Film Review: The Passenger (dir by Michelangelo Antonioni)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1975 film, The Passenger, tells the story of David Locke (Jack Nicholson).

Locke is a television news journalist. From what we can gather, he’s respected from his colleagues, even though he doesn’t seem to be extremely close to anyone, including his wife (Jenny Runacre). Everyone thinks that Locke is dead. They believe that he was found dead in a hotel room in Africa, the victim of a heart attack. What they don’t know is that Locke is actually alive. He switched identities with Robertson (Charles Mulvehill), the man who actually was found dead in the hotel room. After years of reporting on a world that appears to be going insane, Locke has decided that it’s time for a fresh start. He no longer wants to deal with his marriage, his career, or anything else that used to define David Locke as a person. He now just wants to be Robertson.

Of course, the problem with this plan is that Robertson had a life before Locke appropriated it. Locke discovers that Robertson was not only a gun runner but he was also supplying weaponry to the same rebels that Locke, in his previous life, traveled to Africa to do a story on. Since Locke has Robertson’s appointment book, he decides to keep all of Robertson’s meeting across Europe.

Meanwhile, Locke’s wife is curious to know about her husband’s final moments and, for that reason, she wants to speak with this mysterious Robertson, who was the last person to reportedly see her husband alive. Locke’s friend, Martin (Ian Hendry) sets out to try to track down Robertson. Locke, meanwhile, has met an architecture student (Maria Schneider), with whom he embarks on a passionate affair despite not ever learning her name.

The Passenger famously ends with a seven minute tracking shot, one that begins in a hotel room and then moves out into the hotel’s courtyard before then returning to the hotel room. While the audience is watching the action unfold in the courtyard, something very important happens inside of that hotel room. In fact, what happens in the hotel room is probably the most important moment of the entire film and yet director Michelangelo Antonioni only shows us the events leading up to the moment and the events immediately afterwards. Antonioni leaves it up to the audience to determine exactly what happened inside of that hotel room. It’s a bold move on his part and it’s also the perfect way to end this film. The Passenger is a film about detachment and it only makes sense that the film would end with the ultimate statement of detachment, with the emphasis being less on what’s happening in the hotel room and more on the fact that life, in all of its random and confusing messiness, will continue regardless of how the story of David Locke turns out.

It’s definitely not a film for everyone. Those who watch the film excepting a typically explosive Jack Nicholson performance will probably be surprised to discover that Jack plays a rather quiet character in The Passenger, one who is often so introverted that it’s a struggle to figure out what exactly is going on inside of his mind. Locke thinks that, as a journalist, he understands the world but, when he becomes Robertson, he discovers that there’s a big difference between reporting a story and actually being a part of that story. It’s an odd experience, watching Jack Nicholson play a character who is essentially in over his head. And yet, this is is also one of Nicholson’s best performances. Freed up from his usual tricks, Nicholson gives a vulnerable and ultimately rather sad performance as a man who realizes too late that he’s grown so detached from the world that he no longer really has an identity.

The Passenger‘s a difficult but intriguing film. It’s a classic of the 70s and features Jack Nicholson at his best.

Film Review: Fingers (dir by James Toback)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to method actor Hell!

The 1978 film, Fingers, tell the story of Jimmy “Fingers” Angelilli (Harvey Keitel). Jimmy is a creep who works as a debt collector for his father, a small-time loan shark named Ben (Michael V. Gazzo). Jimmy is violent and brutal and often wanders around with a disturbingly blank-look on his face but we’re supposed to like him because he’s a talented pianist and he’s got a recital interview coming up at Carnegie Hall. Jimmy carries a radio with him wherever he goes and he’s obsessed with the song Summertime. He’s the type who will sit in a crowded restaurant and play the song and then get upset when someone tells him to turn off his radio. By the end of the movie, I was really hoping that someone would take Jimmy’s radio and smash into a hundred pieces.

Jimmy is in love with Carol (Tisa Farrow, who was a far better actress than her sister Mia and who would later appear in Lucio Fulci’s classic, Zombi 2), who doesn’t really seem to all that into him. Despite being in love with Carol, Jimmy still hits on every woman that he meets and, because this is a 70s films, he’s constantly getting laid despite being kind of a charmless putz.

