Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Friday, October 2, 2020

THE RISE AND RISE OF MICHAEL RIMMER (1970)

With John Cleese & Graham Chapman part of the writing team (and in small roles), there’s a whiff of the just aborning Monty Python in this satire of class, business and politics . . . just not enough.  Something of a write-off when released, it’s slowly built a niche, mixing period crudities (woman are objectified to death) and prescient ideas on a dumbed down future of broadcast press, publicity & politics.  And if Kevin Billington’s directing is no more than functional (Richard Lester unavailable?), an outstanding cast of off-center scene-stealers (Cleese, Chapman, Dennis Price, Denholm Elliot, Roland Culver) are targets for dry, droll Peter Cook (sly of mind/lank of limb), hiding ambition in plain sight as he effortlessly climbs the ladder from Junior Exec to Company Head; Backbencher MP to Prime Minister.  As if Peter Sellers’ character in BEING THERE merged with Uriah Heep to star in HOW TO SUCCEED IN POLITICS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING.  More consistently amusing than laugh-out-loud funny, the film improves toward the end when it darkens into a cautionary tale of fascism & fickle masses; even if ultimately better suited for post-viewing conversations than as the rosy-posy knife-edged parody it wants to be.

DOUBLE-BILL: With IN THE LOOP and VEEP, Armando Iannucci got further with this sort of thing; so too Jonathan Lynn on tv with YES MINISTER and YES, PRIME MINISTER.

No comments: