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Reviews
Friends (1971)
A CHARMER -- but 2 stars off because male filmmakers
I've been a lifelong Elton fan since 73 but never saw this film from 71 until about 15 years ago. It was a bucket list thing -- am I going to finally see it or never see it? I saw it.
This film can be summed up real easy: it's a great idea for film with a great set up but FRIENDS unfortunately fall victim to horny male filmmakers who want to see the underage kids naked.
Around this time filmmakers were exploring how erotic films about minors could get. I'm a huge LOGAN'S RUN fan and she has one of these films too (WALKABOUT) except she's actually underage while naked, whereas FRIENDS (at least) cast older actors to play minors.
If the damn filmmakers had (serviced themselves before work each day) they would have discovered they were sitting on a gold mine with this story.
Who in the world isn't fascinated by two young teens running away, falling in love, and living an 'adult' life alone? It's the fantasy of each pair of puppie lovers: ditch the dull parents and live innocent and free.
But all the camera gawking and forced nudity? None of it was needed. And the kids taking baths could have been exploited for more humor instead of flesh.
I firmly believe a tasteful version of this story would be a hit NETFLIX series. You wouldn't be able to rip minors away from it -- watching two kids dare fall in love when the world tells them they're TOO YOUNG, which by the way, is another Elton John song.
I came here to write this because I saw the late Roger Ebert disembowel this thing. It's not BLUE LAGOON trash. It's a great movie seasoned here and there with too much BLUE LAGOON, if you see what I'm saying.
The Big Country (1958)
Masterpiece
I'm the pickiest film critic when it comes down to it. As a VERY creative writer I'm literally re-writing most films as I go. So for me to find a film that lets me simply sit back in awe and delight in the presentation are few and far between.
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. ANIMAL HOUSE. WIZARD OF OZ. PAPER MOON. LOCAL HERO. JFK. THE LAST EMPEROR. 2001. NOW VOYAGER. MIDNIGHT RUN. FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. PUNCH DRUNK LOVE.
These are examples of perfect films, from various decades and genres. As you can see I'm not a snob by any means.
I've watched THE BIG COUNTRY at least 7 times now. Had I discovered it while I was younger it would be 17 times by now.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this film. Great cast, great story, great dialogue, great silences, great cinematography, great direction, great lighting.
If I had to find ONE thing lacking it might be Jean Simmons. She was a young thing at this point but she comes off older somehow, perhaps an intentional makeup ploy so that didn't appear to be a child when next to Peck. That, my friends, is all I've got.
I would tell anyone watching this to find a 'free' place to start watching it. If it hooks you by the hour mark go to Amazon and simply buy a copy. Since you'll likely rewatch it again and again.
Enjoy!
Logan's Run (1976)
When you grow up and accept STORY matters more than SPECIAL EFFECTS
When you were a kid you eventually fond that first film that really GRABBED you. A film you INHALE into your soul and irrationally love more than the film truly merits.
It's like your eyes roll up and you ARE this movie and, therefore, anyone who criticizes it criticizes you and you dismiss them as ignorant tools who do not understand 'God'. It's bigger than being a fanboy. It's like a religion for many years.
The original STAR WARS did this to countless people. The special effects were ground breaking and appeared to be 16 years ahead of the likes of LOGAN'S RUN. They simply got lost inside the world of STAR WARS and nothing else mattered.
When I saw STAR WARS I was like, okay, it's an amazing rollercoaster ride, yes, but there's something painfully Disney stupid about this film. It was like Sci-Fi for people who hated Sci-Fi. For Science Fiction exists to explore IDEAS about humanity's future... or lack thereof. Wookies?!? What is this crap.
For, you see, just years earlier I saw 2001. I think I was like 7 maybe? Only minutes later I caught the jarring but fascinating world of PLANET OF THE APES. Both films had some quality visuals going on but who really gives a crap about that when you WITNESS these amazing STORIES?!?
The people who give a crap are victims of STAR WARS. They just want to see shiny keys and be a delighted infant instead of THINK about what they are watching.
Oh, and SPOILER: the original Star Wars film is about a farmboy who gets to pop his John Thomas into the womb of a giant ball and then explode it. I know that's a harsh Freudian read but really the film is otherwise disposable pablum. So, yeah, if it gets you off to watch Luke shoot his load into something that will explode, start reconsidering when women speak of rape culture.
LOGAN'S RUN came out a year before STAR WARS. It was a huge budgeted B movie, if you can believe that. It was trying to exploit all the new STAR TREK fans who, thru reruns, were desperate to see a new story exploding with interesting IDEAS.
Fascism vs. Civil Order. Innocent and beautiful youth vs. Forgetfulness and the loneliness of old age. A society run by slowly breaking machines and computers. Sex vs. Love. Individuality vs. Family. Glitzy 'Las Vegas' vs. The Green of Nature. Drugs vs. Reality.