Jimmy meets a former boxer named Dreems (Jim Brown). Carol is apparently one of Dreems’s mistresses. Jimmy silently watched while Dreems knocks two women’s heads together. Jimmy stands there with his little radio and a blank expression on his face. Is anything going on inside of Jimmy’s head? It’s hard to say.

Eventually, Jimmy finds out that a gangster (Tony Sirico) owes his father money but is refusing to pay. It all leads to violence.

As a film, Fingers is pretty much full of shit but that shouldn’t come as a surprise because it was the directorial debut of James Toback and there’s no American filmmaker who has been as consistently full of shit as James Toback. Fingers has all of Toback’s trademarks — gambling, crime, guilt, classical music, and a juvenile view of sexuality that suggests that James Toback’s personal development came to a halt when he was 16 years old. It’s a pretentious film that really doesn’t add up too much. Again, you know what you’re getting into when James Toback directs a film. Don’t forget, this is the same director who made a documentary where he was apparently shocked to discover that no one wanted to finance a politically-charged remake of Last Tango in Paris starring Alec Baldwin and Neve Campbell.

Fingers is a bit of an annoying film and yet it’s not a total loss. For one thing, if you’re a history nerd like I am, there’s no way that you can’t appreciate the fact that the film was shot on location in some of New York’s grimiest neighborhoods in the 70s. While I imagine it was more of a happy accident than anything intentional on Toback’s part (because, trust me, I’ve seen Harvard Man), Fingers does do a good job of creating an off-center, dream-like atmosphere where the world constantly seems to be closing in on its lead character. Jimmy is trying to balance his life as violent mobster with being a sensitive artist and the world around him is saying, “No, don’t count on it, you schmuck.”

As well, Harvey Keitel gives a …. well, I don’t know if I would necessarily say that it’s a good performance. In fact, it’s a fairly annoying performance and that’s a problem when a film is trying to make you feel sympathy for a character who is pretty unsympathetic. That said, there’s never a moment in the film where Keitel is boring. In Fingers, Keitel takes the method to its logical end point and, as a result, you actually get anxious just watching him simply look out of a window or sit in a corner. Even though Jimmy eyes rarely shows a hint of emotion, his fingers are always moving and, just watching the way that he’s constantly twitching and fidgeting, you get the feeling that Jimmy’s always on the verge of giving out a howl of pain and fury. It doesn’t really make Jimmy someone who you would want to hang out with. In fact, I spent the entire movie hoping someone would just totally kick his ass and put him in the hospital for a few weeks. But it’s still a performance that you simply cannot look away from. Watching Keitel’s performance, you come to realize that Fingers is essentially a personal invitation to visit a Hell that is exclusively populated by method actors who have gone too far.

Anyway, my feelings about Fingers were mixed. Can you tell? It’s an interesting movie. I’ll probably never watch it again.

Film Review: The Panic In The Needle Park (dir by Jerry Schatzberg)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1971 The Panic in Needle Park tells the story of two young lover in New York City.

Helen (Kitty Winn) is an innocent runaway from Indiana who, when we first meet her, has just had a back alley abortion. Her boyfriend, Marco (Raul Julia), doesn’t seem to be too concerned about her or anyone else for that matter. Instead, it’s Marco’s dealer, Bobby (Al Pacino), who checks in on Helen and who visits her when she eventually ends up in the hospital. It’s also Bobby who gives her a place to stay after she gets out of the hospital.

Bobby is a small-time dealer. He’s not book smart but he knows how to survive on the streets and it’s hard not to be charmed by him. He literally never stop talking. As he explains it to Helen, he’s been in jail 8 times but he’s not a bad guy. His brother, Hank (Richard Bright, who also co-starred with Pacino in The Godfather films), is a burglar and he legitimately is a bad guy but he and Bobby seem to have a close relationship. Bobby also swears that he’s not a drug addict. He just occasionally indulges. It doesn’t take long to discover that Bobby isn’t being completely honest with either Helen or himself.

