The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

1967 Movie Club Selection

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.

First things first--I don't remember the character's name, but there's a guy in this thing who has the best hair ever.

There are a great deal of words in this thing. Some, especially a lot of the ones that were sung, were incomprehensible. And a lot of them flew right over my little head. I was in bad need of subtitles to help me out. Even with subtitles, I doubt I'm intelligent enough to attempt swimming in the various layers of Marat/Sade. Freewill vs. predetermination, the power of the individual vs. the community, equality, freedom, justice, censorship, nihilism. Heavy stuff, and this is a challenging and intense experience. Draining even. The style instantly draws you in, almost makes you feel trapped in there with the inmates of the asylum. The single setting is sparse, but I like how some of the features of the bath house are utilized. The camera's definitely not afraid to get right in there, allow you to get intimate with the crevices of the actors' faces. At times, this is almost a movie you can smell. There are a couple of scenes that I just loved. First a "Marat Nightmare" scene with steamy effects, demonic silhouettes, and disorienting music. The second was a scene that started with a chant (in rounds) about "general copulation" and ended with some hot dry-humping orgy action. The ensemble cast is excellent. Patrick Magee is haunting as the Marquis, and I also liked Ian Richardson as the other titular character. My favorite characters, other than the hair guy, were the clown-make-upped chorus that would pop up and sing the weird little songs. Marat/Sade is heady stuff, but it's impossible to take your eyes off the screen as the camera maneuvers through all those crazy mo-fos. It's intoxicating and exhausting, and I wish I was enough of an intellectual to fully appreciate it.

So, fellow Movie Clubbers, what did all y'all think?

The Importance of Being Earnest

1952 movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: dozed off)

Plot: Two rakish pals, Jack and Algernon, decide to both be Earnest instead in attempts to win the hearts of their beloved. Things get wild, and that pun, ladies and gentlemen, is intended.

When folks discuss using CGI to adapt or update older films or make brand new films with computer-generated John Waynes and Humphrey Bogarts, I always get really excited. I think that sounds like a terrific idea! I mean, they inserted John Wayne into a Coors beer commercial years ago. That was a turning point in my life actually, the exact moment when I decided I was going to start drinking. And I've never looked back. Technology could do wonders with this movie. For example, there are characters I'd really enjoy seeing naked in this movie, most obviously Edith Evans, and I think we're at a technologically-enlightened time when computer graphics geniuses should be able to handle something like that. And speaking of Edith Evans, her delivery of the line "A handbag?" is probably the most perfectly-delivered line I've ever heard, and all 17 rating points (I debated giving it a 17 1/2, but we don't do fractions here at shane-movies) are because of that line. No, that's not true. I liked the performances, almost universally, even though they reminded me of the staginess of movies from the 1930s. I was surprised at how funny this movie actually was, mostly that sophisticated kind of comedy where you don't want to laugh as much as you want to golf clap or chuckle inwardly or say, "I say, that certainly was witty," and then cough delicately into a napkin but not delicately enough to keep your monocle from falling off. The writing is clever and randy. I find it impossible to believe anybody ever talked like these characters do which really makes this, in my mind, the 1950s equivalent of the second Matrix movie except with much less kicking and punching. Maybe the CGI gurus could add some kicking and punching when they update this. This movie benefits from its simplicity. The Victorian setting is a colorful one, and my television screen was stuffed with lots of pretty things to look at, but theres' nothing really flashy or frilly with the direction so that we're focused on what we should be focused upon--these pretty ridiculous characters and their ridiculous dialogue. Satirical , still fresh, shaded with irony, and as expected with something that Oscar Wilde penned, intelligently funny, like verbal slapstick for stuffy squares.

Reportedly, this is Ass Masterson's third favorite movie. I wonder if this really is a link between the dastardly villain and Cory, who recommended it to me, or if I'm just being paranoid again.

