BigCombo

It's the best French film of the decade and perhaps one of the greatest investigations into young love ever made. Mathieu Amalric is a revelation and demonstrates he's one of the finest young actors in the entire world. I love this film, and it makes me so happy to know it exists.

It's no wonder Zoetrope went bankrupt after this lavish, great-looking but bad-tasting bore of a film. Coppola had clearly lost his mind by this point (the APOCALYPSE NOW production, as we all know, is the most probable reason) and went way over-budget with the sets, etc. Yes, they look great, but great sets and cool camerawork can only take you so far. You need a script, too, and this film didn't really seem to have one. I can only think of one director who ever worked well without a script and that was Godard (see PIERROT LE FOU for a great example of spontaneous filmmaking).

That said, some of the acting here is inspired, especially that of Frederic Forrest. Kinski is cute but dull, but here's an honest question - why is Teri Garr constantly getting naked in this film? I'd rather see Kinski sans clothing.

One more caveat in this bad review: the opening title sequence is amazing.

First off, I hated Halloween H20. Kevin Williamson, you're rich, you're famous, now retire. Or just write TV. And Steve Miner - you can't direct.

Halloween 2 is not bad. Not great.

I'm not counting Halloween 3 in this discussion since that's the Season of the Witch and good old Miguel ain't in that one.

Right, so we have Halloween 4, which has the best ending since Halloween 1. You have to love Jamie going all like Uncle Mike killing her stepmother. That was an amazing ending. Amazing. Creepy as hell.

And then you have Halloween 5. Which has an absolutely hideous opening (that hermit who Michael shacks up with then kills? What?), but once it gets rolling it gets pretty fun. The Man in Black is confusing as hell but he adds a nice air of mystery to Michael (which almost excuses the fact that Michael, before this, has been: shot a few times by Loomis in Part 1, blown up by Loomis in Part 2, and shot to pieces and thrown down in a mineshaft in Part 4, and yet he lives...I mean, it doesn't take a 1600 SAT score to figure out that Michael's not quite human...). I think the Man in Black at this point suggests supernatural forces behind Michael (and Part 6 has all that horrible Cult stuff that squandered the opportunity to make this nice and creepy).

Anyway, back to why I like Part 5. It scares the living hell out of me. Part 4 has its moments (you have to love the thumb in the forehead and the aforementioned Jamie-Goes-Berserk at the end), but it meanders a bit too much and too much of it takes place in daylight. Part 5 is actually directed fairly well and while yes, it has a lot of the "BOO!" oh that's not the killer HERE'S THE KILLER, it gets past it on the strength of Danielle Harris freaking out like a banshee (she scares the hell out of me) and the use of shadows, low angles, etc.

Okay, just one more note. I hate Part 6. It's the worst.

The elements were all there, but the studio/financiers re-edited it after Welles was done. What remains is an interesting companion piece to CITIZEN KANE (you'll see...I don't want to spoil it) featuring a fantastic performance by Welles in the title role. The camerawork is wild, maybe too wild, but it fits the mood of the piece.

Who knows if Welles' version was more satisfying...we'll probably never find out. Welles expressed his great disappointment to Peter Bogdanovich (in _This Is Orson Welles_) over the way they hacked this film up behind his back. Shame.

I did notice that the dialogue seems slightly out-of-sync. I know that Spanish and English versions of the film were made, so I'm assuming all the dialogue was dubbed in later, which would explain the inconsistencies.

Warren Oates is great. This isn't his best performance (he's better in BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA and TWO LANE BLACKTOP...maybe even RACE WITH THE DEVIL), but he's still fantastic. I love how he manages to convey so much without speaking (those who haven't seen the film - Oates barely speaks in this film).

Monte Hellman...does a good job, but this is not his best work. I prefer TWO LANE BLACKTOP, THE SHOOTING, and RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND. There are some amazing moments in this, though, and the cockfighting footage is insane (and I'm sure this film didn't qualify for the "no animals were harmed..." tag, which wasn't in use then anyway, but you get the point).

And I love what Hellman does in the love scene by the lake between Frank and his girl. That was pure genius.

Ed Begley Jr. is also really fantastic, and Harry Dean Stanton is great. This movie actually made me want to go to a cockfight, so, I mean, yeah.

COCKFIGHTER...a must-see for Oates/Hellman fans. And, frankly, the video is impossible to find so unless you're a diehard fan you probably won't see this anyway. I found this in a video store in L.A. (Los Feliz). Video's out of print, but definitely worth seeing if you can find it.

I realize this review is rather poorly thought-out. Please forgive me.

I love satire, spoofs, all brands of comedy. MYSTERY MEN dissatisfied me on every level. I didn't laugh once.

MYSTERY MEN is the worst film I've seen since THE AVENGERS...actually it might be worse than THE AVENGERS. I mean, technically AVENGERS is far worse and makes absolutely no sense, but at least it can be enjoyed in a traffic-accident sort of way. MYSTERY MEN is so smug and complacent with its hip-90s-ironic approach that it's just painful to sit through when the laughs just don't exist (and no, the 6 Million Dollar Man joke wasn't funny...it was just more proof of this film's need to rely on uninspired pop culture jokes than to challenge its audience with truly original satire).

And one final note -

Janeane Garofalo: You're not as hip as you think you are.

