Short Take: Used Cars

Used Cars, directed by Robert Zemeckis, is a great slapstick comedy, and wonderfully free of sentimentality. The rule of the film’s humor is that everything is corrupt, and everybody is out to fleece everyone else. Jack Warden plays twin brothers who own competing used-car lots across the street from each other in Arizona. The brother who owns the more upscale lot is trying to put the other out of business, but he’s always thwarted. The usual obstacle is the other brother’s head salesman (Kurt Russell), a resourceful fast-talking charmer who always stays one step ahead of the various schemes. He also counters them with a few of his own. The rivalry between the two businesses ultimately escalates into all-out war. The most hilarious set piece has one lot blowing up the other’s inventory in a live TV commercial. The brother who owns the upscale lot only gets the upper hand when his niece (Deborah Harmon) takes over her father’s business. That sets off a chain of events that climaxes with the grand comic spectacle of an army of clunkers racing across the desert to save the day. It probably goes without saying, but the film also gets plenty of laughs from the various salesman scams throughout its running time. Kurt Russell is a terrific comic lead. No sensible person would trust his character further than they could throw him, but he’s immensely likable, and he gives the film a good deal of its high spirits. Jack Warden is hilariously cartoonish as the more ruthless of two brothers, and pleasantly down-to-earth as the other. The cast also includes Gerrit Graham, Frank McRae, Al Lewis, Michael McKean, and David L. Lander. The film’s great scene-stealer is the second brother’s pet beagle Toby. The script is by Zemeckis and producer Bob Gale. Donald M. Morgan is credited with the bright, beautifully composed cinematography.

Short Take: Altered States

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

With Altered States (1980), celebrated screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky tried his hand at science fiction. The result was one of the most ludicrous movies to come out of Hollywood. William Hurt, in his film début, plays a Harvard psychology professor who becomes obsessed with forms of consciousness beyond the everyday. His experiments on himself begin with the hallucinatory states induced by sensory-deprivation tanks. They proceed into enhancing the deprivation-tank experience with a tribal potion from Mexico. At this point, the story enters mad-scientist monster-movie terrain, with the professor experiencing psychedelic visions, a metamorphosis into a Neanderthal, and an external manifestation of the primordial vortex. The professor's wife (Blair Brown), his best friend (Bob Balaban), and his department chair (Charles Haid) just enable him and fret. There's no sense of wonder accompanying what occurs. Chayefsky's point is that scientists need to end their overreaches into the realm of knowledge. They should accept that love is the only worthwhile thing. (That's right. These scientists witness the most incredible things occurring, and their conclusion is that what the world needs now is love, sweet love.) The director, Ken Russell, is known elsewhere for his extravagant visuals, but his work here in that regard is nothing special. The psychedelic visions, featuring special-effects work by Bran Ferren, are unimaginatively derivative. Russell's most impressive work is in the various ways he gets the actors to blast through Chayefsky's ridiculously over-written dialogue. The actors all sound like they've been drinking too much coffee, but the frenetic delivery actually suits the academic characters they're playing. The screenplay is credited to "Sidney Aaron"--Chayefsky quit the production after Russell replaced Arthur Penn--but a look at Chayefsky's original novel indicates the dialogue was entirely his. The fine musical score is by John Corigliano.