比佛利山辣妹 Slums of Beverly Hills(1999)
又名: 比佛利山小混混 / 十五岁趣不趣
导演: 塔玛拉·詹金斯
编剧: 塔玛拉·詹金斯
主演: Marisa Tomei Natasha Lyonne Alan Arkin Carl Reiner
制片国家/地区: 美国
上映日期: 1999-04-10
片长: 91分钟 IMDb: tt0120831 豆瓣评分：7.1 下载地址：迅雷下载
简介：
- 《比佛利山辣妹》是1998年上映的喜剧片，由塔玛拉·詹金斯执导，艾伦·阿金、卡尔·雷纳等主演。剧情讲述了生活在70年代的青春少女薇薇安（娜塔莎·雷昂 饰），含苞待放，正走在蜕变为成熟女人的道路上。然而，她遭遇了两个问题：一个是她奇怪的游牧家庭，总是搬来搬去，但是她还是希望能够待在比佛利山的学区中。另一个是她日趋成熟的性征，再加上她讨人厌的表姐前来造访捣乱，把她的生活弄得乌烟瘴气，一团混乱......
演员：
影评：
Two USA indie coming-of-age comedies starring Natasha Lyonne, the archetypal misfit gal of the late ‘90s, both are feature debuts of two female filmmakers, which have gained their respective cult status as time elapses.
Tamara Jenkins’ SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS brings audience back to Beverly Hills in the ‘70s, sans glitter and glamor. Awacky family of four, Murray Abromowitz (Arkin), an unprosperous automobile salesman and his three children Ben (Krumholtz), Vivian (Lyonne) and Rickey (Marienthal), subsists on a nomad-like existence, moving from one cheap apartment to other, beholden to the financial support from Murray’s wealthy elder brother Mickey (Reiner).
Their living condition improves when Mickey’s daughter Rita (Tomei) escapes from a rehab facility and stays with the family, under the pretext of Rita attending a nursing school, the family secures more subsidies from Mickey. But Rita is a loose cannon, a 15-year-old Vivian cannot keep her in check, plus she has her own teen angst to deal with, like the nascent uncomfortableness towards her growing breasts and the anxiety/curiosity of losing her virginity to Eliot (Corrigan), a 20-something lad wearing a Charlie Manson T-shirt.
For what it is worth, SLUMS… is unabashed of being defined by its feminine fulcrum, you can find a gallimaufry of bras, bare breasts, vibrator, menstrual belt and secret pregnancy cropping up amusingly down the road, but Jenkins doesn’t belittle them by ridicule, they are important in a girl or woman’s life, and how many times a film can regard them without sexualizing them? Again, it is of high import to put a woman in the rein to subvert the decades-long tired male’s prospective, and SLUMS… sets a fabulous example here.
The pig Latin between Tomei and Lyonne is a juvenile delight, also suggests a special bond between their characters. Tomei is a gas for her unstrained expressiveness, Rita is a wreck, but Tomei builds her kookiness upon her innate kindness, so she becomes a fuller person you can relate to. Arkin, inching to his usual curmudgeon persona, is both aggressively funny (the fork-stabbing anecdote) and exasperatingly unreconstructed (often assumed by others as the children’s grandfather because of his age, Murray’s wounded ego needs to be reassured that he is still in his prime), Murray is all carapaces and spikes, the only time he betrays his weakness, the shock is legitimate.
Then there is a frizzed Lyonne, acting fairly beyond Vivian’s age, she is a puzzled teenager, but also has an assertiveness in her that makes Vivian the one who actually has her feet in the ground, she is the one who unites the family together.
However, in Jamie Babbit’s BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER, released one year later, her hair is straightened and Lyonne stupendously injects a veneer of naivety to play an all-American, 17-year-old cheerleader Megan Bloomfield, who is suspected by her parents and friends as a latent lesbian (the tell-tale signs are difficult to argue), so she is sent to a conversion therapy camp called “True Directions” to cure her homosexuality, but what happens there is a delectable sexuality awakening experience. Why girls and boys sleep separately in the camp? One might think the very first precaution is to stem any occasion for same-sex sexual attraction, right?
