Zabriskie Point (1970) :(((

This film was obviously aimed at 1960s LSD addicts, as they are the only ones who could understand what the hell director Michelangelo Antonioni was trying to say with Zabriskie Point (1970).  Lets look at some of the bands whose music is played in it: Pink Floyd, the Kaleidoscope, and the Grateful Dead.  Need I say more? The movie bombed at the box office, but has become a cult classic over the years. This is yet another sign that this is a movie aimed at deadheads. Oh, yes, I know Antonioni is making a statement about the 1960s counterculture movement and American consumerism, so please don’t go ballistic on that point.  It’s just bad on so many levels—not even the spectacular work of cinematographer Alfio Contini can save it. 

For those of you who don’t know, Zabriskie Point is an actual place in Death Valley National Park.  Just as Dennis Hopper desecrated St. Louis Cemetery in Easy Rider (1969) with lewd sexual acts, Antonioni delivers a psychedelic and graphic sex scene that involves group sex and goes on for what seems like half the movie.  I get that people like to go to Zabriskie Point and drop acid and/or take peyote, but who’d really want to have sex there? It’s hotter than hell and is composed of various sediments—namely borax.  And, they didn’t even have a blanket!

Okay, I’ve gone off on a tangent and forgotten to tell you who is actually having sex.  Mark (Mark Frechette) is a college dropout and carpenter who is involved in the counterculture movement on an unnamed college campus in Los Angeles.  Daria (Daria Halprin) is the secretary and girlfriend of a man (Rod Taylor) building a subdivision somewhere near Phoenix.  They meet after Mark steals a single-engine plane and takes it for a joyride over the desert.  It is never explained how Mark knows how to fly or why Daria would think it’s a good idea to give a ride to a complete stranger whom she meets in the desert. Approximately an hour after meeting they are having sex at Zabriskie Point. Not too much longer after this Mark flies the plane back to LA and is shot to death by the police, and Daria imagines that her boyfriend’s awesome house in the desert explodes.  Really, that’s what happens.

There’s a reason you’ve never heard of Frechette or Halprin: they were horrible actors.  Frechette was a hippie who gave all his money to a commune and then ended up in jail after he robbed a bank (he died in jail in a bizarre weightlifting accident). For her part, Halprin made one more film after Zabriskie Point and then married Dennis Hopper (perhaps they shared a sense of depravity?).  Why would Antonioni cast them, you ask? They were attractive—sort of the American versions of Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti, but with a lot less talent. 

The only thing this film has going for it is its cinematography.  I can only imagine what Contini thought when he saw all of his fantastic widescreen shots set to horrible American music and ruined by the wooden acting of the leads.  Even the apocalyptic ending sequence, which sees multiple views of the exploding house, is somehow corrupted by whatever anti-consumerism/capitalism statement that Antonioni is trying to make. Plus, the house he blew up was awesome—what a complete waste, especially for a film like Zabriskie Point. 

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Jurassic Park (1993) **

I’m one of those people who as a child could have cared less about dinosaurs. I never had a desire to learn all of the dinosaur names or go to museums and look at their skeletal remains. When I visited the Field Museum in Chicago I was more interested in looking at the Aztec, Inca and Maya collections that anything else.  As such, it should come as no surprise that I just wasn’t that into director Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993). Yes, there are a lot of stunning visuals (CGI can work miracles), and it is somewhat interesting to see what dinosaurs might have looked like, but that’s really all I can say for this horror/disaster film. 

Michael Crichton was paid $500,000 to adapt his best-selling novel, Jurassic Park, for this Spielberg and Universal Pictures enterprise.  Crichton was aided in this endeavor by fellow screenwriter David Koepp, who cut out large segments of violence from the novel and simplified the final screenplay. Still, the movie justly garnered a PG-13 rating—there was more than enough violence and terror for me, let alone the minds of young children, whose parents still took them to see this $900 million world-wide grossing adventure.  Oh, and bought them the t-shirts, lunch boxes, and other merchandise that made this one of the most profitable franchises ever—two sequels and a river adventure at Universal Resort created what seems like an endless revenue stream. 

