McVouty's Reviews

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

20 October 2003

I graduated from college the year this film came out, and saw it in the theatre a half dozen times. Watching it again -- really the best film of Jack Nicholson's career -- makes me realize why: what a great movie!

It's interesting to compare Jack Nicholson in this movie with his role in "About Schmidt." Can't you imagine a character like Bobby Dupea getting too old to continue working as an oil rigger in Alaska? He lands a desk job and is ultimately promoted to mid-management. Meanwhile, he marries an uninteresting woman he doesn't love, raises a daughter who has no positive sense of self, estranges himself completely from his siblings and other family, lets any artistic talent completely atrophy, and one day, upon the death of his wife, realizes his life is empty. In many ways, Warren Schmidt is Bobby Dupea 30 years later... a man who can't connect. I've never figured out why the Dupea character had so little use for himself, but the same personality problem plagues Schmidt.

Nicholson's performance as Bobby Dupea completely sold me, but in "About Schmidt" I thought he was working too hard at acting for the character to be believable. I can understand now why Nicholson may have wanted to do that film. But in no way is "About Schmidt" in the same class as "Five Easy Pieces." This film is a masterpiece.

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Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

1/10

Goofy garbage

20 October 2003

What tripe!

There was an episode of "The X Files" that had to do with a computer virus coming to "life" that was more credible than this foolishness! Artificial intelligence? 2+2=4? Computers bringing an end to the Cold War by taking away free choice for humans? Compelling stuff, if you're six years old!

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The Horse's Mouth (1958)

A real "Art" movie

3 October 2003

One of the best movies about art ever made, `The Horse's Mouth' examines the relationships between vision and creation, between art and commerce, and most importantly between art and criticism; and makes us laugh at the same time. Alec Guinness is inspired (when was he ever not inspired, come to think of it) as Gully Jimson, a painter of unlimited ideas who has met with only limited success in the art marketplace partly because he is so contemptuous of that marketplace. His search for the perfect wall on which to paint, and the subject matter he ultimately winds up painting on one of the walls found in his search, is priceless. The Joyce Cary novel, and its companions in the Jimson trilogy (`Herself Surprised' and `To Be a Pilgrim') are well worth reading, but this movie is a very British, very engaging classic. In many ways, it's the movie that `Pollack' (good though it was) should have been.

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Nero Wolfe (1981)

Bad badder baddest

2 July 2003

William Conrad starred as Frank Cannon in the above-average QM TV series Cannon, but he was a lousy Nero Wolfe. As a matter of fact, I challenge any viewer to name anything different in his portrayal of those two detectives. Conrad was a limited actor who only ever portrayed one character: William Conrad. (A great radio actor, though; he was Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke on the radio, among other things. What a voice!) Lee Horsley was a good Archie Goodwin, but Alan Miller as Cramer was a hopeless piece of miscasting. The series thankfully was cancelled very quickly, and the Wolfe legend lives on through the novels. (BTW, the A&E series with Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton is quite good and worth watching for cast member Kari Matchett alone.)

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About Schmidt (2002)

4/10

Hard working Jack

4 March 2003

This was not the best picture of 2002, by any means. In recent movies, Jack Nicholson has been criticized for always playing himself. In "About Schmidt," he plays himself playing an old buster (Warren Schmidt) -- you can actually see Nicholson working at trying to be a character instead of an actor. Schmidt retires from a lackluster mid-management insurance job only to find himself questioning the meaning of his empty life -- a life that quickly becomes emptier with the death of his wife. He embarks on a cross-plains journey to try to talk his daughter out of marrying a loser water-bed salesman, but he has been emotionally out-of-touch with the daughter (and everyone else) for so long that his doubts and concerns are meaningless -- to the daughter, and, ultimately, to the audience. There are some funny bits -- the waterbed scene made me chuckle, and Schmidt's letters to his African foster child Ndugu are fatuously self-absorbed and amusing. But basically the audience is watching an uninteresting retiree who, at the end of the movie, hasn't really grown or even changed a bit. And I'm already mildly offended and greatly bored by toilet scenes in movies, major star or not.

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Idaho (1943)

Great song

4 March 2003

The song "Idaho" reportedly was written for this movie. The composer was the late Jesse Stone, who later wrote "Shake, Rattle and Roll." Stone also wrote using the name Charles Calhoun. According to Stone's obituary (AP, 1999), "'Idaho' was a big hit for Guy Lombardo, selling three million copies in the mid-1940's. Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey also had hit recordings of the tune." It was also recorded by Gene Autry, June Christy and Bud Powell, among others -- and most recently by Denver saxophonist Keith Oxman.

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Happy, Texas (1999)

8/10

Hilarious

16 January 2003

After reading comments from other reviewers, I found myself wondering why there's so much disparity between those who liked the film and those who hated it. I'll admit it isn't the most original story you'll ever see on film, and the screen play does telegraph some of its punches, but I found absolutely nothing wrong with this movie. Viewers who are looking for deep insights into the human situation, or something equally portentous, will no doubt be disappointed by this picture, but it's well-made, well-written (mostly), and very well-acted -- in short, a superb piece of movie craftsmanship. I thoroughly enjoyed it, laughing out loud at Steve Zahn's dance steps.

