February 2011
8 posts
Chronic American Ignorance of British Culture
Ty Burr commented in his review of Tom Hooper’s ‘feel good’ film of the year and Oscar favorite, The King’s Speech, “this movie wallows in its royal privileges, and its superficial message is that a little kick in the pants from an Aussie speech therapist is all a king needs to connect with his subjects and lead them stalwartly through World War II (and then lose the colonies, but never mind).”...
The Long Goodbye
Robert Altman once remarked to Dick Cavett, “no one has ever made a good movie.” About forty years have passed since that irreverent comment, and now I believe I can amend his statement slightly, for in those forty years, at least three ‘good’ movies have been made. They are McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, and The Long Goodbye. The word ‘Genius’ is thrown around without much...
Days of Heaven
There has never been any debate as to whether Terrence Malick delivered an aesthetically moving experience in his second film, Days of Heaven. However, many have struggled to answer the question, which the viewer and the critic seem obliged to ask: “what was the film about?” Or, alternatively “what was the point – moral, political, or otherwise – of the film?” And, there is reason Days of Heaven...
Nashville
The BBC reporter, Opal, whose “Received Pronunciation” is the most dissonant sound to come out of Robert Altman’s epic musing on America, Nashville, is the character who seems to dismay most members of the audience, but I have a particular affection for her. Growing up with listening to BBC Radio Four and BBC one, I am more familiar than most with that particular type of reporter and personality....
Chinatown
In some ways, the 21st Century viewer is at a serious disadvantage when he or she comes across Roman Polanski’s supposed finest hour, Chinatown, for if that viewer had the displeasure of viewing Jack Nicholson’s less than spectacular output in 2003 (Anger Managament and Something’s Gotta Give), they are well aware that Mr. Nicholson has become a caricature of both himself and Jake Gittes. The...
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Robert Altman’s anti-western, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, is nothing short of a masterpiece. The ethereal cinematography and the Leonard Cohen score sets an the tone from the opening scene, which is pointedly described by Salon.com’s Charles Taylor when he remarked “it looks like old photographs lit from within, as though the subjects had created a sort of afterlife by finding a way to project their...
Weather Underground
In Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s documentary, Weather Underground, it is not the mythical organization, the acts of violence, or the moral efficacy of the group’s actions, which take center stage. Instead, it is the personalities - Bill Ayes, Mark Rudd, Brian Flannagan, and David Gilbert - who take that stage. Interestingly many of these weathermen and weatherwomen are still active in various...
Hair
Milos Forman’s adaptation of Hair is most notable for the year in which it was released: 1979. In his 1979 State of the Union speech to Congress, President Jimmy Carter opined “we cannot resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense.” From the vantage point of the late seventies, the late sixties seemed to be such a time of “simplistic” and “extreme” solutions...