buby1987 Reviews

The Gong Show Movie (1980)

Worst Film Of All Time? Quite Possibly.

[1/10 · 1 February 2012]

I saw this terrible film when it was released in 1980. I couldn't believe how bad it was -- and I went in with low expectations.

I saw the last half again on cable last night, and the film was just as bad as I remember.

Chuck Barris's acting style, as such, is to look at the ground and mutter to himself and shake his head -- every five seconds. Chuck Barris the director has given himself a juicy role and lots (lots and lots) of close ups. The actress playing Barris' long-suffering girlfriend is photographed like she is playing Beetle Bailey -- you never see her eyes, for the hair hanging over her forehead, or the floppy hats that hide her eyes.

The narrative strategy of this film is to repeat the following situation -- strangers accost Barris and do impromptu and unwanted auditions for The Gong Show. Barris invariably looks at the ground, shakes his head and mutters to himself.

During the prolonged finale, which attempts to be a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques, Barris looks at the ground, shakes his head and mutters to himself -- a lot.

I can understand the feeling.

Modern Romance (1981)

Albert Brooks' Best Film

[9/10 · 15 December 2011]

Modern Romance is the most daring Albert Brooks film, and the funniest. He plays a film editor who is insanely jealous of his beautiful girlfriend. Even though the film is hilarious, it shares a similar dynamic with Raging Bull, which came out a few months before Modern Romance -- it focuses on a man who imagines his girlfriend is cheating on him, and yet it turns out not to be true. But even so, Brooks' character drives himself crazy with conjecture, imagining the worst. It is the flip side of trusting a girlfriend too much and then finding out she is sleeping with everyone.

Modern Romance also reminds me of another dark drama, The Gambler from 1974, in which the protagonist is smart and charming but nonetheless seeks to sabotage himself with bad behavior. Why do people destroy themselves? Some people don't want to be happy, it seems. To get comedy out of this shows the genius of Brooks.

Brooks' character, Robert Cole, is a successful film editor. We see him at work, and he is very creative and good at what he does. He is a control freak at work, making the most minute changes in the film he is working on, and he applies this same desire to control (to in effect "direct") his personal life. In a measure, he succeeds, because he is able to get his girlfriend to ultimately go along with what he wants, despite her misgivings -- and that's another issue to explore, why women fall in love with insecure or manipulative men and put up with their difficult personalities.

Brooks is very brave in playing such a difficult character, and there is nothing warm and fuzzy about Robert Cole. Brooks never tries to get the audience to love him, whereas actors like Steve Martin or Robin Williams would try to take the hard edge off and make him lovable.

Also impressive is Brooks spends a great deal of screen time by himself, talking on the phone, talking to himself, driving himself crazy and driving past his girlfriend's house, in effect stalking. He spends as much time alone as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. To turn all of this into comedy is a measure of Brooks' unique genius.

Thank God It's Friday (1978)

thank god for donna

[7/10 · 18 April 2007]

TGIF feels like a Robert Altman disco film -- multiple characters and story lines intersect and bounce off each other. Released a few months after Saturday Night Fever, TGIF is a wonderful artifact of the 70's. Looking back almost 30 years later, it all seems so carefree and innocent.

There are some delightful surprises in the cast -- Debra Winger makes her film debut. Jeff Goldblum gets his biggest film role to date. And best of all, Donna Summer makes her film debut. It is great to see Donna caught on film, performing at the height of her powers. She does the show-stopper Last Dance, a song that would win the Best Song Oscar.

In addition, the Commodores make a cameo appearance. Lots of great music throughout -- great Casablanca Records soundtrack.

Lots of great character actors -- Chuck Sacci as Gus, a garbage collector who meets up with an unlikely computer date.

It is great to see L.A. as it was in late 77/early 78 -- billboards on the Sunset Strip for Eric Clapton's Slowhand and other 1977 albums. Plus, Osko's disco on La Cienega, which is now a strip mall. In one shot looking north on San Vincente, there is a giant gap where the Beverly Center currently sits. Also, gas prices were a lot cheaper back then.

