Brudnoy's Film Index
Brudnoy, David
tion people in Washington are asking is—does the United States have a legal or moral commitment to defend Chicago? Legally, the answer is no. Chicago is not a signatory to either the SEATO or NATO...
...Then there are the campaign reforms," at least one of which is so obiously unconstitutional that men as dif:rent as James Buckley and Eugene Mcarthy joined forces to contest it, and the epartment of Justice hesitates to defend Yet during its nonsensical gestation on ie floor of Congress it was bandied )out both by politicians and by journalts as a notable improvement if not an :.tual panacea...
...Some people wi bring up the "domino" theory, but that the argument Lyndon Johnson used i Vietnam...
...Needless to say, it is very messy indeed...
...A sli piece of trash designed to cash in on t] dregs of the Exorcist mania, with the t: ented Michael Sarrazin strugglii personfully against inane material...
...The only question is how we got it volved in the first place...
...The FBI would have sunk even lower in the New York Times' esteem...
...We race through time from turn-of-the-century coquettishness to contemporary jet-set romance...
...But as regards foreig affairs this is no longer true...
...The more we know the more we are degraded...
...1111 The Silent Stranger: A sukiy: Western set in Japan in the 1880s, WI ten by and produced by and starring o Tony Anthony, about whom you will h( little in coming years, unless a garg: tuan lack of talent catches on...
...Before anything is done, though, Mayor Daley would have to resign so that free elections could be held...
...Almost, boys, almost...
...They cheered wildly on Oscar-night when this monumental piece of propaganda won its award...
...Had the Mafiosi, rather than the League of Women Voters, arranged to have themselves described as a reform movement, I have no doubt that the Brotherhood would now hold an honored place in American life...
...In democratic societies is a kind of sacred seal, which—once .corded to a group or a proposalakes them admirable and almost unassailable...
...This one is best seen tripping...
...and if laughter is what we are after we can always do graduate work at one of the great universities...
...The Passenger: Michelangelo Antonioni's latest, a chilling, truly magnificent peek into the problem of identity, with the usual Ahtonioni mysteries rolling out one after another...
...Does Your Favorite Library Carry The Alternative...
...Beyond a hearty guffaw there is little good the average American can realize from his knowledge of politics as practiced in this Republic...
...Nevertheless, if the sort of singing that infested The Umbrellas of Cherbourg some years back is your cup of treacle, this is for you...
...Lots of dramatic confron tions, discourses on "honor" and "dut and other catchy concepts...
...Only a necrophiliac could get nourishment from this deadening flop...
...Election day is always about as far removed from income tax day as the calendar will allow...
...Donkey Skin: A fairy tale about incest that is so saccharine it might rot your teeth...
...The acting settles in the stomach like an English breakfast, rendering the viewer incapable of response...
...Most experts now admit that the failure of the Rock Island Line doomed the city monthsago...
...No great shakes as movie, but light-hearted fun...
...what they generally neglect to note is that it is often used by petty tyrants...
...36 The Alternative: An American Spectator August/September EDITORIAL (continued from page 4) Of all the wonders that the pols work, he ones that I especially do not want to :now about are those that they work ender the rubric of reform...
...Reform is a tactic re)rted to by misologists to preclude de-ate...
...Should the citizens of Chicago demonstrate a sincere commitment to democratic government, the way would be open for extensive U.S...
...Surely nothing would bring the politician's behavior more closely under the scrutiny of the electorate and therefore make him more responsible to the electorate than to make election day and income tax day one and the same...
...But, morally, America has an immense commitment...
...The newly elected municipal government would then resign so that a more broadly based coalition could be formed, including all elements...
...Hearts and Minds: The Oscar-winning documentary by Bert Schneider and Peter Davis, glorifying the Communist side in Vietnam and maliciously slamming the American...
...The conclusion is instant classic...
...By Claude Lelouch, who brought us A Man and a Woman in 1966...
...Of course, we learned in Vietnam that the U.S...
...Not a sequel to treasure...
...The leade ship we are getting there is as excellei as it was 30 years ago...
...There you have it, a reform worthy of John Gardner at his best, a reform brilliant in its democratic allure, and a reform that will excite about as much enthusiasm in the mind of the average Congressman as a plan to administer breathalizer tests on the solons before they wobble into the Capitol...
...Love at the Top: Jean-Louis Trintignant plays a man whose dream is "to have lots of money and sleep with many women...
...But the United States would not lose prestige if foreign troops were to occupy Chicago...
...I therefore propose that federal taxes be paid on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of every November...
...Our h( slaughters nearly half the baddies of Japan (these all converse in high N ponese grunts and groans), all to rescui wee Japanese princess (who is ab( eight years old and somehow speaks p fect English) and find out the mystery c miniature Japanese scroll...
...Day of the Locust: The Nathanael West classic about Hollywood's has-beens and would-be-greats lavishly filmed and lovingly acted by Karen Black, Donald Sutherland, Burgess Meredith, and newcomer William Atherton...
...Perhaps the newsmagazines are rigl that the United States is suffering leadership crisis...
...In most cases all they have accomplished is increased travail for the plain folk while establishing a profitable alliance between the reformer and the reformed...
...It is possible that Illinois an the Midwestern states would pass to fo eign control, but that might ultimately l for the best...
...Paris never looked so chic, nor opportunism so casual...
...What is reform...
...The added twist this time: Popeye made into a junkie, undergoing one of the most gruesome cold turkey scenes on film...
...The French Connection, II: Gene Hackman is back as Popeye Doyle, the drug-chasing New York cop, here transplanted to France to tidy up the loose ends from installment #1...
...Better yet, talk to your librarian yourself...
