18 January 2006

The Elephant in the Room

Pick of the Day: Heavy - dir. James Mangold - 1995 - USA

There hit a point somewhere in the 90s where American independent films stopped being.. well, independent. Flashy hipness stomped out quiet stillness. Heavy's cast might have suggested the former. You've got Debbie Harry (long after her only memorable film crossover, putting out cigarettes on her breasts, in Videodrome) as a diner waitress, The Lemonheads' Evan Dando as a jerk boyfriend, and Liv Tyler as yet another tortured "beauties." Thankfully Heavy was probably one of the less indulgent of her star vehicle transitions from music videos to film (for a more masturbatory counter-example, see Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty), though she's still the object of non-threatening lust here. And while Heavy hasn't stood the test of time, it's still always nice to see a film that doesn't rely on dialogue to tell its tale. And, of course, Shelley Winters plays the mother of Pruitt Taylor Vince and the owner of the diner.

No comments: