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tseverin
Reviews
8 Million Ways to Die (1986)
It's very good: don't believe the hype!
I saw this film a couple of nights ago. I only bothered as it was a Hal Ashby movie & I'm a big fan. He didn't let me down. Ok it's not a masterpiece or even amongst his best but it's still a powerfully intense thriller. Superficially similar to Scarface it is less showy, more personal & more convincing. Garcia's stylised gangster with his 'Gaudi' affectations almost unsettles the realism but is compulsive. Bridges turns in another superb performance as the hard-boiled, ex-cop battling with alcoholism & other demons. Ashby's Chandleresque take on 80's LA is familiar but beautifully vivid nevertheless. What raises it above the plethora of dark 80's thrillers is it's old-fashioned 70's values like complex character and troubled hero not in control of the narrative over fast-pace, shallow action & irony. To the post-Star Wars generation '8 Million Ways' may look meandering and indulgent but this says more about their limitations as film fans than it does about the film.
Charlie Is My Darling (1966)
Unreleased visionary gem.Hard Day's Night directed by Godard
Stands alongside Pennebaker's 'Don't Look Back' as pioneering 60's verite rockumentary. By turns funny, touching, exciting & revealing. Whitehead manages to create an astonishing level of intimacy with the world's premier rock band which would be unthinkable these days. Even the taciturn Charlie Watts is coaxed out of his shell and shares his feelings and philosophy (for perhaps the only time on film). Brian Jones's narcissism is palpable; A topless Keef displays his early mastery of the guitar jamming on 'Salty Dog'. The scenes of fan craziness in the pressure cooker fame game of the early 60's are viewed ironically from a distance like 'A Hard Day's Night' directed by Godard. The film also works now as a sort of social history of Ireland in the evocative detail of a vanished era. The occasional melancholy tone is one of the idiosyncratic touches that sets the film apart from any other pop doc. before or since.
A personal highlight is the hilarious scene where Watts tries to take a cigarette from Wyman but is repeatedly outwitted by some painfully simple sleight of hand.