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The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)
DVD at Last
This film is finally about to be released on DVD. And, at long last, in the widescreen version. www.Amazon.com shows it as an October 4, 2005 release and www.DVDempire.com has the DVD picture.
The local used for the film fits exactly. First of all, I loved the production quality, atmosphere and locale. The acting was first class and shows Jodie's soon to blossom strong talents. Martin Sheen probably won't be happy to see his character reprised, he is not a nice guy in this film, especially with Jodie Foster. The direction and score are excellent as well.
The plausibility of Jodie Foster's character behaving essentially as an adult stretched things a bit. It was a little rough for me to buy into a 14-year-old cooking gourmet meals, serving fine wines, listening to Chopin and generally acting much older than her chronological age. Even taking into consideration the events in her life, which apparently had shaped her personality, she seemed too mature for her age. If you put that concern aside however and accept it as a given premise of the movie you can sit back and enjoy the fun of trying to figure out what's going on.
The film takes pleasure with its twists and turns and will keep you guessing.
Carny (1980)
Carnival Action at it real best
This is one of the only films in existence that truly depicts the Carny as he/she was during the 50's and 60's. Why it has not made it to DVD is a real mystery.
Gary Busey and a young Jodie Foster are the mainstays of this film. Foster is beginning to show the talent that will shine in later films.
Part coming-of-age chronicle, part road movie, Carny is memorable for Jodie Foster's sexy, intelligent heroine and the pivotal influence of costar, co writer, and producer Robbie Robertson. Robertson is Patch, a carny veteran whose de facto partner is the leering, cruel Frankie (Gary Busey), an abusive clown, and the film lingers on the tawdry and menacing world behind the carny's garish public spaces. When the young, self-confident Donna (Foster) shows up and joins the troupe, the bonds between Patch and Frankie are strained. Donna's walk on the wild side brings her in intimate, sometimes dangerous proximity to the freaks and lowlifes that populate this world, which the writers and director Robert Kaylor savor for its atmosphere of outsider surrealism.
Foster acquits herself wonderfully, making this a revealing step between the prematurely hardened nymphet of Taxi Driver and the actress's first truly adult roles, soon to follow. Busey and Robertson fare less well, their work long on mannerism but ultimately cryptic to a fault. Like the movie itself, they transmit a cynicism that seems hollow without more real insight into how they came to inhabit this netherworld, and why they can't escape it. B-Sutton