Reviews

I already got lost on Mulholland Drive in 1986 (see my comments on MULHOLLAND FALLS, of last April). This time, I managed to stay on for 100 of its 145 minutes, but had to pull over after. It started very brightly with a endiabled jitterbug, first looking a little farfetched but soon explained by the Canadian starts of Naomi Watts. Then the intrigue proceeded smoothly, like an usual Film Noir, far more inspired than BLUE VELVET, which was plain dull at its beginning.

Then things began to look awkward, when the villain started to fire on a vacuum cleaner. And I had to pull out when the bad smelling corpse of Diane Selwyn came back to life under Naomi's nice features... David Lynch is a brilliant director, and I was fascinated for 2/3 of his last movie. But unlike in BLUE VELVET, which kept the suspense alive until three minutes from the ending credentials, I had to abandon my glasses for a kaleïdoscope, in order to keep up with the merry-go-round falling action.

No wonder Mr. Lynch had to enroll the French producers Alain Sarde and Le Studio Canal+, plus a few others, in order to transform his Zero-number of a TV series into this brilliant but long drawn-out movie. With all the possible humility, I beg to advise him to think a hundred times before starting his next production, if he still cares not to see angry customers stepping out and yelling for their money back. I had brought along two of my best friends, and discussed the movie contradictorily for a while, before our chauffeur found his car towed away. He swore never to be found on MULHOLLAND DRIVE again. Henry Caraso, Paris

SUN VALLEY SERENADE was a surprise and a big success when it came to Europe, and I don't understand why ORCHESTRA WIVES did not travel well over the Atlantic (to my knowledge). The musical numbers are quite a few, and Lucien Ballard did a tremendous work at filming them. The Nicholas Brothers are even better than in the former Miller movie (and they were at their climax the year after, in STORMY WEATHER). The plot is unessential, as in most of the musicals, but the "wives" are all good looking and the players are credible too. Special mention to singer Marion Hutton, sax player Tex Benneke and drummer Moe Purtill, all uncredited.henry caraso

It was a hell of a job to grab a video tape of that movie, still but seldom shown on TV in the States, but invisible in France since it was contradictorily issued, in the late forties. Well, the beginning with the Goodman band's motorcade is a landmark, saluted by many critics as the sweeping entrance of the Swing Era in motion pictures. Lead by Benny and Johnnie Davis, plus Frances Langford (still alive in Florida and just re-married at 80), the band gives a tremendous start to a picture which soon looses its impetus, occasionally rewinded by the hilarious appearances of Hugh Herbert plus the wits of Glenda Farrell or Ted Healy. As a little pest, Mabel Todd is not convincing. After two syrupy tunes, we get a good staged crowd number at the Callaghan's restaurant, with allusions to Columbus, before the real gem comes, from the Orchid Room: the second part of SING, SING, SING (Christopher Columbus), with Krupa, Goodman and James at their best, unfortunately for just three minutes (but they weigh ten times more than the 5'30" of the same standard, as re-created in BENNY GOODMAN STORY. It's the difference between genuine music and re-heated soup). But Berkeley gets our pardon by setting immediately after a brilliant number with Benny's Quartet (HOUSE HOP, not I'M A DING DONG DADDY FROM DUMAS, as stated in IMDB's credentials). That makes five GREAT minutes for the millions of jazz fans still in love with swing. A second quartet number, GET A HEARTFUL OF MUSIC, was deleted by the production. Then the movie keeps moving, with an astonishing performance of DARK EYES, by Raymond Paige and his "battalion" of musicians and singers - what critics would call "jazz symphonique" - before everybody gets together for the finale,with SING, SING, SING, YOU SON OF A GUN. The 6.7 mark is severe, because the beginning and the five minutes of pure swing are invaluable. I urge TIME WARNER to issue this movie in video, for people who lack my courage to hunt for copies. henry caraso

I don't know what Cy Coleman concocted for this otherwise good picture, but the reason I never stop watching it again is the music in which it is soaked from the beginning to the end, i.e.unending recollections of SING SING SING, as played by Benny Goodman and his band in the late thirties. Benny had passed more than ten years when the film was finished, so they skipped him from the credentials, together with Louis Prima, who composed the famous standard. Revolting. henry caraso

Well, my title is a joke. I am sorry for the people who claim they never wasted a second with comic strips. I don't know a better way to learn how to read or how to speak a foreign language (in my country, original versions are not welcome.) A fan of BDP, I hurried to see this movie at its first showing,with only two reviews, both negative, on my stomach. While I admit it's no 2001 or ENCOUNTERS OF THIRD KIND (strange, nobody remembers this one), the movie is entertaining and I didn't hear anybody snorring (not even me, and, at 73, I often doze in my seat). For me, the Earth and Mars were "brought to life" by those "creatures", before Gary Sinise joins them for another adventure. And I agree that there was no use to show a take off or a landing, it's like spelling "a" or "z" to a grown-up. According to the ads, this movie costed $125 million, that's a billion of our Francs. With so many bad reviews and comments, I wonder whether the producers will get their money back, and I am afraid I may have to wait a long time before BDP comes back with another thriller. For the travelers, I point out that the movie's exteriors were filmed in Jordan, probably at Wadi Rum, where LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was equally done, 40 years ago. It's easier now to get there, and it's worth every cent of your dollar. henry caraso

The movie is perfect, and I am yearning for more like that. Just one remark: how come that a so powerful company (28 BILLION) just stood by and let beautiful Julia and wise Al Finney collect proofs, then cash in, without any attempt to scare the hell out of them (just an anonymous phone call). But after all, it is a true story... henry caraso, paris

This movie was praised by Krim Gabbard in his JAMMIN'AT THE MARGINS, (1996, University of Chicago Press) as a movie trying to have improvisation help a more elaborate form of art. I had taped it on a K7 with a tired VCR, long ago, and forgot about it until Gilles Mouëllic, a teacher of jazz and cinema at the University of Rennes (France), selected it as one of the best achieved examples of interface between the two arts. So I gave it a chance this morning, and was disappointed. The racial aspect, revolutionary 40 years ago, was irrelevant today. The references to the French "new wave", although visible, were not convincing either. This was due especially to the impression of seeing a 16mm feature blown up to 35. The main disappointment was the music: Charlie Mingus didn't have the time to finish his "non-original" score before the film was edited, so Cassavetes brought in Mingus' former tenor sax Shafi Hadi, for a few minutes. In his controversial essay, Mouëllic concludes that the two forms of art cannot coexist, because one of them is improvisation and the other is the result of an equally collective, but more complicated effort.

For Jazz and Cinema, better try SUN VALLEY SERENADE, with the immortal Glenn Miller band, Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers. For John Cassavetes, try HUSBANDS, FACES or one of those he made with Gena Rowlands. That was a perfect marriage. henry caraso, paris.

Giulio Caro is skeptical about the possibility of a senior executive still owing money on his (Audi) car. Well, caro Giulio, USA is not Italy, where everyone has social security and therefore gets shelter from the State against all sorts of long, complicated illnesses. In America, once you've lost your medical protection, you're doomed. And Wigand's eleder daughter has asthma (actually , she suffers from spina bifida, but who heard of this disease? asthma is easier to dramatize).

For many years, Woody Allen was a chouchou for our snobs who, even in remote suburbia, want his movies in English (with subtitles). However, the audience seems to diminish since the Kafkaian SHADOWS AND FOG; after a nice come back with BULLETS IN MANHATTAN, Woody seems to tackle now with another giant of literature, Jorge Luis Borges. In one of his best books, FICTIONS, JLB wrote about lands who do not exist (Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius), books never written (The Books of Herbert Quain)and careers of people absent from any encyclopaedia (Pierre Menard, author of the real Don Quixote). Abiding to his taste, Woody Allen has picked up a jazz guitar player supposed to be No.2 after Django Reinhardt, and joins three jazz specialists to describe his career, his loves and his failures. This enables us to hear some fine performances by Bucky Pizzarelli (unnoticed by many, for his name appears only in a flash on the ending titles, alas never played to their entirety, with largest regrets for LIMEHOUSE BLUES). The main character, a womanizer, a pimp and a kleptomaniac,never touches us with admirations,regrets or understanding, leaving room only for Mr Allen's work, which is one of the poorest he ever gratified us with.Perhaps he should made less but better movies; but he seems to take the contrary steps, because he has two or three projects for 2000 and one for 2001. This one was not only uncomplete, it was frustrating in its best parts. My only consolation: the sublime Samantha Morton (Hattie, the dumb girl looking like Harpo Marx), who steals the show from Sean Penn (Emmet Ray) and even from Uma Thurman (Blanche Williams). Charlie Christian would have been a better bet (to me, he's the No 1 of all times). But most of the jazz biographies filmed to date (Goodman, Miller, Krupa, etc)are mainly hagiographies; Michael Curtiz (YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN)and Otto Preminger (MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM) were more ambitious, but only Clint Eastwood went somewhere with BIRD (Charlie Parker). henry caraso

