{"id":26106,"date":"2025-03-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=26106"},"modified":"2025-03-18T19:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T02:02:08","slug":"harveys-hellhole-1995-the-spring-of-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/harveys-hellhole-1995-the-spring-of-sin\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvey’s Hellhole: 1995 – The Spring of Sin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to Harvey\u2019s Hellhole, a monthly column devoted to spotlighting the movies that were poorly marketed, mishandled, reshaped, neglected or just straight-up destroyed by Harvey Weinstein during his reign as one of the most powerful studio chiefs in Hollywood. We <\/em>once<\/em><\/a> <\/em>again<\/em><\/a> go back to 1995 and revisit three films that made up what I like to call Miramax\u2019s \u201cSpring of Sin.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s March of 1995 \u2014 and Miramax has a naughty lineup of imports ready to hit U.S. arthouses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three films the company released that month were festival acquisitions. The last two \u2014 Muriel\u2019s Wedding<\/em> and Priest<\/em> \u2014 were picked up after debuting at the 1994 Toronto Film Festival. The first movie out the gate, Exotica<\/em>, debuted a few months before at Cannes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exotica<\/em> was a breakout film for Canadian writer\/director Atom Egoyan, who had previously helmed such made-in-Canada indie dramas as Next of Kin<\/em> and Family Viewing<\/em>. This ensemble piece (budgeted at CAD 2 million) mostly takes place at a sumptuous strip club. When she\u2019s not doing her signature routine of interpretive-dancing to Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cEverybody Knows,\u201d schoolgirl outfit-wearing main attraction Christina (Mia Kirshner) provides intense lapdances for Francis (Bruce Greenwood), a frequent visitor who\u2019s carrying a lot of personal pain. This strange bond is already affecting Christina\u2019s complicated relationship with her ex (Elias Koteas), who is not only the club\u2019s pontificating DJ, but is also the guy who impregnated her boss\/lover (Egoyan\u2019s wife Arsin\u00e9e Khanjian, who was pregnant during filming).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moody and labyrinthine, Exotica<\/em> is a titillating, time-bouncing neuro-noir<\/em> that\u2019s less about sex, desire, perversions, etc. and more about just coping through life. Most of the characters (which also include Don McKellar as a gay, rare bird-smuggling pet-store owner, Victor Garber as Francis\u2019s handicapped brother and a teenage Sarah Polley as Francis\u2019s concerned niece) are either holding on to secrets or trauma that slowly but surely reveal themselves throughout the movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Exotica<\/em> was released when erotic thrillers were at their pervy peak, that\u2019s how Weinstein marketed the film in the U.S. and Canada. Egoyan went along with it, under the condition that Kirshner wouldn\u2019t appear in posters in her schoolgirl gear, an essential part of the story he didn\u2019t want exploited by Harvey and them. (Luckily, for Miramax, he didn\u2019t say anything about omitting it from the VHS box cover art<\/a>.) The plan worked; initially released stateside on six screens, the rollout expanded to 433 screens after it made $14,379 per screen. The film also did gangbusters in its native homeland, playing for 25 weeks in Toronto. It ended up grossing CAD 15 million ($10 million) worldwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muriel\u2019s Wedding<\/em> showed up a week after Exotica<\/em>\u2019s release. The Australian dramedy from writer-director P.J. Hogan, with Toni Collette giving a career-launching star turn as a lonely, ABBA-obsessed Aussie girl who longs to be married, became a smash around these parts, raking in $57.5 million against a $9 million budget. It also spawned a 2016 musical version back in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wedding<\/em> is yet another perfect example of Weinstein\u2019s gift for chicanerous but effective marketing. The movie\u2019s poster and trailer presented Wedding<\/em> as an adorable rom-com, glossing over how it\u2019s really a sad, cruel, grotesque burlesque. It\u2019s a film where fellow Aussie darling Rachel Griffiths shows up as Muriel\u2019s new, free-spirited bestie \u2014 only to get spinal cord-damaging cancer in the middle of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the other characters are self-centered and contemptible, and that includes Collette\u2019s Muriel, who\u2019s basically a lying, delusional sociopath who steals money from her verbally abusive father (Bill Fisher) so she can start a new life in Sydney. Collette begins her ascent as one of the most fascinating actresses of our time with her material-elevating performance, playing her protagonist as a wounded soul looking for the love she can\u2019t get from family, friends or even herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Exotica<\/em> and Wedding<\/em> brought in some sweet box-office returns, Priest<\/em> stormed up a lot of controversy for Miramax and Disney, its parent company. This British melodrama, which Miramax bought for $1.75 million, features Linus Roache as Father Greg, a strait-laced man of the cloth who relocates to a Liverpool parish and clashes with resident, liberal Father Matthew (Tom Wilkinson), who lives in sin with his housekeeper (Cathy Tyson). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as Greg remains loyal to our lord and savior, he is also involved in a secret relationship \u2014 with a man (a pre-Trainspotting<\/em> Robert Carlyle). His sexuality isn\u2019t the only thing dude is struggling with. He starts wondering if he should break the seal of the confessional when a teenage girl (Christine Tremarco) tells him her incest-supporting dad (Robert Pugh) molests her on the regular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scripted by Jimmy McGovern and directed by Antonia Bird, both British-TV vets, Priest<\/em> feels like a busy, prosaic BBC telefilm that made it to the big screen, mainly because it\u2019s not afraid to show two guys doing it. Roache and Carlyle engage in some hot-and-heavy man-on-man action that undoubtedly made people in 1995 ready to get their protest on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Catholic organizations in the U.S. and the U.K. condemned Priest<\/em>. Originally scheduled for a Good Friday release (Weinstein always found creative ways to be a powerful troll), the film was pushed back a week after those groups ordered people to boycott<\/a> everything Disney-related and flood their phone lines with complaints. Bomb and death threats soon followed. Even Harvey admitted that shit got outta hand in Peter Biskind\u2019s Down and Dirty Pictures<\/em>: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing as frightening as getting these letters that said, \u2018Dear Jew, Go fuck yourself, I\u2019m gonna kill you\u2019\u2026 You think publicity always fuels the box office \u2014 not that kind of publicity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all the drama, Priest<\/em> grossed $4.2 million worldwide, making it yet another successful acquisition for Miramax. You could say that month encapsulated what made them an influential, revolutionary film company \u2014 discovering ambitious, international flicks and giving them exposure in the U.S. of A! It also seems like the starting point of when the Weinsteins stopped giving a fuck about the art house and started their Oscar-craving descent into mainstream mediocrity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this year, they were never this naughty (but in a cool way) ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exotica<\/a> is available to stream on The Criterion Channel. Muriel\u2019s Wedding<\/a> is available to stream on Hoopla and Paramount+. Priest<\/a> is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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