Rating: 
Summary: Typical american family noir comedy, too real for comfort.
Review: If it seems like there is no place to turn to in your world that isn't polluted by the stench of cordite, no place you go to escape the lure of popular commercial culture, no subject too extreme to be trivialized for a mass audience, well, Fieffer was there in the 60's and it wasn't pretty then either though his take is funny as hell... Just the tonic for you if you are tired of the 90's. A classic film written by a sweet little old cartoonist, directed by a lovely maniac, featuring an amazingly dead-on story that could be lifted from CNN or ABC/CBS/NBC/FOXXX or, well, pick your tabloid. Wicked funny painful bite out of the American unconscious. 47 times it's own weight in humor and that's not even counting Sutherland.
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Summary: MIRACULOUS! LOST CLASSIC BACK IN PRINT!
Review: If you look at reviews for this film, you will notice that they fall in two categories: people who praise it to the stars as one of the finest American comedies ever filmed, and people who had no clue what they were in for when they sat down to watch it. Well, as far as the second group goes, if you don't want to see a depressing movie, definitely don't watch this. But as hard as it may be to believe, considering that practically nobody has even heard of it, that first category of reviewers is NOT EXAGERATING: this REALLY IS one of the best comedies ever filmed. It is literally the blackest comedy I have ever seen, but I have loved it for more than twenty years now, ever since I found a copy of the then-out-of-print VHS. Thank heaven it's finally available on DVD, and with a full-length commentary track by actor/producer Gould and writer Feiffer, maybe, just maybe, this film will FINALLY get the serious attention it deserves. The performances of Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson are among the finest comic acting ever done by anyone EVER. (And no, I'm not being overblown in saying that.) And the 3 major cameos (all of which are long, brilliant monologues) by Sutherland, Jacobi and Arkin are nothig short of show-stoppers. Nobody's heard of this movie because it's so uncommercial, but if there were any justice in the comedy world this movie would have at least six or seven reasons to be in the Hall of Fame, not least of which are Gould at his peak and Feiffer, one of our greatest social satirists. Even more depressing, and even more relevant, today than when it was first released (and that's not true of a lot of late-60s/early-70s-era stuff, which often dates fairly poorly) Little Murders belongs on the shelf of any serious fan of what comedy is meant to be. A STUNNER, A CLASSIC, AND A NEAR-MIRACULOUS ACCOMPLISMENT BY THE CAST AND FILMAKERS. ENOUGH GOOD THINGS CANNOT BE SAID ABOUT "LITTLE MURDERS." If you, like 99.999 percent of moviegoers, have never seen it, then all I can say is holy cow are you in for a mind-blowing discovery. This scary, sad, shocking, brutal, uncompromising, and riotously laugh-out-loud movie is going to seriously blow you away.
Rating:
Summary: Camus With a Sense of Humor
Review: One of my favorite, lesser-known films. A great cameo by Donald Sutherland.
Rating:
Summary: one of the most original movies ever made.
Review: Over the years I have recommended this movie to many people - it is one of my four favorites of all time (include - Les Enfants du Paradis, a Window to Paris and the Tin Drum). Nearly all the characters are caricatures - the script is unpredictable and the humor is black and outrageous. Donald Sutherland almost steals the movie with his cameo as an "anything goes" vicar and if Elliot Gould underplays his part it is more than made up for by the other actors.
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Summary: A black, black, supremely funny film.
Review: This film ranks among my all-time "Top 10." It features a brilliant script by Jules Feiffer, outstanding performances by (in no particular order) Elliott Gould, Alan Arkin, Donald Sutherland, Vincent Gardenia, Lou Jacobi -- the list goes on and on. Although the film's view of life is extraordinarily bleak -- not for kids! -- it is also riotously funny -- especially if you grew up in New York City in the 1960s. Among the casualties here are the famliy, organized religion, the subway system, the police, the military, the postal service, and the courts. Everyone should see this film at least once.
Rating:
Summary: A black, black, supremely funny film.
Review: This film ranks among my all-time "Top 10." It features a brilliant script by Jules Feiffer, outstanding performances by (in no particular order) Elliott Gould, Alan Arkin, Donald Sutherland, Vincent Gardenia, Lou Jacobi -- the list goes on and on. Although the film's view of life is extraordinarily bleak -- not for kids! -- it is also riotously funny -- especially if you grew up in New York City in the 1960s. Among the casualties here are the famliy, organized religion, the subway system, the police, the military, the postal service, and the courts. Everyone should see this film at least once.
