Fatal Attraction

I only wanted to look at this because I heard about the alternate ending.

Director: Adrian Lyne
Writers: James Dearden (Screenplay and short film)
               
This is a film about a man's "one-night stand" that goes all kinds of wrong and the woman stalks him and his family in an attempt to get him to love her. I put the phrase one-night stand in quotes because this was not a one-night stand, it was an extremely short-lived affair lasting an entire weekend. Whoever keeps saying it was a one-night stand needs to look at how long one night is. Hint: it's not a weekend involving fucking at least 4 times.

Before I get into what I thought of it, shout out to Does the dog die, I saw there was a dog in this very early on and I remembered an animal dies in this. Does the dog die is a site where, if you see an animal in a film and think "is this poor beautiful innocent soul going to die?" You can just type the name of the movie and it tells you whether the dog or any other animal in the feature gets the chop. It's a very helpful site and it helps you to prepare for what may or may not come to pass. I'll leave a link in case you wanna check them out.
https://www.movieswhere.com/topic/detail?topicId=1

So what did I think of this film? I loved it, it was a slow build up to a climax that made my blood feel like it was full of electricity. I love when films do that when they make you feel so tense you feel like your entire body is pulsating with this voltage. I feel like this is the film that also started the trend of the "psycho girlfriend", and while this film clearly shows that it's not going to end well if you become the "psycho girlfriend" but if you look at the shit some girls share and how they behave...I think you could trace it back to this film. Isn't this where the term "bunny boiler" came from too? *hint, that's a clue to something that happens if you've never seen this.*

The sex scenes are interesting, I mean the first time they fuck there's water involved and I just don't get it but I guess people do weird things when they're feeling such passion? Like I don't think I've ever been dry-humped at a sink, turned the tap on and started dripping the water over my partner and in their mouth. Crazy concept to me that. The second time they do it in an elevator, but it's one of those ones where it's not completely blocked off and you can see inside from the outside if you get what I mean? I have no idea what those ones are called but they're cool. Scary as hell, but cool. The third time I think happens off screen and the fourth time is just implied after they've had dinner. If anything, at least it looked like Alex (Glenn Close) got some damn good sex out of it. Like, in a way I can see exactly why she turns a bit crazy. I mean, if she's gotten something like that she probably won't wanna give it up anytime soon.

I also wanna talk about the endings. In the theatrical release, Dan (Michael Douglas) has had enough of Alex's antics and it comes to a head when she takes his daughter for a few hours and his wife ends up in the hospital. He takes his case to the police and they agree to bring Alex in for questioning over the situation, the next day Dan gets a call and it turns out the police went to her house and it appears she's missing so what does he do? Runs his wife an overly filled bath and gets her a cup of tea. Y'know, the safer option. Not like I'd wanna get my wife and kid out of the house if my animal murderer, stalker knew where I lived, and had gone missing. Nah, just run my busted up wife a too full bath. Of course, this backfires because it seems as though Alex has made her way to the house and into the bathroom. She then proceeds to attack Beth (Anne Archer). Dan can't hear the attack because he's boiling the tea kettle on the stove which...I have a whole lot of issues with that already and I don't wanna get too off track with this. So as I said, Dan can't hear the banging and blood-curdling screams coming from his wife and her attacker, his daughter doesn't wake up throughout this also. Eventually, he does hear the commotion once the kettle has stopped kicking off and he makes his way up to the bathroom and drowns Alex, only for her to fake out her own death and Beth shoots her when she rises from her watery bathtub of a pseudo-grave. The child sleeps through the loud ass gunshot too. I call bullshit on that. This ending is good, and I guess was more of a people pleaser but...there's just so many holes like...how did Alex get into the house undetected? Why did Beth leave the bath so fucking full, even before Alex came in that bath was too full and would have spilt onto the floor if she'd gotten into it? Where did the gun that Beth had come from? Why did that child not wake up from her mother screaming, another woman screaming, her father screaming and a gunshot yet somehow wakes up when her mother is mildly kicking off when she's told that Dan cheated on her? I guess this isn't an especially bad ending I mean, it does show how much a man can take when his families life is threatened but this just seems a little too dramatic for the story that came previously.

