Movies, Movie Stars, and Me

By Allan Neff

Alan Neff wrote movie and book reviews and interviewed Hollywood stars for the Seattle Gay News from 1983-1993; he has been published in the Advocate. Movies, Movie Stars, and Me boasts Jim Henson, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Spike Lee, Lily Tomlin, John Waters, Pauline Kael, Rita Mae Brown, and other exciting personalities caught unguarded and exposed. Reviews of Labyrinth, Top Gun, No Way Out, Dirty Dancing, The Whales of August, Pretty Woman, The Grifters, Switch, George Cukor: A Double Life, Tales of the City, (and much more!), are lively reading and can be used for reference or as a guide to picking videos. And included in this format are Alan Neffs politically-charged letters-to-the-editor, re-printed from major periodicals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2007
• ISBN: 9781467078900

Allan Neff

Alan Neff wrote reviews and interviewed Hollywood stars for the Seattle Gay News from 1983-1993; he has also been published in The Advocate. Movies, Movie Stars, and Me boasts Jim Henson, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Spike Lee, Lily Tomlin, John Waters, Pauline Kael, Rita Mae Brown, and other exciting personalities caught unguarded and exposed. Neff’s reviews of Labyrinth, Top Gun, No Way Out, Dirty Dancing, The Whales of August, Pretty Woman, The Grifters, Switch, George Cukor: A Double Life, and Tales of the City (as well as many more!) are lively reading and can be used for reference or as a guide to picking videos. Also included in this format is an astonishing assortment of Alan Neff’s provocative, politically-charged “letters-to-the-editor,” re-printed from major periodicals. Also by this author: Precious Tribes, Vicious Lies (short stories, essays, and plays)

Book preview

© 2012-2013 Alan Neff. All rights reserved.

Edited by Donny Williams.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 6/27/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4259-3200-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-7890-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006904880

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Forward

Movies

Ashes to Ashes

Cheap Sentiment

Screaming Queen

Big and Nasty

Stuffy

Southern Hospitality

Laid to Waste

Kitsch

The Monroe Doctrine

Lift-off

Slumming

Beyond Belief

Underground Love

Cocksure Top Man

Autograph Hound

Child Abuse

Sex Appeal

Brat Pack Scores

Camp-out

Motel Living

Purrrfect

Mugged

Emasculated

Metamorphosis

Capricious Femme Fatale Seeks Mischief

Counterfeit

Hot Air and Other Malevolent Stuff

Token

Doggie-style

Blather

Hotties

Busting Out

Phobic

War Binge

Peeping Tom

Muted

Outré

Fetid

Demises

Oscar Rejects

Screwed

Etc.

Gutsy

Vague

Miasma

Stereotypes

Tough D.I.

La Bomba

D.O.A.

Cartoonish

Square Love Triangle

Good Hokum

Group Encounter

Malfeasance

Stud

Crud

Zany

Cheap Hand-job, Big Head

Polemics

Anna ’nother Thing

Super-charged

Too Great

Mother

Opaque

Mayhem

Virile

Pig Slop

Down in the Boondocks

Whiff of Cock

Less Than Snappy

Fraud

Divinity

Blowhard

Politically Correct

The Runs

Hoodwinked

Media Whore

Sexpot

Pretty Titty

Family Biz

No Punch

Stir Crazy

The Dingo Did It

Otherworldly

Stiff

Magic

Ireland Pokey

Do the Hustle

Eat Me

Two for the Road

Hobnobbing with Stars

Systemic Inertia

Sap

Mugged

Frothy

Fetish

Testing the Waters

She Says

He Says

Fey

Ripe

Stirring It Up

On the Lam

No Scent

Bucolic

Missing a Beat

Strutting

Epiphany

Belabored

Facts of Life

Corrida de los Toros

Banshees

Scoring Less Than 10

Phone Harassment

Pundits, Poets, and Who-Dunnits

Flak

Rubbing Elbows

Magnetic Marlon

Duck Soup

Suck My Phallic Symbol

Get Thee Behind Me, Tripe

Yowzah, Yowzah!

Twisted

Primordial Buttocks

Boys Will Be Boys

Midnight Snack

Two Men and a Lesbian

Proof’s in the Pudding

Hot Daddy Seeks Mama’s Boy

Juicy Bite of Big Apple

Smothering

Muscle-bound

Slam-bam

Cannonball

Chauvinist

Nelly Mel

Assorted Bimbos, Mafia Bosses, and Broads

Trouble in Paradise: Mall Stars

Tunnel Vision

Olé!

