Word: charm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...simplicity gives Schwarz's play its charm; but a simplistic world peopled by heroes and heroines is flawed as a political statement. We are given a happy marriage at the end, but we never see the townspeople transformed. And saying "now let's have the wedding after all, because happiness makes people beautiful," sounds unconvincing. By choosing the allegory, Schwarz has eliminated the possibility of offering his audience a convincing ending. He leaves us still waiting for a solution to problems in the real world, where there are very few Lancelots to show the way to happiness...
...emotions that Walker sings about. Those simple preoccupations, like Walker himself, are unsophisticated and unadorned. For the most part Ridin' High is Walker at his best: raunchy, unrestrained, spontaneous, and terribly human, grabbing life and hugging it madly. This record isn't awfully deep, but it has an irresistible charm. Most important, it's a lot of fun, and that's all Jerry Jeff Walker ever really meant...
...There is no scene in the movie which doesn't reek of the Noah Cross character's scent. If there's any weak spoke, it's the banality of the "Chinatown" theme, which never really rings true. Nicholson, it seems, can dip endlessly into some well of inventiveness and charm and never scrape. His J.J. Gittes destroys and transcends the romantic stereotype of the hard-boiled dick; the more he learns about power relations, the less he finds himself able to do about them. The movie is a wonder--it ought to be shown annually at the American Realtor...
...combative rival: "How'd you like me to stick that bat where the sun never shines?") The movie has some very traditional concerns-about the value of playing as opposed to winning, about trying to achieve a certain minimal dignity-but deals with them lightly and with charm...
...enervating to recount, it is excruciating to sit through. The script is replete with rough-and-tumble frontier humor, Hollywood style, which means that the characters talk like unemployed gag writers trying to top each other over a delicatessen breakfast. Segal and Hawn, who are usually actors of charm and humor, here look as if they would like to be on the first stage out of town-or maybe even under...