The Rose Tattoo (1955) – DVD

October 26, 2004Posted in1950s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

**½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Burt Lancaster, Anna Magnani, Marisa Pavan, Ben Cooper
screenplay by Tennessee Williams, based on his play
directed by Daniel Mann

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Anna Magnani is the kind of actress people describe using all the wrong superlatives. Everybody talks about her “big” presence, about how she’s a “powerhouse” and a “force of nature,” as though she were the Italian Shelley Winters. This kind of blather hardly approximates the scope of Magnani’s talent. She’s big all right, but she’s more than the pyrotechnic scenery-chewer that “big” normally designates: she’s that rare combination of big and nuanced, a crushing blend of uninhibited physicality and the willingness to take every line, word, and punctuation mark personally. Technically, even a luminary like her has her work cut out for her in something like The Rose Tattoo, what with its middling Louisiana Peyton Place scenario by Tennessee Williams, the dry, emotionless direction of Daniel Mann, and a supporting cast of Hollywood phoneys conspiring to waste her talent. But Magnani never betrays the thought that her part might be less than worth her time, and in so doing, she makes it worth her time. Ours, too, more often than not.

Deathwatch (2002) – DVD

October 25, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Germany, Horror, Thriller, UK, War

**½/**** Image B Sound A Extras C+
starring Jamie Bell, Ruaidhri Conroy, Laurence Fox, Torben Liebrecht
written and directed by Michael J. Bassett

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Reading the blurb on the keepcase for Deathwatch, I had to wonder: what kind of individual sets a horror film in World War I? The connection isn't obvious until you see the movie, whereupon you realize that this most pointless of military adventures provides an ideal location for the nihilism and futility that defines the genre. The conflict here serves as proof of the original sin that will result in the retributive deaths of the cast (whether they actually deserve it or not); simply put, it's a slasher movie, but with Kaiser Wilhelm instead of sex. The association is so suggestive that Deathwatch threatens to say things about the Great War that I've never really seen on film before–but alas, it doesn't fully grasp the potential of the link, forcing us instead to contend with fairly standard combat intrigue and officer-bashing as we wait for another flash of intelligence. Still, it's a cut above most straight-to-disc fare (it opened theatrically in the UK), and at its best it has a dank resonance setting it apart from the war and horror movie rabbles.

The Alamo (2004) [Widescreen] – DVD

October 22, 2004Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, War, Western, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B- Sound A Extras C+
starring Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, Patrick Wilson
screenplay by Leslie Bohem and Stephen Gaghan and John Lee Hancock
directed by John Lee Hancock

by Walter Chaw There's an old joke from "Hee Haw" about crossing a potato with a sponge: "It didn't taste too good, but boy did it soak up the gravy!" In John Lee Hancock's appalling and sidesplitting The Alamo, Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett tells a gruesome variation on that punchline, only as an actor's moment (and with the "grease" off of slaughtered and incinerating Indians substituted for gravy). "Now, when someone passes me the potatoes, I just pass them right on." An interesting lesson taught about genocide and cannibalism: it's not the commission of atrocity to be mourned, it's the loss for a taste for French fries that's really the tragedy. The Alamo is essentially how "Hee Haw" saved the world–every time Davy pops his head above the titular fort's ramparts, visions of Roy Clark and Buck Owens popping out of a cornfield dance in your head. There are moments when, I kid you not, I looked to see if there was a price tag dangling, Minnie Pearl-style, from Jim Bowie's (Jason Patric) hat.

A Home at the End of the World (2004) – DVD

October 19, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Romance

*/**** Image A Sound A- Extras D
starring Colin Farrell, Dallas Roberts, Robin Wright Penn, Sissy Spacek
screenplay by Michael Cunningham, based on his novel
directed by Michael Mayer

by Walter Chaw Glib, facile, essentially misguided, and exhibiting a kind of misunderstanding about film craft that sends exactly the opposite of the intended message in every scene, Michael Mayer's directorial debut A Home at the End of the World is a trial from start to finish. It makes appalling soundtrack choices first in establishing period, then in demolishing mood, and finally in screwing up the chronology enough so that the viewer is left completely unmoored. If you're using a jovial Seventies soundtrack to place your film in the Seventies, it's a really bad idea to start using a classic Motown soundtrack when your picture actually moves forward in time. (Not even mentioning what a perverse boner it is to accompany the discovery of a dead father with "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard.") Add to that a screenplay by The Hours scribe Michael Cunningham that displays the same kind of top-heavy, more or less off-base pretension and disdain for such outmoded values as loyalty and generosity, and what you have is a recipe for a very particular kind of disaster.

