The Last Detail (1973)

[This review excerpted from my other film blog, The Summer Film Queue]

*****

"This kid ain't goin' anywhere. On the outside too many bad things can happen to him. This way the worst part's already behind him."

"I am the motherfucking shore patrol!"

– 'Bad Ass' Buddusky

In 1975 my journey began in Norfolk, VA, and only two years earlier The Last Detail chronicled a journey that also began there. You might think from the film's poster image that this is a homoerotic Naval adventure shot in Nicholson's off years, but it's actually about a few guys on a pretty sad (and often hilarious) journey, with no gay love scenes whatsoever. Two sailors, Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young) are ordered to escort a third, Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid) to prison in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he is to serve eight years for stealing $40 from an officer's favorite charity. Meadows isn't the brightest bulb, and he's a bit shy and afraid of life; a foil for Buddusky, who likes to get shit riled up. Along the way the escorts feel bad for Meadows and set about showing him a good time by trying to get him drunk and laid and into fights (you get the idea he's never done any of the above). It's as fun as it sounds, probably more.

The film is directed by Hal Ashby, who also directed such greats as Harold and Maude (1971), Being There (1979), Shampoo (1975), and Coming Home (1978).

According to a quick scan of Wikipedia (hey, come on, I saved you the trouble), Ashby was a long-haired vegetarian hippie type, and his career was often noted as much for great film making as for sporadic declines into drugs and bizarre behavior like hiring his ex-girlfriends, who had no editing experience, to edit his films. His wife was pissed at him until her death for his portrayal of her in Shampoo, but not, apparently, pissed enough to divorce him. At one point, to prove he was respectable again, he began showing up to Hollywood parties donning an unremarkable blue blazer. None of this seems all that weird to me, actually.

The making of The Last Detail pissed off Columbia, who was financing it, in all sorts of ways. They hated the jumpy cuts, the constant swearing of the sailors in the script, the time it was taking to edit the thing, and Ashby's disappearing act near the end of editing. According to David Gilmour, it was Nicholson who finally convinced them to lay off Ashby about the expletives.

But look, this is all what the movement known as "New Hollywood" was about--taking the reigns from the producers and giving it to directors and actors, people who had a stake in things artistically. For those of you who don't know what this movement was all about, I won't get too into it in-depth here (has nothing to do with being unable to, of course), but a quick Internet search is probably sufficient to give you the big ideas behind it--that it is generally seen to stretch from the mid-60s to the early 80s. That it worked because studios had been losing money on musicals and historical epics. That their audience was growing more educated and intellectually demanding, so they had to deal with long-haired hippie types like Ashby and Nicholson, people who didn't return their calls and wore unimpressive blue blazers to highfalutin movie star parties, but who could tell a story in a new and interesting way.

A lot of smart people (including JN himself) call this one Nicholson's finest performance, and it takes about ten minutes into the movie to know that they are probably right about that. First, I've never seen such great portrayals of drunk guys in a hotel room by any actor, ever, so much so that I'm not entirely convinced they weren't actually shitfaced during filming. And truthfully, all three actors do a hell of a job with that. I've never seen Nicholson in particular so natural, and I'm talking about a master here, about Jack Fucking Nicholson. But I have to agree, this is probably his best role. He nails it.

What I really liked about this movie was its building suspense, created by both the plot (the journey to prison, or escape, or death--who knows?) and the characters' combustible combination (particularly Buddusky with Meadows). Buddusky, for reasons that feel somehow both completely mysterious an entirely plausible, seems to be coming unhinged from early in the movie, a coming apart that is somehow triggered by escorting this innocent-faced young man to spend a good portion of his good years behind bars (while maintaining that this is exactly what Meadows wants). Where is all this pent up rage and nuttiness coming from? We sense that it's about bigger things in Buddusky's life, things that even he doesn't know about, perhaps.

There's one scene, which I won't give away, when you would not be surprised no matter what the outcome is. And to achieve that in any narrative is absolute success. To achieve it in a movie is not only success of writing and directing, but of performance. You believe that the person in whose hands the outcome of the scene rests could do any number of things, and you wouldn't be all that surprised. That's great acting, directing, and writing.

And of course there are great moments of drunken stupidity, an awkward bathroom fight scene, and lots of great lines.

I'll leave you with this classic scene:

Le souffle au coeur (Murmur of the Heart) (1971)

[This review excerpted from my other film blog, The Summer Film Queue]

*****

MOTH, as even the acronym of the English translation suggests, is an Oedipian tale of a bit too much mother-love. Revealing this much doesn't at all ruin the film, which any viewer who still registers a brain wave when he hits play on his DVD player (admittedly this leaves out a good portion of today's movie watchers. Wow, aren't I a prick sometimes?) sees coming from the first ten minutes. What you want to see this film for is it's jazz-fueled, Proust-quoting, materially affluent but sexually frustrated protagonist, Laurent Chevalier. Laurent is well-played by Benoît Ferreux; his portrayal is subtle, with all the adolescent mama's boy vulnerability it asks for. This picture says it all:














And see it for the scenes with his brothers: two boys so bored with riches that their entire lives seem to revolve around goofy antics: constantly pestering their Hispanic house maid in really funny ways, replacing a priceless painting belonging to their parents with a cheap replica so they can destroy it in front of them, etc. All this lighthearted hilarity at the center of all of their lives is what makes the movie all the more disturbing. That we, the film's viewers, can spot the trouble beneath it all so quickly, trouble that no one in the family knows is there, gives the story its weight. The director, Louis Malle, drops subtle (I use that word again because subtlety is exactly what makes this film work so well) hints along the way that things aren't quite right, are perhaps leading in a dangerous direction--and this gives the film's climactic moments a troubling sense of inevitability, of fate. Born into such a family with such a mother, what chance does Laurent have not to turn out completely fucked up? We see a lifetime of therapy and bad relationships ahead, at the very least.

But more disturbing than the what-happens is the very final moments (which I won't give away). It's downright shocking, though really nothing further actually happens in it. It feels to me like the only appropriate ending, and one that not many directors would have the cahones to give it.

Below (2002)

***

Below is one I found just browsing around one night. It was recommended based on this and based on that, and I saw Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Pi) as one of the writers. Also it's directed by David Twohy who directed a decent horror flick called Pitch Black (at least I recall it being decent, years ago).

Below had some scary moments, but it's more psychological thriller than horror. What it does well is a sense of claustrophobic confinement (it's set on a submarine during WWII) as well as an eeriness that most movies tackling similar topics lack. The payoff isn't great, but it didn't disappoint me much either. A decent evening killer if you like submarines, wars, and what may or may not be ghosts.

Helvetica (2007)

*****

I watched this one as a possible film to show my freshman English composition class this fall. Loved it. If you're at all interested in design, and in the politics of design, this is a great one. I'd also say that if you're interested in things in general (hey, many people aren't), but have never paid much attention to graphic design or fonts, that you'll dig it. Give it ten minutes and go back to browsing if it's not doin' it for ya.