A-No_1 Reviews

A Severed Head (1971)

Off-putting at first

[8/10 · 2 September 2009]

A movie about six people who are constantly shifting sexual alliances and expect each other to remain calm and polite about it all. This movie really irritated me for the first hour or so, in particular Lee Remick's self-absorbed and extreme flightiness, as well as Richard Attenborough's odious civility. But by the time it was over, I was won over by its offbeat approach and ultimately rather scathing critique of the seeming British need to retain manner and form despite the repulsive behaviour of one's peers. And for me, Claire Bloom steals the film as a morbid anthropologist who looks like she just stepped out of a Modigliani painting.

Coming Apart (1969)

Interminable, dated junk

[1/10 · 8 April 2008]

A self-indulgent mess with pretensions of deep meaning, but so void of cinematic originality that it cannot disguise the emptiness of its conceit, which consists singularly of an immobile camera, in front of which Rip Torn sits on a couch and bitches and moans for two never-ending hours. There are a lot of nude women to watch but they're so annoying that after a minute or so you just want them to put on their clothes and get the hell off-screen. This is the kind of experimental, cinema-verite film-making that seemed deep in the sixties when everyone was burnt out on acid, but the days of LSD are long gone, leaving only this headache-inducing, stomach-cramping piece of swill, which can at least hopefully serve as a testament to the dangers of allowing no-talent people to use a movie camera. Enter at your own risk.

The Shopworn Angel (1938)

James Stewart sinks it

[5/10 · 17 April 2006]

James Stewart plays a naive hick soldier who falls for Margaret Sullavan and wants to marry her before going off to war. She is a selfish actress who undergoes a remarkable character transformation in his presence and, in a ridiculous plot turn, agrees to marry him, even though she is in love with Walter Pigeon (who's the best part of this movie) the whole time. It has something to do with keeping his spirit alive while he's off fighting. Or something like that. Stupid plot aside, the unsettling part of this is Stewart, who yet again plays a character so selfish and obsessive that he comes across as creepy and unappealing, despite (or perhaps because of)the outward singular innocence he's supposed to represent. His obsessiveness in Anthony Mann westerns and in movies like "Vertigo" were fascinating because his characters were supposed to be flawed and difficult. But in this movie and other early films like "Of Human Hearts" and "Come Live With Me" (the way he flips out in childish rage at Hedy Lamarr near the film's end, for example)I find him completely off-putting and have to remember his later films in order to remind myself that, yes, I actually do like him.

Jennifer on My Mind (1971)

boy meets brainless girl, falls in love

[3/10 · 16 March 2005]

Michael Brandon and Tippy Walker play a couple of rich, apathetic morons who meet in Venice, smoke grass, have sex and then hook up in New York at a later date, at which time Walker has moved on to shooting up heroin and walking on the ledges and precipices of high places, but isn't worried about breaking her neck because "I have no neck." This is one of those post-sixties burnout movies that should be avoided at all costs unless you are, like me, inexplicably drawn to post-sixties burnout movies, in which case you'll want to give this one a shot. Just don't expect anything resembling a good movie. And director Noel Black's wacko editing style does little other than reveal that he's seen too many Godard movies; he even throws in a "Weekend"-like car accident, in the movie's most berserk moment, when Brandon is being terrorized by junkie hippies hurtling after him in a hearse-like car painted in the colours of the American flag.