Customer Reviews

Foxes

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Aside from the patented soft-focus look and one "creepy old uncle" closeup tracking shot of sleeping teenage girls (under the opening credits) this early effort from director Adrian Lyne actually gives us substance over style for a change. With its pop soundtrack and teen angst themes, 1979's "Foxes" could have been dismissed at the time as an estrogen-rich flipside of "Saturday Night Fever". In hindsight, "Foxes" seems ahead of its time, presaging "Less Than Zero", "Kids" and "The Virgin Suicides". Jodie Foster leads a fine cast in this episodic tale of four L.A. girl pals dealing with growing pains at the height of the Sex Drugs & Rock&Roll Era. In this age of "Sex In The City" and the "American Pie" film franchise, you may find this hard to believe, but as a young male (at the time) I remember being shocked by the frank coversations the girls have about sex and relationships (when the boys have left the room!). Good performances all around, with "non actor" Cherie Currie (best known as lead singer of proto-grrrl band The Runaways) actually giving the most believable performance as a troubled druggie. Sally Kellerman (as Foster's mother) has some memorable scenes, and there is a notable cameo from Adam Faith (whom we sadly lost in 2003) as Foster's father. DVD notes: a Cheer to MGM for releasing this sleeper; but a Jeer for the audio transfer-I couldn't catch the dialog at times, and the music soundtrack is undermined by tinny equalization.

For those in denial, or for those who were painfully sheltered during those formulative years, this movie will seem slutty and bland. But for those of us in the real world, this speaks for us. Everyone knew a few of the girls - the boy-crazy, the innocent, the party girl, and/or the mother of the group. This is the essential clique within a clique presentation, the battles we had, the outside influences, and how hard it is to hang on to the inner self amid seeming chaos. Brilliant in its unpretentious acting style, this is high school after the plastic has been melted. Admit it.

I can't believe people are only giving this film two stars. In what other film can you see Jodie Foster , overwhelmed with teenage angst, come home from a night on the town and turn up "More than a Feeling" while she sulks on the couch. THIS IS A CLASSIC! Not to mention one of the greatest high school party scenes ever. The song "On the Radio" would mean nothing to me if it weren't for this film. Oh yeah, one more thing The Band "Angel" live in concert, performing their hit "20th Century Foxes"- you've got to watch for yourself, that's all there is to it. Don't rent it, buy it, believe me you'll watch it again & again. You haven't fully exprienced the 70's until you've seen this movie.

Jodie Foster is directed carefully by Adrian Lyne to break out of her typical cerebral mode and thuis give a performnance of real physical depth. You'll notice in almost every scene she's in, she's always touching, feeling, caressing the bodies of the other performers, the boys and girls alike, she can't take their hands off them, even when she's speaking of something else. And yet her need to feel flesh doesn't suggest sexual hunger, it seems instead related to a maternal instinct, for she's the one who's always taking acre of everyone else, even her own mother (Sally Kellerman). The scene where Jodie Foster climbs into bed with sleepy, nerve-wracked Kellerman and reads to her out of Plato--of all philosophers!-- touches something real in all of us who have ever wondered, who is the other half of myself? Yes, now and then Lyne crosses over the border into a realm of David Bailey bad taste, especially in the opening credit sequence that so lovingly explores the bodies of the four sleeping "foxes" who are having a sleepover. It might almost be an erotic thriller from SHOWTIME. However, that's what happens when you experiment, you risk bad taste, and I'd rather have a picture that was all bad taste as long as it was doing something unique. And most of the time the photography serves the characters well, showing the weakness as well as the strength, the maturity as well as the traces of childishness on the faces of all his young stars.

Scott Baio never changes expression in the movie, but we feel we know his thoughts anyhow and can feel what he's thinking in every scene. Part of this is to the credit of an exceptionally literate screenplay. People always brag on about, oh, I don't know, Peter Greenaway, but he's done nothing as good as FOXES. Maybe it's the title, but FOXES doesn't get much credit, does it? Jodie Foster should have gotten the Oscar for this movie, she does better work here than in either of the films for which she actually won Academy Awards. And Cherie Currie is fantastic too, she actually manages to seem like she's in some documentary about her own life, fragile, endangered, willful, ultimately inexplicable like all human beings.

