Showing posts with label Marlon Brando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marlon Brando. Show all posts

Saturday, November 9, 2013

DON JUAN DEMARCO (1994)

[Update 08/18/2021: Need to redo this review completely.]

DON JUAN DEMARCO is a delightful, little movie with two interesting main characters.  One is a young man (Johnny Depp) who thinks that he is a direct descendent of the legendary (and fictional) Don Juan.  He is committed to an mental institution for a 10-day review after he tries to commit suicide.  The other is his doctor, Marlon Brando.  Brando is very close to retirement and kinda of depressed about his career coming to an end, but once he gets to hanging around Depp and listening to all of his fantastical stories about being raised and a small Mexican village and all of his sexual conquests he starts to see the true beauty in life.

I really enjoyed the idea of DJD.  The first hour was great, but towards the end it kinda runs out of steam.  Even with the disappointingly "Ehhh." ending it's still a nice film to watch on a rainy afternoon.  Good acting by Depp, Brando looking like he weighs about 500 pounds, Bryan Adams' "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?", Faye Dunaway kind of wasted with a forgettable role, plenty of smiles. 

I'm not a 100% sure why, but for some reason this film reminds me of HARVEY.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

CANDY (1968)

Very hit-or-miss string of surreal vignettes about a sexy teenage girl who comes from space and ends up messing with a whole bunch of dudes. That might sound like the plot to a porno, but unfortunately CANDY is very tame.  There's not even any nudity!

A wiggly light comes down from outer space and lands in the desert. It takes the form of an attractive teenage girl. Then bam! She's in high school.  A great poet (Richard Burton) shows up and before long she's half naked on the pool table in her basement kissing Ringo Starr while Burton gets busy with a mannequin on the floor.  Suddenly Gomez Addams walks in! And that's just the first few minutes of the movie! It only gets weirder, much weirder, from there on. Everything but the kitchen sink is thrown in and somehow it actually works for the most part, especially the final few minutes which, I thought, were pretty awesome.

Some people might complain that it's bewilderingly incoherent mess and they would be 100% correct, but looking at it from a historical viewpoint, CANDY is a remarkable look into whatever kind of weird counter-cultural bullshit was going on back in 1968. If you are at all curious about the stranger, more psychedelic corners of 60's cinema then you should check it out.  Also, Richard Burton's crazy hair looks a lot like Bill Murray's crazy hair at the end of KINGPIN.