MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: WINTER KILLS (1979)

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Sunday, June 8, 2008

WINTER KILLS (1979)

William Richert’s debut as writer/helmer was this eccentric adaptation of Richard Condon’s paranoid political fantasia loosely built atop the Kennedy assassination. Unwilling (or unable) to try and mix comic & dramatic elements a la PRIZZI’S HONOR or THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (two other darkly comic Condon fables), he settled for wacky characterizations amid a Kafkaesque comedy landscape. In spite of a general technical incompetence, the pic is irresistibly entertaining on its own terms with a whoopin’, hollerin’, scenery chewin’ cast of oversized personalities. We're talking John Huston, Sterling Hayden , Richard Boone, Elizabeth Taylor, Dorothy Malone, Anthony Perkins, Toshiro Mifune, Ralph Meeker & Eli Wallach, each dishing up conflicting conspiracy theories to straightman Jeff Bridges who shows off the second most expressive brow in filmdom. (Only Gromit of ‘Wallace & Gromit’ fame tops the Jeffster.) Can this modern Candide uncover the truth before getting rubbed out? And will I have the slightest idea what's going on by the time the credits roll?

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Compare with EXECUTIVE ACTION/'73 https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/executive-action-1973.html

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Sunday, June 8, 2008

WINTER KILLS (1979)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE