Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Gary Geiserman So Michael O'Donoghue wound up in this movie...alriiiiiiight!Known as 'Mister Mike', first head writer, and the guy who essentially established the weird part (aired in last 1/2 hr) of Saturday Night LIve, and also co-founder of Natl Lampoon, among many other achievements.A good bio, Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue by Dennis Perrin. Mr Mike was a literary terrorist who had a rare thing, the 'killer instinct'. A lefty, he fought against what he perceived as soft things like New Age, romanticism, and other nicenesses. He was a hip wild man with a brain tumor. An angry man.While the main idea for "Savages" was Ivory/Merchant and the general layout was probably Trow's the dialogue must have been pure Mr Mike. Not a 'complete' movie, but as a presentation of O'Donoghue it's gold. Because of Merchant/Ivory the production was quite good which makes for a paradox—normal-seeming film, but absolutely far out.Literary all the way, O'Donoghue deconstructed the deconstruction (throw a part of another decon in there and you have magic (transcendence)—2+, or three-ish, if you will. Three being the first resolution of the first bifurcation—1 manifesting as phenomenology (polar opposites, 2), creating movement between the two, or change (3). A basic theme in this grand satire of culture/civilization is the domination of masculine over feminine, of ration-only over rational AND irrational together. Of logic-only over logic and illogic together. This is played out masterfully, eg, in the Miramar discussion in the Dinner Party, but runs throughout. Style is used creatively to great effect—style being so misunderstood by almost everyone. Here it is portrayed as a mode or gestalt that holds together long enough to convey a subset of mores, folkways et al. Then it is pitted against another style, all within the scene itself—just like modal jazz. Add to this that the dynamics involved are esoteric and you have the main reason this film is not well understood or appreciated—it would just look like weirdness, however amusing. In fact, most creativity IS modal, which is basic flexibility, freedom of expression. Staying in musical 'keys' is essentially rigidity, like the Well Tempered Clavier of the rigid masculine-dominating West. Move like a Queen in Chess, in any direction—the killer instinct to be sure!All components of literary convention are in play here, even surrealism, which completes the self-referring second deconstruction. It's like 'anti-magic'; everything disappears.....of course, Mike was an angry man. Another very interesting thing is Mike's satiric usage itself—by showing 'Bletology' as 'itself' and thus hogwash, Bletology (occult system of elements as integrated through all of Life, eg, "9 Star Ki" from Japan) is presented in all earnestness to great effect, as though it is real. It is carried obviously too far, but the hogwash effect gets lost in the style experiments going on all over—'it's real'. Like other scenes 'making fun' of these hidden intelligences of Life, such as the damage modern buildings can have magnetically, the effect comes out 'sideways', like the whole sensibility of the film—perhaps normal. Hmmmm...In "The Masks are Off" pool scene exhibiting the 'wearing off' of cultural personas gets really far out, even for this film. Brief aspects of "Vanilla Sky", metaphysically; "The Shining" nr the end where the veil lessens and ALL the ghosts appear—chaos rampant, even bits we're not to understand.You get a Mr Mike 'sampler'; it's a lesson in how to appreciate what would otherwise be discounted as 'weirdness'. Remember, "all the things are like the real things, only here they're very small".Michael O'Donoghue was an angry killer and a creative genius who made beauty. There are (begrudged?) moments here that are all the more so for the immensity of scale, the 'whole world' they take things to task in. Those enemies of, besmirchers of, the precious. They are felled and done away with; not in our life any more. Any who put themselves vulnerable for art are protected, they can count on it even if it doesn't look like it. Thanks, Mike.

MARIO GAUCI Having read that this unusual James Ivory-Ismail Merchant production was a pseudo-Bunuelian concoction, I thought I’d acquire it for my long-planned Luis Bunuel tribute on the 25th anniversary of his death (which occurred on 29th July 1983). Now that I’ve watched it, apart from the obvious thematic allusions to ROBINSON CRUSOE (1952), I’d say that it’s also a half-baked inversion of THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962) which, apart from the occasional amusing passage, fails to entertain or enlighten the viewer, much less do justice to its intriguing subject matter.For being such a radical stylistic departure for them (even at that early a stage in their careers) and the film’s own satirical intent, it might not be as surprising to learn that Merchant-Ivory here engaged two young writers from the “National Lampoon” school – George Swift Trow and Michael O’Donoghue (later also of “Saturday Night Live”) – to pen the script, not to mention the title track! The latter plays over an animated dramatis personae which introduces us to an archetypal assortment of upper-class citizens complete with clichéd monikers typical of Silent cinema (a bully, a capitalist, a decadent, the limping man, etc.). After this lengthy prelude, a curiously-drawn intertitle “The Mud People” plunges us in a black-and-white world of a group of scavenging prehistoric people. We follow their rituals for the next ten minutes or so (including the yearly ‘death by stoning’ of their queen’s consort) until a flying croquet ball unaccountably lands in front of them. The repercussions of this mundane event are, for a little time at least, as life-altering as the monolith had been to the apes in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) or the Coke bottle would be to Jamies Uys’ African bushmen in THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY (1980)…but again, the end result hardly proves itself as enthralling as the former or as funny as the latter.Admittedly, the interesting ensemble casting of Susan Blakely, Thayer David, Salome Jens, Martin Kove, Sam Waterston and Kathleen Widdoes does work rather admirably where – as inexplicable as the central conceit of THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL itself – we see these brutes coming upon an abandoned mansion in the woods which they start exploring and, seemingly soon after, change into the socialite-types seen in that prologue with the requisite immaculate English diction! The screen also reverts back to color at this point setting the stage for a long society party segment with its typical show of the malaises of the civilized world in this ‘modern’ age (greed, lust, power, jealousy, etc.). Within the film’s context, I guess, the fact that one (or perhaps two) of the guests seem to be in drag for no good reason can be excused but I have to say I was startled to see included towards the end a steamy lesbian encounter in a car which, unsurprisingly, heralds the start of the savages’ regression to their original uninhibited state.

EyeAskance The primitive tribal mud people are startled by a croquet ball that emerges from an unexplored region of their forest. The set out to find the origin of this alien sphere, and happen upon a lavish(and abandoned)estate. Bewildered by this strange place and all the things within it, they quickly "evolve", assuming the roles of bourgeois aristocrats. They do, however, retain many of their ritualistic customs and sexual behaviors, and, in one of the film's more inclement moments, respond to death with a discomposed, uneasy silence. These scenes might lead the viewer to query just how far removed people really are from their autochthon ancestry. SAVAGES is about as surreal and strange as movies come, but not at all lacking in depth, substance, or humor(chiefly in a subtly saturnine, cynical vein). Certainly not suited to all tastes, but strongly recommended to those with a slant toward wry absurdist cinema.7.5/10

James-184 The plot summary provided does a good job of describing "Savages," a film I rented at a Kwikshop in the late 1980s. Co-written by Michael O'Donoghue (of early SNL writing fame), this movie ranks near the top of my "Weird Films" list. Explanatory narration was, I believe, in German, which of course limited the effectiveness of the explanations. The decadence of the Long Islanders was truly kinky, and shades of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" are evident in the croquet ball (nee soda bottle).How stunning to see the cast list and recognize not only Sam Waterston but also Martin Kove ("Cagney & Lacey," "The Karate Kid") and Salome Jens ("Sisters," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") among the credits.It's worth a view for the bizarrity alone. Add the delicious pleasure of seeing currently working (and in some cases successful) actors in this odd film, and you have the makings of a twisted conversation piece.Nutshell: Watch it in a darkened room with off-the-wall company and come away with a somewhat surreal residual buzz.