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Reviews
The Twilight of the Golds (1996)
Rather offensive...
This movie meant well. But that we are still watching people's phobias, prejudices, and hatred of gays and lesbians -- and then in a way being told that for others to hate and despise us is just a natural reaction, is insulting. It may be natural for some to feel this way about gay people, but if someone who felt the same strong "natural" reactions towards women, or blacks, or asians, were to voice them so casually and then try to justify those feelings, we would be all over them advising them that their reactions were not to be tolerated and they should keep such feelings to themselves. Why not the same here? I hated listening for a good portion of this movie about what a hard decision it is to raise a gay child. Children are tough to raise no matter gay, straight, male, female, whatever. Again, I think the parties involved in making this had good intentions...I just wonder why all the political correctness claptrap didn't apply here. This is where it was really needed.
Psycho (1998)
An Excellent Tribute to the Master of Suspense
The 1998 version of Psycho is a movie that I went to knowing that I would not like the results. I thought that some movies are best left alone. This is particularly true of those movies that are acknowledged masterpieces, or classics. Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" qualifies on both counts and while the updated 1998 version is not remotely in the same league, I did enjoy this movie. Gus Van Sant gets an "A" for effort. I think the director takes a huge risk by not screwing with the original movie. After the credits (faithful even here to the original) we are told that the year is 1998. There are other indications of this being a later time and day -- e.g. later model cars with electric car windows. Other than this however, Gus Van Sant has tried faithfully to make us believe that we are in the middle of the 1960s. The duality of this has an interesting although not totally successful effect on the viewer. But that's okay. As far as remakes go, this one fulfills the meaning of the word better than any other "remake" I've seen. And like I say, I think it is a bold, and courageous effort for a director in Hollywood these days -- how do you make it play like 1960 in 1998. How do you make it just as scary in this day and age of Scream and Scream 2? Gus Van Sant succeeds by showing us that it didn't need updating -- it needed remembering. The shower scene is just as scary, probably more so, due to the reality of technicolor, and so are select other scenes -- all done as they were originally done by the master himself. This is a moving tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, and his unique voice as a film-maker.