Turning up the Heat

Sunset

Pleasure-seeking

Megalomania

That’s Tit-illation

Harlem Aglow in Hard-Boiled Noir

Muscling Out the Elusive Screwball Comedy

Swarthy, Sassy, Stupefying

Encroachment

Bedlam

Caring Response

Trailblazer

Dildos

Arcane

V.I. Equals Very Indulgent

Mr. Branagh Takes a Holiday

Bow-wows Creep Into Town With Mange; Reviewer Foams at Mouth

Leering

Teaming Up

Shopping Around for Metaphysical Reality

Panning Goldie Hawn

Dolph Lundgren, Going Down

Whining About Sex

Beefing Up the Foreplay

That’s My Gangster!

Screen Siren

Buoyed by Success

Trolling Along

Pick Your Poison

Diva Takes a Dive

Losing His Stride

Crawling Centipedes … An Elliptical Lunch

A Slew of Movie Junk

Fluff

Treading on Hallowed Ground

It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary

Daddy Needs Spanking (Quid Pro Quo)

Isn’t Deep

Solipsistic

Stale Elixir

Broken-hearted

Hallelujah

Bent

Maniac

Testing Your Will Through Being Still

Dinosaurs Busting Down the Door

Fox Featured in Dog

Film Flimflam

That’s the Story of, That’s the Glory of Love

Deadhead

The Backbone’s Connected to the Hambone

Book Reviews

Off the Mark

Insouciance

Reamed

Misunderstood

Workaholic

Exposé

Pumped Up

Measure for Measure,

the Barrymore Pleasures

Keeping Abreast

Placating the Beast

For Posterity

Cud

Plagiarism

Putting on Airs

Wisdom Gnawing at the Door

Hard-on

How Miss West was won

Why lose good teachers?

How not to dry up

He can write good, too

Not indictment of entire community

Cascade Voice caters to Connection in story

Isn’t there something serious to write about?

Prissy

Precinct editorial lacked perspective

Lily lover

Senator Evans on gay rights

Gays aren’t anti-family

Dear LIFE

Emerson Babylon

Dear editor

Some justice

Reporter too kind to Republicans

What’s offensive?

Now we’re down to quarter-truths

Judge Bork

Thanks

Gay community rallies to support AIDS victims

Slowing down AIDS

A for AIDS coverage

Raw deal

Gay community also deserves credit for its work on AIDS

What kind of society fosters prostitution?

Blacks don’t have a monopoly on civil rights, says reader

Can The Times sink any lower?

Burning Up

The other cruisers

The Times scours the country for gay-bashing articles

Dear Spy

Black leader deserts another minority

Certain policemen have harassed people for years

Gays would seem fair game in pages of Post-Intelligencer

Charen et al. are plenty

Sam Smith responds to criticism

Paper cuts

To the editor

To be fair, help families

and domestic partners

Letter to the editor

For many married couples, commitment is a joke

Domestic bliss

Newspaper uses smear tactics

Times editorial continues AIDS hysteria

Inadequate coverage

Wrong choice for commencement?

Dear editor

Columnist forgets country

he lives in is a democracy

Not by a long shot

More and more of us now see him for what he is

At least one letter was sent

UW proposal would brand

a scarlet letter on some

Pointing finger of blame won’t stop spread of disease

Sweeping reform due at city’s engineering department

In this city, too many citizen complaints remain unheard

Candied-apple approach

Dear Movieline

Seattle Times draws ire of gay reader

Woozy rhetoric

Julie Blacklow a serious reporter? Hah!

Where’s your outrage?

Right wing’s banal logic

Don’t reprint lies

Guess we won’t run into any proselytizers at Seafirst

Oh, give it up, John Leo

Central Area deserves city’s attention

Gays want equal, not special, rights

Money should be spent on existing neighborhoods

Other countries much more tolerant

Oh, I get it

Unworthy of consideration

In your face

Civil rights violated

Dreading the post-fire silence

Baloney sauce spread on Bigot Buster issue

Real seething

Sore losers should get a life

Story appears to cast doubt on governor’s clemency

Torvik lays into city’s bureaucratic quagmire

Dear editor (i.e., Seattle P-I)

Too many gays?

Select quoting of the Bible

The courage of liberals

Dr. Laura, ideological bigot

NOW and Promise Keepers

Promise Keepers, Hitler, Mussolini …

Rights worth a fight

Alan Neff refuses to apologize!

Kibitz or kibbutz?

Dr. Laura distorts the Bible for her own ends

The Christian right is two-faced

Investor’s Business Daily is ignorant

Dear editor (i.e., Los Angeles Times)

La Amistad

Won’t go quietly

Anti-homosexual agenda — morally shameful

Threat not from homosexuals

Reagan was consummate liar

Drivers shouldn’t complain

You should have censored that last letter

Can’t handle the truth

Dear editor (i.e., Arizona Daily Star)

Dear editor (i.e., The New Yorker)

Dislike dyke’s tripe

Speaking of homosexuality and insanity …

Goldberg columns too far to the right

Dear editor

Jon/John-come-latelies missed their chance

About the author and book

These reviews and interviews were published in the Seattle Gay News. The letters to the editor are all authored by me. Publication dates and other information appear at the end of each article or letter.

