Reviews

Objectively speaking, there is nothing wrong with this movie. It is well, even intelligently, written and well acted. It's intentions are fairly pure and, more importantly, a little ambiguous. (You don't really believe its arguing for restrictions on the press. But it lays bare some of the problems.) It is a well meaning film.

But...

It's a little flat. I'm not sure why. Possibly direction. Possibly a...self-important (perhaps grasping more than it could achieve?) screenplay. I'm really not sure why. But it feels to me it should have been more...compelling than it was. Perhaps if the Paul Newman character (not as acted. As written.) left you feeling a bit more ambiguous as to his role...or even his knowledge...in the key crime. Maybe if it was played by someone other than Paul Newman. Maybe if the direction/editing had been a little tighter than it was. (I do like Sydney Pollack, by the way.) I do recommend seeing this film. It is interesting at worst. But...it seems like it could have been more. Much more. It feels like it wanted to be.

I have to admit right off the bat I have no fondness for Paul Mazursky's films. I remember reading, somewhere, that he was a West Coast Woody Allen. If that is true, then he is Woody Allen without humor, or more importantly, without soul. This film follows George Segal (whom I've always liked) through his marriage, divorce and re-attachment with Susan Anspach. There is nothing innately offensive in this film. In fact, it strikes me as though it should be stuck in a time capsule of 70's film-making. And kept there. This is one of those films where you can't exactly pinpoint what is wrong with it but simply leaves you unsatisfied, unless you are a 70's film historian, I suppose. There is no connection with Blume, unless you are of his milieu. While (being NJ bound) I have affection for LA and the 70s, this film struck me as ingrown, meant for cognoscenti. A smart "ha-ha" that shows no outreach. And little comedy.

This is not as smug as "An Unmarried Woman" But at the end of 1:55, you will have shrugged your shoulders and gone "huh?" Maybe it was potent in 1973. But today, that just means its dated.

I have seen this film 4 times (at least). I despised it the first time. Then I saw a trailer (which was wonderful) that made me see it a second time. Still disliked it. Good reviews made me watch it on video and DVD. And you know what? I still hated it.

First, let me say that none of this is Jill Clayburgh's fault. She is absolutely fantastic. She inhabited her character fully and did with it as much as she could. He Oscar nom was well deserved.

The problem is the screenplay. Here, Paul Mazursky (for whom I have admittedly no fondness for) is incredibly SMUG. It is the screenplay I would imagine a self-important, in therapy, male with his head stuck up his own ass (and admiring the view) would write. Watching it is like watching a so-called sensitive male egotistic go on about how he is oh-so-sensitive to women's wants when all he wants to do is screw the babe. You roll your eyes, nod, and look for the exit.

If this film, or Mazursky, was less highly regarded, I'd probably wouldn't be on my high horse here. But he and it is, and I think that is a shame.

Filmed at the time when Dick and Liz were front page news, this film makes an attempt to capture that. All it captures is silliness and pretension. Burton seems restrained, almost lost, in the trifle he is asked to play here. Taylor has her shrill moments but there are times, especially by the fire, when she is especially lovely. Saint has nothing much to do, though she does it fine enough. Bronson and Edwards as the two main hippie/artists are especially wooden. Robert Webber does come off the best, playing a total creep, as ET puts it.

We never get a sense of the the Burton-Saint marriage that would have made more apparent the strain Burton was under. We never see their sons, most likely because the producers would have thought it would have made Burton seem like too much of a heel.

The philosophy in this movie is heavy-handed and especially disappointing since two famous blacklisted writers (Trumbo and Wilson) wrote the screenplay.

Another absurdity is that ET lives in what is described as a shack. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't trade their house for that shack in a split second. Also, for a starving artist, how does she afford it? Movie logic, that's how.

There are two reasons to see it, though. One is the aerial photography of Big Sur. Truly phenomenal. The other is the truly lovely score by Johnny Mandel, including "The Shadow Of Your Smile" which has haunted me for about the last 20 years.

Really, watch the first five minutes (until the deer is shot) and the end credit sequence and you'll have seen everything worthy this movie has to offer.

