“I wanted to tell stories about people who I wanted to watch on screen,” says Susan Seidelman, the director behind a number of landmark ‘80s films that range from the fearless punk drama “Smithereens” to the Madonna-led classic “Desperately Seeking Susan.” It was never much of a mystery as to who those people were: Over the course of a career that would continue to shape American culture for the rest of the 20th century and beyond (later credits include the pilot for “Sex and the City”), Seidelman has consistently focused her sharp lens on the changing place of women in American society, and the work she made in the 1980s helped fundamentally reshape our national self-image in ways that are still being felt today.
Seidelman came to the cinema after studying fashion at Drexel University, where a film appreciation class had reawakened the fierce love for genre films that...
Seidelman came to the cinema after studying fashion at Drexel University, where a film appreciation class had reawakened the fierce love for genre films that...
- 8/14/2023
- by Marya E. Gates
- Indiewire
Read More: Magnolia Pictures Acquires Terence Davies' Tiff Beauty 'Sunset Song' The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 16th edition of the Film Comment Selects program, an eclectic group of films both current and classic. This year's program will open with the New York premiere of Terence Davies' "Sunset Song" on February 17, a romantic tale set on a Scottish farm on the cusp of World War II. It will end on February 24 with a screening of "Golden Eighties" in tribute to Chantal Akerman, who collaborated with an unusual group of individuals, including former "Cahiers du Cinema" critic Pascal Bonitzer and "Desperately Seeking Susan" screenwriter Leora Barish, for the film. Some other highlights are a two-film spotlight on Charles Bronson, with screenings of "Breakout" (1974) and "Rider on the Rain" (1969), and four films from Andrzej Żuławski, including the U.S. Premiere of his latest film...
- 12/21/2015
- by Wil Barlow
- Indiewire
You can't keep a bad woman down. With a worldwide boxoffice gross of $350 million and a career-transforming role for Sharon Stone as the seductive and possibly deadly novelist Catherine Tramell, work on a sequel to 1992's "Basic Instinct" has been under way for years.
What finally comes together in "Basic Instinct 2" is a case of more of the same -- but not the same thing. The original film, a giddy pulp-fiction stew of sex, seduction and murder, afforded director Paul Verhoeven a shock corridor in which he coupled the unbridled eroticism of his earlier Dutch films with images of brutal violence and death. Love it or hate it, the film, written by Joe Eszterhas, was a tour de force of provocation in which a femme fatale and a corrupt cop throw decorum to the wind to romp in a sun-drenched California, featuring camera angles worthy of Hitchcock and a nerve-teasing score by Jerry Goldsmith.
By contrast, "Instinct 2" takes place in cool, sleek and dark postmodern London with cavernous interiors, often monochromatic surfaces and shadows everywhere. The director this time is British, Michael Caton-Jones, and he makes the sex scenes off-putting and dirty -- but not dirty in the right way. You sense his distaste just as you sensed Verhoeven's enthusiastic voyeurism. Complicating matters, the sequel, written by Leora Barish and Henry Bean, gets trapped by the need to repeat themes and scenes from the original rather than boldly explore a new terrain.
Stone is back as the bad-girl novelist. But Michael Douglas' San Francisco cop is gone, replaced by David Morrissey's cold-fish shrink, Dr. Michael Glass. No offense to Morrissey, but that's a let-down that unsettles the balance between a man and woman titter-tottering on the very brink of the law. The minute you see Glass, you know he's no match for Tramell: This Glass is bound to shatter.
The title and Stone's name ensure a good two weeks at the boxoffice, and perhaps some moviegoers might even like a tamer sex thriller where much is predictable though certainly not logical. Dialogue often is hilarious -- "Even the truth is a lie with her!" shrieks David Thewlis' police detective about Tramell -- the sexual roundelays put soap operas to shame, and the solution to all the murders is offered up without a shred of credibility. If any of this takes, then a decent worldwide gross is possible for "Instinct 2".
The movie's original subtitle, since dropped, was "Risk Addiction", which expresses the new film's take on Catherine. She is a risk addict, thriving on danger and needing to take greater and greater risks to quicken her pulse. When Catherine -- relocated to London for unexplained reasons -- drives her sports car into the Thames late one night, she is implicated in the death of a football star. Detective Superintendent Roy Washburn (Thewlis) brings in noted criminal psychiatrist Glass to perform an evaluation of her.