If you think about it it is more than bizarre that there is Jurassic Park River Adventure at Universal Resort.  The film is about a dinosaur theme park (Jurassic Park) situated somewhere near Costa Rica that has some liability and security issues—namely man-eating dinosaurs.  Why would anyone who has seen humans terrorized by giant reptiles want to go on a vacation to a resort that mimics many aspects of the film?  Granted, the dinosaurs aren’t real, but this doesn’t negate the fact that Jurassic Park was most assuredly not the happiest place on earth. 

Seeing the life-size dinosaurs and the lush rainforest were both highlights.  Spielberg has a unique talent for creating stunning visuals for his adventure movies.  He and cinematographer Dean Cundey produced lasting images with the help of the special effects of Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, Michael Lantieri, and Dennis Muren.  Enhanced by a memorable musical score by John Williams, Jurassic Park’s visuals are truly a sight to see.

Ah, but stunning visuals does not make me love a movie.  The story itself is utterly ridiculous.  Could a man (Sam Neill) really safely navigate through lush terrain infested with carnivorous dinosaurs?  But wait, he has to drag along two kids (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello), too? 

When you have a lot of screaming and running something usually happens to the quality of acting—this film is no exception.  Laura Dern relies on a variety of facial expressions for emotive purposes, and Neill just looks pissed off in most scenes.  Richard Attenborough, who plays the eccentric owner of the park, fully delves into his character’s quirkiness.  Quite simply, this movie does not rely on the performances of the humans to push it along—that honor rests solely with the CGI created dinosaurs. 

Final analysis: extraordinary visuals; ridiculous plot; and, lackluster cast.  One out of three isn’t necessarily bad, but it is definitely not good, either. 

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1900 (Novecento) 1976 **

 

So this film is really long—really long: 317 minutes.  I’m not always opposed to films that take an inordinate amount of time to watch. I liked Shoah (1985), War and Peace (1967), and Fanny and Alexander (1983). But then there are films like director Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 (1976), which seem to drag on for way too long.  Granted, Bertolucci was working for a producer (Alberto Grimaldi) who locked him out of the editing room, but someone had to shoot all of that footage in the first place, now didn’t they?  There are two versions of this movie, one with a run time of 245-minutes and another with 317.  I had the not so pleasure of watching the NC-17 version which runs 317—graphic violence, nudity, and explicit sex abounds.

The story begins in 1900 when two boys are born on the same day at the Berlinghieri plantation in Emilia, Italy.  Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert De Niro) is the grandson of the padrone (Burt Lancaster), while Olmo Dalcò (Gerard Depardieu) is the illegitimate grandson of the plantation’s foreman (Sterling Hayden). Despite their social positions the boys become friends, and the movie traces the unlikely pairing’s intersecting lives until 1945 (Liberation Day). Along the way we learn that Alfredo is a bit of a coward and Olmo is nobly heroic, but that doesn’t mean that one is more likable than the other.  When Olmo becomes involved with the Socialist movement there is a visible darkness to his personality; whereas, Alfredo always seems more accepting of others’ oddities (he idolizes his gay uncle [Werner Bruhns] and marries a crazy woman [Dominique Sanda]). The complexity of Alfredo and Olmo’s friendship is the best thing about the entire film.

Of course we couldn’t have an Italian movie set between 1900-1945 that didn’t examine the rise of the Fascists and the would-be liberation of the Italian peasants.  Bertolucci’s political metaphor is heavy-handed, and, at times, difficult to stomach (he obviously had certain leanings).  His decision to make the psychotic and sadistic overseer of the Berlinghieri plantation the face of Fascism was telling. Naming said overseer Attila (Donald Sutherland) and pairing him with a woman as deranged as him (Laura Betti) was just an added bonus.  Sutherland plays his character in such an over-the-top manner that it borders on camp.  I blame Bertolucci for this—a better director would have reigned in this cartoonish performance.

Still, the production values of 1900 are top-notch. As usual Ennio Morricone creates a memorable score and soundtrack, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro exquisitely captures the Italian countryside.  For the most part the set designs and costumes are period appropriate, but something happened in the editing room—not enough cuts!  Franco Arcalli and Grimaldi did a great disservice by not trimming a lot of excess nonsense.  I don’t know if I can blame them alone, though, as it was Bertolucci who thought it was a good idea to shoot prolonged scenes with full frontal male nudity, and, most absurdly, a scene where Lancaster attempts to get an erection so he can molest a peasant girl.  Oh, and lest I forget the scenes where Sutherland kills both a cat and a young boy.  Did Bertolucci really have to shoot such graphic scenes of depravity to illustrate that Attila was a mean bastard?  Ick!

Besides the friendship of Alfredo and Olmo, what I liked most about 1900 is that I got to see Depardieu when he was handsome.  It sounds a bit shallow, but since he has now morphed into a bloated old Frenchmen, it is nice to remember that he used to be a somewhat good looking man. 

 

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The Sting (1973) ***

Other than my husband, Mr. Clooney, there never was a sexier man than Paul Newman. As such, I would enjoy watching The Sting (1973) even if the story wasn’t extremely clever and the music memorable.  Thankfully, Oscar-winning director George Roy Hill’s Best Picture winner is all of those things and so much more. Nominated for ten Academy Awards (it won seven), The Sting is loaded with great performances and is a stylish production.

The Oscar winning screenplay by David S. Ward was inspired by real life grifters Charley and Fred Gondorff.  In the film, Newman plays Henry Gondorff, an accomplished confidence man who knows how to stack the deck like no other person.  He becomes paired up with a hot-headed hustler named Johnny Hooker (an Oscar nominated Robert Redford) when a mutual friend (Robert Earl Jones) is rubbed out by no-nonsense crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw).  To “sting” the mobster out of $500,000 the pair constructs an elaborate con game based on something called “the wire”. They enlist dozens of known con artists in and around Chicago to reign down their own special brand of revenge on Lonnegan.  Along the way they must also evade a crooked cop (Charles Durning) and a cold-blooded assassin (Dimitra Arliss), and they must also try to do the one thing that no con worth their salt wants to do: they must trust one another to finish the big score.

It goes without saying that the story keeps you guessing. Will there be a double-cross? Who’s telling the truth?  How can Newman still look that hot at 48?  Ward’s script is smart and well-constructed.  I didn’t notice any fat that could have been trimmed; and, all of the elements of the plot folded together very nicely right up to the end.  I’m a fan of smart scripts, and this is definitely one of the smartest of the 1970s.

Strangely, what most people remember about the movie is its score. Marvin Hamlisch’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Scott Joplin’s rag is memorable.  For days after watching this I had the tune bouncing around in my head.  Both Joplin and ragtime saw a resurgence in popularity during the 1970s because of Hamlisch’s inspired (quite literally) soundtrack.

This was the second time Newman, Redford, and Hill worked together (they’d done Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969) and it showed.  There’s a familiarity to the two leads interactions onscreen that builds an instant camaraderie between their characters. Newman plays the elder splendidly, and Redford looks like he’s really taking mental notes from a master.  Personally (and perhaps selfishly), I wish Newman’s Gondorff was featured more in the film, but I can’t really complain about how much time is spent on Redford’s Hooker.  Still, a few more shots of those Newman eyes would have been nice…

Of course, no film can be good without a gifted supporting cast.  I adore Eileen Brennan, so of course I loved her Billie here.  While she may have not gotten as much screen time or dialogue as I would have liked, who can play a tough broad like Brennan?  And, of course, no one played an SOB like Robert Shaw, either.  It is reported that no one wanted to play Lonnegan and that Newman hand-delivered the script to him in London. The limp he incorporated into this role was a real one, as he had an accident one week prior to filming that injured his knee. 

Finally, kudos must be sent out to Edith Head’s Oscar-winning costume design and James Payne and Henry Bumstead’s Oscar-winning art direction.  The story takes place in 1936 and it looks like it.  The clothes, hairstyles, and mise en scène are all spot on.  Heck, they even used title cards to educate the audience on the various parts of a sting. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Sting. It’s a highly entertaining film that is filled with good performances and smart writing.  Plus, Newman just looks so damn sexy!

