LA GRANDE BOUFFE (1973)

"...or not to be."

Four wealthy male friends gather together (with some prostitutes and a teacher) in a large house to eat themselves to death...and yep, it's about as gross as you just imagined.  Once LA GRANDE BOUFFE gets going, it's almost non-stop debauchery, farting, shitting, gorging, vomiting, whoring, burping, fucking and death.  It's great.

In the wrong hands, a story idea like this could turn out to be a disaster, but luckily for us, it was written and directed by Marco Ferreri and has four of the best actors of all time in the lead roles: Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret and Ugo Tognazzi.  Andrea Ferreol is also very disturbing as the seemingly normal person, who get way too much pleasure out of actively cheering on these four men to commit a very slow and painful suicide.

According to the disc extras, LA GRANDE BOUFFE caused quite a stir at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and I can see why; it's a pretty messed up movie (especially back then), but as a commentary on consumerism, I think the film does a excellent job and I would absolutely love to see a modern day remake that is a 1,000 times more grotesque.

Double-feature with Pasolini's SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM for a truly fun evening.

[As a complete side note (that has nothing to do with the review): I'm curious as to what the legal ramifications would be for the character of Andrea after the film was over and the police became involved?  I have no idea if assisted suicide was legal in France in 1973, but even if so, you could argue that what she did went well beyond "assisting".]

NSFW images

Look at the use of mirrors in this shot.

DETECTIVE STORY (1951)

Based on a popular play of the same name (which from 1949 to 1950 ran for 581 performances on Broadway and featured Ralph Bellamy as the lead actor!  Holy fook!  I bet that was awesome!!!), DETECTIVE STORY tells the story of one day in the life of NYC police Det. Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas).  Instead of following him around town, the events in DS are completely based around the detective's bullpen at the police station.  That sounds risky, but it's not, because DETECTIVE STORY is riveting from beginning to end.  Mainly thanks to the mature script and the intense performances by the entire cast.  And what a cast!  I just spent the last two hours going through the IMDb profiles of the films cast and crew.  That was a lot of fun.

The film opens with a detective bringing in a shoplifter.  From there, we're introduced the the layout of the police station and the fascinating cast of characters.  As the story moves along, more and more characters walk in and out of the film. There's a number of minor stories, but the main story concerns Detective McLeod and his dogged investigation of abortionist Dr. Karl Schneider (played by George Macready, who you might remember paired off against Douglas again six years later in Kubrick's masterful PATHS OF GLORY).  McLeod might hate Schneider now, but that ain't nothing compared to how much he hates him by the end of the movie! 

All of the "lesser" stories are interesting, but the person that really grabbed my attention was accused burglar Joseph Wiseman.  He might only be suspected of robbing houses, but one thing he's definitely guilty of is stealing scenes in the movie!  Holy shit, every single times he's on camera I couldn't take my eyes off of him!  He was amazing.  I'm not saying that to take away from the rest of the cast, cause everybody was great.  Wiseman just happened to be extra great.

One of the most impressive things about DETECTIVE STORY is the amount of information that's so effortlessly given to the audience.  The filmmakers did an amazing job of keeping multiple things going onscreen for the majority of the film.

By today's standards, DETECTIVE STORY is dated, but it's still a great film that deserves to be seen and admired.  Highly recommended.  Would make a very confusing double-feature with Takashi Miike's DETECTIVE STORY.

Very interesting attention to detail (and maybe even foreshadowing?) at 44:39, when Kirk Douglas goes to ask Joseph Wiseman about the monogrammed dish.