Now then, the alternate ending is a lot less dramatic. Still a little flawed but a lot better and ties in a lot more. In this version, Alex is already dead. The police show up to Dan's house and gives him the news, bringing a homicide detective with them, Dan, of course, is a little confused because they said it looked like she'd killed herself but the reason this is even considered a homicide case is because of this one line. Quote: "In my experience, a woman who wants to kill herself doesn't cut her throat with a 9" kitchen knife." Which...is a little stupid, Dan had already told the lieutenant that she'd tried to kill herself before but cutting her wrists, what's to say the next logical step would be antagonising a bull to maim herself? Logically, the next step up would be the throat with a knife lying around. Despite how much women like to plan things out but when it comes to suicide the plan to do it is there but how and when generally is on impulse. In my experience and knowledge of the subject at least, correct me if I'm wrong like. So Dan is then arrested on a murder charge and he tells Beth to go inside and call his lawyer, she does go inside and while searching for the phone number she comes across a tape Alex had made for Dan telling him he's a piece of shit and she loves him and doesn't know what she'll do without him. When Beth plays the tape, she hears Alex talk about killing herself if Dan continues to push her away, this is the evidence Dan needs to be cleared of the charges and as Beth gets up and shouts for her daughter to get ready the shot fades into a shot of Alex taking her own life, sitting on the bathroom floor listening to, what I assume is a number from the opera Madam Butterfly. Personally, I feel like this fits with the film better, it's not tense but it's tied into previous events in the film. The tape comes back into play rather than looking like another psychotic antic from Alex, it becomes a useful plot device. Like I said, the theatrical ending works well too considering it was meant to be a bigger final note for audiences at the time to latch onto and remember more. I just prefer the original.

Anyway, that's what I thought of this movie, it's pretty good and I don't know why I'd never seen it before but I guess you just gotta look at something and think, might as well, what could be the worst that can happen. If you've not seen it, you should definitely go and check it out.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support it's creators bu buying the DVD or Bluray.

Hercules

What the fuck is this confused thing doing?

Directors: Ron Clements
                  John Musker
Writers: Ron Clements (Animation Screenplay)
               John Musker (Animation Screenplay)
               Donald McEnery (Animation Screenplay)
               Bob Shaw (Animation Screenplay)
               Irene Mecchi (Animation Screenplay)

               Kaan Kaylon (Story)
               Kelly Wightman (Story)
               Randy Cartwright (Story)
               John Ramirez (Story)
               Jeff Snow (Story)
               Vance Gerry (Story)
               Kirk Hanson (Story)
               Tamara Lusher-Stocker (Story)
               Francis Glebas (Story)
               Mark Kennedy (Story)
               Bruce M Morris (Story)
               Don Dougherty (Story)
               Thom Enriquez (Story)

Here's a little insight as to how I write these things. I get who wrote the film who directed it and any extra info I need and then I watch the movie I'm going to write about. My initial line comes after I've written my notes. I think I watched Hercules once back when I was in school, like in year 7 so I don't really remember how I thought of it so I'll be going into this with a clear mind. I looked at all my information and I already have doubts. Look at the fucking state of that, for real just look at it. This is either going to be the most underrated thing I've ever seen in my entire 19 years of life OR it's gonna be a fucking mess. I just finished writing up Cry-Baby and it's 4 am now, I just thought I'll get my initial information out of the way first so I can just get a brew in the morning (1 pm but who even cares?) And I can get straight into it. Looking at that fucking list is already making me want to procrastinate. I'm gonna go to bed and I'll be back to writing this in a few hours...hopefully.

