Withnail and I

Plot: In 1969, two unemployed actors living on booze and drugs in a filthy London flat. Heading out to the countryside for the weekend they encounter Withnail’s Flamboyantly Gay Uncle Monty, a violent poacher, and some other rural characters.

Actors: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann

Pros: Supporting characters, Witty script, Richard Grant
Cons: Too Long, Profanity & Drug use, Paul McGann too bland

Full of funny lines, "Withnail and I" is a British Combination "Leaving Las Vegas" and "The Big Lewbowski". There is no real plot and film focuses on the misadventures of the two leads with some funny supporting characters. Richard Griffiths steals the movie as the eccentric Uncle Monty, while the deadpan Ralph Brown is delightful as their friend/drug dealer. But the movie has its sad and dull moments. Withnail himself is not a funny drunk, and is often profane and obnoxious while the McGann character (I) can be bland or hysterical.

Note: Even though there are no women in the film, the two lead characters are not Gay.

Summary: Rated highly by the critics, I found "Withnail and I" mostly funny but sometimes over-the-top and tedious. No doubt some of the British humor went over my head. Rating ***

The Best Man (1964) - Schaffner

Stars: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson

Plot: The two front runners for their party's Presidential nomination, one principled and the other ruthless, vie for the ex-President's endorsement.

Pros: Acting, intelligent script, fast pace

Cons: Very talky, somewhat dated

Based on Gore Vidal's Broadway, and running only 92 minutes, "Best Man" deals with the ethics of the political process not the current issues of 1964. Vidal, of course, attacks Joe McCarthy and Segregation, but its indirectly and not the main focus. Mostly, the movie deals with 2 issues (1) does "the ends justify the means"? and (2) should a politician's personal life matter?

The Three Politicians 

To answer these questions the film focuses on 3 politicians. The bad guy - Senator Cantwell- is a ruthless pol who believes the ends justify the means. He's a sort of combination Joe McCarthy & Nixon with touches of Bobby Kennedy. The second, our hero Henry Fonda, is a liberal former Secretary of State. Modeled after Stevenson and Dean Acheson, he's pretty much perfect except for being 'indecisive'. He wants to fight on the issues and is perfectly willing to accept defeat rather than betray his principles.

The third character, Ex-President Hockstader, is modeled after Truman with touches of FDR. Politically and morally, Hockstader is the golden mean and obviously Vidal's political ideal. Hockstader is willing to fight dirty but only to a point - and only when necessary. A man of the people but with progressive elite views. A man who likes power but uses it for the liberal good. Like Fonda he's indifferent to a politicians private life unless it effects his performance. Unlike Fonda he values toughness and is willing to tell people what they want to hear and in a way they want to hear it.

Vidal, however, never truly engages the issues. 

Why shouldn't Fonda's treatment for a nervous breakdown be known? Why should his "open marriage" remain a secret? Why shouldn't the voters know that Fonda is an atheist? Vidal and movie assume it doesn't matter, but they never make the case. Similarly, why should it matter that Cantwell is ambitious and will do most anything to succeed? Why is his use of Fonda's personal life, so beyond the pale? Vidal really never says, he just assumes.

A Confusing Ending

Further why are we supposed to cheer Fonda refusal to Cantwell's VP and his endorsement of Meriwell? I thought Fonda wanted power to do good things. And Fonda doesn't even know who Meriwell is! 

Other Points
Finally, its interesting that Vidal puts several things in the movie/play. First, its only after Fonda hears of Cantwell going after Gays in the WW II military that he decides Cantwell under no circumstances be President. Secondly, the ex-President speechifies about how a Jew and Black will one day be President and the crowd applauds. But when he mentions a "Lady President" everyone laughs, including the women in the crowd.

Summary: An interesting, well-acted political drama. Somewhat dated, it asks more questions than it answers. Rating ***

Dressed to Kill (1980)

Director: De Palma

Stars: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson

Plot: A razor wielding pyscho attacks and terrorizes women associated with a Manhattan Therapist

"Dressed to Kill's" high rating surprised me. I found it very familiar and badly acted, especially by Caine, who sleepwalks through his role. None of the characters seemed likable or rounded & like many 70s/80s films the "bloody violence" looks like people smeared with Ketchup.

Summary: Second rate Hitchcock. Labeled a "sustained work of terror" and a "directorial Tour de force", I wasn't terrorized or impressed, mostly bored. Rating **1/2

MASH (1970)

Director: Robert Altman

Stars: Elliot Gould, Donald Sutherland

Plot: Doctors Gould and Sutherland join the 4077 MASH during the Korea War. Hi- jinks ensue.

Altman's first and only true popular hit, the movie has long been overshadowed by the highly successful TV show. Episodic, the movie manages to be anti-religious, anti-war, anti-military, and anti-feminist all at the same time. Unlike the TV show's Hawkeye (Alda) and Trapper (Rodgers), Gould and Sutherland aren't particularly nice or even very likable. They're "Joe Cool", and they're entitled because they're great surgeons who are better and smarter then everyone. So they can call the Catholic father "Dago", treat the nurses as sex toys or tell a middle-aged Head nurse that they're "the pros from Dover" and to get them a Steak pronto and a nurse "whose Tits won't get in the way".

And they behave with self-satisfied cruelty toward anyone they think deserves it. Burns is baited and driven out, Hotlips sexually harassed, and an Army General blackmailed. Whether you think these actions are funny depends on your point of view. Ebert made a nice point:

We laugh, not because "M*A*S*H" is Sgt. Bilko for adults, but because it is so true to the unadmitted sadist in all of us. There is perhaps nothing so exquisite as achieving (as the country song has it) sweet mental revenge against someone we hate with particular dedication. And it is the flat-out, poker-faced hatred in "M*A*S*H" that makes it work.

