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Reviews
Roadhouse 66 (1984)
Judge and Defoe?
This is the sort of movie that makes you wonder how the producers were able to get the money to make it...
As well, how is Defoe portrayed as a tough-guy? Sure there are some guys who are sinewy and able to handle themselves in a bar-fight. Defoe has never been believable in that role.
Horrible movie, like it was made by rank amateurs over a weekend and no script. Most movies have at least a scene or two worth the time of watching them. This travesty does not even meet that weak criteria.
There is a reason Judge Reinhold never became a lead actor, far too weak and ineffectual, you keep waiting for someone to cue the laugh track.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
A Life
I ordered this film for viewing, and I found myself drawn in by the characters. Personally while I enjoy C.G. I much prefer a good story-line instead; something this film very much has.
This film was a revelation, especially when I saw that it was directed by a certain Mr. Scorsese! As I read that name in the ending credits, the film took on added meaning as I could then discern that it was in fact Mr. Scorsese's directing I had been enjoying, and why this film entranced me. Though obviously an early work, Mr. Scorsese already possessed the eye for providing the viewer with a fluid character and visual construction.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a very real look into a slice of human life, the perennial questions about Life, Love, and Death. This screenplay is far too intelligent to attempt to give any definitive answers to the questions of Life Love and Death and so it never directly tries, wise enough to know that there are no answers, the Director and screenwriter choose instead to show that every life is at best a meander. Life is a lot and a little, life is random, yet forced by the human will to subsume.
The starkness of the cinematography plays in alliance with the starkness of the lives represented, there is one scene where 2 waitresses are out sitting on some chairs, talking and enjoying some dessert Sun in a rare respite from their harsh lives, and a small wind scares up some dirt, and it swirls past the 2 waitresses which for me acted as a metaphor for how it is that the characters live in a world on the edge of reasonableness. The main character, a strong woman finds herself searching for a life, though not just any life, but the life she wants, life on her terms, perhaps for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised by the actors in this film, some really surprising actors given the value these actors have come to be held, many of them now famous, much as with the director.
Of Human Bondage (1964)
Captures the true essence of people
One of the best films I have yet seen. (Then again it helps if you have lived a life in strong coincidence with the lives portrayed; and not merely a commentator, a mere critic of film)
This film was my first introduction to Ms. Novak, and yes I admit I was, am, smitten. Ms. Novak brings great depth to her role, a woman seemingly comprised of true grit, this only serving to hide her truths, truth which she never admits to herself.
Love will always be an ever-spring subject, and morality tales their best method to ambitiously telling the nature of human pain and suffering, of which there is much of in this film. The tale of a woman always lost, a woman whose redemption lies solely with the only man that would ever truly Love her.
Love can be a grand thing, though so often, Love disposes of people with nary a backwards glance.
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Fazed and Abused
A most accurate portrayal of what actually happens to children when they trundle off to school, if only parents paid attention to the vicissitudes the real ugliness that can be growing-up in America, especially as this community allows for the bullying of its younger children.
All of societies members are represented: the jocks, the rah rahs, the intellectuals, the druggies, drunkards, cretins, all the people you grow up with and then must work with on a daily basis as an adult. Yes, here they all are, only shown on the cusp of adulthood, being equal parts engaging, and cruel.
The movie as well reflects on just how prevalent drugs are in modern America, and how the typical user is not always only whom you most likely suspect. Drugs being a are far more egalitarian an affair than most people will admit to themselves.
The beautiful summer day and evening are integral to the story, how when one is young, there is nothing more desired than to be "out," out, anywhere, just simply as long as it is "Out!" You know, that time when the air is sweet, warm, and the night simply teeming with potential and portent! And so it goes, the torment, the first kiss, running from the Neanderthals with paddles! Of which this, the paddelings are a large part of the film, central to the story. A tale of how, those becoming Seniors are allowed by this community to menace the freshmen with specially made wooden paddles (Made in shop class no less!) really scary stuff if you were a young man entering into this crazy milieu!
What happens to ones dreams? Is what we do ever meaningful, truly? At many levels this film attempts to answer these questions in a manner which as previously stated as with real life equal parts joy, and pain.
Less Than Zero (1987)
Typical Portrayal of a Loser
As with so many of Americas films "Less than Zero" is about the prototypical loser, a man so riven with flaws that watching the movie is (almost) painful. Yes, Downey plays what is essentially his own life, and as such is not acting or a portrayal at all, merely a man placing on film that which he did (does?) in real life.
The starkness and minimalistic home serves as graphic metaphor for the emptiness and overwrought empty people that populate Southern California.
Playing a too slick for his own skin universal male, McCarthy would soon go nowhere after the making of this film. An effete isolationist, McCarthy is perfect for the role, waiting and waiting, and waiting yet some more for the inevitable death of a loser we are evidently supposed to feel sorry for.