I enjoyed this last Burton very much (for me, it's his best). Although the action is scaring all along, some breaks are provided for the soft-hearted, such as: "Do you think he's dead?" "The problem, is that he was already dead!" But my biggest laugh was at the end, when Depp tells Ricci: "This is New York, and you'll get accustomed to it very quickly: the Bronx is up and the Battery's down" (an hommage to Betty Comden-Adolph Green-Leonard Bernstein's ON THE TOWN). I even expected a final title : AND PEOPLE WEREN'T YET TRAVELING UNDERGROUND.Of course,I was the only to push a big laugh in the Parisian afternoon audience... henry caraso

There was a big hassle here around our Claude Lelouch's last movie, UNE POUR TOUTES, which starts exactly at the moment END OF DAYS ends (12/31/99, OO;OO), bug-permitting and no Devil around. I wonder who copied on whom? CL on Peter Hyams, or vice-versa? Anyway, END OF DAYS is another parabole involving Belzebooth, and it is amazing to see how the subject is mesmerizing the masses since the beginning of the cinema. More than 160 comments were dedicated to this one, so mine matters little: good or bad, such movies always make money. Claude Lelouch grossed 150,000 entries in Paris, on its 3 first days.I wonder how much END OF DAYS rings on the cash register. henry caraso

I've seen this movie maybe twenty times and I still enjoy it.Almost all the big Miller's standards are there, especially CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO, with its savage coda (missing from all audio versions) and the terrific Nicholas Bros/Dorothy Dandridge number (the Brothers were even better afterwards, in ORCHESTRA WIVES and STORMY WEATHER) Also remarkable is the featuring of the famous Idaho ski station, with a tune I can't identify (it's not Sun Valley Jump). The final ice ballet has not been released , to no particular loss. This is the kind of movie which will live as long as big jazz bands are still popular (they come back, via college and university buffs). henry caraso

It's always a treat to see Terence Stamp acting again. It's also a treat to see Peter Fonda acting again. It's great to see them both in the same movie. Having neglected Soderbergh since KAFKA, I rushed to see THE LIMEY,

The actors were wonderful; The scenery was captivating (see Mulholland Drive cracked by the last earthquake and the cliffs of Big Sur (and a rock that looks like a rhino). Now the reader would like to shout: "la mariée est-elle trop belle (is the bride too beautiful)?" Just wait. Soderbergh did a lot of homework in turning a medium stups story into a complicated plot, jumping incessantly from flashbacks to flashups, playing with shortcuts and slowdowns, making life difficult to the bona fide spectators. Life itself is complicated enough, so when you go to the movies, you probably want to getaway from it. If you want straight plots, with a beginning, a treatment and an ending, don't invest in THE LIMEY. If you have read Kafka, Joyce and the like, and are just back from holidays (I was), do it. You won't have to queue, anyhow: I saw it just after it left a big screen on the Champs Elysées, for a small desert one, where the good air conditioning will keep it until the heat wave is gone. henry caraso

I saw this movie several times, and was pleased, because I used to be a Goodman fan before I became - and still am a jazz buff.

B.G. STORY allows an interesting comparison of jazz played under the studio sunlights and constraints, and jazz freely played before an enthusiastic audience. Compare the Harry James' solo in the SING SING SING sequence with its 17years younger solo, at Carnegie Hall (audio available everywhere). Otherwise, the movie is palatable, and contains one of the few allusions made in its time to racial problems: "you don't mix donuts with beigele" is now a classic. henry caraso Paris, France