The Hotel New Hampshire
Another movie it’s been a long time since I first saw. I think, even though at the time my memory of it was vague, this movie might be the reason I really didn’t get as much out of The Royal Tenenbaums as some – there are a lot of similarities but this one most certainly has the edge on the quirk factor.
It all gets a little too insane in the end. The incest, for example – I’d totally blanked that part out, lol. Looking around at other opinions it seems a lot of people were really grossed out in the worst way by the incest stuff (unlike the Tenenbaums’ half siblings ‘getting a little too close’, this is blood relatives – played by Jodie Foster and Rob Lowe – doing the dirty for 5 hours plus). To me it’s just more jaw-dropping surreality, but, like, really jaw-dropping, probably one of the worst things put on film without anyone in the film actually so much as batting an eyelid over, lol – and I think that, in its own twisted way, is just a little f*cking cool.
If you take the movie the right way – more Addams Family than, I don’t know, think of a more traditional reality based fictional family for me – it all makes sense under its own crazy rule. The movie as a whole ultimately feels like a valiant attempt at something bizarre that didn’t quite come out the way it was intended and was patched together as best as possibly could be done; but it’s still admirable for what comes through, I think so anyway. Anything that has lines like, “Can I get you anything?” “Yesterday and most of today,” and “Just another Halloween, kid,” following a rape scene is at least, err, unique, however questionable.