Ken Russell's 70s : The Boy Friend, Tommy and Altered States

The Boy Friendⁱ is... well, I suppose a decent cinematic attempt at half a vaudeville show (specifically missing, as you no doubt can guess, the actually interesting part). It benefits from the services of an excellent stage crew and chorus line (the jump-rope tap-dance scene being the clearest indication of substantial female quality wasted in there) ; but it's so horrendously written as to bring to mind the very Frenchⁱⁱ. The only possible moral's that girlhood's wasted on girls ; boy-howdy does this regrettable offering ever live up to the bitter truth therein incumbent!

Tommyⁱⁱⁱ is such epic waste as to befuddle imagination. You'd think if anyone bothered to get those two together they'd do something with it. Well... not this fucktard. His idea of cinematographically employing Ann-Margret's having her tits weep under spurious coverage on some railroad platform once and that's the fuck it, whole lotta salad and somebody forgot the steak. This thing should be re-shot, properly, which is to say without fucking Tommy, who gives a shit about the Hamlet-lite wanna-be, and without all the gowns and crap. I don't mean completely without, they may just as well start dressed, it just can't fucking end that way, what the fuck. Ann-Margret'd totally have Madonna'd up that brown bitch, so where's the actual film ?! And why the fuck did they package and publish the droppings on the edit room floor ?! That is what I want to know!

Altered States^iv is not even worth mentioning. This 1980 piece of shit looks exactly like Kubrik's 1968 piece of shit re-shot, poorly, on a script as terrible as whatever David Mamet churned out.

Basically Ken Russell rotted over the 70s. He started out as a promisingly fresh cowpie, and ended as disgustingly grubby as fresh cowpies end up (in the moist climate of perfidy or otherwise). Sad, he showed real talent in The Devils. So... what the fuck happened ?! That's what I want to know!

1. 1971, by Ken Russell, with Barbara Windsor and some inconsequential twig. [↩]
2. Let's not forget such ever-shining glories as Cool It Carol also come from the same period in the sad island's painfully slow degradation. [↩]
3. 1975, by Ken Russell, with Ann-Margret and Tina Turner! [↩]
4. 1980, by Ken Russell, with nobody. Blair Brown is little besides the best advertisement for getting fake tits one could dream up, and I mean... Bob fucking Balaban is seriously in there! What the fuck is this, made-for-tuna-cans, the next step down from made-for-tv ? You can't have that dork in a film anymore than you can have actual monkeys on actual stages, what the fuck! What next, casting that fat fuck that ruined Reservoir Dogs with his utter inability to be filmed without burning the celulloid ?!

   Daytime tv has meanwhile recuperated the lead in this atrocity. They called him something that momentarily escapes me, and was substantially taller though to no great benefit. [↩]