Call me Esme. I cherish the anguished, the tormented, the sordid. Call it cinematic masochism.
The Gods of Squalor lead me around some to seedy corners of Netflix instant viewing. They have led me to rubberneck at some pretty tawdry thrillers, like this softcore piece of second-wave rapesploitation. I also have a habit of following actors I love into the most bizarre, loathsome portions of their filmographies. Take this little gem, Population 436: a regrettable experience with Jeremy Sisto that I can honestly tell you is worse than the Nicholas Cage remake of Wicker Man. Both movies had pretty much the same sinister small-town feel, but at least Wicker Man had Nick Cage punching a woman whilst wearing a bear suit.
And now for a Brief Photo Digression Confession:
The movies I got into during my Vincent D'Onfrio phase are worth a blog unto themselves.
(If you can name the films according to each photo, I reserve the right to make out with you.)
[End Digression.]
It came to pass that I found a forgotten little film called Oxygen, one of the few Adrien Brody flicks available to watch for free on my laptop, thanks to my future corporate sponsor, Netflix. The website's plot description begins like so: "Madeline Foster (Maura Tierney) is an NYPD detective with a drinking problem and a penchant for rough sex in this police thriller..."
Oh, stop. You had me at "penchant for rough sex."
Maura Tierney was a lifer on ER; here she plays a self-loathing detective in Poughkeepsie, who hides her dark sexual side from her husband/boss as best she can. A very fresh-faced, almost airbrushed-looking Adrian Brody plays "Harry," an ex-con, kidnapper, and sociopath who is obsessed with Houdini. The film has a "real-time" feel, and much of the action is embedded in the communication between our two main characters. Harry has an edge over Foster when he notices fresh cigarette burns on her arm (from her Dark Sexy Masochism the night before), and he takes a liking to her. Meanwhile, there is the ever-present struggle for power between the police and the FBI. Which is remarkable in that is has never been done before in every police caper ever.
Oh, and somewhere, there's the wife of The Harried Tycoon, who is buried alive in matching bra and panties, and ostensibly suffocating in a place only Harry (no pun intended) can disclose. Thus the flirtation/interrogation scenes have a sense of urgency. Adrien Brody talks sexy dirty serial killer to Maura Tierney and Maura Tierney struggles to hold her own. All the foreshadowed plot points come out and play (Spoiler alert: The guy naming himself after Houdini is pretty tricky at... escaping). The body count is low, nothing explodes; there are no automatic weapons and (sadly) no depictions of S&M-y sex . What is interesting about this charming little flop is that it is emotionally tawdry. A classic Hannibal Lecter setup, in which a cop has to tightrope through her own inner... tightrope, and in doing so, comes very close to taking on the frame of mind of the criminal.
Dear reader, I don't particularly care if you watch the movie or not. I'm not really here to recommend or not recommend. I simply enjoy the art of dissection. I want to invite you to put on your latex gloves, pick up a scalpel, and join me. I love studying what makes one handful of conventions like Silence of the Lambs more artful and successful than Oxygen. I consider myself less a reviewer of movies, and more of a rubbernecker. Rather than valiantly intervening in sometimes dangerous self-reinforcing cliches, I prefer to hover around these expensive bygone accidents with the enthusiasm of an amateur photographer. Sure, I want to end racism, homophobia, classism, et al. as much as the next radical, but here at Femmebot Versus Shark, we are not in it for the valor.
We do it for the squalor.
Squalorifically satisfactory.
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