This is a bad movie -- a legendarily bad one. I've blogged about it incidently over the years.
But the story behind its creation is fascinating. There's even an entire behind-the-scenes book about it called The Devil's Candy which is way better than the movie.
"Bonfire" is based on Tom Wolfe's massive 1987 novel of the same name about how greed and, obviously, vanity corrupt not only people but an entire city. A high-living Wall Street trader named Sherman McCoy and his mistress get into a hit-and-run accident with a young black man in the Bronx -- and his life becomes a media storm that inflames the entire city's media, judicial, and political worlds.
Because the book was so successful, a movie version seemed inevitable. And then every decision the producers made was wrong.
Who do you get to play the to-the-manor-born, aristocratic Sherman? Why Mr. Middle America himself, Tom Hanks!
Who do you get to play Peter Farrow, the emaciated British tabloid reporter who turns the hit-and-run into a media sensation? Why Mr. Die Hard action movie hero himself, Bruce Willis!
Who do you get to play the 21-year old Maria, a Southerner, Sherman's mistress? Why thirty-something year old Melanie Griffith!
Who do you get to direct this social satire? Why horror/gangster movie director Brian De Palma!
What do you with material that's been highly acclaimed for its smart humor and biting wit? Why you turn it into a raunchy, gross, Animal House-like romp.
As one reviewer said at the time, "You've got to be a genius to make a movie this bad."
The movie really is a mess. It's not funny, not insightful, and doesn't work.
But, as an NYC movie, it actually works strangely well. De Palma is a great visual stylist. The movie starts with a stop-motion view from the Chrysler Building, to making JFK Airport look positively cinematic, to making the South Bronx look truly menacing, to making Park Avenue and Wall Street look both properly gorgeous and monstrous at the same time, to all sorts of weird camera angles, it's worth see just for its imagery if for nothing else.
I remember when this movie came out late in 1990. This is a now legendary movie season where lots of big movies with big stars, like "Bonfire", came out and bombed at the box office. Havana with Robert Redford, The Russia House with Sean Connery, and others just all tanked. The Godfather Part III came out and got a decidely mixed reception.
No, the winners at the box office that winter were a snotty unknown ten-year old in a silly family comedy called Home Alone and an unknown theater actress named Kathy Bates in a horror movie called Misery (that got her an Oscar).
Ah, memories ...
Because the book was so successful, a movie version seemed inevitable. And then every decision the producers made was wrong.
Who do you get to play the to-the-manor-born, aristocratic Sherman? Why Mr. Middle America himself, Tom Hanks!
Who do you get to play Peter Farrow, the emaciated British tabloid reporter who turns the hit-and-run into a media sensation? Why Mr. Die Hard action movie hero himself, Bruce Willis!
Who do you get to play the 21-year old Maria, a Southerner, Sherman's mistress? Why thirty-something year old Melanie Griffith!
Who do you get to direct this social satire? Why horror/gangster movie director Brian De Palma!
What do you with material that's been highly acclaimed for its smart humor and biting wit? Why you turn it into a raunchy, gross, Animal House-like romp.
As one reviewer said at the time, "You've got to be a genius to make a movie this bad."
The movie really is a mess. It's not funny, not insightful, and doesn't work.
But, as an NYC movie, it actually works strangely well. De Palma is a great visual stylist. The movie starts with a stop-motion view from the Chrysler Building, to making JFK Airport look positively cinematic, to making the South Bronx look truly menacing, to making Park Avenue and Wall Street look both properly gorgeous and monstrous at the same time, to all sorts of weird camera angles, it's worth see just for its imagery if for nothing else.
I remember when this movie came out late in 1990. This is a now legendary movie season where lots of big movies with big stars, like "Bonfire", came out and bombed at the box office. Havana with Robert Redford, The Russia House with Sean Connery, and others just all tanked. The Godfather Part III came out and got a decidely mixed reception.
No, the winners at the box office that winter were a snotty unknown ten-year old in a silly family comedy called Home Alone and an unknown theater actress named Kathy Bates in a horror movie called Misery (that got her an Oscar).
Ah, memories ...
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