Word: postman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE...
...film's steamy sex scenes-especially the first, which takes place in the kitchen among foods and utensils as elemental as love and death-will raise eyebrows and temperatures. In part this is because The Postman appears at a time when moviemakers seem to have forgotten that the libido exists, in part because these scenes are the film's only submissions to spontaneity. This Postman is a true period piece-not 1934, but the early '70s, when American and European directors were investigating functions of the apocalyptic orgasm from behind a modernist screen. Like Last Tango...
Rafelson makes handsome, careful movies (Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens) about outcasts fighting a system all too ready to ignore them. At times, his Postman is too handsome, too careful: Rafelson caresses every ladder in Cora's stockings, every crescent of dirt under Frank's fingernails, until they become aspects of art direction. Jack Nicholson's performance as Frank is studied too. The dashing star of a decade ago has dared to inhabit the molting seediness of the character actor. So Cora must choose between two middle-aged galoots: one offers her security...
...faced, respectably poor-emerges from the crowd to remark that they are from the same town; he brightens a moment as he adds simply, "Oh, you don't remember me, but I remember you." Jessica Lange deserves to be remembered as Cora. Her fierce commitment makes this Postman something more than the sum of its private parts...
Jake is not so much in love with Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) as he is obsessed by her. To him she represents unattainable class: Lana Turner, in The Postman Always Rings Twice, to his John Garfield. Vickie is the silently smoldering platinum blond in a Bronxful of greasy brawlers and dark-haired tarts. He sees her gliding in slow motion through his jerky life, smiling mysteriously, bestowing a Queen Mother nod on some old friend. But what old friend? Why did she smile at him? Can it be she's fooling around with one of them Mafia bums? Or even...