Film Review: OLD BOYFRIENDS (1979, Joan Tewkesbury)

Stars: 3.8 of 5.

Running Time: 103 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Written by Paul and Leonard Schrader (MISHIMA, BLUE COLLAR, THE YAKUZA). Starring Talia Shire (THE GODFATHER, ROCKY), Richard Jordan (THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, Lynch's DUNE), John Belushi (ANIMAL HOUSE, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE), Keith Carradine (DEADWOOD, SOUTHERN COMFORT), John Houseman (the stage, ROLLERBALL, THE FOG), P.J. Soles (ROCK 'N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, HALLOWEEN), Buck Henry (THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, TO DIE FOR), Gerrit Graham (CHILD'S PLAY 2, USED CARS, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE). Music by David Shire (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, SHORT CIRCUIT, MONKEY SHINES).

Tagline: "...what happens when you see them again?"

Best one-liner: "I got a cameo on STARSKY AND HUTCH… wanna come out and see my Winnebago?"

Just in time for Valentine's Day, something with a romantic bent. Well, kind of.

I'm a tremendous fan of Paul Schrader, with MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS in serious contention as my favorite film of all time, and he's either written or directed other films that are near to my heart, like BLUE COLLAR, RAGING BULL, ROLLING THUNDER, TAXI DRIVER, AMERICAN GIGOLO, OBSESSION, CAT PEOPLE, PATTY HEARST, and so many others. I've been on sort of a quest to see the rarest films in his catalogue, and this usually involves sifting through bins of used VHS tapes and poking around in the dustier corners of the internet. For a mere $1.99, I got my hands on an early, largely unseen Schrader called OLD BOYFRIENDS. He co-wrote it with his brother Leonard, and it's directed by Joan Tewkesbury, whose major claim to fame was writing the screenplay for Robert Altman's NASHVILLE. It stars some perennial favorites, too– names like Talia Shire, Richard Jordan, Keith Carradine, John Houseman, and John Belushi. I also discovered that the film's reputation is rather weak– apparently the 117 souls who've seen it and voted on IMDb rank it a mere 4.2 out of 10. It seems to have been out of circulation for a long time, too– the VHS I obtained was manufactured in 1982, the cassette itself is sort of a discolored grey, and the original MSRP printed on the side claims $79.95! Ah, it was a different era. Regardless, knowing these few scant facts, I embarked upon OLD BOYFRIENDS. And I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

The plot is as follows: a psychologist (Talia Shire) undergoes a self-centered identity crisis as she weathers the collapse of her marriage and decides to embark upon a road trip into her distant past, visiting her college beau (Richard Jordan), who is now a successful director of television commercials; her douchey high school boyfriend (John Belushi) who runs a garment rental business and performs in a 50's throwback band (it feels kind of like an audition for THE BLUES BROTHERS!); and the brother of her deceased middle school sweetheart (Keith Carradine), who suffers from agoraphobia and is deeply depressed. The intent of her travels seems to be self-exploration and self-knowledge, but the end result is not always positive– in some cases it involves revenge and the opening of long-ago-sutured psychological wounds. As such, some have labelled it as a man-hating tract, but that's an incredibly narrow view; Shire's character is often selfish but her behavior is not lionized (and Schrader's attraction to pariahs and unlikable protagonists has occasionally been misinterpreted as such). The whole thing has a tremendous quotidian interest– I'm not even close to being a fan of the "relationship genre," but I found the film's plot set-up to be fascinating, and its development satisfying. Tewkesbury's directorial debut is strong– atmospheric, contemplative, and specific. It doesn't rank amongst the Schrader brothers' absolute finest work, but there's great pathos and good humor, and I'm glad I was finally able to get my hands on it.

Now, onto the minutiae, as I am wont to do:
–There's an amazing melodramatic soundtrack by David Shire which infuses the film with dose of seriousness and a dose of camp, both of which work in the film's favor.
–Buck Henry shows up as a fidgety Private Investigator whose office overlooks Grauman's Chinese theater. STAR WARS is on the marquee.
–In a hotel room, Shire watches a 50's TV show called THE CONTINENTAL, whereupon the viewer, via first-person POV cinematography, is treated to a date with an unsavory man. I had no idea that the popular Christopher Walken SNL skit… was a remake!
–Gerrit Graham appears as an awesomely sleazy actor on Richard Jordan's set who hits on Ms. Shire, insisting "I got a cameo on STARSKY AND HUTCH… wanna come out and see my Winnebago?"
–And finally, the idea of Keith Carradine being the brother of her dead middle school sweetheart begs the question…. was said paramour DAVID Carradine???

