tugs@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Hull) (10/24/83)
Some from the vault...
King Lear (1968?) dir. Peter Brook, w/ Paul Scofield, Jack Macgowran
- seriously flawed script (unsuccessful attempt to make Lear
a 90 minute story), but Scofield as Lear is his usually superb
self, and Macgowran as the Fool is uncannily brilliant.
One From The Heart (1981) dir. Coppola, w/ Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr,
Natassia Kinski
- I *really* want to see this again; even if you hate it (and I
didn't), there something to be learned from anything Collopa does.
Doomed to failure, because Coppola refuses to believe there's only
one was to tell a story in American cinema. Perhaps there's only
one *commercially successful* way...
Inserts (1974?) w/ Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper
- overdone at times, but still a fascinating tour-de-force for
Dreyfuss, Harper and practically everyone in this
feature-length one-act play that mixes up some famous Hollywood
legends to tell a story of control, mortality and getting your
robe to rise.
What's Up, Doc? (1970?) w/ Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal
- honest to gawd, I swear this is a funny movie! Both stars
are as good as they've ever been, and O'Neal's last line alone
is worth the price of admission.
Shinbone Alley (1972?) w/ voices of Red Buttons, Carol Channing?
- when I saw this I thought it was fantastic; would I think so
now? An animated cartoon about Archy the cockroach and
Mehitabel the cat of literary fame. It bombed terribly: the
adults thought it was a kids' film, and the kids didn't know
what they were watching... Some memorable scenes from Don Marquis's
poems, the most vivid being the moth who explains why he must fly
into the flame, and Archy dealing with Mehitabel's drowning her
litter.
Kid for Two Farthings (1956) dir. Carol Reed, w/ Celia Johnson
- tale of a boy in the slums of London, among other things.
The kid referred to is not him, it's the goat he buys, which looks
remarkably like a unicorn... Celia Johnson was one of the great
English film actresses (the lady in Brief Encounter), and Diana
Dors appears wearing the pointiest sweater in the Western hemisphere.
I don't remember much, except that it felt like a wonderful
film.
Au Clair de la Lune (1983) dir. Andre Forcier, w/ Michel Cote
- this film hasn't been buried yet, but I have a terrible feeling
that it's about to be. The best film I saw at this year's Festival
of Festivals, it's a marvellous, funny, sad, sentimental, cynical
film which is at once real and fantastic. Do I have enough
contradictions to make you realize this is a very special film?
Unfortunately, it's French-Canadian -- this means that it will
most likely get abysmal distribution in Canada and no distribution
at all in the U.S. Try really hard to see it if you can. Films
like this are made too seldom nowadays.
The plot? Oh yes, it's about the friendship between Bert, a former
bowling champion who has arthritis and wears a sandwich board, and
Frank, an albino with possibly magical powers who gets drunk on
Benelyn (*) cough syrup and champagne, and about being chased
by the Dragons, who drive cars with no tires on the rims, and about
the little girl who slashes all the tires in the neighbourhood, even
on the car that Frank lives in, and about freezing to death and
friendship and hope and amputation and...
(*) Benelyn is not a trademark of Bell Laboratories.
steve hull
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