The Man in the Glass Booth

1975 movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Arthur Goldman, a Holocaust survivor and successful Jewish businessman, lives in a ritzy pad overlooking New York City. A guy with an afro and an assistant named Charlie help meet his everyday needs, but they can't help noticing that their eccentric boss seems to be getting nuttier and nuttier with each passing day. Seemingly paranoid about the appearance and reappearance of a blue Mercedes, he has Charlie run some unusual errands. Eventually, men with guns burst in and arrest him, accusing him of being a Nazi war criminal instead of one of their victims. He's taken to Israel for a trial and is forced to sit in a dunking booth.

I'm not going to pretend to fully understand this movie, but it's one of those I can't stop thinking about hours after it's finished. I'm perplexed by the plot twists, bewildered by a large percentage of what Goldman said in both his apartment when talking to members of his posse or during the trial, and I'm confused by what was almost an indeterminate ending. But this is undeniably powerful, provocative, and emotionally difficult stuff. This is definitely not an easy movie at all, raising a lot more questions than it attempts to answer. I'm not Jewish and I'm not a Nazi, so maybe that's why I had a difficult time with it all. The movie's based on a Robert Shaw play and is very heavy on the dialogue, a lot of it spoken in a thick German accent. About 90% of what's said in this is spoken by Maximilian Schell as Goldman, essentially making this like a one-man show. And what a one-man show it is! He froths, he pontificates, he raves, he cracks joke, he moans. You feel sorry for him, you're amused by him, you want to watch him die and then fry in hell. Schell puts the audience on his back and, as you grasp some loose skin of his bald head, runs up and down hills and demands that you say, "Whee!" I said, "Whee!" His is truly one of the most remarkable and stunning performances I've ever seen. There are monologues that dropped my jaw and silent moments that he somehow managed to fill with an overwhelming intensity. It's the kind of character he probably needed numerous showers to wash off himself. He was nominated for the Oscar, but the prize went to Jack instead. Unforgettable, gripping stuff here. If you've not seen this, you should see it so that we can discuss it. It's definitely one of those movies you want to talk about immediately after you've watched it.

The Man Who Came to Dinner

1942 comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Acerbic radio personality Sheridan Whiteside agrees to dine at the home of the Stanleys, but after slipping on ice on their front steps and injuring his hip, he has to stay indefinitely. He demands outrageously, entertains an assortment of eccentric pals, has an octopus and penguins sent to him, and finds numerous other ways to disrupt the Stanley household. Meanwhile, his assistant Maggie has fallen in love with a local newspaper writer, and Sheridan feels threatened by the idea.

What a fun movie. Not only do I get to use my "inexplicable penguin" tag, but there's a character named Banjo, always a plus. Most of the fun emanates from the title man coming to dinner. I don't know who Monty Woolley is, but I loved his performance and this character, just the type of old man I'd like to be some day, only not as gregarious. He's witty and he's mean, saying things like "My great aunt ate a whole box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be 102, and when she had been dead for three days, she looked better than you do now." This movie's a bit stagy and very scripty. There's nothing wrong with the performances; in fact, an unhinged Jimmy Durante as the aforementioned Banjo, the perpetually grinning Richard Travis, the egotistical Reginald Gardiner, society snob Ann Sheridan, et. al. bring this great enthusiasm to their roles. But it's all written to the point where it doesn't seem natural. Surely nobody ever talked like these people, right? However, when the script is this good, you really can ignore stuff like that. A lot of the humor is dated, to the point where a few references go over my head seventy years later, but the majority of this still works just great today. Insults, of course, are timeless. And I'm inspired by Whiteside to reintroduce the words "ducky" and "peachy" into my vocabulary.

A Man for All Seasons

1966 English king movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: More history, so I don't even know where to begin. It's all about Sir Thomas More and how he pisses everybody off, especially King Henry the VIII who wants to end a son-less marriage with Catherine, a woman he no longer finds hot, and marry Anne Boleyn, historically regarded as the Paris Hilton of the day. Sir Thomas More's a religious nut with too much of a conscience and refuses to first agree with Henry that this is all a good idea and later to take an oath which makes him a treasoner. More's head is removed (Oh, snap!), a decapitation which ruins his chances to take future oaths. Ironically, oath-taking was one of his favorite hobbies.


