More Unpopular Movie Opinions

[Hamatron]

I just thought it was okay. It wasn't mind-blowing like I was told it would be. And I thought it stopped looking cool when they got to the snow battle. At that point, I thought it looked like an action movie from the '80s. But not in a cool way.

[Mugsy]

I watched Rosemary’s Baby last weekend for the first time. I always knew what it was about, but never actually saw it. Talk about underwhelmed, and it’s not because I knew "the truth" from the beginning.

Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon did a great job, but I found the husband to be an ass. The actor did nothing to make me think, "Well, no wonder she loves him and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."

And the story was just so… weak. Rosemary has enough young friends to fill their apartment for a party – including three close female friends – but no one visits her during her entire pregnancy except the old guy? And when her fears are confirmed that her husband is part of the conspiracy, she calls her old doctor, a guy she hasn’t spoken to in months, instead of her friend? Yes, she calls her friend later, but it’s too late then.

If I was convinced my husband had helped drug me so that my baby could be conceived and given to Satan worshippers for god-knows-what, I’d run to my friend’s house, the same friend who expressed concern that things weren’t right. I wouldn’t run around New York with a giant suitcase, making calls from a payphone. So stupid. Why would Satan want to breed with someone so dumb?

[Deleted]

I think Rosemary's behavior was a reflection of the times combined with her docile and submissive personality. She was still living in a world where her job was to be a dutiful wife. As far as Rosemary's friends, well, would they really believe her and support her? This was still a time when women were quickly labeled "neurotic" and their feelings and concerns ignored, not just by men, but by other women as well. I had the opposite reaction to this movie. I was surprised I actually liked it. I thought it was good and creepy.

[GirlyGhoul]

Dec 14, 2012 16:45:00 GMT -4 Mugsy said:

I watched Rosemary’s Baby last weekend for the first time. I always knew what it was about, but never actually saw it. Talk about underwhelmed, and it’s not because I knew "the truth" from the beginning.

Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon did a great job, but I found the husband to be an ass. The actor did nothing to make me think, "Well, no wonder she loves him and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."

And the story was just so… weak. Rosemary has enough young friends to fill their apartment for a party – including three close female friends – but no one visits her during her entire pregnancy except the old guy? And when her fears are confirmed that her husband is part of the conspiracy, she calls her old doctor, a guy she hasn’t spoken to in months, instead of her friend? Yes, she calls her friend later, but it’s too late then.

If I was convinced my husband had helped drug me so that my baby could be conceived and given to Satan worshippers for god-knows-what, I’d run to my friend’s house, the same friend who expressed concern that things weren’t right. I wouldn’t run around New York with a giant suitcase, making calls from a payphone. So stupid. Why would Satan want to breed with someone so dumb?

Well, one thing to remember is at the time of the movie, it was still fairly common for women to be completely reliant on their husbands. The feminist revolution had begun- but only just begun. Plus, Rosemary was still a Catholic Girl at heart and so leaving her husband probably wouldn't have crossed her mind even when he was being a total ass.
She does get some great advice from her girlfriends at the party, but again, obidiant Catholic girl that she was, she discusses the matter of switching doctors with her husband first. And then her pain stops and she's so relieved and focused on the baby that she happily shoves all her earlier worries to the back of her mind until her friend Hutch dies and gives her the book on Witches.
She knew things weren't right, but full on Devil Worshiping Cult with her husband selling her out to be Satan's BabyMomma didn't cross her mind until very near the end.
The Cult and her hubby did a brilliant job of keeping her isolated and keeping an eye on her so she hardly had a moment to herself to think. They went so far as to cast a spell on the one guy who knew what was up and probably would have cursed any friend who tried to intervene.
By the time she knew the full truth, she was gargantuanly preggers and had no one to turn to besides the doctor she'd met once before. She couldn't even flee her captors at that point- all she could do was waddle.

They were always one step ahead of her and had her right where they wanted her all along- which is to me where the real horror of the movie lies- not the Devil Baby at the end.

I'm not trying to change your opinion of the movie- I'm just saying even though Rosemary made some bad choices, she was screwed from the beginning no matter what she did.

ETA- Whoops, what highondegrassi said.

[Sunnyhorse]

Mugsy, you might want to try the book -- the late, great Ira Levin does a fantastic job of showing us what the times were like then and what's going on in Rosemary's head. (I've never seen the film, actually.) I love his books -- The Stepford Wives is a masterpiece of creepiness.

[Deleted]

I tried to watch Carnage on cable. I couldn't watch it all from beginning to end. I kept switching back to see if it gets better and kept seeing the same thing --- a self-indulgent, pompous endeavor that critics, of course, would LOVE! It's basically about four terribly disgusting people whose sons got into a fight at school, and so they spend hours in an apartment arguing and bickering and judging each other. At the end there is a shot of two boys playing together. You see, the children are more capable of resolving conflict than their selfish, immature parents. So deep.

A story about parents judging other parents and being blind to their own failings as parents could be an interesting one, and I'm sure that's what this was supposed to be about, but it just didn't ring true. The parents didn't resemble real people. They were like the easiest therapy subjects ever with their obvious flaws that they gleefully exposed to strangers. I know this was based on a play, but did it have to look like a play? It's a movie. There's an opportunity to film in various locations. Some scenes showing the parents individually and how they were in other aspects of their lives would have provided a little insight and subtlety.

[Hamatron]

Ug. I have read many reviews of theater productions of that show over the years and based on them I know I never want to see Carnage, on the screen or on the stage. It just sounds like it would be so freakin' tedious to get through.

[Mugsy]

I might try the book (Rosemary's Baby), thanks for the suggestions, Sunnyhorse. Books are usually much better at getting inside people's heads.

I get that it was a different time, but I guess my thought was that her friends were concerned about her, did tell the hubby to get lost at the party (girls only!), and insisted that things weren't right and she should get help. I would think that even if things were hunky-dory, a pregnant woman without a job would be spending her days with her girlfriends, so that she had that constant circle of support. But the movie made it seem like all the friends came to the party and then she never saw them again.

The whole "gaslighting by the devil worshipers" thing is creepy, but many old movies seem so hokey to me. I can't take them seriously.

[Deleted]

I know what you mean about old movies. Sometimes I'll be enjoying one until there's a scene or character that's a blatant example of the ignorance of its time, and I'll be taken out of the movie and continue watch it as a curious history lesson.

[margojata]

Yeah, I hated John Cassevetes in Rosemary's Baby. And Roman didn't love him either. Apparently John pretty much refused to work without his deck shoes, or whatever the hell you call those. You can see them in quite a few scenes - all dirty and old. Robert Redford was first pick, but he was unavailable. Imagine how much cooler that would have been? Cassevetes was not in the least bit lovable in the movie, and I also could never see why Rosemary picked him in the first place ... especially since Mia was sort of flower child Mia at the time and in that part. Redford would have been a good guy turned REALLY bad, and that might have been awesome.

Polanski also followed the book almost to the word. So what you see IS what the book is like - I guess minus the visualizations of how you would see the characters. And of course there's lots of stuff left out because of time. I personally love the movie in spite of the miscasting of Guy Woodhouse.