Seed of Chucky (2004) - Mancini's gender-fluid horror-comedy is a weird trip

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An extreme eye closeup, - with semen cell retina details, - and a hilariously bent tagline distinguish this game poster for Don Mancini's Seed of Chucky

Deceased killer dolls Chucky & Tiffany have a gender-fluid son/daughter, who is searching for its parents - in Hollywood.

Seed of Chucky is written and directed by Don Mancini (Child's Play (1988, screenplay)), whose directing debut it is. It is the 5th film in the Child's Play/Chucky franchise.
It is a far out and really strange sequel, which is filthy enough to have been made by John Waters (Mangus! (2011)) himself, who actually has a funny role in it.
Jennifer Tilly (The Haunted Mansion (2003)) is funny in the film in a performance packed with self-irony.
Seed of Chucky's story is obscure and surprisingly difficult to really understand. In its intro sequence Chucky's sperm cells are seen entering a doll's vagina. - Weird!

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 12 mil. $
Box office: 24.8 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.06 times its cost)
[Seed of Chucky was released 12 November (USA) and runs 86 minutes. Universal Pictures, the studio behind the previous 3 films, rejected the script as "too gay." Focus Features jumped in instead. Quentin Tarantino passed on a role as himself. Shooting took place in Los Angeles, California and in Bucharest, Romania from November 2003 - March 2004. The film opened #4, behind holdover hit The Incredibles and fellow new releases The Polar Express and After the Sunset, to an 8.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and grossed 17 mil. $ (68.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 1.9 mil. $ (7.7 %) and Mexico with 1.1 mil. $ (4.4 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Mancini returned with Curse of Chucky (2013, video), the next in the franchise, which went on with Cult of Chucky (2017, video, also by Mancini), before it was rebooted to cinemas with Child's Play (2019) and a coming TV-series. Brad Dourif (Pulse (2006)) returned in The Devil's Due at Midnight (2004, short), Chucky's Family Vacation (2004, short) and theatrically in Drop Dead Sexy (2005); Tilly in Chucky's Family Vacation, Li'l Pimp (2005, video) and theatrically in The Civilization of Maxwell Bright (2005). Seed of Chucky is rotten at 33 % with a 4.46/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Seed of Chucky?

The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) or, The Seattle Jazz Squabbles

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The three stars stand awkwardly close while grinning on this uncomfortable poster for Steve Kloves' The Fabulous Baker Boys

Two piano-playing brothers in Seattle are forced to reinvent their jazz act and decide to add a sexy escort as a singer, SPOILER who naturally embarks on a relationship with one of them, and there's the trouble.

The Fabulous Baker Boys is written and directed by debuting Steve Kloves (Wonder Boys (2000), screenplay). For me it is a tedious downer; though it was highly praised by critics at its release.
It feels pseudo-sophisticated and is filled with mellow jazz. Michelle Pfeiffer (Grease 2 (1982)) plays the sexpot singer, and she was practically worshiped for her sexual radiance, which to me, - although I like her as an actress, - is not earth-shattering here, (she is way sexier in Tim Burton's masterpiece Batman Returns (1992) in my opinion.) Kloves' script is not believable and not thought through on more than one occasion here.
The story is driven by some torpid characters, especially Jeff Bridges' (Pablo (2012)) Jack. The trio seem like they are slumbering through quite a few scenes, and not many scenes stand out for good, but those that do are: SPOILER Bridges going amuck at a charity show; the brothers starting a fight; and Bridges and Pfeiffer reconnecting in the end.
The Fabulous Baker Boys is way overrated; it is overall a poor film.

Related posts:

Steve Kloves: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) - Harry's abysmally dour and long penultimate chapter (screenplay) 
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) or, The Anemic British Teen Wizards Fly Again! (screenplay)
Mentioned movie: Batman Returns (1992) - Burton gives us the ultimate, Gothic spin on Gotham City and its sinister characters