Van Helsing (2004) [Widescreen] – DVD

October 19, 2004Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, DVD, Romania, Vampire, Werewolf

½*/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras C+
starring Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham
written and directed by Stephen Sommers

Vanhelsingcapby Walter Chaw There are times now and again over the course of Stephen Sommers's unspeakable Van Helsing when the film is so brazenly bad that it threatens to be satirical–so bad that one is left to scramble to pull some sort of gestalt sense from the carnage. But it's just a mess, a cesspool of half-formed ideas and images ripped off whole from The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Hugh Jackman reprising Wolverine from X-Men and Kate Beckinsale essentially reprising her role from Underworld. All of it's wrapped up in a cacophonous jumble of dour mattes, really (really) bad CGI, and an Alan Silvestri score that is itself a rip-off of everything that made John Williams famous (that is, Holst's "The Planets"). Way too long at just over two hours with no story to speak of justifying its length, the piece is stolen by David Wenham as a deadpan 19th century Q, Friar Carl, and grinds to a dead standstill whenever Jackman delivers one of his twenty lines, Beckinsale chimes in with a jarring non sequitur ("There's a bright side to death in Transylvania"), Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein's monster threatens to cry out "Puttin' on the Riiiitz," or Richard Roxburgh as Count Dracula vamps around like a diva in a John Waters film. If only Van Helsing were campy.

The Alamo (1960) – DVD

October 18, 2004Posted in1960s, Adventure, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, War, Western

**/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Frankie Avalon
screenplay by James Edward Grant
directed by John Wayne

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I freely admit that the prospect of a conservative historical epic directed by John Wayne initially sent a wave of panic rippling through my body. Having endured his offensive and tedious Vietnam opus The Green Berets, I was fearful of another impoverished mise-en-scène serving as the frame for Wayne's patented all-American bellicosity. (Unlike those crack commandoes, liberal critics can only stand so much.) So I was relieved to discover that The Alamo was at once more abstract and better-looking than The Green Berets and therefore more tolerable to sensitive lefty eyes–the film assumes that you're red-blooded enough to root for some American heroes, thus leaving the dubious reasons why unmentioned. Still, it lacks the articulateness to bring its jingoistic fervour to life, and it's sufficiently sluggish and monotonous to test the patience of all but the most uncritical super-patriots.

Candyman (1992) [Special Edition] – DVD

October 18, 2004Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Thriller, UK

***½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras A-
starring Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons
screenplay by Bernard Rose, based on “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker
directed by Bernard Rose

by Walter Chaw Clive Barker’s fiction drips of sex, reeks of it. Squint and you can see sex rising off of it like steam from a fresh-slain carcass. His best work, stuff like the short stories “In the Hills, the Cities” and “Human Remains,” or his audacious retelling of the Christian myth Imajica, are engorged with sensuality–alight with perversity and all manner of fetishistic penetrations. When translated into film, however, Barker’s work (including that which the author has shepherded to celluloid himself) takes on a certain seediness that undermines the essential elegance of the writing. Something about Barker’s prose makes the rawest obscenity seem privileged–the pleasure/pain principle of his cenobites in print, for example, is made the grail, whereas on the silver screen, it dips dangerously towards kitsch and cult camp. Barker in writing batters defenses and leaves you prostrate before it; Barker projected feels formal, overdone, even ridiculous. The burden of fantasy for the reader is on the reader, but for the moviegoer, it’s on the filmmaker.

Highwaymen (2004) – DVD

October 14, 2004Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Crime, DVD, Horror, Thriller

**/**** Image C+ Sound A- (DD)/A (DTS)
starring Jim Caviezel, Rhona Mitra, Frankie Faison, Colm Feore
screenplay by Craig Mitchell & Hans Bauer
directed by Robert Harmon

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I'll say one thing for the font of inanity that is Highwayman: it's completely uninhibited in its ridiculousness. One watches with eyebrows raised and jaw grazing the floor as the film pushes its ludicrous agenda, claiming its outlandish burlesque of the serial-killer melodrama to be just another day at the office and accepting nonsensical free-associations as hard facts. How, exactly, is one supposed to take a film whose felony of choice is a series of hit-and-run incidents with a '72 Cadillac El Dorado, driven by a disabled man who leaves artificial appendages as his calling cards? Or the picture's insistence that this is some sort of "perfect crime," as if the DMV wouldn't notice a little thing like a trail of crushed citizenry? You can hoot at the inconsistencies all you want, but director Robert (The Hitcher) Harmon won't hear you: his total commitment to the concept only deepens the camp and astounds you further. Still, wondering how the filmmakers will top the last meshugga moment is entertainment of a kind, and it goes without saying that bad-movie devotees will find themselves in hog heaven.