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The World of Henry Orient (1964)

I think it was B-flat

27 December 2002

Warning: Spoilers

The news today reported the death of George Roy Hill; I did an IMDB search and found that, in addition to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, he had directed this minor masterpiece that I enjoyed in the theatre 38 (!) years ago. I've never seen it again, but I've never forgotten the scene where Peter Sellars' character, Henry Orient, is playing a piano concerto with an orchestra in performance. It's a nice satire on 20th century orchestral music. During the concerto's cadenza, Sellars (as Orient) moves his hands up and down the keyboard to match the soundtrack, reaches a climactic point in the music, looks to the conductor to cue the orchestra to join him, and the conductor looks at him and shakes his head "no." Sellars then goes up and down the keyboard again, reaches another climax in a different key, looks to the conductor again to cue the orchestra, and the conductor again shakes his head. Yet a third time, the music swells, ends on a different chord, and Sellars tries to cue the conductor -- who very carefully mouths the words "B-Flat." Sellars immediately and abruptly switches to that key, and then the orchestra joins him for the end of the piece. A nice touch -- conceived, written, acted and directed very well. The movie's story line was good, too, but for me that scene made the picture.

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The Aquanauts (1960–1961)

Malibu Run

31 January 2002

Not quite a ripoff of the old Sea Hunt series, but the plot line was pretty similar: each week, a given crime could only be solved/prevented by scuba diving detectives. Keith Larsen and Jeremy Slate were younger, hipper versions of Lloyd Bridges. The show was neither great nor bad, just kind of fun. As a twelve year old at the time, I seem to remember the bikini-clad women more than anything else.

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Nichols (1971–1972)

Closing of the frontier was never funnier

30 August 2001

I guess I'm one of the few who remembers this very funny show. The turn of the century Old West, with technology about to change the frontier forever, made for a very interesting setting, and the cast did a good job of getting into the period, pulling it off without being camp. Garner was great, Margot Kidder was delightful, and John Beck made a terrific villain. The show was of such high quality it's no wonder it lasted such a short time.

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Our Man in Havana (1959)

8/10

A gem

7 August 2000

I'm surprised this picture hasn't been mentioned in any of the Alec Guinness obituaries. It's one of his best, and it's a real kick. What a cast! What a script! Alec Guinness and Graham Greene (the writer, not the actor) -- what a pair! I haven't been able to find it in the video stores, but it's certainly worth seeking out.

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American Beauty (1999)

6/10

Best picture -- not!

3 August 2000

Two specific things bothered me about American Beauty:

1. I don't like a movie where the obvious villain of the piece turns out to be the actual villain.

2. A piece of trash blowing in the wind makes for a poor symbol of unspoiled beauty.

In general, the movie works pretty well. Spacey is excellent, and so is Bening, in the role of one of the most believable but least likeable characters in recent movies.

But the point of the movie -- that modern American life is hopelessly meaningless, and that we all might as well give up, stayed drugged and mourn the passing of our youth -- is hardly a new message, and it's certainly not an accurate one.

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Sweet and Lowdown (1999)

9/10

Hot cha cha

1 August 2000

You can certainly understand why Woody loves jazz music of a certain vintage after watching this picture. Enjoying a melody is analogous to his appreciation of a plot; the sense of swing corresponds nicely to his pacing of the action; and the improvisation inherent in the music echos the efforts his actors give their less-than-formally scripted roles.

In the reviews posted here, there hasn't been much mention of the musicians who did the soundtrack, and they're outstanding. Howard Alden, perhaps the best guitarist of his generation (he's around 40), does the guitar work. Alden was actually hired to teach Sean Penn to look like he could play the guitar; Alden followed him around to sets on different pictures he was working on, teaching him the rudiments of the instrument (I have a hunch Sean is a pretty fair guitarist by now). Pianist, arranger and composer Dick Hyman captures the music of the era perfectly. Ken Peplowski is the featured reedman.

My kid, knowing what a jazz fan I am, asked me if I had any Emmett Ray records. He was absolutely astounded to learn that Ray is a fictitious character. There's a comment about verisimilitude in there somewhere, but I'll leave it to you to fish it out.

Woody's best picture? Probably not, but well worth seeing.

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Brain Donors (1992)

8/10

Surprisingly good

1 August 2000

You know, it was much better than I expected. Not stooge-like at all; more Marxian. Sure, Turturro isn't Groucho, but he's a pretty likeable substitute. The duck-suited ballet sequence was a genuine and unexpected pleasure. Compare this movie to the excreble re-workings of Laurel and Hardy starring Bronson Pinchot and Gaillard Sartain, produced by that original Bozo, Larry Harmon, and you'll see that this sticks to the spirit of screwball comedy pretty well. It also offers clues as to why this style of comedy -- which peaked with "A Night at the Opera" -- is no longer relevant. Modern audiences are not willing to suspend the kind of disbelief needed for full enjoyment of this genre.

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