“Sunshine”
In 1938, when I was a student at Berkeley, I laughed so hard at Harry Ritz playing a hillbilly in KENTUCKY MOONSHINE that I fell off the theatre seat. (My date said he would take me to anything else but never to another movie. He became a judge.) I think I might have fallen off my seat again at BIG BUSINESS when Bette Midler appeared as a hillbilly girl in a frilly short skirt and petticoats, milking a cow…
“Sunshine”
Named for the chewing tobacco, the romantic comedy BULL DURHAM has the kind of dizzying off-center literacy that Preston Sturges' pictures had. It's a satirical celebration of our native jauntiness and wit; it takes us into a subculture that's like a bawdy adjunct of childhood—minor-league baseball. Everybody in it is a comic character, and uses a pop lingo that you tune into without any trouble, though you can't quite believe the turns of phrase you're hearing. You're thrown just…
The Theories of R.D. Laing, the poet of schizophrenic despair, have such theatrical flash that they must have hit John Cassavetes smack in the eye. His new film, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, is the work of a disciple: it's a didactic illustration of Laing's vision of insanity, with Gena Rowlands as Mabel Longhetti, the scapegoat of a repressive society that defines itself as normal. The core of the film is a romanticized conception of insanity, allied with the ancient…
“Coming: Nashville”
Is there such a thing as an orgy for movie-lovers—but an orgy without excess? At Robert Altman's new, almost-three-hour film, NASHVILLE, you don't get drunk on images, you're not overpowered you get elated. I've never before seen a movie I loved in quite this way: I sat there smiling at the screen, in complete happiness. It's a pure emotional high, and you don't come down when the picture is over; you take it with you. In most cases,…
