Get ready for a cocaine-addled ride through 70’s fashion! I made the Plisskens watch Mahogany, a movie so embarrassing, Sweet Matty could barely look at the screen.
We open to the world’s most ridiculous fashion show. Very reminiscent of our last review, Gentlemen Broncos. It’s all different kinds of kimonos. Floral kimonos, bathrobe kimonos, space kimonos, punk kimonos, racist kimonos, everything, all of it. A sad and exhausted Diana Ross comes out on the runway and everyone is floored. You think they’re thinking the same thing - what in the Hell was THAT!?! But instead one, I guess important Italian dude, stands up and gives her an ovation. Then the whole room stands up and applauds. Applauds the house down like it was the most amazing shit on planet earth.
AND FLASHBACK! - We see 1970s NYC, the hipster parts of Brooklyn looked like a bombed out warzone and was the bad part of New York. We meet Tracy, as played by Ms. Diana Ross, a young woman living in one of these run down Brooklyn neighborhoods. She goes to school at night for fashion and works as an assistant during the day for a major department store and fashion warehouse. Her boss is an old uptight white bitch that treats her with slave mentality, and tells her if she wants to keep her job, quit going to that stupid school at night to better herself. Sheesh!
Tracy also loves practical jokes. she meets the handsome Billy Dee Williams, a take charge kind of man from her neighborhood who aspires to make it a better place for his community and is running for alderman. Instead of helping his cause, she decides to cause a little trouble, and for some weird reason - pours milk into his bullhorn so when he picks it up, the milk pours all over him and he’s an old milk face. He assumes it’s one of the construction worker white guys that’s been hassling him and a huge fight breaks out. Instead of show any concern, Tracy laughs her ass off and waves around her ½ gallon of milk like it’s a 5th of bourbon while saying oooohhh ohh woooo oooh oohh like this is exactly what she thought would happen and it’s hilarious. It’s not.
Billy Dee gets arrested and Tracy feels guilty so she bails him out. When he tries to thank her and asks her out, she tells him leave the bail money in her mailbox and fuck off…. but after a weird role playing scenario where Tracy stands in the welfare line saying hey - you gonna get me my old man back? How about that? All the while Billie is trying to speak to and help the people. For some movie trope romance of a reason, they go on a date anyway. I guess Billie Dee is into assholes.
We also meet another important character early on in this flick. It’s a character that stays with us throughout the film and just gets bigger and more over the top in every scene. It’s Diana Ross’s face! Her crazy faces, teeth gritting and bugged out coke eyes dominate this movie like no other! In just about every scene her eyes are making the craziest faces perhaps ever on screen. It’s borderline disturbing. I asked the guys to do some research in the first 20 minutes because I was worried that Diana Ross had Graves’ Disease, a disease characterized by protruding, bugged out eyes, extreme weight loss, erratic behavior and a thyroid problem. (Wendy Williams has it for example.) From what we could find - She doesn’t have it. My guess is cocaine is Diana’s co-star, and it loooooooves the spotlight! Those faces are on a journey all their own.
Working at her shitty day job, Tracy is accidentally discovered by fashion photographer, Sean, played by Anthony Perkins. He sees Tracy and thinks she’s a model and is thrilled to have a woman of color to photograph. He begs her boss, the bitchy old racist white lady, to bring him 10 more like her. But she recoils and says “She’s no model! She’s my (gagged face) secretary!”
And just like that, Tracy is asked to model for real. They hold a weird photo shoot in the department store backroom the next day. Tracy wears one of her own designs, a giant creped sheer rainbow poncho that you simply need to see. It’s epic on many many levels. By the way ALL the costumes in the movie are designed by real life Diana Ross. So, enjoy that! They just get weirder and weirder until we get to a crescendo of the full bad kimono fashion show that are suppose to be her couture line…. They’re bathrobes guys. Big weird mildly racist bathrobes. NO.
Anyways, Sean / Anthony Perkins starts photographing Tracy and cocaine fueled magic happens. He names her Mahogany and a supermodel is born! Anthony P. also asks Mahogany to assist him on his next shoot, which is held at a rundown building in her neighborhood. Mahogany is having the time of her life moving around models and pulling neighbors from the crowd to be in the shoot. Naturally, Billie Dee shows up and is like, uh, what’s this all about? She tells him as she is pulling what looks like a homeless woman from the crowd to put in the foreground of the shot. Billie Dee snarkily asks, what’s she getting paid? Is she being paid the same as these models? Diana says no pay, they are getting to be in this shoot! It’s art! It’s exciting! Billie Dee corrects her and says no, it’s exploitation. But Diana Mahogany thinks he’s just being a dick and doesn’t get fashion. It’s SHE that is dicks! And they seemingly agree to disagree.
Tracy and Billie Dee have a love montage and start dating. Magic happens there too and Tracy is soon singing made up campaign songs for her do-gooder boyfriend. You can tell by his face this is the point in the movie where he falls in love with her. Billie Dee expresses this with smiles and facial cues, and his overall presence, you know, acting! Diana chooses the Oh we are filming that subtle love scene today SNNNNOOORRRTTTTT sniff sniff, ok guys I’m in LOVEEEEEE!
As Mahogany’s star begins to rise, we start to see a change in her. She goes from a poor mean-spirited jerk to a rich mean-spirited asshole. Her lack of redeeming qualities is dwindling down from one (she bailed BDW out of jail after he gets arrested for a fight she caused) to ZERO. Ah, my favorite kind of storyline begins to emerge. The price of fame storyline, where the character is completely unlikable, yet everyone seems to love her and help her, while she acts like a raging bitch, then something awful happens and they walk away from celebrity. We have seen this story told a million times in a million different ways. Showgirls is another great example, or the classic - All About Eve, a quintessential example.
