Mask (1985)

I always liked it. Still, Cher was better in Silkwood.

It was fine, but having to substitute Bob Seger for Rocky's real favorite Bruce Springsteen seriously impacted its emotional punch. "Katmandu" is not the same as "Born To Run."

Rocky Dennis had an older half brother who died of AIDS complications which he got from a blood transfusion.

I didn't know that, r3. I wonder how they knew it was from a blood transfusion?

I thought the movie was excellent. Silkwood and Suspect were excellent too.

Silkwood is vastly over rated and pointless. The characters are dreary and Karen Silkwood has been cleaned up for audiences; she's not the party girl she was in actuality. And the use of the song 'Amazing Grace' is enough to send you to the exit.

^ Send you to the exit, crying.

I first saw it when I was 8 because I thought it was a cartoon. It made quite an impression on me and it's one of my favorite films to this day.

Sam Elliott was gorgeous in it.

Sam is always stunning.

"Mask" was pretty formulaic, but it made me cry and I thought the cast were good. Eric Stoltz was nominated for a Golden Globe for supporting actor, in spite of being the main character.

R10 gay site love. Cher was the main character.

I didn't understand the Moustache Rides t-shirt when I was a little kid,

i loved this movie. it was on cable all the time in the 80's.

Eric and Cher had an affair while making the film.

R14 That's some tea I did not know. Good for her!

Except for the fact, r15, that Eric is an asshole.

[quote]Eric and Cher had an affair while making the film.

Which was weird, because his nickname for her on set was "Ma."

What I love about the movie (and its a testament to how good Stoltz is) is that there gets to a point in the movie where you really don't see Rocky as being much different from anybody else. Then the scene where Rocky goes to meet Laura Dern's parents, and it's like a kick in the gut.

I don't mind the Bob Seger music so much. It works with the tone of the film.

Seger made sense to me because that's what all my moms trashy biker friends listened to for that time. Springsteen for all his working class image didn't seem to get a lot of play among the dirtbags I knew growing up.

Bogdanovich had no good things to say about Cher when it was over:

I had the Tiger Beat magazine of Eric Stoltz posing in a speedo and a towel around his neck while in his Rocky Dennis head. It was arousing.

Glenn lost her much deserved oscar for fatal attraction (one of the best villians in movie history imo) to Cher's unworthy, one-note, hammed up trash of a role in moonstruck because of this movie. The oscar whores still didn't take Cher seriously enough to nominate her then. And can you blame them?

r16 What makes Eric Stoltz an asshole?

I remember my mom’s friend telling me and my brother about seeing the real Rocky Dennis. He lived near her family when she was growing up. My brother then became obsessed with the movie. I fucking hated it. Sad and depressing.

Plus I always thought The Mask was playing on tv when I was a kid and it’d turn out to be this. Never learned! Lol

Add me to the question at r16

I've heard nothing, good or bad. Looking at his IMDB, he seems to have fizzled out, which, unless of his own choice I find a bit surprising.

If anyone has genuine stories, I am all ears.

I read he was an asshole during the filming of Back to the Future - of course they brought in MJF as soon as he was available and that was that.

That’s all I’ve ever heard...

Rusty Dennis died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 70.

"Mask" was mostly fiction. There was a deformed boy named Roy "Rocky" Dennis and he did have a druggie biker chick mother named Rusty. But the movie is mostly made up. There was no blind girl who fell in love with Rocky. Rusty didn't find Rocky's dead body; she was at her lawyer`s working out details for beating a drug bust she says was a mistake. Her then-lover and later third husband, Bernie, called her at the lawyer`s office with the news. 'There was no placing of baseball cards at his gravestone; his body was donated to science.

Much is made about how the Bob Seger music was detrimental to the movie, but I didn't think that was the case at all. I thought the Bob Seger music worked very well in the film. And I think "Katmandu" is a much better song than "Born To Run."

I’ve seen the movie so many times with the Seger soundtrack that the Springsteen director’s cut sounds wrong to me even if that was what Bogdanovich wanted

That's really sad, R28.

I loved the movie. It’s one of movies I could watch a few times. One of my favorites of Cher. I have to agree though I don’t like the new directors cut. I guess I’m too used to Bob Seger.

In 1986, my high school sophomore PE teacher (Mr. Petersen) was next-door neighbors with the Dennis family. He confirmed that the real Rocky was an asshole. Whenever Mr. Petersen was tending to his front yard garden, Rocky would sneak up behind him, then scream and try to scare him. Rocky apparently tried to scare all the older people on the block. Mr. Petersen was a hardened WWII vet and had nothing good to say about the success of Mask.

The tea just keeps getting spilled in this thread.

