The Birth of a Column
It’s easy to love a film everyone has seen, as films like Saving Private Ryan, The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Titanic, et al, are hugely popular movies that an overwhelming majority of people consider some of the best work ever committed to celluloid. It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t seen Field of Dreams, Rocky or Goodfellas, amongst others, as they are great films that are viewed in dorm rooms, fraternity houses, family gatherings by lots of people every year. They’re also shown on cable quite regularly for those who didn’t see them in the theatre.
But when you watch a lot of movies over the years, inevitably there comes a film or two that no one else has seen except you. It’s even more fun when you love the film, thus giving you something to share with those around you. It’s one thing to have a copy of Forrest Gump, but if you have a large enough DVD collection there’s bound to be some good things nestled inside that few other have.
And sometimes, the story of just how you saw a film is just as good as or even better than the film itself. You can watch a film on DVD and there’s some weird story and memory about it that’s always good for a laugh or two.
With this in mind, we here at the InsidePulse.com Movie Section would like to share some of our treasured films from the bowels of our DVD libraries and some of the more humorous stories that come attached to them.
Each week a new writer and a personal favorite of their film collection will be out there. Our goal is to provide you, our readership, with some films that we have that maybe you haven’t heard of and are worth a rental.
The Film: High Heels and Low Lifes
Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Notable Cast Members: Minnie Driver, Mary McCormack
DVD available on Amazon.com here.
Film Synopsis:
With the wave of British crime films soundly defeating any American entry in the genre since the release of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998, its not shocking that the British would do just as good of spoofing the genre as they do crafting it. And in 2001 they did just that with High Heels and Low Lifes, a film that saw a short and limited release in the late fall/early winter that would gross a shade over $200,000 at the box office.
High Heels and Low Lifes follows two women in an unlikely extortion scheme that has all sorts of comic twists and turns, culminating with a deliciously comic final shootout. Spoofing all the things that make crime movies great, from the mentality of cops and robbers to the sort of plot twists inherent with the genre, it’s the sort of spoof that Shaun of the Dead was several years later. And it starts with its two female leads, a rarity in the genre.
Shannon (Driver) and Frances (McCormack) are good friends, living and working in London, England. Shannon is a nurse, struggling to do her job without the resources necessary at her hospital. Frances is a struggling actress trying to make it big overseas. Driver and McCormack have a wonderful chemistry together and exchange barbs throughout the film for a lot of laughs. There’s a lot of comedy to be found in the film overall as well due to the direction and writing.
The film is scripted and directed tightly as the film’s plot is done well all things considered. Its plot is a bit of a doozy, after all; after Shannon is ditched by her boyfriend for the sounds of urban sprawl through his radio, a night of drinking and clubbing with her best friend winds up with them over-hearing a bank robbery for an impressive sum of money. After the police laugh them off, and they shake off a pair of hangovers, they decide the best way to move forward is to shake down the robbers for a portion of the proceeds. Normally either half of this plot would be pretty standard fare for an entire film as something like Ocean’s Eleven or Derailed would be sufficient enough for either extortion or outright theft. It’s interesting how both of these concepts are meshed into one cohesive story.
The only downside to the film is that it isn’t long enough. Just when it finishes it feels like it’s just getting started, as if there’s much more story to go. It’s still a pleasant diversion and a great spoof of the genre, though, and well worth the time.
The Story Behind It:
In the summer of 2003 I was living with my parents, working at a large life insurance carrier and wandering through life aimlessly. That summer would see a lot of changes, especially in my living arrangements. I wouldn’t be moving out on their accord, we all moved out because the damn place burned down.
Our next door neighbor’s detached garage lit on fire, which lit his boat on fire and in turn lit our roof on fire. With a huge chunk of the house burned, we had to do the life of nomads as we hopped from hotel to condo and back again. Worst part was that 98% of everything we owned was in storage, thus leaving me with about ½ a carload worth of possessions to last for the five months or so we were out of the house. For entertainment we had the local Cineplex (which was walking distance now, as opposed to a short car ride) but the kicker was that the only things we had in the condo was a laptop computer and a borrowed television. The television was from the landlord who we were renting from, as she felt bad about it all and got us a free cable hookup as well. It came in handy as well, as another unpleasant event happened during the summer.
My dad just happened to rip his knee up on the job, leaving him needing a temporary chauffer for the week or so he needed some help. This also happened to coincide with my scheduled week off during the summer to recharge, much to my chagrin, but helping him out wasn’t that big a deal. Watching anything on television with the man was.
My dad has a very unique taste in film in each of his decades of life. When my brother and I were in our formative years, we watched more action oriented films like westerns and traditional action movies. This was the 80s, after all, so Schwarzenegger and the lot were in their peak. As he’s gotten older he and my mother’s taste in film have become nearly identical, as he’s moved away from anything with violence and moved towards drama and comedy. He’s kind of become a chick when he watches movies, as he really doesn’t go for too much like he did when I was a kid. That summer he also rented Kissing Jessica Stein because it was a lesbian romance movie. He subsequently returned it that same day because it was more of a romantic movie than the lesbian-filled soft-core pornography that I think the box made it out to be. Or maybe it just said lesbian romance and he figured it had a good scene or two in it of girl on girl action.
So trying to find something, anything, we can both enjoy is a tough task. And since he was hurt at the time, he had control of the remote. My father also doesn’t watch anything unless he can watch it from the beginning and the only channel that had anything that hadn’t started was the independent movie channel. He came on to High Heels and Low Lifes, which normally would’ve been passable if not for the recognition of Minnie Driver during the little informational blurb on the cable menu.
Much to my surprise it was quite funny and we enjoyed it. It was playing a number of times as well that day, so we saw it two more times in the next couple days as well. There are a lot of things I’m going to remember about that summer, but High Heels and Low Lifes is one of the better ones.