Nearly four stars.

-Sean Gill

I can't tell you how happy I am to live in a world where this is not an April Fool's Day Prank.

You know, a 'Full Eclipse.' It's like a 'Total Eclipse,' except made for television. And is it just me, or is there some confusion about whether the guy on the bottom is 'evil van Peebles' or not? I guess I just have Jekyll/Hyde stories on the brain, because


This is one of those movies where one day you're theorizing 'wouldn't it have been kickass if they'd done a multigender Jekyll/Hyde tale back when Sean Young was in her loony prime?' And then the universe course-corrects itself, and next thing you know, the VHS is sitting there on your lap. Also note: the googly eyes, mid-transition.


WHAT! Someone dares to rip off Castellari! Ye gods! Isn't there a law against that?! But I guess you can make anything cooler by sticking it in the desert...


No! Not Golan-Globus getting ripped off, too! But we can all take a deep breath, because this is the work of post-Cannon Golan. Whew.


I guess this is a lot like THE RUNNING MAN, except with leather daddies and the font from your alarm clock.


"Scott- get a little closer to Jamie Lee. No, a little closer. Closer. Close enough so her hair's in your ear. Hold it right there. Don't move. Now look really serious. Really stern. Come on, the stakes are really high. Perfect." ...and Bette Davis.


"So here's the concept: THE NIGHT PORTER." –"THE NIGHT PORTER plus what?" "Um. THE NIGHT PORTER plus bitches?" –"How about just one bitch." "Sold."


A lot of people know this one already, but again, let me remind you- we live in a world where it exists.


I've actually got a review of this one in the works. How can you go wrong with Rutger Hauer, Powers Boothe, Donald Pleasence, and Kathleen Turner in a movie about endangered birds?



Slow down, slow down...too many words! You had me at Holbrook.



SEE HOME APPLIANCES SLICE AND DICE!!!! ....PEOPLE!!! And apparently "three knives" now constitute a "home appliance."


I would like to point out that this pre-dates FRIDAY THE 13TH.


Another Joe D'Amato trashterpiece. I keep thinking that there's a hidden anagram in the title or something. And why have one ball with spikes on a chain when you can have three?



What do you say? What can you say? Well... I hope they paid you up front, Dennehy. Cause it'd be pretty recockulous if the producers snookered you by sayin' that "the check is..." well, yeah.


What, was Terence Hill unavailable? And if he was, why did they even cast Bud Spencer? It seems like the sort of thing tailor-made for DeLuise/Reynolds.



Paul Schrader directed it. Angelo Badalamenti did the music. Dennis Hopper stars. Supporting players include Eric Bogosian, Penelope Ann Miller, and Julian Sands, and we're coasting on the fact that one of five producers here (Gale Anne Hurd) has a tenuous connection to THE TERMINATOR and ALIENS? And I really think that "It's a new kind of evil as old as time" has got to be the worst tag-line this side of "KEN SAGOES, THE KID WHO SURVIVED 'NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3' IS BACK!"


Produced by, directed by, and starring Robert Forster. Co-starring his daughter, Kate Forster. If that's too much Forster for ya, there's a little Joe Spinell thrown into the mix just to spice it up. Did I mention that this movie didn't do so well?


I'd like to see this one- it's from the producer of THE TERMINATOR and ALIENS. 'Imagine WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? with witches and zombies instead of toons." Okay, I'm imagining it. In all seriousness though- Fred Ward, David Warner, Julianne Moore, and Clancy Brown?! And did I mention that Fred Ward plays "Detective H.P. Lovecraft?" And why is a pentagram being hurled at his nads by what appears to be a boglin? Perhaps the most important question here is- WHERE DO I SIGN UP?



And on that note, I'll say- expect to see a few of these getting the full treatment on the site in the next few months...

-Sean Gill

Film Review: FOREVER MINE (1999, Paul Schrader)

Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 115 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Ray Liotta (COP LAND), Joseph Fiennes, Gretchen Mol, Vincent Laresca (BAD LIEUTENANT, COP LAND).
Tag-line: "He gave all for love."
Best one-liner: "There's two types of people in the world: assholes and pricks. You're an asshole, I'm a prick. DO THE MATH."

Paul Schrader has earned an off-day. I mean, some mornings that alarm clock is just plain oppressive. You swat at it. You roll outta the wrong side of bed and realize you've got a crick in your neck the size of a small boulder. You're flustered, you skip breakfast, and then you accidentally make FOREVER MINE––whoops!

