Monday, October 23, 2006

[1980] BAD TIMING: What a beautifully fractured narrative. (WHAT HUH I THOUGHT TARANTINO INVENTED THE FRACTURED NARRATIVE) I've never seen somebody carry a movie quite like Theresa Russell carried this thing--it's one of the braver performances I can think of. No qualms about nudity, or looking like an idiot, or going over the top in a rage the one minute and playing a near-corpse the next. She actually turns into the Joker at one point (and if you've seen the move you know what I mean.) She's paired with the very limited Art Garfunkel, but his casting makes sense--a limited actor to play a guy with a limited emotional range. (It also probably makes her performance look more brilliant as a result.) And there's Harvey Keitel running around in the background with a terrrible Euroaccent, but it's okay, he does well despite that. It's a fine fine tale told sideways about two terrifically maladjusted people--she the irrepressible flirt, he the brooding paranoiac--who can't let go of each other. Recommended for everyone, but especially for first dates. (The Criterion cover art is really terrible, by the way--it looks like The Last Seduction poster, and this isn't a noir in the least. Well, a guy falls in love with the wrong woman, but aside from that it isn't.)

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