nsouthern51 Reviews

The Firm Man (1975)

Weird, hallucinatory mess

[30 August 2003]

Weird, weird, weird. John Duigan's first credit as writer-director is one of those films that seems destined to redefine 'obscurity,' yet somehow, several other motion pictures over the years (from multiple countries) seem to have been influenced by it stylistically and thematically. The nearly incoherent, oddball premise has something to do with an Aussie executive named Gerald Baxter, who drops out socially and mentally, taking a job for a top secret firm where he plays with toys all day long. Throughout the picture, he is followed by two men in trenchcoats (one of whom is Duigan regular Bruce Spence, of "The Year My Voice Broke" and the reprehensible "Dimboola") who spy on him from around corners, fly a biplane overhead, etc. The motion picture makes absolutely no sense -- somehow, Baxter and others eventually wind up at a beach, where a naked hippie smoking a joint sits on a rock, appearing and disappearing randomly.

I saw this on a Steenbeck at the National Museum of Film, Television, and Radio in Sydney. (A STEENBECK. That's how obscure this is).

A Thief in the Night (1972)

The Second Most Embarrassing Film Ever Made

[28 September 2002]

I'm truly embarrassed to admit that I suffered through this film four or five times, while growing up in a Baptist church and attending a WASPish Protestant elementary school. One of the most abhorrent motion pictures ever made (second only to Lamont Johnson's reprehensible "Lipstick" back in 1976), "A Thief in the Night" has -- sadly -- become a Bible belt staple -- one of the only "Evangelical Christian cult films." How wildly popular is it among conservative Christians? Let's put it this way: one could walk into any "film night" at a midwestern Baptist church during the eighties and nineties and catch this motion picture, nine times out of ten (until John Schmidt took over by making a series of contemporary Christian films that actually remain watchable to this day -- "The Wait of the World" (1989), etc.)

I fail to understand how anyone could even -sit through- "A Thief in the Night" (let alone heap unqualified praise onto the film). Not only are the production values, the direction, the 'performances,' the script, the music, and the editing ludicrous, but one can imagine the film feeling dated even back in 1972. (The characters seem to be walking around on another planet).

As other IMDB users imply in their critiques, it might be possible for a film of this nature to evolve into a secular cult item -- a joke, to be screened as a secular midnight movie and at 70's cinematic shlock fests, ala "Toomorrow," the mysterious and elusive "Darktown Strutters," and "BJ Lang Presents." Ahh, such is not the case. The "filmmakers" rendered this impossible by dampering "A Thief in the Night" with some of the sourest, most depressing dramatic overtones in movie history and ensuring that it can never (NEVER) be *enjoyed* as entertaining camp. From first frame to last, it remains repulsively gloomy, angry, and depressing. This, from a film about Christ's second coming -- a subject which should impart a message of hope, not of fear.

In short: nothing fun about this one, folks. It's a *miserable* experience, and it may even fall into the same category as "The Incredible Torture Show," about which, Danny Peary once wrote, "If any film deserves to be banned, this deserves strong consideration."

The worst sidelight of the film: the terrible light it continues to shed on conservative Christians, and on the Revelation of St. John per se. "Left Behind" (1999), starring Kirk Cameron and based on the bestselling book series (a film I have not seen), covers the same ground and is evidently far more watchable.

Sweet William (1980)

Confessions of a Bigamist

[12 March 2002]

---Warning: This review may contain spoilers!------

Claude Whatham's "Sweet William" is an unpleasant, unmoving, and largely uninteresting piece of tripe about an obnoxious, philandering playwright (Sam Waterston as the title character). William seduces a young British woman named Ann (Jenny Agutter), knocks her up, and abandons her after she gives birth. Along the way, Ann makes a shocking discovery: not only is William already married, but he's feeding lines to both her and his wife, and pitting them against each other.

The picture has two insurmountable problems, both rooted in a flawed script: first, it doesn't ground the viewer in a definite point-of-view. The most likely (though pedestrian) approach would be to assume Ann's clouded perspective about William, conceal his sliminess from the audience, and reveal his dark side to everyone gradually. But this doesn't happen. William is as transparent as glass -- we know he's a scuzzbag from his first few moments onscreen. With his pushy come-on and his pied piper-ish walk, Waterston's character seems about as trustworthy as the piano teacher who rapes Margaux Hemingway in "Lipstick." So, why does Ann fall for him? To answer this question, we must either: 1) Descend to the level of the 'idiot plot,' by regarding Agutter's character as imperceptive, which significantly damages the tone of the script and causes us to lose faith in Ann at a fairly early stage of the film; or 2) retain our faith in Ann at any cost, which destroys the picture's credibility.

The second problem is that the film lacks a concrete mood -- it wavers uncomfortably between Alfie-like farce and movie-of-the-week tragedy.

