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Reviews
Do It Again (2010)
God-awful. Save the Kinks.
I'm usually one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the arts. It takes a lot for me to hate something, especially something by a music journalist (I am one), and a Kinks fan (I am one),
But this is the most inept, pathetic video (I refuse to call it a "film". It's not even a "show". It's like something a guy did on his camcorder.), although it's only an hour long (well, I saw a truncated version on PBS, not the 85 minute version listed here) it is a colossal waste of time.
If you're not going to succeed in your goal of getting the Kinks back together, at least you'd hope you'd arrive at some insight about music, fandom, what it is about the band or the stated goal that seem to mean so much to you. But Geoff Whatever seems utterly incapable of self-reflection. The whole thing is as much about him as it is about the Kinks (a dicey proposition unless you are a hella interesting person), but he ends up learning nothing about either! The only thing remotely like it is about 15 seconds (literally) of saying he's getting too old to drink a lot.
He's not a charismatic personality in any way. He insists on playing along with his musical interview subjects although he demonstrates no evidence of any actual musical talent ("ability" to strum along is not the same thing as talent.) He also has abysmal self-esteem, apparently, content to be a jerk when he can't figure out any other plan of action. The nadir is when he sits in a downpour with an acoustic guitar at Speakers' Corner at Hyde Park with not a soul in the vicinity. It's pathetic. The shmuck can't even manage small talk with Zooey Deschanel about the Red Sox! I mean, really!
And when the film does get mildly interesting, the editing is ridiculous - cutting away from songs even when Ray or Dave is singing them! (And lest you think this is because of the edited TV version of the film, nope - these are cuts in and out of interview snippets while the song plays on the soundtrack.) The one decent part of the film is Sting's brief appearance, and I usually am not a fan of Sting. This time, he's tolerable because he's talking about how much he loves another musician besides himself, and he's by far the best performer of the Kinks' material seen in the film.
I am just about enough of a masochist - or a rock doc fan - or am willing to give the guy a fair shake since I've been so disparaging here, that since I already invested an hour of my life (plus another little while writing this) in this I may seek out the full version of the video, to see if there is any more of the element I most found lacking, that is, any sense of personal introspection or growth to balance the anticlimax of the film's mission itself. If it turned out to be a rock fan's self-examination on why we fans are so obsessive about our favorite artists and feel we are somehow bound up with them, with the possible Kinks reunion as a sort of macguffin, I'd be totally into that film This is really, really, really not that film. Poorly conceived and even more poorly executed, it actually manages to diminish, not elevate, the band by putting forth Edgers as an exemplar of a Kinks fan.
Chandler (1971)
Interesting total failure
The "Trivia" page on IMDb claims the filmmakers protested because this film was re-cut by the studio to "simplify the plot". If so, that effort was a total failure, as this is one of the most incoherent narratives I've ever seen in a film -- I'd hate to have seen it before the plot was "simplified."
It's sad to see Warren with so little character to go on that even he can't do anything with the inept material. It's interesting to see Caron in '70s mode instead of her Hollywood-era glamour garb and persona, but it's sad to see her haplessly wander through this doing-a- favor-to-her-producer-husband dreck. She would actually later hook up with and marry the director, instead -- who, you'll note, never directed anything again, but did strictly 1st or 2nd A.D. work in TV from here on out. That oughta tell you enough right there.
I call this "interesting" because I have an automatic fondness for American films of this period, and this role does add perspective to Oates' otherwise fantastic 1971 output (Two- Lane Blacktop, The Hired Hand). But the "1940s detective as fish-out-of-water in 1970s L.A." theme, which is the only thing the movie really has to say, is sold in way too heavy- handed a manner. A similar theme would be far more effectively handled two years later in Altman's The Long Goodbye. And as far as Oates playing a hard-bitten guy on a doomed errand, three years on, he would give his definitive performance in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. If you haven't seen those, don't waste your time with this!
The Fury (1978)
One of DePalma's most god-awful movies!
Everyone sucks in this movie. Amy Irving snivels, Kirk Douglas glowers, Carrie Snodgress wafts, even Cassavetes has nothing to do but kind of loom menacingly -- at least he knows he's in a dog of a picture. And '70s boy wonder Andrew Stevens (a Lucy love interest on Dallas) is, as usual, thoroughly unappealing as the figure supposedly at the center of all the preposterous shenanigans within. Of course, who can blame them with the miserable dialogue and plotting and ridiculous attempts at characterization the screenplay provides. It's no wonder this is the last film writer John Farris was ever allowed anywhere near. It's cool to see early bit parts by Daryll Hannah and Dennis Franz, but generally, this is a worthless waste of time, and every one of DePalma's most obnoxious tendencies (casual misogyny, garishly unrealistic death scenes, tone-deafness with actors) are on generous display. Speaking of tone-deafness, even John WIlliams' score is highly inappropriate at many points.