Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:29:56 | 7,01 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: None
Genre: Comedy
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:29:56 | 7,01 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: None
Genre: Comedy
Director: Mark Rucker
Retired singing star, Angela Arden, heads a dysfunctional family. Her husband, filmmaker Sol Sussman, hates her and has a kissy relationship with his nubile daughter, Edith. Angela carries on an affair with Tony Parker, a lounge lizard, who sleeps with both Edith and her brother, Lance, but not before Angela plots to murder Sol when he cuts off her allowance. Bootsie Carp, the family maid loyal to Sol, is on to Angela, but the diva works quickly and poisons Sol. Edith suspects foul play and wants Lance's help in proving mom's guilt. Lance, who loves his mother deeply, is conflicted. Will Edith succeed? Does love lurk somewhere? And what about Angela's long dead sister, Barbara?
IMDB
Die Mommie Die could have been a one-joke samba. The film is a parody of 1960s big-screen, diva-style soap operas, with a twist; writer/actor Charles Busch plays the aging diva lead, Angela Arden.
Instead, the form itself is funny enough to carry the farce, and there's a surprising undercurrent of pathos and true emotion. Die Mommie Die ends up as a surprisingly-deep film, more than just the window-dressing provided by Busch in high heels.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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Angela Arden (Busch) is an aging singing sensation, now content to stay at home, antagonize her aging husband Sol (Phillip Baker Hall) and keep up an affair with a former TV actor/tennis pro Tony (Jason Priestley). But after the family patriarch finds out about the love trysts and she bumps him off through a unique poisoning, can Angela keep her family together and restart her singing career?
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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The film is actually at its least funny when it is trying to be amusing. The script is loaded with gay jokes disguised as Arden's sexual escapades; photos of Arden and Tony in bed and a manage a trios with two moving men are played for naughty laughs, the type that would have been cut from a slow episode of The Benny Hill Show. Nearly every "bit" planted in the movie revolves around a male playing Arden.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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What makes that so frustrating is that the film is funny on its own. Melodrama is, by nature, very funny to modern audiences. Every time Arden turns quickly towards the camera, with the patented soft focus making her look like she's from a dream, it garners a laugh. Every implausible twist in the plot is funny on its own, without the self-awareness of parody necessary.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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The performance that makes this film work is Busch as Arden. He has more than enough experience in the role, playing her on stage as well; Die Mommie Die is adapted from his own stage version. It is his over-the-top turn that sets the tone for the rest of the film, including the performances by Priestley, Natasha Lyonne and Frances Conroy.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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Die Mommie Die is a difficult film to outright recommend. The film will obviously mean more and be funnier to those who grew up with the actresses and films parodied. But even for those who missed out of the golden age of soft focus and "the magic hour," Die Mommie Die is funny and, at times, surprisingly touching.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
DIE, MOMMIE, DIE! is a glorious, oddly loving evocation of those low-budget, high-concept films that populated drive-in screens in the late 50s and early 60s. As brought to glorious life by the brilliantly twisted mind of Charles Busch, the pretensions of that genre are reborn as a study in post-modern camp. It’s a vicious tweak to those films, but it’s also palpably obvious that all concerned are entranced by the melodramatic schtick in which those filmed wallowed. There may not be any redeeming social value in them, but there’s a whole lot of fun going on.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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Busch stars as Angela Arden, an aging, washed-up pop singer with a constipated tyrant of a producer husband (Philip Baker Hall) struggling with his own case of the has-beens. They live a live of sterile splendor in a Hollywood mansion with their two children, each of whom present a unique set of concerns. Daughter Edith (Natasha Lynonne) is just a little too close to Daddy, and son Lance (Stark Sands) has been expelled from college for fomenting an orgy in the faculty lounge. Tending to them is Bootsie (the wildly entertaining Frances Conroy of television’s SIX FEET UNDER), a bible-spouting housekeeper with her own dark longings, and Tony Parker (a gamely deadpan Jason Priestly) as the smooth, hip stud of a struggling actor who services several members of the household while harboring his own ulterior motives. When Angela decides she's been pushed too far by hubby, there’s a murder, maybe two, stunning revelations, and an ending worthy of both Cecil B. de Mille and Roger Corman.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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Busch channels Lana Turner, Bette Davis, Susan Hayward, and Joan Crawford into Angela. There’s the calculated tilt of the head, the recoil reaction to any line of dialogue, the arched eyebrow, and the stentorian delivery with just the barest trace of tongue in cheek. Here is a performer who is more diva than most of the ovary-packing portion of the population and twice the dame. Decked out in a wardrobe so carefully thought out that it’s almost another character in the flick, he elevates camp to a more aetherial plane while still going for both the glamour and the belly laugh. Suppositories become lethal weapons, and characters spout gems such as “One feels a memory lingering like smog over the valley.” From the art direction, to the cheesy process shots, to the carefully calibrated plastic performances, it sends up its inspiration without missing a beat.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
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For all the bad taste and screaming absurdity, DIE, MOMMIE, DIE! is also an odd homage to the nuclear family and the values thereof, even ones that spike’s Mommie’s after-dinner coffee with a hit of acid. Yes, it’s writ in the language of dysfunction, mayhem and murder with just a dash of Euripides thrown in for gravitas, but its off-kilter affirmation that mother love is a thing of wonder makes for the most wicked cinematic punch line this year.
Die, Mommie, Die! (2003)
Special Features:
- Commentary wtih Director Mark Rucker, Writer/Actor Charles Busch, and Actor Jason Priestley
- Director's Introduction
- Anatomy of a scene: Die Mommie Die!
- 'Why Not Me?' Music Video and Charles Busch Performance
- Deleted Scene: 'Angela Sees Herself'
- Sales Trailer
- Charles Busch Screen Tests
- Galleries
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