HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

"Our main idea for the day was to murder Mother."

Loosely based on the real life 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case in Christchurch, New Zealand, HEAVENLY CREATURES starts out with the introduction of the two girls, Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, (played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey) to each other.  Pauline is an unkempt and homely girl who sticks to herself while Juliet is beautiful, cheerful and outgoing.  At first, it would seem that these two are complete opposites, but as Fate would have it, they take an immediate liking to each other and are soon inseparable.  They spend all of their time together having fun and making up elaborate adventure stories set in a fictional place called "the Fourth World".  It's all very innocent.  Eventually, the parents (on both sides) become concerned about the closeness of Pauline and Juliet and fear that they might be...gay!  Gasp!  The parents try different things to separate the two girls, but none of it works.  It only creates stress in a situation that was completely stress-free before.  Eventually, Juliet's parents decide to remove Juliet from New Zealand altogether and move her in with a relative in South Africa!  Jesus Christ, talk about an overreaction!  Things get even worse when the girls hear about this news.  Their completely insane response is to beat Pauline's mother to death with a brick!

I was lucky enough to see HEAVENLY CREATURES in the theater when it was released in 1994 and I loved it.  It was so shocking to see such a mature and professionally crafted film from the guy who brought me BAD TASTE, MEET THE FEEBLES and DEAD ALIVE!  That said, time has definitely diminished the impact of HEAVENLY CREATURES.  Watching it again now, the "Uncut" version (which is 10 minutes longer) is too long, the special effects are dated and the ending is way too abrupt.  There's no closure to the story.  It just kinda ends and tosses some words on the screen about what happened afterwards.  I didn't find that to be a satisfactory ending at all.  It only created more questions in my handsome brain.

My minor complaints aside, HEAVENLY CREATURES is still 100% worth watching.  Unique story, imaginative storytelling style, strong acting, Peter Jackson cameo, some familiar faces from other Jackson films (I smiled from ear to ear at seeing Elizabeth Moody), some funny jokes about how "hideous" Orson Welles looked, wonderful photography.

I don't know it will ever happen, but I'd love it if  Peter Jackson and company would release an extras-packed edition of HEAVENLY CREATURES.  I mean, after releasing a extras-packed version of DEAD ALIVE, of course.

TRIPLE 9 (2016)

Atlanta, Georgia.  Five crooked cops are in cahoots with a Russian mafia family.  As always, in these types of movies, things soon spiral out of control and people start turning on each other.  In this case, the mafia family has the upper hand on the crooked cops and they instruct them to steal a certain safety security box from a bank.  They do (rather sloppily), but instead of paying them, the mafia orders the crooked cops to do a second (even more dangerous) job.  This doesn't sit well with the crooked cops and tensions rise.  At the same time, one of the crooked cops is given a new partner (an actual honest cop!) and detective Woody Harrelson is put on the case to solve the original bank robbery.  Other stuff happens as well.

During the first part of TRIPLE 9 I was digging it, but then things bogged down and by the end I just didn't care anymore.  The biggest problem is there's too damn much going on and I never knew who the main characters was...if there even was one.  Both Chiwetel Ejiofor and Casey Affleck turn in solid performances, but unfortunately there was so many other people with equal screen time it was impossible for me to get fully invested in their characters.  Also, I wish that the characters at least looked different.  The crooked cop gang consisted of two blacks, one Latino and two white brothers.  At the same time, the new partner Casey Affleck is white and his character looked similar to crooked crew member Aaron Paul, so I kept getting them mixed up and the two black guys in the crooked cop crew Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anthony Mackie were always wearing the same type of clothes and sometimes even masks(!) and once again I kept getting confused as to who the hell was who.  Maybe I'm just an ignorant fuck, but I really wish the characters had been more distinct.

Promising story that never pans out, muted colours, three entertaining action scenes, quick glimpses of grittiness that do nothing more than tease, solid acting by an overpopulated cast, lame cock tease during that exploding car scene (I wanted to actually see the car explode, not some lame off-in-the-distance explosion like a helicopter exploding behind the hill on "Airwolf"), weak nudity, cool looking Mexican gang bangers, zombies ahead, nice camerawork, mediocre direction.

Worth watching, but it's nowhere near as awesome as it could have been if the filmmakers had streamlined the story/cast and upped the gritty drama. If you need me, I'll be in my room watching "True Detective" season 1, episode 4.