Century 21 (Jeremy Blake, 2004)

7/10
A rating for an experimental video art installation is pretty arbitrary I suppose but anyway...Jeremy Blake's Century 21 is part of a trilogy including two other similarly themed works, Winchester and 1906. All three center on the Winchester Mystery House and the imagined mental state of Sarah Winchester herself. Hypercolor images of the House blend with Blake's paintings and drawings and backed with a full radio dial's worth of soundtrack, with 50's Western themes playing a major role. Some stills here, here and here to give a better idea.
More interesting than the film is the story of Blake and his partner, artist Theresa Duncan. After moving to New York and achieving success within the industry (you may know Blake's work from an animation he did for Punch-Drunk Love, or Beck album covers and music videos) the couple became increasingly paranoid and convinced they were being harassed and surveilled by the Church of Scientology. After alienating virtually everyone close to them via increasingly erratic behavior, Duncan committed suicide by overdosing on pills and Blake followed a week after, walking naked into the ocean and drowning. Gus Van Sant is apparently involved in a movie about the two based on an extremely interesting Vanity Fair article.

The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)

8/10
I thought this was some little hidden gem but uhhh apparently it was nominated for 10 Academy Awards (and won two) soo shows what I know. It was very enjoyable though. Shot in 1970, set in 1952, and filmed in black and white, The Last Picture Show works on the strength of its ensemble cast: Cybil Shepherd and Randy Quaid make their debuts, and the movie also features a very young Jeff Bridges, as well as Cloris Leachman, Ben Johnson, and Ellen Burstyn. The lead role is played by Timothy Buttons and the film centres around him as a teenager coming of age in a desolate, dead-end Texas town. The interplay between all the characters is a highlight and Peter Bogdanovich's direction and photography is particularly sumptuous. It's pretty low-key, which is why I was stunned to see all the nominations it got. Too bad the film seems ot have gotten swept under the rug in the passing years, it's a good one.

A Safe Place (Henry Jaglom, 1971)

5/10
Henry Jaglom's directing debut, and another from the BBS Story box. Your mileage on this one probably varies depending on how much tolerance you have for doofy, stoned hippie experimentation...for some it's probably a revelation in American independent filmmaking, and for others it's a total waste of time. The story is hard to place - basically a young female hippie named Noah (or Susan) is receding into her childhood in order to find "a safe place". Things play out a-chronologically, characters answer questions they weren't asked in preceding scenes, or questions that only surface later...in one scene Noah talks about how she could fly as a child, and discusses this while being shot in three completely seperate scenes, different clothes and all, but stitched together to form a continuous monologue. Totally self-indulgence, but not entirely boring either. The cast is definitely the best part - Orson Welles has a ball (literally) as a street magician and Jack Nicholson is his typical wry self. Tuesday Weld is the lead actress and she does a good job with what must have been a total mess of a script, if there ever was one. Not really worth it beyond interest as a curio of its era though.

Taj Mahal Travellers: On Tour (Matsuo Ono, 1973)

7/10
Not so much a movie per se but a document of pioneering Japanese psychedelic/avant-garde band Taj Mahal Travellers touring through Europe in the early 70's. Audio recordings of the Travellers are rare enough so that makes this footage more valuable still, and there are definitely some worthwhile moments when the band is at play, either in a jam session or by the side of the water trying to conjure music out of the ocean by blowing trumpets into it or rubbing sticks together. Experimental jazz musician Don Cherry has an all-too-brief cameo in a session with the group. Unfortunately there's a bit too much footage of these stoned Japanese longhairs standing around, talking (unsubtitled), or hanging out, and not enough actual music being played, but as always with the Travellers, every little morsel you can get your hands on is precious. Definitely a fans-only affair though.

The Adjustment Bureau (George Nolfi, 2011)

7/10
I was in the mood for a fun popcorn movie and there's slim pickings at the multiplex in March, so The Adjustment Bureau won out. And to be honest, it was better than I thought it would be. The plot (a man has to fight against the invisible forces that control our everyday lives to be with the woman he loves) isn't revelatory and can certainly be goofy at times, but it does the job. Matt Damon is good in a role he could probably do in his sleep by now and Emily Blunt is charming, but John Slattery as one of the Bureau's agents was the show-stealer for me. One would assume from the trailers and ads that this film would be overly grim, life-and-death stuff, but it's surprisingly fun and airy, which is part of the reason it works better than it should. Slattery's character contributes to this - we'd expect him to be the kind of straight-laced, emotionless, suit-wearing drones these types of films often begat (Terence Stamp shows up as one eventually) but he plays his role with a kind of wry aloofness, subtle but very engaging. Between him and the effortless banter between Damon and Blunt, there's fun to be had here, even if there are a few cringes along the way. You could do worse for a couple of hours of entertainment, in any case.

Drive, He Said (Jack Nicholson, 1971)

5.5/10
Jack Nicholson's directorial debut, part of the BBS Story set...I'm not really sure what Nicholson was going for. This is a pretty flimsy, scattershot take on 70's restlessness and Vietnam-induced paranoia. Some things make a lasting impression - the opening titles and theme song, a nonsequitor speech that gives the movie its title, the batshit insane ending, and Michael Margotta's crazed performance as the lead character's roommate, on the edge of psychosis in the wake of Vietnam and the draft. William Tepper in the lead (a bored and disaffected basketball star) is very bland and Karen Black's performance is pretty tame for her standards, until the end of the film at least. The movie feels undercooked and especially dated now, on the whole.

Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)

8.5/10
I re-watched this last night as I'm slowly going through the America Lost and Found: The BBS Story box set, and it had a much greater impact on me compared to when I first saw it a couple of years ago. I remember not particularly liking it, but now I realize it's more that Five Easy Pieces just isn't an especially enjoyable movie to watch - it's so full of tension it knots your stomach and its protagonist is downright unlikeable. I was more impressed than ever by Jack Nicholson's performance...disaffected, apathetic, seething with an anger that's only a word away from boiling over...it's hardly a "forgotten" role in Nicholson's career but it's one that I think deserves a lot more credit. The other thing I like about the movie is the way it refuses to give us an easy explanation for Nicholson's character's anger - we're left with a feeling that it's something more, or something just beyond the edges of the frame that's being withheld from us. It's a tough feeling for a filmmaker to stir up in a viewer and I think it was executed brilliantly here.

I watched it just after re-watching one of my favorite movies, Easy Rider, and while both movies deal in similar sentiments, Easy Rider is absolute paradise to watch in comparison.