Thursday Movie Picks - Bad Parents

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Growing up, my parents were pretty good, actually. Oh sure, they did some things that annoyed me and my sister, and they were hardly perfect people, but they were loving and caring and supportive and never treated us badly. So I don't really know from bad parents, but the movies sure have given us some monsters, haven't they?

Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry, 1981) Regardless of your feelings on Christina Crawford's memoir that inspired this Faye Dunaway-starrer, I think there's certainly enough evidence over the years that Joan Crawford was.... not a particularly nice person. To think that this transferred over to her parenting isn't much of a stretch, even if Christina's motives are a bit suspect and much of what she describes beggars belief. But regardless of your feelings on this film (I think it's not QUITE the camp masterpiece that I had been led to believe it was), you can't deny that Faye Dunaway gives a tremendous, ferociously committed performance as Joan (or Christina's version of Joan).

Happiness (Todd Solondz, 1998) If you've not seen Happiness, I'm sure as hell not going to spoil it for you, except to say that it's quite brilliant, and that you'll never be able to look at Dylan Baker the same way again after watching it. More or less centering itself around the lives of the three Jordan sisters (Trish, Helen, and Joy) and their lives in a New Jersey suburb, Solondz puts his characters through the ringer, but somehow makes it really funny. Which can be a turn-off when dealing with such icky subjects as pedophilia, adultery, and depression, but it's done incredibly skillfully, and played by an absolutely tremendous cast.

Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009) In the annals of terrible movie mothers, Mary Jones has to rank at or near the top. A vicious predator who occasionally sees her own daughter, Claireece (the "Precious" of the title), as a threat, she is prone to lashing out violently. As long as no one's looking. But when social workers and government employees come around? She's just the nicest, most normal woman you ever did meet. Mo'Nique's justly Oscar-winning performance is astonishing to behold, as is Gabourey Sidibe's Oscar-nominated (and shoulda-been winning) performance as Precious. The film is occasionally harrowing, but thrives on showing how light can seep into even the darkest of places.

LIST: Directors Who Should Have Directed Fifty Shades of Grey

I read Fifty Shades of Grey. I saw Fifty Shades of Grey. It didn't suck. But I can't seem to stop myself from thinking about all the other, potentially better versions of that film we will never get to see, so I decided to entertain myself. Whose version of Fifty Shades would have been, if not better, then at least more interesting, than Sam Taylor-Johnson's? Here are my Top Ten, in alphabetical order:

Pedro Almodovar - Law of Desire is one of the sexiest films ever, and if it's bondage you want, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is where you should go. Almodovar has also dealt with the book's major themes of identity and coming of age in various films, most notably All About My Mother and Bad Education.

Lee Daniels - At the very least, his version would have been an entertaining mess. Daniels plays around with form a lot, and I can't help but wonder if he would have found a cool way of visualizing the novel's (admittedly, hilariously awful) conceit of the dialogue of Ana's "inner goddess".

David Fincher - Let's be clear: I don't think this would have happened in a million years, but Fincher's cool formalism would have been a good match for this, and as Fight Club and Gone Girl have shown, he knows his way around a strange sex scene. Plus, he got his start making sexy as hell music videos for the likes of Madonna ("Express Yourself") and Paula Abdul ("Cold Hearted").

Adrian Lyne - The master of the erotic drama, Lyne is the man behind Unfaithful (which boasted an Oscar-nominated performance from Diane Lane), Lolita (with Jeremy Irons), Fatal Attraction (another Oscar nominee), Indecent Proposal, Flashdance, and 9 1/2 Weeks (the big screen's big kahuna for kinky sex). Basically, his name on a project is a guarantee of well-made, steamy sex scenes.

Madonna - Hear me out. This is the woman who recorded "Erotica" and made it a hit Billboard single. The woman who made a coffee-table book called Sex. The woman who, in her fifties, posed in leather dominatrix gear on her album cover. Yes, W.E. was terrible. But if there's one thing Madonna knows, it's sex. And if you think a woman who has exerted this much control over her image throughout her career hasn't learned something about capturing hot, rough sex on film, you're crazy.

Nicolas Roeg - Three words: Don't Look Now. The 70s film was banned for the too-sexy sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Perhaps the guy's still got it?

Steven Shainberg - Don't recognize the name? I don't blame you. Shainberg is the man behind the 2002 film Secretary, in which Maggie Gyllenhaal gets involved in a BDSM relationship with her boss James Spader. It's sexy and darkly comic, which would be a good tone for a film adaptation of Fifty Shades. Of course, he's also the director of the terrible Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, so who knows about his taste level... but the fact remains that Secretary is a near-perfect calling card for this gig.

Lars von Trier - DUH. If you wanted a no-holds-barred, NC-17 version of Fifty Shades, this is the man who was most likely to deliver it. Granted, he probably would have had Charlotte Gainsbourg play Ana, and it's is very likely that his version would have also been the misogynistic, anti-feminist version the haters of Fifty Shades want it to be, but of all the directors on this list, he's probably the one whose version of the film I would want to see most.

The Wachowski Siblings - One word: Bound. They're now known for their action spectacles in the wake of The Matrix, but they got their start with this incredibly sexy neo-noir starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. And as we've seen from the Matrix films, they know how to make leather fetish gear look good on film. If they bring on their Cloud Atlas collaborator Tom Tykwer, then so much the better!

John Waters - If you wanted the camp disasterpiece version of Fifty Shades, this is the only human being alive who could have possibly delivered a good one. His filmography revels in it, while never ever shortchanging his characters. Unless they deserve it. I actually REALLY wish this had happened.