The Exorcist trailer - Saw this in a college class and then had to walk home across campus in dense fog. Didn’t sleep a wink that night, nor did most of my friends. Yes, it was a Jesuit college.

Halloween trailer - I saw this screened at a NACA convention in a small classroom with about twenty people. At a critical point in the movie – when you could hear a pin drop - the guy next to me goosed the girl in front of him and she rocketed skyward with a bloodcurdling scream, which made most of us soil ourselves. Then a walk back across a foggy campus where the film distributor hired a Michael Meyers lookalike to drop from a tree. (I’m still washing that pair of shorts.)

The Blair Witch Project trailer - The very last scene makes no sense if you didn’t pay close attention in the beginning. If you did pay attention, it will scare the shit out of you. Kudos to the creators who took a shoestring budget and made one of the best viral movies ever, with special thanks for making that scary ending so subtle. Hope the creators of Paranormal Activity are slipping these guys a few bucks. 

House on Haunted Hill trailer - Where I grew up in NYC there was an afternoon matinee called Million Dollar Movie that aired from around 4:30 until 6:00. Occasionally they would show the same film Monday through Friday. I remember watching this film every day for five straight days and still jumping ten feet in the air every time scene with the “floating woman” came by…god, that still creeps me out! Starring Vincent Price at his smarmiest and featuring the always willing to chew scenery Elisha Cook, Jr. They have remade this movie several times but nothing touches the original.

Session 9 trailer - Contemporary horror movies are mostly gorefests. This was a thinking person’s movie, where the horror was deeper than any axe blade could cut. I thought David Caruso might even have resurrected his film career with this one, but I guess I was wrong. Subtle and pensive but very, very creepy.

The Shining trailer - Ever watched someone go insane right before your eyes? (Married people, step back.) Jack Nicholson channeling palpable dread… tempered only by the fact that I wanted to kill Shelley Duvall myself. Redrum!

Psycho trailer - Alfred Hitchcock’s movie trailers are better than some people’s movies. The screeching score was as much a part of the fright as the visuals. A landmark classic.

Rosemary’s Baby trailer - The scariest films are sometimes the ones with the most plausible characters (apart from the whole Satanic thing, of course). What brilliance to cast condo dwellers as the evil ones? Conspiratorial horror. I never looked at Ruth Gordon the same way again (even in Harold and Maude I wondered if she would snap Bud Cort’s neck and eat him).

Night of the Living Dead trailer - Yep, no big names, cheesey by modern standards, but at the time one of the creepiest movies ever made. You don’t spawn that many sequels and imitators by sucking!

Phantasm trailer - Speaking of cheeseball, some of the sets and (lack of) costumes will make some think it’s a lame movie, but when The Tall Man enters the screen, all bets are off. The last scene of this movie is one of the scariest moments on film. And has there ever been a better horror movie name than Angus Scrimm? Ice cream trucks, ponytails and the sphere.

Mental Floss

Ah, and with this post I come to the end of my haphazardly put together look at my favorite film of every decade since the 1930s. What better place to finish than with my favorite film of all time? Nowhere, that’s where. Maybe I should just reproduce the 15 page senior thesis paper I wrote on this film when I was in college? Nah, that wouldn’t make particularly good reading to the non-academic reader. Then again, this might not either…

If I were to tell you my favorite film was a Wes Anderson film, what film would you guess it was? Presumably Royal Tenenbaums, perhaps Rushmore. However, it is neither. My favorite film of the 2000s, and of all time, is The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. A lot of people, inexplicably in my opinion, consider this a lesser Anderson film. Hogwash, I say! This film has everything you expect from an Anderson film, and it is done to near perfection.

There are few film makers as idiosyncratic as Anderson, I’ll give you that. As such, if you aren’t in tune with his style, you aren’t going to like his films all too much. Still, I find it hard to see what about Anderson people don’t like. His cinematography, particularly his meticulously crafted mise-en-scene, is fantastic. His use of music is rivaled only by the likes of Martin Scorcese and perhaps a couple of others. He knows how to write a great script, both in terms of have excellent dialogue and how the story plays out. He also has fantastic characters, and he gives them all a lot of depth to boot. It’s almost enough to make a man want to see his latest work, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. If only the animation wasn’t so fucking creepy looking from time to time.

The Life Aquatic tells the story of Steve Zissou, played by Bill Murray. He’s a Jaques Cousteau like figure, only he’s at the end of his career, he’s no longer popular, and he’s a drunken lout. He’s just lost his best friend, Esteban, and his latest excursion is to find the shark that killed his friend and kill it in kind. Before he shoves off, however, he meets Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) who may or may not be his son. Also joining them is Jame Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett), a pregnant reporter doing a story on Zissou. The shark becomes a McGuffin, and the story mostly focuses on Zissou’s relationship with Ned, Jane, his wife (Anjelica Huston) and also the adventures the crew has at sea.

