So much average

One of my all time favorites.

Better Late Then Never

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

SPOILER: A movie that doesn't really make a lick of sense when you think about it but that is so stylishly entertaining that you can't look away....yep, you guessed it, another Brian De Palma movie.In this one Margot Kidder plays a woman whose Siamese twin died when they were separated and who now has a good twin/bad twin split personality. The good twin is a mousy thing with a French accent; the bad twin hacks people up with butcher knives. A busy body reporter (Jennifer Salt) who lives across the way witnesses one of the murders and tries to convince the police to investigate. When they don't take her claims seriously, she enlists the help of a private detective (Charles Durning). I'm not sure why she does so, because he does barely anything and she goes off on her own to investigate the crime herself. This leads her to a mental institution where.....oh, just see the wackadoodle thing yourself.De Palma again tips his not so subtle hat to Hitchcock, and even hires frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann to compose the film's terrific score. Themes of voyeurism (again, see Hitchcock) abound, but I'm not sure what De Palma is really using them to say, or indeed if he's trying to say anything at all. I just enjoyed watching his groovy use of split screens.Grade: B+

Blood Sisters is a jarring who-what-why dunnit that's very much of its time. Whether it works for contemporary audiences ... well, I'm not so sure.The film starts by introducing Margot Kidder as a French Canadian actress/model and 'star' of a dubious TV game show built around voyeurism. As opening's go, it has its own flavour of disturbing, but it does cleverly mirror exactly the theme of the movie in a less than a minute: if you were witness to something private, would you do 'the right thing'?After an interesting premise, there's a slow and laboured build-up to a one-night stand, a menacing ex-husband, a secret twin and an inevitable - and very schlocky - murder. For me, the movie only briefly comes to life in the middle, where we have local beat reporter Jennifer Salt (the only halfway believable presence in the movie) witnessing the crime from across the street. When the police refuse to take her seriously, she sets out to investigate on her own, sometimes accompanied by her hilariously critical mother.Blood Sisters does its 'moments' well - there's intermittent tension, gore, black comedy and frustration, but otherwise it seems to lope along fairly immaturely. My biggest gripe - purely as a modern viewer - is in the film's extremely outdated ideas about mental health and disability. It's not so much about 'investigating' anything as going straight for the shock factor.I could forgive that if there were was something more endearing about this movie. I did like the overall feel and mood of the movie, down to the jerky editing and its rather obvious plot twists, but the acting is too hammy to be anything other than distracting. The ending is a masterpiece of short-change: not so much who-dunnit as huh-dunnit ... Yep, it left me stumped.I'd probably watch this movie again but not because it's good. It's an underwhelming 5/10 for me.

"Sisters" was made before de Palma found his feet as a suspense director, though it still has Hitchcockian touches we know to expect, ie. a supposed "main" character being offed early on and the focus moving to another, and the disintegration of all our assumptions at the beginning to make us question what we've seen and end with a big question mark.This is actually more a horror movie than a typical thriller. Like "Carrie" there is some really shocking graphic violence, horror effects, and a plot that involves elements of science fiction. We are not expected to believe what we see; in fact we wind up being made to question everything.The plot is something to do with conjoined sisters who were separated and left in a state of precarious sanity. A man is killed and a woman witnesses the act - or did she? We are led to believe that the separated psycho twin may have performed the murder, but does she even exist?This is a good horror/thriller, but I found my attention waiving a bit toward the end, right when the revelations are coming. I think something like this requires smarter editing and staging, which Hitchcock was a master of but de Palma had yet to master.

Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder) is a French Canadian model living on Staten Island. Philip Woode takes her home after their appearance on a Candid Camera game show. She's separated from her Siamese twin Dominique Blanchion who is angry about being left behind in a mental hospital. It's their birthday and Dominique is coming for a visit. When Philip returns with a birthday cake, he is stabbed to death by a crazed Dominique which is witnessed by neighbor reporter Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt). Her ex-husband Emil is stalking her and finds Danielle disoriented and Philip dead. He helps her hide the dead body in the foldaway couch. Police detectives Kelly and Spinetti investigate but they don't find a body. The cops distrust the reporter and Grace must investigate on her own. Her editor insists on hiring private detective Joseph Larch (Charles Durning) to join her.I often complain that characters in movies never call the cops. It's almost as bad when the cops turn out to be idiots. It doesn't make sense that the first cops on the scene are detectives rather than patrolmen. There's an argument about exigent circumstance which seems overblown and unreasonable. I can't understand why Grace is allowed into the apartment other than a need to advance the plot. If this actually happened, I expected uniformed cops to come and knock on the door looking for a victim. The cops dragging their feet is suppose to build tension but it build annoyance for me.Director Brian De Palma is doing a homage to Alfred Hitchcock. There is a good deal of fun Rear Window scenes. The last act is quite compelling. There are a lot of goodness here but there are a few things keeps annoying me. I really don't understand why Larch doesn't call the cops about the couch. If they find the body, the cops could get the couch delivered in their own sting. These little logic problems just bug me.