That's not to say this is a bad movie, it's just the sort of movie that's been made 1,000 times before and will be made 1,000 times again. Love triangle, jealousy, revenge, passion, yadda yadda.

The weak links are cabana boy Joseph Fiennes and disaffected wife Gretchen Mol who are ‘okay,’ I guess, but they're simply not connected to the material.


It's feeble, feeble melodrama when these two are on screen: "Why?! Why the bird sing so gay? Why does the rain fall from up above? WHY DO YOU STAY IN THIS MARRIAGE?!"

WAHH

Anyway, a psychotic Liotta plays the cuckolded hubby, and when he gets pissy, things get marginally more interesting. He's the kind of guy who scolds his wife for not participating in a telemarketer's poll, when really she was just lying to cover up the fact that her lover was just on the phone.

 

Liotta + 1970's period piece = Henry Silva?!?

Liotta makes clichéd (but still kinda fun) speeches like: "There's two types of people in the world: assholes and pricks. You're an asshole, I'm a prick. Do the math!" 

 

This movie also has the most memorable tanning bed torture sequence since KILLER WORKOUT. Bravo. Then again, this thing is prefaced by a real pretentious Walter Pater quote about strangeness and beauty and the romantic character of art. More like the romantic character of ‘movies where Liotta giggles like a tinny, coked out little girl.’

And make no mistake- the 'genre of movies where Ray Liotta giggles like a tinny, coked-out little girl' is actually one of the best genres.
 

I can’t believe this was the follow-up to AFFLICTION.

Film Review: ADAM RESURRECTED (2008, Paul Schrader)

Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 106 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi (DEAD AGAIN, GLADIATOR), Ayelet Zurer (MUNICH, VANTAGE POINT).
Tag-line: "In a world gone mad, being insane was just a way to fit in."
Best one-liner: "Who let a dog in here?"

Paul Schrader is quite possibly my favorite filmmaker of all time, and even on those rare occasions when I can't connect with his material (TOUCH, FOREVER MINE), I still have nothing but respect for the man and his movies. ADAM RESURRECTED never quite works, and it's certainly not for lack of trying. I can't help but feel that Schrader himself never connected with the material: written by Noah Stollman, based on the novel by Yoram Kaniuk, and self-distributed by (according to some accounts) hubristic producer Ehud Bleiberg, the film just doesn't 'feel' like a Schrader project, even when placed in context with other films he's directed but not written (AUTO FOCUS, THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS). I feel like the producers wanted ONE FLEW OVER THE SCHINDLER'S LIST, and Schrader probably wanted something closer to ISRAELI GIGOLO. Consequently, the film has a forced weight to it that usually rings false- you can have crying, screaming, breast-beating, crazies, and men barking like dogs; but if it's not in service to a story that carries real, passionate, connected poignancy, it's going to fall flat. One of the biggest cracks in the foundation here is Jeff Goldblum. I love Goldblum.

I wanted to believe that he was this character, but he simply couldn't sell it to me. On the surface, you could say that the problem was the German accent, which seemed to come and go with no real consistency, but the deeper problem was that the performance was based on affectation. There are many ways to tell a story from the point-of-view of a deeply disturbed individual. Look at Schrader's TAXI DRIVER, ROLLING THUNDER, or AUTO FOCUS. We delve deeply into the protagonist's minds, and emerge with not absolution, but an understanding of their lives, their motivations. Here, we just turn crazy up to eleven, and let it ride out. More like Nic Cage in VAMPIRE'S KISS or THE WICKER MAN than Devane in ROLLING THUNDER. And the asylum inmates are just terrible...terrible. Painful to watch. Time to get a new casting director. The silver lining here is clearly Willem Dafoe, as if we required more evidence that he has never delivered a poor performance. From his first appearance as a meek audience member at the CABARET-inspired Weimar venue

to his vile (but oddly pathetic) Nazi Commandant,

he's sharp, occasionally funny, often terrifying, and completely in the moment. I really wish I could say the same for the rest of the film. To see a film about human debasement in a similar vein but with genuine poignancy, check out Lina Wertmüller's SEVEN BEAUTIES.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: OBSESSION (1976, Brian De Palma)

Stars: 3.8 of 5.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Cliff Robertson (THE TWILIGHT ZONE's "The Dummy"), Genevieve Bujold (DEAD RINGERS), John Lithgow. Music by Bernard Herrmann. Screenplay by Paul Schrader. Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond
Tag-line: "The love story that will scare the life out of you!"
Best one-liner: Not really that kind of movie.

