Book review - "Chasing the Panther: Adventures and Misadventures of a Cinematic Life" by Carolyn Pfeiffer

 I read this because I was keen to read about Pfeiffer's adventures as a producer in the 80s with Alan Rudolph, Chris Blackwell, Shep Gordon etc but there is very little of that. This memoir is mostly about her time in Europe in the 60s - as a student, then working in Italy as Claudie Cardinale's assistant, meeting people like Burt Lancaster, Visconti, Delon and Fellini, then working for Delon (being raped by one of Delon's dodgy bodyguards), then Omar Sharif as an assistant (shagging Robert Bolt), being friends with Nathalie Delon and Geraldine Chaplin, becoming a publicisit then eventually working for Shep Gordon, hanging with Robert Altman, dope with Blake Edwards. 

It's pretty interesting stuff - having Sean Connery put his hand on her leg while Diane Cilento was there, a fling with photographer Terence Donovan etc. There is heart break - a daughter (son of an affair with a married man) dies as a child, she finds true love with a journalist who dies of a heart attack. I wish there had been more on her work as producer. But I enjoyed the book.

 

Movie review - "Premonition" (1972) **

 Alan Rudolph's first movie as direcotr is hard to get through. Some hippy goes to the desert with a professor and sees something weird, then years later the hippy and his band members go out there and sense weirdness.

It's so padded. I kept waiting for weird stuff to happen. Just felt like lazy dope smoking movie making. There's even a  pretty girl to soothe the hero's furrowed brow. 

No characterisation. Best moments are the bit towards the end where someone gets lot in the desert and dies. I wish this had been a proper horror film. Amateurishly made. 

Movie review - "The Secret Lives of Dentists" (2002) **

Nicely acted and stuff but there's not enough story here for a feature. Campbell Scott is a dentist worried his dentist wife Hope Davis is cheating. He has fantasies, spurred on by visions of his cranky patient Dennis Leary and hot receptionist Robin Tunney.

Scott has a lovely speaking voice and can act but isn't that compelling - it would be fun to watch, I don't know, Woody Allen be racked with jealousy. I didn't care about him, or his marriage. Sorry. The details of modern marriage all felt real - logistica of kids who are often sick etc. I just didnt think it was a feature.

Maybe it would work better as a play - the intimacy, the actors up close... 

Movie review - "Mortal Thoughts" (1991) **

 The basis of a decent thriller - two female friends (Demi Moore and Glenn Headley), one married to an abusive man (Bruce Willis) who winds up murdered. But the relationships are undercooked - most crucially the two female friends. We never get a sense of what makes them tick or anything. Why they're mates. (They probably should've been sisters.) Moore's marriage to John Pankow isn't really interesting. There's a lot of Willis being snarly.

I know Rudolph came on after the director had been fired and the acting is fine if New Jersey accent-y (with terrible hairdos to match). It's just hard to tell.

It's like at heart a thriller but it's been given indie treatment and had all the fun sucked out of it. Needed to give Moore a sexy guy, have a few double crosses. There's lots of Harvey Keitel interrogating. Not a lot of surprises. 

Movie review - "Made in Heaven" (1987) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph tries studio filmmaking and turns it into an independent film. This cost a lot of money but it didn't have to - it would be better if it was cheaper. Tim Hutton falls for Kelly McGillis in Heaven and tries to find her in the real world.

Debra Winger is an angel, Ellen Berkin is a devil. Tom Petty pops up as does Neil Young.

The movie has a compelling dream like state. There's a structural issue in the second half as both characters draft along in Earth waiting to meet. In Sleepless in Seattle Meg Ryan knew about Tom Hanks and tried to meet him, and discuss him; he came into contact with her. Here Kelly McGillis has relationships with Tim Daly and another guy. Hutton drifts. It's frustrating. It's like they don't deserve true love or something.

Best bit is Hutton meeting his own parents. 

Movie review - "Songwriter" (1984) *** (warning: spoilers)

 It starts as a mess with random voice over and choppy editing and feels haphazard but I went with it because everyone seems to be having a good time - Willie Nelson in a lead, Kris Kristofferson as a mate, Lesley Ann Downe as a new singer, Richard Sarafin as a villain.

It ambles along, plenty of songs, better casting than Roadie. It's probably at heart a **1/2 movie but I loved the ending where Nelson sells Sarafin Downe's contract and she becomes a Born Again! I loved that. 

