I think it rather depends on whether you see the film as critical of or sympathetic towards Nicholson's character - and this ties in very much to how one views the ending. Fwiw, I also think the film displays an excellent sense of character, class and place, and not just in regards to Dupea.Elmyr wrote:I don't think your doing Five Easy Pieces any favors by comparing it to Antonioni. It feels more like a prototypical seventies star vehicle complete with cop out ending. Most of the characters seem to only function as easy targets for Nicholson to put down and/or sleep with. The movie is certainly an interesting one and Nicholson is electric here, but a kind of adolescent "nobody understands me" quality infects the entire film.
544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, etc.)
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
- John Cope
- Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Blood & Wine is a great, impressive work which I'd gladly defend anyday.
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
I absolutely agree with you but I think the movie tries to have it both ways. There's plenty here to make the case that it's critical of Bobby but either Nicholson's charisma overwhelms these attempts or the filmmakers couldn't resist setting him up with several crowd pleasing moments that, for me anyway, take the sting out of any implied criticism and make it more of a star vehicle than an in-depth character study.Nothing wrote:I think it rather depends on whether you see the film as critical of or sympathetic towards Nicholson's character
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Please do!John Cope wrote:Blood & Wine is a great, impressive work which I'd gladly defend anyday.
I'd say that the greatest moment in Rafelson's career is the dolly around the room as Dupea plays Chopin in Five Easy Pieces. Sadly, there's nothing to match this combination of precise observation and formal elegance in any of his later work, and certainly not in Blood & Wine, which seems a typical example of the post-Pulp Fiction crime flick glut from where I'm standing.
- ShellOilJunior
- Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:17 am
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Great set but couldn't Criterion replace DRIVE, HE SAID with something better? Or just leave it out?
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
This is the perfect place to include it - it fits in contextually with the theme of the set, even if it may not have been worthy of its own release.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
If they started paring bad films out of this set...
[Note from mods: swo17 was murdered during the writing of this post, simply for trying to express his opinion. Sorry kids, but freedom ain't free, etc., etc.]
[Note from mods: swo17 was murdered during the writing of this post, simply for trying to express his opinion. Sorry kids, but freedom ain't free, etc., etc.]
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
I just finished it for the first time and think it's one of the better films in the set. It's not as good as Head or The Last Picture Show and I don't like it as much as Easy Rider, but overall I find it to be a very fun little look into the times. It's built in to be dated and is a great artifact of the times not to mention consistently entertaining.ShellOilJunior wrote:Great set but couldn't Criterion replace DRIVE, HE SAID with something better? Or just leave it out?
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
I just got my box set (regular dvd) and did a comparison between the old Columbia dvd release of Five Easy Pieces and King of The Marvin Gardens and the new Criterion release and all look the same to me..no big difference but the audio on the Criterion is more fuller and clearer. I have the old Rhino release of Head so when i have a chance i will compare the two.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
A Safe Place is so uniquely awful that I really want to see Jaglom's other movies just to see if he ever captured these entertaining lows ever again. How could something so deliberately odd come off as so average? The big reason I'm posting though is the commentary which is one of the better ones I've ever heard. While I doubt it will improve my viewing experience of the movie it definitely aids in making the film more than an act of incompetence. He also gives a lot of fun backstory and is always engaging in how he speaks. He honestly comes across as a likable person I personally would love to hang out with.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Most of the later Jaglom films that I've seen (none from the last twenty years, mind you!) are quite different: talky sub-Woody Allen relationship dramas (or barely funny comedies) whose main interest is a sort of sloppy slippage between acting and being. They are, in my opinion, far less interesting than that description implies. The late 70s Dennis Hopper drama Tracks is a bit different and a bit better, and is often hailed as his best film, but even that didn't do a lot for me.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Too bad, if nothing else A Safe Place offers the promise of an interesting director.
