Thursday Movie Picks - Twisty Thrillers

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!

Who doesn't love a good twisty thriller? I tend to love movies that without warning completely pull the rug out from under you - IF said rug-pulling is done well. It's a lot harder than it looks, but these three movies pull it off.

Wild Things (John McNaughton, 1998) OH how I love this trashy, tawdry thriller. Matt Dillon plays a high school English teacher with the oldest students you have ever seen, including wealthy Denise Richards and poor Neve Campbell, in swampy Florida. Kevin Bacon and Daphne Rubin-Vega play cops sent in to investigate when he's accused of rape. Wild Things is a hell of a wild ride - the trailer doesn't even give away HALF of the double-triple-double crosses in this. Deliciously vulgar in every way, this is one of those movies that is so proud of its naughtiness that I get giddy whenever I watch it.

Arlington Road (Mark Pellington, 1999) Even more timely now than it was on release, Arlington Road is one of the great forgotten films of the '90s. Jeff Bridges stars as a widowed college professor who slowly starts suspecting his new neighbors Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack of being domestic terrorists. That's it. That's the whole set-up. But strap yourself in, because this paranoid domestic thriller takes you to some very queasy places. It will put you on the edge of your seat and make you mighty uncomfortable. It's masterful.

Red Eye (Wes Craven, 2005) GOD I love that trailer! Even if it kind of lies about what the movie actually is. Red Eye isn't really a horror film, it's a thriller, one of the leanest, meanest thrillers of the new millennium. The "woman in peril" subgenre is sadly looked down upon by many, but at their best, these films show us ordinary people fraying their nerves trying to deal with extraordinary circumstances, often trying desperately to get other people to believe that what is happening to them is REALLY HAPPENING. What exactly Cillian Murphy needs from Rachel McAdams, I won't say, but suffice it to say the two actors are perfectly matched, and the tight screenplay (Red Eye runs 85 minutes, and not a single one of them is wasted) gives them actual characters to sink their teeth into. McAdams in particular makes for a wonderful protagonist, making the kind of split-second decisions we all would like to believe we would be able to make in similar circumstances. Thank God 99.9% of us will never have to find out what we would do for real! In the meantime, we can just enjoy this movie.

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies With (a) Colour in the Title

Written for the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Play Along!

If I'm being honest, I kind of wanted to be really super obvious with this week's stated theme of Movies With (a) Colour in the Title and just go with the individual pieces of Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs trilogy here, but, dammit today is my birthday and I shan't take the obvious path! It is simply not in my nature! And so, without further ado...

Red Eye (2005, Wes Craven) Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest trailer EVER. Okay, maybe not EVER, but definitely one of them (why yes, I do love a good trailer, thanks for asking!). Craven's actually-not-at-all-supernatural thriller isn't quite the mindfuck the trailer seemingly sells, but somehow that works in the movie's favor. Everything feels fresh and surprising, despite us having seen it all before, precisely because of that feeling that there's something lurking just around the corner, outside the frame. Craven, liberated from slashers and monsters and confining himself to one claustrophobic set for most of the (relatively short) running time, is at the peak of his powers here, as are stars Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. Red Eye is a nasty, tight little thriller, perfectly paced and with zero fat. It's the kind of mid-range B-movie you wish Hollywood would make more of, until you realize there's no way they could all possibly be this good.

Touch of Pink (2004, Ian Iqbal Rashid) Alim, a young-ish gay Canadian (of Indian heritage), is happily living in London with his long-term boyfriend Giles, but is so repressed that he still talks to his imaginary friend: a version of in-the-closet Old Hollywood movie star Cary Grant, played with just the right amount of flair by Kyle MacLachlan. Touch of Pink (playing off the title of one of Grant's films, That Touch of Mink) is not a great film, but it's definitely one of my favorite gay films. Taking its cue from MacLachlan's delightful performance, it has just the right lightness of touch. The script is pretty standard-issue gay rom-com stuff (Alim's mom comes to visit, he panics and at the urging of Cary Grant, pushes himself back into the closet), but the actors all know how to make it sing, giving this puffball of a movie a sprightly, enjoyable bounce.

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985, Woody Allen) Simply put, a must for anyone who loves movies. Who among us hasn't wanted to live in a movie, or to have one of our favorite characters as a friend? I'll have more to say on this one soon (it's a Blind Spot), but for now I'll just say that what I love most about Woody Allen's scrumptious film is how absolutely seriously it takes its fantastical premise.

BONUS SHORT FILMS: The House is Black (1963, Forugh Farrokhzad) If you haven't seen this masterful short, just go to YouTube and do it now. Contrasting powerful, haunting images of an Iranian leper colony and Farrokhzad's readings of the Bible, the Koran, and her own beautiful poetry, The House is Black is twenty minutes of stunning, unforgettable cinema.

The Red Balloon (1956, Albert Lamorisse) One of my all-time favorites, this sweet short is perfect. This is childhood, pure and simple.