Favorite "Underrated" Movie - The House of Yes

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to baste the Turkey and hide the kitchen knives." - Mrs. Pascal

One of my favorite movies has to be House of Yes, starring Parker Posey in what I think is one of her breakout performances in the late 90's that never caught on. I was working in a Record/Video store when House of Yes first came out. I was becoming a fan of Posey's and so I decided to give it a try even though the synopsis on the VHS cover didn't speak to me as a movie I'd like. Not being of the generation, I didn't have an interest in the JFK assignation no matter the relevance or cultural significance. Nowhere on the cover told that the movie was based on a play that was written and performed seven years earlier than the movie was made. Looking back now, that makes sense that there are only five characters in a single location.

Having been a play adaptation, the films Writer/Director Mark Waters co-wrote the script with the original playwright Wendy MacLeod. Filmed with a modest budget of $1.5 Million dollars, it starred Posey, Josh Hamilton, Freddie Prinze Jr., Tori Spelling, and Genevieve Bujold as the matriarch of the Pascal home. . A relatively new actress played old video footage of a young Jackie-O, Rachael Leigh Cook. Released by Miramax Films with the copyright being held by Spelling Films Inc., it's no wonder Tori Spelling was in the movie. It was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 1997 and wasn't a wide release until October of the same year, released opposite Boogie Nights and Most Wanted. It ran for six weeks in the theater just ending before the Thanksgiving week. The Movie came out on VHS first in 1998 and took three years to make it to DVD. This was at the beginning stages of the DVD transfer.

One reason I feel this movie deserves another look is the brilliant acting by the very small cast. There is a large challenge to bring plays to the big screen, no matter what the subject is. Looking for reviews of this movie, I came to the master of all movie reviewers, Roger Ebert to find that he didn't overly enjoy the movie, but was, "not bored." There were a few mis-quoted areas in his review suggesting that he only watched it once and was done with the movie. I have watched it with different audiences at different times in my life. This movie clearly didn't get the chance it deserves to be a really funny look at the characters and how they react to their own issues.

In Theater Viewing - Suck

After a long day of classes, I took my mountain bike up Geary in SF to the 4 Star Theater to watch a movie I'd only seen a trailer for on Facebook. It was a Vampire movie about a band that didn't play very well until their band started to become Vampires. One by one they turned. It was a funny movie, so there were lots of heckles from the audience. When I had first gotten to the theater it looked like it was going to be an intimate evening with only 6 of us in the auditorium. That's what happens when you get to the theater over an hour early. When it got closer to show time, however, the red tiled ceiling dimmed down to about 30+ vampire fans eager to see how this mix of actors and musicians turned movie "stars" would work. It was a very tame movie with little blood splatter and no skin. For a vampire movie, even a comedy, it was pretty tame. The story was cool, some of the actors has some good one liners, and the stop motion "driving scenes" were pretty cool. Rob Stefaniuk wrote/directed & acted in his film that was released last year.