In this version, the beginning of the fame gone too far starts immediately. She becomes besties with Sean and they almost have some kind of sexual affair. Perkins whining that the rumors aren’t true and he’s going to PROVE he’s a real man and then instead lays at her tummy and snuggles while oddly touching her while she just lays there and takes it. Then, Mahogany throws a hissy fit on set when she is told she can’t wear her own line of fashions in the photo shoot they’ve already set up and paid people for. She has to wear the designer’s dresses, because well, the designer is the client, who is paying you, and that’s how fashion works. Instead of going like right - this is my JOB, her face goes from zero to 1000 and slaps Sean and rages off set, complaining when is it HER turn! Anthony Perkins creepily smiles. Here is the point where he goes from loving her to wanting to break her. Ok, Anthony, bring on the Psycho! And he DOES!
Mahogany forces her sad fashion designer debut, instead, at a charity fashion show in Italy she is modeling for, so that they can auction off the dress - for charity. Charity! She decides to NOT wear the money fetching designer dress that could help raise a bunch of money and instead wears her shit handmade dress and shoves it down everyone’s throat. Clearly, no one likes it. It is really…. Interesting… Anthony Perkins laughs and offers 5 lire, which is a dead currency, but I believe it’s the equivalent to like .02 cents? A rich dude feels bad for her (stop feeling bad for her!) and offers something like a couple million for it. GASP! And now she’s a goddamn fashion designer. Congratulations no one!
Now Anthony Perkins / Sean is super pissed. His bestie is out doing him, and he is not having IT. He throws a crazy swinging fashion party, which Mahogany brings her bf, Billie Dee to. He’s looking fly and seemingly having a good time until a drag queen tries to feed him dip from her fingers. Then he gets kind of weird. I don’t know if it’s gay panic or if he’s like dude, I’m not eating gross dip from your questionable fingers. Either way, Billie Dee is out of his element and he feels it. Anthony Perkins pops over to say a bitchy hello. Then we get a real treat with one of the weirdest scenes in the movie. As Perkins is showing him around the place, they stop in his special office full of photos of death and fear from real life war crimes and a very creepy Nazi gun, which Perkins pulls on him. He appears to be getting off on it. He and Billie Dee then do this weird sexual slow motion wrestle for the gun. Not slow motion as in a movie effect. Slow motion as in they seem to be moving in real time slo-mo and the scene lasts an uncomfortably long amount of time. You’re not sure if they’re going to kill each other, or get it on and it’s not a sexy tension. It’s very uncomfortable, but you can’t stop watching. As if trying to out face Diana Ross, Anthony Perkins begins to go all bug eyed and gritting his teeth. He opens his mouth to take gun barrel, when the gun doesn’t go off, he laughs and smiles.Then he starts to say over and over “Bye bye, fella.” It’s just weird!
When Billie Dee wants to peace out because Anthony Perkins was a tad too Psycho for him, Diana Tracy has a meltdown because she’s having a good time. Billie Dee angrily leaves the party and Tracy Mahogany has the fashion fabulous meltdown of the century! Ole crazy face starts stripping off her clothes and wig and begins to pour hot candle wax all over herself, which, let’s face it, just looks like jizz globs all over her. Great look for the Roman orgy.
Mahogany does the walk of shame back to her apartment where Billie Dee fumes, because now it’s morning and she’s still partying. She changes her kimono into a fresh new kimono and starts the fight of fights with BIllie Dee, which ends in the bitch don’t you know who I AM speech. Because she’s MAHOGANY! Everyone LOVES Mahogany! I’m a winner baby! And you’re just a loser! Loser, loser, loser. Boy, Bye. *glug glug glug*
Now Tracy Mahogany is back on a shoot with her old bestie / psycho frenemy. She’s pissy and tired. But Psycho Sean has a great idea to take modeling shots of Mahogany AS he drives a cool old sports car on the highway. Yup, sounds legit! Once behind the wheel, Psycho then reveals his real plan, to get pictures of fear and death of Mahogany! He’s going to take the pictures of her last moments. Just when you think this can’t get any more weird and campy, Diana’s face goes to max power and she shows him her max modeling skills as she pulls her own hair makes her most insane face of the film! It will make you laugh and simultaneously haunt your dreams. I had to check if I wet my pants, I laughed so hard at this weird wild shit.
Then CRASH! Anthony Perkins is dead NOT Diana Ross, and they quickly scurry to the end of the movie, realizing they’ve killed off their most interesting character.
For some reason the rich guy who bought Tracy Mahogany’s sad dress at the auction, must be feeling sad for her again, and gives her the investment capital that was burning a hole in his pocket. She hires some folks and starts her mediocre line. The bathrobe kimono line! She has her big amazing you’re a big bright shining star fashion show and we come back to the beginning of the movie.
After her great fashion success, Ms. Tracy, not Mahogany, is doing her ‘can you help me get my old man back’ line at Billie Dee’s campaign rally. Except this time, she’s serious, and it’s for real. We see this great romantic exchange between them and a great onscreen kiss to end the movie. At least the ending was good.
The breakdown:
The Best Part - Billie Dee Williams is still a smooth mother fucker, even amongst the scenery chewing.
The Best Parts are the Worst Parts too!
- Diana Ross’s faces must be experienced to be believed.
- Insane 70s fashions
- Anthony Perkins is a different kind of Psycho
TY - 2 MATT - 2 JILLIAN - 3 1/2
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