Together, Bobby and Helen ….

Well, they don’t solve crimes. In fact, they really don’t do much of anything. That’s kind of the problem with movies about drug addicts. For the most part, drug addicts are boring people and there’s only so many times that you can watch someone shoot up before you lose interest. Heroin may make the addicts feel alive but, with a few notable exception (Trainspotting comes to mind), it’s always been a bit of a cinematic dead end. The film takes a documentary approach to Bobby and Helen’s descent into addiction and it’s not exactly the most thrilling thing to watch.

Bobby and Helen live in an area of New York that’s known as needle park, largely due to the fact that it’s full of addicts. It’s a place where people sit on street corners and nod off and where everyone’s life is apparently fueled by petty crime. An unlikable narcotics detective (Alan Vint) occasionally walks through the area and tries to talk everyone into betraying everyone else. It turns out that being a drug addict is not like being in the mafia. Everyone expects you to betray everyone else.

As I said, it’s a bit of a drag to watch but you do end up caring about Bobby and Helen. They come across as being two essentially decent people who have gotten caught up in a terrible situation. Even when they piss you off, you still feel badly for them because you know that they’ve surrendered control of their lives to their addictions. It helps that they’re played by two very appealing actors. This was only Al Pacino’s second film and his first starring role but he commands the screen like a junkie James Cagney. Meanwhile, making her film debut, Kitty Winn gives a sympathetic and likable performance as Helen. You watch Winn’s vulnerably sincere performance and you understand why Helen would have looked for safety with undeserving losers like Marco and Bobby and, as a result, you don’t hold it against her that she seems to be addicted not just to heroin but also to falling for the wrong men. Helen does a lot of stupid things but you keep hoping that she’ll somehow manage to survive living in needle park.

Pacino, of course, followed-up The Panic In Needle Park with The Godfather. As for Kitty Win, she won best actress at Cannes but the role didn’t lead to the stardom that it probably should have. Her best-known role remains playing the nanny in The Exorcist.

Short Film Review: What Did Jack Do? (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In a dark, black-and-white station, the train has been delayed. Though we never actually see them, a waitress (Emily Stofle) says that there are cops swarming the station. At a small table, a Capuchin monkey named Jack (voiced, according to the credits, by Jack Cruz) waits for his order. A white-haired Detective (played by director David Lynch) takes a seat across from the monkey. Both the Detective and the monkey are wearing dark suits.

The Detective and Jack have a conversation. At first, it seems like they’re just tossing out random comments. The Detective mentions farm animals and says that he knows why the chicken cross the road. Jack says that he works as a pipe cleaner. The Detective asks Jack if he’s ever been a card-carrying member of the communist party. Jack avoids the question.

As the interrogation continues, we start to pick up on small patterns and a story emerges. Jack is in love with a hen named Toototaban. The Detective thinks that Jack murdered a musician named Max Clegg. Jack says that it was probably the janitor. The Detective is firm in his belief that Jack is guilty. Jack is only interested in talking about how much he loved Tootataban. He even sings a song about her and it’s about as touching as a song sung by a monkey in love with a chicken can be.

What does it all amount too, this 17-minute noir film from David Lynch? Who knows? With an artist like Lynch, it’s always tempting to read too much into what you’re seeing. I’m personally of the theory that many of Lynch’s most debated films and celebrated images were constructed with no particular logic beyond the fact that it would be an interesting film or a striking image. Lynch is an artist who creates cinematic dreams and most dreams are simply a collection of random feelings and concerns. It’s not until we start trying to piece it all together that we find any deeper meaning and that meaning is usually dependent on our own individual thoughts and obsessions.

What is What Did Jack Do about? Personally, I think it’s about exactly what it says it’s about. It’s about a detective interrogating a monkey in a train station. Why is he interrogating a monkey? Why not? Why is the monkey in love with a hen? Even Jack admits that part is weird but I guess it could happen. Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about the why of it all.

