Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

michaeltrivedi I am going to go ahead and give this movie an 8, just because I saw it right now and was feeling nice. In actuality, it would be more of a 7.5, or even 7.75. This movie has it all. It's a movie about becoming famous, and trials and tribulations of making it. Great movie, definitely worth watching! 8 Stars.

Python Hyena To Die For (1995): Dir: Gus Van Sant / Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, Illeana Douglas, Casey Affleck: Exhilarating and stylish drama about control. Suzanne Stone dreams of fame and captivates everyone as the new weather woman. She marries Matt Dillon but his desire for a family threatens her dreams. While conducting a presentation she seduces three students into murdering her husband resulting in grief and betrayal. Stylishly directed by Gus Van Sant who previously made Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, and he is backed with a smashing performance by Nicole Kidman with charm and sarcasm. She speaks directly at the camera trying to convince us and perhaps herself that she is the victim, but her crime bore consequences. Joaquin Phoenix plays a student guided by lust without realizing where he is headed. The reality of this is too severe when dealing with self esteem issues and the need to belong. Matt Dillon plays her husband who desired the American dream and had it vanquished. Casey Affleck plays one of the students with a low self esteem who is easily led by the influence of a hottie like Kidman. Illeana Douglas steals scenes as his sister who speaks to the camera before descending on ice skates across a lake that marks another meeting place. Intriguing film about damaged lives led by the illusion of fame. Score: 8 / 10

SnoopyStyle Suzanne Stone Maretto (Nicole Kidman) is a TV weathergirl and an infamous tabloid sensation suspected of enticing teenagers Jimmy Emmett (Joaquin Phoenix), Lydia Mertz (Alison Folland) and Russel Hines (Casey Affleck) to kill her husband Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon). She is driven and would stop at nothing to achieve fame. His sister Janice (Illeana Douglas) didn't like cold Suzanne from the start.It has the noir style with characters doing interviews with the camera. Director Gus Van Sant has more style than a simple narrative. Talking directly into the camera adds to this dark comedy. It is the performance of Nicole Kidman that is the most interesting. She can be sweet and innocent in one moment. Then she's manipulative and ambitious the next. She delivers one of her best performances ever. It is a dark indictment of the modern obsession for fame.

Rockwell_Cronenberg If you had told me that one of the greatest black comedies of the '90s was going to come from the director of Gerry and Drugstore Cowboy, I wouldn't have believed you. But man, Gus Van Sant really delivered here in what I think is easily the most unique work of his career. This isn't something that I would have expected from him at all and I really wish he would delve back into this genre because he is aces. From the genius opening credits sequence, which laces hard rock, razor-sharp editing and a fairy-tale score, you can tell that this is going to be a unique and bizarre experience.Unlike many films, Van Sant fully delivers on the promise from those opening minutes. I've never been a fan of structures that rely on using interviews with the characters to retrace the steps of the story, but I didn't seem to mind it as much here, probably due to how many laughs those interviews were able to pull out of me. It also helps that using that style plugs directly into the satire of the whole piece, a real biting commentary on the dangers and absurdity of popular media.Suzanne Stone, played with groundbreaking skill by Nicole Kidman, is one of the worst possible outcomes of our media-obsessed culture; an ignorant, vain and truly hopeless woman that couldn't be less likable if she tried. She is our plug in to the satire here and what follows is a delightfully twisted and bleak tale of a horrible woman doing horrible things. Looking up the film after watching it, I was amazed that it was actually based on true events. Van Sant creates an excellent style here, along with the help of a dreamy, unsettling and utterly hypnotizing score from Danny Elfman, but the true star is absolutely Kidman.I mentioned how I wanted Van Sant to do more films like this, but I desperately want Kidman to do more as well, because she is on fire. Suzanne Stone is an absolutely abhorrent creature and the best part of the film is that Kidman doesn't try to make her anything else. Most actresses, especially that early in their career, would feel the need to add something likable to the character or give some sort of a wink to the audience to let them know that she's in on the joke too, but Kidman goes for broke and dives into this character so completely.She's one of the most unlikeable characters I've ever seen in film, but Kidman is so absorbed in that role and the writing is so good that you can't look away from her, just having an urgent need to keep watching in the hopes that the bitch gets what's coming to her. A wickedly sharp, intelligent and brutally funny film with impressively unique work from everyone involved. It also features a David Cronenberg cameo that is my new favorite thing.