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 11.5 mil. $
Box office: 18.4 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertain
[The Fabulous Baker Boys was released 13 October (USA) and runs 114 minutes. Only 3 years after Kloves' script was acquired was the film green-lit. Pfeiffer trained voraciously to be able to do her own singing in the film. Shooting took place from December 1988 - March 1989 in Seattle, Washington and in California, including Los Angeles. The film opened #6 to a 3.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it declined from then. The film's international gross numbers are not made public. If it made 25 mil. $ total, it would rate as a flop, but if it made 30 mil. $, it would count as a box office success; both scenarios are possible. The film was nominated for 4 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Actress to Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, Cinematography (Michael Ballhaus) to Freddie Francis for Glory, Editing to Born on the Fourth of July and Score (Dave Grusin) to Alan Menken for The Little Mermaid. The film won 1/2 Golden Globe nominations, 1/3 BAFTA noms, a Grammy, 2 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to 3 notches higher than this review. Kloves returned with Flesh and Bone (1993). J. Bridges returned in Texasville (1990); his co-star big brother Beau Bridges (Stargate SG-1 (2005-07)) in Just Another Secret (1989, TV movie) and theatrically in The Wizard (1989); Pfeiffer in The Russia House (1990). The Fabulous Baker Boys is fresh at 96 % with a 7.41/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Fabulous Baker Boys?

Bride of Chucky (1998) - Bizarre puppet slasher black comedy

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Ronny Yu's Bride of Chucky takes the horror franchise in a new direction of self-referential, dark humor

QUICK REVIEW:

Chucky is resuscitated by his old flame Tiffany, but when he won't immediately marry her, she punishes him, - and he transforms her into a puppet.
Bride of Chucky is the 4th Chucky-film, the former three known as the Child's Play-horror films (1988/90/91). The franchise alters substantially in this film, as there's no child possessor of the evil puppet involved, but instead sex, murders and lots of self-referential, irreverent, black humor.
Everything is very tacky and 90s-Hollywood-over-done in Bride, - from Jennifer Tilly's (Bound (1996)) cleavage to the killings, - but the film stays entertaining in a bizarre kind of way.
Still, the original Child's Play (1988) by Tom Holland is a far better film.
Bride of Chucky is directed by Hong Konger Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason (2003)), whose latest project was Saving General Yang (2013), a Chinese period piece.

Related reviews:

Jennifer Tilly: Bound (1996) - Lesbian femme fatales in dark as espresso mob thriller
Ronny Yu: The 51st State (2001) or, US/UK, Drugs and Shooting

The unorthodox bride and groom of Ronny Yu's Bride of Chucky

Watch the very 90s trailer for this very 90s irony-infused horror-comedy right here

Budget: 25 mil. $
Box office: 50.6 mil. $
= Flop

How do you rate the Child's Play and Chucky films?
What do you think of Bride of Chucky?

Bound (1996) - Lesbian femme fatales in dark as espresso mob thriller

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+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Erotic Movie of the Year + Best Rainbow Movie of the Year + Best Thriller of the Year 

Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly hang dollars to dry on the poster for the Wachowski Brothers' Bound

QUICK REVIEW:

Violet & Corky decide to steal about 2 million $ that're going through Violet's guy Cesar's apartment. That ends up complicated and bloody.
Bound is a really cool film full of leather, white paint, lesbians and guns.
It's made minimalistic in scope, as it almost entirely plays out in only two apartments, but maximalistic in style and violence, SPOILER for example in paranoid-psychotic Cesar's (Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos (2001-04)) death scene which is operatic and shows some of the coming Matrix-magic that the director-pair, brothers, now brother and sister, Andy and Lana Wachowski were to present next in 1999 to an astounded world. Bound was the debut of the two and was made to convince studio heads that they could pull of a Matrix-class film.
The hard-boiled women couple are played by Jennifer Tilly (Liar Liar (1997)) and Gina Gershon (Face/Off (1997)), and they are sort of updated urban versions of Thelma & Louise (1991), with smaller hairdos, who also have sex with each other.
Bound is a super-cool, erotic mob-thriller; high-paced, full of fast, smart lines and cool photography by Bill Pope (The Matrix (1999)). It shows the directors' inspiration from Billy Wilder, but is still very much its own film.
The Wachowskis unfortunately continue their sci-fi-oddity obsession after Cloud Atlas (2012) with the coming head-scratcher Jupiter Ascending (2014), which looks at least as weird and bad as the Tom Hanks turkey from last year. Then they are set to work on the TV-series Sense8 (2014).

 

Related post:

 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Another poster for Bound

Watch the trailer here, which isn't as good as the film

Budget: 6 mil. $
Box office: 3.8 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Bound?
Other cool mob-related films with female protagonists?