This movie didn’t have much trouble getting to back it simply by having Murray and Blanchett in it. Murray may be my favorite actor of all time, and Blanchett my favorite actress. As for Wilson, if only he would have just stuck alongside his dear old friend Wes. His bigger movies, your Shanghai Noons, your Wedding Crashers, have the tendency to be, well, terrible. More to the point, Wilson gets typecasted, and then derided, as being very aloof and lazy. However, in my book he’ll always have a pass because of Wes Anderson’s films. I mean, he co-wrote Bottle Rockets, Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums! He’s good in this movie as Ned, and he does a fine job in every Anderson film. He just gets misused by Hollywood.

This movie is a bit of an idiosyncrasy fest, actually, as both Jeff Goldblum and Harold and Maude’s Bud Cort make appearances. Willem Dafoe is also in the movie. I wish Goldblum would do more things, and more better things. Oh well, as long as he keeps making appearances on the Colbert Report…

So, you’ve got a well put together story with a ton of amusing moments and, as with all Anderson films, some genuine pathos. If any director makes dramedies or tragicomedies or whatever you like to call these kinds of films, it’s Anderson. The cinematography is beautiful and lush. It’s a great movie to see, let alone watch if you follow me. The characters are for the most part great, the dialogue is fantastic, and the music can’t go unmentioned. Well it could, but I don’t want to do that. Again, Anderson throws in a quirk by having Seu Jorge perform David Bowie songs in Portuguese throughout the movie. However, there are some other songs that are quite good and used perfectly, The Zombies “The Way I Feel Inside” comes to mind.

This is a movie I feel far too few people have seen. It is a triumph of filmmaking. Even if you don’t like Anderson’s films, give it a shot. C’mon, it has Bill Murray in it! Everybody loves Bill Murray. That was the entire rationale behind him being chosen to voice Garfield, I assume. There are also pirates. They are still (inexplicably) popular right? I strongly encourage you to see this movie. It’s my favorite film of all time, and I hope you perhaps can enjoy it as well.

“A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life.” ~~Maude Chardin

Director Hal Ashby announces his intentions for “Harold and Maude” in the opening scene, and those intentions are, shall we say, a wee bit impish: Bored, rich, purposeless 20-something Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) swings from a noose while his mother (Vivian Pickles) can’t be bothered to end her phone call. Staged suicides, we learn, are common in the palatial Chasen homestead and no cause for alarm — just annoying interruptions in mom’s quest to marry off her son. Those young adults, the things they do to stave off ennui.

And so begins “Harold and Maude,” an unconventional romantic comedy where the pursuit of life trumps all that mushy love stuff (yippee). But perhaps “unconventional” isn’t the right word to describe Ashby’s movie, for it hardly captures all the wild weirdness that makes the movie — based on Colin Higgins’ novel — such a strangely moving affirmation of life.

First, though, there’s the lovely mishmash of bizarreness to muddle through. It’s no wonder everyone calls this one a “cult classic”; “Love Story” it ain’t. (Chorus from Broken Record Girl: yippee.) Harold’s got absolutely no interest in life. But he’s cheeks over teacups in love with death, or at least the idea of it, so he spends his time staging elaborate suicides (the human torch bit is a personal favorite) and attending random funerals. It’s there, in a graveyard, that he meets Maude Chardin (Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old widow with an irrepressibly optimistic worldview and a knack for lifting cars. She senses Harold’s stuck in limbo, so she befriends him, slowly wearing down his resistance. At first Harold is simply a tagalong in Maude’s madcap adventures — including the liberation of a potted tree that ends in a side-splitting car chase — but gradually he becomes a participant. The shift is subtle, but when you do take notice it’s so powerful that it almost knocks you over.

Which is true of “Harold and Maude” as a whole. At its core the film is a beautiful message movie, a retelling of that time-honored “carpe diem” speech. It’s the unusual script, however, that makes the message seem fresh. Higgins’ novel dials down the sentamentality and avoids cliches, and so, too, does Ashby’s film. Ashby elects to bury the insights underneath all the blackly funny suicides and Maude’s antics. (The scene where she plays war protestor to Harold’s gung-ho recruit? Priceless.) Instead, Ashby lets the insights emerge in quieter moments, like the one where Maude, desperate to save that potted tree from its stifling life of city servitude, tells Harold: “Grab the shovel.” It’s a little scene, a throwaway little line, but what punch it has. ”Harold and Maude” is jam-packed with these kinds of brilliant moments. And like any truly great movie, there’s just no end to them.

