BEFORE: Joel Michaely carries over from "Carrie Pilby", and now I know the real reason why I wasn't allowed to drop in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar", it was so I could send a Birthday SHOUT-out to Jessica Biel, born March 3, 1982. If I had dropped in that other film, then THIS film with Ms. Biel would have landed on March 4. They're always looking out for the integrity of this blog, those crafty judges. At least I can get to another Oscar-nominated film on Saturday.
How are YOUR Oscar preparations going? Are you getting out there, seeing a lot of films? Or just streaming a bunch of the nominees from home? If you're still housebound, here's the line-up of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar Winners" line-up for Friday, March 4:
7:15 am "Cromwell" (1970)
10:00 am "Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist" (1979)
10:45 am "Harlan County, USA" (1976)
12:45 pm "Bound for Glory" (1976)
3:30 pm "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974)
5:30 pm "Cabaret" (1972)
8:00 pm "Network" (1976)
10:15 pm "The French Connection" (1971)
12:15 am "Midnight Express" (1978)
2:30 am "The Omen" (1976)
4:30 am "Cries and Whispers" (1972)
Ah, they've reached the films of the 1970's. So then, why not just go chronologically for the whole month, start with "Wings" from 1927 and move forward from there, nah, that would be too easy, wouldn't it? And then the people who don't like the older black-and-whites wouldn't turn in until the last week. I think next week they're still splitting up films by decade, but after that it looks like a confusing mess, no rhyme or reason to it. Well, I've seen five of Friday's films: "Cabaret", "Network", "The French Connection", "The Omen", and last year I watched a lot of Bergman, including "Cries and Whispers". Another 5 out of 11 gets me to 16 out of 46, or almost 35%.
THE PLOT: The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
AFTER: This is another film that I TRIED to watch before, back in the before times (before the blog, not before the pandemic) and I just couldn't stick with it - "Walking and Talking" was another film like that. Or maybe I did watch them, and they didn't stick, or I forgot what it was about those films that made me not remember them, whatever. Either way, those films are getting a proper watching this year, then I'm crossing them off the list, and my IMDB rating will prove to me in the future that I DID watch them, all the way through, and I never have to do so again. Plus, the linking, I needed them for that, nothing's more important than not breaking the chain.
There are a few strange things about this film, in addition to the fact that it somehow has no "good" characters, there's really nobody to root for here, because they're all damaged, they all act irresponsibly or in ways that will bring harm to themselves and others. But what's strangest of all is that it was marketed as a teen comedy, the sex and drugs and partying was pitched as a draw, and there's nothing remotely comedic about it. Audiences showed up to see the next "American Pie", but were given the next "American Psycho" instead. And it's no coincidence, this was based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis (I think my last five films have all been based on novels or graphic novels...) who wrote "American Psycho", and the lead male role here is Sean Bateman, and yes, he's the brother of Patrick Bateman from that other Ellis novel.
The screenplay was written by Roger Avary, who co-wrote "Pulp Fiction" with Tarantino, so yeah, you can kind of see this film as a mix of those two writers, there's a lot of time-jumping, or rather time-reversing, in "Rules of Attraction", the film shows us the momentous events of the "End of the World" party, then rewinds a few weeks (?) to explain how each character got there. Sean Bateman looks pretty beat-up at the party, but we won't find out until the end of the film who beat him up, and why - but chances are, he deserved it. Sean is a drug dealer who's the connection between the rich college students and the unhinged drug supplier - so there's that. Plus he's only interested in casual sex with hot blondes, not any interest in them as people or having solid relationships with them. This might be fairly common at the college level, but Sean seems to be really good at not giving a crap about other people - he's always either forgetting people's names or at least pretending to. He's got a thing for Lauren, so naturally he has sex with her roommate, just to get closer to her. Yeah, that's bound to work, let me know how that goes.
Lauren MIGHT have a thing for Sean, but she's really hung up on Victor, who's taken a year off to go have sex and drugs in every city in Europe. She avoids all possible sexual relationships while Victor is away by looking through a graphic guide to STDs and what they can do to your body. Yeah, that was the 80's, wasn't it? Maybe the 90's too. This prevents her from getting together with Sean, but really, didn't she kind of dodge a bullet there? Much later, when Victor gets back, he doesn't even remember her - maybe that's from all the sex and drugs in Europe?
The third leg of the non-love-triangle is Paul, who used to date Lauren and now wouldn't mind dating Sean. (And I think my last like 18 films have all had some kind of love triangle in them...). This was probably more of a shocker back in 2002, to have a lead character who is bisexual, and the prevailing theory seems to be that Paul is the stand-in for the author, Bret Easton Ellis. Paul's make-out session with Sean is shown in split-screen, to imply that there's one reality where they did it and one where they didn't, so perhaps the whole relationship only exists in Paul's mind. Paul is also seen coming on to a guy at the party after giving him Ecstasy, which honestly, is just as bad as having sex with a drunk girl or giving somebody a roofie, right?
How many parties do these college kids attend? There seems to be a very rigorous party schedule, in addition to the "End of the World" party (was this in 1999? A Y2K thing?) there was the "Dress To Be Screwed" party (classy!) and then the weekly "Pre-Saturday" party - so, umm, Friday? But yeah, there's that "Pulp Fiction" sort of structure, as we all end up back at the "End of the Film" party, which is where we started. The opening scene of "Pulp Fiction" showed us the robbery in the diner, and then the whole film drives us slowly back to that point, and picks up the action from there to the ending. I really only give Tarantino and "Pulp Fiction" a pass on this sort of thing, Quentin did something similar with "The Hateful 8", messing with the time flow to conceal all the important information until it was needed, and that's really the way to do it. "The Rules of Attraction" tried to get there too, only it felt like it was less successful in doing so.
But hey, if you want to see Jessica Biel snorting coke or Fred Savage in his underwear, who am I to judge you? Knock yourself out, only as I said before, I don't like any of these characters, not a one, but maybe that was the point of the film, who can say? It's just kind of a relief to cross this film off, delete it from the DVR, and now I know I never need to watch it again.
Also starring James Van Der Beek (last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Shannyn Sossamon (last seen in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"), Ian Somerhalder (last seen in "Life as a House"), Jessica Biel (last seen in "Shock and Awe"), Kate Bosworth (last seen in "Heist"), Kip Pardue (last seen in "Thirteen"), Clifton Collins Jr. (last seen in "The Replacement Killers"), Thomas Ian Nicholas (last seen in "Zeroville"), Jay Baruchel (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Faye Dunaway (last seen in "The Handmaid's Tale"), Swoosie Kurtz (last seen in "Overboard" (2018)), Clare Kramer, Russell Sams (last seen in "Wonderland"), Colin Bain, Eric Stoltz (last seen in "Grace of My Heart"), Fred Savage (last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Eric Szmanda, Theresa Wayman, Skyler Stone (last seen in "Waiting..."), Quincy Evans, Anderson Goncalves (last seen in "Just Married"), Chasen Hampton, Malcolm Galt, Hayley Keenan, with cameos from Paul Williams (last seen in "Baby Driver"), Ron Jeremy (last seen in "The Boondock Saints"), Paul Oakenfold.
RATING: 3 out of 10 intense waffles in Amsterdam
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