I guess I'll just go ahead and make this 'Hitchcock pastiche (and rip-off)' week. We'll continue with De Palma's OBSESSION.

You can call De Palma a second-rate Hitchcock who hits his mark maybe 50% of the time. Touché. A little harsh...but, touché. You can call this a masturbatory VERTIGO rip-off. Okay. Thats your prerogative, I guess. But it's a VERTIGO rip-off scripted by Paul Schrader (TAXI DRIVER, MISHIMA), shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (THE DEER HUNTER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS), featuring a smarmy Southern Fried John Lithgow, and scored by Bernard Herrmann himself, so it's gonna be pretty watchable. And it is. And before I concede that it's a VERTIGO rip-off, there is plenty of DONT LOOK NOW rumbling around in here too, and that's a good thing.

The visuals are immaculate. OBSESSION has that lovingly creepy fetishization of ancient, drearily beautiful European architecture.

The ever-present tracking shots are disorientingly classy- a 450-degree or so pan around a dead woman's bedroom is a standout, as is the final, ridiculous perversion of the classic 'entwined lovers' wraparound shot. The music is perfect. Herrmann's had a long time (10 years since his cancelled TORN CURTAIN score and the Hitchcock falling-out) to reflect on his collaborations with Hitch, and he hammers out a score that pays homage to his older ones, yet develops some of his familiar themes in an even grander context. It's spellbinding, dizzying, and vintage Herrmann.

The script is full of that patented, wild-eyed Schrader intensity: after the 1959 deaths of his wife and daughter, a New Orleans businessman (Cliff Robertson of STAR 80 and CHARLY) just might get the chance to do things over again when, in 1976, he spots a woman  (Genevieve Bujold of DEAD RINGERS and ANNE OF THE 1,000 DAYS) who's the spitting image of his dearly departed missus.

Robertson's eponymous 'obsession,' which at times borders on Travis Bickle-style madness (see also: HARDCORE and MISHIMA), is really the centerpiece here, and it's so forcefully matter-of-fact that it lends itself to extremely uncomfortable comedy- occasionally the look on Robertson's face is so ludicrously psychotic that you laugh––but you laugh not because it's funny, you laugh because you know he's for real (almost in a Lon Chaney, silent film sense).

We ultimately get to a point where everything depends on the payoff being 'worth it' or not, and I'm happy to report that it's bold, bizarre, and... unexpectedly powerful? Nearly four stars.

Film Review: ROLLING THUNDER (1977, John Flynn)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Written by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould. Starring William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones, Dabney Coleman, Linda Haynes, cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth (ALTERED STATES, BLADE RUNNER).
Tag-lines: "Major Charles Rane Is Coming Home To War!"
Best one-liner: "Listen Cliff, I hope you don't mind my saying this but I'd sure appreciate it if you didn't call my kid a runt."
Viewed: 8/8/09 at the Anthology Film Archive in NYC as part of a series of unavailable gritty 70's pictures chosen by Bill Lustig (MANIAC!, VIGILANTE, MANIAC COP).

This is not a simple revenge movie, an exploitation picture, nor is it a 'Nam vets gone wild flick. It's an art film- a powerful examination of frustration, memory, and endless brutality. Written by Paul Schrader (and Heywood Gould), the film centers on Schrader's lifelong fascination: in a society that ceaselessly pendulates between stagnancy and violence, how does the individual come to grips with the pain of living? With one's fists? One's guns? One's hook?

ROLLING THUNDER is TAXI DRIVER, BLUE COLLAR, and a touch of MISHIMA wrapped in one, taut package, full of moody natural lighting and potent chiaroscuro visuals (by BLADE RUNNER cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth). And who better to do the packaging than director John Flynn (THE OUTFIT), whose gritty, efficient storytelling and no-nonsense style perfectly suit the film and its themes?

Shielding himself behind mirrored aviator glasses, Charles Rane (William Devane, in one of the best performances of the 70s) is a burned-out husk brimming with Nitroglycerin: he's dead inside and knows it, but he wants to find his place, wants to put on a smile, wants to jam together the puzzle pieces that just don't fit no matter how hard he tries to force them.


A series of events occur, beginning with his homecoming (to a throng of well-wishers whose applause is as vacant as Rane's soul) and ending with the business end of a garbage disposal. Suddenly there are no more choices to be made, and the path has been set out. It's one he's followed before, and now its as simple as "I'll just get my gear."

Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones in a scary-good role) joins his former Major's quest with obedience and relief, having been equally unable to readjust (with a hilariously unaware, blathering family). It all plays out with a striking lack of standard Hollywood 'emotion' and is so intensely matter-of-fact that it lends itself as frequently to bouts of uncomfortable laughter as it does to recoils of mind-numbing horror. A criminally unavailable American masterpiece.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: PATTY HEARST (1988, Paul Schrader)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.
Running Time: 108 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Natasha Richardson, William Forsythe, Ving Rhames, Dana Delany (LIGHT SLEEPER, TOMBSTONE), Frances Fisher (UNFORGIVEN, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN), Jodi Long (THE EXORCIST III, ROBOCOP 3).
Tag-lines: "Heiress... kidnap victim... turned urban terrorist... bank robber ."
Best one-liner: "It's just like pigs to glorify a mouse."

Yet another extraordinary biopic from writer/director Paul Schrader, whose biographical output includes MISHIMA, AUTO FOCUS, the screenplay for RAGING BULL, and, to some extent, his screenplays for THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Schrader's biopics stand alone, in my mind, as he not only epically and completely immerses you into his subject's lives, but also into their very minds. And despite this complete immersion, he also manages to involve you in HIS mind, HIS thought processes. His narratives unfold with at once the simple asceticism of Bresson and the slam-pop-bang mise-en-scene of Scorsese. Yet there's a sense of claustrophobia to all of this as well; almost an imprisonment, and indeed, almost all of Schrader's films end with a psychological or literal incarceration- and PATTY HEARST is no exception.

Her first confinement is brilliantly illustrated- you can almost feel the heat of the sun baking down on the California rathole that is Symbionese Liberaton Army headquarters, even as we, like Patty, are cramped, constricted, and entrenched in darkness.

Her eventual coercion, collaboration, and arrest are just natural steps along the path wrought by her initial trauma, seemingly par for the tragic course. Natasha Richardson (RIP) is terrific as Patty; she is our gateway into the film, and indeed into the mind of Patricia Hearst herself.

Bill Forsythe showcases his abilities as a powerful chameleon, as at ease here as a self-loathing white revolutionary as he is as the nerdy buddy in CLOAK AND DAGGER or as the government flunky in THE ROCK. He's one of Americas greatest underrated working actors. Ving Rhames, as always, is robust and frequently terrifying as the commanding leader of the SLA- until, that is, you realize there's no wind in his sails- only the rotely memorized cliches of revolutionaries past. A top-notch examination of one of Americas most notorious pariahs, and a criminally unavailable American classic.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: RAGING BULL (1980, Martin Scorsese)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 129 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty (KINDERGARTEN COP), written by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin based on the book by Jake LaMotta, Joseph Carter, and Peter Savage.
Tag-lines: None.
Best one-liner: " I get ya's both in the ring, I'll give ya both a fuckin' beatin', ya both can fuck each other."

One of American cinema's dingiest, grimiest, most brutal sub-genres was the "Boxing Noir," which encompassed films like THE SET-UP, KILLER'S KISS, CHAMPION, CITY FOR CONQUEST, 99 RIVER STREET, BODY AND SOUL, and THE HARDER THEY FALL, among others. (Also see "Wrestling Noir," like NIGHT AND THE CITY.) These were far grimmer, sweatier, sleazier, and more visceral than your standard noir- the heroes frequently being palookas and mad apes whose lack of moral fiber was only exceeded by their desire to lash out wildly- to PUNCH, PUNCH, PUNCH!



It was a world of dark alleys, crinkling flashbulbs, and sweat and blood-drenched leather and canvas. So in a nod to those that came before, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, and Robert de Niro decided to smack the American "sports genre" in the mouth with one savage, merciless blow, which broke up the fluffy, soft-shoe wankfest that had developed in Boxing Noir's absence. Using the Bronx, and it's culture of domestic, organized, and recreational violence as a starting point, Scorsese creates a world of ferocious, untamed, irreconcilable contrasts- a world of black and white, of toned bodies and flabby husks, of raw power and complete impotency, of rage and tranquility, of determination and aimlessness. And the only thing that can reconcile these contrasts in the mind of our hero is 'to punch' and 'to be punched.'

It's a confusing enough world already for most of us who haven't been beaten senselessly in the head on a regular basis and endured God knows how many concussions; so how can the oafish Jake even hope to cope with the complex rumblings of his bleakly constructed soul? Well, watch the film and find out. Five stars.

-Sean Gill