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the baa detective

Disclosure (1994)

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I use the search tab and can't find this movie in the forum, so I post it, just in case. If someone has already posted it, just tell me; I will take it down immediately

 

The reason: the virtual reality scene; that alone is worthy of a hour of discussion.

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It's hard to believe this piece of trash was directed by Barry f-ing Levinson, of all people (not to mention written by the same guy who wrote Quiz Show, as well!).

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Barry Levinson is one of those directors who's supposedly great but I can't stand any of his stuff and don't see what the big deal was. Robert Altman is probably my #1 on that list. M*A*S*H is only loved by people of draft age during Vietnam, and his continuous take gimmick was pointless and lazy against something like Touch of Evil or Hard Boiled.

 

Anyway, Dislosure is sooooo early 90s. It was the time where everyone thought 3 things were going to take over everything: Japan, women in the workplace, and virtual reality. Disclosure combines all of them. Not since Vanilla Ice rapped with Ninja Turtles has there been a more early 90s movie.

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Anyway, Dislosure is sooooo early 90s. It was the time where everyone thought 3 things were going to take over everything: Japan, women in the workplace, and virtual reality. Disclosure combines all of them. Not since Vanilla Ice rapped with Ninja Turtles has there been a more early 90s movie.

Falling Down is sort of in that category too. Michael Douglas was basically the symbolic white man seeing the world change around him.

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It's hard to believe this piece of trash was directed by Barry f-ing Levinson, of all people (not to mention written by the same guy who wrote Quiz Show, as well!).

 

Well, the writer of Chinatown, many deem as the greatest movie ever, wrote Mission Impossible:2...although, to be fair, he was forced to rewrite the script by the producer and worked under a lot of restrictions...

 

Anyway, Dislosure is sooooo early 90s. It was the time where everyone thought 3 things were going to take over everything: Japan, women in the workplace, and virtual reality. Disclosure combines all of them. Not since Vanilla Ice rapped with Ninja Turtles has there been a more early 90s movie.

 

Japan? I thought the only foreign country Disclosure talked about was Malaysia...

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I could have sworn there was a scene where they have the Japanese visit for a big demonstration of their ridiculous virtual reality FILING CABINET. Maybe I was thinking of another early 90s thriller turd, Rising Sun.

 

Speaking of Ninja Turtles and the discussion how EVERY 80s movie had tits in it, I caught the first Ninja Turtles movie on Netflix for the first time in 25 years, and holy crap. Little kid me never notcied that April O Neal's nipples are bursting through her tank top the whole movie. Halfway through she gets a shoulder massage from Casey Jones and the things are ready to pop out as he practically cops a feel to her orgasmic groaning.

 

This was a PG kids movie!

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It's the first of two collaborations between Barry Levinson and Michael Crichton. The other that came after it? Sphere from 1998! These two films could not be any more different.

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It's the first of two collaborations between Barry Levinson and Michael Crichton. The other that came after it? Sphere from 1998! These two films could not be any more different.

 

Though it sounds like both were pretty terrible, so they've got that in common.

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The third terrible, trashy film filmed in Seattle in the mid90s (released in between The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and the amazingly wacky Unforgettable)! Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, Donald Sutherland and Dennis Miller all came to my hometown to film this piece of shit! Both this film and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle shot scenes in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, mere blocks from my childhood home (both films use the park’s greenhouse—it’s where Julianne Moore is brutally murdered in Hand and it’s the site of a big soirée in Disclosure). I honestly don’t know whether to feel blessed or depressed that my hometown is immortalized (or at least depicted) in these films. Other, better films have been set in Seattle—like 50/50, amongst others—but they’ve mostly been shot in Vancouver, BC. One day, it would be nice to have a quality big budget film shot here. In the meantime, here’s a trailer for this turd.

 

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I know I just posted about this movie, but I hadn’t watched it in 25 years, until I watched it last night on HBO. HOT DAMN is it a piece of trash! It was not good in 1994 (with a 58% critical approval rating on RT and an audience approval score of 42%) and it has not aged well in the #metoo era at all. But after a slow start, it is hilarious. Let me break it down. It has:

Michael Douglas as the victimized white man while still playing his typical sexist role.

LOTS of comments along the lines of “Women. Whaddya gonna do?” Spoken by most of the male characters at some point. 

The most unerotic attempt at erotic sexual harassment in cinematic history (the film wants you to know that sexual harassment is wrong, but also wants it to be, y’know, HOT. I mean, you can’t pass up the opportunity to have Demi Moore in a Wonderbra).

A post-traumatic homoerotic nightmare where Donald Sutherland sexually harasses Michael Douglas!

A mediation scene where lawyers discuss conversations about boners.

A virtual reality sim where you get to explore file drawers!

The First time in cinema history I’ve seen the wake of a ferry scored with victorious music. Go, ferry, go!

Lines of dialogue that made me LOL because I’ve never heard humans speak this way:

“You gonna be ok? You want a Prozac?”

“That’s a hello you give to a rash.” WHAT?