John Waters from his essay "Hatchet Piece: 101 Things I Hate" from his book [italic]Crackpot[/italic]:

[quote]I hide in the other side of the twin [movie theater], but not for long [italic]Mask[/italic] (66) is playing. It stars Cher, who was okay in [italic]Chastity[/italic], but under the direction of that whining Peter Bogdanovich (67) seems to be getting good reviews for [italic]not[/italic] wearing Bob Mackie outfits. It's about a kid with a deformed face who is not only ugly, he's an asshole to boot. His mother is supposed to be a biker, but her Hell's Angels friends are about as threatening as the Seven Dwarfs. Naturally, this Elephant Man, Jr. falls in love with a gorgeous blind girl and, in one scene, tries to tell her how beautiful the sky is. "But I can't see. I don't know blue," she protests. Never at a loss for a sickening solution, Old Ugly heats up rocks to different temperatures, puts them in her hand and says, "[italic]This[/italic] is blue!!" "I see it! I see it!" the girl moans, and I went temporarily insane, slashing six different movie seats with my car keys and bellowing out to startled viewers that Dorothy Stratten should feel lucky she was murdered — anything was better than a life with Peter Bogdanovich.

Twin movie theaters were #55 on the list.

R34, god I love John Waters.

You dumb bacia-galoops forgot that I played the grandma here? Forgetting I was in that Barry Manilow TV movie the same year was one thing, but this was a movie movie. Then again, so was [italic]Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.[/italic]

I love John Waters AND Mask.

John Waters got Divine to drop the tea about Cher in an interview in the book [italic]Shock Value[/italic]:

[quote]JW: Have you ever had a big star be rude to you?

[quote]D: Yeah. Cher. I was at this party in L.A. for Three Dog Night. I was in drag in a white cocktail dress. So this photographer said, "Come on. Cher's here — go over and stand with her so I can get a picture." Cher said: "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! What are these pictures for?" and the photographer said, "Italian [italic]Vogue[/italic]," and Cher said, "Oh, come on. I might have been born yesterday, but it wasn't in Poland!" and she dismissed me with a wave of her hand. I just looked at her and I wanted to snap her nails off.

^ I kinda like Cher for that, actually.

Why should she let some dick photographer set her up to be shot with some clown she doesn't know or have anything to do with, and doesn't know how the pics would be used? The photog tried tricking with her some bullshit and she didn't fall for it.

Mask has a very low budget TV movie of the week feel to it, but I am still fond of it because…Cher

Yes, in real life Rocky Dennis was a little hellion. Among other things, he'd steal newspapers from neighbor's lawns and try to sell them; what a nice kid. Oh well, what would you expect from a kid with a mother who was a druggie biker chick. By the way Cher, who was so chic in her red wig and sexy biker chick togs, did not resemble at all the real Rusty Dennis, who looked like forty miles of bad road. She looked like you would expect someone like her to look: like hell.

I bet Rusty's lover Bernie was no Sam Elliot.

There's a pic of Rusty and Rocky at R27.

How did Rocky breathe or even stand with a noggin like that? Was it Elephant Man disease that he suffered from?

Here an interview with the real Rusty

Ok. I like the fact that that I’m finding out Rocky was a little shit. The story is sad and I can’t imagine what his life was like - I’m glad the kid had a little fun. Makes him seem normal.

I even think that Sam Elliott was a downright hunk and a half in "Mask." Actually Sam Elliott in general is just quite something.

This thread is sad as heck but the John Waters movie review makes it all worthwhile. You're a prince R34 Anyone who can quote John Waters chapter and verse like a Pastor would the Bible is my kinda guy! I adore John Waters and my own mother did too.

Rocky Dennis being like Dennis the Menace works for me somehow. It was probably emotionally healthy for him to own his condition that way since I'm sure he knew that he sadly wouldn't live a long life. No one would have dared put him in juvenile hall anyway and I bet he knew that. Good for him!

I always start to tear up when Rocky takes the thumb tacks off the map.

Sizemeat verifacata?

[quote]I always start to tear up when Rocky takes the thumb tacks off the map.

And I start reaching for the razor blades when Rusty starts putting the tacks back on the map.

Bogdanovich and his curated soundtracks. He only ever got it right in They All Laughed. He’s so fucking smug when he talks about the music in his movies. Other prime offenders include Marty Scorsese, and Wes Anderscum.

Was tricked into seeing this at the theater when I was 9 because my mother said let's see MASK and I got all excited thinking they had made a movie of the cartoon and toys.

She kept saying Cher so I assumed she was playing the bad chick who would shout, "Whip...ON," and a whip would shoot out her mask. Anyways I was most excited about seeing that helicopter turn into a jet but instead I saw Estelle Getty.

R39: In the context of how she refused to accept having a lesbian for a daughter unless she pretended to be a heterosexual man, I think this is indicative of her real character.

And my boyfriend once called Cher a bitch. This was told to him by one of her other children.