And the whole milieu of an as yet ungentrified LA feels lived in, like an Altman landscape. You really believe these four girls live in this ugly, parched and commercialized space, so that when they visit Randy Quaid's canyon place, it really must feel to them like another world.

I saw this movie about 2 dozen times when I was ~13. It deeply affected me. I still have a pavlovian rush of grief every time I hear On the Radio (and not because its disco). I relate to the movie and was able to avoid the excesses it showed, but only by shear luck. Now in my mid-30's, it still has the same impact. Great acting, real characters and real human frailty. Don't miss out.

This is THE greatest film of 1979. Jodie Foster is such a knockout, and the story is so good, I wanna watch it over and over again. This movie very well describes what many teens go through in their teenage years. You must own this film, your $10 will be worth it!

I know, I know it's the title to Cherie Currie's autobiography; but it fits too good. For an 80's teenage exploitation flick, this one wins. Nothing exceeds like excess, particularly in Hollywood. The location could not be more appropriate, the writing more bodacious or the spandex pants on their teen butts tighter! 'Fast Times...' and Valley Girl may have more notoriety but neither have this slam-bang cast. Super-Nova actress and director Jodie Foster, Super Self-Destructo former Runaways (other alums: Joan Jett and Lita Ford) Lead Vocalist Cherie Currie and Sally Kellerman as the old hippie chick burnout... mother. Spark -up another fatty Sally!!! Boy Howdy!!! The band 'Angel' performing at the quintesential rock concert and other great awful late 70's pop. For those of you into this motion picture genre of pop social commentary parody, run don't walk to the check-out lanes. You will not be disappointed. Buy it now 'cuz this one will probably disappear. Only the good die young!

No other film for me portray the teenage life for what it really is then this film. It seems to me that after the liberal mentality to blame society and everybody else for your mistakes has ruined the teen films that came out in the eighties and nineties and to this day and age. Very few films have ever portrayed the teen angst as Foxes has. Other films would be "Born Innocent", "Sarah T. Portrait of a Teenage Alcholic" with Linda Blair, before she ruined her career making low budget horror films. Being a teen in the nineties I never saw a film show the ugly side of teenagers. Foxes did. All the movies I remembered were the big party movie where everyone gets drunk or finds love and everything was happily everafter before credits. Foxes didn't. Foxes shows a teen falling in love with an older man. No film would ever show that now. It's politically incorrect, but it does happen and I had a few of my friends get married to older guys. Not old, old. Foxes shows a party almost for what it really is. Good times and then that person, everyone hates will show and just ruin it. Had that really happen to me once. That is why I like this movie. It's one of my favorite. I found this small gem of a film one day after work. It reminded me of my life. Back when I was a teen and everything was a big drama and I thought my life was over. So if ever you want to show teens a small dose of reality have them check this movie out. It's the closes they might get to what hollywood thinks of a teenager. At the least then in the 70's they were doing it right.

This film is something of a cautionary tale about the dangers of drug use, but underneath it, it also presents a very cynical view of humanity in general. Following the lives of four teenage girls in Los Angeles, circa 1979, it consists of episodes tied together by the thinnest of plot lines. Everything appears trashy, ugly and venal. The city is run down and dilapidated. The teenagers lead barren lives that alternate between mindless drunken brawls and bouts of despair. The adults are scarcely better, empty, dysfunctional, older but little wiser. All the characters are intellectually shallow. Still, there are some powerful moments. The dream-like soft-focus introduction contrasts the softness of the girl's bodies with the harshness of the environment they live in. Cherie Currie, herself a rock singer in real life, is completely believable as a drug-addicted delinquent who is sexually attracted to drug-pushing thugs. The one uplifting element is Jodie Foster's performance as the only person who remains caring and compassionate in a chaotic world.

I loved this movie from the moment I saw it for sale at my video store's discard rack ten years ago. I recently received the DVD as a gift and the sound quality is a big improvement over my old vhs copy. I recommend it for performances, the story and the photography. Jodie Foster's monologue toward the end of the film is particularly memorable. Each girl's story line is realistic and the film itself does a good job of capturing teen life in the late 70s before yuppie values took hold. This is NOT a John Hughes film and is a refreshing change for anyone who was subjected that director's teen films in the 80s.