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"Heaven's Gate", from
Johnny Web
With the notable
exception of "Lola rennt", Heaven's
Gate is the only movie longer than the events it
portrays. Of course, "Lola" is about 20
minutes of real time. Heaven's Gate is about 20
years. Lord, this is one slow-movin' film about
the ever-cliched subject of the farmers versus
the cowmen. Kinda like watching Oklahoma! without
the singin'. I have exaggerated, of course, but
not by much. Several scenes are shot in real
time. John Hurt delivers the Harvard class
valedictory, and they show every single word of
the speech. They have a long celebratory waltz
number in the courtyard, beautiful scene
meticulously choreographed with spectacular
costumes, but Cimino shows every beat of music.
Those two scenes take place in the introduction,
before the story starts, in what seems to be an
all-but-irrlelevant prologue, so I almost fell
asleep before the story began! By the way, this
marginally relevant prologue was tacked on after
filming was completed, and filmed eight months
after the rest of the film. Boy, that was worth
the wait, eh?
More real time stuff:
later, Kristofferson and Huppert go for a
buckboard ride for thrills and we see almost
every minute of their journey as if it we were
supposed to feel the experience, like one of
those Disney things in 360 degrees. At one point
a group holds a roll-call vote and we hear pretty
much every member give his "aye". Oh,
there are others, but you get the point. This
version if just under four hours, but Cimino
first screened a 5 1/2 hour version for studio
execs, after he spent about $40 million of their
money making the movie. It is amazing to me that
he survived that meeting. I'm pretty sure that if
I had been head of the studio, I would have
killed him right then and there, irrespective of
the legal consequences. At least then, people
would have come to see the movie out of
curiosity. In fact, I would love to see a movie
about that screening day, starting from the
moment the lights went up. Now THAT would be a
good movie. Those studio boys must have had some
tense talks that night. It's surprising there
weren't any suicides, ala the stock market crash,
because every man in the room must have realized
that the entire forty million was gone forever,
and some of the people in the room greenlighted
the project and gave Cimino a free hand. The
smartest boys in the room most have known that
their company would go belly up and their own
personal careers were destroyed. Yup, I'd go to a
movie about that.
The sound track on this
movie is even more irritating than the length.
Cimino decided to throw out the old movie cliche
where we can always hear what the actors are
saying, even if they are standing in front of a
foghorn, or in a rioting crowd. OK, maybe that
chesnut needed some cracking, but what did he
replace it with? The fact that we can't hear what
the main actors are saying over the locomotive
noises, raging rivers, and angry crowds. How is
that better? Bring back the cliches.
Kristofferson's mumbling is difficult to decipher
under ideal conditions, but with the ambient
noises he's nigh on impossible.
Director Michael Cimino
is a strange dude. He is known for his attention
to detail, and he did some legendary stuff for
this movie. He uprooted a gigantic tree from a
nearby town and re-planted it in the courtyard at
Oxford, so he would have the correct centerpiece
for the opening graduation scene. (Oxford played
the part of Harvard) He brought an authentic
period locomotive hundreds of miles, over
thousands of miles of track, a circuitous route
mandated by the fact that the 19th century engine
didn't fit into 20th century tunnels. He
recreated every scene from authentic period
photographs. But, on the other hand, listen to
this. He allowed some actors to misstate dialogue
without reshooting simple scenes! For example,
Isabelle Huppert didn't understand the meaning of
one of her lines in a dialogue with Kristofferson
which goes like this:
KRIS: When did I say
that?
ISABELLE: I don't
remember the time of day, but you said it,
alright.
Clearly, her line was
supposed to be the equivalent of "you said
it, sure enough", but she delivered it as if
it meant "you said it correctly", (as
in "did I say that wrong?" "No,
you said it alright"). So, did Mr.
Attention-to-detail reshoot the scene to give it
the correct meaning? No sireebob. He just left
Huppert's confusing interpretation on screen. And
this was a simple inexpensive scene with two
actors, not one of his cast-of-thousand scenes.
Would have been an easy do-over.
Well, it isn't all bad.
Many of the visual images are artfully composed.
Cimino is not Ed Wood or Kevin Costner, so he
doesn't suffer from lunatic ideas or mawkish
sentimentalism, but I'm not sure his sins are
less forgiveable than theirs. Plan 9 and The
Postman can be fun to watch. This thing is an
exercise in tedium. For those of you who have
been living in a mountain monastery, this film is
the standard by which all other Hollywood
economic fiascos are measured. Waterworld was
called Kevin's Gate, Sliver was Evans' Gate, und
so weiter.
Isabelle Huppert,
definitely the best thing about this movie.
Although her English isn't flawless, she did a
good job in a complex role. Except for the
embalmed Kristofferson and a very hammy John
Hurt, the performances in this film are quite
good. Chris Walken is a complex good/bad
character, the most richly written in the film.
Sam Waterston, Jeff Bridges, Brad Dourif and even
Mickey Rourke were good in small roles.
"Mickey Rourke, Scoop, as a cowboy?"
Hey, what can I tell ya? He was one rootin-tootin
buckaroo. Hey, he was a better cowboy than either
DiCaprio or Leonard Nimoy. (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9) an extra
"About
Last Night", from Tuna
The well known Rob Lowe
and Demi Moore movie about the life and death of
a relationship, based on David Mamet's
"Sexual Perversions in Chicago". I saw
it many years ago, but as I recall, the second
best part of it was Jim Belushi and Elizabeth
Perkins as their friends. The best part is that
Demi's fine breasts and buns were on display
often, which is not a bad reason to watch any
movie. Enough nudity for Tuna to need two index
pages! You need the thumbnails if you want to
avoid the non-nudes and Rob Lowe's butt. Of
course I don't know about you guys, but I can
never get enough of Rob Lowe. Tuna's thumbnails for this movie,
part 1 Tuna's thumbnails for this movie,
part 2 Demi
Moore (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23, #24, #25, #26, #27, #28, #29, #30, #31, #32, #33, #34, #35, #36, #37, #38, #39, #40)
"The
Dark", from Tuna
1994 horror film about
the discovery and tracking of a prehistoric
creature with magical curative blood. The
creature lives in tunnels beneath cemetaries. The
good guys want to study the creature, but a
crazed FBI agent wants to kill it because it
killed his partner. Sound like your kinda stuff?
Neve Campbell doesn't
remove her clothing, but she does wear a very
silly hat, which is nearly as good. Maybe not.
Tuna's thumbnails for this movie Cynthia Belliveau (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8)
Neve Campbell (1,
2)
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