Movie review - "Return Engagement" (1983) ***

 Alan Rudolph's documentary is one of his least personal but most interesting film because it's about two nutters - Timothy Lear, pro drug advocate, and lunatic G Gordon Liddy.

Liddy's wife appears with black eyes. 

Movie review - "Endangered Species" (1982) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph tries again to go commercial in this conspiracy/government film about cattle mutilations. Robert Urich is amiable but miscast as a burnt out cop with a grown daughter - Rudolph's choice of Bob Mitchum would've been better. Jo Beth Williams is lovely as the local cop in a small town where cattle are being killed. Hoyt Axton is a local rancher. Peter Coyote is military with an absurd moustache.

The film clearly has beats it should hit - paranoia, conspiracy etc. Rudolph who specialises in light hearted mood and sexiness isn't really suitable.  The music sting is dumb. The ending is unsatisfactory.

Like Roadie this doesn't hit the exploitation beats it needs to - scares, violence, thrills.  You never believe Urich and that kid are related. Still the movie has a sort of charm - its laid back nature does help sell the story. It feels like it's in the country. 

It's not bad. It's just underwhelming.

Movie review - "Roadie" (1980) **

 Alan Rudolph was in director gaol after Remember My Name so took a studio gig though it was still New Hollywood - anarchic rock and roll film about mechanic/roadie Travis based on an alter ego of a Texan writer.

It's clear what this should be - a romance between Travis and a groupie. Only he looks old and she's meant to be a sixteen year old virgin so that's yuck, even for 1980. And I get why Meatloaf was cast and he's got energy but he doesn't have warmth and the center to play the lead - maybe John Belushi could have pulled it off. And Kiki Hunter isn't right. Meatloaf's family are haw haw caricatures with OTT acting. There's no heart. The movie needed to be made by Alan Arkush or someone. It also needed more 1980 nudity to be freank.

I was disliking this film intensely but it does get better when Debbie Harry and Alice Cooper appear. They are natural and play themselves. But the two leads have no chemistry and both feel miscast.

Movie review - "Terror Circus" (1974) **

 Alan Rudolph's second feature had him called in to re-shoot a movie that had been started by other fands. It's about three girls traveling in the desert who meet a mystery man (Andrew Prine, a familiar face) who kidnaps them. He's got all these other women captured and he does weird stuff.

Solid basic idea, probably needed some more gore and exploitation. Starts well and ends well with the reveal of a monster scarred by atomic testing.  The middle is a slog - needed a subplot or two. 

Prine gives a strong performance, the girls are pretty. I enjoyed it more than some of Rudolph's other movies.

Movie review - "Ray Meets Helen" (2019) *1/2

 I'm glad Alan Rudolph got the chance to make a movie and that Keith Carradine and Sondra Locke played lead roles and it's about a romance between older people. Also fun to see Samntha Mathis, Keith Davis and Jennifer Tilly have something to do. Carradine has some raffish charm and I enjoyed him playing the piano.  

But it's not very good. It's slow. Locke is clearly unwell and isn't great.  The fantastic elements - Locke continuously seeing a dead Mathis and so on - don't work. The movie feels cheap.

Movie review - "Equinox" (1992) **1/2

 The tale of two identical twins, separated - both played by Matthew Modine. One is a shy type the other is a gangster. Shy guy wants Lara Flynn Boyle, lives next to Marisa Tomei, has M. Emmett Walsh as a dad; gangster lives with Lori Singer (wasted), works for Fred Ward and with Tate Donovan.

The acting is strong across the board - Modine is excellent.  Lovely mood. Erratic middle. Interesting ending. I'm still thinking about it.

Movie review - "Investigating Sex" (2001) **1/2

 A stronger Alan Rudolph movie - it benefits from an interesting idea (a salon of men discuss sex in 1929 with two female stenographers getting involved), a solid cast, some sex.

The chats aren't that interesting and indeed have dated in many ways - Gen Z are a lot more ahead of the group. Salon chat is hard to dramatise. It's stronger in scenes of peeople being affected by what's going on, particularly the women. The movie should have swapped some male characters for female and told it from female point of view. People like Julie Delpy and Tuesday Weld are under utilised.

Robin Tunney and Neve Campbell are stenographers.  