In sum, this is a fun movie, a great escape from all the bad news we're bombarded with today.

The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary (2003)

the star wars saga ends

[10/10 · 26 December 2006]

Once upon a time, there was a young, rebellious filmmaker who defied the system and succeeded on his own terms. That young man was George Lucas, and his film was Star Wars. But as Marx (or someone like that) said, the oppressed become the oppressors. Lucas has become the thing he ultimately rebelled against -- an out-of-touch mogul who churns out expensive but uninspired movies whilst surrounded by yes-men.

Thus enters into the scene another young, rebellious filmmaker to puncture the decadent Lucasfilm empire. That filmmaker is Damon Packard, and his film is The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary. In a mere 30 minutes, Packard exposes the creative bankruptcy of Lucas and his lucrative franchise.

Taking the form of a DVD making of featurette, Star Wars Mock mixes footage of Lucas with archive footage from B-movies, along with scenes that Packard shot. The end result is nothing short of genius. High-tech digital shots from Attack of the Clones are spliced together with grainy footage from Hardware Wars and Battle Beyond the Stars. The juxtaposition is startling, but also revealing -- for all the high-tech sheen of the Clones footage, it is just a B-movie.

In a hilarious and illuminating way, Packard equates Lucas with the crazed Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

The horror! The horror! In sum, this is the funniest film I've seen in years.

Street Smart (1987)

one of the best 80's films

[9/10 · 21 December 2005]

A lot of 80's movies glorified the American Dream of becoming a millionaire. It was the age of Reagan, and greed was good. The Secret of My Success is the ultimate cultural artifact of this era -- MJ Fox starts out in the mail room, cons his way into the upper ranks, and gets it all without any serious repercussions. Although it is all played for laughs, the movie asks you to root for this guy who is basically unprincipled and greedy.

Almost as a rebuke, in early 1987 Street Smart arrived. It is the flip side of Secret of My Success. Christopher Reeve plays a journalist who fabricates a story about a pimp, and he becomes the toast of the town. But there are very serious consequences to his actions. The dream of attaining success by any means necessary is really a nightmare.

I disagree with a lot of posters who say that the ending doesn't work. In fact, I think it is brilliant. Reeve's character has attained notoriety by exploiting Fast Black (and by extension, the whole subculture that keeps Fast Black in business). In the end, Reeve manipulates events so that Fast Black gets killed, and one of Fast Black's minions gets busted. Reeve uses all of this carnage as fodder for his "Street Smart" TV segments. Once again, he uses a lie to gain the upper hand -- he has gone from print journalism to tabloid TV.

Reeve originally entered the world of Fast Black out of desperation, to keep his job at a magazine. One lie begets another and another, until there is plenty of collateral damage -- the prostitute gets killed, Reeve's wife gets stabbed, Fast Black ends up dead. None of these events would have occurred if Reeve hadn't told that first lie.

There is also the parallel between journalism and prostitution. Reeve is just as bad as Fast Black, but he covers his tracks better, and he has a reputable facade. Reeve's journalistic exploits not only have ruined lives but ended them.

If you look at Reeve's character objectively, he is not really the good guy. He has broken the law and not only gotten away with it, but he's profited from it as well. Rather than a prison term, he gets promoted.

Reeve's image as a nice guy makes the character even creepier -- after all, he sleeps with a prostitute and exposes his wife to danger at a predominantly black bar. Reeve's character seems like a clean-cut yuppie, but deep down he is corrupt and devoid of morals.

When Will I Be Loved (2004)

black widow

[7/10 · 20 July 2005]

Some have commented that it is unlikely a rich girl like Vera would hook up with a low-life like Ford, but I disagree. Quite often, beautiful women hook up with macho jerks. It is also a form of rebellion against her domineering father (or at least he tries to be domineering).

