Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Starring the Friedmans.
Directed by Andrew Jarecki.
Kilgore rates it: 6 (out of 10)
IMDb rates it: 8.3 (out of 10)

This film documents the struggle of the Friedmans -- a nice, middle-class, Jewish family living on Long Island -- when local children accuse Arnold, the father, and Jesse, the oldest son, of dozens of counts of sodomy and molestation. Did they do it or not? You'll think they did when you learn that Arnold is an admitted pedophile and that police found kiddie porn stashed in his home. You'll think they didn't when you learn about the ridiculous nature of the charges and the leading questions the cops asked the child "victims."

Capturing the Friedmans includes lots of remarkably honest video footage shot by the three Friedman brothers, giving us a wrenching look at the bizarre antics of a family tearing itself to pieces.

Crash (1996)
Starring James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, and Deborah Kara Unger.
Directed by David Cronenberg.
Kilgore rates it: 6 (out of 10)
IMDb rates it: 5.7 (out of 10)

Crash is about car-crash fetishists. I don't know if these people exist in real life, but car-crash fetishism doesn't seem any more bizarre a fixation than a balloon fetish or the desire to amputate a healthy limb. The best I can say about Crash -- besides that it displays to tasty effect the flesh of Holly Hunter and Deborah Kara Unger -- is that it makes the car-crash fetish seem plausible. The fetishists, all of whom have been scarred, injured, or crippled in previous wrecks, chase each other on the freeway, rear-ending and sideswiping each other as foreplay before pulling off the road for rough sex. They take photos of car crashes, reenact the scenes of celebrity wrecks (such as James Dean's), and watch automobile crash test tapes as pornography. Crash is disturbing. The final scene shows Unger's character running off the road, being thrown free of her car, and waking up, disappointed to still be alive. "It's all right," croons her husband (Spader), running his hand up her skirt and climbing on top of her. "Maybe next time."

American Psycho (2000)
Starring Christian Bale.
Directed by Mary Harron.
Kilgore rates it: 8 (out of 10)
IMDb rates it: 6.7 (out of 10)

Christian Bale dominates this film as Patrick Bateman, a 1980s Wall Street yuppie turned brutal serial killer. American Psycho isn't a horror film, however, but a sketch of the spiritual emptiness wrought by stupid pursuit of wealth and status. Bale plays Bateman perfectly as a hollow man trying to build a soul from spare parts: a classy Manhattan apartment, kinky sex with hookers, expensive clothes, a spacious office complete with pretty secretary, custom-printed business cards, consumer electronics, fine wines, pop music, faux social consciousness, dining at exclusive restaurants, stomach crunches, and hair and skin products. And, of course, slaughtering people with knives, axes, guns, and chainsaws.

American Psycho is best when it wallows in absurdity, such as when Bateman and his colleagues try to one-up each other's business cards ("I can't believe Bryce likes Van Patten's card better than mine"); or when Bateman, banging a hooker doggy-style, stares at himself in the mirror and flexes his biceps; or when Bateman delivers pompous lectures on the music of Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, and Huey Louis & The News. My favorite monologue came early in the movie, when Bateman explains his morning workout routine and hair- and skin-care regimen.

+posted by Lawrence @ 5/18/2004 08:55:00 PM