WHAT better way to spend Mother?s Day ? another holiday manufactured so we can all go out and buy more stuff ? than in front of the TV with our DVD player?
We?ve all got mommy issues ? it?s been a major theme in art since ?Oedipus Rex.? But nowhere has our complicated relationships with mommie dearest been thrown in sharper focus than in the movies.
With this in mind, here?s a list of Mother?s Day movies. Granted, it?s a little short, after we threw out all the mother-daughter chick flicks like ?Steel Magnolias? and Asian-American family epics like ?The Joy Luck Club.? (We?re not masochists.)
What?s left is pure entertainment gold.
?Mother? (2009)
If you watch only one Korean film this year, make it this one. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, best known for the blockbuster mutant monster movie ?The Host,? ?Mother? is an accomplished thriller that will hold you spellbound until the wicked twist in the end. The titular ?mother? is your typical long-suffering overprotective Asian mom, struggling to make ends meet by selling medicinal herbs while doting on her slightly retarded 27-year-old son. The son?s slowness often gets him into trouble, requiring mom to bail him out. But when a young girl turns up dead and he is arrested as the most likely suspect, his mother will have to go above and beyond her normal maternal duties to prove his innocence.
?Bloody Mama? (1970)
An oldie but still a goodie. One of a string of low-budget gangster flicks capitalizing on the success of ?Bonnie and Clyde,? Shelley Winters plays ?Ma? Barker, the Depression-era tommy-gun toting matriarch of an outlaw brood that includes a young Robert de Niro. When she isn?t leading the family in a singalong at the piano, Ma is masterminding bank holdups, kidnappings and the death of a witness or two. The violence is only slightly less alarming than her attachment to her sons, which is a little too close for comfort. Needless to say, the movie ends badly for the clan, as both mother and sons are gunned down in a bloody shootout with the law. Later historians would argue that the real Ma Barker was merely a passive accomplice to her sons? criminality, and that the portrait of ?Bloody Mama? was painted largely by the authorities to justify the gunning down of an old lady.
?Mommie Dearest? (1981)
If this biopic is to be believed, Annabelle Rama had nothing on Joan Crawford, the original ?monster mom.? Based on the memoirs of Crawford?s adopted daughter Christina, the movie paints the aging movie star as a raging control freak who goes off the rails at the slightest provocation. In the movie?s most famous scene, Faye Dunaway as Crawford loses it when she finds her daughter?s dresses hanging in a closet on wire hangers. Often played for unintentional laughs, thanks to Dunaway?s over-the-top performance, ?Mommie Dearest? has become a camp classic, beloved by female impersonators everywhere.
?Carrie? (1976)
A landmark in horror cinema, Brian de Palma?s film was based on Stephen King?s first published novel, about a girl with telekinetic powers. Carrie White, played by Sissy Spacek, is more than a little odd. Who wouldn?t be, when her mother, played by Piper Laurie, is a religious nut who locks her in a closet and abuses her for letting boys touch her ?dirty pillows." Carrie is finally driven over the edge when her classmates ? led by John Travolta ? play a cruel prank on her on prom night, dousing her with pig?s blood. She wreaks havoc with her powers, destroying the whole town and crucifying mom with kitchen knives.
?Psycho? (1960)
Not even death could stop Norman Bates? mother from nagging him into a series of murders. Alfred Hitchcock?s journey into the fractured mind of a serial killer traces the root of his psychosis to ?who else? ? mommy dearest. In spite of being a desiccated corpse dwelling in the fruit cellar, Mrs. Bates lives on in her son?s unhinged mind, driving him to kill and kill again. ?