Why is Vera rebelling? She has everything. She is rich, she has a huge apartment in Manhattan, she has parents who give her anything she wants. She is basically a decadent and spoiled young lady who has never had to lift a finger to make a buck in her life. Sometimes, prosperity can undo what adversity can't.

I noticed paintings that were in various stages of completion in Vera's apartment, which leads me to believe that she is a dilettante. She lacks the discipline to finish anything -- and in her personal relationships, she flits from one encounter to another. When she is finally cornered by Ford with his "indecent proposal," she decides to exact revenge. You could say that she transfers her resentment against her dad onto the Count, and via some Iago-type lies and manipulation, brings about the ruin of both a pimp and a john.

My take on Vera is that she is so bored and unfulfilled despite having everything that she has to create havoc in order to be stimulated. She reminds me of the Michael Keaton character in Pacific Heights, a decadent trust fund kid who disrupts the lives of others simply for sport.

This theme of rich kids who go slumming and get in over their heads is used often by Toback. Axel Foley in The Gambler comes from a good family, and has whatever he wants, but he feels compelled to be self-destructive and fritter away his money on dubious wagers. In Black and White, the son of the NYC District Attorney gets involved with drug dealers and gangsters, seemingly to impress chicks. Keitel in Fingers is a pianist with potential who gets involved with mobsters.

And so it is with Vera, a bored rich kid who gets involved with the wrong element simply for the novelty.

Star 80 (1983)

one of the few great films from the 80's

[10/10 · 17 July 2005]

Star 80 is about many things, but above all it is about the dark side of the American Dream. It is a counterpart to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, because it depicts the disillusionment and self-destruction of a self-made man.

Snider believes in the American Dream, that if you outwork and out-hustle everyone else, and have a marketable product to hawk, you will be successful. It so happens that Snider's product is sex. Snider rises up through sheer determination (visually depicted in the opening work out scene, in which he pumps iron and does push-ups until he's on the verge of having a stroke). It also helps that Snider has no moral principles that hold him back.

Paul achieves the pinnacle of his desires when he gets to visit the Playboy Mansion. He not only gets the opportunity to socialize with Playboy Bunnies, but he gets to meet his spiritual father -- Hugh Hefner. Hefner is another self-made man who has turned sex into a big business, but unlike Snider, he is socially respectable.

But Paul blows it when he gets too familiar with Hefner. Hefner takes an instant dislike to Paul. As Dorothy rises up the food chain in Hollywood, getting roles in TV and in film, Paul finds himself banished from the charmed circle of Hefner's Mansion and he thereby self-destructs. All of his projects -- opening a male dance club, trying to get a waitress bimbo into the Mansion to meet Hef -- are failures. His wife drifts away from him, having an affair with her director.

Paul is out of his element in L.A., and soon crashes and burns. Fosse provides imagery and conceits of "falllng" and "crashing" -- such as the scene when the loan sharks dangle Paul out of 14-story hotel window, and Fosse's camera swish-pans sideways and downwards to give us an uneasy sense of vertigo and impending doom. This motif continues in the carnival scene, as Fosse inserts quick shots of amusement park rides whipping downward and sideways. There is even a doll perched precariously on a book shelf in Aram's office -- probably a symbol of Dorothy. There is also a telling line of dialog, when Dorothy's mother asks Paul what he will do if she doesn't sign the consent form, and Paul says, "I'll jump out a window." In the final rape/murder/suicide scene, there is an emphasis on falling -- and the final shot looks down from high above, at two dead, bloody bodies that seem to have dropped into Hell.