Truly, Babbit’s enormously funny satire has more leanings in lampooning the heteronormative insularity and the society’s benighted mindset of judging by stereotypes than in laying it on thick to fight against homophobia. Rounding up a miscellany of sexually ambiguous prototypes (Jewish, Asian, Hispanic, Black, jock, sissy, goth and tomboy, Babbit has a bent for diversity way earlier than it becomes a norm), the story meanders through the therapy’s five-step program, under the clutches of Mary Brown (Moriarty, the throaty-voiced schoolmarm in shocking pink) and her assistant, the ex-gay Mike (the one and only RuPaul, obliviously ogling the fine specimen of Eddie Cibrian), and its garish confection of pink and blue (denoting the gender dichotomy) is a pre-Candy Crush doozy. Just like Jenkins, Babbit’s feminine disposition calls the shot here, and we are all grateful to that.
Megan’s romance with Graham (DuVall, who is out and totally in her elements with brio and finesse) also inverts the typical butch/femme ideas, although the movie is too candy-coated to have anything to jeopardize the happy ending, but the promulgation of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) is the most sensible message from this unconditionally queer oddity, it even makes any number of John Waters’ movies erring on the side of virility.
Although both Jenkins and Babbit been keeping working in the business, but the potentiality manifested through their debuts fail to secure a prolific career for both of them, Jenkin hitherto has only 3 features under her belt (THE SAVAGES, 2007 is a masterpiece deconstructing the sibling rivalry), and Babbit’s filmmaking activity tails off after four pictures, and now makes high-quality comedies in the television department. For those who bemoans the paucity of mainstream female filmmakers in Hollywood, it is not for want of talent, but thanks to opportunities snuffed by sexism, and lastly, a shoutout to Lyonne, for her affinity and support with budding women directors, something now every major Hollywood star should practice instead of merely serving lip service.
referential entries: Jenkins’ THE SAVAGES (2007, 8.1/10); John Waters’ POLYESTER (1981, 6.6/10); Miranda July’s Kajillionaire (2020, 7.3/10).
Title: Slums of Beverly Hills
Year: 1998
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Language: English
Director/Screenwriter: Tamara Jenkins
Music: Rolfe Kent
Cinematography: Tom Richmond
Editing: Pamela Martin
Cast:
