Mothers are like bum holes – we’ve all got one. For the most part they are a routine fact of everyday life, occasionally embarrassing, sometimes funny and on the odd occasion down right horrific..
This week sees the DVD and Blu-ray release of Darren Aronofsky’ s ballet opus BLACK SWAN, a critical and commercial
success that had audiences squirming in their seats with a unique blend of psychological horror and gory body shock. Out on 16th May BLACK SWAN is genuinely a must see movie. Natalie Portman won the best actress Oscar for her role as Nina Sayers, a talented young ballerina feeling the pressure of the biggest role of her career, not helped by her overbearing and ever so creepy stage mum played by Barbara Hershey. Hershey’s great performance is integral to Portman’s onscreen melt down and so to celebrate the films DVD release THN have been musing the other great movie mums.
Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) – Terminator 2 (1991)
Who ever would have imagined that cuddly little thing in Terminator would turn into that scary veiny, muscular thing inT:2. She looks like a faintly sexy Peperami on steroids – or maybe Madonna. Either way Linda Hamilton owned this role as a militant mummy fixated on raising her son with the know how to lead the human resistance against the machines. Just imagine that tucking you in at night.
Still I guess it’d all be worth it if she gave you one of those magic PIN laptops – ‘Easy Money!’
Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) – The Goonies (1985)
Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop when the wind blows…. Probably too busy cracking a safe to keep a firm grip on her baby boy, Mama Fratelli is not one to leave holding the baby – come to think of it did she start calling her son Sloth before or after she’d dropped him a of couple times? Sick bitch!
Face like a smacked bum, a voice like hot Bovril and gravel and worst of all she encourages her kids to partake in lives of crime. Can someone call social services please?
Henrietta Knoby – (Ted Rami/Lou Hancock) Evil Dead II (1987)
To be fair before her husband read aloud from the Necronomicon accidently possessing her with a Candarian demon Mrs K. was all fresh baked cookies and Good Housekeeping. Well that was then and this is now and frankly this gruesome mummy from top video nasty is up there with the best of the worst of em’. With a hankering for fresh soles to swallow she torments not only the ever abused Ash but her own daughter and her chad of a boyfriend.
Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson) – Back to the Future Part 1 (1985)
Alright so she’s no gun toting militia momma– or ghoulish fiend, in fact she’s top of THN’s movie milf list and that’s all fine and dandy….AS LONG AS SHE’S NOT YOUR ACTUAL MUM! Great Scott – imagine being in a car with your teenage mum all horned up and rapey and who wants nothing more than to get inside you Calvin Kleins. I’d rather take my chances in a knife fight with Sarah Conner – I’ll definitely loose but I might escape with my balls in tact.
One of popcorn cinema finest works of ART, but when you think about the reality of this incestuos car parking its all a little worrying. Perhaps Zemeckis has a few issues to work through…paging Dr Freud.
Alien Queen (It’s a puppet) – Aliens (1986)
If you like psycho-analysing your films you’d probably say James Cameron has some mummy issues. Strong female leads, the male’s fear of childbirth, all powerful PCs called Mother, but there is only one Queen – An attentive, protective and brooding space bug she’s actually the best mum on our list, although maybe a little too fertile. Just don’t tell her that her kids are ugly fucks – not unless you’ve got a Power Loader thing and a giant air lock handy.
Old Woman (Maria Isabel Diaz) – Apocalypto (2006)
Things have gone a little down hill since the Bird on a Wire glory days but actually Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto is rather good. Beautifully shot, engaging subject matter and toe tappingly gruesome. But probably more disturbing than Mayans showing you your beating heart is Maria Isabel Diaz’s Old Woman. So insistent on getting a grand-child that she forces her son-in-law to make sweet jungle love with her daughter whilst she sits outside listening to make sure he’s doing it right – Biggest turn off ever…unless your mother-in-law in Lorraine Baines, in which case its super sexy!
Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) – Serial Mom (1994)
Traditional family values, perfect housewife, environmentalist and sexy to boot, whats not to like? Um…yeah she does enjoy the odd foul mouthed prank call, is pen friends with Ted Bundy, has a very short fuse….and a penchant for bloody murder; basically Patrick Bateman in a pinafore. When Beverly Sutphin tells you to eat your greens – you eats you greens as (much like Bullseye) in her hands anything is a deadly weapon including a leg of lamb. A camp as Christmas tongue in cheek movie by John Waters with Kathleen Turner doing a sterling job as a suburban pysho – well worth a watch.
Norma Bates (Virginia Gregg – Voice) – Psycho (1960)
If there one thing worse than being named after your mum it’s being named after a staunch controlling bitch who won’t let you play with the pretty girls – and they say a boys best friend is his mother…So thorough are her parental methods that they’ve extended beyond the grave and had a rather ill effect on young Norman’s cognitive faculties.
Obvious choice maybe – but hey it’s a classic. With a voice like a swamp hag, and a face like a fossilised nut sack – Norma and Norman Bates are a stark reminder that we inevitably grow up to be just like our parents.
Black Swan is out to own on DVD and Blu-ray on 16th May – Check it out.