Forward

The Struggle of the Movie Reviewer

These are my movie reviews and interviews (plus a few book reviews) published in the Seattle Gay News from 1984 to 1993. Although this book includes a bit of my correspondence and an interview with film critic Pauline Kael, there’s a broader landscape of our friendship that you might be interested in. I began writing her what could only be described as hate mail in 1986 after discovering books of her reviews — collected mostly from The New Yorker, her prestigious home base from 1968 until she retired in March 1991 — and gorged on them. At first, I was mesmerized, not only by her combative, humorous, and impeccable style, but by her range of knowledge — of movies and of everything in the world. (If there’s an opera, much less a movie, she’s seen it; if there’s an apropos book, she’s read it and is ready to throw in a valid reference or two.) However, there was a dirty, old snake in paradise. I was needled by her bombasts concerning the dreaded homosexual. You might say there came a time when I overdosed on Kael.

Female pinups aren’t erotic in any ordinary sense, she writes in an introductory essay in I Lost It at the Movies (1965), but they’re popular partly because there’s the vast homosexual audience which enjoys derision of the female. I would guess, and here’s a big generalization, that more homosexuals than heterosexuals love to chortle over the nude photos of Anita Ekberg. She’s so preposterous — a living satire of the female.

In her book Going Steady (1970), Kael talks about homosexuality by analyzing Rod Steiger’s performance in The Sergeant: A homosexual once told me how for weeks he was afraid to speak to a man he saw regularly in his cruising terrain, because the man looked so large and powerful and masculine that the homosexual was afraid he’d be slugged if he made any overtures. Finally, he approached the man and told him how terrified he felt, and the man replied wistfully, ‘I wish I could find somebody I’d feel that way about.’ There is something ludicrous and at the same time poignant about many stories involving homosexuals. Inside the leather trappings and chains and emblems and fascist insignia of homosexual ‘toughs’ there is so often hidden our old acquaintance, the high-school sissy, searching the streets for the man he doesn’t believe he is. The incessant, compulsive cruising is the true, mad romantic’s endless quest for love. Crazier than Don Juan, homosexuals pursue an ideal man, but once they have made a sexual conquest, the partner is a homosexual like them, and they go on their self-defeating way, endlessly walking and looking, dreaming the impossible dream.

In Reeling (1976), we discover that Funny Lady Barbra Streisand’s fans are mostly gays: "The only dramatic function that these two new songs [‘Let’s Hear It for Me’ and ‘How Lucky Can You Get?’ from Funny Lady] serve is exhibitionism. When you hear Streisand shout, ‘Come on, kids, let’s hear it, let’s hear it for me!’ you know damned well who the kids are: The song is destined to be a jukebox favorite in every gay bar in the world. … (On the way out of the theater, the same young men who had shouted ‘Bravo!’ after her musical assaults were exchanging spiteful remarks about how she looked.)"

Diane Keaton’s Terry Dunn, in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, cruises singles bars the way male homosexuals cruise gay bars and S&M hangouts; she’d rather have sex without love than love without sex (When the Lights Go Down, 1977).

And to my chagrin, Rich and Famous, starring Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, isn’t camp, exactly; it’s more like a homosexual fantasy. Bisset’s affairs, with their masochistic overtones, are creepy, because they don’t seem like what a woman would get into. And Bergen is used almost as if she were a big, goosey female impersonator (Taking It All In, 1984).

Need I quote more? I wrote many pointedly angry letters to her. Oh, did I write. I mentioned that she was a homophobe dressed up in Oscar Wilde’s tutu, that her writing could’ve been perfect if she’d quit preaching Nazism and fundamentalist clichés, that she displayed her rather sad psychological state by digging at homosexuals. I even sent her, God knows why, samples of my own reviews. After ignoring my assaults for months, she finally wrote back in the most delightful way: "Dear Alan Neff, I thought you were particularly good on Labyrinth. All best, Pauline Kael." (The note is dated August 3, 1986.) I didn’t know if she was pulling my leg or not.