Those moments probably wouldn’t mean much without Cort and Gordon, who turn in wonderful performances as good today as they were in 1971. It’s a tricky dance, shifting from dark comedy to drama and back, but these two do it beautifully. Cort’s Harold is a strange creature, a boy who can’t fully embrace life but lacks the guts to commit suicide, and that is off-putting at first. But there’s a deep current of fear in Harold that Cort makes painfully real. “I haven’t lived. I’ve died a few times,” he says. What 20-year-old, staring into that void between youth and adulthood, hasn’t felt the same? Gordon plays nicely off that negative energy, making Maude less a lover (though there’s a scene that suggests she is) than a teacher. She wants to reach Harold, show him what it means to take that fear and use it, channel it. But she’s no soapbox preacher. She couldn’t give a fig about morality: ”It’s best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life.”

That, you see, is Maude’s gift to Harold and Ashby’s gift to us: the reminder that backing away from life is its own kind of suicide. Call me sentimental, but when that truth’s hidden in a film this haunting, poignant, comical and original? I’ll fall for it every time.

Wes Anderson’s “action” movie sticks to the themes that you find in a lot of his films and the results are a fantastic blend of adventure, farce, humor, sadness, and drama that not only gives us Anderson’s spin on the action/adventure genre drama but serves as an excellent character study of a man on the verge of being irrelevant in almost every aspect in his life.
I have been a huge fan of Wes Anderson since I saw Rushmore back before the release of The Royal Tenenbaums back in the beginning of the decade and I guarantee you will see at least one more of his films in this feature before the year is out. The Life Aquatic is the biggest departure for Anderson in that it is by far his most grand and epic film to date taking us all across Europe and the Mediterranean sea of Wes Anderson’s world.
Steve Zissou is a Jacques Cousteau type that has had a successful run of nature films investigating the open seas all around the world, but has been losing both notoriety and funding over the last few years with the shadow of his nemesis Alistair Hennessey slowly casting him and more and more darkness.  When Zissou’s best friend and partner Esteban is apparently eaten by a mysterious “tiger shark” the film is poorly received, taken in bad taste, and even doubted in its validity sending Zissou on a mad scramble for cash as he hopes to seek revenge on the shark and prove his critics he still has it as he slowly fades away. Added to this, Zissou’s “maybe son” shows up after the death of his mother and Zissou decides to recruit him to join his team in hopes of maybe forming a bond while also feeling important again getting to show off to someone that looks up to him a bit. Added to this are a crumbling marriage and a reporter tagging along covering him at his most fragile hour and this trip is bound to not go smoothly.
The story is a bit busy but never overwhelming even with the wealth of characters to follow. Beyond the five fore mentioned characters you have the members of Zissou’s crew, his business associates, and pirates that pop in and out of the picture and while that may seem a bit daunting Anderson eases them in and out of the story giving us plenty of tidbits into these characters defining them all and keeping them all unique with their own individual identities.
The cast is full of A talent across the board with Bill Murray staring as the elusive and wounded Zissou. Deadpan and a bit angry, Murray paints Zissou with sadness and self pity behind his front of cocky and selfish persona he puts up to the public. Slowly tearing down his guard are Cate Blanchett as fast talking reporter Jane Winslett-Richardson and Owen Wilson as his “might be son” Ned Plimpton. Both delivering performances unlike anything I have seen from either of them, both just as fragile as Zissou they are overcoming their own personal crisis as they serve as catalysts for Zissou’s turn in character and perspective on life. Delivering great secondary work to the picture is a list of who’s who of great character actors in Hollywood. Angelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Noah Taylor, Bud Cort, the film is just full of great actors, so much so that I can’t single out their excellent work they all deliver. Dafoe deserves special mention if anyone does for his delightfully bizarre and child like right hand man for Zissou. Constantly stealing scenes there is never enough of him in the picture and he is the most memorable character beyond Zissou.
The film itself is expertly crafted in all facets of the production. The script is clever and quirky by Anderson and Noah Baumbach. The tone is a bit silly and tongue and cheek as it pokes fun at the genre and delivers ridiculous and hilarious action scenes that are beyond absurd; and that’s a good thing. The film moves along at a whip pace and never dulls or bores even when the tone changes at a breakneck speed. The film also sports some wonderful stop motion animation from Henry Selick as he and his team created some imaginative and colorful creatures to inhabit the undersea world of Steve Zissou. The creatures range from funny, unique, and bizarre, but entirely original and they make you wish we got more glimpses into this underwater wonderland. The films soundtrack is also quite fantastic and includes a number of Bowie songs rearranged acoustically by one of the films star Seu Jorge who plays them throughout the course of the film on his guitar around the ship. Anderson also stages some fantastic shots using a very stage like cross section of the ship that allows for a couple of long takes that take us around the entire ship from room to room that truly impress. There are also quite a few great sight gags, Hennessey’s Arian crew, little bits in the background that reward on repeat viewings, the quirks of the underwater creatures, and the fore mentioned action scenes provide a number of well earned laughs from the viewer.
In the end, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is Wes Anderson’s most grand effort to date and the result is a slowly appreciated film that rewards more and more on subsequent viewings. An odd and completely different experience that really has few comparisons out there it’s hard to really gauge after your first time through with the film. Few films have grown as considerably in my eyes over subsequent viewings as this film but once you grasp what Anderson was going for the film becomes considerably rewarding. Murray’s Zissou is a classic character of the decade and his adventure for the “tiger shark” makes for some great cinema and a film that feels unique and original which is something we don’t get enough of nowadays.

