Friday, September 16, 2011

Powder






The film "Powder" came out in 1995, but I didn't see it till last night (on DVD). The story is a sort of less ambitious version of "The Man Who Fell To Earth" with our resident alien archetype portrayed as a strange albino teenager (Sean Patrick Flanery) with special powers, who "lands" in the middle of a small Texas town with semi-predictable consequences. Unlike "TMWFTE", which weaves its story in a more sophisticated, but fairly remote way, "Powder" is more of a subdued passion play going straight to the heart of the matter; the "matter" being alienation. In other words, it's a tear jerker. And probably more than a little contrived in places, especially when the musical score gets a bit cloying. But, after all is said and done, I really loved this movie.

For those of you (like myself) who missed it the first time around, above are two clips of the film... but if you want to watch the whole thing, it can be found in segments - from 1-11 on this page.

(Spoiler alert!) Below is the film's finale.





2 comments:

  1. Wow, this one takes me back. Also it's noticeably low tech. One of the last films made before CGI took over everything.

    Incidentally the career of the actor who played Powder is finally taking off:

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001218/

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  2. I guess 1995 was longer ago than it actually feels to me. But, I don't know how I managed to miss this film at the time, as I do remember seeing ads for it... then again, maybe I do know... File under: Shit Happens.

    And, yeah, I guess Flanery's career has taken off!

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