Eventually, there were a few other letters, notes, and phone calls that transpired between us, culminating in my 1989 interview with her. At that time, she deftly (some might say evasively) answered my charges accusing her of homophobia. Does she stand acquitted? I’ll admit that after one or two dozen re-readings of her collected work, I find her as irresistible as ever. To her credit, she takes Paul Newman to task for agreeing to appear in Slap Shot, wherein his character verbally bashes cocksuckers (When the Lights Go Down, 1980). Ditto, director Herbert Ross for eliminating homosexuality as a plot point in The Turning Point (ibidem). She savages Clint Eastwood (The Eiger Sanction, Magnum Force, and The Enforcer) as the ultimate fag basher (ibidem), and lambasts Ken Russell’s Hollywood bio The Music Lovers, starring Glenda Jackson and Richard Chamberlain: "So many composers have been homosexual that one might have hoped to gain some understanding. I don’t know anybody who’d be bothered by an account of Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality, but Russell’s damned panache makes everything shameful and unclean" (Deeper Into Movies, 1973). She praises John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, also starring Jackson, because a homosexual, played by Peter Finch, isn’t fey or pathetic or grotesque. He is one of the most simply and completely created characters in recent films (ibidem).

And what about me? I’m still figuring out how Kael does it. She transforms mere journalism into art by alchemy. Following her example, I’ve tried to expand my sense of film aesthetics, to keep my language refreshing, and to experience life — and, therefore, movies — in a fuller, richer way. That sounds high falutin’ (why, it’s Pygmalion all over again), but sometimes, a bright and shining mentor is all that a lonely writer, in the dead of night, has got to lead him forward. She’s kept me an honest pundit. Kael died in 2001 at age 82.

Movies

Ashes to Ashes

Malcolm Lowry’s 1947 novel, Under the Volcano, has finally been brought to the screen under the direction of John Huston.

The year is 1938, and Geoffrey Firmin, The Consul (played by paunchy Albert Finney), has recently retired from his post with the British Foreign Office in Cuernavaca, Mexico. A day in his life involves drinking, drinking, and drinking. His egotistical, demanding behavior at first seems left over from Finney’s last film role as an English stage actor in The Dresser. When The Consul is not drinking, he is fervently praying that his estranged wife will return to him: I’m dying without you. Come back to me, Yvonne.

In fact, Yvonne has heralded her arrival with numerous unanswered letters (her sentimental hubby kept her letters but lost them at a cantina). When Yvonne (beautiful Jacqueline Bisset) shows up after a year’s absence, she is greeted coldly by her husband: You can’t expect to invite yourself to the same green welcome, the same ditto welcome. He has not watered her indoor camellias, and they are dead. Her response to all of this is to say, I’ve come crawling back. What more can I do? Let me be your wife. The Consul’s half-brother, Hugh (insipid Anthony Andrews), lives with him and tells Yvonne that her husband doesn’t want her help. She ferociously barks back, I want his.

I assumed Yvonne and The Consul were involved in a symbiotic relationship based on mutual addiction. She left him for a year, during which time she was a successful Broadway actress. She comes back to live with a desperate alcoholic. Therefore, Yvonne must be as addicted to her alcoholic husband. But I am presumptuous. The film reveals few clues as to why Yvonne is insatiable for bad company, and Bisset’s constipated performance unveils nothing.

The Consul, Yvonne, and Hugh decide to parade around Cuernavaca and an adjoining town during a Day of the Dead festival, which is being celebrated throughout Mexico. During the day, Hugh raises his eyebrows at appropriate moments during conversation. At the festivities, he jumps into an arena and shows the Mexicans how to properly fight a bull. Otherwise, Hugh and Yvonne follow The Consul around like puppy dogs, hoping, I guess, that on this Day of the Dead, a healing miracle for a dying alcoholic will occur. At outside cafes or while walking, Yvonne has a habit of coyly suggesting hubby leave Mexico with her and settle somewhere else. Does she think her husband’s insidious disease (alcoholism) is a passing Mexican fad for him? He says to her on one hand, I’ll stop drinking. I’ll do anything for you. But he’s literally mad for drink, spouting on the other hand, I need drink, desperately, to get my balance back. Deluded, he searches for metaphysical truths in every cheap bottle of booze. He is content to stay in Mexico, where, he says, there is magic. According to him, There’s nothing more real than magic.

In an eerie, unsettling scene, The Consul, having deserted Hugh and Yvonne, drops into a dirty brothel/cantina. Dusk has arrived. He has been drinking all day by now (all his life, by now), and he is incoherent. Once inside the murky cantina, he is manipulated into having sex with a prostitute. After sex, the proprietor, a wicked dwarf, pointedly hands The Consul a business card from a doctor specializing in venereal diseases. Ironically, it is at this particular cantina that The Consul has lost his precious packet of letters. Now, the patrons make a sport of throwing the packet from person to person while the fanatic worshipping those unread letters attempts to rescue the packet. Sneering men swoop upon this helpless Englishman, verbally and physically tormenting him. The Mexicans portrayed are vicious characters out of some bigot’s nightmare. This time, none of the magic The Consul believes in so romantically and passionately comes to his rescue.

Some bizarre mood is transferred from Under the Volcano (to the audience) halfway through the film. We realize that, viewed separately, these three looneys — The Consul, Yvonne, and Hugh — are pathetic cinematic substances; we realize, too, the sum of their personalities makes them a compelling ménage à trois. In Under the Volcano, John Huston has managed to create substance, despite the liabilities of an uninspired screenplay (by Guy Gallo) and two pedestrian but attractive stars, Bisset and Andrews.

August 3, 1984

Cheap Sentiment

Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep are Falling in Love. I’m not.

It’s the Christmas rush season in New York City. De Niro portrays Frank, a successful architectural engineer. Streep plays Molly, a freelance commercial artist. Frank and Molly, unbeknownst to each other, live in adjacent suburban communities and commute on the same train to Manhattan — he to work at his construction site, and she to visit her dying father.

Frank’s character eats hot dogs in crowded elevators, is slightly abrasive, and is charmingly indecisive. For instance, what will he buy his housewife, Ann, for Christmas? They have two cute boys. You or I would have two nifty goldfish instead.

Molly is soft-spoken, decisive in a quiet way, and hopelessly cheerful, even around her hospitalized father. Molly is married to Brian; unfortunately, their only child died prematurely.

Before you can say contrived, sweet Molly and quaint Frank collide in a crowded Manhattan bookstore, Rizzoli. They giggle and go on their separate ways. Christmas is soon gone, and spring comes to Manhattan. By coincidence, Molly and Frank meet again, this time on the commuter train, this time their eyes meet, and then … Why, now, you can go on and finish the story. I’m sure anything you think up will be infinitely more entertaining than the composite Falling in Love, directed by Ulu Grosbard and written by Michael Cristofer.

Charismatic and eccentric pairings are essential to successful love stories, and examples abound: Hepburn and Tracy, Bogart and Bacall, Streisand and Redford. The stars of Falling in Love will not be added to that list.

De Niro and Streep are two of the most mannered acting machines in Hollywood, and I can only wonder at the wisdom of displaying them in romantic leads opposite one another. Watching them in Falling in Love is like watching a couple of elevator operators; I admire their expertise, but I’m left emotionally uninvolved.

An example of the sluggish chemistry occurs when Frank asks Molly out to lunch and blurts, You’re very beautiful. She replies, in a meaningless tone of voice, I’m very married. He says, I am, too, but even married people have to eat. That sort of banal dialogue surfaces constantly like some sort of irritating rash.

It occurs to me that only the cameraman, by sheer persistence, propels this implausible and uninteresting love story. After all, the story offers few clues as to what machinations float around in the minds of Frank and Molly. Of course, in real life people don’t always have definite reasons for emotional involvement. However, a movie, on the other hand, must offer compelling sustenance for viewers.

Instead, Falling in Love offers what amounts to a dull, icky travelogue. When Frank and Molly romp around on their passionless dates (their romance is never consummated by sexual intercourse, and he kisses like a slobbering bear), they are surrounded by that busy, busy New York City. We see the train station and Chinatown; we see suburban New York, bookstores, and crowded restaurants. Big deal. We’ve seen it all before.

There are scenes of Molly grimacing as she begins to realize her life is becoming more complicated because of love. We are forced to witness the behavior of Molly and hubby at their elegant home. They are quite an exciting pair, rarely talking to each other. They are content to stare numbly at their expensive furniture. I began to wonder if there was a scriptwriter for the movie.

Similarly, there are scenes of Frank at home where he is silent and seemingly burdened by his newfound love (by God, how I hate that word, love), while his beautiful wife delicately humors him. Hell, Molly’s husband and Frank’s wife should have started an affair — maybe that’s a story that could have been interesting.

As it is, halfway through Falling in Love, I realized the movie had the willpower to propose only one question: What will happen regarding the love affair between Molly and Frank? I found myself volleying back: Does anyone care?

December 7, 1984

Screaming Queen

Blood simple (American Slang, first used by Dashiell Hammett) 1. State of fear and confusion that follows the commission of murder; He’s gone blood simple. Makes the perfect murder almost impossible.

I’m simply mad.

I wanted to hate Blood Simple, from the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. Oh, how I wanted to hate the movie. I’ve run into a patch of good films lately, I’ve been looking for a film to rip apart, and I truly believed Blood Simple would satisfy my bloodthirsty penchant for being bitchy.

When I was there, as Blood Simple began in the dark movie theater of the Egyptian, I thought, I’m going to hate this movie. The movie is too dark; the filmmakers don’t know anything about lighting. I need a flashlight to shine up at the screen to find out what’s going on. This plot! A love triangle about three heterosexuals who can’t get along. Watching a love triangle with three heteros can be worse than being caught with Satan in the Bermuda Triangle. The star of this whole, tired escapade looks as if he is doing an imitation of John Ritter.