While the term ‘Cougar’ is a relatively new definition – an older woman who ‘preys’ on young guys – the concept is certainly an age old one.  In fact, films have been exploring the subject for a long, long time.   Throughout the thirties, Mae West famously woo’ed a slew of young leading men (including a 20 something Cary Grant) and since then there have been several memorable films about this special kind of May/December romance.

Sunset Blvd. (1950)  -  Norma Desmond

Probably the most famous cougar in film (at the very least the most quotable),  Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond sets the mold for every modern day cougar.  She’s rich, well connected, elegant, and filled with enough promises and one liners to keep the object of her obsession, struggling screenwriter Joe, interested and around for a while.  Though perhaps a bit crazier than most cougars ( she does shoot Joe when he finally gets the balls to leave), she’s easily the most sympathetic.  For those of you who don’t know the story: aging and forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond toils away in her Sunset Blvd.  mansion – having funerals for her chimpanzes – until Joe Gillis accidentaly wanders in while trying to escape from repo men.  BOOM! Norma’s in love and thinks that Joe is the perfect man to write her comeback role… so she uses everything at her disposal to keep him in her life.

PENULTIMATE COUGAR SCENE: Norma dresses like Charlie Chaplin and gives Joe a performance as ‘The Tramp’ and his expression looks like he realizes he’s been abducted by some kind of alien. 

GREAT COUGAR LINE: Norma describes her assets to Joe:  “Shut up, I’m Rich. Richer than all this new Hollywood Trash!  I have a million dollars.  Own three blocks downtown,  I’ve got oil in Bakersfield pumping, Pumping, PUMPING!

THE GRADUATE (1967)   –   Mrs. Robinson

Coming in a close second to Norma Desmond would be Mrs. Robinson, played by Mrs. Mel Brooks… Anne Bancroft.  After reaquainting herself with young Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) at his graduation party, Mrs. Robinson begins her art of seduction even though she’s roughly the age of his mother.  When asked if he finds her attractive, Braddock’s reply is classic “Oh, yes, I think you’re the prettiest of my mother’s friends.”  Their hotel rendevous eventually end quite badly when Ben starts dating Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, and the elder Robinson suddenly morphs into a crazy, Disney level evil queen.

PENULTIMATE COUGAR SCENE: The first time Ben realizes Mrs. Robinson’s intentions… trapped in Elaine Robinson’s bedroom while Mrs. Robinson quickly strips. 

GREAT COUGAR LINE: “Benjamin I want you to know that I’m available to you, and if you won’t sleep with me this time I want you to know that you can call me up anytime and we can make some kind of arrangement.”

HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)  -  Maude

Most people think this is one of the strangest movies ever made.  Bud Cort plays Harold, a rich kid – obsessed with death- whos parents think he should settle down, so they create a series of dates that go hilariously wrong.  Ruth Gordon plays Maude, an elderly woman living life to the fullest.  Their paths intersect at a funeral, where Harold spies Maude trying to steal his hearse, beginning their adventure.  Along the way, she steals several other vehicles, as well as Harold’s heart.  Maude teaches Harold to curb his suicidal appetites and embrace life like she has.  Like with all “Cougar Films” it ends in tragedy.  Maude, for all her talk of life, transplanting trees in parks to the forrest, lecturing Harold on how sad most people are, etc… has no intention of living past the age of 80.  Indeed, he meets her on her 80′th birthday, wishing her well, only to get the reply “I took the tablets an hour ago… I’ll be gone by midnight…”

PENULTIMATE COUGAR SCENE:  Harold gives Maude a gift – a coin with the engraving “Harold loves Maude.”  Maude admires it, then throws it into a fountain right in front of him.

GREAT COUGAR LINE: “Vice.  Virtue.  It’s best not to be too moral.  You cheat yourself out of too much life.”

** RUNNER UP (this line is not uttered by the Cougar in question, but it’s too amazing not to mention.)  Priest: ” I’d be remiss in my duties if I did not tell you that the idea of  intercourse – the act of your firm, young body… comingling with withered flesh… sagging breasts… and flabby b..b..buttocks… makes me want… to vomit.”