Rating:
Summary: Strange and Dangerous
Review: This is a strange movie that lies between strange and dangerous. Elliott Gould is fascinating as the world weary and world famous photographer who spends his afternoons taking pictures of Dog feces. He used to make a greater effort towards his work, but realized the art world couldn't tell the difference between what was good and what was crap. So he decides to literally take shots of...crap. Lo and Behold, he continues to win awards for his work. Deepening his sense of the meaningless of life. That's the strange part. The dangerous part lies mainly in the film's underlying current of social unrest. Stemming largely from the idea that life is meaningless and essentially without value. Random beatings, random murders, all help our protagonist over the edge. Yes this a comedy, but it is a dark comedy. If you happen to find a copy of this out of print film, you will be in for a treat (check eBay periodically). And that comes by way of a brilliant cameo by Donald Sutherland, who plays a priest lost in an existentialist haze. That alone is worth the price of admission!
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Summary: Another Brilliant American Comedy No One Knows About
Review: This is one of the most hilarious black comedies ever made. With a perfect cast and one odd and offbeat bit after another. Elliott Gould is the passive and disconnected photographer of dog doo whose life is invaded and turned upside-down by the relentlessly optimistic and determined Patsy (the little seen Broadway actress, Marcia Rodd). He is then brought into Patsy's insular family with their own brand of self-contained lunacy (as in all families)and absolutely hysterical sidetrips and surprises follow to a disturbing, yet hilarious, ending. Not to be missed are the following: Lou Jacobi as the pompous judge railing about the good old days from the bench. Donald Sutherland as the hippy existential priest conducting the funniest wedding ever filmed. Gould's liberal parents, rearguard 30's leftists over-intellectualizing and full of theories while being totally inept at real life and unable to relate to their only child. Alan Arkin as Lt.Practice, the detective coming unglued before your eyes at his growing list of unsolved murders. And of course, Vincent Gardenia, Elizabeth Wilson & John Korkes as Patsy's sweetly, obliviously, dysfunctionally daffy family. Written by Jules Feiffer and directed by Alan Arkin (his only directorial effort I think). This is a BLACK comedy. Be forewarned, it has some nasty things to say about those times (late 60's early 70's) of Vietnam, Nixon & violence in the streets....but its observations of our culture's violence and paranoia are still as pertinent today as they were then. A Classic American Comedy.
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Summary: this is one i tell my friends about.
Review: this movie is a classic, the lines are highly repeatable! "breathers! in my day we didn't have phones to breathe into!" the whole premise is well worth the endeavor.
Rating:
Summary: You want black comedy? Ya came to the right place!
Review: Top o' the heap, far as the black comedy thing goes. First film directed by Alan Arkin; he also plays a neurotic paranoid detective who does more than stumble over his words; he sputters them out due to mental freneticism that is completely unavoidable, some form of psychosomatic willies going on there, for sure. He's investigating the 345 homicides in the preceding six months (these days, that may not be so far from the truth, in New York City), and one of them has affected the family of our hero (see below).
Donald Sutherland is absolutely hilarious as a free form minister whose hedonism knows no bounds. He takes pains to let the entire wedding party know of his tremendous pleasure at making them squirm in their seats, using the word masturbation (remember, this is a 1971 film!) a few times in his diatribe as he marries off our hero and heroine, Elliot Gould and his leading lady, Marcia Rudd.
Gould plays a photographer whose passive nature results in his getting beat up a lot by neighborhood youths who have nothing better to do, and Rudd, the girlfriend he meets when she saves him from yet another drubbing. Of course, being passive and all, he does nothing at all to save her when she herself gets set upon by the same ruffians. She cottons to him anyway and takes him to meet her parents, played by the always great Vincent Gardenia (here, he plays an uncannily foreshadowed version of the husband in Moonstruck) and Elizabeth Wilson.
Gardenia is definitely one of the stars here, with his "So young fella, what's your pleasure?" to Gould, over and over again. He's a comic gem. With a first name of Carroll ("I told you never to call me that"), his threatened masculinity is always on display (here is where the foreshadowed Moonstruck character thing comes in), and he's spot on, trying to prove how valuable he is to his family.
Also here is Lou Jacobi as a portentous, stertorous judge in probably his funniest role on film. He has never been better than he is here. His monologue is one of the true comic masterpieces in American cinema and MUST be seen. The movie is worth seeing for Jacobi alone, but there is so much more here, it's a true classic.
Rodd is constantly "attacked" by phone calls from The Breather, and in one punchy little scene, describes to Gould her typical day in which one small thing after another goes wrong (the real meaning of the film's title).
The ending is a zinger and makes this film completely up to date, not at all obsolete. A great piece of cinema for those who find joy in how pain can make us laugh. Or how laughter accompanies pain. Or how it HAS to accompany pain; otherwise, what fun would we have at all, at all...in this world?
Punchy, smart--written by the brilliant Jules Feiffer. See it.
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