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Body Double

Body Double

List Price: $9.95
Your Price: $9.95
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: ....another 'Rare Window' with a View!
Review: Now, there's only one porno star in this movie regaled to a minor part - the "Melanie Griffiths role" was originally supposed to go to an Adult Star, but 'box office' and the rating system dictated otherwise! The Rating system??? - The "drill sequence" in this movie is still one of the most disturbing and uncesessary 'female abuse' moments seen on film - now, try to reverse this and do this to a guy! The letters!

It's more or less a tribute [?] to "Vertigo" - this time our hero is claustrophobic, but the same premise - now a struggling actor in Hollywood [where-else?] is conned by "best friend" into 'watching the wife' - oh dear, shoulda headed straight for the door.

MELANIE GRIFFITH playing another kind of 'working girl' - she does have one notable line though [cannot put that in writing - this work just-just borders the dreaded NC-17 or possibly X rating] and she amply [and aptly] assists the hero.

The earlier De Palma movies, especially "Obsession" are very worth-while, this one - only if you must!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 25 Word Or Less Review
Review: Gory, goofy "B-movie" of a motion picture with enough twists and white knuckle moments to be pleasurable. Worth a tumble.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Some people just don't get it . . .
Review: that this film is intended to be an homage to Hitchcock. Calling it a rip off is missing the point. The reason this is such a perfect movie is that Brian DePalma injected his own style and irreverence into the classic Hitchcock shell of suspense and surprize. The result is a gripping story that captures the sultry essence that is born of that mix of the wealthy and the struggling, the elegant and the raunchy, that can only be found in the hills of L.A.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: So bad that.....
Review: .....I thought when I started to watch this that it was actually a spoof. If De Palma had thrown in some intentional humor, it might have been great. Alas, none of the funny parts were intended to be side spliting. What a disaster! Very sad for De Palma and Griffith. What was she thinking. Did you folks that gave this five stars, really think it was that good, or are you just perpetuating the joke? Shame on you!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW!! Do not miss!!
Review: If you like mystery, beautiful women, and a touch of voyerism, you will love this flick.
It is fast moving, thought provoking, and rivoting. You will definitely not be bored.
See this movie, you will not be sorry.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An erotic Hitchcock-like thriller
Review: This is Brian De Palma's magnum opus. All of his other movies that I have seen have ranged from decent to awful. This one stands alone as his one high-quality endeavor.

The film is very much like Hitchcock movies I watched as a kid. The big difference, tho, is that it is spiced up. Instead of being about either very wealthy or very ordinary people (as H movies usually dwell on), this flick centers around voyeurism, lewd fantasies and the dark underworld of pornography.

The best feature of "Body Double" are the dreamlike voyeur scenes. They are shot very nicely, and the music is both haunting and entrancing. As an added bonus, the viewer is invited to spy Melanie Griffith's only nude scenes (at least that I know of).

The story is about a struggling actor, Jake Scully [played by Craig Wasson], who is booted from his house by his cheating wife. To complicate matters, he loses his role in a low budget vampire movie because he is clausterphobic. Mysteriously, if not miraculously, he comes across a man who is willing to let him house-sit one of the neatest, most lavish houses I've ever seen. While there, poor Jake is drawn into a web of mystery and intrigue.

Craig Wasson has been much maligned / criticized for his performance, but I really didn't think it was all that bad. Wasson does not possess much of a screen-presence, but in this film that is actually a plus. Jake Scully is a rather shy and mousey sort of fellow; I could not imagine someone like Sean Connery pulling off a role like this (Connery has too much charsima and too commanding a screen presence). To be fair to Wasson, there are plenty of far worse actors out there. (Paging Keanu Reeves, Mr. Reeves, please report to the bad actor's guild).

If you like suspenseful / thriller movies with a touch of eroticism, "Body Double" just might be for you. Just be forewarned: this is certainly a weird movie. Not that that's bad, of course.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: not that bad
Review: I could hardly wait to see this movie, having so much heard about it. the truth is that i was a little bit disappointed, 'cause you know from the start who the murder is. the main actor is a pretty boring man (i know why he didn't make it in Hollywood), and the film has no rythm. Only Melanie Griffith is worth seeing (a great influence on '86 Madonna's look).
that's all folks,
R.+ S.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: terrific sleeper
Review: A very ingenious, slick, sexy, movie with an unusual plot and a lot of unexpected twists. Definitely a movie you'll remember. I have yet to show it to someone who didn't think it was an outstanding movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: My brain has left the building
Review: This is only the 3rd Brian DePalma movie I've seen, and now I understand why critics are always panning his early work for ripping off Hitchcock. He doesn't even try to hide the fact this is basically a soft core version of Rear Window, with a few splatters of blood here and there. I think this must be one of the worst films I've ever seen, and the reason why Patrick Bateman went insane (Bret Easton Ellis fans will know what I mean).

No doubt the "twist ending" is too much to stomach, and the obvious rip of Hitchcock is too much to bare. This isn't just bad, it's horrible. I mean, c'mon, it's so bleeding OBVIOUS it's sad.

And the Jake character looked exactly, exactly like Bill Mahr. This lead to a lot of unintentional laughs, as I can't tell you how much I hate that guy. During the movie within the movie, the guy was dressed like a geek, sort of bumbling around. One could imagine this is how pencil-d.ck Bill looks when he's looking for love, or on his way to a PETA meeting.

Also, I'm not really familiar with Melanie Griffith's work, but I have to say, every time she talked, I kept thinking of Lori Petty in Tank Girl, which isn't so much a bad thing, and nothing she could help, but it still made me laugh.

*sigh* What a waste of two hours.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: takes from Rear Window, but.....
Review: Brian De Palma takes the unique voyeurism in Rear Window and twists it into a completely intriguing original story of his own, I will say that it was wrong of De Palma to take the kiss scene from Vertigo. There are some things that you just can't touch. De Palma still makes a great movie and the Hitchcockian similarities are only in the camera angles when you get right down to it.


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