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (2001)  -  Luisa Cortez

Road trip films are great, so even better that Alfonso Cuaron weaved into his mini masterpiece a cougar (Maribel Verdu) so enticing she could snag not one, but two young men (Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal)! The story involves two best friends who embark on a trip to a beach called Boca del Cielo with an older woman, Luisa, that they are both attracted to.  Little do they know her situation or intentions… Luisa has terminal cancer and just found out her husband is cheating on her and sees the road trip as an opportunity to teach her two co-pilots a thing or two about the ways of the world.

PENULTIMATE COUGAR LINE: ” You have to make the clitoris your best friend.”  RESPONSE: “What kind of friend is always hiding?”

GREAT COUGAR SCENE: Near the end, in a nearly wordless scene, Luisa takes the two guys out to a restaurant, plays from the juke box and her dance is enough to attract both guys into bed with her for one of the most talked about threesomes in recent film history.

1971 was a great year in my life for several reasons. My daughter was born, I was master of my domain, times were easy, rents were low, jobs were plentiful, and my favorite movie of all time hit the screen. A girl who lived below us saw it and couldn’t wait to tell me this was a must see film. So I did. Then I saw it again. And again. And again. I have no idea how many times i’ve watched it. I own it, of course. Harold and Maude. A brilliant black comedy, Zen meditation, satire and life affirming wonder all rolled into one.

Directed by Hal Ashby, who was also responsible for Coming Home and Being There, among others, and starring Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort. More on them later. I’ll give a brief synopsis of the film here, but nothing short of viewing it can really do it justice. It’s one of the few films I feel really can’t be described well enough, it simply has to seen.

It’s about a 19 year old, Harold Chasen (Bud Cort), growing up with his facile and self-involved mother in a mansion in the San Francisco Bay Area. He creates elaborate fake suicides in a desperate bid for his mothers attention, and to shock her. The film opens with him staging a hanging in a room he knows she’ll soon enter. She takes no notice, she’s seen it all before, and Harold is once again disappointed.

She gives him a Jaguar for his birthday, and he promptly converts it into a classy hearse. Harold has a morbid curiousity about death. He drives the hearse to the funeral of someone he doesn’t know, as he likes to do on occasion, and there he meets Maude, a septagenarian free spirit who also likes funerals. She offers him some licorish and introduces herself to a reluctant Harold. The film still above is of their first meeting.

From there Harold goes from being embarrassed and put off by Maudes carefree attitude to falling madly in love with her, completely misunderstanding her live-in-the-moment and to the fullest existance. He only knows that she’s everything he’s never experienced before and he wants to with her always. She ends up teaching him how to live and freeing him from the prison he’s made of his life. The ending is brilliant.

In between are many comedically brilliant scenes from one of the all time great actresses and an up and coming actor, Bud Cort, whom I feel never did realize his full potential. Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985) lived a full and magnificent life. She began as an extra in silent films, made her way to Broadway, and then back to film. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Rosemary’s Baby. She went on to appear in twenty-two more films and at least that many television appearances through her seventies and eighties, including such successful sitcoms as Rhoda (which earned her another Emmy nomination) and Newhart. She also guest-starred on the late episode Columbo: Try and Catch Me. She made countless talk show appearances, in addition to hosting Saturday Night Live in 1977.

Bud Cort was discovered in a revue by director Robert Altman, who subsequently cast him in two of his movies, MASH and Brewster McCloud (in which he played the title role). His success in those films led to the starring role in Harold and Maude. On Broadway, Cort appeared in the short-lived 1972 play Wise Child by Simon Gray. Cort was invited to live with the famous comedian Groucho Marx in his Bel Air mansion, and was present at Marx’s death in 1977.

In 1979, Bud’s life nearly ended in a car accident on the Hollywood Freeway. From behind, he collided with an abandoned car blocking a lane into which he was turning. Years of plastic surgery, enormous hospital bills, a losing court case, and the disruption of his career ensued. Since, Cort has appeared in various film, stage and TV roles, but his career never really rose to it’s potential. At least not in my opinion.

I hope if you’ve never seen Harold and Maude that you’ll rent it. The film is number 45 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Funniest Movies of all time, number 69 in its list for most romantic, and number 42 on Bravo’s 100 Funniest Movies. In 1997, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The psychiatrist, feigning prescience, asks “What activity gives you a different sense of enjoyment from the others…what gives you that special satisfaction?” His patient, gazing fixedly into space, replies, “I go to funerals.”

Harold (Bud Cort, then a rising star and recent alumnus of MASH) is a laconic, morbid nineteen-year-old with no friends, an endless array of fine coats, his own hearse and several overbearing authority figures to corral him. He receives therapy at the behest of his mother, the glib Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles, the English actress best known then for the poetic physicality of her performance in Ken Russell’s Isadora Duncan), following a particularly graphic example of Harold’s first hobby: performing his suicide. We do not gain any insight into what motivates these macabre theatrics, or his general disposition, through black-and-white psychoanalysis on the therapist’s couch (where Harold lies in state). What it takes for Harold to open up (to smile, to speak) is a series of encounters with a vivacious seventy-nine-year-old who also crashes funerals, though for opposite reasons. Maude (in an sonorous turn by Ruth Gordon) is recklessly insouciant, driven by her love for life and sense of connection to the world.

Before Harold can confess “that I enjoyed being dead”, Maude has already understood (with that acute sensibility of experience) the passive nihilism that ails him, and prescribed the best medicine: “try something new each day, Harold”. And with Maude, he must. Following an extended encounter that springs from Maude’s theft of his car, an affair ensues, over the course of which Harold is saturated with references to the leitmotif of organic growth and of joy at life in all its finitude.  He continues to play dead throughout, whether converting his new Jaguar into a hearse, or demolishing one of several arranged dates by staging self-immolation, but all with renewed joie de vivre. This culminates in a touching miniature melodrama, when Harold feigns seppuku before his final date, only to discover her joining in the performance. To his chagrin, he is not taken for dead, but for what he is: the player turning away from life. It takes nothing less than the tragic experience of the death of love for Harold to turn himself around fully.

The movie is a romance, a tragedy, a coming-of-age parable and a (laugh-out-loud) black comedy all in one. Yet director Hal Ashby and writer Colin Higgins have crafted no ungainly chimera: the film blends its tones and toys with genre expectations so effortlessly that it seems odd, retrospectively, that it was a commercial failure upon release and met with such mixed critical reception. It found its audience, going on to become a ‘cult classic’. Perhaps it is in light of the recent success of this same heady cocktail in the films of Wes Anderson, who acknowledges its heavy influence upon his work, that one can mistake Harold and Maude as coming before its time.

Yet this is a movie so very much of its time and place that it could not have come from another. For today’s viewer, the film’s setting in the San Francisco Bay Area of the early 1970s is far removed. The efficiency of its policing certainly left a lot to be desired, but for this we can be thankful, as Maude repeatedly (though playfully and apparently harmlessly) breaks the law and escapes the cops. Its politics too are particularly contemporary, with a strong undercurrent of discontent with the Vietnam conflict, to which the central message is intricately bound (and yet which transcends it timelessly).

Harold and Maude is concerned with paradoxes, in weaving a tale which observes and tries to resolve the confluence of apparent opposites. Replanting a stolen municipal tree in a forest, Maude exclaims with fists full of soil “the smell! It’s the earth! The earth is my body…all around us, living things.” In one of the original theatrical trailers, this scene cut to another of the most powerful images: Harold and Maude stand in a tremendous field of white stones growing ever-larger as the camera zooms out, revealing the full extent of what must be a war cemetery. Here, in the earth, are the dead. In the film proper, an analogy is drawn between this field of the dead and a field of daisies, which in turn symbolise the suffering that follows from individuals allowing themselves to be treated as a herd. This observation is the key to the most haunting aspect of these images, tracing as it does the connection to the Holocaust. Harold and Maude is a film as much about the existential condition of the Holocaust survivor, a role which it is heavily suggested Maude occupies, as it is concerned with the bathetic apathy of youth followed the unfulfilled promises of the late 1960s. In the collision of these states is the central paradox of the movie; in its solution is its central message.

Nineteen-year-old Harold plays dead while seventy-nine-year-old Maude plays young. One is of the pre-war generation, has lived through the horror of the concentration camp, and therefore came into intimate contact with the greatest crisis of meaning; the other is a baby-boomer in a society which affords no personal significance, and which fights a meaningless war. The two come together in a romantic liaison which denies their real ages (to the self-damning disgust of the establishment) thereby bridging the generational divide and bestowing, by virtue of experience, a sense of meaning (and connection to the world) on the young. This is an unambiguously grand thesis for a romantic comedy, but this is no ordinary rom-com, and it comes off with aplomb.

The film is rich in imagery, yet illustrated with subtlety. Ashby was clearly a masterful editor (he won an Academy award for editing In The Heat Of The Night four years earlier), and this shines through in the exquisite cutting of the movie, making excellent use of montage techniques in particular. The photography of John Alonzo is understated and elegant, employing variations between sober tones and radiant light to match the two halves of the leading couple. Higgins began the screenplay as his thesis for an MFA in screenwriting, and in it his highly trained yet mischievous imagination is manifest in the fantastic visual comedy and fine imagery. His characters are caricatures, but subtly nuanced and quite credible, a fact indebted in no small measure to the exceptional performances by a fine cast of actors (Cort’s controlled, minimalist movements; Gordon’s tics, trots and warbles; Pickles’ majestic poise). The truth in the treatment of these characters plays a significant part in articulating the universality of the theme. The optimism of its message is sustained throughout the movie with the winsome (if sometimes overly sentimental) soundtrack provided by Cat Stevens.  This too has been carefully tied to the thematic content, as the lyrics often strike an ironic note, or work closely with other motifs as in the case of the original composition “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” (though by God, does it become nauseating after repeated exposure).

