Word: snider
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Though Snider is a whining specimen of failed machismo, Fosse makes sure you realize that Snider is oblivious to his own absurdity. Snider sees only his reflected image: he exercises, grooms himself obsessively, and even says "Hello" to himself in different ways, all in front of the mirror. Later in the film, as his narcissism begins to crumble into self-loathing, he even watches himself throw up in the mirror, sneering at his reflection over a predatory mustache. Dorothy might have been able to save some men like this: behind the counter of the Dairy Queen she was just chunky...
Several minutes of the movie are merely stiffs of Dorothy scantily clad, with the whirring sound of camera shutters in the background. Hitcheock used sly tricks to make his audience feel like voyeurs: Fosse flatly hits you with the accusation that there is a little of Snider in all of us, that given a choice between a picture of Dorothy and the real thing, you'll take the snapshot, and make her into an object of your slavering fantasies, judging her only against Playboy's photo ideal of the perfectly formed "girl next door." Many tribal groups refuse to have...
...glitter is shown in a drab light that seems to have been filtered through all of the cocktail lounges in Los Angeles. But it is difficult to appreciate technical virtuousity while trying to distance yourself from the film and its imminent ending. Though Fosse wants you to identify with Snider, your situation is really closer to Dorothy's: you want...
Even after she realizes that she can transcend mere Bunnyhood and become an actress, Dorothy begs Paul to take her back to Vancouver. But Snider tells her "we can't go back," and Fosse would surely agree that the girl from next door can't go home again, because he presents no alternatives to the cruel world of entertainment he has been obsessed with since his first film, Caboret. At one point Snider visits a carnival with Dorothy's sister Eileen (Lisa Gordon), and they both seem happy riding the merry-go-round and eating gobs of cotton candy...
...seem to offer Dorothy an avenue of escape, and this allows Fosse to present her story as a tragedy. Nicholas doesn't ask to see pictures of her when she auditions, he just looks at her until she blushes. He tells her to make her own decisions, to leave Snider--but in his eyes there is a feverish, ashamed glint that hides the familiar fantasies: Nicholas's difference is that he sees her as a Madonna instead of a whore. When she's with Aram she dresses better and drives a nicer car--but she's still an image that...