Actor/monologuist Spaulding Gray sits behind a desk and spends an hour-and-a-half talking to an audience about the years he spent composing his autobiographical novel "Impossible Vacation." If this sounds remotely interesting to you, then you're probably gonna love it. Gray has a talent for being funny, sad, and insightful all at the same time; he's much more than a teller of witty tales. And he's rarely dull. After watching this film and his "Swimming to Cambodia" (also recommended), I can honestly say that I would pay money to listen to this man talk any day of the week.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Trash
(1970)
Fitfully entertaining.
1 April 2000
You know you're in trouble when you find yourself watching a film that begins with a close-up of Joe Dallesandro's naked butt.
"Trash" is a sometimes funny but more often tedious look at some low-life types (our man Joe and his pals) in New York, filmed in the static, droning style we have come to expect from the Warhol/Morrissey crowd. Anyone who thrills to the sight of Dallesandro shooting up and running about naked will have a jolly old time with this film. Everyone else, though, will have little else to savor, except perhaps the dubious merits of Morrissey's willfully random, where-the-heck-am-I-supposed-to-point-the-camera? directorial technique.
Keep your expectations low and it might be worth watching. Maybe.
"Trash" is a sometimes funny but more often tedious look at some low-life types (our man Joe and his pals) in New York, filmed in the static, droning style we have come to expect from the Warhol/Morrissey crowd. Anyone who thrills to the sight of Dallesandro shooting up and running about naked will have a jolly old time with this film. Everyone else, though, will have little else to savor, except perhaps the dubious merits of Morrissey's willfully random, where-the-heck-am-I-supposed-to-point-the-camera? directorial technique.
Keep your expectations low and it might be worth watching. Maybe.
Remember My Name
(1978)
Recommended.
19 February 2000
An interesting and well-acted psychological drama about an unhappily married man (Perkins) who finds himself stalked by his first wife (Chaplin), a mentally unbalanced woman who spent the last 12 years in prison for murder. You've seen this kind of insane-female-admirer plot before, but here it's handled more intelligently and tastefully than usual. It remains refreshingly unpredictable all the way through.
Chaplin is particularly impressive, managing to exude fragility, menace, and just plain craziness all at once. It's a solid performance if you're willing to overlook her ever-changing accent (is her character supposed to be American or English?). The film also features an overbearing blues soundtrack that, while decent enough in itself, sounds like it belongs in another film. Still, it's a good movie, probably worth viewing more than once.
Chaplin is particularly impressive, managing to exude fragility, menace, and just plain craziness all at once. It's a solid performance if you're willing to overlook her ever-changing accent (is her character supposed to be American or English?). The film also features an overbearing blues soundtrack that, while decent enough in itself, sounds like it belongs in another film. Still, it's a good movie, probably worth viewing more than once.
Roseland
(1971)
Very dated (and very odd) psychedelic satire.
12 February 2000
A sex-crazed ex-singer is forced to undergo psychiatric counseling; it seems he's addicted to stealing pornographic films. Flashbacks soon inform us that he fell into disgrace after performing a risque song-and-dance number on the Ed Sullivan Show. Then we get an extremely lengthy (it's in slow motion) dream sequence, in which our hero frolics with a gang of jungle women dressed in what looks like prehistoric S&M gear. And then... well, more goofy stuff happens. That's just the beginning of this rambling, spaced-out ode to... I don't know--drugs? Actually, the movie does begin making sense--I think--as its (not to be revealed here) "message" gradually emerges. But it all grows tedious after the first 25 minutes or so. The acting runs the full range from barely acceptable to awful, and, for all the weirdness, the movie is never really funny. For fans of hippie-era strangeness only.
Wanda
(1970)
Quiet, memorable film.
12 February 2000
Mousy, uneducated, impoverished Wanda falls for a sleazy small-time crook, and they hit the road together. This movie has everything going against it--it's very low-key, cheaply made (dig that shaking camera), and paced only a little more swiftly than your average Andy Warhol film. But even though it plays like a cut-rate "Badlands," it succeeds powerfully in evoking sympathy for its pathetic title character. Its slow pace gives it a meditative quality for the patient viewer. Depressing but memorable; it should be more widely seen.
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