This film ranks among my all-time "Top 10." It features a brilliant script by Jules Feiffer, outstanding performances by (in no particular order) Elliott Gould, Alan Arkin, Donald Sutherland, Vincent Gardenia, Lou Jacobi -- the list goes on and on. Although the film's view of life is extraordinarily bleak -- not for kids! -- it is also riotously funny -- especially if you grew up in New York City in the 1960s. Among the casualties here are the famliy, organized religion, the subway system, the police, the military, the postal service, and the courts. Everyone should see this film at least once.
Strange and Dangerous
This is a strange movie that lies between strange and dangerous. Elliott Gould is fascinating as the world weary and world famous photographer who spends his afternoons taking pictures of Dog feces. He used to make a greater effort towards his work, but realized the art world couldn't tell the difference between what was good and what was crap. So he decides to literally take shots of...crap. Lo and Behold, he continues to win awards for his work. Deepening his sense of the meaningless of life. That's the strange part.
The dangerous part lies mainly in the film's underlying current of social unrest. Stemming largely from the idea that life is meaningless and essentially without value. Random beatings, random murders, all help our protagonist over the edge. Yes this a comedy, but it is a dark comedy.
If you happen to find a copy of this out of print film, you will be in for a treat (check eBay periodically). And that comes by way of a brilliant cameo by Donald Sutherland, who plays a priest lost in an existentialist haze. That alone is worth the price of admission!
MIRACULOUS! LOST CLASSIC BACK IN PRINT!
If you look at reviews for this film, you will notice that they fall in two categories: people who praise it to the stars as one of the finest American comedies ever filmed, and people who had no clue what they were in for when they sat down to watch it. Well, as far as the second group goes, if you don't want to see a depressing movie, definitely don't watch this. But as hard as it may be to believe, considering that practically nobody has even heard of it, that first category of reviewers is NOT EXAGERATING: this REALLY IS one of the best comedies ever filmed. It is literally the blackest comedy I have ever seen, but I have loved it for more than twenty years now, ever since I found a copy of the then-out-of-print VHS. Thank heaven it's finally available on DVD, and with a full-length commentary track by actor/producer Gould and writer Feiffer, maybe, just maybe, this film will FINALLY get the serious attention it deserves. The performances of Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson are among the finest comic acting ever done by anyone EVER. (And no, I'm not being overblown in saying that.) And the 3 major cameos (all of which are long, brilliant monologues) by Sutherland, Jacobi and Arkin are nothig short of show-stoppers. Nobody's heard of this movie because it's so uncommercial, but if there were any justice in the comedy world this movie would have at least six or seven reasons to be in the Hall of Fame, not least of which are Gould at his peak and Feiffer, one of our greatest social satirists. Even more depressing, and even more relevant, today than when it was first released (and that's not true of a lot of late-60s/early-70s-era stuff, which often dates fairly poorly) Little Murders belongs on the shelf of any serious fan of what comedy is meant to be. A STUNNER, A CLASSIC, AND A NEAR-MIRACULOUS ACCOMPLISMENT BY THE CAST AND FILMAKERS. ENOUGH GOOD THINGS CANNOT BE SAID ABOUT "LITTLE MURDERS." If you, like 99.999 percent of moviegoers, have never seen it, then all I can say is holy cow are you in for a mind-blowing discovery. This scary, sad, shocking, brutal, uncompromising, and riotously laugh-out-loud movie is going to seriously blow you away.
Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust is by consensus the great Hollywood novel, a poison-pen letter aimed squarely at the tinsel heart of the movie biz. Only in the 1970s could Hollywood actually hazard a film of this story, and the result is suitably corrosive. William Atherton is the observer Tod, Karen Black the blond starlet Faye, and Donald Sutherland the hulking Homer--but they are easily out-acted by the colorful supporting cast. In particular, Burgess Meredith's exhausted showbizzy salesman and Billy Barty's strutting dwarf are superbly crafted gargoyles in this Hollywood wax museum. Director John Schlesinger piles on the rancid atmosphere and rampant hypocrisy until the movie fairly drowns in its own grotesque vision. Long before the climactic apocalyptic riot, the film... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Donald Sutherland - Karen Black Director(s): John Schlesinger DVD Release Date: Released the 08 June 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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This 1966 masterpiece by Michelangelo Antonioni (The Passenger) is set in the heady atmosphere of Swinging London, and stars David Hemmings as an unsmiling fashion photographer hooked on ephemeral meaning attached to anything: art, sex, work, relationships, drugs, events. When a real mystery falls into his lap, he probes the evidence for some reliable truth, but finds it hard to reckon with. Vanessa Redgrave plays an enigmatic woman whose desperation to cover something up only seems like one more phenomenon in Hemmings's disinterested purview. This is one of the key films of the decade, and still an unsettling and lasting experience. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vanessa Redgrave - David Hemmings Director(s): Michelangelo Antonioni DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Philip Roth's novel of Jewish identity and assimilation in the suburbs of New York gets a spirited comic reading in this 1969 film, which marked the acting debut of model Ali McGraw (and who thought that was a good idea?). Actually, she's pretty good as the Jewish princess whose father has made a fortune in plumbing supplies. Richard Benjamin, who went on to become an odd sex symbol of the '70s, had just the right comic twist as the young man who can't overcome McGraw's middle-class morality with his sense of passion and romance. Jack Klugman is outstanding as her hard-driving and unyieldding father. A touchstone film. --Marshall FineMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Benjamin - Ali MacGraw Director(s): Larry Peerce DVD Release Date: Released the 08 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ranking No. 21 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films, this 1940 classic is a bit dated in its noble sentimentality, but it remains a luminous example of Hollywood classicism from the peerless director of mythic Americana, John Ford. Adapted by Nunnally Johnson from John Steinbeck's classic novel, the film tells a simple story about Oklahoma farmers leaving the depression-era dustbowl for the promised land of California, but it's the story's emotional resonance and theme of human perseverance that makes the movie so richly and timelessly rewarding. It's all about the humble Joad family's cross-country trek to escape the economic devastation of their ruined farmland, beginning when Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns from a four-year prison term to discover... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 06 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Samuel Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" is easily one of his better films and as cynical and tough as crime dramas got in the 50's. Richard Widmark is excellent as a cocky pickpocket who swipes the wallet of sexy Jean Peters that contains microfilm of government secrets to be delivered to a Communist agency. Peters is unaware of the Communist angle and is only doing a "job" for her slimy ex-boyfriend Richard Kiley (who's also excellent). Getting mixed up in the mess to get back the microfilm is street peddler/police informant Thelma Ritter who sells information to whoever wants to buy it. The film is gritty and unsentimental and none of the characters are saints. New York City is depicted as a tough place to survive especially on the dirty waterfront where Skip McCoy (Widmark) lives and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Widmark - Jean Peters Director(s): Samuel Fuller DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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