|
|
Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"Far and away from the worst film I ever saw. It wasn't even the worst film I saw in 1996. In fact...I actually liked this one." --from the review ------------- Sidebar :: ------------- "A woman would never love a movie just because it had male nudity in it." Yeah, right. Ever hear about a movie called "Bird on a Wire"...? It starred Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson, and let me be blunt: it was a comedy about as fun as reading a wet book. Yet it had Mel Gibson's hairy posterior --in many scenes, in fact-- so not only was it a box office smash; it made a cool mint in video rental sales, too. Is this because it was a riotously funny comedy? Give me a break. Yet the comparison that really gets me is The Full Monty. Striptease is about women stripping; it was released in 1996 and got lambasted by critics and basically canned at the theaters. The Full Monty was released the very next year, yet was about male strippers. What do critics do? Why, they laud it as an Oscar nominee for Best Picture of the Year; that's what. Yet while one part of me imagines the feminist movement giving one another high-fives at such double-standards, it makes this male critic wonder if they didn't shoot themselves in the proverbial foot, as it were. Are male strippers so much more "regal" to view in the movies than women strippers? Of course not. It's just another example of a sexist, egotistical, hypocritical Hollywood doing another male chauvinist pigheaded mistake, all while going to bed at night whispering "what a wonderful feminist am I." Yeah; nice one. You basically were ready to give an award to the concept that male nudity is less sleazy of a notion than female nudity. My; how very feminist of you.
----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Striptease
Click picture to order this DVD A Techtite ReviewAs Always, a review of The Film and The DVD (extras)! The Film: Every once in a while there's a film that doesn't strike any major emotions...so what review do you give it? The final opinion often comes in the form of simple politics. If the film is released at a time when its subject matter is considered "cool" in modern pop culture, it's considered a smash hit, even if it isn't even very good (think: a slew of "hooker with a heart of gold" comedies in the 1980's). However, if critics happen to be dealing with a few "political issues" at the time they review a film, well then: thumbs down for the film. Such was apparently the case with Striptease; a film that was panned by every critic coast to coast, yet was far and away from the worst film I ever saw, and, personally, was more than acceptable. This isn't a rousing endorsement of the film; I know. However, even a marginal thumbs up (or "Small Crater" in Techtite.com terms) is a big surprise. After all, so many gave this film the dubious honor of Worst film of 1996; even when compared to Mighty Ducks 3 or High School High. The cynical Razzie Awards nominated it for the worst film in the whole decade of the '90s. There were few critics who dared to disagree. Why such fervent opinions, against (IMHO) an acceptable comedy? As I said, this film was released at the wrong time. At around the end of Clinton's first term as President, the Hillary-Rodham-Clinton feeling of ultra-feminism was still strong. This was a time when a man could not so much as raise his voice to his wife, though Lorena Bobbit could cut "it" completely off her husband with a kitchen knife, and throw it out her car on the highway; all with many a feminist crying in message boards, "You goooo, girl!" Beer commercials in 1996 had replaced all supermodels with cute little froggies going "Bud," -Wise," and "-err," while Coca Cola had high-rise businesswomen looking down at construction worker Lucky Vanous, who stripped his tight shirt off to drink a Diet Coke. Had enough hypocrisy yet? Here's another one: The following year, The Full Monty would be released, with men stripping, and it would get an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of the Year! Okay, enough of the editorial; this isn't "My Two Bits," after all. This is Striptease; a comedy movie based on the popular novel by Carl Hiaasen. Erin Grant (Demi Moore) is a divorcee stripper, trying in vain to maintain custody rights of her young daughter (played in the movie by Demi's real life daughter, Rumer Willis). Her once-simple problem becomes an even bigger one, when a politician in disguise (Burt Reynolds) causes a havoc in the strip club he works in, causing his supporters to try in vain to cover up the story, all while the politician tries to woo his newest conquest, Erin. The resulting story is a tale of sex, secrets, and scandals, as Erin tries to cover any bases to get custody of her daughter back...but with a seedy politician in the mix, is she in over her head? Yeah; I know this doesn't sound like a comedy story, but the key word to keep in mind here is "satire." Burt Reynolds plays his character so much for laughs it's hard to not grin every time he appears on screen. Likewise for Ving Rhames, who plays a strip club bouncer trying to make it big with various get-rich-quick lawsuit scams (the way his faux "I found a cockroach in my yogurt" scandal is foiled should be particularly funny to the Farrelly Brothers fans). Topping off the humor are the strippers themselves, who offer far more than simple cheesecake to the story, and more often, offer some of the best punchlines. When asked by the sleazy strip club owner if the ladies would mind diving into a vat of corn, let's just say their reaction is very colorful...and very humorous. I can see what sort of film was attempted here, even when that attempt admittedly fails. A closer examination at this story (and its reaction from the press, actually) is modern society's fascination with things they shouldn't be too fascinated about, while pooh-poohing things they should be ten times more concerned about. When a murder case plays a back seat to what's happening in said stripper bar, the message seems to be that society is more interested in preventing an interest in sex than preventing an interest in violence. This is a point laden with controversy, and it's a point that either was too strong for some critics to agree with, or went over their heads completely. Think about it. Eyes Wide Shut, just a short while after this film was released, was edited because of excessive nudity. Yet can anyone think of a recent film that "had" to be edited for excessive violence? Anyone...? To be fair, the film isn't Oscar Gold. That's hardly my point. Nor do I deny that it has at least one, big flaw; Demi Moore apparently wasn't told that this film was a comedy. In comes Demi every five minutes, acting like she's this totally misunderstood, innocent little thing. Honest! She just strips naked to get money for her daughter! Oh, puh-leeze. If only Demi played her part with hilarity or satire, maybe reviews would've been entirely different. Think of Michelle Pfeiffer's role as a mobsters wife in Married to the Mob; Pfeiffer's overdone "New Yawkers" accent was classic, and her line "I wanna divawse!" always cracks me up. It didn't make things any better when Demi went to the premiere of the film with a crew cut (!), due to her filming of G.I. Jane (which, yes, was as bad as everyone said!). It's hard to publicize a film when the lead actress is going to all publicity junkets with a bald head! Regardless, I still liked Striptease enough to recommend as a rental (or even a used DVD purchase), due to hilarious performances by Ving Rhames and Burt Reynolds, as well as the other strippers in the club (even most feminists will have to laugh when one stripper has trouble playing Chutes and Ladders with Moore's young daughter). I think Uncle Scoopy, a well-known online critic of R-rated films, said it best, in June of 2000: "It's not the greatest movie in the world by far, but I thought is was dark and funny enough to sit through it and not want to hang myself." It may not be a rousing endorsement, but "worst film of the entire 1990's" is not just pushing it. It's simply wrong.
The DVD: I guess the very fact that a disc offers both widescreen and full screen formats, on two alternate sides of the disc, is worth listing as a "bonus feature." It just isn't enough though is it? Maybe someday soon this film will get the "special edition" treatment, which if just as the movie critics loved to hate, is its due. Just to see a behind the scenes clip laden featurette would be cool. It just doesn't seem to be in this film's immediate future as of right now. It sure would be cool though.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