Agutter delivers a rocky, uneven performance; she's convincing some of the time but bursts into sudden fits of rage at the wrong moments (often without definite motivation), and doesn't deliver strong enough reactions following her shocking discoveries about William. As always, Waterston's presence lifts the film half a notch, but even he can't save this picture. (His confidence must have been shattered after acting in two embarrassing duds -- this and the notorious "Heaven's Gate" --- the same year). The film offers a strong supporting cast of British players, but most are underutilized; we know we're in trouble when the great British actor Arthur Lowe ("O' Lucky Man!") only delivers one line.

Even the visuals in "Sweet William" are grimy -- it paints an interesting 1980ish aesthetic glimpse of working class London, but not exactly an attractive one. It is fascinating to think that a picture like this was actually shot and released to mainstream theatres, in England, circa 1980, because it cries obscurity.

What we have, in the end, is a sallow, gloomy, depressing, and significantly flawed picture. The last image of the film -- Ann gazing out the window, baby in arms, while her flatmate tells her that William is "gone forever" -- may leave viewers with nausea in their stomachs and contempt for all of the characters.

In the Bedroom (2001)

Easier the second time?

[6 January 2002]

The first act and the climactic third act of "In the Bedroom" are mesmerizing -- with emotions and subtle gestures overlaid so delicately that the picture becomes a brilliant exercise in understatement. I have rarely, if ever, seen a film that uses images and dialogue so sparely, yet packs such an emotional wallop. Todd Field's film completely envelops the audience and pulls each viewer inside of the characters -- without striking a false note for two hours. Aesthetically, "Bedroom" takes the time to meditate on images all too oft overlooked in cinema -- such as the neon-lit, rain-slicked smalltown streets during the father's pre-dawn truck ride (in the haunting final sequence) and the grassy, windswept Maine fields, where Marisa Tomei's character and her lover lie in each others' arms (in the prologue).

And yet, I'm wrestling with my reaction to this film. Did I find the pace of the second act difficult? Excruciatingly. But after giving this film some consideration, I began to realize that "Bedroom" may be inevitably difficult to watch, the first time, because (in terms of dramatic structure) it tries something challenging and unusual. Following a suspenseful, engaging prologue, it shifts focus and abandons suspense temporarily. It turns away from a story about how a central crime will be avenged, and begins to study how two parents deal with life-shattering grief.

Is the abandonment of suspense a dramatic flaw? Not during successive viewings -- but the first time around, it complicates the film's tonality by threatening to alienate the audience from the characters. With the outcome of the story uncertain in the first-time viewer's mind, the suspense element and the deliberately slow, meditative pace work against each other. I found myself hanging on the question of outcome so intently that I became impatient and bored by the pace, and thus overlooked the nuances and subtleties of the onscreen action during the second act.

Wim Wenders's masterful "Paris, Texas" (1984) works at about the same speed -- yet, given the storyline, pace never becomes an issue. In writing the screenplay for "Bedroom," the aforementioned problem may have been unavoidable.

Needless to say, I plan to return to this film again, soon, and anticipate a slightly different reaction. I want to encourage others to do the same.

...Where's Rodney? (1990 TV Movie)

TV that's too Awful for TV

[28 April 2001]

I glanced at Rodney Dangerfield's filmography/list of TV appearances, but didn't notice any mention of this curio. Why? "Where's Rodney" is one of the worst television sitcoms ever produced, right up there with "The Thorns," a short-lived series starring Tony Roberts, and the Krofft-produced "Pink Lady" (better not to ask). I seem to recall that it lasted for about one episode; I also (though I could be wrong) remember it airing slightly earlier than 1991 -- in about 1988 or 1989. In it, a strange teenage boy with a Dangerfield obsession (we're talking Mark David Chapman here, folks: Rodney posters all over his walls, a Rodney cutout in his room, the works) somehow develops a psychic/telekinetic ability to "summon" Rodney to his room, for assistance, whenever a Leave it to Beaver-like problem arises. In sum, this is a piece of pure trash, not even intelligent enough for beer guzzlers or the mentally-impaired; I'm sure Rodney would like to destroy all existing copies and erase it from the records. I'm embarrassed enough to admit that I watched the first episode, way back when. Rodney did 1000x better with his four or five feature vehicles -- particularly "Easy Money" and "Back to School." Thank God this never made it into a regular air slot.

Seinfeld (1989–1998)

Inspired

[28 April 2001]

A delight. One of the most consistently hysterical, bizarre, off-the-wall, and inspired examples of successful TV series comedy. To echo another viewer's sentiment: programs like "Full House" and "Who's the Boss" were offering watered-down, sentimental, bubble-gum humour, abetted by laugh tracks; some young (post-1980) audience members may have read John Stamos and Dave Coulier's buffooning around as the paragon of hilarity. Ahh, how wrong they were.

