Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely Fantastic

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

To say it couldn't have been made today is an understatement. It's a bold film for any time, and it's incredible pissed off. If you wanted to see white men taken down a peg or two, this takes them down to uh... Hell. It's not scathing. It's scalding. And as a film, moving across just several hours of time in one afternoon, it has amazing energy and you can tell Cohen is having... A blast making this! This is significant because if Bone had been more like a sermon, if it had even tried to play everything super serious and straight, it wouldn't have the same impact. I should be surprised it was made at all... Cohen had a mountain full of tenacity. It's all over the place in some ways - at a certain point this felt a bit like Cassavetes's Faces but with Yaphet Kotto in the Seymour Cassel part...and for the whole movie. But its also a thriller... Sorta. Its something that feels so wholly original I can't quite compare it to anything else. It's not sleazy enough for the usual exploitation of the period, and it's too wild and packed with insane digressions for a studio. Bone is an unkenpt beast of a satire, made as a first feature (though Cohen had worked in TV for years), and clearly he had a lot on his mind... A lot. Cohen takes on race, sex, class and even policing and how to make your pool cleaner and... it makes for something special. I dont know if it all *works*, but I feel like I've experienced something daring and need a little more time to put the pieces together. By the last act it isnt so much funny as it is totally fascinating - perhaps if Kafka remade Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?And Yaphett Kotto... Whoa - one of his major performznces. Good jazz/r&B score and songs, too.

The basic story of Bone is simple: a rich couple deals with a home invasion. But this movie has Larry Cohen at the helm, so it's going to be anything but basic. The man who is there to take them for everything soon learns that the couple is anything but rich. And they're anything but happy. Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten, St. Elmo's Fire, Grown Ups) and Bill (Andrew Duggan, In Like Flint, It Lives Again) are a seemingly rich Beverly Hills couple. Bill's a used car salesman who feels that he's the only one working hard, symbolized by his wife refusing to even getting up to answer the phone while he cleans the pool. Then, a rat gets stuck in the drain. That's what brings Bone (Yaphet Kotto, Alien, Live and Let Die) into their lives.Mistaking him for an exterminator, they ask him to pull the rat out. He does and instead of hiding it from them, he confronts them with it. He then takes them hostage as he goes through their home looking for money.It turns out that the couple has little in liquid assets and is deeply in debt. Their son may be in Vietnam or he may be in jail. And it turns out Bill has a secret bank account that Bernadette knows nothing about. Bone commands him to clean out that account and bring him the money in an hour or he'll rape and kill his wife.Bill ends up taking his time as he realizes how little he loves his wife. He drinks with a lady (Brett Sommers from TV's Match Game) that explains how her husband died from too many dental x-rays. Soon, he's been seduced by a young girl (Elaine May's daughter Jeannie Berlin, The Heartbreak Kid, Inherent Vice) who steals from the system, attracted to her offbeat ways and youthful spirit.He comes home without the money. But meanwhile, after learning how to make eggs - she doesn't cook anymore - Bernadette and Bone have gotten drunk and ended up on the couch together. He explains to her how raping white women and the black mystique used to take him so far, but today, black and white love is commonplace. What started as him continually saying he was going to rape her has turned and she begins to seduce him, kissing him and "doing all the work." He talks about how black men have troubles now making love and she tells him that it's not just black men.After they bond, Bernadette tries to convince Bone to help her murder Bill for his insurance. They ride the bus to the end of the line, then chase Bill to the beach. He tries to win them over with a used car pitch to keep him alive, Bernadette smothers and kills him. Bone realizes that he wants nothing to do with this life and leaves.On Cohen's website, the characters in this film are broken down by how they relate to the world: Bill is The Establishment who may be open to change. Bernadette is liberation and feminism that has been held down. The X-Ray Lady is the real Establishment, the old guard ready to die off. The Girl is the hippy love generation already giving way to the darkness of the 70's. Then there's Bone - facing racism but willing to play with it to get what he wants, as he says, "I'm just a big bad buck, ready to do what's expected of him." He even talks about how he's held onto the past, enjoying his part of the world of racism because it was easier and there was a role. Now, in this new world, he doesn't know who to be.The character work in this film is superb. Witness the scene where the girl explains to Bill how she was raped as a child and that's why she's attracted to old men like him. Even when he tries to connect with her by telling her about the Street & Smith pulps her bought as a kid, she still tries to connect him to the rapist who took her virginity as she begins to make love to him.If I didn't say it yet, Yaphet Kotto is amazing in this movie. His performance is quite literally a tour de force. He's always great in everything he's in, but in this film, he's transcendent. I also love that he borrowed Cohen's red sweater for a scene late in the movie and never returned it.Amazingly, this was Cohen's first film. It's assured and poised, straddling the line between art film and exploitation.

Larry Cohen's directorial debut is an intriguing, psychologically arresting film which plays with the mind unlike any of his other works. While he later concentrated on monsters - and humour - in films such as THE STUFF and Q THE WINGED SERPENT, HOUSEWIFE is a film based on the complex lives and relationships of three main characters - the married couple and the rapist.The interaction between the three is certainly intriguing and the gradual way in which the wife comes to love the rapist more than her husband is handled in a slow, deliberate manner. That said, there are still a number of horrific things taking place - a surreal, obscene phone call from non other than a policeman, a dead rat in a swimming pool, a car yard full of corpses.The acting is generally good all round, from the torn husband who is seduced by a young girl, to the housewife, who ranges from scared to aggressive and even murderous. Yaphet Kotto is superb as a gentle rapist. The issue of race is explored (the film cashes in on the blaxploitation era) in a genuinely interesting way. The theme of sexual intrigue runs throughout the film and much is made of it, yet it is not handled in an awkward way. If you're looking for a weird, surreal story where tables are turned and outcomes are genuinely unexpected, then HOUSEWIFE is for you.

The white middle/upper middle/upper class of America is corrupt, materialistic and empty of all humanity. This is the thesis of a number of films. They come in many flavors including dramatic (ex: "The Swimmer"), funny (ex: "Into The Night") and satiric (ex: "Bone"). The biggest crime this film commits is that it is predictable. It works too hard to get to a place that we've been to too many times. Still, it should not be ignored. Anyone interested in film should see this one once. We've been here before, but it's a nice reference point. The acting actually rises above the script. Two brilliant actresses from the 1970's never reached their potential in Hollywood. They are Kitty Winn and Jeannie Berlin. Both had an extraordinary command of their craft. Whenever one of their films is released on DVD it is a treat. Jeannie Berlin's performance alone is enough to make rental of this film worthwhile.