Yes -- they stuffed too much into this film, sometimes with great success but at other times... not so much. The point of such a film isn't to be a neat tidy situation tied up in a bow but make you look beyond the Shiny Keys of Disney and dare to see the world for what it is.
LOGAN'S RUN goes so far past Good Vs. Evil I feel sorry for STAR WARS. Of course some of the effects are cheesy because Hollywood wasn't quite there yet. Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS is a classic because the adults in the room don't give flying poop pie about the cancer that has become 'special effects'.
I don't want to spoil much else about LOGAN'S RUN but I will say the love story in it is actually rather special. You see at this moment in American culture women wanted equal rights. And this film delivers them for Logan and Jessica in a way that still moves me to this day.
Also there's a fight scene between Logan and his best friend Francis that is simply heartbreaking in a Shakespearean way.
Did I mention that Jerry Goldsmith score is as inventive as it is beautiful? No, you're not going to get a typical John Williams 'March' theme here. Instead you'll be listening to early synthesizers vs. Classic orchestral score.
It's not a perfect film but there's simply so much to enjoy here.
La Cage aux folles (1978)
A 9.5 because of one sloppy last minute omission that got by most of us
I was lucky enough to see this when I was a teenage usher in a classic theater. I saw it for free once and caught it about 4 more times. Audiences LOVED it.
My problem is I just saw it again... days before this review. I noticed a glaring omission that just isn't... cool. Which I've missed maybe 5 times in between those days and now.
The story -- wrote itself into a corner. We the audience were having so much fun and so happy to see the wedding... we forgot that the story didn't take us there. It took us to the Gov't official being tied to an 'immoral' gay couple.
If the implication was he got away with his escape -- he didn't, because the press already knew where he was. And they certainly would notice Simon's daughter marrying Laurent.
What's supposed to happen is the 'villain' (Simon) has a reckoning with himself, his daughter, and her gay in laws. I'd have accepted a scene of him in drag with the press surrounding him proclaiming his daughter's family is good and moral and loving. He'd say, "And if my party cannot accept this I can no longer accept my party."
I know, sounds drastic, but we have to get Simon to that wedding somehow.
A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
An Interesting but sadly disappointing misfire
(I talk around spoilers so my reviews are spoilish sometimes.) I've seen a zillion movies. Like you I know all the big names of big directors. Love movies by Kubrick, Spielberg, Woody Allen -- the classics. But for some reason my wife and I really bonded with two movies by a director we had never heard of: Guy Green.
In our living room hang two framed pictures of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and A PATCH OF BLUE. Guy Green's best films, the latter a masterwork. My wife loves Piazza. She's not alone. It's been turned into a musical. My heart is with PATCH. Both movies are about people finding each other that desperately need each other.
I just joined FILMSTRUCK -- an online streaming version of TCM. It offered up this film, Guy Green's A WALK IN THE SPRING RAIN. Had to see it.
Again -- we have two people finding each other -- but this time the desperation isn't so desperate. Ingrid and Anthony aren't utterly alone. They're married. So it's the land of infidelity this time -- which is an entire different ball of wax that PIAZZA and PATCH.
One of the other reviewers on this page touched upon a central problem. Almost everyone in this cast was miscast. Quinn simply doesn't pull of a Tennessee mountain man. He's CLEARLY someone who moved to these mountains from Europe and it could have taken all of 2 minutes of dialog to fix this central flaw. It would have helped the story as well -- to learn he was more of a traveler type but that got stuck because of his wife and kid.
The actor playing his son? Beach boy from Malibu. Quinn's wife? They overdid her Christian country backwards thing. We simply don't believe he'd 'settle' for her based upon his reaction to Ingrid. I mean if he's such a man of the world and elements what attracted him about this doorknob of a person? Contrived.
Another reviewer above mentioned how 'pushy' Quinn is. And it's true. Out of the gate he makes it clear he'd do Ingrid. Practically in front of her husband. And so we cringe half the time in this movie. You even had to wonder if he was going to rape her -- considering how pushy he was in his flirting.
And so Quinn is where this entire feature misfires. He's doing a fine job of being himself but the script forgot to write him in properly. And there was absolutely no nuance here that is all over the similar and way better BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. If you told me BRIDGES was offered as a rewrite of this I'd believe you.
No, seriously. Do you remember the last scene in BRIDGES? It spoils nothing to say there's a lot of rain. Well... where's the rain in this movie? THE WALK IN THE SPRING RAIN? Nowhere. Did it get edited out? I suspect that pivotal scene where Ingrid walks up that sandy road was where the rain was supposed to be. Maybe they were counting on rain which never showed and had no money to fake it. But then why call this movie that poetic title without delivering the visual poetry. I mean what if BRIDGES didn't actually show you any bridges? Right? This bumpiness hampers what could have been a far better movie. It's not so bad as to avoid. And it's better than most movies today in many ways.
That's the kind of bumpiness that's here.