (Lyne, 1987)

If someone were to ask me what movie every newlywed couple should watch, my response will be Fatal Attraction.

Adrien Lyne's 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction, which celebrated it's 25th anniversary this month, is still as relevant and terrifying as ever. Glenn Close's Alex Forrest still remains the single greatest triumph for the highly versatile actress. And it still manages to cause even the most devoted husbands to become paranoid.

The rules are simple: don't cheat on your spouse. Otherwise, you'll end up with an obsessed and violent stalker who won't leave you alone. Oh, and you should probably hide any furry creatures.

Everyman Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), who lives with his wife and daughter in a New York apartment, decides that these rules can't possibly hurt him. He'll be able to keep it a secret; after all, him and his date will "both be adults". Who would suspect that anything would go wrong?

When his family leaves for the weekend, Dan meets Alex Forrest, an attractive new editor working with Dan's lawyer firm. They spend the weekend together, but when he tries to return home, Alex decides she's not done yet. So, she slashes her wrists in an attempt to get Dan to stay with her longer, which of course he does, leaving her even more attracted to him. Matters get worse when Alex begins creeping into every aspect of Dan's life, from constant phone calls at work to visits to his Manhattan home. Now, Dan can't escape Alex's brutal touch, and has to protect his family from this obsessed stalker.

Glenn Close is brilliant in arguably her greatest role as Alex Forrest. Her character is extremely fleshed out in her psychosis, thanks in part to a beautifully adapted screenplay of the short film Diversion (Dearden, 1980) by James Dearden and Nicholas Meyer. Close's performance has raised dozens of analyzes by both filmmakers and psychiatrists, who have grown to call the film one of the best screen depictions of borderline personality disorder. Plus, Close coined the popular slang word "bunny boiler" after the actions of her psychotic character. 

Besides Close's chilling performance, Anne Archer's caught-in-the-middle wife to Michael Douglas' Dan, also captures our heart. She, Glenn Close, the director, and the picture itself were all nominated for an Academy Award. The directing is top notch; the mere camera shots make the viewer paranoid of every oddity, every phone call, and every unseen object. We know Alex is coming, but what she'll do next keeps the viewer both entranced and petrified.

But, the film remains most important for its affect on men. They are allured, but ultimately terrified, by the manifestation of the worst possible scenario of having an adulteress affair. Alex Forrest is the haunting memory in all men's nightmares; the bane to their marriage and existence. She stands for much more than a mere villain (for which she was named #7 on AFI's Top 50 Villains of All Time); her realistic nature always puts her in the back of men's minds of what could be the result of cheating on their spouse. 

So, when your friend gets married and asks you what him and his spouse should watch, what movie are you going to recommend? 

The Cinematic Calendar and Film Seasons

Summer is for the blockbusters. Winter is for the awards. Each season of the year comes with certain connotations in the film world. Unfortunately, this means that there are "dry spells" that release fairly mediocre movies; these usually come after big seasons in film. For readers who are not sure when the good months and the bad months are, here's a breakdown of the Cinematic Calendar:

January-  End of Awards Season and the Holiday Film Season; begins to slow down after New Years

February- Relatively slow, but the Oscars at the end of the month sometimes surges a bigger box office profit than usual as less regular moviegoers are more in the "movie mood"

March- One of the "Dead Months", though it can surprise us if it releases a bigger name than usual (i.e. 2012's The Hunger Games, which dominated the box office with big numbers throughout the whole month)

April- May start to pick up towards the end, but oftentimes another slow month

May- The beginning of the Summer Blockbuster Season, usually with some of the best box office receipts of the year

June- With school letting out, kids and teens start heading to the movies; oftentimes, June is the biggest month of the year for kids movies

July- A huge month in the Summer Blockbuster Season, with some of the biggest films of the year aiming for a release in this mid-summer mega month

August- The Summer Blockbuster Season starts off strong in the beginning, with the big July releases still making an impact on the box office; starts to dwindle towards the end

September- The other big "Dead Month"; after everyone spends their money at the theater over the Summer, the theaters are virtually empty as school starts and weaker movie titles are released

October- The movies start to pick up again, with bigger titles coming out and the Horror Season of Halloween hitting towards the end of the month

November- The beginning of Awards Season, November used to be the weakest of the "award months", but in recent years, this month has been the best indicator of who will win at the Oscars in February; the start of the Holiday Film Season

December- A big month in Awards Season, and the high point of the Holiday Film Season; besides the Summer, December usually has the best box office receipts of the year