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The Story of a Cheat (Le Roman d’un Tricheur) 1936 **

Never heard of this film or its director, writer, and star, Sacha Guitry?  If you answered yes, you are probably not alone.  Guitry was a prolific French playwright who liked to make cynical films (he directed 33). So, how did such a busy director fall into obscurity?  He fell in with the wrong crowd—notably, he collaborated with the Nazis during WWII.  Guitry has only recently be reintroduced to the cinematic world due to a 4-film DVD collection issued by the Criterion Collection.  Having seen the four films, I can honestly say that Le Roman d’un Tricheur (1936) was my least favorite of the group. 

Guitry plays the Cheat (we never learn his name) and narrates 99% of the film. That’s right, this is in almost every way a silent film.  His voiceover replaces the title cards, and, save the last two minutes of the film, no character speaks a word.  The only other sound you hear is Adolphe Borchard’s music (good thing he was introduced in the odd intro to the movie!). Okay, by 1936 the only other person I recall making silents was Chaplin—and let me tell you, Guitry is most assuredly no Chaplin.  At first, you expect the narration to soon come to an end, then as time continues and so does the narration you try to remember when they started making talkies in France—1929? 1930? Then, by the time you remember, Guitry decides to end his picture by allowing spoken dialogue for the last few minutes—what was the point, then?  It seems gimmicky—and I don’t like gimmicks.

Le Roman d’un Tricheur’s screenplay was adapted from Guitry’s novel Les Mémoires d'un Tricheur. The story itself is somewhat interesting: a boy is saved from eating poisonous mushrooms due to having stolen money from his father and being deprived of that night’s dinner.  While in his heart he wants to be an honest man, the Cheat always seems to find himself involved with people (mostly women) who want to lure him into various acts of theft. His reflections on Monte Carlo and Monaco are hilarious, and there is an abundance of irony throughout.

Still, the humor of the Le Roman d’un Tricheur is not enough for me to overlook just how drawn-out the film seems (and it was only 81 minutes!). Perhaps it’s the idea of being directly spoken to for 79 minutes that makes it seem so long and, at times, boring.  In France, Guitry was viewed as an ego-maniac…maybe that had something to do with his choice to be the only voice heard throughout most of the film. 

Overall, I was not impressed with Le Roman d’un Tricheur.  Now, if you want to see a good Guitry movie, I suggest Désiré, which is far more entertaining. 

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All That Jazz (1979) **1/2

This is vanity at its most pretentious. Fellini had his 8 1/2 (1963) and director Bob Fosse had his All That Jazz (1979). Like Fellini, there is much to like about a Fosse production, but there are also, like Fellini, quibbles to be had, too.  Films with an autobiographical bent can sometimes become too fantastical, and, well, self-indulgent—there are elements of both in All That Jazz.

Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is a successful director of films and musicals, as well as a gifted dancer and choreographer. But, he’s also a chain-smoking, womanizing workaholic on the verge of a massive coronary. He starts his days off by listening to Vivaldi’s Concerto in G, popping dexedrine, and smoking a pack of cigarettes before breakfast.  In what can only be described as an extended ostentatious reflection, the audience gets to eavesdrop as Gideon discusses his life with a scantily-clad Angel of Death (Jessica Lange)—with  over-the-top Fosse musical numbers scattered in for good measure.  By the end of the film you are either pleased as punch with the ending or asking yourself WTF just happened—or perhaps both. 

Well, it wouldn’t be a Fosse film if there wasn’t singing and dancing, so let’s start with the musical numbers.  I love musicals, but for some reason I didn’t really like any of the numbers in All That Jazz. Sure, I loved hearing George Benson’s “On Broadway” at the start of the film, but found myself overly-taxed by watching the infamous cattle call at the beginning.  Then, there’s “Take Off with Us”. The first part is palatable, the second part is one step above soft-core porn, and, as such, not my cup of tea.  And, finally, there is the series of numbers relating to Gideon’s impending demise: “After You’re Gone”, “You Better Change Your Ways”, “Who’s Sorry Now,” “Some of These Days,” and “Bye Bye Life”. The production designs and costumes are interesting (both won Oscars), but the musical numbers seemed lacking. 

Then, there’s the acting.  Scheider was nominated for an Oscar, and overall I think he does a nice job of showing what a complete hedonistic ass Gideon is. I suppose before he started making Jaws sequels he was a decent actor. Still, I didn’t think his was the standout performance. I particularly enjoyed Leland Palmer as Audrey, Gideon’s ex wife, and Erzsebet Foldi as Michelle, Gideon’s daughter.  My two favorite parts in the film involve the scenes where the two of them dance with (or in the case of Audrey, around) Gideon.  The complexity of his relationships with Audrey and Michelle shine in these two particular instances, and give much more depth to Gideon’s personality.  As for the rest of the cast, they are passable—except Deborah Geffner as Victoria, who plays her character as though she is really in a soft-core porno. 

So, I’m not exactly raving on this, am I? Still, I gave it a **1/2 rating, so I guess I should say why.  I think Fosse tells the story in a highly unusual and entertaining way.  Yes, it can be pretentious at times, but the way he puts all of the varying parts of the story together to meet at a pretty startling conclusion is inspired storytelling in my opinion.  Alan Heim won an Oscar for his editing of this, but I suspect Fosse had a heavy hand in every single cut.  Sometimes originality doesn’t work, but that is not the case with All That Jazz.

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The Artist (2011) **1/2

When it comes to artistic achievement, director Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist (2011) should be duly lauded. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, it took home Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score (Ludovic Bource), Costume Design (Mark Bridges), and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin). Making a silent, black and white movie in 2011 took guts, and in the end it paid off for Hazanavicius and Dujardin. Still, that doesn’t mean I have to love this film—which I obviously didn’t as indicated by my **1/2 rating. I liked Hugo (2011) far more than this and was beyond shocked that my husband Mr. Clooney’s performance in The Descendants (2011) was beat out by a man who spoke less than five words. Perhaps this sounds like sacrilege to some, but I don’t care, I just wasn’t that impressed.

Dujardin plays George Valentin, a silent-era film star on top of Hollywoodland in 1927. As handsome as John Gilbert and athletically gifted as Rudolph Valentino, Valentin is admired by his fans and valued by his studio, Kinograph. But things change dramatically for Valentin when his studio head, Al Zimmer (John Goodman), decides to scrap silent films in favor of the sound era and replaces his “old” actors with fresh, young faces like Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a woman who got her start in Tinseltown because of Valentin. By 1931, Valentin is pawning and auctioning off his belongings and is mired in alcoholism and depression. It is left up to Peppy to bring Valentin back from the brink and reinsert him in the celluloid frame.

So, what did I like about The Artist? Guillaume Schiffman’s cinematography is brilliant. He may have lost the Oscar to Robert Richardson’s work in Hugo, but coming in second to that effort is no reason to be ashamed. Schiffman shot The Artist in color and at a frame rate of 22 fps (to mimic the silent era’s standard speed). Every detail was matched to the equipment used in 1920s silent films. I have said it numerous times, but I’ll say it again: there is no more beautiful cinematography than a well-composed, pristine black and white shot movie.

The other two things that I like about The Artist are Bejo and Uggie (who plays Jack the dog). While I couldn’t help but admire Dujardin’s handsomeness, it is Bejo who stood out the most to me. Her performance adds depth to this film, and it isn’t difficult to notice that Dujardin’s best scenes are the ones in which he appears with Bejo. She has what they call in France je ne sais quoi. While Uggie might not be described quite the same way as Bejo, he is absolutely adorable. Of course, I love dogs, so he had an extra advantage.

In the end, I am not a huge admirer of The Artist. I respect it as a daring piece of art in a cinema world infested with CGI and intellectual bankruptcy, but it just wasn’t “all that” to me. Still, I think it should be respected for its artistic integrity and outstanding cinematography. But, I must say this once more: my husband, Mr. Clooney, was robbed.

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