For all its thematic grandeur, Harold and Maude is good light entertainment with a sense of rhythm and something to offer a wide range of audiences. It’s full of great ideas and haunting images, and it’s a movie that is charming and affecting in equal measure: a classic, not just for the ‘cult’.

Harold and Maude, Dir. Hal Ashby, Writ. & Prod. Colin Higgins, Paramount, USA, 1971; available on DVD

Morning.  I don’t have any news to report.  Do you?  I don’t.  Do you?  No?  You’re sure?  Well, okay then it’s settled.  There’s nothing new going on in the music world today whatsoever.  Cool.

Let’s look backward then.  Do you remember The Vines?  Yeah, you do.  I know you remember this little ditty:

Of course, that’s not actually The Vines playing “Get Free” from 2002’s Highly Evolved but it is definitely one thing: adorable!  However, the real members of The Vines weren’t much older than that at the time of the song’s peak popularity and the band’s quick ascension to the bands-who-have-appeared-on-the-cover-of-Rolling Stone-club.  Yes, it was September 19, 2002 and the headline declared “Rock is Back!”, placing The Vines at the forefront of the garage rock revival alongside The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, and The Matchbox 20 (I joke obviously, but really if they had added a “the” to their name chances are they would’ve been included just on a formality).  You can see the cover here for a refresher.  I always thought that singer Craig Nicholls looked like Bud Cort in Harold & Maude, if Harold had been stoned out of his mind from morning to midnight, but then I learned Nicholls had a condition known as Asperger’s Syndrome and I felt somewhat guilty for making fun of him.  If you don’t know what Aperger’s Syndrome is you should check out a book called Born on A Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, who has the condition and also happens to be an autistic savant.  An interesting read.  Anyway, back to The Vines.  Here’s another song you may remember from an iPod commercial, but the actual video directed by Michel Gondry is way better:

That’s “Ride” from 2004’s Winning Days.  It doesn’t take a genius to notice that Nicholls is in all likelihood a bit of a Kurt Cobain fan, to say the least.  What’s funny is that I remember when the band first popped up in America they got all kinds of comparisons to Nirvana, but shortly thereafter the thing to do if you were a DJ or music critic was to sort of dismiss this comparison and talk about how The Vines actually had a lot of Beatles influence in their music.  As if this somehow made it more sophisticated or original or what?  I don’t know.  Personally, I’m fine with the Nirvana proximity.  When Cobain was still alive I thought most of the bands that aped that sound sucked, but I was always okay with The Vines and that probably had as much to do with time as anything else.  But for the record – yes – the band actually handles The Beatles territory just fine, so much so that I guess they were asked to contribute a song to that I Am Sam soundtrack that was nothing but Beatles covers.  Here’s their take on “I’m Only Sleeping”:

So what’s going on with these guys?  Well, they released two albums following the aforementioned Winning Days, and it doesn’t seem like either one made much of a dent.  I haven’t heard the music, but mostly I suspect the landscape of what’s popular has just changed in a way that isn’t exactly pining for what The Vines have to offer.  Not to mention, there simply aren’t a whole lot of radio stations that play garage rock stuff in the first place.  The band’s last album, Melodia, was released in the summer of 2008 (but actually comes out next week for those of us here in the States) and sadly the band cancelled most of their scheduled tour last fall due to singer Nicholl’s mental health.  You can read more about that at the band’s website and here’s hoping his status improves.  This is the first single off the album, titled “He’s a Rocker”:

That’s all for today.  More tomorrow…

Title: Harold and Maude
Year: 1971
Director: Hal Ashby
Writer: Colin Higgins
Starring: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles
Music: Cat Stevens
Distinctions: currently #248 on IMDb’s Top 250
Synopsis: whimsically morbid boy falls in love with a batty, hippie old lady
How I saw it: on video, twice (rented), most recently March 2008
Subjective Rating: 7/10 8/10
Objective Rating: 9/10 (1 point off for cinematography)

Cute movie. Pleasant and funny. We originally saw it about five years ago, and it’s good for watching every five years or so. Dramatically, the acting is notably lacking in places, but as far as the comedy goes, the performances are good. And of course it has one of the best soundtracks ever.

PICKING UP CHICKS AT A FUNERAL. It’s just your average 20-year-old guy with 80-year-old gal romance flick. Read Full Text

I love films (and not just films) that work on a number of levels and this is one.  You can take it as an interesting curio that neatly spoofs contemporaneous cop movies Bullitt and Dirty Harry with an outlandish murder hunt tale, but it also works on an allegorical level speaking about restriction, existentialism, dreams, reality and surreality and the desire for liberty.