“You’ve seen more ass than a rental car, my friend.”

“she looks like she always has food in the refrigerator.”

“you take those two champagne bottles in your refrigerator and you go fuck them!”

“Sexual harassment is about power. When did I have the power?”

“Why don’t I be that evil white male you’re all complaining about? Then I can fuck everybody!” 

“It’s like the Amazons: they keep a few of us around for sperm and kill off the rest.”

“This merger is the most interesting merger I’ve had since my second marriage!”

To sum it up, here is Roger Ebert’s bullseye review of this movie from the Chicago Sun-Times.

DISCLOSURE

**  |  Roger Ebert

December 9, 1994   |   7

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"Disclosure" contains an inspiring terrific shot of Demi Moore's cleavage in a Wonderbra, surrounded by 125 minutes of pure goofiness leading up to, and resulting from, this moment. Advertised as the first movie about the sexual harassment of men by women in the workplace, it is an exercise in pure cynicism, with little respect for its subject - or for its thriller plot, which I defy anyone to explain.

The "theme" is basically a launch pad for sex scenes. And yet the movie is so sleek, so glossy, so filled with Possessoporn (toys so expensive they're erotic), that you can enjoy it like a Sharper Image catalog that walks and talks.

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The film takes place inside the Seattle research and development headquarters of a vast high-tech corporation. The male employees have not had their consciousness raised. ("I definitely have lift-off," one says, after Demi Moore walks by).

Michael Douglas plays Tom Sanders, an executive involved in the manufacture of "Corridor," a virtual reality database. There are problems on the assembly line that may jeopardize a merger.

Corridor is some software program, all right. Users stand in the center of a network of light beams that track their movements. They wear a headset that creates the illusion that they are wandering the corridors of a Greco-Roman temple lined with filing systems. They reach out a hand, and files come into view, which can be searched and accessed. In other words, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, busy executives can do the work of file clerks.

The company is about to be acquired by a larger firm, and the boss (Donald Sutherland) stands to make $100 million. So he doesn't want to hear any bad news about Corridor. Meanwhile, Douglas expects a promotion - and is shocked to learn it will go instead to a former lover named Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore). The day she gets the job, she calls him to her office for a 7 p.m. conference, pours his favorite wine, and segues directly into an attempted rape.

He fights her off (although not without being tempted long enough, of course, to let the confrontation develop into a satisfactory movie sex scene). The next day, she accuses him of sexual harassment, and his life and career seem about to be destroyed.

OK. That part you already know, from the publicity surrounding the Michael Crichton best-seller that inspired the movie.

And of course there are office hearings and confrontations as the company tries to get to the bottom of the charges without allowing a public scandal. Douglas is defended by a bright, high-powered attorney named Catherine Alvarez (Roma Maffia), who is the subject of one of the movie's cleverest lines: "She'd change her name to 'TV Listings' to get it in the paper." But things look bad for him until he starts getting anonymous tips via e-mail, and another level of conspiracy is revealed.

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A lot of that is obligatory material in thrillers about sex and conspiracy in the corridors of power. What's unusual this time is the Nancy Drew stuff: Evidence obtained by means so lame and unlikely, we laugh even while it's happening. What are the odds, for example, that Michael Douglas could overhear Demi Moore's evil schemes by eavesdropping outside an exercise room, where Moore climbs a Stairmaster while helpfully, and loudly, divulging her secrets to a henchman? And what about the plot's answering machine gimmick - a textbook deus ex machina? Without these contrivances, there would be no way for Douglas to defend himself, or for the plot to advance. The anonymous e-mail messages from "A Friend" are not very helpful, and (as it turns out) could easily be tracked.

Late in the film, some sort of labyrinthine scheme involving the Sutherland character is hinted at, without ever becoming clear; it's a distraction, because there are references to things that are not explained.

"Disclosure" loves its high-tech look. The corporation occupies offices where every wall is made of glass, and lives are lived in public. There's a lot of computer stuff in the movie, which makes us feel clever, unless we know anything about computers, in which case, it makes the movie feel dumb. (How likely is it, database fans, that a corporation would trust all of its records to a prototype of new software?) There's a neat scene where Douglas dons the virtual reality headpiece and goes hunting through the files, while his enemies materialize in the cyberspace behind him. Looks great. But techheads will be rolling in the aisles.

As the movie started, I expected a sexy docudrama about sexual harassment. What I got was more of a thriller and whodunit, in which the harassment theme gets misplaced. Too bad, since the best scenes involve the attorneys for Moore and Douglas, and especially the scenes where Douglas' attorney sets out in chilling detail what a lawsuit is likely to do to his life. There's also an intriguing subplot involving Douglas' relationship with his wife (Caroline Goodall).

Much could have been made of this material. Much has been made of it. But not the same much.

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Well deserved, that movie is some Joe Eszterhas-level trash. (In fact I just looked it up because I wondered if he wrote it, but he did not. He did however write both F.I.S.T. and Flashdance, wtf!)

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