...it will no doubt be held up as a model of cinema genius for many years, Not to be missed...
...Every politician in the land agrees that politicians should be responsible to the people and each politician is forever attempting to one-up his fellow in testifying to his slavish adherence to the people's will, yet I have never heard a politician condemn the curious chronological gulf between the date on which the politician seeks the electorate's approval and the date on which the electorate is presented with the bill for the politician's highjinks...
...Along tl way they romp and frolic with Elizabe Ashley, Slim Pickens, and a variety other characters...
...as it is, it envelopes the viewer in its web of circumstance...
...The locati shots are fine...
...for though my reform is eminently practical, useful, and democratic, I guarantee that it will not attract a sniff from Capitol Hill...
...It is a word exuding ich connotative bliss that it sanctifies alost any deed no matter how low or holw...
...Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider put more verve into this film than he usually does and than she did in Last Tango in Paris: They totally submerge themselves in their roles, and the result is absolutely first-rate acting...
...It is a preemptive strike against toughtful analysis...
...e Alternative: An American Spectator August/ September 1975 37...
...Rancho De Luxe: Wall, podner, here's yo' little ole tale of the 00000ld West —1974—with two greedy, eager, horny young bucks (Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston) hot to make it big by cattle rustlin...
...Are not reformers behind the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Federal Trade Commission, and various minimum wage and rent commissions throughout the land of the free...
...There's a neat chase, and the chief villain may have survived for a third installment...
...a reform' s a change for the better, an improvement in social, moral, or political condiions...
...It would at least be a sobe ing, highly educational experience...
...The Yakuza: Nippon once more, tl time today's industrialized Japan, w the Oriental Mafia battling Rob( Mitchum...
...All of these reformers promised to better the lot of the plain folk and scotch villainy...
...Much of the civil rights legisation of the middle 1960s was admirable eform to be sure, but as the years have Torn on the reforms have degenerated lto quotas, coercive busing, and a foul olicy of "affirmative action" that threatns to return this democracy to the !blies of feudalism and an ascriptive Dciety...
...How else to describe the marplots who have turned the American automobile into a vehicle approximating the efficiency, the cost, and, of course, the safety, of a bulldozer...
...Each is splendid in his role, and the horrifying conclusion, reflecting West's morbid vision of fame's fleeting power and the mob's hysteria, is a tour de, force...
...He triumphs, as does this odd but compelling French comedy...
...must never again commit ground troops in a ground war...
...It is all just another area of political behavior about which I would rather not know...
...Hint: it is one of the Emperor's missing tape tr: scripts...
...One drop more of Kismet and the movie would be unbearable...
...The young lovers are adorable, the fairy godmother's a hoot, and the colors are enchanting...
...And lest the reader think I ampurely negative in my commentary I shall mention one of my favorite reforms by way of ending this scholarly critique and by way of nailing down my point that pols are rascals...
...with luck it will become a cult classic for hippies who've gone that route with Disney's Fantasia...
...How else does one describe the reformers who breathed life into Prohibition, the Mann Act, the Selective Service System, and the income tax...
...Everything is designed to distort reality so that only America is evil, only American generals are stupid, only America contributes to Vietnam's woes, only America's people are warmongers, only American politicos are dumb...
...Brannigan: They've poured John Wayne into his detective threads—one of his three basic outfits, alternating with his cowboy and his leatherneck suits—and plopped him down in darkest London in hot pursuit of a baddie...
...The Reincarnation of Peter Prou Dijd-vu carried to its ultimate...
...The Capone era would be eulogized as an auspicious precursor to the New Deal, The Godfather would be produced by the American Bicentennial Administration, and many a pol would be sweating after the endorsement of his local Black Hand chapter...
...Brudnoy's Film Index • ^ And Now My Love: The past, truly, is prologue, in this hokey but winning love story of two young people whose coming together is occasioned, more or less, by the story of their ancestors...
...The women he sleeps with are lovely, especially Florinda Bolkan (of A Brief Vacation), and his crawl to the top is both funny and tragic...
...military aid, for a limited period of time...
...However, there is no reason American air power couldn't be mobilized over the city to drop leaflets explaining the advantages of the American way of life...
...Peter O'Toc looks desperate to escape from his role mastermind of international intelligent the abducted chickies look no more convenienced than if they had been tak for a weekend of romance, and Richa Attenborough looks ridiculous as Anglo-Arab messiah...
...Now how many "reforms" in reent years have comported with that efinition...
...Tell him or her that The Alternative is "highly recommended" by the Library Journal, which calls us "a fascinating, intelligent, and totally readable approach to current affairs...
...Political scientists note that reform is generally used against mossbacks...
...slight bit of sex tease does little to era the boredom of this predictable, ovc drawn bit of occult silliness...
...the acting's heavy, a Mitchum is excellent in a fairly ludicrc role...
...Then free elections could be held...
...III Rosebud: Leave it to Otto Preming to take the fascinating possibilities Arab terrorism as a cinema theme a turn it into sheer tedium...
...Rarely have men been able to resist t alone debate a policy once it is clasfied as a reform...
...Therefore I believe the people ought not to know...
...London survives, Wayne survives, crime survives, and admittedly the scenery and special effects are nice...
...Chicago is not a signatory to either the SEATO or NATO treaties...
...We'd like to know if it doesn't, and we'd be grateful if you'd send us its name and address, so that we can mail your librarian subscription information about The Alternative...
...As the .minent James Q. Wilson asserted in the day number of this family magazine, reorm "means to improve by alteration, to .bolish abuse or malpractice...
...sic transit gloria Hollywood...
...If the pols were serious about improving our condition, there are myriads of improvements they might hammer into policy...
Vol. 8 • August 1975 • No. 10