But, oh, what went wrong? How did I end up liking this bloody, scary, frightfully funny movie? I don’t know. I’m sitting here thinking, and I can’t remember at what point I began liking the movie.

The wealthy, middle-aged bar owner of Neon Boots, Julian Marty (Samm-Art Williams) is having his wife, Abby, trailed by the most disgusting, seedy dick in Texas (played by character actor M. Emmet Walsh). The detective doesn’t have to track the lovers very far; they never leave town. Abby is infatuated with a bartender, Ray, and they hang out at his house. The lovers, played by John Getz and Frances McDormand, seem dull and uninspired.

When Marty tries to kidnap Abby, she breaks his finger and kicks him in the groin (Abby, at least, can take care of herself). The next day, the detective and Julian meet to discuss business. Julian has a splint on his finger. Stick your finger up the wrong person’s ass? the dick probes. I began to think maybe this movie was a grown-up Animal House.

Slowly, without my noticing, character idiosyncrasies were revealed. The private dick began to seem funnier as the situation became more desperate (Julian decides he wants the lovers killed). Abby began to seem courageous in response to the increasingly imbalanced behaviors of her husband and lover. I originally thought her to be plain until the camera began catching her at odd times to reveal her unspectacular but quirky good looks. I became aware that Ray had a quiet sensuality and a nice, hairy chest.

The movie is both scary and funny (a combo that often doesn’t gel). I was surprised at my reactions during the movie. I screamed at odd moments. Typically, during a casual scene, the film plays some electrifying music. The camera pans in on someone’s face. The music stops, and all is quiet. Then, something abrupt happens, such as the newsboy throwing a newspaper against a screen door, and I jump out of my seat screaming in fright for what seems like no good reason.

The filmmakers are merciless in their manipulation of the audience. During the movie, I am ashamed to say, I laughed hysterically at unspeakably inappropriate moments. For example, is there anything funny about a man with a knife stuck through his hand?

I don’t want to say more.

January 18, 1985

Big and Nasty

Lust in the Dust, directed by Paul Bartel (and named in homage to David O. Selznick’s 1946 flaming erotica, Duel in the Sun), creaks along with cloying actors, a meager plot, and amateurish editing. Tab Hunter (the ’50s blond heartthrob, who also produced the movie) is a rough-riding cowboy, Abel, searching for lost treasure in Chili Verde, a dumpy desert town in New Mexico, circa 1884. Three dollars were spent by the independent producers for the movie scenery, and the less said about Tab’s acting, the better. Actually, he’s game for this romp, as he was in Polyester. Lainie Kazan is a busty, arrogant Mexican saloonkeeper, Marguerita, and tanned, boring Cesar Romero is Father Garcia, who’s privy to secrets regarding the aforementioned buried fortune.

The jests run the gamut from emotionally retarded bitchfests to juvenile penis jokes. Marguerita spies Abel rinsing off in the only shower west of the Mississippi, ha-ha-ha. Wow! He’s got lotsa meat, ha-ha-ha, so they fornicate. Wham-wham-bang, ha-ha-ha.

Fortunately, Lust in the Dust boasts redeemable Divine as an utterly enchanting bitch, Rosie (anyone see Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble?), who pops up in Chili Verde to seek fame as a saloon singer. Rosie unknowingly sports a clue tattooed on her voluptuous posterior and butts into rival diva Marguerita, who laughs cynically, Honey, you sing like you look. Alas, greedy pursuits involve pitfalls, as if you didn’t know.

March 15, 1985

Stuffy

In Plenty of credits, Meryl Streep’s name appears alone and brazenly above the title.

When we are introduced to Susan Traherne (Streep), she is a British teenager assisting the French Resistance in France during World War II. When the war is over, we catch her back in England working as a receptionist at a tacky shipping company — it takes 10 minutes for the audience to register, Oh, is the war over now? Plenty omits telltale hints to orient us (the old end of the war celebration ruse might have helped). How sophisticated does Australian director Fred Schepisi (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Iceman) think we are, anyway? We need some easy bearings to bring ourselves into this story. (The movie script by British polemicist David Hare is from his vaguely schematic, socio-economic play.)

Susan begins a nurturing relationship with a younger, wilder woman (whom she meets at work), played energetically by Tracey Ullman. However, we never get to hear the two women talk intimately for very long. If ever we chance being seduced by coherence, interesting dialogue, and mood, the damn film quickly and clumsily switches to a different scene (besides taking in various locales, the film spans decades).