Fosse's use of pop music is superb, and revelatory. "Big Shot" by Billy Joel is about egomania fueled by coke, and not only does Paul want to be a big shot in Hollywood, he takes the ultimate "big shot" when he blows his brains out with a Mossberg shotgun. The Band's "Up On Cripple Creek" tells about a man who lives off his girlfriend. There is a lyric about betting on a nag, which is visually underlined in another scene when Paul changes horses on a merry-go-round (further expressed when Paul "changes horses" by trying to turn a bimbo waitress into another Dorothy). Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are" provides ironic commentary. Paul is not only dissatisfied with himself, but he constantly strives to change Dorothy from a naive teen into a mature, sophisticated woman -- and he succeeds too well, as Dorothy grows up and realizes she must get away from him. Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" is appropriate, as it provides auditory reinforcement of Paul's eager desire to please and make a good impression.

There is a lot of thought put into the film. Geb is not merely a doctor, he is a plastic surgeon, and has moved to West L.A. to flourish in his trade. His profession is all too apt in a world in which surface appearance is everything. He also gives the key speech in the film, in which he reminds Paul that in L.A., "There's always going to be someone with more money than you, someone with a longer penis than you." That last observation really gets to Paul. He feels grossly inadequate and must overcompensate in every situation. Geb also makes the questionable claim that the Rolls in his garage is just an investment, rather than an emblem of conspicuous consumption.

The film has a Shakespearean quality. Hefner is the King, Dorothy is the Princess, Aram is the Prince, and Paul is the Bastard. People like Geb are the loyal attendants in the King's court. Some, like Aram, are bestowed with the favor of the King, while others are dispatched into exile. Paul can't take the rejection, and kills Dorothy and himself. If the sexual revolution was really a Pandora's Box, then Paul is one of the demons let loose to hover ominously over the orgy.

Sweet Charity (1969)

Fosse's first

[8/10 · 1 July 2005]

Sure, Bob Fosse sometimes indulges in trendy late-60's stylistic touches like freeze-frames and crash-zooms. Some of the jokes by Neil Simon are corny, and Shirley MacLaine can be a little hard to take sometimes. The film also suffers from the bloated, over-produced quality that infected most 60's major studio musicals.

The dull non-musical scenes are a chore to sit through, but when one of Fosse's amazing production numbers begins, Sweet Charity soars into the sublime. Fosse was quite simply a genius, and the great showcase numbers such as "Hey Big Spender" and "Rich Man's Frug" are as brilliant as any dance numbers ever put on film.

Shifting configurations of dancers, contorted body poses, dance steps that are by turns awkward and graceful, a studied contrast between clustering dancers and separating dancers -- it is hard to describe the magic of the Pompeii Club sequence. I've always felt that Fosse's choreography has the same sense of space and volume as Cubist painting.

Fosse's camera placement and camera movement capture an ideal "in-the-round" feeling of choreographed numbers that one cannot experience in the theater. For a first-time film director, Fosse revealed an amazing facility for the form. Usually theater directors don't take to the medium of film as quickly as Fosse did. Usually, theater directors make visually unexciting films that feel stage-bound. Not Fosse -- Sweet Charity, despite some flaws, doesn't play like a filmed stage play, it has the visual panache of Fellini and Godard.

Sweet Charity was just a warm-up, Fosse's personal film school at Universal's expense, before he truly mastered the form of film-making with the classic Cabaret.

Citizen Cohn (1992 TV Movie)

before Angels in America, there was Citizen Cohn

[8/10 · 23 June 2005]

I saw Citizen Cohn for the first time, and I realized that its air date on HBO preceded the Broadway premiere of Angels in America. In Citizen Cohn, Ray Cohn lies on his deathbed and is haunted by Ethel Rosenberg. This also occurs in Angels in America. I wonder if Tony Kushner saw Citizen Cohn on HBO before he wrote Angels. The similarities are uncanny.

In any event, James Woods gives one of his best performances as Cohn. It is the perfect match of role and actor. No one can be as vituperative and contemptuous as Woods, and it is a joy to behold Woods inhabiting the larger-than-life Cohn. In fact, he does a better job playing Cohn than Al Pacino in HBO's version of Angels in America.

