Reviews

A guilty -- but perhaps not all that guilty -- pleasure. A small comedic indie made by Brian De Palma way back in his Greetings and Hi, Mom! days, it still retains a charming, if somewhat adolescent, absurdism. Tommy Smothers plays a corporate dropout in a loveless relationship who yearns to become a tap-dancing magician, taught by none other than Orson Welles's Mr. Delasandro in full pretentious mentoring mode. Add Katherine Ross as the adoring new girlfriend, Allan Garfield as a brassiere maker in search of his perfect woman, and especially the wonderful John Astin as a laid off executive-turned-derelict-turned-executive and you have the sort of bizarre, off-kilter type of fun movie you would have seen as a college student at some midnight showing in theaters during the late 60's/early 70's. Innocently subversive.

And can any movie that bills (correctly) an early Katherine Ross as "Terrific-Looking Girl" be all that bad?

Just caught it today at the Phoenix Film Festival. A clever little indie film presented as if it were some History Channel-like program, with the authoritative narration, varying background music, newsreel clips, interviews in different quality media. It starts out straightforwardly and innocently enough, and then… well, then...

Contains an interesting mix of the tragic and the comic – and the evolving comic. And moves along at its own sly pace. So how the heck do they resolve this thing? All I can say is, by the end, they do. And how can you disagree?

Try and find it while there's still time!