Word: rottenness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Rowlands does a creditable job, considering the vacuum she's thrown into; throughout, she evinces talent and intelligence, if only by looking trapped. It only makes it worse that what she's trapped by is her husband. For if Cassavetes can blame his failure on his rotten actors (excepting Rowlands), so can they blame the film's failure on Cassavetes. Without actors, Cassavetes is thrown back upon his own technical resources, and he hasn't a leg to stand on. Camera work is repetitive and unimaginative. When he wants to evoke an urban mood, he gives us mass transit; there...
...kind to say that something goes wrong with the film; instead it slowly dawns on the audience that the entire concept behind the movie is rotten, corrupted and contemptible. Slow fades, sudden silences and softly focused scenes are so calculated that they sour as soon as they hit the screen. One is left less with wonder than with the "romance" of lower Washington St. where you can touch live naked women for a quarter as they writhe in the obligatory high-heeled shoes and Victorian garters. Someone, somewhere wants to make Reeves a star, and it seems that they will...
...hate this rotten system more than any mortals...
...just disliked but often detested nearly everywhere else. A highly intelligent man who was an exceedingly capable Defense and Finance Minister, he is nonetheless regarded as a hard-lining cold warrior. His bulldog appearance is caricatured almost daily. His rallies are beset by hecklers who hurl rotten eggs and tomatoes. Strauss's efforts to improve his image have backfired, leaving an impression of uncertainty and artificiality rather than statesmanship...
Maybe shallow people need a shallow writer to chronicle their exploits. More likely, though, there are very few shallow people, at least shallow and interesting people. More than likely, it is the writer's attempts that are too superficial, not his subject's lives and thoughts. There is nothing rotten in McPhee, nothing that is decaying or growing or taking Valium. There is no shortage of gift, only, perhaps, of will, for to look honestly and deeply at himself and at others will prove more painful than the labor to which McPhee is accustomed. But contented mediocrity hides not only...