2/3 of this movie is very good. Nothing profound but enjoyable in much the same way as the also-Newman starring "From The Terrace". Especially enjoyable is the always enjoyable Billie Burke (if you haven't seen it, catch the marvelous "The Young In Heart"). Then...it devolves into a pedestrian court room drama. The ending is never in doubt and just getting there is a slow slog. This is no slight on Richard Deacon, who does well with his role as a fussy butler. There just isn't enough interest in what happens. The key plot point on whether Newman will do something to endanger his career is just diluted to the point of indifference. The movie simply needed a better ending. Otherwise, there's nothing offensive here and nothing to tax the brain. Amongst the cast, John Williams stands out in my eyes. Robert Vaughn got the Oscar nomination for one chew-the-scenery scene that left me unmoved. So, I'd skip this one and stick with "Terrace"

Simply a gorgeous film. A lost film from the seventies if there ever was one and one that does not disappoint. The cinematography is simply breathtaking. The score by Bruce Langhorne is almost unbearably poignant. A simple story just beautifully rendered and all the more profound for it. Well acted by the three leads, especially by Warren Oates and the perfect Verna Bloom. Surprisingly sure-handedly directed by Fonda. I'm amazed this film isn't more well known or popular than it is. One of the best Westerns of the seventies, perhaps ever. In the end, words fail to justify it while the memory shines bright. Find it, view it, cherish it.

I rated this movie in the middle only because I feel there were two distinct parts to the movie with an indecisive end. The first part, with Robert De Niro prominent is very funny, at time uproariously so. (The opening with Charles Durning is priceless.) The part with the theater of "Be Black Baby" was pretty strong stuff, even today. It was real and scary and had no relationship to the first part. This part was really tense and made me shudder several times.

The problem I had was what did the De Niro part have to do with the "Be Black Baby" part. Maybe I am old-fashioned and wanted something more linear or, really, coherent. Perhaps the appeal of this movie is the lack of obedience to strictures. I do applaud that kind of freedom, but only when it works. I laughed and cringed during what felt like a double feature. Both parts work very well. But together they make an uneasy mix.

This film has a reputation as a terrible film which I find greatly undeserved. It is average in the sense there are better films and there are worse. I found the film to be fairly static. The story is slow moving and the character of the assassin is never really delineated. Alain Delon is the true lead of the film, with Burton's Trotsky more a secondary character. I thought Burton did a fine job as Trotsky, the only think slightly bothering me is that Burton was physically imposing and that's not how I picture Trotsky. I picture him as more of a bookish intellectual of less than physically imposing attributes. (I do not know the actual physical attributes of Trotsky.)

In any case, Romy Schneider is very lovely and sexy and the camera also treats Delon well, even if we do not have any clear insight to his motivation. In the end, I'm not sure what the purpose of this film was and that is its greatest failure. But, while the film did not succeed, there is nothing memorably bad about it. So my rating falls plum in the middle.

I must say, I found this movie very disappointing. Yes, I know Maltin gave it 3 1/2 and others think very highly of it. But, well, the opera sequences were god-awful. I take it Jeannete MacDonald is an acquired taste. Yes, in the short sequences I have seen her with Nelson Eddy, she is immensely preferable to him. But on her own...God, I dislike opera and despise operetta, and she is basically intolerable. At one point I had to cover my ears. Gable is just OK, and Tracy is thrown away. The plot is annoying in the JM never simply tells Gable she loves him and the opera and why can't she do both? Instead she suffers silently (or not so) with the compromises she makes. The supporting cast is distinctly unmemorable. Besides the star three and Jack Holt (and I suppose his mother), they all are just background and forgettable. The EQ sequence is the only thing that saves the movie. And just. Yes, it is fairly spectacular and moving. But the "oh God is great" seems very contrived. I immensely prefer "In Old Chicago" as far as old time disaster spectaculars go. Spare yourself on this one.

I think this is simply a brilliant film. Tough, harsh, brutal, it could easily seem like a parody of film noir. But it never steps over the line, instead it walks, no, runs on it, like a tightrope walker through flames. Brilliant character actors (Paul Stewart, Jack Elam, Jack Lambert, Strother Martin, Percy Helton, Nick Dennis, others), great women (Maxine Cooper as Velda, Gaby Rodgers as Lily, Cloris Leachman as Christina) like one's from your dreams/nightmares (who can tell the difference? Who wants to?) A fantasy so fetid that one shrinks from it but comes to it, again and again and again. Does Ralph Meeker's Mike Hammer seem like an ideal that you are ashamed of idealizing? Maybe just an adult pleasureland, a knowing man's thrill ride through depravity, perhaps. The dark side of a dream, as Bruce once said. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Matter of fact, they almost never did. Just this once.