Instead, just enjoy it for what it is, an intriguingly weird 17-minute film. David Lynch has developed into a pretty good actor and he does a great job playing the law-and-order detective. He delivers his dialogue in a rapid-fire, staccato manner. Meanwhile, Jack is as crude as you would expect a monkey to be. The film is both funny and also somewhat ominous. That dark train station is full of shadows and, as you listen to the Detective and Jack try to outwit each other, it’s hard not to think about what might be lurking in the those shadows.

What Did Jack Do? has actually been around for a while. Apparently, it was first screened in France way back in 2017. (The copyright notice at the end of the film lists 2016.) That said, it didn’t premiere in the United States until it showed up on Netflix back in January. So, as far as I’m concerned, this is one of the best films of 2020 so far. Be sure to watch it if you haven’t already. Can you figure out what Jack did?

Film Review: There’s Always Vanilla (dir by George Romero)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You can probably guess how you’ll react to the 1971 film, There’s Always Vanilla, by seeing how much the title annoys you.

To some people, a title like There’s Always Vanilla may sounds innocuous and even a little innocent. After all, vanilla is a flavor and it will always exist and the movie has to be titled something, right? On the other hand, people like me see a title like There’s Always Vanilla and we just cringe because it’s such a cutesy collection of words. We see the title and then we see the fact that the film was made in 1971 and we immediately assume that the film must be some sort of annoying-as-Hell counter-culture romance. There’s Always Vanilla just sounds like something someone would say while trying too hard to be profound.

And we’re right.

There’s Always Vanilla tells the story of Chris Bradly (Raymond Laine), who is an annoying-as-Hell freeloader who the audience is supposed to find to be charming. There are several scenes in which he talks directly to the audience, which is a technique that has always been annoying but which is somehow even more annoying than usual in this film. Chris has just gotten out of the army and now he’s drifting around the country. He makes his money through doing odd jobs. Sometimes, he works as a pimp. Sometimes, he works as a guitar player. Do you remember when you were in college and there was always this kind of annoying 30-something dude who wanted to hang out on campus with all the students and he never seemed to realize how creepy everyone thought he was? Well, that’s Chris.

Anyway, Chris’s father owns a factory that makes baby food because, in 1971, movies always featured people having important jobs that sounded slightly silly. Chris’s father wants him to work at the factory. Chris wants to wander the country being annoying. The movie seems to think that we should, at the very least, understand where Chris is coming from but you know what? BABIES NEED FOOD!

Anyway, Chris eventually meets a beautiful model named Lynn (Judith Ridley, who also appeared in Night of the Living Dead) and he moves in with her. They have a falling in love montage where they run through the park and eat ice cream together. Unfortunately, Lynn knows that Chris is an irresponsible freeloader and, when she gets pregnant, she knows that Chris will be a less than satisfactory father. But, in 1971, getting a safe and legal abortion isn’t really an option either. (There’s an effectively unsettling scene where Lynn meets a back alley abortionist who isn’t willing to take no for an issue.) Lynn is forced to make a decision about her future and Chris is forced to realize that, while life offers up several different flavors of ice cream, there’s always vanilla….

So, this film is a bit infamous because it was directed by George Romero. It was one non-horror film and it’s also a film that he practically disowned. Apparently, it stated out as a 20-minute acting reel for Raymond Laine, which explains all the time that he spends talking to the audience. There’s some disagreement as to who exactly decided to extend it to being a feature film. It’s been suggested that Romero didn’t want to get pigeonholed as being just a horror director after the success of Night of the Living Dead but Romero said, in numerous interviews, that There’s Only Vanilla was only something he directed as a favor to some friends and that he didn’t even consider it to be one of his films.

Of course, a lot of the dispute about who is responsible for There’s Always Vanilla is probably the result of the fact that it’s not a very good film. It’s not as terrible as you may have heard but it’s definitely not good. Judith Ridley gives an excellent performance as Lynn and the scenes that satirize advertising have a real bite, probably due to the fact that they spoke to Romero’s own background. Unfortunately, almost all of those good things are eliminated by just how annoying the character of Chris was. There’s Always Vanilla is one of those counter-culture films that tries to be progressive (for instance, Chris briefly goes into advertising but refuses to do a commercial for the Army) but which still displays an unmistakable streak of misogyny. Chris is basically an irresponsible jerk who freeloads off of everyone but yet we’re still expected to feel sorry for him when Lynn quite reasonably decides that she needs something better in her life.

Anyway, there’s always vanilla and, fortunately for Romero fans, there’s always Martin as well.

Film Review: Three (dir by James Salter)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Coming to us from 1969, Three is a film about three of the most boring people on Earth taking a vacation together.

Bert (Robie Porter) and Taylor (Sam Waterston, in his 20s but looking like he’s in his early 40s) are two American college students who are taking a trip through the Mediterranean. We really don’t learn much about Bert and Taylor, beyond the fact that they’re close friends and they go to college together. Though they visit several historical sites, they don’t really seem to get much out of it. Though they both appear to be wealthy, they still make it a point to drive an old car. It’s one of those affectations of poverty in which a certain type of rich person has always enjoyed indulging.

Anyway, Bert and Taylor wander around for a while and basically act like a bunch of stereotypical American tourists. “Do you speak English?” they ask far too many people. They drink too much at night. They stare at every young woman who walks by. They spend some time lying in a field and talking about life. Unfortunately, since neither one of them has much depth, it’s kind of a boring conversation. Bert, it appears, is a bit more experienced with the “ways of the world” that Taylor. Taylor’s an idealist. Yawn.

Eventually, Taylor meets an English tourist named Marty (Charlotte Rampling) and, despite the fact that she could obviously do better, she decides to travel around with Taylor and Bert. Both Bert and Taylor find Marty to be attractive but they decide that all of three of them will just be friends, with no romance and no commitment.

Of course, it doesn’t really work out that way. Taylor quickly falls in love with Marty but Marty is more attracted to Bert. Bert, meanwhile, is kind of a jerk who picks up a French girl even after it’s obvious that Marty has feelings for him. There’s an odd close-up of Bert blowing cigarette smoke on the French girl’s hands. I’m not really sure why the shot was included in the film, beyond the fact that Three was made in 1969 and filmmakers in the late 60s were bizarrely obsessed with unnecessary close-ups.

Anyway, Three is an oddly lethargic story. Sometimes, I enjoy films where nothing happens but with this one, it didn’t really feel as if either Taylor, Bert, or Marty had earned the right to suffer from ennui. Instead, they just seemed like three shallow people who bumped into each other on vacation. Films like this are only interesting if the characters are interesting but these three seem like they’re all destined to end up working in real estate and boring everyone with stories about the trip they took overseas during their senior year of college. To be honest, the story is really only interesting if you assume that Taylor and Bert are actually in love with each other and that their obsession with Marty is their way of dealing with their own suppressed feelings for one another. That’s pretty obviously the subtext of the story, though Three is too much of a product of its time to openly admit it.

It is somewhat interesting to see Sam Waterston playing a character who isn’t in his 60s but again, Waterston is one of those actors who comes across as if he was born middle-aged and that’s certainly the case in Three. For the most part, Three is a pretty forgettable film, though the Mediterranean scenery is certainly nice.

Film Review: Cover Me, Babe (dir by Noel Black)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I don’t know if I’ve ever come across a non-horror film that featured a more off-putting lead character than Tony, the protagonist of 1970’s Cover Me, Babe.

A film student, Tony (Robert Forster, even in 1970, who was too old for the role) aspires to make avant-garde films. Everyone in the film continually raves about how talented Tony is. The footage that we see, however, tends to suggest that Tony is a pretentious phony. The film opens with footage of a student film that Tony shot, one that involves his girlfriend, Melisse (Sondra Locke) sunbathing in the desert and getting groped by a hand that apparently lives under the sand. It was so self-consciously arty that I assumed that it meant to be satirical and that we were supposed to laugh along as Tony assured everyone that it was a masterpiece. And, to be honest, I’m still not sure that Cover Me, Babe wasn’t meant to be a satire on film school pretension. I mean, that explanation makes about as much sense any other. (Hilariously enough, Tony’s film had the same visual style as the film-within-a-film around which the storyline of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind revolved. At least in the case of Welles, we know that his intent was satirical.)

