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Reviews
Brownian Movement (2010)
This movie is pretentious nonsense, where nothing happens for 96 minutes.
In the Forties radio dramas used to use up allotted time with dramatic music passages, or by having lengthy walking scenes or stage business that didn't really advance the story or develop characters ("Here's the doorbell. I'll just ring it. Should I ring it again?"). Apparently the director of The Brownian Movement discovered the cinematic version of this. Have a movie 96 minutes long with very little dialogue and almost no action. Even the sex scenes were static, stopping just short of being still photographs; uninspired, photographs at that.
There is the potential here for a story: Woman with handsome husband has an unaccountable fetish for sleeping with unattractive men. Unfortunately that story wasn't presented in this movie. Instead we have dreadful, unending scenes of people looking thoughtful. Not pained. Not horrified. Not terrified. Just thoughtful. Maybe they're bored. I can see why they might be.
Here is a fundamental truism of fiction: Your characters need to have a motivation for their behavior. It can be concealed for a while and unveiled suddenly or gradually, but ultimately your characters have to have reasons for behaving as they do. Not in this film.
I tried to discern what most of the budget for this movie went into. Obviously it was Ms. Huller's salary. The rest of this pretentious nonsense couldn't have cost more than a few thousand dollars for plane tickets. There were no tricky or interesting camera shots; just painful drawn-out shots of nice interiors (maybe some money was spent on hiring locations). Since there was nothing going on, and not much said, the need for a crew was probably minimal. We're supposed to think of this as arty and deep. No it was someone's way of getting someone (a government agency?) to finance a film that has no substance and doesn't do anything.
I assume someone pocketed the money saved from not buying a real screenplay or hiring sound stages where real action could be filmed, or a sound person, or a makeup person, or much of anything else, for that matter. It is surprising that a movie which showed so much of Ms. Huller's attractive epidermis could be so excruciatingly dull and silly. It is so stultifying that her nudity can't save it.
Evil Roy Slade (1972)
The tale of a villain who is proud of his wickedness, but who attempts to change his evil (but hilarious) ways for the love of a beautiful woman (Pamela Austin).
The theme song begins: "Evil Roy Slade makes fun of old people..." This movie has no weaknesses. Astin's facial expressions alone could carry it. The jokes never let up. I suspect the weighting factor on this movie is an ignorance on the part of the weigher of the broad, campy comedies of that era. It is either that, or the weigher is totally bereft of a sense of humor. I suggest the weigher watch and attempt to understand "The Great Race", "Murder By Death", "The Cheap Detective" (interestingly all three of these contain Peter Falk), "The Villain", "Casino Royale", and "What's New Pussycat" (These last two have Peter Sellers.). "Get Smart" and "Batman" are television examples. "Evil Roy Slade" gives several actors opportunities to deliver beautifully written lines, which they do with great style. I searched for years and finally got a DVD of it (I don't remember where.). John Astin is a genius.