Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- Everyone is calling "Die Mommie, Die!" the funniest film at this year's Sundance, but then you must remember that Sundance will never be confused with the Aspen Comedy Festival. The movie essentially features one joke done extremely well.
Based on Charles Busch's stage play of the same name, director Mark Rucker (making an assured feature debut) apes the style, period decor and camerawork of those "women's films" of the '40s through the '60s, which usually starred Joan Crawford, Bette Davis or Susan Hayward. This is no "Far From Heaven", where a filmmaker wants audiences to reconsider the themes and social values of a period in American cinema. Rather, it's diva worship done more tastefully than John Waters, more adroitly than "8 Women" but less flamboyantly than RuPaul.
"Mommie" should score big with its target gay audience and could attract crossover trade. It certainly will be a hot gigglefest in DVD and video.
Busch adapts his own play to this screen pastiche while donning satin and pearls to play Angela Arden, a faded chanteuse who plots to escape a miserable marriage by slipping an arsenic-laced suppository to her producer-husband, Sol Sussman Philip Baker Hall). His death -- Busch actually insists his story is based on the Greek tragedy "The Orestia" -- throws the household into turmoil.
Daughter Edith (Natasha Lyonne), who has always hated Mom, now wants her as dead as Dad. Son Lance (Stark Sands), a mama's boy suffering from Brain Damage caused by his mother's pill popping during pregnancy, grows even more confused. Angela's stud boyfriend, Tony Jason Priestley), turns on the sexual charm to win both siblings over to his cause. Family servant Bootsie (Frances Conroy), who was always a great comfort to Sol, stands to inherit much of the estate, according to a will drawn up just before Sol's death. Before she can spend a penny, though, she turns up dead herself.
The queen of the ball here, of course, is Busch, who has got the diva act down pat: the head flips, pouty lips, studied posture and flair for melodrama. Busch's Angela is a hard-drinking, man-hungry temptress, a terrible mother and an over-the-hill star deluding herself about a comeback. She has a gift for gab, tossing off lines such as the one about a man who "slipped into my life as easily as vermouth into a glass of gin."
The rest of the cast catches the spirit, playing absolutely straight this melodrama twisted into farce. Hall is wonderfully funny as the overbearing producer past his prime, his "message" pictures coming back from the boxoffice marked "Return to Sender". Lyonne is a bratty little daughter with a large daddy complex, while Sands borrows from other era pictures to play the ambi-sexual rebel without a clue. Conroy is the shrewd maid who masks her intent with ditziness. Priestley, a character with an ulterior motive behind his ulterior motive, is delicious fun as a man who uses sex to attain all his goals.
Joseph B. Tintfass' sets, Kelly Evans' cinematography and Michael Bottari and Ronald Case's gowns for Busch amusingly capture the look and mood of all those old Made in Hollywood color movies.
DIE MOMMIE, DIE!
Aviator Films and Bill Kenwright Ltd.
Credits:
Director: Michael Rucker
Screenwriter: Charles Busch, based on his play
Producers: Dante Di Loreto, Anthony Edwards, Bill Kenwright
Executive producers: Lonny Dubrofsky, Neil Ellman
Director of photography: Kelly Evans
Production designer: Joseph B. Tintfass
Music: Dennis McCarthy
Costume designers: Michael Bottari, Ronald Case
Editor: Philip Harrison
Cast:
Angela Arden/Barbara Arden: Charles Busch
Edith: Natasha Lyonne
Sol Sussman: Philip Baker Hall
Boostie: Frances Conroy
Tony Parker: Jason Priestley
Lance: Stark Sands.
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- Everyone is calling "Die Mommie, Die!" the funniest film at this year's Sundance, but then you must remember that Sundance will never be confused with the Aspen Comedy Festival. The movie essentially features one joke done extremely well.
Based on Charles Busch's stage play of the same name, director Mark Rucker (making an assured feature debut) apes the style, period decor and camerawork of those "women's films" of the '40s through the '60s, which usually starred Joan Crawford, Bette Davis or Susan Hayward. This is no "Far From Heaven", where a filmmaker wants audiences to reconsider the themes and social values of a period in American cinema. Rather, it's diva worship done more tastefully than John Waters, more adroitly than "8 Women" but less flamboyantly than RuPaul.
"Mommie" should score big with its target gay audience and could attract crossover trade. It certainly will be a hot gigglefest in DVD and video.
Busch adapts his own play to this screen pastiche while donning satin and pearls to play Angela Arden, a faded chanteuse who plots to escape a miserable marriage by slipping an arsenic-laced suppository to her producer-husband, Sol Sussman Philip Baker Hall). His death -- Busch actually insists his story is based on the Greek tragedy "The Orestia" -- throws the household into turmoil.
Daughter Edith (Natasha Lyonne), who has always hated Mom, now wants her as dead as Dad. Son Lance (Stark Sands), a mama's boy suffering from Brain Damage caused by his mother's pill popping during pregnancy, grows even more confused. Angela's stud boyfriend, Tony Jason Priestley), turns on the sexual charm to win both siblings over to his cause. Family servant Bootsie (Frances Conroy), who was always a great comfort to Sol, stands to inherit much of the estate, according to a will drawn up just before Sol's death. Before she can spend a penny, though, she turns up dead herself.
The queen of the ball here, of course, is Busch, who has got the diva act down pat: the head flips, pouty lips, studied posture and flair for melodrama. Busch's Angela is a hard-drinking, man-hungry temptress, a terrible mother and an over-the-hill star deluding herself about a comeback. She has a gift for gab, tossing off lines such as the one about a man who "slipped into my life as easily as vermouth into a glass of gin."
The rest of the cast catches the spirit, playing absolutely straight this melodrama twisted into farce. Hall is wonderfully funny as the overbearing producer past his prime, his "message" pictures coming back from the boxoffice marked "Return to Sender". Lyonne is a bratty little daughter with a large daddy complex, while Sands borrows from other era pictures to play the ambi-sexual rebel without a clue. Conroy is the shrewd maid who masks her intent with ditziness. Priestley, a character with an ulterior motive behind his ulterior motive, is delicious fun as a man who uses sex to attain all his goals.
Joseph B. Tintfass' sets, Kelly Evans' cinematography and Michael Bottari and Ronald Case's gowns for Busch amusingly capture the look and mood of all those old Made in Hollywood color movies.
DIE MOMMIE, DIE!
Aviator Films and Bill Kenwright Ltd.
Credits:
Director: Michael Rucker
Screenwriter: Charles Busch, based on his play
Producers: Dante Di Loreto, Anthony Edwards, Bill Kenwright
Executive producers: Lonny Dubrofsky, Neil Ellman
Director of photography: Kelly Evans
Production designer: Joseph B. Tintfass
Music: Dennis McCarthy
Costume designers: Michael Bottari, Ronald Case
Editor: Philip Harrison
Cast:
Angela Arden/Barbara Arden: Charles Busch
Edith: Natasha Lyonne
Sol Sussman: Philip Baker Hall
Boostie: Frances Conroy
Tony Parker: Jason Priestley
Lance: Stark Sands.
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/23/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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