I don't really feel like writing this up, but I'll spend a few moments doing just that. Mazursky can be one of the most painfully self-indulgent filmmakers of the last 30 years, though admittedly I love a few of his films (especially HARRY AND TONTO). But more of his films are chores to get through, and pretentious ones at that. BLUME IN LOVE comes nowhere near the tedium that marks ALEX IN WONDERLAND as one of the worst studio films of the '70s, but it's still pretty lousy. Yeah, George Segal is great, and Kris Kristofferson and Susan Anspach hold up well...and actually Marsha Mason is pretty impressive, but, well, that's about it. The story is flimsy, the screenplay is mediocre...there's just not too much going on.

Thematically, the film is rich and it's interesting to see that Stanley Kubrick featured it in EYES WIDE SHUT (look close - Alice is watching it on television while she talks to Bill on the phone), especially considering the slight similarities between the protagonists of the two films...but who knows if Kubrick featured it for this reason or because he knew Mazursky from way back when (Paul appears in Stanley's first film, FEAR AND DESIRE).

BLUME IN LOVE could've been great, but Mazursky...well, it's another one of his "almost-good" films...I really think the majority of his work fails from half-assed screenplays and poor pre-planning (how else can you account for the aforementioned ALEX IN WONDERLAND)? And, oh yeah, there's that little matter of his phony art film sensibility. Stop trying so hard, Paul, you really don't need to include Fellini and Jeanne Moreau in your films (ALEX...) to show us you're above the Hollywood bulls**t. Frankly, sometimes a little Hollywood bulls**t (like a story) can work wonders.

Easily one of the worst pieces of trash I've suffered through in my life, though it does have some brilliantly weird dialogue on the part of one really minor character who shows up at the end as a plot contrivance (he tries to rape some girl and she's rescued by her boyfriend...). Pure garbage. Why did you even look it up?

Man oh man, I cannot tell you how bad this film is. Yeah, that bad.

WESTWORLD is a great piece of trash, loads of fun though under scrutiny it's perhaps a bit mediocre. But FUTUREWORLD can't even claim such trash masterpiece status. It's boring and bad and positively hideous. There's nothing interesting going on at all, and Blythe Danner demonstrates that yes, there are occasionally actresses more annoying than Gwyneth (even within the same family!).

FUTUREWORLD lacks the gun-slinging mayhem that made the first one so much fun. The opening credits promise the return of the gunslinger Yul Brynner, but he only shows up briefly in this one in a bizarre dream sequence featuring one of the most obscenely hideous dance numbers ever put on film (Yul lassos Blythe and they spin around in a circle...yeah, I did drink some Pepto after, thanks for asking).

Quick question: Why is Blythe dreaming about the gunslinger anyway?

Anyway, FUTUREWORLD also lacks the hammy-but-enjoyable presence of Richard Benjamin, who made WESTWORLD so much fun. But what boggles the mind most is the plotting. FUTUREWORLD sets up all these wild possibilities only to do nothing with them. It's like the screenwriter wrote Act 1 with hopes of making a fun exploitation film (check out the game show opener and lecherous winner who they could have had a ball with) but then decided to turn it into a bad Sherlock Holmes story.

Absolutely pointless. If you can get straight through it without stopping to take a break, you're either a masochist or you're drunk.

Altman was accused of bastardizing Chandler's best novel, but I think he actually captures more about Chandler and Philip Marlowe than anyone else did before. Hawks made a masterpiece with THE BIG SLEEP, THE LADY IN THE LAKE is interesting if highly flawed, and MURDER MY SWEET is a great film, but THE LONG GOODBYE is absolutely perfect. I've seen this film a half dozen times, and enjoyed it more with each viewing. I think about it on a daily basis (how many films can you say that about?).

The always-underrated Elliot Gould is the perfect Marlowe, lazier and ostensibly more apathetic than Bogie, he's the quintessential Southern Californian, only he's got bodies piling up and a cat to feed all at the same time.

Fans of Tarantino should see this film, as they'll see many of their hero's tricks pulled from Altman. There's nothing wrong with that of course, I love PULP FICTION, but after seeing THE LONG GOODBYE fans might no longer think that PULP was as groundbreaking as they might believe it to be.

Gould gives his best performance as Marlowe, and Altman proclaims the death of film noir and detective films (if you've got any question about that, see the THIRD MAN-esque ending which kicks into the strains of "Hooray for Hollywood"). Altman knew an era of filmmaking was over, and this is his valentine to that era, but it's a valentine that also serves as a eulogy. But it's beautiful. Oh, so beautiful.

I'm admittedly not a big fan of director Robert Wise. Never liked his musicals, only really enjoyed his BORN TO KILL (but that was mostly because of Lawrence Tierney's performance). I do, however, love THE BIG HEAT, which was a Fritz Lang film, but it was based on a novel by William P. McGivern. So was ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, so I decided to give it a chance.

It's a mixed bag. Belafonte's great, so is Robert Ryan. Gloria Grahame shows up briefly and is terrific (odd coincidence: Grahame and Ryan both show up in CROSSFIRE, another racially fueled melodrama). Ed Begley is phenomenal. The real problem is Robert Wise. As usual, he cops out at the end, directing with all the heavy-handedness I love to hate. The ending is more than just Hays Office-friendly, it's so retchingly moralistic that I just couldn't tolerate it.

If you see the film, keep in mind this idea when the last two minutes arrive: "Racism is volatile, it leads to explosions!" and "Race is only skin deep!" These are not my opinions, but simply what the filmmaker was trying to communicate.

I don't know if it's Polonsky's fault as the screenwriter, because I've read that Wise is the one who chose to scrap the original ending in the novel in favor of this one. And, like I said, it falls flat on its face.