By the time we see Susan in London, she’s scouting riffraff to impregnate her (she finally traps a real Stinger), and we suspect we are viewing a doddering film vehicle. Why does Susan want a baby? Her contrived feminist patter (she laments the biological need for a penis) reveals nothing, except that the scriptwriter is not androgynous; he knows precious little about the inner thoughts of women. Susan’s man-hating jargon is not only a cop-out, it is jarring and confusing. Well, the movie has too many social statements whirling about, and there is no need to ante up. The feminist theme is insincerely used as spare thread to be cut at convenience.

In any case, Sting is plenty boring. His brassy blond hair is gone — I guess he let his dark roots grow out — and cut short, and he acts as if he has a bad case of rigor mortis. He rasps his lines, and that is the extent of his penetration of his character, Mick. Sting inevitably lacks a human range of facial expressions.

Alas, the baby experiment is a failure (the stud is impotent — balls!) and predictable to boot, because guess who manages to fall in love with Susan? When the discarded Mick confronts her about his feelings, an irritated Susan whips out a pistol and starts shooting at him. She ends up in a mental hospital for that little outburst (and finally, at the hospital, we see Streep as a frump — it’s a shock).

Susan marries one of her former lovers, a British diplomat (Charles Dance), in a moment of weakness (hers not his, as Susan acerbically blurts at one point), because he rescues her from the mental hospital. Oh, how this poor man suffers — hell, we all suffer as we watch Susan descend into the delights of mental illness. Yet, Streep brings little freshness to her portrayal. In fact, Streep’s a robot. You can almost hear the cogs whirring about in her brain. Oh, I’m going to sneeze now, watch me. Oh, I’m going to be very, very restrained and tight-lipped now, watch me. Her charisma is akin to some sort of irritating persistence of will; we’ve seen Streep too many times as the tortured woman. Who would have thought, a few years ago, that Streep would have ended up being typecast?

Sometimes, Streep exhibits a pathetic vigilance, and we are grateful to know she isn’t walking through the entire movie. Indeed, there is a madcap scene wherein Streep shines. A British ambassador (played by John Gielgud) arrives at Susan’s stately London row house for a dinner party. Only minutes before, in a fit of rage and depression, he resigned his position because of the Suez Crisis (1956). Deception by top-level compatriots in government (the British Empire continued its confused, rapid state of decline during the 1950s) has upset him. Susan cheerfully greets him, We won’t mention the Nile; no, we won’t. And we won’t mention the words, ‘Suez Canal,’ or the word, ‘fiasco.’ Susan goes on and on. We are amused by the scene and intrigued by Susan — we don’t know for sure what her intent or frame of mind is and whether or not she knows what has happened with the ambassador. Feeling a little crazy himself, he humorously, but self-deprecatingly, takes the verbal lashing. When Streep lets her Susan demonstrate blatant bitchiness, Plenty comes alive, if only momentarily. (I’ll bet Streep could give Joan Collins a run for the money — how much we enjoyed Streep as a shrew in Julia [1977]!)

Nevertheless, Plenty labors under unnecessarily tricky editing maneuvers and a sketchy, dismal plot. Susan’s unusual character development and Streep’s neurotic, fine-tuned acting skills could have possibly held a messy concoction together. Instead, the film is a bog.

Plenty isn’t exactly pretentious; the movie isn’t quite irritating enough to be called that. Call it vacant. Plenty is plenty of nothing.

September 27, 1985

Southern Hospitality

A 1983 book, Marie: A True Story, by Peter Maas, detailed the life of Marie Ragghianti, a battered wife and the mother of three. Marie ended her marriage, worked her way through Vanderbilt University, and eventually scaled the heights of political success to become the first woman to head Tennessee’s Board of Pardons and Paroles. As chairwoman, she discovered corruption in Tennessee’s prison system (state officials were selling pardons), tried to rectify the situation, and was subsequently fired on trumped-up charges by then-governor Ray Blanton. Ragghianti sought compensation through the judicial system, and in the aftermath of her widely publicized 1977 trial, the political power structure of Tennessee collapsed. The careers of many top officials in Tennessee ended, including Blanton’s, and he was imprisoned.

Academy Award-winner Sissy Spacek brings Mrs. Ragghianti to the screen for us in Marie. Based on Maas’ book, the screenplay is by John Briley and much of the filming was shot at locations throughout Tennessee. If Marie is serious in its intentions, it is also a riveting movie — both in its scope and because of the quality of its performances.

Spacek is a natural as a mother. As Marie, she tells one of her young sons, who has had an emergency tracheotomy operation, Everything’s gonna be fine, honey — you’re a really brave boy. She sounds warm, and we believe her. We empathize with Spacek’s character, too, when Marie’s life comes crumbling down around her. After Marie is fired from her high-paying Board of Pardons job and is subsequently harassed for fighting back (she gets a drunk-driving ticket, compliments of the governor, and her best friend, a potential witness for her case, is murdered), we hurt from the terror and confusion conveyed to us by Spacek.