Tony is not only pretentious but he’s also a bit of a prick. He treats Melisse terribly and he manipulates everyone around him. He wanders around the city with his camera, filming random people and then editing the footage together into films that feel like third-rate Godard. He answers every criticism with a slight smirk, the type of expression that will leave you dreaming of the moment that someone finally takes a swing at him. Tony’s arrogant and he treats everyone like crap but, for whatever reason, everyone puts up with him because …. well, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie. Of course, eventually, everyone does get sick of Tony because otherwise, the movie would never end.

A Hollywood agent (Jeff Corey) calls up Tony and offers to get him work in Hollywood. Tony is rude to the guy on the phone. Tony meets a big time producer who could get Tony work. Tony’s rude to him. Guess who doesn’t get a job? Tony has to get money to develop his latest film from one of his professors so he’s rude to the professor. Guess who doesn’t get any money? Tony cheats on his loyal girlfriend. Tony’s cameraman (played by a youngish Sam Waterston) walks out when Tony tries to film two people having sex. By the end of the movie, no one wants anything to do with Tony. Tony goes for a run on the beach. He appears to be alienated and disgruntled. We’re supposed to care, I guess.

The problem with making a movie about an arrogant artist who alienates everyone around him is that you have to make the audience believe that the artist is talented enough to justify his arrogant behavior. For instance, if you’re going to make a movie about a painter who is prone to paranoid delusions and obsessive behavior, that painter has to be Vincent Van Gogh. He can’t just be the the guy who paints a picture of two lion cubs and then tries to sell it at the local art festival. You have to believe that the artist is a once-in-a-lifetime talent because otherwise, you’re just like, “Who cares?” The problem with Cover Me, Babe is that you never really believe that Tony is worth all of the trouble. The film certainly seems to believe that he’s worth it but ultimately, he just comes across as being a jerk who manipulates and mistreats everyone around him.

That said, from my own personal experience, a lot of film students are jerks who treat everyone them like crap. So, in this case, I think you can make the argument that Cover Me, Babe works well as a documentary. The fact of the matter is that not every film student is going to grow up to be the next Scorsese or Tarantino or Linklater. Some of them are going to turn out to be like Tony, running along the beach and wondering why no one agrees with him about George Stevens being a less interesting director in the 50s than he was in the 30s. As a docudrama about the worst people that you’re likely to meet while hanging out on campus, Cover Me, Babe is certainly effective. Otherwise, the film is a pretentious mess that’s done in by its unlikable protagonist. Everyone in the film says that Tony has what it takes to be an important director but, if I had to guess, I imagine he probably ended up shooting second unit footage for Henry Jaglom before eventually retiring from the industry and opening up his own vegan restaurant in Vermont. That’s just my guess.

The poster has little to do with the film.

Film Review: Some Call It Loving (dir by James B. Harris)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1973’s Some Call It Loving tells the story of Robert Troy (Zalman King). He’s rich. He has a girlfriend (or maybe she’s his wife, we’re never quite sure) named Scarlett (Carol White). He lives in a big, beautiful mansion with Scarlett and Scarlett’s girlfriend, Angelica (Veronica Anderson), and several different women who Robert and Scarlett bring home so that they can all pretend to be someone other than who they are. (When the film begins, Scarlett is pretending to be the strict head mistress of a finishing school. Later, she’ll pretend to be a nun.)

Robert seems like he should be happy but, from the minute we see him, it’s obvious that he’s not. He’s mired in deep ennui and even playing in a jazz band at a nightclub doesn’t seem to bring him any real joy. Robert plays saxophone. His best friend in the band is Jeff (Richard Pryor), a barely coherent junkie who is probably only alive because of the pills that Robert keeps him supplied with.

One night, Robert goes to a carnival. He stops at a tent that apparently houses “Sleeping Beauty.” Inside the tent, a young woman named Jennifer (Tisa Farrow, later to star in Lucio Fulci’s classic Zombi 2). Jennifer is in a comatose state. People pay a dollar so that they can enter the tent and kiss her. Her “owner” says that Robert can do more with her if he’s willing to pay $50. Robert instead buys her for $20,000.