Seinfeld came along in the early nineties and knocked its competitors out of the water by harking back to even earlier roots: controversial laugh-fests from the seventies and early eighties with deliciously demented jet-black humour, like "Fernwood-2-Night," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," "D.C. Follies," and even (on occasion) the short-lived Saturday Night Live-ripoff, "Fridays" (starring Michael Richards <Kramer>, and cancelled a few months in, thanks to criticism of obscene skits).

Interestingly, the Seinfeld "Formula" -- at its pinnacle during the 1994-1995 and 1995-1996 seasons -- didn't arrive overnight; it began to take root and develop, thanks to series producer Larry David, over the course of the first few years (90-93). What began as a typical, even boring sitcom in 1990 became a gracefully-structured, comic soap opera, with multiple subplots per episode and dozens of quirky tertiary characters, who made periodic appearances in the show, and whose significance registered with repeat viewers -- Sue Ellen Mishke, Kenny Banya, Uncle Leo, The Marble Rye Lady, lawyer Jackie Chiles, etc.

Seinfeld violated the standard law of sitcoms, for none of its characters even made an attempt to be likeable; Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer had irritating, amoral, obnoxious jerk streaks a mile long --we wanted to kick them in the pants on almost every episode; but that's what made the show so much fun. And a pattern emerged, where, on a regular basis: 1) Newman and Kramer put their eccentric heads together to invent a wild scheme (my favorite: either re-staging the old Merv Griffin show in Kramer's apartment, or driving a can-filled mail truck to Michigan to turn a profit on soda refunds); 2) George Costanza played on his dishonesty to avoid work; and 3) Jerry *and* Elaine each went through a series of affairs with a parade of potential mates, but managed to ruin encounters with nitpicky complaints or bizarre accidents. Hundreds of examples exist -- the series became a great jazz piece, where the writers invented variations on standard themes, and competed with previous episodes to see just how extreme and wild they could get.

Jerry Seinfeld and his cronies often "drew out" bizarre behaviour in the others inhabiting the microcosm around them -- they uncovered absurdity everywhere, recalling John Cleese's old observation that the whole world is off-base, but that we put up a front of propriety to hide it.

In spring, 1998, the public waited on hands and knees for the final episode. Magazines and newspapers across the country tried to predict the content; the cast members landed appearances on local news stations, where interviewers tried to squeeze hints out of them. But when the episode eventually aired, unfamiliar viewers may have wondered what all the fuss was about. Clearly one of television's greatest travesties, the episode violated the basic rules that made the program work: every secondary and tertiary character in the Seinfeld world "suddenly" became logical and moral, viciously turned on the foursome; the four landed together, in the *same* plotline --- a mind-numbing plot, that involved a group vacation; and the audience's love-hate feelings were ignored and turned into pity. (A serious logical error on the writers' part: just because we find the characters' vices laughably irritating, that doesn't mean we HATE the characters, and feel vindicated by watching them sentenced to jail!) Ugh!

If the entire "Seinfeld" series resembled this episode, it wouldn't have lasted beyond a week. The self-congratulatory two hours (with flashbacks to earlier subplots) were about as appealing as funny as, say, that old "Three's Company" episode where Lucille Ball shows up and gives us a tour of past adventures. Spare us; that's why we have syndication!

But fortunately, despite little inconsistencies in quality from episode-to-episode, "Seinfeld" was brilliant enough and inspired enough that it will surely continue to fulfill media promise: when newspapers and magazines emerged with the bylines, "Seinfeld, You'll Run Forever!," we can believe that it wasn't hype. Unfortunately, repeats of old episodes also leave us with a wild craving for new adventures.

In the liner notes to the CD reissue of "O' Lucky Man!," Malcolm McDowell alludes to the idea that every performer has at least one great achievement, one artistic accomplishment (represented by a title) that will cement his/her reputation, forever. (His was "A Clockwork Orange.") I'll say this much: regardless of which paths Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards decide to follow in the future, "Seinfeld" will always be their crowning achievement, an insanely difficult one to top.

The Man Who Loved Women (1983)

A misunderstood film

[25 April 2001]

Here is a picture that, for every conceivable reason, shouldn't work -- but on a purely emotional level, it does. Most viewers could be easily misled (and disappointed) by expecting a light romantic comedy or a wild sex farce. Instead, Blake Edwards and his co-screenwriters offer something entirely different, a picture far more complex, meaningful, and thought-provoking than what we might anticipate.

"The Man Who Loved Women" tells a sad, sad story about a middle-aged man (Burt Reynolds in one of his finest performances, as David Fowler) who drowns in isolation thanks to a rare ability: he's forced and driven, by instinct, to glimpse the sacredness and inner beauty of almost every woman he encounters. Yes, on some levels, his circumstances lead to a hedonistic paradise. But his feelings also prevent him from ever making a commitment, and isolate him from the joy of knowing one woman exclusively.