His analysis must have impressed Catherine because when she is released by the court, she wants to engage him as her shrink. In the film's first howling implausibility, he actually takes her on as a patient despite the objections of his colleague Dr. Milena Gardosh (the always wonderful Charlotte Rampling).
Naturally, their sessions see tables turn: She provokes and draws information out of him without revealing much of herself. And, naturally, he is thoroughly smitten. You know this because his colorless, grim visage grows even more colorless and grim.
While Washburn continues his quest to nail Catherine for the first death, she insinuates herself into the lives of seemingly everyone Glass knows -- his ex-wife (Indira Varma), a journalist (Hugh Dancy) working a damaging story about Glass and even Gardosh. Not everyone survives. In the movie's wildest bit of nonsense, Catherine lets the good doctor tail her into Soho's seedier streets, where she pays a pimp in a brothel to have sex with her, fully aware that Glass is watching.
The architecture and interior designs are all trendy and slick yet still feel like film noir as Goldsmith's musical themes resurface within the contours of John Murphy's new score. But the dynamics are off between Stone and Morrissey. What could possibly intrigue Catherine about this anal creature? That pimp or even the detective would be a better bet if she's looking for the thrill of risks.
Morrissey gives a stiff, awkward performance, while Stone moves dangerously close to overplaying the femme fatale. There is little if any intrigue in the story or the characters. Even the murders don't even seem to matter much. The only real intrigue comes in the film's risky flirtation with high camp.
BASIC INSTINCT 2
Columbia Pictures
Mario F. Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna in association with MGM Pictures present a C2/Intermedia 3 production in association with IMF3
Credits:
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Screenwriters: Leora Barish, Henry Bean
Based on characters created by: Joe Eszterhas: Producer: Mario F. Kassar, Andrew G. Vajna, Joel B. Michaels
Executive producers: Moritz Borman, Matthias Deyle, Denise O'Dell, Mark Albela
Director of photography: Gyula Pados
Production designer: Norman Garwood
Music: John Murphy
Music theme: Jerry Goldsmith
Costumes: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
Editors: John Scott, Istvan Kiraly
Cast:
Catherine Tramell: Sharon Stone
Dr. Michael Glass: David Morrissey
Dr. Milena Gardosh: Charlotte Rampling
Roy Washburn: David Thewlis
Adam Tower: Hugh Dancy
Denise Glass: Indira Varma
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 114 minutes...
What finally comes together in "Basic Instinct 2" is a case of more of the same -- but not the same thing. The original film, a giddy pulp-fiction stew of sex, seduction and murder, afforded director Paul Verhoeven a shock corridor in which he coupled the unbridled eroticism of his earlier Dutch films with images of brutal violence and death. Love it or hate it, the film, written by Joe Eszterhas, was a tour de force of provocation in which a femme fatale and a corrupt cop throw decorum to the wind to romp in a sun-drenched California, featuring camera angles worthy of Hitchcock and a nerve-teasing score by Jerry Goldsmith.
By contrast, "Instinct 2" takes place in cool, sleek and dark postmodern London with cavernous interiors, often monochromatic surfaces and shadows everywhere. The director this time is British, Michael Caton-Jones, and he makes the sex scenes off-putting and dirty -- but not dirty in the right way. You sense his distaste just as you sensed Verhoeven's enthusiastic voyeurism. Complicating matters, the sequel, written by Leora Barish and Henry Bean, gets trapped by the need to repeat themes and scenes from the original rather than boldly explore a new terrain.
Stone is back as the bad-girl novelist. But Michael Douglas' San Francisco cop is gone, replaced by David Morrissey's cold-fish shrink, Dr. Michael Glass. No offense to Morrissey, but that's a let-down that unsettles the balance between a man and woman titter-tottering on the very brink of the law. The minute you see Glass, you know he's no match for Tramell: This Glass is bound to shatter.
