Last night on the ABC I saw movie I've wanted to see for a long time Nic Roeg's "Bad Timing". It's basically a doomed romance/sexual obsession flick, think "Betty Blue" for genre.
The good news is that it's quite entertaining, and it looks great, in spite of the fact that the broadcast version was a pitiful pan & scan presentation, whereas the original is apparently widescreen, which must be stunning. As in all Roeg's films, the editing is brilliant.
On the negative side, I'm sure that mine wouldn't be the first review entitled "Bad Casting". Art Garfunkle is hopeless in this role. It's not so much his acting, but his appearance and thin whiny voice makes it difficult to believe that a hottie like Theresa Russell would fall for him. Russell's performance, however, is sensational.
The third lead, Harvey Keitel, is good as the detective, although the principals' complete disregard for appropriate accents meant that I didn't realise for quite a while that the film is actually set in Vienna.
Similarly, I was very surprised to find that the film was made in 1980 I would have pegged it at about the same time as "Performance" and "Walkabout" (i.e. circa 1970). In part this might be due to the fact that the film might hold the world record for the number of cigarettes smoked on film. When Theresa Russell receives a tracheotomy, I half-expected the doctors to stick a smoke in her tube!
The good news is that it's quite entertaining, and it looks great, in spite of the fact that the broadcast version was a pitiful pan & scan presentation, whereas the original is apparently widescreen, which must be stunning. As in all Roeg's films, the editing is brilliant.
On the negative side, I'm sure that mine wouldn't be the first review entitled "Bad Casting". Art Garfunkle is hopeless in this role. It's not so much his acting, but his appearance and thin whiny voice makes it difficult to believe that a hottie like Theresa Russell would fall for him. Russell's performance, however, is sensational.
The third lead, Harvey Keitel, is good as the detective, although the principals' complete disregard for appropriate accents meant that I didn't realise for quite a while that the film is actually set in Vienna.
Similarly, I was very surprised to find that the film was made in 1980 I would have pegged it at about the same time as "Performance" and "Walkabout" (i.e. circa 1970). In part this might be due to the fact that the film might hold the world record for the number of cigarettes smoked on film. When Theresa Russell receives a tracheotomy, I half-expected the doctors to stick a smoke in her tube!