Like a lot of Rudolph movies it feels like a Woody Allen film without as many laughs.  The movie has strong moments then long period of blah. I gave it a half star because it had more energy and the good bits were good. 

Less characters would have helped incidentally. 

Movie review - "Trixie" (2000) **

 Emily Watson doing Americana, a security guard and aspiring private detective. Her accent and malaprprisms get on the nerves as does the... I don't know, the "whatever" of it all. She investigates a crime, has some entertaining chats with Nathan Lane, has a romance with Dermot Mulroney, interrogates Nick Nolte, hangs out with Brittany Murphy who would be better in the lead.

I liked Murphy and Nolte and the movie got better. But - whatever. 

Movie review - "Breakfast of Champions" (1999) *

 Bruce Willis took a lot of risks at his peak, one of the reasons he became so successful - for every Pulp Fiction and Sixth Sense there would be something like this. I haven't read the novel. It's untypica of the output of Alan Rudolph - more fast paced.

I couldn't follow what was going on. I didn't care. People like this movie. I found it confusing. Couldn't care about its take on American society.

Amazing cast - Albert Finney, Omar Epps, Barbara Hershey, Lukas Haas, Shawnee Smith, Will Patton, etc. 

Movie review - "Afterglow" (1997) **

 Nick Nolte and Julie Christie are a couple having issues - he's a handyman who cheats on her. He hooks up with Lara Flynn Boyle, horny and underserviced by husband Jonny Lee Miller who hooks up with Christie.

The female ingenues were often the strength of Rudolph movies eg Lori Singer in Trouble in Mind, Linda Fiorentino in The Moderns and that's the case here - Boyle is lively and energetic. Christie is excellent. Miller and Nolte are fine. 

You know what my issue was with this film? I didn't like the characters. I didn't care if anyone stayed married or had kids. Boyle's character was such a simpleton, Miller seemed so unengaged his his marriage, fuck Nolte for rejecting his daughter. I think because children were involved their antics got to me. 

I just didn't care. 

Movie review - "Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994) **1/2

 Another Alan Rudolph film that doesn't quite get there. It looks nice, has fun moments and it's entertaining to see all these figures. But the central relationship doesn't land - Jennifer Jason Leigh's Parker and Campbell Scott's Robert Benchley. For whatever reason in these scenes both feel like actors rather than real people. The relationship between Parker and Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick) seems more real. Maybe because Broderick has more energy. Or because something happens - they shag, she gets pregnant - as opposed to just pining.

Leigh is at times affective, but at other times the drawl overpowers the movie and drags it down. Gwyneth Paltrow is fun as a shallow starlet.  Nice to see Jennifer Beal, Andrew McCarthy, Stanley Tucci, etc. 

I wish Woody Allen did a version of this story. 

Movie review - "Love at Large" (1990) **1/2

 After half an hour I was ready to write this off but then Elizabeth Perkins starts interacting with private eye Tom Berenger - she's another private investigator - and the film lights up. It never quite gets there - Rudolph keeps setting his films in la la land when they should just be based on some sort of reality. But he allows actors the chance to shine - Ann Archer has fun as a femme fetale and Perkins is lively so is Berenger and Kate Capshaw. 

Movie review - "The Moderns" (1988) **1/2

 I wanted to like this more than I did - setting of Paris in the 20s, cameos from Hemingway and Stein, art, Keith Carradine as an artist offered to do forgery. It's effective and Linda Fiorentino is magnificently sexy, John Lone is fun. Genevieve Bujold is under used again - do better Alan!

The film is two hours. It's ambling. Needed more sex and laughs and satire. There's a boxing match and other scenes. Too much time was spent on development. I wish it had been made in the late 70s as planned.

Movie review - "Trouble in Mind" (1985) **1/2

 Alan Rudolph's success with Choose Me made it a little easier for him to raise finance for his next movie, this neo-noir about a man out of prison (Kris Kristofferson) whose paths cross with a couple (Keith Carradine, Lori Singer).

This is two movies really - a more serious noir, with Kristofferson kicking ass and falling for Singer, and gangsters - and a campier way out one with Carradine having wacky hair and Divine playing a gangster (quite well). The tone isn't quite right it feels inconsistent.

Singer is lovely, Carradine has a ball, Kristofferson isn't bad, Genevieve Bujold feels a little under utilised. The movie doesn't quite work tonally but I enjoyed the love story with Singer and Kristofferson and the violent bits do keep things going.