It's just great watching a collection of great actors (I believe the collective noun for that is a fluther of actors, just like the collective noun for a group of jellyfish) playing with such great writing, and A Man for All Seasons has a fluther of great actors and some terrific, literary dialogue. Paul Scofield won the Oscar playing a walking oxymoron, loudly silent and bursting with a calm fervor, but he couldn't have done it without the help from the supporters to bounce these lines off. Roseanne Barr gives a subdued performance as the Jabba-esque and weasly Cardinal Wolsey. George Segal is just right as the despicable Cromwell while Sonny Bono manages to be even more despicable with the brown-nosed Richie Rich character, with just the right amount of shadiness and flattery. And who wouldn't appreciate the comic stylings of Buddy Hackett as the Duke of Shipoopi or Vincent Price's unusual but interesting take on the Jiminy Cricket character. And I really dug the way Henry Winkler plays such a daffy Henry VIII. My favorite scene in the movie is when Henry jumps from his boat to a muddy shore, looks down at the mess he's splashed on himself, and starts laughing hysterically, joined in laughter by his entourage only after he glances back at them to see if they're laughing. Only an actor as good as the Fonz could manage to bring the funny without causing an otherwise serious film to completely lose focus. I really like the bits of humor peppered into the story. Lines drip with irony, murky cinematography (the film starts with shots of shadowy gargoyles) adds a sense of foreboding, and the tension caused by a tug-of-war match between God and government that threatens to tear poor More apart builds at a perfect pace. The movie's a pessimistic and timeless treatise on the negative effects that can result when a man actually follows his conscience and on how actions, or a lack of actions, speak more powerfully than any words can. There are a lot of ways the last scene could have been handled, but I thought the chilling and elegant ending this one has is about perfect. That a movie based on English history didn't completely bore me is a plus, and I wasn't bored by a single minute of A Man for All Seasons.

Note: Due to Blogger issues, I had to write this three times. The first one was probably the best.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

1958 movie

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Big Daddy, a wealthy plantation owner, is the big birthday boy. He returns from a trip to enjoy some time with his two sons--firstborn Gooper and favorite Brick. Unfortunately for Big Daddy, somebody sent him the worst birthday present of all time--cancer. Before Big Daddy's return, Brick decides to try to impress the ghost of his late friend Skipper with whom he enjoyed a long homoerotic relationship, and he drunkenly breaks his leg while jumping over hurdles at a high school track. Everybody argues about various things. Maggie humps Brick's broken leg.

The first third of this movie is dominated by an argument between Brick and Maggie and it's got a lot of things working for it. First, the performers are good looking. People like to see good looking people. Second, the good looking people are Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, and they're pretty good actors at the top of their game here. Third, the dialogue is crisp and caustic and dynamic and charged. I loved Brick's answer to his niece's question about why he's on the floor. "Cause I tried to kill your aunt Maggie." Finally (the "thing working for it" that I'm probably making up), I really like how the architecture and decor of the room is ingeniously used to visually represent this tension between the two, a tension that, since this all begins in medias res, the audience has no way of comprehending. I really dig how line, color contrasts, lighting, and mirrors are used to show the detachment between the husband and wife. It's great stuff. Overall, there's almost too much going on in this. The conflicts get as cluttered as Big Daddy's basement. Oh, and speaking of Big Daddy, out of all the strong performances in Cat, Burl Ives' performance as the patriarch is my favorite. And the guy just oozes sexuality! I sometimes have difficulty staying focused with play adaptations, but this dialogue-heavy movie is never boring. I don't like the title very much though. I would have called it My Leg Is Broken and My Nephew Has No Neck so Pass Me My Drink, Big Daddy or Gooper, Whoever Is the Closest to Said Drink. Maybe that's why I don't write plays.