When the Lights Go Down (book)

"The Man Who Fell to Earth - " He has come to earth to obtain the water that will save his people, who are dying from drought, but he is corrupted, is distracted from his mission...[he] can be said to represent everyone who feels misunderstood, everyone who feels sexually immature or different, everyone who has lost his way, everyone who has failed his holy family, and so the film is a gigantic launching pad for anything that viewers want to drift to."

"The Story of Adèle H. - " a musical, lilting film with a tidal pull to it. Its about a woman who is destroyed by her passion for a man who is indifferent to her - a woman who realizes herself in self-destruction...The subject of the movie is the self-destructive love that everyone has experienced in one form or another. Adèle is a riveting, great character because she goes all the way with it...Its a great film, I think - the only great film from Europe Ive seen since Last Tango in Paris."

"Rancho Deluxe - " a flip, absurdist modern Western..Rancho Deluxe is far from stupid, but it isnt very likable.."

"The Hindenburg - " the Hindenburg - filled with explosive hydrogen - blew up while coming down for a landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937,..the ten minute climax, which is the famous newsreel footage extended and intercut with newly shot scenes showing the actors - is fundamentally insensitive: how can a viewer look at true horrors and be a jaded connoisseur of movie thrills in practically the same instant?"

"Fun with Dick and Jane - " a nitwit comedy on the order of For Petes Sake, though its much worse made...Ted Kotcheff is the kind of director who thinks ugliness is funny. He really should be locked up for what he does to the performers...everything about it feels cheap."

"Vincent, François, Paul et les autres - " Claude Sautet doesnt tell a story here; rather, he orchestrates a slice of middle-class life..The picture..is about aging and survival - about people trying to adapt to what they have become and to everything that happens that they cant control."

"Smile - " a comedy set in Santa Rosa during the Jaycee-sponsored California final of the national Young American Miss pageant...When the girls are interviewed, or when they have to perform in public, they look dumb, but theyre not. They stumble and blurt out idiocies because what theyre saying isnt what they feel at all...In Smile Michael Ritchie really appears to like most of the people on the screen."

"Hard Times - " unusually effective pulp ... One more version of the myth of the strong, silent loner...Hard Times offers excitement that makes you feel good; Walter Hill respects the loner myth."

"Conversation Piece - " Visconti, not fully recovered from a stroke..directed Conversation Piece from a wheelchair part of the time. Although it takes place entirely in the interior of a Roman house, one doesnt feel confined...Manganos Countess..Shes gorgeous, but with the reptilian glitter of an aging swinger...so venemous, arrogant and tantrummy shes funny...Visconti is an eccentric master who has earned the right to his follies, when he can make them as pleasurable as Conversation Piece..."

"Hearts of the West - " has an eccentric enchantment to it"

"Three Days of the Condor - " Sydney Pollack doesnt have a knack for action pulp..trying to elevate the material,..[he] has succeeded only in taking the charge out of it."

"The Incredible Sarah - " is an aberration. Stiffer and more anachronistic than the Warner bios of the thirties, its in the stupefying tradition of Song of Norway...there is not one moment in the movie when one feels that this woman has become an actress out of a spiritual need for expression."