It isn’t especially successful.  In many ways it is deeply flawed- the SFPD cop Frank Shaft, for example, is a nice idea poorly executed- but when it hits home, then it hits the jackpot.  The comic swipes at Agnew and Nixon have added poignancy these days and the Wizard of Oz reference is sublime but my favourite gag was the invented Wright brother Abraham (played with relish by Stacy Keach) as the acquisitive owner of a string of retirement homes.  No, it was the titles stopping and restarting from the beginning in unison with the action on screen.  No, it’s the scars on Sally Kellerman’s back.

There is an interesting narrative role with Rene Auberjonois as a lecturer who is occasionally shown giving a straightforward lecture on ornithology with each section shown being pertinent to the action that precedes or follows it.  There is also a lovely debut performance from Shelley Duvall and Bud Cort (looking like Wally from ‘Where’s Wally?’) is smashing in the title role.

Next time I want to see a movie that I can laugh along with and then think more profoundly about later, this might be it.  Terrible story, great movie. 6/10.

I saw this really, really good movie today on one of those old movie channels that I inexplicably now watch. It’s called Harold and Maude, and it’s about a 19-year-old boy named Harold (Bud Cort) who becomes best friends with an 80-year-old woman named Maude (Ruth Gordon). It was really witty, because Harold was all death-obsessed and Maude was full of youthfulness or something. And guys, it was really good.

Until Harold falls in love with Maude and Maude with Harold and he decides they should marry so let’s have sex and then talk about sex. It’s like the producer said “You know, I’m not sure if we’re getting enough shock factor with them falling in love. Let’s definitely have every other character say something about sex.”

I most definitely changed, terribly disappointed. I missed maybe the last 20 minutes, right after the montage where Harold’s uncle, counsellor, and pastor start talking about sexin’ up old people.

Uncut reports that Lightspeed Champion (a.k.a. Dev Hynes) will perform live Cat Stevens’ music from the 1971 film Harold and Maude following a screening of the movie on December 11.

Lightspeed Champion is to perform songs by Cat Stevens from the soundtrack to cult film Harold and Maude at a special screening in London next month.

The ‘Roots and Shoots’ winter edition takes place at London’s NFT1 on December 11 and will see Lightspeed Champion, aka Dev Hynes perform a special acoustic set after Hal Ashby’s film screens.

Harold and Maude is an uplifting dark comedy and stars Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort and Vivian Pickles, Harold and Maude is an oddball existential black comedy exploring an unlikely relationship between death-obsessed rich boy Harold (Bud Cort), and the lively, eccentric septuagenarian Maude (Ruth Gordon), who he meets at a funeral. 

Highlights from the Cat Stevens-penned soundtrack include ”If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out” and “Don’t Be Shy” - most of the tracks from the film’s OST also appear on Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman album.

Ruth Gordon made great turns in two of my favorite films.  Harold and Maude and Rosemary’s Baby (for which she one an Academy Award).  If you haven’t seen either of these movies, they come highly reccomended.

A fine actress indeed.

WHAT I’M WATCHING ON DVD:

“The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”

Read my review HERE.

Man te retrospektīva tāda šonedēļ sanāca. Par Halu Ešbiju, kuru es uzskatu par vienu no krutākajiem 70-o gadu režisoriem. Viņš trāpījās tieši hipiju laikos, safanojās par lietām, un kā godīgs hipāns nākamajā dekādē arī atdeva galus no pārdozēšanas – taču  70-jos no viņa ir vērts skatīties vispār VISU. Izceļas ar prasmi savienot smieklīgo ar absurdo un absurdo ar skumjo, kā arī nekad neaizmirst skaudri izsmiet “sabiedrības morāli”, tajā pašā laikā paliekot ļoti sirsnīgs un cilvēkus patiesi mīlošs. Ja gribi redzēt kā kino spēj dzīvot un elpot ar pilnu krūti – skaties Ešbiju.

“Harolds un Moda” – filma, kas kā netverama stīga manuprāt tieši vai netieši caurvij visu tālāko ēru. Tieši šī filma aizsāka to, kāpēc mēs tā mīlam “Džuno” vai “Mazo mis saulstariņu” vai “Amerikāņu skaistumu” vai Vesa Andersona filmas; pēdējais pats mīl ļoti pacitēt Ešbiju. Te var smieties līdz asarām un bēdāties ļoti ļoti, pie tam vienlaicīgi. Te ir vismaz desmit viltus pašnāvības, nāvējoši triki ar mašīnu un aparāts, kas spēj ražot  krītoša sniega smaržu. Šī ir īsta himna humānismam.

in 2008 martcore says
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