film review

The Film is Harold and Maude and everything about it is wonderful. Despite the fact that upon release in 1971 it bombed at the box office, it is now regarded to as a coveted cult classic. With Ruth Gordon and Bud Court as the leads, and a fitting musical score supplied by the one and only Cat Stevens the movie was destined for greatness.

Harold is a young man (boy really) who has an infatuation with death. Maude is an old woman with a young soul and true zeal for life. The seemingly opposite characters meet at a funeral and soon become each others counterparts. Taking place all around San Francisco with Maude pulling such stunts as stealing cars, posing for a nude sculpture, and smoking from a hookah; the film is far from realistic, but that’s not what it’s all about. It is often forgotten that film is an art form and art is what it is. Harold and Maude doesn’t follow your typical dark romantic comedy route or even drama, it is in a league of all its own. It’s about love, life, and how amazing the relation between two people can be.

When we first meet Harold he in a large room ornately decorated with classical era tapestries and furniture. As “Don’t be Shy” by Cat Stevens plays the viewer is caught off guard when Harold proceeds to hang himself. Contrary to common thought he is not dead, and the opening scene is the introduction to Harold’s pseudo-immolate behavior.

Harold and Maude is tricky because it’s more of a “read between the lines” type of film and can be interpreted in infinite ways fitted to each individual viewer. To the indifferent somewhat callous viewer Harold and Maude is nothing more than a disturbing love story between a seventy-nine year old woman and nineteen year old boy. Others may disagree and believe it is about finding love in life regardless of the trivial details of age, society, and time.

The photography (directed by John Alonzo) is a perfect fit to the quirky characters. Most shots were long and used a lot of panning to follow the characters and show the detail of what was going on. Sound too (directed by William Randall) was key to the poetic beauty of Harold and Maude. Cat Stevens music played nondigetically throughout the majority of the film until the final scene where Randall showed his true genius and mixed up the digetic and nondigetic sound. The sound drove home what was appearing on the screen in such a way that brilliance doesn't even begin to describe.

Hal Ashby's direction of Colin Higgins work was spottless. The roles of Harold and Maude fit Court and Gordon like a glove and the unexpected chemistry between the two was undeniable. A film whose profits were dismal at the box office and yet lasted thirty something years without loosing it's poetic beauty has got to be a film worth seeing at least once wouldn't you think?

critique the critic

It seems everyone except for me has seen "Juno", and raved about it. After checking out a review by Ty Burr I want to see the movie even more so than before but also feel like I’ve already seen it.

Burr credits the actors for putting on a spotless performance and director Jason Reitman for excellent screenplay. He is a big fan of Ellen Page's attitude and amazing character portrayal as Juno. He even went as far as saying,

"Page lets the character keep tripping until she has to look down; in a way it's as insightful a portrait of a kid stumbling toward adulthood as Dustin Hoffman's in "The Graduate"

With words like that this movie is either fantastic, or this reviewer doesn’t know his left from his right (I’m betting on the first one). The man's details are endless. He goes on and on about all the little details in the film and how each and every part pulls itself together to create this seemingly perfect dry comedy.

I think Ty Burr did a good job in describing the film in an exciting way to make one want to go see it, but in the process he gave away too much about the characters through over description of their attitudes. In a single paragraph the man tells you all about the would-be adopting family and it’s too much.

“Juno decides to have the baby and give it to the nice childless couple whose advertisement she finds in the Pennysaver, next to the exotic bird ads. They are Mark and Vanessa Loring (Bateman and Garner), living in yuppie splendor in a nearby McMansion sub-development, and just when both the girl and we have pegged the wife as an overwound power-tripper and the husband as a totally cool dude, the ground shifts.”

The point of going to a movie is to review it for yourself with fresh eyes and ears. I wouldn’t pay eight dollars to see a movie when it seems I’ve already read the script. Big pockets of information regarding the plot were given away too easily and now when I finally get around to seeing "Juno" I'll be waiting for these certain events to occur rather than enjoy the film.

After reading this review I have more of a desire to see the film but feel there will be less shock value. I still am going to go see it, but it kind of sucks that a reviewer would give away too much information. All in all I found this review enriched with unnecessary big eloquent descriptive words that basically gave away the entire plot. Ty Burr should probably stick to reviewing crappy films because it’s not like anyone would be willing to pay eight dollars to go see “Good Luck Chuck” after getting the low-down from one of his reviews.

film blog deal

Movies are good like many other things in this world. Trees are probably better but this isn't Art of Tree. Harold and Maude is a pretty bomb ass movie, so is Alice's Restaurant. But that's mainly because I'm partial to the likes of Arlo Guthrie and Cat Stevens. There are a shitton of factors that make a movie 'good'. Not only do the screenplay and actors have to be good but so does the crowd you're viewing the film with. Take Mr. and Mrs. Smith; the first time I saw it was on a laptop with my moms friends kid of whom I'm not too fond of and I remember the movie sucking, but the second time I saw it was with a bunch of bomb-ass kids up at Menogyn on a projector sprawled across the floor and the movie was ten times better. Everybody is entitled to their own ideas on what makes a movie good and that's just fine by me. Being out in the wilderness is still better though. ten fold. absolutely no comparison.