Unspeakable (2003) + Body Parts (1991) – DVDs

October 12, 2004Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

UNSPEAKABLE
*/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras C
starring Dina Meyer, Lance Henriksen, Pavan Grover, Jeff Fahey
screenplay by Pavan Grover
directed by Thomas J. Wright

BODY PARTS
***/**** Image A Sound A
starring Jeff Fahey, Kim Delaney, Lindsay Duncan, Brad Dourif
screenplay by Eric Red and Norman Snider, based on the novel Choice Cuts by Boileau-Narcejac
directed by Eric Red

by Walter Chaw Sort of a dude Meg Foster, blue-eyed B-movie actor Jeff Fahey has never quite attained the cult status of Jeffrey Combs or Bruce Campbell. I'm thinking it's because he's always had the air about him that he would rather be in something better than, say, The Serpent of Death, Serpent's Lair–anything in the general vicinity of "serpent." You get the impression that even in the midst of appearing in six or seven films a year, he's got his eye on the mainstream prize that would ferry him from the Bs to the vaunted As. I don't think Fahey is conceited so much as puzzled–but that aura of dissatisfaction detracts from the integrity of his work, no matter how admittedly flyblown the films in which his performances find themselves might be. Fahey is a sort of neo-William Shatner, or the post-Prince of the City Treat Williams: a probably-good actor who feels like he's gotten the raw end of the deal (true in Williams' case) and thus can't quite commit himself completely to camp.

Raising Helen (2004) [Widescreen] – DVD

October 12, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

½*/**** Image A Sound A- Extras C
starring Kate Hudson, John Corbett, Joan Cusack, Hayden Panettiere
screenplay by Jack Amiel & Michael Begler
directed by Garry Marshall

by Walter Chaw I made a promise to myself after The Other Sister to never watch another Garry Marshall film, but I guess I don't have enough self-respect. Raising Helen is repellent in the way of roadside carrion: it just sort of lies there stinking, making it hard to find the energy to attack it. (Something about beating dead horses and all that.) To endure Raising Helen is to surrender to the quintessence of that which is wrong with our culture, to the definition of a term like "disposable culture," and to the self-knowledge that what you really want from your entertainment is the comfortable affirmation of schmaltzy emotions provoked countless times before by countless identical romantic comedies. Going to this movie is the equivalent of giving up on an intellectual and emotional life. Raising Helen will only appeal to and attract people with pathologically little patience for films that challenge them in any way, that elicit genuine reactions and are thus threatening for their potential to penetrate the carefully constructed layers of numb denial that make unexamined lives liveable–films that provide anything like insight into any level of existential verity. It is the lowest rung on the escapist ladder, representative of some wholly self-contained fantasy world where the racial make-up of Queens is 99% WASP and 1% quirky East Indian, and where Kate Hudson's incandescent choppers are Leading Lady material.

Cannonball (1976) – DVD

October 11, 2004Posted in1970s, Action, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blue Underground, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Hong Kong, Thriller

**/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A-
starring David Carradine, Bill McKinney, Veronica Hamel, Belinda Balaski
screenplay by Paul Bartel and Donald C. Simpson
directed by Paul Bartel

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover On paper, Cannonball is a no-brainer, with the thought of re-teaming Death Race 2000 director Paul Bartel and star David Carradine looking as tantalizing as it does obvious–the gravitas of the latter having so successfully anchored the satirical jabs of the former. Alas, Roger Corman's low threshold for resisting an easy buck seems to have saddled Cannonball with the thing that interested Bartel the least, forcing him to shoehorn his attempts at spoofery into a road-race format where they don't really belong. Thus the film is constantly at cross-purposes with itself, crushing the satire under the wheels of expediency and diluting the adrenaline rush with comedic asides that now lack relevance. The result jerks forward like a beginning driver trying to pop a wheelie. A few choice bits hint at a better movie, but that's it.

Zachariah (1971) – DVD

October 6, 2004Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Mexico, Musical, Western

**½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring John Rubinstein, Pat Quinn, Don Johnson, Country Joe and the Fish
screenplay by Joe Massot and Philip Austin and Peter Bergman, David Ossman, Philip Proctor (known as Firesign Theatre)
directed by George Englund

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Think back with me, for a moment, to a bygone era when rock was strange: a hippie-descending, proto-glam period when the buzz was off the love generation but a bumbling mystic energy remained–when record producers were getting into bed with the likes of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mick Jagger could be seen in the gender-bending gangster drama Performance. It was a self-aggrandizing, frequently ridiculous time, but it had a tolerance for eccentricity that's impossible to find in our Britneyfied MTV age and for which I can only be wistfully nostalgic. Lacking both the money and the conceptual force to fully realize its acid-western ambitions, Zachariah isn't even close to being the quintessential flashback to those days (it may in fact simply be cashing in on a trend), but its half-flubbed attempts at pop-surrealism seem a tonic now that the mainstream pop landscape is largely imagined by accountants.

Aladdin (1992) [Platinum Edition] – DVD

October 5, 2004Posted in1990s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A+
screenplay by John Musker & Ron Clements and Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
directed by John Musker & Ron Clements

Aladdincapby Bill Chambers Jeffrey Katzenberg may have revived the American animated feature while he was at Disney, but only one of the hits his reign yielded is worth a second viewing. Where 1989's The Little Mermaid and especially 1991's nauseating Beauty and the Beast tried to pass themselves off as Golden Age Disney (1937 (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)-1950 (Cinderella), for argument's sake), before a certain stateliness loosened its grip on the house style, 1992's Aladdin took its cue from Uncle Walt's twilight years, the Sixties, when he was interested in telling–as he geared up to pass the torch, perhaps–mentor stories (The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book) and pop culture had finally caught up with his incongruous predilections for psychedelia and bohemianism. It's a risk to emulate the period considered the birth of the studio's Dark Ages, and Aladdin is the least spurious movie of Disney's renaissance because of it.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) – (Off Color Films) DVD

October 5, 2004Posted in****/****, 1960s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: George A. Romero, DVD, Horror, Zombie

****/**** Image F (colorized)/C- (b&w) Sound C Extras F
starring Judith O'Dea, Duane Jones, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman
screenplay by John A. Russo
directed by George A. Romero

by Walter Chaw George A. Romero's drive-in shocker is not only one of the most important independent and genre films of all-time, but also a dead brilliant civil rights metaphor featuring an unfortunately enduring rarity: a strong, virile, uncommented-upon African-American lead. The casting of Duane Jones came about, according to legend, mainly because Jones was the best actor any of the filmmakers knew. Say what you will of Night of the Living Dead, if you see no other ways that this seminal picture casts a long shadow, it casts a long one by just this merit-based example. The culmination of a lot of themes and trends in the American cinema at that time, the film features neighbour-suspicion, fear of children, fear of provincial National Guardsmen, and the creeping dread that the world may be ending because our government is run by assclowns and nepotists. It's a testament to the undertow of this text (or a testament to how short-sighted we are as a nation) that it still works in the same way over thirty-five years later. But Night of the Living Dead is more than just a devastating metaphor for the class struggle, for the rising tide of suspicion and corruption that tore a chasm through the middle of the United States: it's a tightly-edited, claustrophobically-framed horror film that retains, along with its relevance, its ability to startle and appall.

Eddie Murphy Raw (1987) – DVD

October 4, 2004Posted in1980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Concert Doc, DVD

**/**** Image B Sound B+
directed by Robert Townsend

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Late one night when I was 15, I sat in my parents' basement and enjoyed every vulgar minute of Eddie Murphy Raw on Pay-TV. At the time, I was only marginally more sexually aware than a garden hose–all I knew was that Eddie was saying naughty things and that it was a priori true that naughty things were funny. Alas, some youthful pleasures don't bear revisiting. It's now sixteen years later and I must confess that my second viewing of the film didn't go so well: in the cold light of maturity, it seems like the record of a brilliant performer spouting the worst sort of misogynist drivel and calling it the truth. And while the lightning-fast delivery and easy charm of the man soften the blow somewhat, it's still a depressing waste of his talent that seals Murphy's pact with the devil, which would eventually cast him into family-comedy hell.

The Untouchables (1987) – DVD|[Special Collector’s Edition] – DVD

September 28, 2004Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Crime, Directors: Brian De Palma, Drama, DVD, Gangster, Thriller

***½/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A-
SCE DVD – Image B+ Sound A- Extras B+
starring Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Sean Connery
screenplay by David Mamet
directed by Brian De Palma

by Vincent Suarez Will the real Brian De Palma please stand up?

