Disturbia (2007) or, Good Nightia

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The lurid poster for D. J. Caruso's Disturbia trades on its theme of voyeurism

QUICK REVIEW:

Our young hero loses his father in a meaningless - and very mysterious - car accident. He then screws up and gets a house arrest sentence. He becomes obsessed with monitoring his suburban neighborhood, falls in love with the girl next door, - and sees the other neighbor commit murder!?!

Disturbia begins well, and Shia LaBeouf (Nymphomaniac (2013)) is very enthusiastic and well-playing, but the film is derailed by the innocuous teen romance, and it never manages to get our interest back. It mixes too many genres (teen romance/comedy/thriller) to shallow effect. It winds up with with an uninteresting thriller plot with David Morse (Drive Angry (2011)) as the suspicious neighbor, and it doesn't help that the climax plays out in almost complete darkness.
The obvious comparison with Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Rear Window (1954), which Disturbia is clearly influenced by, only helps it to look even more hapless and dull.
Carl Ellsworth (Red Dawn (2012)) and Christopher Landon (Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)) wrote the screenplay, and great Connecticut filmmaker  D. J. Caruso (Eagle Eye (2008)) directed the film. Disturbia is, in short, Hollywood shite. 

Related posts:

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

In lieu of a trailer for the film, not currently on Youtube, here's an interview with LaBeouf about the movie

Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 117.8 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Disturbia was released April 13 and runs 105 minutes. The film is based on a script written in the 1990s. Steven Spielberg suggested LaBeouf. Filming took place in Whittier and Pasadena, California January - April 2006. Disturbia opened #1 in North America with a 22.2 mil. $ opening weekend, and it, amazingly, remained #1 for 3 consecutive weekends before being yanked down by Spider-Man 3. It grossed 80.2 mil. $ (68.1 % of the total gross) in North America, and the 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were South Korea with 4 mil. $ (3.4 %) and Australia with 3.9 mil. $ (3.3 %). A lawsuit was filed in 2008 over a possible copyright clash with the 1942 short story which was the basis of Rear Window, but the claim was rejected. Disturbia is fresh at 69 % with a 6.2 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Disturbia?

Blue Velvet (1986) or, The Strange World

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A strong, expressionistic German poster for David Lynch's Blue Velvet with the disturbed white picket fences, a dark and menacing scene, a voyeur and the soothing and mysterious blue surrounding it all

A college student finds a severed human ear in a field in his hometown, and is attracted by its mystery into an investigation with the help of a fellow student. This leads them into an unexpected underworld of sex and violence.

 

Blue Velvet is written and directed by Montanan master filmmaker David Lynch (Eraserhead (1977)), whose 4th feature it is.
It is an American masterpiece and one of Lynch's best films, - although he has made several truly great films. Despite its mystery, it is a fairly straight story, at least compared to other Lynch mystery films like the good Lost Highway (1997), the great Mulholland Drive (2001) and the enigmatic, disturbing last feature he has made, Inland Empire (2006).
Kyle McLachlan (Twin Peaks (1990-1991)) plays the curious, latent voyeur youth with great intensity, and Laura Dern (Wild at Heart (1990)) is sincere and troubling as his helper. Isabella Rossellini (Joy (2015)) came out of the shadows of her ancestral roots (her parents are film legends Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini) with her stunning, subordinate performance, and Dennis Hopper (Apocalypse Now (1979)) got a career comeback as the menacing, perverse Frank Booth. Hopper is said to have been Lynch's third choice for the part, (perhaps due to his reputation as being unstable, an addict and ... well, crazy), but he eventually got the part, and he has said that upon accepting it, he said; "I've got to play Frank! I am Frank!" (Which is pretty disturbing, if you've seen the film.)
Blue Velvet is like a tightly composed rabbit-hole with its tagline, 'It's a strange world', looming largely over it. It shows how the surface of even the seemingly most normal, idyllic and wholesome little town is in truth as fickle as blue velvet, because it is inhabited by people, and people everywhere have weird stuff crawling all around inside of them, just waiting for the tiny snap somewhere that will let that stuff come oozing out.
The first half of the film pulls you in completely with its unusual crime mystery and eroticism, and from then on the brilliance of the tale has you in its firm grip until long after the last shot has disappeared from the screen. The songs of Blue Velvet and its score by Angelo Badalamenti (Secretary (2002)) also stays with you and resonates the film's universe, whenever you hear them again thenceforth.

 

Related posts:

 

David Lynch: Top 10: Best films about filmmaking

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Inland Empire (2006) - Dern stands out in Lynch's nightmarish art film epic

Top 10: Best erotic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Dune (1984) - Lynch heads to space, with an (unsurprisingly) strange result

Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

The Elephant Man (1980) - Lynch's deeply moving second feature

Eraserhead (1977) - Lynch's extraordinary, unconquerably strange and surreal debut

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 8.5 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertain but likely a box office success (projected return of 3.33 times its cost)

[Blue Velvet premiered 20 August (Montréal World Film Festival) and runs 120 minutes. Lynch's script had been around for some years, before Dino De Laurentiis agreed to finance the film. Shooting took place from August - December 1985 in North Carolina. The film opened #13 to a 798k $ first weekend in 98 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #12 and in 188 theaters (different weeks), grossing 8.5 mil. $. Regrettably the foreign numbers have not been made public online, but chances are that the film did good business, perhaps as much as 20 mil. $ total. It was nominated for 1 Oscar, Best Director, lost to Oliver Stone for Platoon. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, won 1/7 Independent Spirit award nominations, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 1/4 star review, translating to 6 notches under this one. Lynch returned with The French as Seen by... (1988, miniseries) and theatrically with Wild at Heart (1990). Machlachlan returned in The Hidden (1987); Rossellini in Oci Ciornie (1987); and Hopper in Hoosiers (1986). Blue Velvet is certified fresh at 95 % with a 8.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Blue Velvet?