- John Cope
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
FWIW, I hold to the exact opposite opinion.zedz wrote:Most of the later Jaglom films that I've seen (none from the last twenty years, mind you!) are quite different: talky sub-Woody Allen relationship dramas (or barely funny comedies) whose main interest is a sort of sloppy slippage between acting and being. They are, in my opinion, far less interesting than that description implies.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Just thought I'd point out that though this set appears to be AWOL on both Netflix and Blockbuster, you can actually rent it from the latter with a little work. This link takes you to the listing for the set, which it says is not available to rent. However, if you click on one of the "Check All Versions" links in the Movie Details tab, it opens up a window that allows you to add each of the discs to your queue individually. If you want to add the whole set you have to repeat this process seven times, which is somewhat annoying but still less work than typing up a post about how much Netflix sucks now.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Further to the Jaglom dissing above, I rewatched A Safe Place recently. There are some nice shots (especially that one looking down on the people walking in the street, which, if you believe the commentary, was the first thing Jaglom ever shot) and some nice ideas in there, but what a mess! I didn't really recall many specifics from the film (Orson in a park, Tuesday on a roof, lots of vaporous babble), just the overall impression of terrible, and unfortunately this second viewing seems destined to end up the same way.
On the other hand, I quite liked Drive, He Said. Horribly dated, naturally, but I think Nicholson's visual and narrative ideas are a lot more promising, as is his handling of actors, and it's interesting to observe the Zabriskie Point influence, given where Nicholson would go from here. (I've always found Zabriskie Point silly and clunky, but you can't say it's not stylish.)
On the other hand, I quite liked Drive, He Said. Horribly dated, naturally, but I think Nicholson's visual and narrative ideas are a lot more promising, as is his handling of actors, and it's interesting to observe the Zabriskie Point influence, given where Nicholson would go from here. (I've always found Zabriskie Point silly and clunky, but you can't say it's not stylish.)
- manicsounds
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
On "Easy Rider", it claims to have a 2009 commentary by Dennis Hopper. Is this not the same one from the one on Sony's 1999 DVD?
Based on review sites, the DVD reviews mention the sometimes boringness in the track, and the same for the Criterion disc too...
Based on review sites, the DVD reviews mention the sometimes boringness in the track, and the same for the Criterion disc too...
- Roger Ryan
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:04 pm
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
While I haven't heard the Hopper commentary on the Sony release, I would imagine it would have to be the same one in the BBS set. The Criterion menu listing does not mention the commentary was recorded exclusively for the Criterion release (and they normally do mention this if they can); that, combined with the fact that the BBS set started its life as a Sony project, strongly suggests that the same commentary was carried over. Yeah, Hopper's solo track is not nearly as enjoyable as the 1995 one where he literally phones in his comments while Fonda and production manager Paul Lewis do their own commentary, but it's dullness can primarily be attributed to the plethora of information already provided by the earlier track and the documentaries; Hopper just can't think of anything new to say that hasn't already been said, so he shuts up a lot of the time. I'd rather have the commentary than not have it, but it's not the reason to own this film on Blu-ray.manicsounds wrote:On "Easy Rider", it claims to have a 2009 commentary by Dennis Hopper. Is this not the same one from the one on Sony's 1999 DVD?
Based on review sites, the DVD reviews mention the sometimes boringness in the track, and the same for the Criterion disc too...
- Tom Hagen
- Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:35 pm
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
I can verify that the Hopper commentary track on the BBS Story edition is in fact the old one from prior Columbia DVD releases. 2009 is probably a misprint.
- MoonlitKnight
- Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:44 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
I'm fine with messy films as long as they have some interesting ideas or the director offers up an interesting filmmaking point of view (e.g. Robert Altman's loosest works, the films of Richard Kelly, Terry Gilliam's "Tideland," etc.), and "A Safe Place" falls into that same category for me. I'd much rather see it again over something so slick and expertly crafted as, say, "The King's Speech," where you pretty much already knew exactly how everything is going to go the first time around as it was, so why bother to see it again?zedz wrote:Further to the Jaglom dissing above, I rewatched A Safe Place recently. There are some nice shots (especially that one looking down on the people walking in the street, which, if you believe the commentary, was the first thing Jaglom ever shot) and some nice ideas in there, but what a mess! I didn't really recall many specifics from the film (Orson in a park, Tuesday on a roof, lots of vaporous babble), just the overall impression of terrible, and unfortunately this second viewing seems destined to end up the same way.
- Roger Ryan
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:04 pm
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
The thing about A SAFE PLACE is that the editing is really good, following through on the BBS ethic of bringing a European influence to American films and very similar to what you would start seeing in Nicolas Roeg's work. Jaglom takes advantage of every opportunity to associate disparate shots as artfully as possible. However, the film has precious little content. I like the Gwen Welles monologue (although it's really a needless digression) and about half of what comes out of the other Welles' mouth, but the film has almost nothing to say about any of the characters that isn't revealed in the first 15 minutes. Given that there is no plot, one would hope the character interactions would be more interesting. What A SAFE PLACE achieves is utter banality dressed up as art, but that's not enough to keep me coming back.
