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Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786302697179 Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC ISBN: 6302697174 Label: Fox Lorber Manufacturer: Fox Lorber Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Fox Lorber Release Date: November 11, 1997 Running Time: 85 minutes Sales Rank: 12580 Studio: Fox Lorber Theatrical Release Date: 1991
Rating: - Flawed But Intriguing
Filmed in 1990, POISON was an extremely obscure art house film--until Senator Jessie Helms, a hysterical homophobe, threw a public temper tantrum over the fact that it had been financed in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Helm's tirade had the effect of piquing public curiosity, and while it never played mainstream cinemas POISON did indeed go on to a wider release on the art house circuit, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and receiving an unexpectedly rapid release to the homemarket as well. Thereafter it rapidly returned to the same obscurity ... Read More
Rating: - Never gels.
Poison (Todd Haynes, 1991)
Todd Haynes has a tendency to try and wrap a lot of stuff into his movies, taking a number of disparate threads and weaving them into a huge, multi-layered tapestry. There are times he succeeds, and when he does, he creates some of the better moments in recent film history. His failures are just as spectacular, for there's never a moment when you can't see the potential of it all. Every time, he almost gets it right, but sometimes there's one fatal flaw that blows it. In the case of Poison, that flaw is that the threads Haynes is attempting to weave together-- a ... Read More
Rating: - "Unrated" But "Cut"!
Don't be fooled by the label "Unrated" expecting to see the same uncut version shown on The Sundance Channel 10 years ago, shortly after the movie's award at their Film Festival. The Fox release has cut certain scenes. In the "Homo" storyline, the sex was much more explicit. For example, in the scene where the 2 prisoners are sleeping side by side on the floor, in the video release Broom merely fondles the sleeping Jack. In the original, he does much more--quite daring for a theatrical movie. Perhaps that is why that scene and some others were edited. However, if you didn't see the original TV screening, ... Read More
Rating: - The price of being different
What is like to be different in a society that fears and rejects those who are different (and most of the time considers them less than human) and rewards those who are part of the herd? Watch this film and you'll find out. Based on the works of French writer Jean Genet (who was banned in the US in the 50s for his explicit portrayal of homosexuality), the movie is made up of three different interwoven stories: the first one is about a boy (everyone, from teachers to classmates, considers him "weird") who kills his abusive father and then "flies" out of his bedroom window, the second is about the sexual obsessions ... Read More
Rating: - Interesting first film by an exciting director
After the beautiful "Far From Heaven" and the dazzling "Velvet Goldmine", I was curious to see Todd Haynes' first film. Despite being made on a shoe-string budget and featuring unknown actors, "Poison" still manages to be a visually innovative, provocative and intelligent film. The film is made up of three seperate stories interwoven together. In "Hero", which takes place in the early 80's and is filmed in documentary style, a young boy kills his father, and the community tries to figure out why. In "Horror", which looks like a campy old black and white horror film, a scientist manages to turn the human sex drive ... Read More
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