Cohn is a study in contradictions -- he is self-righteous, yet he swindles one of his clients for a significant sum, leading to his disbarment and trouble with the IRS. He is a closeted gay man who embraces an extremist right wing ideology, rendering ruthless assistance to one of the most disgraced figures in American history, Senator Joe McCarthy.

Was there anything to like about Cohn? According to this film, no, and that is what makes Citizen Cohn so daring. This is a cautionary tale about the destructiveness of ambition. Cohn is like Iago, a character of Shakespearean depth whose overzealous machinations bring about his own destruction.

Death Wish 3 (1985)

funniest film of 1985

[5/10 · 20 June 2005]

The first Death Wish seems like cinema verite compared to this, with its overwhelming sense of, uh, exaggerated events. As a friend of mine stated upon viewing it on video, the film reminded him of the non-sex scenes in a porno film. To me, it is a Western set in modern-day New York. The tenement is like a fort on the frontier. The neighborhood ruffians are the Indians. To see Charlie Bronson machine gunning dozens of miscreants is the height of camp. This goes beyond Olivia Newton-John rollerskating her way through Xanadu. Finally, Michael Winner has returned to the glory days of The Mechanic. This would be the greatest Cannon camp classic of the 80's, were it not for the bumptious intrusion of Kinjite and Over The Top.

Boogie Nights (1997)

best film of the past 25 years

[10/10 · 7 May 2005]

After Pulp Fiction, it seemed that no one could top Tarantino, but along comes Paul Thomas Anderson with Boogie Nights. Not since Orson Welles made Citizen Kane has a young director shown such a command of the film-making medium.

Like Citizen Kane, Boogie Nights is a thinly-veiled biopic of a famous figure, in Kane's case, William Randolph Hearst, in Boogie Night's case, John Holmes. Both films mock particular film-making styles, in Kane with News On The March, in Boogie Nights porno films. There is even the revelation of the heart of the character in the final "money" shot -- Rosebud is revealed in Kane, Dirk is exposed in Boogie. Both films feature sit-down interviews with other characters discussing the main character. Both Kane and Diggler come from broken homes, and both destroy themselves chasing their respective dreams. Diggler even has his version of Xanadu. Neither attains happiness despite the monetary success.

Kane's political aspirations are blown to Hell by his passion for Susan and her impossible opera career, while Dirk is destroyed by his passion for coke.

Bronco Billy (1980)

off the beaten path

[8/10 · 28 April 2005]

In Bronco Billy, Eastwood pokes mild fun at his own macho screen persona. The Wild West Show, I believe, is a metaphor for the film-making process, in which a carefully crafted illusion is created for the viewing public.

After the tent burns down, Billy has a new tent stitched together by the inmates at a mental asylum, which results in a patchwork of American flags -- literally, a crazy-quilt assemblage.

Bronco Billy is gleefully old-fashioned, even anachronistic, both in its optimistic mood, which ran counter to the popular culture at the time of its release in 1980, and in its characters -- a cowboy who belongs to another time, a daffy heiress who has stepped out of a 30's screwball comedy.

Best of all, Eastwood's heart is in the right place, and he has a genial affection toward his eccentric characters.

Play Misty for Me (1971)

no such thing as casual sex

[8/10 · 27 April 2005]

Clint Eastwood made a fine debut as a director with Play Misty For Me. There is a laid-back quality to this film, which begins in a casual way, and then tightens the screws later as the stalking plot kicks in. The film beautifully captures the Edenic qualities of Carmel and Monterey, and Eastwood has a great eye for the particular scenic details of the Northern California coast. Most movies today have a "cut to the chase" mentality, in which everything has to move at warp speed, so it's refreshing to see a movie take its time to establish the setting and the characters.

This film is an interesting rebuke to the sexual revolution of the late 60's and early 70's. Jessica Walter's character may be acting in an extreme way, but there is some justification for her rage -- Eastwood's character is a ladies' man who likes to rack up as many conquests as he can, and then move on, but here's one woman who refuses to be discarded. The point is, there are repercussions to all our acts. Also, being a public figure brings its share of grief and misery (just ask John Lennon).

