AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

jotix100 Charles Busch, the humongous talented writer and performer of the brilliant theatrical spoofs "Vampires Lesbians of Sodom", "Shanghai Moon", "Red Scare on Sunset", "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife", among others, makes an enormous contribution with his screen treatment of the material he created for this film. Under the direction of Mark Rucker, Mr. Busch clearly demonstrates why he is a man ahead of his times.Charles Ludlum, Everett Quinton and Charles Busch, were the ones responsible for the plays that made them icons of the Off and Off-Off-Broadway theater. These men transformed themselves into the larger than life women they wrote about, most taken from the movies they all adored. Those screen goddesses clearly received a lovely tribute from these performers. Charles Busch, perhaps, was the most visible of those early drag dramas. With his enormous success in "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom", Mr. Busch conquered a great New York audience as this play proved. The rest is history.With "Die, Mommie, Die", Mr. Busch seems to be a reincarnation of a younger and sexier Joan Crawford, a woman that is revered by the author. This is a film that "borrows" from those women pictures where everything is larger than life. Those were films where outrageous things were done by the leading actress. There are elements of several of Ms. Crawford's movies, but one can still see influences of Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis and others."Die, Mommie, Die" is camp of the highest order. Charles Busch plays the twin sisters Angela and Barbara Arden. These women are yin and yang in the Busch lexicon. In addition for looming large over the material, Mr. Busch's own take on the characters are never tacky, or obnoxious. As in all of Mr. Busch's plays, there is so much style that some of the studios would probably benefit from this man's talent in the fashion department. Mr. Busch has an impeccable taste as shown in all his appearances.Of course, this is a film to enjoy because of the extreme situations that only a Charles Busch can conceive. The dialog is fast and it is witty beyond words. For people not exposed to Mr. Busch's brand of humor, it might take a while to realize this is a unique voice in this type of film genre.The supporting cast, Jason Priestley, Natasha Lyonne, Philip Baker Hall, Stark Sands, and Frances Conroy, back up the star, Mr. Busch, and they make the film a lot of fun to watch.

rosscinema After noticing that the star of this film is a drag queen than you start to wonder what else this story has to offer and that's where the main problem of this satiric effort lies. Story is set in the 1960's (I think so, anyway) where we see a faded former singing star named Angela Arden (Charles Busch) and she wants to divorce her husband Sol Sussman (Philip Baker Hall) who's a has-been Hollywood producer. Their children are virginal Edith (Natasha Lyonne) who loves her father but hates her mother and homosexual pothead Lance (Stark Sands) who has the opposite feelings towards his parents.*****SPOILER ALERT***** Sol won't give Angela a divorce so she decides to kill him by dipping a suppository in arsenic and inserting it! Sol dies and the authorities consider it just a heart attack but Edith and Lance start to think that their mother was up to it. The local gigolo Tony Parker (Jason Priestley) is bisexual and has slept with both Edith and Lance and he starts to investigate the death of Sol but when the maid Bootsie Carp (Frances Conroy) pops up dead than it seems just a matter of time to find proof that Angela is behind things. After drugging Angela with LSD she admits not only to Sol's death but also the circumstances involving her twin sister Barbara.This is directed by Mark Rucker who makes his debut and though he has to somehow get around the minuscule budget the films weakness has nothing to do with the production values. The script is a campy send-up of the older melodrama's from both the 50's and 60's and as I watched this several films came to mind like "Peyton Place", "Valley of the Dolls", "Sunset Boulevard", "Straight Jacket", and many of Douglas Sirk's efforts. The main joke in the film is Busch in drag resembling Joan Crawford but with the characters last name of Arden I couldn't help but think of actress Eve Arden whom Busch also resembles. But that part of the films humor wears out so quickly that everything else seems thrown in to try and fill out the script to a near 90 minutes and the ridiculous ending doesn't help either. The film has many in-jokes and the characters all display silly behavior but even die hard camp lovers will find this effort (at best) a tedious offering.

Roland E. Zwick Screenwriter Charles Busch has adapted 'Die Mommie Die' from his own stage play. A transvestite, Busch also plays the lead role of Angela Arden, a washed-up torch singer in the late 1960's who murders her movie producer husband by giving him an arsenic-laced suppository. Other characters include her incest-oriented virgin daughter, her gay teen son and her bisexual stud boyfriend who manages to run through her, her son and her daughter before he's through with the family.'Die Mommie Die' has all the makings of a nifty little satire in the style of John Waters. Alas, Busch, who is clearly in the bush leagues when it comes to film-making, spends so much time trying to be arch that he forgets to be funny. The story, which is a cross between 'Mommie Dearest' and 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,' is rife with campy possibilities, but the film never catches fire, maintaining far too subdued and restrained a tone for this kind of material. Under Mark Rucker's lagging direction, the pacing turns deadly, with the jokes coming a full beat and a half behind where they ought to. Moreover, the deliberately stilted writing and acting are too cute by half, calling so much attention to themselves that they wind up diluting their effectiveness in the process. It's a shame that what should have been a rollicking, manic good time at the movies turns instead into a funereal misfire. Rarely have ninety minutes passed so slowly.

Jim I remember seeing, Stark Sands, on HBO's "Six feet under." I thought he was very attractive. Now that I saw, "Die mommie, die," I think Stark Sands is not only attractive, but an enormous talent! Co-starring with jason Priestly, Natosha Lyonne, and the entire superb cast, Stark Sands has a feirceness in his pretty green eyes that brought his character to life in an astonishing roar. I have rented this great send-up of classic movies at least 4 times. And now I am going to purchase it. This is one of the finest "indie" films I have seen since, "Sordid lives." And it also has made me a huge, Stark Sands fan. I look forward to seeing more of his acting in the future.