The title and Stone's name ensure a good two weeks at the boxoffice, and perhaps some moviegoers might even like a tamer sex thriller where much is predictable though certainly not logical. Dialogue often is hilarious -- "Even the truth is a lie with her!" shrieks David Thewlis' police detective about Tramell -- the sexual roundelays put soap operas to shame, and the solution to all the murders is offered up without a shred of credibility. If any of this takes, then a decent worldwide gross is possible for "Instinct 2".
The movie's original subtitle, since dropped, was "Risk Addiction", which expresses the new film's take on Catherine. She is a risk addict, thriving on danger and needing to take greater and greater risks to quicken her pulse. When Catherine -- relocated to London for unexplained reasons -- drives her sports car into the Thames late one night, she is implicated in the death of a football star. Detective Superintendent Roy Washburn (Thewlis) brings in noted criminal psychiatrist Glass to perform an evaluation of her.
His analysis must have impressed Catherine because when she is released by the court, she wants to engage him as her shrink. In the film's first howling implausibility, he actually takes her on as a patient despite the objections of his colleague Dr. Milena Gardosh (the always wonderful Charlotte Rampling).
Naturally, their sessions see tables turn: She provokes and draws information out of him without revealing much of herself. And, naturally, he is thoroughly smitten. You know this because his colorless, grim visage grows even more colorless and grim.
While Washburn continues his quest to nail Catherine for the first death, she insinuates herself into the lives of seemingly everyone Glass knows -- his ex-wife (Indira Varma), a journalist (Hugh Dancy) working a damaging story about Glass and even Gardosh. Not everyone survives. In the movie's wildest bit of nonsense, Catherine lets the good doctor tail her into Soho's seedier streets, where she pays a pimp in a brothel to have sex with her, fully aware that Glass is watching.
The architecture and interior designs are all trendy and slick yet still feel like film noir as Goldsmith's musical themes resurface within the contours of John Murphy's new score. But the dynamics are off between Stone and Morrissey. What could possibly intrigue Catherine about this anal creature? That pimp or even the detective would be a better bet if she's looking for the thrill of risks.
Morrissey gives a stiff, awkward performance, while Stone moves dangerously close to overplaying the femme fatale. There is little if any intrigue in the story or the characters. Even the murders don't even seem to matter much. The only real intrigue comes in the film's risky flirtation with high camp.
BASIC INSTINCT 2
Columbia Pictures
Mario F. Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna in association with MGM Pictures present a C2/Intermedia 3 production in association with IMF3
Credits:
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Screenwriters: Leora Barish, Henry Bean
Based on characters created by: Joe Eszterhas: Producer: Mario F. Kassar, Andrew G. Vajna, Joel B. Michaels
Executive producers: Moritz Borman, Matthias Deyle, Denise O'Dell, Mark Albela
Director of photography: Gyula Pados
Production designer: Norman Garwood
Music: John Murphy
Music theme: Jerry Goldsmith
Costumes: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
Editors: John Scott, Istvan Kiraly
Cast:
Catherine Tramell: Sharon Stone
Dr. Michael Glass: David Morrissey
Dr. Milena Gardosh: Charlotte Rampling
Roy Washburn: David Thewlis
Adam Tower: Hugh Dancy
Denise Glass: Indira Varma
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 114 minutes...
- 3/31/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Charlotte Rampling and David Thewlis have joined the cast of Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction for Intermedia Films and C2 Pictures. MGM/Sony is releasing the film domestically, with C2 handling international. They join Sharon Stone and David Morrissey in the sequel that starts shooting this week at London's Pinewood Studios and on location in the U.K. Written by Leora Barish and Henry Bean, the London-set sequel finds Catherine Tramell (Stone) on the wrong side of the law. She meets a man who might finally be her match: The criminal psychologist (Morrissey) assigned to evaluate her by Scotland Yard. Rampling plays a psychiatrist friend of Morrissey's character, with Thewlis playing a police officer. Former British soccer player Stan Collymore also has a small role. Thewlis will next be seen in Kingdom of Heaven. His credits include , Gangster No. 1 and Timeline. Thewlis is repped by WMA. Rampling's credits include Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool, Spy Game, The Statement and The Keys to the House. Rampling is repped by Artmedia.
- 4/19/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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