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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:12:11 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Normal Life by John McNaughton
Just thought i'd point out this remarkable John McNaughton film that
got almost no attention. It was filmed in 1995 but Fine Line sat on it
for two years before considering a theatrical release earlier this year.
They chickened out so it went straight to video. It's easy to see why:
the studio must have expected a Bonnie & Clyde film (which is what
the videobox promises) but instead got an uncompromising portrait of a
deeply disturbed woman and a man desperately in love with her. You can
just imagine the marketing people going "How do you expect us to sell
this?" At least the studio didn't seem to tamper with the film, unless
the "action" sequence at the beginning was a later addition intended
as an audience hook. The sad thing is that the studio may have been right:
Normal Life probably would have opened to the same uncomprehending reviews
that greeted Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Crash, Flirting With Disaster,
Clockers or The Second Civil War while audiences would have left in droves.
But then that's how we prefer our termite art, right?
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 22:18:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Hollywood at work
"The Wings of the Dove -- for sexuality." This is the MPAA's explanation for
giving this film a R rating; apparently there's a fairly explicit Helena
Bonham Carter sex scene. This is for a freakin' Henry James adaptation!
Can't you just picture the meetings: "Yeah, we just gotta spice up this
James guy. Bring him into the modern world." What next? Sharon Stone as
Daisy Miller? A Joe Eszterhas screenplay for The Ambassadors? An MTV version
of The American?
by Lang Thompson
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Last updated August 21, 1997. Comments or problems with this site should be directed to
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