![]() ![]() In fact, McNaughton claimed that it was his most political film for this reason-because :the girl from the trailer park takes ‘m all down.” She gets revenge on the cop who saw her friend as disposable the guidance counselor who cared more about his bottom line and his libido than his students and the socialite who was willing to discard her for mommy’s purse.Ī suspicious Sergeant Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon) grills Kelly (Denise Richards) trying to have a swim in peace There’s a class commentary embedded in Wild Things that a lot of people miss. And everyone but Suzie will end up dead, victims of their own greed, and, more importantly, underestimating a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. As Ray says later, “It’s hard enough for one person to keep a secret, let alone three.” After roughly a dozen twists, the audience learns that Ray has a few secrets of his own too. Of course, no one here can run off into happiness from this point. As they’re celebrating, Suzie emerges from the shadows, revealing not only that she was in on the robbery of the Van Ryan fortune but that she’s intimate with both of her conspirators. In a sleazy Everglades motel, Kelly and Sam celebrate with champagne, a prop that was originally supposed to be a sex toy, believe it or not, which would have arguably taken a scene that was already pushing the envelope for conservative America into walkout and maybe even protest territory. The disgraced counselor sues the Van Ryan clan for defamation, settling for $8.5 million, and then the whole film takes a hard right turn from what could have been a domestic drama about false accusations into something very different with the pop of a bottle. At Lombardo’s trial, Suzie cracks, admitting that the girls made it all up, accusing Kelly of concocting the scheme. It’s not long before Kelly has accused Lombardo of rape, a claim that grows in believability after Suzie echoes it by saying that Sam did the same thing to her. The film opens properly with a school assembly that introduces its main quartet of characters: high school guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), rich girl Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards), troubled teen Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), and detective Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon). Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) enjoying life on his boat ![]() ![]() ![]() Kimball (who also shot Top Gun and True Romance, among many others), and McNaughton are asking viewers to imagine how many alligators are hiding under the surface of this perfectly manicured community. The credits then unfold over a drone shot through the gorgeous, rich Miami suburb of Blue Bay, almost as if writer Stephen Peters, cinematographer Jeffrey L. To the rhythm of a perfect score by George Clinton (not the Parliament Funkadelic one, for the record, although anyone could be forgiven for presuming it was given this composition), Wild Things opens with a shot of an alligator rising to the surface, visually foreshadowing a film about deadly creatures hiding in plain sight. There’s more than a ménage a trois to the legacy of Wild Things, a film with enough simmering under the gorgeous surface to keep people talking for years. Why has Wild Things remained popular and actually grown in esteem in the two decades since its release while so many similar films have had the longevity of a one-night stand? Of course, it would be naïve to ignore the horny elephant in the room and dismiss the ticket-selling threesome scene that got so many people talking, but that kind of titillation is short-lived. In the wake of the massive success of Basic Instinct, every studio in Hollywood opened their wallets for films about sexually active people with a penchant for murder, but history has forgotten films like Color of Night, Body of Evidence and Jade for a reason. Class, sex, and betrayal come to a boil in the Florida Everglades in John McNaughton’s Wild Things (available on UHD and Blu-ray), a 1998 film that has risen above the wave of adult thrillers that dotted the box office landscape in the ‘90s because of its deceptively clever script, palpable setting, and unapologetically adult themes. ![]()
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ERIC
11/14/2023 06:10:36 pm
PAUL ROLLINSON FROM TRAINSHOWS COME TO MISSISSAUGA ONTARIO 2181 BELFAST CRESCENT TO TAKE 2141 HOUSE
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