John A
Judging by the opening scene I thought I was in for some kind of heart female adolescence tale. The second half of this early Adrian Lyne film peters out quite a bit and isn't as emotionally resonant as it tries to be.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
10/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
these ladies are 'foxes' and they are fiesty fierce women Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Sally Kellerman, Randy Quaid, and Cherie Currie the story is about 4 girl buddies with a lot of dysfunction in their lives during the 1970s in California drinking, drugs, and sleeping around seems to be the only remedy for them to get away from their abusive, negligent families It’s one thing to be a teenager in suburban culture but another to desperately grow up so fast, any of us can still feel, you can still have fun but still be a delinquent, we can’t always pick up the pieces of others they have to do it for themselves These ladies do feel like real people going through the motions of their youth; it’s fun, it’s hard, it’s impossible There’s a lot of temptations, frustrations, relationships and the rebellion of youth There’s gonna be tragedy but also light for potential happyness too Foster and the others act wonderfully here as troubled, sincere adolescents who are screaming to be heard
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Gerald Ayers had a vision: What would happen if you dropped Louisa May Alcott into the San Fernando Valley today? She would have a different story to tell." I doubt the author of Little Women would write about the glam band Angel, who figues prominently in this movie.
Nonetheless, Foxes is really the story of four girls:
Deirdre (Kandice Stroh, who didn't act against for 21 years after this movie) is discovering her sexuality and the issues that brings with boys. Madge (Marilyn Kagan), on the other hand, is a virgin and hates her body as well as her younger sister Anne (Cherie Currie in her acting debut), who uses drink and drugs to escape their abusive home life. And the motherly friend who takes care of all of them is Jeanie (Jodie Foster), who is also raising her mother (Sally Kellerman) while yearning for a closer bond with her father, the tour manager for Angel.
Alright, let's talk Angel.
Formed in mid-1970s Washington, DC by Punky Meadows and Mickie Jones (who rumor has it were asked to join the New York Dolls), Angel was signed to Casablanca Records by Gene Simmons and presented at the anti-KISS, as they wore all white to the all black Knights In Satan's Service. Their classic line-up — Meadows, Jones, Frank DiMino, Gregg Giuffria and Barry Brandt — recorded the albums Helluva Band and On Earth as It Is in Heaven before Jones left and was replaced by Felix Robinson.
By 1981, DiMino and Meadows left and now the band had Fergie Frederiksen (Toto) and Ricky Phillips (The Babys, Bad English, Styx) before they broke up for good.
Over the next few years, Frank DiMino joined UFO guitarist Paul Raymond in the Paul Raymond Project; Felix Robinson played with White Lion; and Gregg Giuffria started the band Giuffria and recorded with House of Lords.
Like most rock and roll bands, Angel got back together. The 90s saw a new Angel made up of DiMino, Barry Brandt, Randy Gregg, Steve Blaze from Lillian Axe and Gordon G.G. Gebert, who was replaced by Michael T. Ross. Punky played on their album In the Beginning and there was a greatest hits release Angel: The Collection.
Mickie Jones died in 2009. Meadows and Dimino toured together as Punky Meadows and Frank Dimino of Angel, performing a set of classic Angel songs and solo cuts before just deciding to call themselves Angel.
Now, back to the movie.
By the end of the film, the girl's life — which was once drinking, drugs and disco, has changed. Annie is dead and buried. Madge marries the guy who takes her virginity (Randy Quaid). Deidre is over boys. Jeanie is leaving for college. It's a sobering realitization that the four friends may not see one another or be as close as they once were.
Foxes was the first film that Adrian Lynn would direct. The dude pretty much ran the 80s and 90s with movies like Flashdance, 9½ Weeks, Jacob's Ladder and Indecent Proposal.
Speaking of the 80s, the soundtrack to this movie is pretty great. Other than two songs by Angel, it was entirely produced and composed by Moroder and recorded by the same musicians — Keith Forsey and Harold Faltermeyer — that he worked with on songs by Donna Summer, the Three Degrees and Sparks. "On the Radio" by Summer is probably the best-known song on from Foxes. It was the second movie Moroder scored in 1980 after American Gigolo.
Supposedly, Foster and co-star Scott Baio dated during the this time. That may or may not be true, as Foster came out right around this time. Maybe this is where Baio got his right wing rage from. Whatever the story is, this is my second favorite movie that they're in together.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
A beautiful, grubby, dust ridden LA girls coming of age piece that works in its own right and a notable precursor for Kids, Girls, Dazed and Confused and even The Karate Kid. It's flares, pick up trucks, avoiding pregnancies, avoiding having the crap beaten out of you. Giorgio Moroder does multiple versions of "On the Radio", all of which beat the single and Jodie Foster shows how great she is. Scott Bio is in it, on a skateboard, a lot.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
dave s
What could have been a gritty gut-punch of a film about teen angst and alienation, Foxes is actually a weak-kneed, sloppy disappointment. Four teenage girls from San Fernando, California cope with the day-to-day trials and tribulations of being…well…teenage girls from San Fernando. One is obsessed with boys. One is obsessed with pills. One is obsessed about not fitting in. One is obsessed about being obsessed with the other three. And that is about it. The film seems to amble about without any particular direction, the dialogue is corny, and the acting is subpar, especially that of Scott Baio and Cherie Currie. A young Jodie Foster does her best to keep things afloat, as does Sally Kellerman as Foster's mother. The final nail in the coffin for Foxes is the constant playing of Donna Summers' On the Radio, an earworm that just won't let go.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
steve d
Currie and Foster work really well together, and the film is really interesting.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
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