- ShellOilJunior
- Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:17 am
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Glad to see I'm not alone in my view of A SAFE PLACE. At times it's very pretty (esp. Tuesday Weld's face) and sounds great but it does nothing for me.
Jaglom's European art film style and editing seems arbitrary to me. It's cool that he's trying something different and I realize plot isn't essential to a film if the feeling it conveys is vivid enough but it just doesn't work. Like someone above me said-- it's a mess. It just feels like Jaglom is trying to be arty but there's no substance behind it.
Jaglom's European art film style and editing seems arbitrary to me. It's cool that he's trying something different and I realize plot isn't essential to a film if the feeling it conveys is vivid enough but it just doesn't work. Like someone above me said-- it's a mess. It just feels like Jaglom is trying to be arty but there's no substance behind it.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Watched The Last Picture Show last week, which seems effortlessly the best film in the set, and have just slogged through the extras.
Boy, it's pretty obvious that these were inherited: there's a mind-numbing level of redundancy, with a dozen or more anecdotes that you hear four or five times in practically identical form. The two commentaries are hardly complementary. It seems that the new commentary was commissioned simply because the initially scheduled, non-Criterion release didn't have access to the 90s commentary, then the old one (which had the added value of special guests and was done much closer to the re-edit) got popped on there as a bonus when Criterion took the project over.
The film is strong enough and the stories interesting enough to excuse a little repetition, but I really missed Criterion's editorial control on this release.
Boy, it's pretty obvious that these were inherited: there's a mind-numbing level of redundancy, with a dozen or more anecdotes that you hear four or five times in practically identical form. The two commentaries are hardly complementary. It seems that the new commentary was commissioned simply because the initially scheduled, non-Criterion release didn't have access to the 90s commentary, then the old one (which had the added value of special guests and was done much closer to the re-edit) got popped on there as a bonus when Criterion took the project over.
The film is strong enough and the stories interesting enough to excuse a little repetition, but I really missed Criterion's editorial control on this release.
- Jean-Luc Garbo
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
The Movement Inside: BBS Films and the Cultural Left in the New Hollywood, a good essay on the political content, context, and aftermath of BBS and its films. The first part discusses the politics of the films - Easy Rider and the failure of its "utopia of perpetual motion and mechanical fetishism", Five Easy Pieces' preoccupation "with the inauthenticity (even impossibility) of social identity", The Last Picture Show as "the story of absent fathers and Old Hollywood nostalgia", and "psychosexual liberation and the mentally confining powers of cultural institutions" in Drive He Said - and the second part discusses the aftermath of BBS and its context for the '70s Left. This section was interestign to me as it discussed the use of BBS's example after its demise. A discussion of Hearts and Minds - "perhaps the clearest expression of Schneider's mediation between liberalism and radicalism" - was very interesting to me for its discussion of radicalsim at this time, a point highlighted by the author in the opinions of Jane Fonda and Emile de Antonio on the film. There's also discussion of BBS's example as an inspiration to other political films of the '70s (Shampoo, Stay Hungry, The Passenger, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, 1900) and how some of that fit into Days of Heaven. All in all, a good essay on politics and film located in BBS. I still haven't trawled through my set so this essay was a good introduction for me. The link above to Google Books provides access to most of the book, but the entire essay appears in The World the '60s Made (edited by Gosse and Moser).
- Roger Ryan
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:04 pm
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Thanks for the link - it's an interesting read. I think you'll find that quite a few of these ideas are touched on in the box set commentaries, bonus features and booklet essays.
What's missing from The Movement Inside essay is Bob Rafelson's stated reason for the titling of the first BBS feature: he wanted the EASY RIDER promotional material to carry the ad copy line "From the producers who gave you HEAD"!
What's missing from The Movement Inside essay is Bob Rafelson's stated reason for the titling of the first BBS feature: he wanted the EASY RIDER promotional material to carry the ad copy line "From the producers who gave you HEAD"!
- JAP
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Re: 544-550 America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
Winner of the Best Blu-Ray category of the Il Cinema Ritrovato Dvd Awards 2011 (complete list, in italian)