*12 hours later*

Right, I may have procrastinated but gimmie a break, I was up until 4 am and couldn't sleep til around 6 am so y'know. As predicted, however, this sucked. Fucking 18 writers for this and they came up with the most boring, clichéd,  done to death story. That I swear stole from both The Little Mermaid and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the music department. Maybe it was just me wishing to hear something good or there were themes of it and they most definitely weren't hidden. For reference, I got Hellfire vibes from the number I can go the distance and I got some Kiss the girl vibes from I won't say I'm in love. Like I said, maybe that's just me thinking that but I just felt it there.

So because this sucked there's a fair amount of problems, one of which I've already talked about. 18 fucking writers just for such a done story is such a big problem, it's understandable don't get me wrong, having that many people working on the same thing are obviously going to cause some creative differences and hard compromise. Hell working in a creative group sometimes it's best to go with the easier and safer option to please everyone and have a better working environment, it's a shame that the film suffered because of this because they could have made this very interesting. Personally, I think if you have a group that big writing for the same thing maybe split them off into smaller groups of people who have similar ideas, these groups write the script and everybody comes together once done and works together to combine all these scripts in a logical, coherent way to make a good film. I know that's probably not how it's done due to time constraints and budgets and a whole heap of other things but if it was possible then maybe if there was such a big team this could work? I don't know, moving on.

Another issue would be how Hercules (Tate Donovan) parents break the news to him about him being adopted. The story itself was done off screen as we've already seen what happened, but it's Hercules reaction to it that gets me. He's just kind of like "oh ok, I'll go talk to Zeus then and see what the big guy thinks." He doesn't seem to process it, he doesn't seem to be sad or grateful or confused, he just seems to be ok with it. Now I'm not an expert on being left for dead as an infant or even adopted but I feel like after being told you're adopted at the very least would leave you feeling pretty confused, maybe even angry at your biological parents for giving you up, possibly even grateful to your adopted parents for taking you in and loving you regardless of them not being blood-related. Throw in being left for dead and you've got a whole new set of emotion to deal with and like I said, I'm no expert on this subject but Hercules just seems to roll with it like he forgot to put his dishes in the sink or something. A mild inconvenience but it can be sorted out pretty quickly.

Finally, I'm going to talk about the artistic concept. Ancient Greece meets Vegas? Does that fit? I mean it worked for Aladdin which this film is kinda ripping off really, I mean think about it; the most likeable character is blue, ancient city in the past with the most likeable character making references to pop culture today, an independent female character who needs saving at the end. It's Aladdin in Greek clothing. The people who worked on this were flailing about struggling to come up with something to bring the company back to its great stride, remembered how popular Aladdin was and thought "holy Hell, let's do that but Hercules instead". I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't so obvious but...it is and it's a bother.

Positively speaking, the artwork is beautiful. It's done by Gerald Scarfe, an English artist who has done work on projects such as Pink Floyd: The Wall and a fair amount of other work for Pink Floyd and other minor projects like opening credits for Yes Minister. His work is really interesting to look at and while it is still interesting and lovely to look at here, it seems muted and out of place in a Disney feature. 

Another positive is James Woods as Hades. Oh my gosh, bless this man for doing this role. I'm not going to say that this performance and character save the film, they don't, but they do make you look forward to something other than the end credits. Woods doesn't portray Hades as an evil deity,  he plays it more like a stressed out guy who got the shitty end of the stick and has to deal with what he's got. It seems to make him more human and normally I'd say that it sucks and you should go all out and make him evil but considering there is such a lack of relatable characters in the film, coming to a grand total of 1 including Hades, it's a good thing...for once. I think that with all the Disney live-action origin stories, and considering they're giving the actual devil a more human backstory, I think they could maybe give this guy a pretty cool backstory. 

Overall, this sucked, I got so bored watching it but I got through it and I've managed to write about it as best I could, I'm sorry it's not a huge in depth discussion on the inaccuracy relating to the Grecian mythology and the story of Hercules but...I guess that'll make the kids wanna get into learning this stuff and so it can inspire educational motivation. Anyway, I have food so I'm gonna get eating and then I'm gonna start working on my next film. I should probably stop attacking Disney too...

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD orBluray.