It turns out that Jennifer has been in a coma for eight years. She’s been kept in that state by a “sleeping potion,” a cocktail of drugs that has to be administered on a daily basis. Robert takes her back to his mansion and doesn’t give her the potion. Eventually, Jennifer wakes up.

Now, speaking for myself, if I woke up in a strange place after being in a forced coma for eight years, I’d probably be pretty pissed off. Jennifer, however, cheerfully accepts that the fact that she’s been asleep for eight years and now she’s living with a somewhat creepy man and his two girlfriends. She’s just happy to have her mansion and her Prince Charming!

While Scarlett and Angelica view Jennifer as being someone new to play games with, Robert starts to develop real feelings for her. He wants to have a real life with Jennifer but, unfortunately, the only life that Jennifer knows is the fake one that he’s created with Scarlett and Angelica. Robert finds himself torn between deciding whether or not to commit to Jennifer or to the fake world that he and Scarlett have created at the mansion….

Some Call It Loving is a strange film. It’s incredibly pretentious in the way that only an art film from 1973 could be. Reportedly, the film was a box office disaster in America but the European critics loved it. That’s not surprising because the film’s sensibility is far more European than American. Not only does the film refuse to judge its characters but it also ends on the type of ambiguous note that seems specifically designed to alienate mainstream audiences. Though the film’s plot has all the making for a kinky melodrama, it’s actually far more of an erotic fairy tale. Jennifer really is Sleeping Beauty but, unfortunately, Robert may not be quite prepared to be a true life Prince Charming. In the end, both Jennifer and Robert are trapped by their own fantasies.

As I said, it’s pretentious but it’s also strangely watchable. From the opening of the film, director James B. Harris achieves a properly dream-like feel and Zalman King manages to be both compelling and creepy at the same time. Tisa Farrow is perfectly cast as Jennifer and the mansion where the majority of the film takes place is simply to die for. Even if Robert is a creep, he at least has good taste when it comes to interior design. Some Call It Loving is obviously not a film for everyone. What some will find dream-like, others will find to be muddled and annoying. But it’s an intriguing artifact of early 70s arthouse cinema.

Short Film Review: When Cary Grant Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD (dir by Geoffrey Sax)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year in 1959 and Cary Grant (Ben Chaplin) is filming North by Northwest. From what we see of him, he’s the Cary Grant that we’ve all read about — the handsome, charming, witty, but very guarded movie star who never seems to truly trust anyone.

On set, Grant is visited by a pushy Harvard professor named Timothy Leary (Aidan Gillen). Leary explains that he’s recently read an interview in which Grant discussed using a new drug called LSD for therapeutic purposes. Leary believes that the drug could possible be used to help humanity evolve into something better. He says that he wants to take LSD and he wants Grant to guide him through his trip. Grant rather stiffly explains that LSD should only be taken under medical supervision. Leary, however, doesn’t have time for that.

Eventually, Leary and Grant do end up dropping acid together and, as you might have guessed, that’s where things start to get strange. First off, Leary and Grant find themselves sharing the same trip. While Grant tries to escape from Leary, they travel through Grant’s poverty-stricken childhood and they even find themselves being chased by the famous North By Northwest cropduster. They also take a trip to Leary’s future, where he will someday be just as famous as Grant. Leary proclaims that LSD will be the start of the counter culture while the far more conservative Grant grumbles that Leary is a charlatan and that most people won’t be able to handle the drug. Along the way, we go through the usual innuendos about both men. Even under the influence of LSD, Grant remains guarded about his sexuality while Leary struggles to convince Grant that he actually is prophet and not just a con artist looking to get rich through revolution.

Clocking in at just 20 minutes, When Cary Grant Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD is an enjoyably weird little film that makes sense once you realize that Chaplin and Gillen are not actually meant to be playing the real-life Grant and Leary but instead are playing fictionalized versions who both understand that, along with being historical figures, they’re also characters in a film. By the end of the film, they’re less concerned with dealing with each other and more concerned with convincing those of us in the audience that one of them is right and the other one is wrong. Ben Chaplin may not look like Cary Grant but he has the right brooding quality to be convincing as a troubled man who often feels trapped by his own persona. Aiden Gillen, meanwhile, is far more cheerful as Timothy Leary, who he plays as being a bit of a trouble-making sprite.

Interestingly enough, the film is loosely based on fact. Cary Grant did take LSD for therapeutic reasons and Timothy Leary did later go on to become a public figure as a result of his pro-acid advocacy. It has been rumored that Leary and Grant actually did meet, though not necessarily during the filming of North by Northwest. In the end, When Cary Grant Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD is an enjoyably weird short film that shows up occasionally on Showtime so keep an eye out for it.

Film Review: The Cool Ones (dir by Gene Nelson)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1967 and who are The Cool Ones?

They’re the kids, of course! They’re the wild and crazy kids who go to Palm Beach and who listen to rock music and who wear open vests and short skirts and who are all doing the latest dance! You may see that this movie was made in 1967 and you might assume that this is going to be a film about hippies, like Psych-Out. But no, these kids aren’t hippies. Instead, they’re the 1967 equivalent of the clean-cut teens who used to appear in beach party movies and 1950s rock and roll films.

The kids are all dancing the Tantrum! What’s the Tantrum? It’s a dance that was created by accident. Hallie Rogers (Debbie Watson) was a dancer on an American Bandstand-style show but, when she realized that the show’s producers lied to her about eventually allowing her to sing on the show, she threw a fit. She grabbed the microphone of special musical guest Glen Campbell and attempted to turn his performance into a duet. When security showed up to drag her off the set, she struggled with them. Those watching the show assumed that Hallie had just created a new dance called The Tantrum.

After getting fired from the show, Hallie goes to a club, where she witnesses a performance by a former teen idol named Cliff Donner (Gil Peterson). After Hallie fights off an obnoxious wannabe beatnik who refuses to accept that she doesn’t want to dance with him (Go, Hallie!), Cliff immediately recognizes her as the creator of the Tantrum. Hallie wants to be a star. Cliff once was a star. Maybe they can work together!

Fortunately, the owner of club, Herbert Krum (Robert Coote), just happens to be the older brother of Tony Krum (Roddy McDowall), a notoriously egocentric rock promoter. How egocentric is Tony? Well, he’s played by Roddy McDowall and, even by the standards of a typical Roddy McDowall character, Tony is eccentric. Tony demands that Herbert prove that they’re actually brothers. He cries when he discovers that his psychiatrist is pregnant. He’s given too sudden moods swing and sudden bursts of inspiration, the majority of which involve Tony holding up his finger and shouting, “Ah ha!” Tony has a plan. He can make Cliff and Hallie into superstars by convincing the world that they’re in love with each other! He can even get them their own TV show!

However …. what if Cliff and Hallie actually are in love? Unfortunately, Cliff has some paranoia issues of his own and he’s convinced that Hallie is only pretending to love him so that she can become a star. Will Cliff and Hallie finally end up together and free from the manipulative hand of Tony Krum?

As you may be able to guess just from reading the plot description, The Cool Ones is an extremely silly film. The plot makes little sense and Tony Krum is such an over-the-top character that it becomes impossible to take anything involving him seriously. That said, The Cool Ones is also an incredibly fun movie and it’s obvious that Roddy McDowall had so much fun playing Tony that it’s impossible not to enjoy watching him dig into the role. The Cool Ones is a big, flamboyant, and colorful film, the type of movie that represents less what the 60s were and more what we wish they were. Admittedly, Gil Peterson is a bit of stiff in the role of the self-righteous Cliff but Roddy McDowall and Debbie Watson bring so much energy to the film that it doesn’t matter that Cliff doesn’t seem like he would be a cool one is real life. The music is airy and fun, the dance scenes are entertaining and energetic, and the whole film is just like a pop art time capsule. The Cool Ones is a cool way to spend 90 minutes.