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The Worst Film Ever

hyped garbage

Don't Believe the Hype

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

"Go ahead, break my heart!" seems to be the theme for Liza Minnelli's Pookie Adams in this college age love story about a very insecure but likable young lady and her shy, nervous boyfriend (Wendell Burton) whom she goes after with fury the moment she meets him. "Come Saturday Morning" is one of the best movie themes ever, let alone of this "Hair" age drama, and sets up the mood perfectly for the gentle souls whose lives are explored. If Liza had not gone on to play Sally Bowles in "Cabaret", she would have been remembered forever in playing this part, a role filled with even more dimensions than the later role which won her the Oscar. Losing the Oscar for this to Maggie Smith's Jean Brodie, Minnelli is a modern age version of the characters Brodie was teaching in her British private school, so you can watch both films together and see many similar qualities. Burton, seemingly forced into dating the sometimes pesky Pookie, has the less showy role, but he underplays it with great humanity and is equally unforgettable. Excellent direction by Alan J. Pakula helps make the film flow smoothly. Minnelli's performance seems so modern in her energy that you almost expect her to whip out a cellphone and start texting to Burton every two minutes.

College can be lonely, or it can be fun. Fitting in is always a must even though you don't want to. In "The Sterile Cuckoo", it all points out to that. Taking place in Upstate New York, it makes a very great Fall setting there. Here you have Jerry(Wendell Burton), a shy college man who happens to meet Mary Ann "Pookie" Adams(Liza Minelli) who happens to be socially inept. She doesn't fit in with anyone around her, she calls them "Wierdos". She too is smart, but she only wants to be around Jerry, instead. They happen to have a good time where ever they go, even going to a graveyard where she really acts up. The hotel scene is really classic. The request she gave out was very unusual. "Peel the Tomato" seems to be a new one on me. The strip scene was short but nice to watch. No insecurity about that! But in life, we need to leave our comfort zone behind sometimes, because not meeting new people can create problems. But that's anybody's guess. This movie is a real gem, and I enjoyed it very much. 5 stars!

This was another movie that I saw as a high school student in the Philippines back in 1970 while we were stationed at the Subic Bay Naval Base. We always went to the movies. There were 5 movie theaters on the base and each one was free to get in. We didn't have English speaking TV stations in the Philippines at the time I was there. I saw this movie 4 or 5 times. It was a time when we were getting ready to head off to college and many of the films we saw dealt with the California college scene. This one took place in the New England rural area in the small college town setting. The movie was enjoyable for the setting, the characters, and the music. Liza Minelli did a great job as the lonely, confused, student who didn't fit in with the crowd. This movie is in the same category as The Graduate, The Paper Chase, and Love Story. Of the four it is the most simplistic but provides another look at the love relationships between college students in that time period. All these movies made an impression on me at the time as I was young and just getting ready to begin my college years. The song "Come Saturday Morning" provided a good background balance to the movie as it played throughout the movie in various versions. It had a very similar feel to the way "Scarborough Fair" was used in The Graduate. As we lived with the heat and the jungle as my environment for 2 years; this film reminded me of the wonderful seasons of fall and winter that I remembered when I lived in New York and would go upstate to visit friends. One side track here..... As I think of the 4 movies mentioned, songs played a key element in the movies. For some reason The Paper Chase had no theme music or any songs that I recall. The movie was fantastic but I am a musician and with all the great songs of that era it would have, in my opinion, made the movie better. It was a great time to be young back in the late 60's and early 70's. These movies made the experience a little more enjoyable and I enjoy watching them when they are on the tube.

This is one of the few films I've seen in which every shot represents the theme and overall feeling of the film. No matter whether Minnelli's Pookie and Burton's Jerry are together as a couple, in a crowd, or completely alone, a sense of loneliness pervades the situation. To achieve this Pakula uses several long shots of the characters, or, during the party scene, he has Pookie and Jerry on separate levels of the staircase, staring up or down at each other from a distance. From the very first shot we see this, with Pookie and her father walking to a bench and then sitting there waiting, in an extremely long take that spans the entire opening credits. In representing the awkwardness of a first sexual experience, another extremely long take is used, in which Jerry disrobes Pookie, take off each piece of clothing one by one, hanging them up in the closet or folding them properly, then doing the same for himself, and within this the loneliness is established in Pookie's great enthusiasm to "get in the sack" and Jerry's calculated attempts at making the experience romantic, which are completely unromantic. Even McIntire's small role as Charlie plays an important part in the representation of the loneliness, as he assumes that Jerry is a virgin, like he is, thinking he confide this is in Jerry because they have it in common, which they don't. Minnelli's acting in this excellent, probably on the same par as her role in Bob Fosse's "Cabaret." This is also one of the few films I have actually not just felt sad about, but actually did cry at. I believe this is a very well-made film, and it deserves a higher rating than it has on here. The subjects it deals with are not trivial in the least, they are an important part of life, and the ending is perfect in proving this. It is very realistic in the psychological portrayal of its characters, which is a very difficult thing to pull off. I have not read the book, but I am sure the characters are established just as well in this film adaptation. Although it is a sad film to watch, Pakula hooks us right away with Pookie's outrageous personality, and although, like Jerry, we feel she is annoying person, even if she is friendly, we cannot stop listening to her and watching her, and when she is not in a scene we feel something is lacking. So, rather quickly, we begin to enjoy her character and what it brings to the film, just as Jerry begins to enjoy her company and she helps him learn to enjoy his life and be more outgoing, even though, in the end, this works against Pookie. I feel this film has been highly overlooked, and I definitely recommend it, even with the sad ending it brings. By the end of the film I had fallen in love with Pookie, and this is what makes it such a strong film.