Pink Cadillac (1989)

aging well

[7/10 · 21 April 2005]

I didn't care for this movie when it first came out, but now it plays much better than most late 80's action flicks. There is great chemistry between Eastwood and Bernadette Peters. Eastwood has been canny about who he teams up with. Pink Cadillac is in the mold of Two Mules For Sister Sara, The Enforcer and The Gauntlet, in which Eastwood's macho character gets saddled with a female partner, and has to make the best of it. In fact, this plot device is used in Million Dollar Baby.

Pink Cadillac is simply good old-fashioned Hollywood film-making, no fancy cinematography or special effects, just a simple but well-told story with two characters that we like and care about. Eastwood is gracious in allowing his female characters to live and breathe and have unexpected reservoirs of strength and resilience. This is evident in movies like Tightrope with Genevieve Bujold and The Enforcer with Tyne Daly.

As for Eastwood, he makes it look effortless, but he is an underrated actor. Pink Cadillac gives him the opportunity to do some odd character acting bits, as he adopts eccentric accents and disguises in his job as a skip tracer. One gets the feeling Eastwood is enjoying himself immensely, and it is a joy to see him doing off-the-wall stuff, although it is also cool to see Eastwood being Eastwood during the action sequences.

Pink Cadillac also shares with other Eastwood films like Bronco Billy, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, A Perfect World and Honkytonk Man an affinity with American people living on the margins. While most filmmakers (such as the smug Coen Brothers) treat rural American characters with contempt, Eastwood views all people with a measure of respect and affection (except for the white supremacists).

There is also a great sense of place in this film, as it captures off the beaten path locations in Northern California that are seldom used in film. Director Buddy Van Horn provides efficient craftsmanship that doesn't call attention to itself, but his eye always alert to the telling details of character and setting.

In all, an unexpected pleasure, and an underrated road film.

Shampoo (1975)

best script ever

[18 December 2001]

Robert Towne's "Chinatown" is considered the greatest script of the past 30 years, but I think "Shampoo" (written by Towne and Beatty) is even better. It is an intricately constructed sex farce, with realistic, flesh-and-blood characters. Beatty's character, George, is trying to serve two masters -- his own uncontrollable libido, and his desire to set up his own hair salon. These two desires come into direct conflict when he seeks funding from wealthy financier Lester (Jack Warden), while also having affairs with Lester's wife Felicia (Lee Grant), Lester's mistress Jackie(Julie Christie), and even Lester's daugther (Carrie Fisher). In fact, George beds all of these women in a 24-hour period, while also trying to maintain his relationship with his steady girlfriend (Goldie Hawn). All of these incompatible desires are compressed into a short time frame, and George's life unravels spectacularly, as he learns some very hard lessons by the end.

Structurally, "Shampoo" is brilliantly devised. Each character has an opposite. George, the satyr, has Lester, the cuckhold, as his opposite. George exudes natural sexual appeal, whereas Lester is loved merely for his wealth. Tony Bill's character, an ad executive, is the younger version of Lester. Tony Bill dangles a job offer to Goldie Hawn in order to bed her. Despite his hip outward appearance, this character is as staid as Lester. In fact, the two characters are linked by separate scenes in which each one stares out of a skyscraper window, gazing at a panoramic view of L.A., and makes a world-weary comment about the craziness below (in Bill's case, he says, "Jesus, this town"). There is also a contrast between George and Jackie. George, in his own words, "doesn't f*** for money, I do it for fun," whereas Jackie ends up as a kept girl (by Lester). Goldie Hawn's character also prostitutes herself, in a very subtle way. In the moral universe of Beverly Hills in 1968, Beatty's promiscuity seems more pure than the money-driven machinations of everyone else.

