Crash

Year of Release:  1996

Director:  David Cronenberg

Screenplay:  David Cronenberg, based on the novel Crash by J. G. Ballard

Starring:  James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Film producer James G. Ballard (Spader) and his wife Catherine (Unger) lead very active but dull sex lives where they each indulge in numerous casual affairs which they recoup in detail to each other.  On his way back from the studio, James is involved in a violent car crash, in which the driver of the other car is killed.  The dead man's wife, Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter), was in the passenger seat and is badly hurt.  In the hospital, James encounters Helen and they begin an affair.  They encounter a strange man named Vaughn (Koteas) who leads them into a strange subculture of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes, and recreate famous crashes.

This is an adaptation of British author J. G. Ballard's cult 1973 novel Crash, and like. a lot of Cronenberg films deals with the complex relationship between humanity and technology.  The topic here is broken machinery and broken bodies and the connection between the two.  In an early scene we see Ballard in hospital, with his leg in a complex surgical splint, and we see a close up of his badly bruised, broken leg penetrated by the metal of the apparatus.  Rosanna Arquette plays a character who wears metal braces, designed almost like fetish wear.  Despite the frequent sex scenes it's a surprisingly dispassionate films, almost clinical, it often feels like a kind of strange scientific documentary, the characters are never judged but the film merely observed.  There is little to no chemistry between the actors, which is intentional.  They are all isolated, lonely people trying to find some kind of connection.  The imagery is cool, set largely around wintery Toronto motorways and anonymous high rise buildings, garages and parking lots.  Even the colours seem washed out, with greys, and pale blues predominating.  The film was hugely controversial even though, despite it's explicit content, it is in no way pornographic, more chilling than arousing.  The film won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for "Originality, Daring and Audacity".  In 1996 the notorious British tabloid press whipped itself up into a vehement campaign to get the film banned, although it was released uncut in the UK in June 1997.  In the USA the film was released in both an uncut NC-17 version and an R-rated version with ten minutes cut.

Needless to say, this won't be to everyone's taste, but if you're in the mood for something challenging and provocative, this is well worth a test drive. 

James Spader in Crash

   

The Burning

Year of Release:  1981
Director:  Tony Maylam
Screenplay:  Bob Weinstein and Peter Lawrence, story by Brad Grey, Tony Maylam and Harvey Weinstein
Starring:  Brian Matthews, Lou David, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua
Running Time:  91 minutes
Genre:  Horror

A bunch of teens at a summer camp play a mean trick on hated caretaker Cropsy (David).  However the prank goes badly wrong and Cropsy almost burns to death.  Five years later, another group of fun-loving teens are at another summer camp, and the hideously scarred Cropsy is lurking in the woods around the camp with large garden shears, and he is not planning on pruning the hedges.

You know the story.  Even if you've never seen The Burning, if you have ever seen any slasher films, than you've pretty much seen it.  It's regarded as a carbon copy of Friday the 13th (1980), although Harvey Weinsten apparently came up with the idea before Friday the 13th was released.  However it is a pretty basic slasher, with maybe a tad more nudity and gore than usual.  Today it is is possibly most important for what the cast and crew would do later on: Jason Alexander (George in Seinfeld) and Fisher Stevens appear in minor roles, and Holly Hunter also has a very small part in the film.  Also writers and producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the moguls behind Miramax Films and later The Weinstein Company, would become two of the most important figures in American independent  film.  The Weinstein's commercial instincts are certainly on display here.  They know their audience, they know what that audience wants and they deliver it.  The gory special effects, from Tom Savini, would earn the film some notoriety, particularly in Britain where it was banned as a so-called "video nasty", although it is hard to see why.  It's a film that is not particularly good or particularly bad, it just trundles along delivers the requisite amount of gore and naked breasts, and it works as an undemanding late-night guilty pleasure, but if you want to see a slasher film, than there are better out there.  It has dated though, and probably won't deliver the goods to satisfy modern horror audiences.

Shelley Bruce, George Parry, Kevi Kendall, Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and Ame Segull in The Burning      
  

Raising Arizona

Year: 1987
Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (uncredited)
Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson, John Goodman, William Forsythe, Sam McMurray, Frances McDormand, Randall "Tex" Cobb
Running Time: 94 minutes
Genre: Comedy, action,

Summary: H. I. "Hi" McDunnough (Cage) is a career criminal, with a penchant for robbing convenience stores, however he is so bad at it that he constantly gets caught. As time goes on he falls for the officer who processes him each time, Edwina "Ed" (Hunter), and they get married. Vowing to go straight, Hi embraces married life. However Ed is desperate to have a baby, but she is infertile and they are unable to adopt due to Hi's criminal past.
When they learn that local businessman Nathan Arizona (Wilson) has just become a father to quintuplets, Hi and Ed decide to steal one of the five babies to raise as their own.
They successfully kidnap one of the babies, but their new found family life is thrown into jeopardy when two of Hi's old friends from prison (Goodman and Forsythe) break out of jail and arrive at the McDunnough's home, as well as a deranged biker bounty hunter (Cobb) who is determined to find the missing baby.

Opinions: Child abduction is not exactly the most obvious theme for a light hearted knockabout comedy, especially one in which the abductors are actually the heroes, but the Coen brothers make it work.
The film is hyper-stylised and almost cartoonish, featuring sweeping camera movements, surreal moments and plenty of the Coens' trademark dialogue.
Nicolas Cage does some great work in the film. He is an actor who can be really good when he is in the right film and has a character that fits his over-the-top, manic style. He fits right in to the frenetic, bizarre world of this movie. However the film belongs to Holly Hunter who provides the film with it's heart. Genuinely well-meaning, if misguided, her character, which was written specifically for Hunter, anchors the whole movie.
The film is visually impressive, consistently entertaining, and very funny. The darker aspects of the premise are hinted at, but not really explored. Despite not being particularly successful when it was first released it has become something of a cult movie now.
The film gets a lot of comedy mileage out of the character's dialect (which was written as a blending of the local dialect and the character's assumed reading material - namely the Bible and magazines). As happens a lot with Coen brothers films, it's difficult to tell if they are celebrating or mocking the South, or maybe both at the same time.
The movie runs the risk at times of being too quirky for it's own good, but it gets by on sheer energy and the fact that it is always enjoyable and frequently genuinely charming. This was the Coens' second film and was written deliberately to be the polar opposite of their debut, the hard-edged, stripped down noir thriller Blood Simple (1984), and fans will be able to spot many of their tradmarks.
Over the top, exuberant fun, but with genuine heart, this is worth checking out.



Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona