Pynchon

"Edmond".



After a disturbing experience with a fortune teller, Edmond Burke (William H. Macy), a downtrodden and defeated office drone, descends into the hellish underworld that is America's underbelly. There he finds his own particular kind of hell... and possible redemption.

I normally find that I can judge how good a movie is by the number of walkouts. "Edmond" had 4. (By the way, this is not a record. "Crash" had 11 walkouts, most of them during the scene when James Spader plays tonsil tennis with Elias Koteas. Interesting that. No end of kinky heterosexual sex up to that point, but the first hint of guy-on-guy action and the cinema clears faster than a swimming pool with a turd found floating on the surface of the water. God bless the homophobes.) I'm not all that surprised. "Edmond" is (and I hate the word) kind of challenging. For every time I applauded Edmond's determination to refuse to accept his current existence, I also cringed at his rampant racism, sexism, homophobia and stupidity. Oooh... and it is violent.

But... "Edmond" is a good and very interesting film from writer David Mamet (adapted from his one-act play) and, amazingly, director Stuart Gordon (who made two of my favourite schlock horror films of all time - "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond" - and nothing of consequence that I have seen, ever since). Strong lead performance by William H. Macy, full of anger and indignation, but also a very funny performance in his quest to make the most of his money. Weird and off centre supporting performances, some of them literally blink and miss, by a galaxy of familiar faces. Mamet favourite Joe Mantegna, Gordon favourite Jeffery Combs, Denise Richards, the Goddess Julia Stiles, Mena Suvari, Debi Mazar, Dulé Hill, et al.

Not a film for everybody, but I thought it was great.

I'm not too sure about Edmond's image choices by the end of the film, though.

********

This afternoon...

1. Haircut.
2. Film. "The Painted Veil".
3. The return of Lorraine.
4. Er... Cook food.
5. Watch TV. I'm quite enjoying "Dexter" at the moment.

Back tomorrow.

Labels: Movies