Change Your Image
chikuzen
Reviews
The Great McGonagall (1975)
Godard Eat Your Heart Out!
This is the film that "Wind From the East" so desperately wanted to be. Deconstructs itself before your very eyes. Hilarious and mystifying. Spike Milligan and Joe McGrath were made for each other. And Peter Sellers is on board too. I find it hard to believe this classic of the Cinema of the Absurd is so little known. But then so is McGrath -- the Edgar G. Ulmer of British comedy. While Richard Lester is more associated with "The Goon Shpw" -- thanks to "The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film," it's McGrath who conveys the true Goonish sense of intellectual lunacy. The fact that the entire film is shot inside of a theater -- used to suggest the whole world -- is especially novel and fascinating.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Absolutely Terrific
I saw and loved the original show. But what's done on a stage has to be rethought for the screen, and Burton and company have done so marvelously. On stage Sweeney and Mrs. Lovet have to stand front and center and sing with a force that will let the last row in the upper balcony hear every word. They don't have to do that here. Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are in her shop and upper apartment conspiring with one another most delicately. The result is a singing horror movie. Easily puts all other recent musical films in the shade. It's the real Sondheim deal. And that means, among other things, it's a full press homage to the great Bernard Herrman. Be sure to see "Hangover Square" -- Sondheim' primary inspr iration -- after this one.
The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965)
Babe Central
One of the key films of the 1960's, "The Knack" features the motion picture debuts of three of the most gorgeous and talented women to ever walk the earth: Jacqueline Bissett, Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin. Bissett is in the climactic scene, lining up to cheer "Rory McBride" at Albert Hall. Rampling is the water-skier who sensuously (no other way for Charlotte) pours a glass of water down the front of her we suit. And then there's "Birks," first seen borrowing a chair from Michael Crawford to wait her turn in the hall, and then riding off triumphantly with Ray Brooks on his motorcycle. She also ran off triumphantly with the film's composer, John Barry -- the first of her husbands. I saw "The Knack" on stage in the New York production directed by Mike Nichols. it was very entertaining. But Lester's film is truly invention. And David Watkins' black and white cinematography is far more beautifully than almost anything ever done in color.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
The Power and the Glory of Vivien Leigh
Any number of minor aspects of this 1939 release may seem "dated" by today's standards. But not Selznick's terrific sense of drama and certainly not Vivien Leigh's performance. Which seems eternally fresh, surprising, rich and compelling. One of the best times I ever had watching this movie was several years back when it was given a wide re-release and playing at a neighborhood theater on New York's west side. It was a midweek afternoon and a number of African-American schoolgirls had elected to play hooky and see it. They were completely enthralled, and the reason why was Vivien Leigh's Scarlet O'Hara. They were impulsive teenagers, and so was she. In fact Scarlet might best be described as the most formidable impulsive teenager of all time. Can't really be sure how much of the rest of the film got through to these girls, but they cheered Leigh on for whatever it was she wanted to do. And who can blame them?
The History Boys (2006)
Hilarious and deeply touching
One of the least "stagy" play adaptations I've ever seen. great that they kept the original cast on board. Made me think about the entire history of postwar Brtiish cinema and key films like "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" and "If..." Really funny to read the complaints in here about the gay characters. I've been forced to sit though not end of boring stupid straight movies my entire life -- and told to shut up if I dared object. Now one little movie has a couple of gay characters and you people can't stand it!
The use of "Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered" is lovely. And Stephen Cambell Moore( last seen in the wildly underrated "Bright Young Things") was excellent. Richard Giffiths is, needless to say. God.
Worth seeing for the Celia Johnson impression alone.