Natasha Lyonne
Alan Arkin
Kevin Corrigan
Marisa Tomei
Jessica Walter
David Krumholtz
Eli Marienthal
Carl Reiner
Rita Moreno
Mena Suvari
Jay Patterson
Rating: 6.8/10
Title: But I'm a Cheerleader
Year: 1999
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Jamie Babbit
Screenwriters: Jamie Babbit, Brian Peterson
Music: Pat Irwin
Cinematography: Jules Labarthe
Editing: Cecily Rhett
Cast:
Natasha Lyonne
Clea DuVall
Cathy Moriarty
RuPaul
Melanie Lynskey
Katharine Towne
Joel Michaely
Katrina Phillips
Douglas Spain
Dante Basco
Kip Pardue
Eddie Cibrian
Bud Cort
Mink Stole
Wesley Mann
Richard Moll
Brandt Wille
Michelle Williams
Julie Delpy
Ione Skye
Rating: 7.1/10
- 65岁的老爸靠着哥哥米奇每月给的生活费过活，怪奇弟弟似乎是在跟着流行的脚步，对性十分困惑的薇薇安对自己的乳房实在不是很满意，喜欢安迪霍森的邻居艾略特，怀孕的表姐爱上了一个只闻其声不见其人的男人。我太喜欢这部电影了，喜欢90s的穿衣风格，喜欢funk、soul音乐，喜欢薇薇安的小男友。这部电影是一部塔玛拉·詹金斯导演的美国家庭喜剧，这部电影并没有一个集中的情节，但是它真的不需要，主要讲了薇薇安和她自己的惊人能力来应付她的家庭和那些她即将到来而不可避免的女人气质。作为一个角色，薇薇安的形象塑造是非常成功的。
薇薇安是一个十五岁的女孩，她被自己的乳房困扰着，老爸逼她穿胸罩、弟弟们嘲笑她的乳房长得像山雀、亲眼看到老爸摸表姐的乳房，这一切导致薇薇安想去切掉她的c cup，最后在切除之际在镜子中看到了自己去世的妈妈。从电影的开头到结尾，见证了薇薇安生理和心理从一个少女蜕变成女人的一系列的成熟过程。
老爸是个爱吹牛的伪君子，讲了一个关于自己做老板揭穿员工偷拿牛排的故事。老爸拿叉子插着员工大腿裤子里的牛排说告诉你的孩子谁才是父亲！我才是他们的父亲！我才是他们的父亲！影片末尾这件事真的就戏剧性地发生了，发生在了虚弱老爸和叔叔米奇身上。老爸格雷抢着想在孩子们面前掏早饭前，让实质上掏钱的叔叔米奇看不过眼，当众羞辱了老爸说应该让孩子们知道谁才是他们的父亲！我才是他们的父亲！这件事真的发生了，不过老爸格雷成了那个被羞辱的人。薇薇安受不了这个气氛，拿起叉子插到了叔叔米奇的大腿上，她成了所谓维护老爸面子尊严的人。戏剧性的一幕就这么发生了，最后老爸格雷失去了经济来源。一家人又开始了游牧民族的生活。这个讽刺性桥段要归功于牛逼的编剧兼塔玛拉·詹金斯女士。
电影从驾车到比佛利山庄开始，到驾车离开比佛利结束。以前薇薇安认为好日子都在老爸车窗外，现在明白好日子都在车窗内。虽然跟家人吵吵闹闹、摩摩擦擦，但是跟家人在一起才是最好最安心的，家庭给薇薇安自身带来的成长。虽然对于一个现代派游牧民族来说前途未卜，但是总知道目的地在哪，现在一家人去时时乐吃饭就是他们的目的！ 观影感觉仿佛是从Lady Bird到了阳光小美女，但是又不是，Slums是独特的女性电影。它真诚面对女性的尴尬和成长的喜与忧，没有任何指责或者猎奇地展示了月经/月经带，乳房/胸罩还有电动棒。电影可圈可点的地方蛮多的，一个是车的镜头，这不是一部公路电影但是是一部旅程的电影，车一方面象征着这个家庭，它是这个家的固定居所，开头与结尾呼应着Viv的角色成长，都在车内展示。Viv憧憬车外的世界，也就是Beverly Hills和好莱坞一样的俗世幸福，Lucille Ball，Ava Gardner还有Sharon Tate的轶事/凶案，在片中穿插的时间都是对应有车内的镜头。暗示这个世界的不确定和不可捉摸，对于十几岁的Viv而言是不可思议的，但车内是她能把握和理解的。还有Viv的初夜以及Marisa Tomei和Alan Arkin的第一场戏都是在车内，车窗成了画框。
另外就是Viv和梅姨（Marisa Tomei）的平行。Viv在开篇的胸罩镜头对应梅姨用自己成熟性感的身体搭便车。Viv的尴尬和窘迫，在女性特质成熟的梅姨面前得到了强调，但是两人相处时却没有竞争或者嫉妒之感，梅姨弥补了缺失的母亲形象，两人共同的pig Latin成为女性之间的情谊捆绑。Viv的月事对应梅姨怀孕，Viv一步步肩负起责任，梅姨却更加失序。当 Viv目睹Alan Arkin老爷子和梅姨的incestuous behavior时，失序到了顶点也就是电影高潮，Viv决定解除彼此的female bonding，去接受breast reduction，但是到手术前她顿悟到，这些女性特质（from her mom)，不应该是离间女性们爱的导火索，而是一个象征一个暗语一个图腾。女性关系得到了修复，她也意识到由于女性角色的缺失（不在场的母亲）只会让家庭更加失序，她开始理解家庭中的女性角色，成为那个有责任的女性角色。Lyonne和梅姨的表演相互辉映，让电影观赏性极佳。
最后就是Viv接过父亲的叉子成为了这个家的主人，在车内，她主动调试着家的气氛，车内有你爱的和爱你的家人，何须外面的花花世界呢？至此Viv长大成人，当然，她也学会了舍弃她喜欢却没有担当的男孩。节奏很好，氛围也很棒，你以为是chick flick，却没有俗套。