Mork & Mindy: The Complete First Season (1978-1979) – DVD

September 27, 2004Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Television

Image A- Sound B+
"The Mork & Mindy Special," "Mork Moves In," "Mork Runs Away," "Mork in Love," "Mork's Seduction," "Mork Goes Public," "To Tell the Truth," "Mork the Gullible," "A Mommy For Mork," "Mork's Greatest Hits," "Old Fears," "Mork's First Christmas," "Mork and the Immigrant," "Mork the Tolerant," "Young Love," "Snowflakes Keep Dancing On My Head," "Mork Goes Erk," "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," "Mork's Mixed Emotions," "Mork's Night Out," "In Mork We Trust," "Mork Runs Down," "It's a Wonderful Mork," "Mork's Best Friend"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover When you're a kid, you're introduced to the movies and TV shows that pleased your elders and think: did people really believe in this stuff? You see the stilted acting, the forced situations, the alien ways of relating and decide that we've made progress–that we'll never be that dumb again. Then the years go by, and you forget the things you watched as a kid, and for a while, you think you're still living in that sensible golden age–until you revisit those childhood pleasures and gasp in horror. At that point, you realize not only that some of the things you worshipped as a young pup are as stilted, forced, and alien as the aged entertainment you once derided, but also that there are kids alive today who are scoffing at these museum pieces and writing you off the way you wrote off your parents. Such is the case with "Mork & Mindy", a Garry Marshall sitcom to which I was religiously devoted as a credulous six-year-old; now, after enduring all ten-plus hours of season one, I'm forced me to ask: did I really eat this stuff up? And will I burn in cultural hell as a result?

Home on the Range (2004) – DVD

September 24, 2004Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, Western

*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
written and directed by Will Finn & John Sanford

by Walter Chaw It opens with a musical number and a rabbit with a peg leg–and what feels like days later, Home on the Range ends with an ear-splitting action sequence featuring Cuba Gooding Jr. typecast as an over-animated pack animal. Meanwhile, a crass two-dimensional cow is typecast as Roseanne, her prize heifer Maggie introduced onscreen udder-first: "Yeah, they're real, quit staring." Real nice. And the intrigue, such as it is, revolves around yodeling cattle rustler Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) narrowing his sights on the bucolic Patch of Heaven ranch, no-kill home of stock chickens ("It's a chick thing," hardy har har), a duck, a goat, and some swine.

King Kong Lives (1986) – DVD

September 23, 2004Posted in1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, DVD, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound A-
starring Linda Hamilton, Brian Kerwin, John Ashton, Peter Michael Goetz
screenplay by Ronald Shusett and Steven Pressfield
directed by John Guillermin

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There are times when a critic watches a movie and realizes why he got into the racket–when, for instance, the film is made with intelligence and grace and humanity, and manages to bring him back to the world instead of forcing him into a false one. Then there are times when the critic watches King Kong Lives. This is a film that: has no reason to live; creates career opportunities for B-list actors and journeyman hack directors without a second thought for the paying audience; involves special effects that looked cheesy at the time and now, nearly 20 years later, look like a pantomime horse stomping on an electric train set; and is such a colossal waste of time and effort, you feel bitter and resentful towards the people who foisted it upon you for the purpose of mentioning it in print. The best thing to say about sitting through King Kong Lives is that you’ll know better than to ever do it again.

Mean Girls (2004) [Special Collector’s Edition – Widescreen Collection] – DVD

September 21, 2004Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, DVD

***/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer
screenplay by Tina Fey, based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman
directed by Mark S. Waters

Meangirlscapby Walter Chaw Plastics instead of Heathers; Lindsay Lohan instead of Winona Ryder; director Mark Waters instead of screenwriter brother Daniel; lunchtime poll: same. The biggest difference between Mean Girls and Heathers is the lack of that unmistakable spark of dark, playful genius. Both the Waters brothers made a splash with their initial public offerings (Mark with the fantastic The House of Yes, Daniel with Heathers), but while Daniel's portfolio is sprinkled with lead balloons like The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and the fitfully interesting Demolition Man, he did score with Batman Returns; Mark, alas, has a Freddie Prinze Jr./Monica Potter, a Jason Priestly/Mariel Hemingway, and a pair of Lohans in his deck, making The House of Yes an anomaly, it seems–as outcast from its comrades as Waters's imperfect characters are from his vision of a perversely stolid normality. Not to say that Waters's work post-The House of Yes is without unifying vision, just that his tendencies betray themselves as desperately wanting to be popular. It's a yen that makes Mean Girls actually a little autobiographical, and, probably as a direct result of that transparency, better than it should be.