James Agee on Film, pt. 1
I was rummaging through the Reg the other day, hunting down a film review in a 1948 issue of The Nation by totally-cool-dude James Agee that I had heard rumor of, but couldn't confirm if it existed. Not only does it exist, but it's only one of many great reviews by Agee. I'm a big fan of the zinger!-school of film criticism. These are a few highlights picked out from just the first few issues of 1948. I plan on returning soon to search through the rest.
"Tycoon." Several tons of dynamite are set off in this movie; none of it under the right people.
"Bill and Coo." Over 200 trained birds, complete with neckties, hats, etc., waddle around an anthropornithomorphic community called Chirpendale. By conservative estimate, the God-damnedest thing ever seen.
"The Miracle of the Bells." As pernicious a gobbet of pseudo-religious asafetida as I have been forced to sniff at, man and Sunday-school-boy. I hereby declare myself the founding father of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to God.
"You Were Meant For Me." That's what you think.
Tags: james agee
March 16th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I'm not much for reading film reviews myself (although I respect the genre), but I remember reading someone else once who said that James Agee could watch a film and retain nearly a frame by frame memory of it.
I do occasionally write about movies and this is what I said about one recently: "Miracle Mile is the stupidest movie I've ever seen. Nothing in the plot makes any sense. There's not even any eye candy. The main character keeps flashing a gun around (for no apparent reason) thru most of the second half and I kept hoping it would discharge and kill the director."