smragan

It doesn't get much lower-budget than this: A guy sitting at a desk on a stage with a notebook, a pointer, and a map of Cambodia on the wall behind him. And for an hour-and-a-half, he keeps you absolutely mesmerized, by doing little more than talking. The special lighting, cinematography, musical effects, and odd film inserts that Demme's production brings to Gray's monologue (which, like so many of the films I truly love, was performed on a stage before it was brought to the screen) work ever-so-slightly to enhance the performance at certain points, but by and large this is just Spalding Gray, a wonderful story-teller, doing his thing. In terms of bang for your production buck, Swimming to Cambodia has to be right up there with The Blair Witch Project. A great film.

Before it was a movie, Glengarry Glen Ross was a play. Like the play, the movie uses only seven or eight different sets, and the dialogue from the movie is identical, as far as I can tell, to the dialogue from the play. So it's basically a play that's been filmed. Glengarry Glen Ross is a stunning play, and I think it adapts in a fairly straightforward manner to be a stunning movie, but my own bias, as a writer, is toward those films that have strong dialogue and show a powerful use of language. Those of the more conventional Hollywood "show-me-don't-tell-me" persuasion may find it somewhat tedious. But those who have an ear for the spoken word would be hard-pressed to find a better-written movie with better actors turning in better performances. (Plus, if you're a Simpsons fan, you need to watch Glengarry Glen Ross so you can understand the origin of Gil, the pathetic salesman... :)

Network is, for my money, a very nearly perfect movie. If there is a defect, it is the sound quality. In every copy of Network I've ever rented, owned, or otherwise seen, the mixing has, in places, been downright abysmal. Faye Dunaway's speech at the UBN stockholders' meeting is the place that first comes to mind--the audience applause sounds more like a jetliner warming up. There is also a point, I think around the beginning of the third act, where a narrator's voice-over is pretty much drowned out by the sound of an airplane landing. But these are minor distractions, really, from an otherwise-stunning film. If there's a major drawback to this movie, it's that it goes over some folks' heads: The dialogue is very smart and comes very quick. The humor is often subtle and allusive, meaning that, for instance, you might need to know who Patty Hearst is, or have a clear understanding of Marxism, to get some of the jokes. Also, this is a film that does not fear to violate the three-syllable rule. Words like "ecumenical" abound. But if you're a reasonably intelligent person and you like directors like Quentin Tarantino, or writers like David Mamet, who are not afraid of language, then you will probably love this movie. A second caveat, however, would be that Network packs a strong political punch. If you do not agree that television is the antichrist, then Network may seem to be a trifle loaded, like a piece of propaganda. Even if you don't, however, I would still not hesitate to say that you, like everyone else, ought to see Network. It is a film that deserves a response.