The governor’s aide, Eddie Sisk, is played by Jeff Daniels (The Purple Rose of Cairo). When Sisk discovers that the sweet Marie, who he has helped boost to power, has turned on him, his horrific vindictiveness is fun to watch.

Fred Thompson was the real-life lawyer in Marie Ragghianti’s 1977 court case, and he plays himself in Marie. In the movie, Thompson takes on Marie’s case only after he’s sure she has the spunk and surety to see the fight through to the end. Once on the case, he’s a ball of fire, scalding the smug enemies.

The director of Marie, Roger Donaldson, takes a little too much for granted. Certain characters come and go too swiftly for coherence. A hoodlum who has an affiliation with the governor is seen robbing a mansion. At first, watching that scene, I thought the he was robbing the governor’s house in an act of vengeance; minutes later, I realized the scene was merely juxtaposed into the film to illustrate the criminal’s nefarious activities.

October 25, 1985

Laid to Waste

Flesh+Blood (which should be retitled Rambo in the Middle Ages), starring Rutger Hauer, is twaddle I might have enjoyed when I was 8 years old. Nowadays, I can barely endure watching insipid acting.

When I saw Hauer in Blade Runner a few years ago, I ooooohed and aaaaahed. He’s a superstar, I thought, but of course he didn’t actually say or do very much in Blade Runner. He had piercing blue eyes and a hunky body, and I was fooled into thinking he had talent. I worshipped his celluloid presence earlier this year in Ladyhawke — I thought he was a romantic icon.

In Flesh+Blood, Hauer, as Martin, is tromping around somewhere in battle-scarred western Europe, circa 1501. I’m a soldier. I’ve fought 16 campaigns, he chatters to a member of his ratty-tatty band of followers during a campaign. However, the line is just spoken blandly, without any connotation. Is Martin tired of battling, does he lust for battle, or is he merely a good sport on the battlefield of life? Who knows? Who cares? One gets the feeling, right away, that the director of this schlock, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He’s letting Hauer get by with idiocy. Perhaps, I’m being a little rough on poor Rutger Hauer (who, by the way, is looking tubby). I implied he is an insipid actor, but he’d have to create some semblance of a character before I could actually call him anything. As it is, he’s practically a nonentity.

One goes to Verhoeven’s films (his Soldier of Orange and The 4th Man were big hits in Seattle) expecting a dedication to art, inherent liveliness, and, above all, intrigue. But Flesh+Blood (Verhoeven’s first English-language, American movie) is too literal to be anywhere near riveting. When the film is trying to be fun, yet realistic, we notice incongruities. Medieval folks grin, and you can see their 20th century, state-of-the-art dental work. When Martin and his roving cutthroats guzzle wine and eat their usual fare of dried-up meat and over-ripened fruit — banquet style — they aren’t simply sloppy gluttons; they toss those eatables around as if they are speed freaks on the set of Animal House II.

About the only time we feel any honesty and push is during the sex scenes; there are quite a few. We don’t fall asleep during Flesh+Blood because we are too busy wondering who is going to be fucked next (as a matter of fact, there are a couple of gay men in Martin’s gang, but they mostly stand around looking droll). When Martin kidnaps the heroine of our story, Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh wearing tacky eyeliner), an heiress, she turns out to be quite a package. Scream, virgin, he taunts her while shoving his penis in and out. He looks as if he means business, but Agnes just smiles, You think you’re hurting me? I’m enjoying this, soldier. Martin’s current girlfriend, looking on, shrieks, Martin’s getting raped! What a turnabout; Martin registers confused horror, and the climax is a welcome, campy riot. The scene isn’t totally an anti-woman rampage. Indeed, we audience viewers become somewhat intoxicated by Agnes. Despite her pit-a-pat voice, she’s a queen on the chessboard, and she’s a strong, ingenious player. When Martin becomes infatuated by this wench, we realize just how manipulative and alluring Agnes can be. We never fully understand her motives (except to know she is a survivor), and this ambiguity of character adds welcome, delicate designs to an overbearing film (Verhoeven’s intention is to use Agnes as an equivalent of our modern day adventurer, Patty Hearst).

At rare intervals, Flesh+Blood gels. Let’s view the film at the point Agnes meets her betrothed, a nobleman’s son (Tom Burlinson), during a hunting expedition. He initially shuns her — he doesn’t want to be a fiancé — he wants to be a scholar. Nevertheless, she entices him to follow after her as she prances off to a spot where two men, who are rotting, have been hung. She digs up a mandrake root (a narcotic turnip often fancied to resemble the shape of a man) and explains, If a man and a woman eat of it, they fall in love forever. Succumbing to her charm, he relishes finishing the part of the legend she admits not knowing: the reason why the root