sequel, The Two Jakes , is pretty damned good too. Not as good as Chinatown , but better than the reviews it got. Nicholson’s Jake Gittes, an idealist pretending to be a cynic, has so much more depth and character than anyone in any Godfather film. Watch him; watch a great actor, with a great part, create a great character, in a great story. Enjoy Nicholson’s brilliance. It was all downhill for him after this.
THE EXORCIST
A horror film? Well, yes and no. A brilliant cinematic triumph, which used the story of demonic possession as a kind of palimpsest to write questions about faith, life, family, illness, fear, and mortality onto the culture itself. This movie’s cultural and cinematic impact far overshadows that of The Godfather . So much so, it is actually embarrassing to mention them in the same sentence. Friedkin, the director, is a true genius. Seriously, if I were him, I wouldn’t allow either Spielberg or Lucas to wash my car. He recreated cinema with this film. Watch it. Watch a master at work.
LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Yes, that blown-out boring wretch from The Godfather , Brando, was a fantastic actor when he didn’t have contempt for the material and actually tried . Watch him in this movie, and then watch him as Don Corleone. He’s laughing in his grave right now at the mockery he made of himself as Corleone. He actually appeared as Corleone (unbilled) a final time, in a film called The Island of Dr. Moreau . Rent it. You’ll see what I mean. In both films he has the same contempt, the same self-congratulatory, breezy lack of concern or artistic integrity—a man fully at peace with his position above and beyond the material he has been given, comfortable, inoculated, warmly ensconced in the brutal, mercenary notion of his own private, smirking, artistic joke. Then watch him in Last Tango . Watch the scene with him sitting next to his wife’s casket. Listen to him, a great actor at the height of his powers, with a great script and a great director (Bertolucci).
LITTLE BIG MAN
A great film starring Dustin Hoffman, who would have made a much better Michael Corleone.
DIRTY HARRY
God, I love this film. This film sprang from the fertile ground of mid-’70s San Francisco and became an unintentional landmark of gay cinema. It held strong elements of the city’s import to the national restructuring of cultural themes of sexual identity—macho pestering; the louche, lurid appeal of sexual slumming; the “rough trade” ethos. When Harry Callahan’s antagonist, who is also Harry’s gay “femme/bottom” alter ego, sees Harry’s gun, he lasciviously intones, “My, that’s a big one.” This is mere seconds after Harry has spurned another anonymous potential male sexual partner in the rambles of Golden Gate Park in the middle of the night. That self-same antagonist, I should point out to you kids who aren’t on board yet, is named Scorpio, an overt reference to Kenneth Anger’s masterpiece film Scorpio Rising , commonly referred to as the Gayest Film Ever Made. Dirty Harry Callahan—an insane, inhibited, dangerously listing cargo vessel of repressed homosexuality, torpedoed below the waterline by his own unrequited urges, lurching ever closer to wrecking on the shoals of his own misunderstood masculinity—shoots what he can, beats what he can’t, and ignores the opposite sex entirely. What a great cop movie, with such an interesting subtext.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Insane, violent, visionary, original, challenging, brilliant.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
Unjustly derided with the descriptive term “spaghetti western,” this film stands as a great story, a powerful artistic statement, and a meditation on war, culture, religion, friendship, betrayal, and greed. It’s also great fun and great entertainment, and it doesn’t weigh itself down with ponderous notions of its own profound importance à la the two Godfather films I
THE EXORCIST
A horror film? Well, yes and no. A brilliant cinematic triumph, which used the story of demonic possession as a kind of palimpsest to write questions about faith, life, family, illness, fear, and mortality onto the culture itself. This movie’s cultural and cinematic impact far overshadows that of The Godfather . So much so, it is actually embarrassing to mention them in the same sentence. Friedkin, the director, is a true genius. Seriously, if I were him, I wouldn’t allow either Spielberg or Lucas to wash my car. He recreated cinema with this film. Watch it. Watch a master at work.
LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Yes, that blown-out boring wretch from The Godfather , Brando, was a fantastic actor when he didn’t have contempt for the material and actually tried . Watch him in this movie, and then watch him as Don Corleone. He’s laughing in his grave right now at the mockery he made of himself as Corleone. He actually appeared as Corleone (unbilled) a final time, in a film called The Island of Dr. Moreau . Rent it. You’ll see what I mean. In both films he has the same contempt, the same self-congratulatory, breezy lack of concern or artistic integrity—a man fully at peace with his position above and beyond the material he has been given, comfortable, inoculated, warmly ensconced in the brutal, mercenary notion of his own private, smirking, artistic joke. Then watch him in Last Tango . Watch the scene with him sitting next to his wife’s casket. Listen to him, a great actor at the height of his powers, with a great script and a great director (Bertolucci).
LITTLE BIG MAN
A great film starring Dustin Hoffman, who would have made a much better Michael Corleone.
DIRTY HARRY
God, I love this film. This film sprang from the fertile ground of mid-’70s San Francisco and became an unintentional landmark of gay cinema. It held strong elements of the city’s import to the national restructuring of cultural themes of sexual identity—macho pestering; the louche, lurid appeal of sexual slumming; the “rough trade” ethos. When Harry Callahan’s antagonist, who is also Harry’s gay “femme/bottom” alter ego, sees Harry’s gun, he lasciviously intones, “My, that’s a big one.” This is mere seconds after Harry has spurned another anonymous potential male sexual partner in the rambles of Golden Gate Park in the middle of the night. That self-same antagonist, I should point out to you kids who aren’t on board yet, is named Scorpio, an overt reference to Kenneth Anger’s masterpiece film Scorpio Rising , commonly referred to as the Gayest Film Ever Made. Dirty Harry Callahan—an insane, inhibited, dangerously listing cargo vessel of repressed homosexuality, torpedoed below the waterline by his own unrequited urges, lurching ever closer to wrecking on the shoals of his own misunderstood masculinity—shoots what he can, beats what he can’t, and ignores the opposite sex entirely. What a great cop movie, with such an interesting subtext.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Insane, violent, visionary, original, challenging, brilliant.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
Unjustly derided with the descriptive term “spaghetti western,” this film stands as a great story, a powerful artistic statement, and a meditation on war, culture, religion, friendship, betrayal, and greed. It’s also great fun and great entertainment, and it doesn’t weigh itself down with ponderous notions of its own profound importance à la the two Godfather films I
Similar Books