For that reason, a melancholic canopy hangs over the entire film and takes the front seat to humour. The story begins with David Fowler's death, and every event we witness onscreen is tinged by our knowledge that Fowler's obsession with women will eventually kill him. A slow, heavy, stringed theme song, Mancini's "Little Boys", plays softly throughout the film, and Fowler's words (in voice-over narration) constantly remind us of the deep, incurable loneliness that plagues him.

All of this might sound heavy-handed -- and it very well could be, if it weren't for the sexual fantasy and wild Edwards comedy that flesh out the story and provide relief. The melancholia and comedy work together, and Edwards achieves a delicate balance of mood --a bittersweet aura.

I've heard one criticism (see Ebert's review) that many of the story's psychological elements are impossible. Though a few scenes might suffer from exaggeration (hundreds and HUNDREDS of women attend David's funeral), one could easily dismiss the story -- as I did, at first --because so many male viewers *lack* Fowler's ability to care for women unconditionally; we want to believe that it's impossible for a contemporary Don Juan to exist. But that simply isn't tenable. My own theory about the film -- (and it's just a theory) -- is that Edwards may have pulled inspiration for Fowler from the late John Derek, another man worshipped and adored by women, who interacted with Edwards during the filming of "10" (1979).

Edwards and his co-writers lend a gentle touch to the film by crafting Fowler's character against-the-grain; while we might expect a narcissistic hedonist, he's just the opposite -- a warm, gentle, soul with only the sincerest motives. It's easy to understand why women are attracted to Fowler, from his first appearance onscreen. And, oddly -- male viewers may never begrudge Fowler his affairs, only applaud -- because his narration and his gentle spirit confirm the fact that he really does worship and adore everything about the girls who walk in and out of his life. "I keep thinking," he says sadly, "about all the women I'm never gonna know..."

In one of the film's most revealing and effective moments, Edwards allows us to glimpse a woman, at the funeral, who is the complete opposite of a "10" -- fat, homely, depressed -- undesirable. We have the distinct impression that her external appearance didn't matter to Fowler -- that he only looked into her heart and perceived her beauty. It lends credibility to psychologist Marianna's (Julie Andrews) observation: that David did, indeed, love all of the girls, equally and unconditionally.

Joanna (1968)

A Mess

[9 February 2001]

"Joanna" is almost impossible to find on videocassette -- for a good reason. Director Michael Sarne (Myra Breckinridge) uses superimpositions, dream sequences, extraneous sounds, alternating b&w/color, Altmanesque overlapping dialogue, and long-held static shots to "orchestrate" the story of an innocent, pleasure-seeking art student (Genevieve Waite) trying to find happiness in "mod" London. Joanna herself is a sweet creation and an endearing character. But Sarne's irritating direction nearly ruins the film.

Stylistically, "Joanna" is over-the-top, embarrassing, and laughably self-indulgent. A classic example: the scene where Joanna enters a room, dressed all in green, and everything else in the room is painted the exact same color. What was Sarne thinking?

Sarne's humour (eg. the scene with the "jam jars") consistently falls flat, and he never manages to get decent performances from his actors --even Donald Sutherland looks disoriented here.

Some (though not all) of the music (by Rod McKuen) is gorgeous -- particularly "Two Schoolgirls," the title song, "I'll Catch the Sun," and "Ain't You Glad You're Livin' Joe" --- making the o.o.p soundtrack LP a valuable, worthy find. But Sarne has no sense of how to pair music with image in a film --- so the songs feel thrown, haphazardly, on top of their scenes -- as if Sarne wanted to use the music, but didn't know how or where to include it.

A rare exception to this rule occurs during the final sequence - a musical number at a train station. Joyous and refreshing (and not simply because it signifies the end of the picture), the finale recalls the bittersweet mood/style of Jacques Demy's picture "The Umbrellas of Chebourg." Why didn't Sarne use this mood/style for the entire picture? It would have improved the film substantially.

The dialogue in "Joanna" is wildly uneven. It might be easy to dismiss the characters' lines as all trite and cliched, but that isn't the case. From time to time, you'll hear a bit of dialogue in this picture that is (intentionally) laugh-out-loud hilarious, and reveals greater depth to the characters. The best example is when Joanna meets her soon-to-be-lover, a black nightclub owner/hipster (Calvin Lockhart), and he exclaims, "Hey, Joanna -- how you been?" Joanna, who constantly tries to fit in with everyone, seems to miss the "hip" rhetoric of his question and responds limply, "I been fine. How you been?" as he speeds away. It's a funny, well-planned beat, but those are few and far between in this picture.

If you have the chance to see "Joanna," it's a mildly interesting experience, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find a copy (as I did). This picture is a failed experimental effort from the sixties that deserves to be forgotten.