THE BANGER SISTERS
First-time director Bob Dolman's predictable but enjoyable traveling-angel
comedy has Goldie Hawn as an ex-groupie who sports a Jim Morrison-inspired
tattoo, and this spunky, aging hippie is her best role in years. Fired from her
LA bartending gig, Suzette heads to Phoenix to find the other half of the
legendary Banger Sisters (Frank Zappa bestowed the name, we learn), a variation
on the infamous "plaster casters" of the '60s. Suzie picks up a fussbudget
writer (Geoffrey Rush) along the way, sprinkles her pixie dust on him, then
reunites with Vinnie (Susan Sarandon), now a Stepford wife with two rebellious
daughters of her own. It isn't long before free spirit Suzie inspires her old
comrade to hack off her hair, don snakeskin pants, and riffle through a box of
old Polaroids snapped during the pair's erotic moments with rock legends. Hawn
and Sarandon are fun to watch, but the movie offers two somewhat icky views of
middle-aged female sexuality: uptight prig and trashy hooker. Without body
doubles, most 50-plus women wouldn't be caught dead in hip-hugging leather
pants. (101 minutes) At the Entertainment, Flagship, Opea House, Providence
Place 16, and Showcase cinemas.
Issue Date: September 20 - 26, 2002
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