This calendar has been proven wrong in the past (for example, some of the "Dead Month" films have actually had pretty big releases, especially in recent years), but in general, the movie theaters tend to follow these trends. From the Cinematic Calendar, we can see that the different seasons have different values associated with them. The breakdowns of the big seasons are as follows:

Summer Blockbuster Season (May-August)- Since the release of Jaws (Spielberg) in 1975, more movie companies have begun releasing films that emulate the "popcorn entertainment"of mindless action and thriller genres. Over the past few decades, a growing number of Summer movies have dominated the yearly box office profits. High grossing movie franchises, such as the Harry Potter, Star Wars, Batman, and Pirates of the Caribbean films, have aimed for a release during the Summer Blockbuster Season to ensure highest viewership, and therefore the best box office numbers possible. Some common characteristics of the Summer Blockbuster Season include:

• Main Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Superhero
• Other Genres: Comedies, Romances, Mysteries
• Rarely: Dramas, Art-House 
• Heavy use of the latest special effects
• Big name stars, directors
• Sequels are very prevalent during this time
• Big films that generate "box office buzz" (highly anticipated, guaranteed to have a huge crowd)

Awards Season (November-January)- Films released during the late Fall, early Winter season usually have "awards buzz" and generate bigger receipts for films that otherwise wouldn't stand a chance. Several art-house dramas, such as The King's Speech (Hooper, 2010) and The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011), have bigger box office profits than usual during this time due to "Oscar Buzz" that predicts who are likely to win in a given year. Also, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote for nominations and the actual awards are likely to remember films they just saw, and will more likely vote for them as a result. Therefore, distribution companies who want their films to generate "Oscar Buzz" will release them during this Season to make sure Academy voters remember their films when they vote on the ballot. Characteristics of Awards Season include:

• Main Genres: Drama, Art-House
• Other Genres: Comedies, Romances, Mysteries
• Rarely: Action, Adventure
• Big name stars equally as present as the unknown stars
• More cerebral, thinking films that challenge the viewer to look at a movie "in between the lines"
• Less popular and less anticipated than Summer movies 
• More "awards-friendly" dramas

Holiday Film Season (November-January)- Combines both the big-money sensationalism of the Summer Blockbuster Season with the more cerebral qualities of Awards Season. Films released during this time often include adaptations of popular books, sequels, mysteries, and of course holiday movies.

The Horror Season (October) is a relatively short season that inspires a brief re-surgance of horror films that become popular around Halloween, even if it's only briefly.

"Dead Months" (Late January-March and September)- The self-incriminating title aside, this season features relatively weak movie titles that have very low box office profits. This season usually occurs in the aftermath of a big movie season.

I hope this gives you a better view on what the Cinematic Calendar looks like, and have learned why certain movies come out at certain times. Hopefully this lets you decide which months you enjoy the most, and I'll see you at the theater!

Flashback Friday: Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985)

Welcome to the first "Flashback Friday", a special weekly post where I'll review and discuss a movie from the past. This week, we're having Michael J. Fox's mother hit on him while trying to give his father courage and defend against a bully.... all before he's even born. This week on "Flashback Friday": Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985).

The sad part about my Back to the Future experience is that the first thing that comes to mind is Doc Brown's Fancy Chicken Restaurant in Universal Studios. I remember going to the fast food stop in the pouring rain for dinner (it was quite good from what I remember). You can't help but hum along to the theme song as you walk around the park, too. Back to the Future was never really one of my childhood pastimes, but the older I get, the more I appreciate what the film did for sci-fi, Michael J. Fox, DeLoreans, and the movie industry in general.

Michael J. Fox's natural screen presence brought a sense of youthful innocence to the movie, an otherwise very complicated subject of accidentally changing the past which in turn completely changes the future. From a screenwriting point of view, its genius; no other film before it so expertly explained the consequences of changing the past.

I mean, think about it: Michael J. Fox's character, Marty McFly, travels back in time using Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)'s 1981 DeLorean and a "flux capacitor" to avoid getting shot by terrorists. In traveling, he ends up in 1955, at the point when his parents went to high school, and days before they fell in love for the first time. Marty meets his father, George, after watching him get harassed by local bully Biff. And, as they are walking home, Marty sees a car speeding towards George, and Marty dives to push his father out of the way before he can get hit.

The problem: the driver of the car is Marty's mom Lorraine, who, in hitting George, was supposed to fall in love with him during the recovery. This would lead them to the marriage that would one day conceive Marty and his two siblings. However, as he just prevented George from getting hit, Marty is subsequently hit by the car; and, therefore, Lorraine falls in love with him.

The irony stacks up as the film progresses, as Marty tries to warn a younger Doc Brown that he will be shot in the future, and Lorraine continues to fall for her future son while growing more distant from her would-be husband. It's a beautiful script, one that I appreciate the more and more I see the film.

The acting is top notch, and even by today's standards the visual effects are seriously realistic. The skateboard chase is still famous, and helped propel the at-the-time-brand-new skateboarding sport. Nothing beats getting to quote such phrases as, "1.21 gigawats", "We have to send you back to the future!", "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads", and "I am Darth Vader of Planet Vulcan". Plus, who can ignore the "Johnny B Goode" guitar sequence?

Back to the Future remains a landmark in the sci-fi genre: in 2008, it was listed as the #10 Best Sci-Fi Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute (it was also nominated for several other lists, including both 100 Greatest Movies of All Time lists).  It's a great film, and a movie of even greater importance in pop culture and the history of cinema. I highly encourage that you watch the film again. I promise that the older you get, the more you'll smile and the more you'll appreciate time traveling all over again.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (McKay, 2004)

Here's my first blog review post, one of my favorite that I've written. It's of Adam McKay's 2004 comedy film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Not a movie genre I normally watch, but it's still a fun film that I thoroughly enjoy.  

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (McKay, 2004) 

Normally, modern-day comedy films starring the likes of Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, and Adam Sandler remain nothing more than two hours of a non-sensical plot filled with childish bathroom humor and pointless sex jokes. However, Will Ferrell's "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" achieves a level of comedy that combines the contemporary feel with the classic humor of slapstick and high comedy.

"Anchorman" tells of the rise and fall of news anchorman Ron Burgundy, played with hilarious yet uncharacteristically subdued effect by Will Ferrell. Burgundy helps his Channel 4 network to become the number one news program in San Diego, much to the dissatisfaction of several other network anchors (played in cameo appearances by Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Tim Robbins). Burgundy is aided by his dim-witted news team, including sportscaster "Champ" Kind, on-scene investigator Brian Fantana, and weatherman Brick Tamland, effectively portrayed by David Koechner, Paul Rudd, and Steve Carell, respectively.

However, times are changing in the news world, and soon Burgundy and his team are forced to work with a new, rising female journalist named Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). Hilarity ensues as the news team tries one-by-one to date and ultimately remove the cold as ice Corningstone, but only Burgundy is able to capture her heart after several failed attempts. But Burgundy faces new problems everyday, and these trials lead to a cause and effect ripple that threatens to destroy everything Burgundy holds dear.

"Anchorman" rises to a level beyond most modern-day comedies, finding a happy medium between adolescent humor and high comedy. Ferrell's performance provides a classic character that entertains from start to finish, and the whole ensemble provides several laughs throughout the course of the movie. Steve Carrell, as unintelligent and clueless weatherman Brick, takes a stock supporting role to a whole new level, from his first forecast all the way through his role in a singing quartet about love with the other members of Channel 4 news team. Iconic scenes, including a jazz flute performance at a nightclub and a street brawl between the network news teams, fill the film and keep the action moving and entertaining. The movie is also more quotable than most comedies in film history.

But the most delightful portions of "Anchorman" come from the most subtle of dialogue and actions. There's a restaurant called "Escupimos en su Alimento", which is Spanish for "we spit in your food". Channel 4's news director Ed Harkin frequently speaks on the phone with a school principal about his sons various exploits, including firing a bow and arrow into a crowd while high on acid. Even the news reported on Channel 4 satirizes the Action News format, with "serious breaking news" such as a squirrel on a jet ski and an overarching report of a pregnant panda bear. The tongue-in-cheek dialogue stays spot on, and even usually annoying bathroom humor is used with excellent effect.

"Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" is by no means a great film, but for what it is, it remains a modern comedy classic that appeals to all ages and is a highlight in the oftentimes questionable repertoire of Will Ferrell. Stay classy, moviegoers.

Four out of five stars. 

Introduction

Hello reader! My name is Ryan, and I am a student who really loves movies and everything to do with the world of cinema. Films give us the ability to find joy in the world and celebrate life the way nothing else can. So, here's a blog designed for my passion- whether you're a film novice, a professional movie maker, a seasoned critic, or even just a casual movie goer, here is the Movie Critic's Club, a place where we can all celebrate the movies.