Search - Foxes on DVD

Untold tale of the truth

11/17/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."

L.A. story

D. Hartley | Seattle, WA USA | 08/06/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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."

One of the greatest films of all time!

07/01/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."

"A Hole In Your Old Brown Overcoat"

Kevin Killian | San Francisco, CA United States | 01/29/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."