Foxes
|
List Price: Our Price: $13.17 You Save: $1.81 (12%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $11.95 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Foxes
Movie Review: Bare Minimum DVD is an Injurtice to an Overlooked 80s Gem
Summary: 4 Stars
One of the few serious movies about growing up in the early 1980s is finally out on DVD. Sadly its bare bones presentation and disappointing digital transfer may discourage all but diehard fans from seeing this touching film.
The "Foxes" DVD includes nothing more than a single trailer and standard and widescreen editions. No audio commentary, notes, or anything else. And the film's digitization appears to have dulled the subtle hues and sharp color contrasts that made the original cinematography breathtakingly beautiful.
Despite that, it's worth a look.
Unlike the teen sex comedies that overshadowed it (Porky's, Fast Times at Ridgement High), the movie holds up well against time.
Its theme of teen angst is as relevant today as it was 25 years ago and Jodie Foster and sk8er boi Scott Baio (remember him?) lead a fine young cast.
The film follows four San Fernando Valley girls through a homeless existence filled with sex and drugs. Pills, parties, and boys provide instant gratification and home is where you happen to end up that night.
But rather than condemning them, the film is sympathetic, blaming absent, uncaring adults for forcing these teens to grow up alone. And the charismatic cast is impossible to dislike.
The film's opening - a long and loving pan - sets the tone. As day slowly breaks, the cast awakens amid the objects that define teen girlhood, from Twinkies to a picture of a young John Travola, while Donna Summer's "On the Radio" is scored beneath.
From there the pace quickens as we learn about each of character as they head off to school and life. Annie is the wild child who lives for the next party or pill. Deirdre is the boy crazy drama queen. Madge is the shy girl in over her head. And Foster is the one with the plan. It's her job to keep this crew together long enough to finish high school while also keeping her divorced man hunting mother in line.
It's an almost impossible job and one that Foster ultimately fails at.
Despite its age, "Foxes" remains a pleasure to watch. Dated hair, clothes, and references to Joni Mitchell haven't hurt the movie.
The cinematography, though dulled by the DVD transfer, presents the L.A. basin in its best possible light, with beautiful filtered shots at dawn, dusk and at night.
Giorgio Moroder adds an excellent 80s soundtrack that ranges from Donna Summer to Janis Ian.
Perhaps the movie's biggest disappointment is that the young stars around Foster never broke out like the casts of "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985) or "Empire Records" (1995). "Foxes" shows why they should have. But maybe like Bowling for Soup's song "1985," they just hit a wall.
Movie Review: L.A. story
Summary: 4 Stars
Aside from the patented soft-focus look and one "creepy old uncle" closeup tracking shot of sleeping teenage girls (under the opening credits) this early effort from director Adrian Lyne actually gives us substance over style for a change. With its pop soundtrack and teen angst themes, 1979's "Foxes" could have been dismissed at the time as an estrogen-rich flipside of "Saturday Night Fever". In hindsight, "Foxes" seems ahead of its time, presaging "Less Than Zero", "Kids" and "The Virgin Suicides". Jodie Foster leads a fine cast in this episodic tale of four L.A. girl pals dealing with growing pains at the height of the Sex Drugs & Rock&Roll Era. In this age of "Sex In The City" and the "American Pie" film franchise, you may find this hard to believe, but as a young male (at the time) I remember being shocked by the frank coversations the girls have about sex and relationships (when the boys have left the room!). Good performances all around, with "non actor" Cherie Currie (best known as lead singer of proto-grrrl band The Runaways) actually giving the most believable performance as a troubled druggie. Sally Kellerman (as Foster's mother) has some memorable scenes, and there is a notable cameo from Adam Faith (whom we sadly lost in 2003) as Foster's father. DVD notes: a Cheer to MGM for releasing this sleeper; but a Jeer for the audio transfer-I couldn't catch the dialog at times, and the music soundtrack is undermined by tinny equalization.Movie Review: Still Relevant Coming of Age Story
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is an excellent coming of age drama that teens and young adults today will enjoy despite the fact that it was filmed in the late 70's. Jodi Foster has a mom who dates casually and lets her pretty much do what she wants to do. It's obvious her moms house is the cool house because all of her friend "hang" at her house. Each one of the girls has some serious issues that they are dealing with. These girls are going through some of the same things teens today are going through. This movies succeeds where a lot of current films like "Thirteen" fail. It shows, it shocks and there are serious consequences. The DVD doesn't have any extras and the film quality isn't much better than the VHS. What I love most about the story in the film is how the friends really bond together to try to help the one friend who needs help the most."We raise our children in love and they grow up in love" is a quote from one of Jodie Fosters instructors at the beginning of the film and it's very fitting to the lives of the main characters.
Movie Review: Foxes still worthy of viewing!
Summary: 4 Stars
I can't tell you how many times I've seen this movie in the last 25 years or so. Granted, some of the little plot twists are a bit hokey, but as a whole I think the movie stands up well. I do wish there was something in the way of "bonus features" though. It'd be nice to have had audio commentary from Cherie Currie, or Jodie Foster. And it certainly would be nice to have had some more additional concert footage of Angel! I know there is more, as I attended that concert taping at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.Movie Review: Twentiet h Century Foxes
Summary: 3 Stars
There is a democratic school of film criticism which pretty much holds that a film is "artisically successful" if it speaks to its audience. Judging from the commentary I've seen posted on this film (on Amazon.com and elsewhere), I would have to say that Adrian Lyne's 1980 film FOXES has certainly found its audience. And judging from the abundance of five star reviews, it's clear that it "speaks" to them.
The problem with that "democratic approach" for me, however, is that while viewers may connect to a film that addresses issues near and dear to THEM, it is also true that a.) a better film might speak to them even more, and b.) there may have actually been a better version of the film in question, lying on the cutting room floor. With FOXES, this would seem to very likely be the case.
Those who came of age in the 70s or early 80s (particularly if they were from metropolitan areas) will likely identify with these high school friends who seem jaded beyond their years, simply because they've SEEN it all, even when it's the case that they haven't DONE it all themselves. (The big complaint of one of the "foxes" is that she's still a virgin--at least until about half way through the movie, when she's deflowered by a 20-something Randy Quaid of all people.) But unlike those of us a decade or so older, they don't get to benefit from a 60's style idealism. If anything, it's de rigueur for these girls to sneer at hippie-style notions of some of their parents. It's helpful to keep in mind that this film is from the era when the word "groovy" became used only in an ironic sense.
Would that the film actually explored the significance of what it meant to be 17 even as the "Me Decade" was drawing to a close. Unfortunately, the film is just too choppy, and in spots, too contrived, to really pull it off. In part, that's likely an editing problem (and there really WAS a better film on that proverbial cutting room floor). But some of its problems are also conceptual. Unlikely twists--like the chase-sequence-on-a-skateboard featuring Scott Baio outwitting a bunch of thugs--seem gratuitous.
But the more significant problem is simply that of a lack of sufficient character development in a movie that cries out for it. Odd in a way that a movie in which the characters struggle so hard to be cool should conclude with as hoary a device as a graveside voiceover. Well, actually, less "odd" than downright lazy.
A film like FOXES pushes enough buttons to be almost certain to "find its audience." But that still doesn't mean that that audience doesn't deserve better.