Magnolia (1999)

frog deluge

[20 February 2000]

After seeing Magnolia a few times, I realized that the black kid is really a prophet. He speaks in riddles that the white cop can't comprehend. He wears a green jacket (which matches the color of frogs). When John C. Reilly loses his gun, the black kid takes it -- he runs up a flight of steps to a higher level. After the storm of frogs, Reilly's gun literally falls from the sky. It may seem strange, but this kid has supernatural powers. These things happen.

Melvin and Howard (1980)

Best Film of the 80's

[26 October 1999]

Everyone thinks Raging Bull is the best film of the 1980's, but Melvin and Howard holds up better for me. Paul Le Mat should have been nominated for an Oscar, and this film should have made him a star. It's such a waste that Le Mat isn't used in more films.

At least Mary Steenburgen's excellent performance didn't go unnoticed -- she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Bo Goldman's cleverly constructed, highly nuanced script won another Oscar.

Director Jonathan Demme went on to greater success and acclaim with Silence of the Lambs, but he achieved something special with Melvin and Howard. Most directors would play Melvin Dummar's story for easy laughs, and while Demme finds humor in the material, he also explores with depth and sensitivity how the American Dream has failed some of its most ardent aspirants.

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

America's best director in peak form

[23 October 1999]

Another visually exquisite film from the best director in America, Martin Scorsese. While the story may be a little thin, from a pure filmmaking standpoint, Bringing Out the Dead is masterfully rendered.

Cinema, at its purest, is not a distillation of painting, literature and drama, but rather a unique entity that transcends the very elements it draws upon. Most films are merely mundanely photographed scenarios, devoid of imagination. In Bringing Out The Dead, Scorsese deploys the full arsenal of his creative genius -- fluid camera movement, expressive lighting, stunning camera angles -- to create an aesthetic experience that only cinema can provide.

Easy Rider (1969)

more than meets the eye

[5 March 1999]

There is so much going on in the multi-layered Easy Rider. For one thing, it doesn't glorify hippies. In fact, Hopper and Fonda are really just businessmen, out to make the big score. They're quintessentially American -- Fonda calls himself Captain America, and wears an American flag on his leather jacket, and has red, white and blue painted on his chopper's gas tank. These guys really just want to make money, not change society. If it were the 80's, they'd be selling computers. Also, some interesting symbolism -- Fonda puts the stash of money resulting from the drug sale in his gas tank -- in other words, money fuels the American dream.

This film is also an anti-Western. Instead of heading west, these guys head east. They pass through Monument Valley, site of many John Ford westerns. At an early point, they fix their choppers in a barn while a farmer fixes the horseshoes for his horse.

There is a structure to this seemingly freewheeling tale: the trip starts out idealistically. After they go to the commune, Fonda and Hopper skinny-dip with two hippie chicks in a bucolic, peaceful setting. The music is laid-back, the Byrds, the drug used is marijuana. It's an idealized example of "free love." Later, in New Orleans, our two heroes hook up with two prostitutes -- so much for free love. Fonda breaks down during an acid trip, and instead of music we hear the jarring sounds of an industrial, urbanized landscape -- geographically and symbolically far away from that Arizona commune.

This film doesn't glorify the hippie ethos -- in fact, it almost seems like a neo-conservative critique on the limitations of the hippie experience. Late in the film, Fonda tells Hopper, "We blew it," a line that prefigures the ultimate disillusionment that set in during the early 70's, when the Age of Aquarius gave way to Watergate, malaise, Reagan and rampant consumerism.

Scarecrow (1973)

Unjustly overlooked classic

[24 February 1999]

This overlooked film features Gene Hackman's best performance as an introverted ex-con. Al Pacino gives one of his best performances. Director Jerry Schatzberg and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond capture both the squalor and the grandeur of the American landscape. Garry Michael White's screenplay is filled with richly nuanced characters, religious symbolism and a deep sense of humanity. One of the best of the 70's.