Bracket #2: "Death Becomes Her" v. "The House of the Spirits"

WOW OH WOW. Where to even begin...

Death Becomes Her (1992)
Dir: Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump)
Wri: Martin Donovan & David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible)
Starring: Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, Isabella Rossellini

- WHAT A GODDAMN DELIGHT OF A FILM. 
- Shout out to Denise Lynne Roberts, Meryl and Goldie's stunt double, who performed without a doubt THE LONGEST FALL DOWN A STAIRCASE IN RECORDED FILM HISTORY (probably). Amazing. 
- Campiness is hard to do, and hard to do well. In my opinion, campiness MUST have a sense of self-awareness, that sort of wink towards the audience that lets us know that you know how ridiculous you're being, so we don't feel bad for laughing at you, but rather, feel like we're laughing WITH you. This is true "camp," and when well-executed (pun intended), it is one of my goddamn favorite things to watch. 
- I know we live in a time of washed up and totally unnecessary remakes, but I could NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT HOW GOOD A REMAKE WOULD BE... wait for it... starring Emma Stone as Goldie Hawn and Jennifer Lawrence as Meryl Streep. I KNOW I'M A GENIUS. Throw in Michael Cera as Bruce Willis and Rihanna as Isabella Rossellini and I think I just came up with THE GREATEST MOVIE THAT'S NEVER BEEN REMADE. ...Yet. 

- Best line award goes to: (wildly paraphrased)
*Bruce Willis is the go-to Hollywood undertaker, known for making even the most horrifying of corpses look good again*
Coroner: This famous Hollywood Hunk died in a bathtub, having sex with his 18 year old Cuban wife! He is bloated and blue, and has the most inappropriate look of pleasure on his face!
Bruce Willis: Don't worry, I know what I'm doing, I'll make sure I make him look good. Lots of character and depth. 
Coroner: Oh no, that won't do, we want his fans to recognize him!

- Basically Goldie and Meryl are Best Frenemies fighting over Bruce Willis, they end up getting caught up in what can only be described as Satan's Spa, run by AN ABSOLUTELY EARTH-SHATTERING ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, and get a potion to live forever. Bruce gets caught in the middle of the woman he used to love but lost, and the woman he's stuck with but doesn't love anymore, and the two crazy bitches decide they'd rather be young and beautiful forever than give a flying fuck about love and team up to convince him to also take the potion so he can be their Maintenance Guy FOREVER. Bruce barely escapes, decides to live his life naturally, and lives (and dies) happily ever after. Meryl and Goldie end up living forever, miserably, together. And die in a giant pile of dust after yet ANOTHER fall down a giant staircase. 
​- Truly a delightful film. 10/10. 

Isabella Rossellini Appreciation: 

THEN WE HAVE THIS CLUSTER FUCK OF A FILM. OH MY GOD GET READY FOR IT. 

The House of the Spirits (1993)
Dir: Bille August (Les Miserables)
Wri: Isabelle Allende (novel) & Bille August
Starring: Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, Vincent Gallo

It legitimately took me 25 minutes into this movie to realize that it wasn't about a bunch of American ex-pats living in Chile, but that MERYL STREEP, JEREMY IRONS, GLENN CLOSE & WINONA RYDER ARE ALL SUPPOSED TO BE CHILEAN. AND GLENN HAS BROWN CONTACTS IN. OH NO. 

Real quick, because I hated this goddamn movie:

- Meryl is a clairvoyant child named CLARA (lol)
- Jeremy wants to bang her big sister, goes to mine for gold to become $$ enough to marry her
- Big sister dies in very dumb and avoidable poison accident 
- Meryl never speaks again
- Until JEREMY shows back up and is like "oh sweet you're old enough to bang now, and look just like your dead big sister" #hot #totallynormal
- LITTLE DOES MERYL KNOW (despite being clairvoyant??) that Jeremy is kind of a huge dick and has totally been raping the locals, not cool Jer

- They go back to Jeremy's brand new ranch he bought with his mining money, take his sister Glenn with him who he HATES AND IS SO MEAN TO FOR NO REASON
- Well kind of one reason, Glenn is DEFINITELY gay for Meryl (who isn't)
- Best line award goes to Glenn's VERY HORNY CONFESSION to a Priest about walking in on Meryl and Jeremy boning: "secret sounds & sacred juices." Yeah, Glenn, they were having sex. You're describing it like we don't know what sex is. We know what sex is. Do YOU know what sex is?? Because I feel like you really don't know what sex is. Poor Glenn :(
- Glenn gets kicked out for being gay (literally)

- Fast forward, Meryl has a daughter - WINONA RYDER LOL - whom I love but come on, you guys aren't fucking Chilean
- Oh no, Jeremy's rape baby comes back, he's a grown man. Excellent acting done by this dude who's creeping on young Winona and jealous of the life she has that he missed out on, and the whole time I'm like WHO ARE YOU and GUESS WHAT IT WAS VINCENT GALLO LOL WHAT WHY. ​

- Winona grows up and has a cute lil friend, the son of Jeremy's head rancher, but Jeremy is like NO MY DAUGHTER WILL NOT PLAY WITH PEASANTS but because they're all white and all the ranchers are actually played by brown people it just ends up looking REALLY FUCKING RACIST. 
- Did I mention I hate this movie. 
- Meryl is barely even clairvoyant anymore??
- Nah wait she gets it back just in time to see Glenn's ghost tell her she's dead. 
- Winona is boning the rancher's son (Antonio Banderas) and gets caught, Jeremy freaks out and wants to kill him
- Meryl and Winona ditch and go back to her parents house, Meryl NEVER TALKS TO JEREMY AGAIN
- No like really, they make up later in the movie when Winona has a kid and even still Meryl is like "Excuse me maidservant, can you tell my husband that dinner is ready" when he's like RIGHT NEXT TO HER it's actually hilarious
- Meryl dies of sadness? 
- Winona gets caught up in politics
- Blah blah blah
- Jeremy decides to be nice to his kid again and stop searching to kill Antonio
- Jeremy also dies of sadness
- I hated every second of this 75 hour long movie.  

SO FINALLY, OBVIOUSLY, WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE WINNER OF BRACKET #2 IS...

DEATH BECOMES HER

And it's NOT just because I hated the other movie - because remember this is about BEST PERFORMANCE, not best FILM - but because Meryl only had like 2 faces through all of "House"

1) I'm clairvoyant about something GOOD
2) I'm clairvoyant about something BAD

And like I said before, CAMP IS AMAZING AND HARD TO PULL OFF AND SHOULD BE FUCKING RECOGNIZED.