Reviews

Laughable dialogue, hackneyed acting, war film cliches piled high (like Spielberg grafted on every single famous war movie scene he'd ever seen into a contradictory, muddled mish-mash: War is hell, war is noble, war is spirit changing, war is savage, war is uplifting, war is horrible, war is brotherhood, war is ironic, war is epic, war is petty etc. etc. this is how he cons the audience into concluding "this is the best war movie ever made," that and the fact that many viewers are secretly titilated by the flying limbs and exploding bodies peppering this best war movie ever made. I can just picture Stevie thinking 'I'll take this bit of Das Boot and combine it with Guadalcanal Diary and and then throw in some Apocalypse Now style irony and then...').

Brilliant premise, as if the generals planning the largest sea-land invasion in history are worrying about a poor mother in Iowa. I like how all the characters are about as multi-layered as "The Dirty Dozen," the cynical quipster Brooklyn, the clumsy rookie, the fast talking, Nazi hatin' Jew, the bible quoting expert-marksman southerner, the muscular guy, etc. etc.) Ridiculous monologues (Private Ryan: "Picture a girl who took a nosedive from the ugly tree and hit every branch coming down. Haw Haw." this from a character who symbolically represents America and has the movie named after him), banal bawdy soldier banter (Ed Burns "She's a 44 Double E-who ah!")

My favorite part is when our heroes are behind enemy lines and then casually stumble around and tell jokes in loud voices-fitting with the film's total lack of military realism, especially the action movie ending where the plucky heroes take out a legion of tanks with Richard Dean Anderson-like "sticky bombs". Silly patriotism, maudlin and sappy John Williams score... and don't forget buckets of Sam Raimi style gore so critics think it's an art film (it's so violent, it must be important)! Still, nice photography by Kaminski and the opening bloodbath is effective though significantly overrated. As far as I'm concerned, Stevie peaked at "Jaws". Go see "The Thin Red Line" instead. It may be flawed and too slow for audiences who found "The Matrix" to be thrilling cinema but Compare Malick's believable portrayal of the confused Japanese soldiers (who by the way all behave differently to war's horrors and are individuals) with Stevie's portrayal of the Germans as evil double crossing villains not far removed from the kooky Nazis in his thrilling Indiana Jones trilogy. Unfortunately the world is more complex than as seen through the eyes of Spielberg or Frank Capra (although both excel at propaganda). One of the most jingoistic widely acclaimed films in recent memory( and the seventh best film EVER according to the handy Internet Movie Database).

One of the grimmest and most effective projections of the corporate future, Rollerball is unrelentingly dark in its portrayal of a high profile athlete(Jonathan E.- James Caan) who begins questioning the assumptions holding his world together. Jewison's visual flair is fully evident in this film, not only during the stomach churning Rollerball sequences, but also in the film's many textured close-ups which reveal the inner states of character's vaguely distressed with their shallow surroundings but still complacent due to material comfort and narcotic sedation. The corporate fuedal structure of the culture isn't explained in detail, rather the viewer is immediately thrown into Jonathan's world. We're not quite sure how the global corporations retain control because Jonathan and the rest of the citizens don't seem to care. Gradually we learn more of the executive ruling class as Jonathan begins probing the layers of the corporate hierarchy. Rather than explicitly and clumsily explaining away everything, Jewison shows the nature of this future world through visual metaphors and startling vignettes. The most memorable of these occurs when a throng of young executives, after a night of inebriated decadence, spend the dawn running through a field, randomly firing a high powered laser gun at trees and setting them on fire. This film is moody and cerebral from start to finish, opening with "Tocatta En Fugue" booming on the soundtrack while the deadly rollerball track is prepared and closing with a haunting, ambiguous close-up that lingers long after the film has ended.

Mob Enforcer James Fox shoots someone he shouldn't and goes into hiding with a trio of Bohemians led by Mick Jagger playing a version of himself. Fox And Jagger frolic and switch personas in one way or another. More experimental fun from Roeg, and Fox is great as the gangster facing an identity crisis, but this film loses its manic energy once Fox goes into hiding mostly on account of Jagger's bohemian broads getting entirely too much screen time (filming themselves in mirrors, picking mushrooms, bathing, saying profound things, reclining, giggling, acting vaguely psychedelic). Jagger's successful in his 'performance' if he's trying to present a shallow, preening, rock star (he's had quite a bit of practice) but otherwise he's fairly uninteresting. Still, the first half detailing Fox's criminal life is great, British organized crime has never felt like this, and there's enough Roegian surrealism and skewed editing to hold interest. This film certainly foreshadows Roeg's later works, with his themes of malleable/static identity and the prisons people happily construct for themselves.

A considerably overrated bit of avant-garde horror, this curiosity utilizes a Joseph Campbellian religious/mythic archetype as its only form of cohesion. Some say it's shocking, but fifteen minutes into it, that shock will turn into boredom. Essentially, this is 78 minutes of an amateur actor trying his best to seizure convincingly.

Along with Walkabout, Don't Look Now, and Performance, this is another striking Roeg work that pushes the boundaries of commercial filmmaking. His films of the early seventies all took advantage of beautiful photography and fascinating editing. The key cross-cutting sequence of The Man Who Fell to Earth juxtaposes a Japanese Noh production with a frenzied sex scene. As in his other films from this period, visual poetry is stressed over narrative and character development. If the plot confuses and drags in some places, this is more than made for by the sheer thematic cohesiveness, astounding visuals and surreal atmosphere. Bowie pulls off the role as passive alien effortlessly. Essentially, this is a poetic, metaphoric look at the tragedy of American consumerism and is a refreshing viewing experience considering the lack of poetry and mystery in the current film marketplace.

The Citizen Kane of the postwar years, H.B. Yalicki's masterpiece turns the car chase film into an operatic melodrama of epic proportions. In the hands of a poet like Yalicki, cars crashing into each other again and again and again for the entire duration of the movie becomes a metaphor for our times. Don't be fooled by the amateur acting and directing, for the film's shoddiness is part of its genius. Forget Cannonball Run or Gumball Rally, Gone in 60 Seconds is the real deal when it comes to mundane 70's car chase flicks.

"Sitting comfortably in a dark room, dazzled by the light and the movement which exert a quasi-hypnotic power... fascinated by the interest of human faces and the rapid changes of place, [a] cultivated individual placidly accepts the most appalling themes...and all this naturally sanctioned by habitual morality, government, and international censorship, religion, dominated by good taste and enlivened by white humor and other prosaic imperatives of reality." - Luis Bunuel

Un Chien Andalou exists to shock the viewer of this stupor that Bunuel elucidates above. Freudian dream imagery, amorphous space/time, and absurdist humor combine in this drawn out mating ritual between a confused cyclist and the female he pursues. May be the most inventive fifteen minutes of film anywhere.