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Reviews
Miller's Girl (2024)
Miller's Wife Steals The Show
I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this film. The dialogue is pretentious beyond belief. We're talking Grade A turgid, self-aggrandizing monologues. A pure maelstrom of mannered, overblown language. A surfeit of showy, pseudo-intellectual prattle. A tsunami of try-hard tropes. You get the idea.
Jenna Ortega is the eye candy and she does do a very good job with the material she's given. For me, Miller's beautiful and spiteful wife steals the show. Her acting is the best in this flick and she makes the most of her character. I was left hoping she'd get even more lines of dialogue!
The thematic content in question revolves around a highly contentious and provocative topic, wherein a pedagogical authority figure, beset by a midlife crisis and exhibiting creepily inappropriate behaviour, engages in a reprehensible and exploitative dynamic with a barely post-pubescent pupil, redolent of a certain Nabokovian trope.
It occasionally descends into "so bad it's good" territory with the pretentious dialogue. No one talks this way in real life. At least, I hope not. Worth at least one view for Jenna Ortega's performance. Also worth watching if you have a smoking fetish.
House of the Rising Sun (1987)
Strange Movie With Some Good Moments
This is quite a strange film. The cinematography is well done and the women are very easy on the eyes. The soundtrack is also quite good, featuring hits by Bryan Ferry and Icehouse. The main antagonist even drives a sleek DeLorean that sadly only gets about 20 seconds of screen time. The budget for this flick was definitely quite low, but the movie is entertaining nonetheless. I watched it on Tubi tonight and was immediately struck by the unique editing of the opening title sequence. The main antagonist's house reminds me of Angel Maldonado's home with the tram in the film 8 Million Ways to Die, also filmed in 1986. If you have Tubi, I recommend watching this film. I don't think it's available on DVD or Blu Ray, as I've already searched for it. As I mentioned earlier, the women are gorgeous in this movie, but Tawny Moyer steals the show.
The Hot Spot (1990)
It Takes a Lot of Money to be Free
This movie made quite an impression on me when I first watched it. I believe this happened because I was 34 at the time, only two years younger than Maddox is in the film. I think this made it easy for me to identify with him. He's a drifter that has grown weary of drifting around aimlessly. This comes out when he tells fellow car salesman Lon "It takes a lot of money to be free. In this life, you have to take what you want. You can't stand around waiting for someone to give it to ya." He also tells his boss, Mr. Harshaw the way it is in a very slick and cynical way "I've got ambition. The way I see it, if I keep sellin' jalopies for the next 30, 40 years, someone'll give me a testimonial... And a 40 dollar watch." Harshaw's reaction is hilarious as there is literally nothing he can say to that, because he knows it's true.
Maddox sees an opportunity to escape the rat race by robbing the local bank. He sets a building on fire as a decoy and then notices some poor soul is trapped in the burning building. Feeling responsible, he goes in there himself and rescues the man. This goes to show that Maddox will no cross all lines. He does have a moral compass to a degree. This also gives him an alibi. Unfortunately for Maddox, the alibi is full of holes thanks to the police knowing that there were a few minutes unaccounted for before he showed up to the fire. There's also a seemingly clairvoyant blind witness who ran into him during the robbery.
There's really nothing to dislike about this film. Everyone looks terrific. Don Johnson looked fantastic and really just as handsome as he did in Miami Vice. Jennifer Connelly is impossibly beautiful, as is Virginia Madsen. Acting all around is top notch. I also really liked William Sadler's portrayal of the perverted blackmailing redneck.
Everything comes around to bite Maddox in the rear in the end. Johnson's acting here is really great and I feel like this may be his best acting performance. He loses Gloria, and Harshaw's wife gets him and the money in the end.
Dennis Hopper did an outstanding job directing this film. The cinematography is top notch and looks better than ever on Kino Lorber's new Blu Ray disc (highly recommended). I really feel like this movie has gotten better with age. It certainly shows what's missing from a lot of today's films. It's a timeless movie that hopefully will be seen and appreciated by future generations.