Richard
Rush (THE STUNT MAN, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, PSYCH OUT) is one of my top
favorite filmmakers of all time. This was his first big studio movies
after making the AIP motorcycle, race car and drug movies that honed
his craft to a fine edge. It's a campus story made more or less
contemporaneously with the great wave of campus unrest of the late
'60s. Elliot Gould plays the hard-working dirt poor grad student trying
to hustle his way through while being called a sellout by all his
fellow students and a revolutionary by all his profs and administrator.
In truth he's the truly sane one in the mix, even as he progressively
appears to go crazier - most notably at his tour-de-force oral exam. I
don't know much about academia (I could never stand classrooms) but
this rings true for me. With one of the best action sequences I've ever
seen in a film - the campus riot looks just like documentary footage
and a raft of good performers. The only downside for me is Candice
Bergen, whose supposedly a great beauty but whose acting leaves me flat
(though this is the best I've ever seen her.) When Rush was here I
asked him about that and while he said nothing but good things about
Bergen he actually wanted a then unknown actress named Lesley Ann
Warren who was incontestably beautiful and could act but he had to
compromise on it. It's still a fantastic movie. Photographed by the
great Laszlo Kovacs, whose amazing rack focus technique, meticulously
worked out with Rush, can be seen in this clip as can Harrison Ford as a young 'un.
Speaking
of compromises, this movie is nuts. Robert Altman directed this weird
teen comedy about two total bastard nihilist kids who disrupt a
suburban community with their vendetta against one particular family
that they see as a blight on humanity, the Schwabs. This movie doesn't
quite work, unfortunately, but it's fascinatingly strange. In addition
to living a kind of dayglo dada provocateur lifestyle O.C. and Stiggs
(the O.C. stands for "out of control") are obsessed with King Sunny
Ade, who appears in the film. Those are the good parts. The bad parts
are the broad mugging of people like Martin Mull and Jane Curtin. Still
highly recommended.
This
is one of my favorite documentaries about a filmmaker. The interviews
are all from the mid to late '70s when the shit was really going down.
Corman glows like a holy man as he talks about his formulas and
philosophies. His collaborators and alumni like Joe Dante and Alan
Arkush (shown editing trailers for New World!!!), Jonathan Demme - who
runs down Corman's famous "lunch" that he has with all directors, where
he has them bring a notebook and he explains everything about film
directing from camera placement to foreground action to dealing with
actors. I've heard about this lunch quite a lot and someone should
document it with all the filmmakers who heard it while they remember
it. I talked to Jim Wynorski about it and he said most of the same
things Demme says. If you care about Corman's work at all you have to
see this.
Jean
Rollin updates his gothic surrealism to a Cronenbergian '80s. It's a
sexploitation movie, so the demands of the genre occasionally derail
the plot (maybe plot's not the word). The whole thing moves and flows
like a nightmare - but with tits. And what tits! The beautiful porn and
horror star Brigitte Lahaie has never been more striking. Her eyes are
very far apart and she looks like an alien seductress.
And over at the Guadalupe store:
TNT JACKSON I
don't make any bones about it, a lot of the appeal of movies for me is
the beauty of certain actresses. I think I am in the mainstream of
movie-going culture at large when I say this but a lot of intellectual
types act like it's not a factor. The joy of watching beautiful women
on screen has led me into some great movies. I have also chased the
likes of Helga Line or Rosemary Dexter or Rosalba Neri down some pretty
crooked and dusty roads simply because I love watching them on screen.
Occasionally I've dragged a few of you along and if you regretted
taking the trip I'm sorry. TNT JACKSON isn't very good at all, but
Jeanne Bell is for fucking goddamn sure a beautiful woman. And if you
take this short to the Philippines you probably won't regret it.
Everything she does is adorable, from trying to act tough to delivering
terrible lines in a sweetly country accent that she tries to hide. See
if you can spot her male stunt double! Disorienting trailer with tons
of dropped frames:
This
understandably has a big picture of Raquel Welch on the cover but the
real star of this Spaghetti Western in all but name is Jim Brown as an
American sherriff on the hunt for a fugitive in the familiar movie
Mexico of generalissimos and banditos. Director Tom Gries (Jon Gries'
father) has a great feel for big, bombastic action. It's all bubblegum
but it's fine on those terms. Burt Reynolds shows up as a halfbreed
bandit with a me-first attitude and Raquel Welch is good as an avenging
daughter, covered in dust but with perfect makeup. Watch for Soledad
Miranda in the small role as the prostitute Burt slaps around. Fernando
Lamas is very entertaining as the Mexican bad guy general.
In
'98 a lot of well-meaning folks tried to put Orson Welles' classic pulp
masterpiece back together according to his presumed intentions, as
inferred from his correspondence. The problem is, Welles often asked
for more than he knew he could get. He'd been through the Hollywood
wringer before and was a genius and knew how to play the game. Maybe he
really wanted all the changes, maybe not. We'll never know. And we
never will - which irks me about the restoration being considered
definitive and the admittedly adulterated and modified release cut
being eased into obscurity and unavailability. Neither cut is perfect
but at least the release cut looks sharp and clear and not all digital
and grey and soft and shit like the restoration. Hey if you guys want
to fix something - fix the score of LADY FROM SHANGHAI. That shit sucks
and I've got memos from Welles on how to fix it. Either way, if you
haven't seen this get ready for the best the art of film can give you.
Everybody's great - Marlene Dietrich in particular kicks it into the
stratosphere and it's as unsavory and dirty as a border town should be.
Orson Welles' reputation is forever untarnishable. Like Shakespeare his
work belongs to everyone and young people will always rediscover it and
claim it as their own.
This
is a different kind of touch but the touch of genius is here too,
courtesy of King Hu (COME DRINK WITH ME, DRAGON GATE INN). I was
knocked completely out by this mystical swordplay epic. It looks like
it must have cost $400 million dollars but I know it must have been
made for much less than an American epic of the time. The plot starts
fairly routinely but skillfully with a fascinating and unusual
perspective character and the intrigue builds until the whole egg
cracks into a vast cosmic metaphysical conflict with swords. It's
totally serious, with no comic relief but you'll bust out laughing at
what complete hammerhead bad-ass enforcers the Buddhist monks are. I'm
talking all around this movie without really telling you much but trust
me every once in awhile. See this. Here's a clip that doesn't give much away.
