CANDY (1968)

Very hit-or-miss string of surreal vignettes about a sexy teenage girl who comes from space and ends up messing with a whole bunch of dudes. That might sound like the plot to a porno, but unfortunately CANDY is very tame.  There's not even any nudity!

A wiggly light comes down from outer space and lands in the desert. It takes the form of an attractive teenage girl. Then bam! She's in high school.  A great poet (Richard Burton) shows up and before long she's half naked on the pool table in her basement kissing Ringo Starr while Burton gets busy with a mannequin on the floor.  Suddenly Gomez Addams walks in! And that's just the first few minutes of the movie! It only gets weirder, much weirder, from there on. Everything but the kitchen sink is thrown in and somehow it actually works for the most part, especially the final few minutes which, I thought, were pretty awesome.

Some people might complain that it's bewilderingly incoherent mess and they would be 100% correct, but looking at it from a historical viewpoint, CANDY is a remarkable look into whatever kind of weird counter-cultural bullshit was going on back in 1968. If you are at all curious about the stranger, more psychedelic corners of 60's cinema then you should check it out.  Also, Richard Burton's crazy hair looks a lot like Bill Murray's crazy hair at the end of KINGPIN.

A NEW LEAF (1971)

[Update 7/23/18: Deleted all of the screenshots. New DVD came out. Going to redo this review completely, as soon as I find the time.  This review is horrible.  I hate it.]

Is it just me or doesn't Walter Matthau look like a Monkees-era Michael Nesmith in that poster?

The film opens with Matthau being informed that the money he inherited years ago is all gone and now he's flat broke. He goes to his uncle, who hates him, and begs for money. The uncle agrees to give him $50,000 in a wager that he can't find a rich woman to marry in 6 weeks. If he fails, Walter has to repay his uncle $5 million! Anyway, Walter finds the awkward (and rich) nerd Henrietta and starts speed-courting her...but will he get her to marry him in time? And will he resist his temptation to murder her? What the fuck?

There are a few scenes that I halfheartedly smiled at, but I never laughed once. Mainly because Walter's character was a spoiled asshole.  Henrietta was likable, but completely unbelievable. I understand that she's a lonely dork, but what does she see in Walter's character? He's a selfish prick.

A NEW LEAF is not that good of a movie. In fact, I found it boring and uneven. The uneven part makes sense, because I read that the original cut of the movie was over an hour longer and even had Matthau going around killing people! When the studio saw the finished product they trimmed it down into this forgettable mess.