AMERICAN GRAFFITI
****½
USA
A night in the lives four
Californian high-school graduates, about to leave for college.
Some of the actors are bland, but on the whole this is warm,
nostalgic, poignant and incisive Americana. Still Lucas' best work.
wr/dir: George Lucas
cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin
Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Harrison Ford, Kathleen Quinlan,
Suzanne Somers
BADLANDS
****½
USA
A teenage couple murder people
across America.
A violent, hypnotic return to Bonnie and Clyde territory, but the mood
feels freshly haunting and unsettling.
wr/dir: Terrence Malick
cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri
DAY FOR NIGHT
****
France/Italy
The making of a glossy love
story in Nice.
An affectionate, detailed, unpretentious account of the chronicles of a film set.
dir: François Truffaut
cast: François Truffaut, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre
Léaud, Nathalie Baye, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Dani,
Alexandra Stewart, David Markham
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
****½
France/UK
Perhaps
the most efficient of political thrillers and one of the best. Edward Fox
plays the steely assassin - ‘the Jackal’ - hired by French extremists
to assassinate President General Charles de Gaulle after many others have
tried and failed. Director Fred Zinnemann conjures up tension with a
minimum of fuss. Fatal but succinct acts of violence happen all the time
without a single foreboding violin on the soundtrack to telegraph them.
Every shot and every cut is impeccably constructed yet unshowy. The picture was
filmed all over the stateliest parts of Europe and Zinnemann is perfectly
adept at showcasing each of his locations without wasting time on lengthy
helicopter shots. What’s more, enough time has passed for the majority
of Western societies to grow ignorant of world history (there was a war in
Algeria?) and a lot of today’s viewers may not even know whether de
Gaulle was ever successfully assassinated or not. So to them, the picture
will be that much more suspenseful.
dir: Fred Zinnemann
wr: Kenneth Ross
ph: Jean Tournier
ed: Ralph Kemplen
m: Georges Delerue
cast: Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale, Tony Britton, Derek
Jacobi, Delphine Seyrig, Cyril Cusack, Jean Sorel
DON'T LOOK NOW
****
UK
The drowned daughter of a
London couple in Venice may or may not be sending them messages.
Hypnotic, haunting and deeply disturbing arty horror, most
notable for its striking backdrop of a Venice in winter.
dir: Nicolas Roeg
ph: Anthony Richmond
cast: Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie, Hilary Mason, Clelia
Matania
THE EXORCIST
***
USA
A 12-year-old girl is possessed
by a demon.
A landmark horror film, still regarded by many as one of the most
frightening films of all time - which it isn't. Chilling moments remain,
but as a whole it's more tedious than genuinely scary.
dir: William Friedkin
cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Jason Miller,
Lee J. Cobb
FANTASTIC PLANET
****
Czechoslovakia/France
This probably isn't the only adults-oriented animated feature that
feels as if conceived by a sadistic hippie on a trip of some kind. But
it's the only one to win a Grand Prix at Cannes and gain international
cult status. It's not even all that accomplished, but it's witty,
imaginative and completely engaging. Even the aspects that have dated
badly (namely the soundtrack) are endearing in their own way.
dir: René Laloux
wr: Steve Hayes, René Laloux, Roland Topor
THE
LAST DETAIL
***½
USA
Hal Ashby directed, off a Robert Towne script, Jack Nicholson and Otis
Young as two foul-mouthed sailors detailed to transport gawky, naive Randy
Quaid to prison, where he is to serve eight years for [not] stealing $40
from the charity box. Five minutes into the movie, you accept that the two
veterans will soon bond with their innocuous cohort before teaching him a
thing or two about drinking, brawling and whoring, all of it leading to
the final revelation that the world is cruel and unjust. So all you can do
is sit back, watch them get on with it and try get as much as you can out
of the famously colourful dialogue and finely tuned performances.
dir: Hal Ashby
wr: Robert Towne
ph: Michael Chapman
cast: Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid,
Clifton James, Michael Moriarty, Carol Kane, Luana Anders, Nancy Allen
LAST TANGO IN PARIS
***
France/Italy/USA
A middle aged widower has
meaningless sexual liaison with a young French girl.
The notorious sex scenes are really quite tame, even by 1973 standards,
and despite strong individual scenes, so is the film itself.
dir: Bernardo Bertolucci
cast: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud
THE LONG GOODBYE
****
USA
Certainly the most idiosyncratic of Raymond Chandler adaptations. Robert
Altman took his best book, lifted his immaculately stylish hero along with
some bits of plotting and stuck them in early 70s L.A. in all its
fake-tanned, hopped-up, hippied-out haze. The picture was mauled by
critics of the day, who expected a straight re-write, but it has since
recovered its reputation to the extent that many people even feel
comfortable quoting it as Altman’s best. That it isn’t – it’s flawed and
jumpy and lacking in Altman’s usual confidence. Plus, he muddles up the
story in a way that feels lazy more than postmodern. But he also riddles
it with terrific little touches: the mould and scratches on the police
station’s two-way mirror, Phillip Marlowe’s stunning vintage convertible
looking out of place in full colour, a pair of dogs screwing near a
crucial character’s deathbed (a lucky coincidence surely, but a
wonderfully showcased one). And even where Altman fails – exposing the
genre-ordained artifice of Chandler’s world and exploring its more
authentic psychological undercurrent against a naturalistic, contemporary
context - the relaxed attitude with which he fails makes his picture
consistently fascinating to watch.