So if you hate "regular army clowns" like Frank Burns or "Hotlips", and can overlook our leads arrogance and general dislike of anyone not "cool", you might find MASH very funny.

I didn't for the most part - although I found it mildly amusing at times. Henry and Radar were still funny and there a number of funny lines. But too much of it grated on me. And the football game goes on for a dull 30 minutes.

Note: Gould and Sutherland tried to have Altman fired during shooting. Both later apologized, but Altman never worked with Sutherland again. And Altman calls the TV show "racist". Sour grapes anyone?

Summary: Not as bad as I remembered. Some funny moments but too long and uneven. Rating **1/2

Life in Beautiful (1997)

Director: Roberto Benigni

Actors: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi

Plot: An Italian Jew has a wonderful romance with the help of his humor, but must use that same quality to protect his son in a Concentration camp.

I didn't really look forward to watching "Life is Beautiful". I dislike it when comedians try to make us laugh AND cry or use humor to make some profound point. Usually the movie ends up an unpleasant mixture - like hot fudge on raw oysters - or wastes a 1st rate comedian on 2nd rate drama. So I was pleasantly surprised at how *not* awful "Life is Beautiful" is.

The first half is fairly amusing as Benigni does a series of well-done, if slightly familiar, gags and has a light-hearted romance with Braschi. In the second half, things get more serious as Benigni tries to shield his son from the harshness of the German concentration camp. The final scene is excellent and there's some surprisingly good humor - given its Dachau - but the pathos is laid on a little too thick.

Summary: I suppose if you tried to make a funny, life-affirming movie about Concentration camps "Life is Beautiful" does it about as well as possible. But I found the situation too serious/distracting to enjoy much of the 2nd half humor. Four Stars for the first half, two stars for the second. Overall rating: ***

Seven Beauties (1975)

Director: Linda Wertmuller

Actors: Giancarlo Giannini

Plot: Pasqualino, an Italian everyman, deserts the army during World War II. Captured by the Germans he's sent to a concentration camp, where he does almost anything to survive. In lengthy flashbacks, we his life before the war.

Pros: Direction, Giannini, Editing, Originality, Black Humor

Cons: Graphic Concentration camp brutality, Annoying opening song

Seven Beauties is a stunning and often beautiful film full of black humor. The main character, our anti-hero, is a bungler, a fool who kills for a dimwitted "macho" code of honor. And he'll do pretty much anything to survive. Despite all this, and primarily due to Giannini, we often sympathize and laugh at Pasqualino, rather than dislike and despise him.

The pre-war sequences are the best, showing Pasqualino as a ladies man with 7 homely sisters. I found the concentration camp sequences too graphic, brutal and jarring when set against the rest of the film. And Wertmuller tries too hard to make a pessimistic political/cultural point about human nature.

Summary: An interesting "art house" film that can be viewed on many levels. I didn't enjoy much of it, but I found it fascinating and original. Most will find it too bizarre. Rating ***

Combat! - Selected episodes

S.I.W (John Cassavetes). Season 3. Cassavetes plays a new replacement who arrives amid rumors he's a coward. When he's shot with his own M-1, everyone suspects its S.I.W, but is it? This a well written and acted episode by everyone involved, especially Cassavetes. Portraying his character in an ambiguous manner he keeps us guessing till the very end. The only minus: the Germans act even more silly than usual, Rating ***1/2

Hills are For Heroes. Season 4. A two part episode, widely considered the best episode of Combat. Hanley must secure, at any cost, a strategic road guarded by two bunkers. Directed by Murrow, its an action and tension packed episode and probably the most "Movie-like" TV episode of the series. The only negative: the Germans use American machine guns. Rating ****

Bridge at Chalons (Lee Marvin). Season 2. Marvin plays a hard-nosed caustic demolition expert that must be guided to the bridge by the Squad. Predictably, Marvin and Saunders clash but end up respecting each other. Marvin is very good, but doesn't have that much dialogue, and the story isn't anything special. Normally, the special effects/set design on "Combat" are pretty good but the "Bridge at Chalons" looks like a cheap wooden pontoon - which it is. Rating: Marvin gets ****, the Story a ** - Overall ***

The First Day (Buck Taylor) Season 4. Well-written and directed story about the squad breaking in 4 new teenage replacements, a high school football star, a farm boy, a wise-guy, and the boy next door. Even though a couple of guest stars were in their mid-twenties, they come off as teenagers. Note: In reality there was nothing unusual about teenage infantry soldiers (The median age of Marines Killed in WW II was 22), but this is TV. Rating ***

Masquerade. (James Coburn) Season 2. Coburn shines as a German infiltrator, posing as an American, who insists his important German prisoner be taken to Battalion HQ. After a while, Saunders gets suspicious and a game of cat and mouse ensues. Very good and full of nice subtle touches. Rating ****

The Long Way Home. (Richard Basehart) Season 2. Saunders and others are captured by a sadistic SS Colonel and must undergo brutal interrogations or find a way to escape. Basehart was always good at playing Germans and he's excellent in this one. Sadly, the story is too silly. Low-level GI's like Saunders never knew enough for the Germans to spend much time on - let alone keep them in makeshift Prison camps with Colonels in command. And the Germans would have simply shot prisoners who assaulted guards and tried to escape. Rating **1/2

The Enemy. Season 4. Robert Duvall stars as a German expert in booby traps and mines. Captured and forced by Hanley to disarm his own booby-traps, Duvall tries to trick Hanley in order to escape. The one episode I remember from years ago -the plot twists and ending are good - but were better the first viewing. Duvall is convincing as a German. Rating ***