Review of The Lady from Shanghai (1947) by Nick M — 08 Jun 2005

Yes, in a few moments, I'll be travelling to Boston for a couple days. I will be looking at apartments and attending a housing workshop, which was organized by my future school's off-campus program. I have already found an ideal apartment, but my parents are somewhat apprehensive about me staying there (I have no clue why); therefore, they recommended this workshop for safety purposes (to guarantee I get an apartment, not be "secure" from danger -- Boston doesn't have any dubious areas). If I do ultimately end up in my ideal apartment, I would be living with a girl (Junior, I have spoken with her on the phone and on AIM a few times) on the other side of the Boston Commons. This, of course, means that to reach Emerson's campus, I would only have a 5-10 minute walk through the park. How fuckin' insanely perfect is that!? Regardless, I am going to spend most of my weekends looking at inferior apartments (probably with lower price-tags without the park view/walk). Other prospective transfer students will be there; hopefully I meet a person or two, but that might be physically imposssible with my parents present. They will most likely say to me, "Go sit over there" "Look those kids are talking, go join in!". Oh well. I will be stopping in Manhattan for a night on my way back -- should be a good time.

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I was consistently intruiged by [i]My Own Private Idaho[/i], more in it's minor experiments than in it's meandering narrative. I saw the first half as a cracked-out version of Oliver Twist with Van Sant exploiting the homosexual undertones of The Artful Dodger and Oliver. Then Van Sant was throwing around Shaksperean allusions and I was all confused. It is definitely a rather sloppy, occasionally significant, experiment. The odd part is, I don't have strong negative or positive feelings for it, yet it seems like a film that would elicit a polarizing response.

With [i]The Lady from Shanghai[/i], I felt that Orson Welles was trapped in his own production he did not want to make. Whether it was the perpetual queer look on his face, or his inconsistent accent, I believed that he had not put much effort into the film. And really, I would not have been surprised if this is the case, since the film, and its characters, are not very interesting or original. There are the trademark Welles shots, and some clever dialogue, but the whole film felt unauthentic. Save the last 15 minutes, the film is not involving and it occasionally simply feels like a vanity project for Mr. Welles and Mrs. Welles (Rita Hayworth, who is indeed luminous). The last scene is absolutely fabulous, however, and is enough to compensate for some of the films flaws to become barely recommendable.

I was alamed by how un-mysterious [i]Manhattan Murder Mystery[/i] was until one of the last scenes where Woody stages an overt homage to, conincidentally, the last film I saw, [i]The Lady From Shanghai[/i] (which I found equally uninteresting). This film has some endlessly available meaty material (the desperate aging couple craving adventure), but Woody seems too occupied in making a "logical" murder plot when it is really just a big joke all along.

The piquant Harold and Maude really struck a chord with me, and ultimately made me feel giddy. It has a superb Cat Stevens soundtrack, which makes the montages and other [i]Graduate[/i]-esque elements of this film even better. Oh, how I love my vivacious geriatric women.

My mother interrupted me about an hour into [i]Harold and Maude[/i] and insisted that I watch [i]Meet the Fockers[/i] with them. To avoid an argument (yes, we have already had an argument overt his trivial matter), I somewhat willing watched it with the rest of the family. I wasn't expecting a good film, but holy shit it was completely godawful. Even the rest of my family disliked it (except for my brother -- but let's not go there). Almost every joke was recycled, and I mean both trashy and reused. It was shockingly perverted in the utterly grotesque manner, not the uncomfortable and tasteful way. The whole cast makes fools out of themselves. Any attempt at a joke was so easily forseen that after set-ups, punchlines became obsolete.