dir: Robert Altman
wr: Leigh Brackett
ph: Vilmos Zsigmond
m: John Williams
cast: Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark
Rydell, Henry Gibson, David Arkin, Jim Bouton, Warren Berlinger, Jo Ann
Brody, Stephen Colt, Jack Knight, Pepe Callahan, Arnold Schwarzenegger
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MEAN STREETS
****
USA
Martin Scorsese's breakthrough - and many people still swear it's his best
film. Even if it isn't his best film (and I'm not saying it isn't), hefty
portions of it are marked by arguably his best direction. The vigour, the freshness and the looseness
that define the most vivid passages in his later work dominate this rough-edged
look into Harvey Keitel's small-time gangsterdom, Catholic guilt and
valiant though doomed attempts to rein in wild child Robert De Niro. It's
the least polished and glamourous of all the gangster pictures in
Scorsese's gangster-fixated output, and it's all the better for it.
dir: Martin Scorsese
wr: Martin Scorsese, Mardik Martin
ph: Kent Wakeford
ed: Sidney Levin
cast: Harvey Keitel, Robert de Niro, Amy
Robinson, David Proval, Richard Romanus
THE MOTHER
AND THE WHORE
****
MY AIN FOLK
*****
PAPER MOON
****½
USA
In the American mid-West in the
1930s, a con man gets stuck with a precocious nine-year-old.
An amusing, touching and generally unsentimental comedy of a misfit
father-daughter tandem. Textured and richly evocative of the Depression
Era. Beautifully acted.
dir: Peter Bogdanovich
wr: Alvin Sargent
ph: Laszlo Kovacs
cast: Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, P.J.
Johnson, John Hillerman
ROBIN HOOD
**½
USA
A spiritless Disney cartoon.
SCARECROW
****
SERPICO
***½
SISTERS
****
USA
The first of De Palma's Hitchcock homages/rip-offs, this one is fabulously
served by his still healthy trash sensibility. Margot Kidder plays recently
and traumatically separated Siamese twins, one of whom is a hazy fashion
model and one of whom is, naturally, homicidal. One of them knifes her lay
for the night. Through her rear window, newspaper reporter Jennifer Salt
witnesses.
De Palma has a ball with the premise, hurling at you buckets of
blood, grotesque scar tissue, self-consciously leaden yet uncannily eerie
psycho-sexual exposition and - from Kidder - one of the great horror movie
performances. Revelling in her faux-naive sex-appeal, she plays her early
scenes with a devilish sense of humour to match Carole Lombard's. And when
the mood switches to hysterical melodrama, she's more than up to the task.
dir: Brian De Palma
m: Bernard Herrmann
cast: Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, William Finley,
Charles Durning, Lisle Wilson, Barnard Hughes, Mary Davenport, Dolph Sweet
SLEEPER
***½
USA
A health food store owner is
cryogenically frozen and wakes up 200 years in the future.
Broad, hit-and-miss sci-fi farce that probably hits a bit more often
than the rest of Allen's early-to-mid-70s output.
dir: Woody Allen
wr: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Don
Keefer
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE
*****
Sweden
Bergman puts under his microscope what at first appears to be a perfectly
functional marriage - and then develops into something far less orthodox
- between two flawed, complex people bound to disintegrate and
reintegrate around each other probably for the rest of their lives. Some would argue that originating as this drama did as a television
mini-series, and composed as it is largely of long, static close-ups of
talking heads, it's all terribly uncinematic. But it's unproductive to
dwell on such things where it comes to writing, direction and acting of
this caliber.
wr/dir: Ingmar Bergman
cast: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Bibi Andersson, Jan
Malmsjö, Gunnel Linblom, Anita Wall
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
***½
Spain
After viewing
"Frankenstein", a young girl in post-war Spain is convinced
there is a 'spirit' living near her home.
An evocative if vague tale of childhood, concentrating on the darker,
enigmatic aspects. Reportedly it also bears political connotations.
dir: Víctor Erice
cast: Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería, Teresa Gimpera, Fernando
Fernán Gómez
THE STING
***
USA
In 30s Chicago, two small-time
con men plan to avenge a friend's death.
A tongue-in-cheek gangster picture homage, spectacularly successful in its
day. It no longer satisfies, despite star power, vibrant lensing and a catchy theme tune.
dir: George Roy Hill
ph: Robert Surtees
m: Scott Joplin
cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning,
Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan
TOUKI BOUKI
***
TURKISH
DELIGHT
***½
THE WAY WE WERE
**½
USA
An upper-class young novelist
and a Jewish girl fall in love.
A plastic, tearjerking star vehicle of a thankfully bygone era.
dir: Sydney Pollack
cast: Barbara Streisand, Robert Redford
THE WICKER MAN
***
USA
In Scotland, a police sergeant
travels to an offshore pagan community to investigate the mysterious
disappearance of a local child.
Human sacrifices, a jar of foreskins, a Swedish Scotswoman writhing
nude against a wall and the raving lunacy of a pagan chieftain outdone by
that of a devout Christian policeman. You get what you pay for - though
based on impressions of the 84-minute version, the one that runs for 102 hardly seems
justifiable.
dir: Robin Hardy
cast: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Diane
Cilento, Ingrid Pitt
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