TServo4 wrote:
Dave's synopsis of "Candy ... finds herself assaulted and ravished by various individuals," reminds me of the post I made in the off-topic forum about inappropriate capsulizations of films. Yes, ultimately the film is about a girl who has sex with various men, but there's a hell of a lot more subtext than just that.

Is CANDY a well-made or even good film? Absolutely not. It's not supposed to be. It's social commentary behind the guise of a trashy exploitation film. It's possibly the worst collaboration of all of its stars on purpose(and printed in Technicolor, no less!). But it's not without substance in the script, and Southern is responsible for this. Like THE LOVED ONE, if you take it on its surface values, I'm sure to many it seems like vulgar chaos, but in reality, the film is biting satire. As CreepingBride so aptly pointed out, Southern was riffing on Voltaire's Candide.

And regarding Burton-- come on, the man was an actor's actor. Give the guy credit where it is due. He took a lot of projects to pay the bills, and a lot of his downfall was in the scripts he chose, not his performances. He's no better or worse than Vincent Price for that reason. For every HAMMERSMITH IS OUT, there's a WHERE EAGLES DARE to counterbalance it.
Rightous!

CANDY is an eccentric film -- perhaps egocentric is the word -- and it doesn't surprise me when some people don't get it or are unable to share in the spirit in which it is offered. I would not be surprised if Southern thought so himself even as he was writing it.

TServo4 wrote:
And regarding Burton-- come on, the man was an actor's actor. Give the guy credit where it is due. He took a lot of projects to pay the bills, and a lot of his downfall was in the scripts he chose, not his performances. He's no better or worse than Vincent Price for that reason. For every HAMMERSMITH IS OUT, there's a WHERE EAGLES DARE to counterbalance it.
Anthony Hopkins, who knew Burton well, in an interview somewhere (might have been The Actor's Studio program on Bravo) pointed out that working actors must work and if they don't always get the best scripts, at least they get to work. He said that it was unfair to criticize some of the choices Burton made in his career because Burton was doing what he wanted to do. Or something like that.

DonM435 wrote:
My review of DOCTOR FAUSTUS:

http://www.horror-wood.com/faustus.htm
Okay, you talked me into it.
I haven't seen DOCTOR FAUSTUS in ages but I'll give it another look-see.

Richard

"... little by little the look of the country
changes because of the people we admire."
dialog in HUD (1963)