Benedito Dias Rodrigues
Beatty-Ashby made an audacious movie about existentialism,a man who looking for something which he doesn't has any idea at all,all others characters are around him,he make sex but doesn't finds love,he works but doesn't finish nothing,anyway a lost guy,make things and go nowhere,this a typical picture which aim to all tastes,it's a different aproach of changing behavior society, almost few things about comedy,althroug has some moments,it's hard to define it properly!!!the young Carrie Fisher on first fine role!!Resume:First watch: 1998 /How many: 2 / Source: Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 7.25
Steve Pulaski
Set on the eve of the presidential election that put Richard Nixon in the oval office, Shampoo revolves around George Roundy (Warren Beatty), a successful, Beverly Hills-based hairdresser, who has ostensibly skated by in life solely on his good looks, charisma, and easygoing charm with women. Despite living and committing to his girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn), George still seeks sex from many other women, often his regular clients.One thing George has consistently wanted to do is open his own hair salon; one day, he turns to Lester and Felicia (Jack Warden and Lee Grant), a wealthy, local-area couple. However, another problem emerges for George and that is the fact that Lester's current mistress (Julie Christie) is one of George's former girlfriends. Lester just outright assumes George, because of his appearance and choice of occupation, is gay, and doesn't see him as any legitimate sexual threat. It isn't until George becomes closer to Lester, meeting his wife, rekindling things with Lester's mistress, and even becoming entranced with select other women that George succumbs to furthering his pedigree as a sexual deviant.Shampoo subtly evokes the breakdown of the limiting and often sexually regressive sexual politics and standards of the 1960's; it plays similar instruments as Paul Mazursky's brilliant and underrated Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice where the very nature of its plot is subversive because it takes a sensitive, introspective camera into characters' bedrooms rather than simply closing the door on it. It's a period of time in American cinema that I cheekily bill "what I do in the bedroom is all of your business," due to the liberal mindset and furtherance of sexual freedom, orientation, and behavior in public. In the contemporary, sex is still a social taboo in America, but with each year, be it what is accepted by the MPAA, or what is casually discussed by young people in a serious, social setting, the stigma of sex is continuing to be broken in many ways.Shampoo looks at the social mores by picking a character who is contemptible not because he loves his sex but because of how dishonest he chooses to be. There's nothing wrong with having multiple sexual partners, nor is there nothing inherently wrong with practicing polygamy or sleeping around. There is something wrong, however, with being dishonest or deceptive about it, which is what George consistently is. With that, screenwriters Robert Towne and Beatty seem to recognize this, and Beatty himself seems to recognize it as he's playing the character. Nonetheless, he challenges you to like him largely by the quick-witted and zippy way he moves and conducts himself, as well as the way he works and entertains his clients. He may not be an easy character to like, but he's not an easy character to write off.With that, Beatty gives an entertaining performance and effective turns an ensemble film into what could easily be mistaken as a one-man show, if it wasn't for the significant presences of Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant, specifically Grant who winds up having some strong scenes with Beatty during more pivotal moments of the film. These inclusions make Shampoo more likable throughout all the contemptible attributes of the film, and the film winds up addressing sexual politics in a way that doesn't tell the audience, but show them. It sort of walks in circles, not always coming to a clear point, but Beatty's performance and its more subtler approach to the material is enough to make it, if nothing else, a thematically and fundamentally interesting piece for the time.Starring: Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Jack Warden, and Lee Grant. Directed by: Hal Ashby.
Sros 007
This is a brilliant and underrated film. It's hard to imagine something like this being made today, filled with riotous laughs although concluding with a reflective and bleak ending. Warren Beatty ducks and weaves throughout the film, trying to juggle relationships with 3 or 4 different women but his hectic lifestyle eventually begins to unravel. It was written as a satire of 1960's sexual liberty and ultimately proves that free love is not 'free'. The film is set in 1968 on the day Richard Nixon was elected president and there is a clever use of Nixon's image in posters and TV screens behind Warren Beatty's character to symbolize someone whom everyone believes in and loves but turns out to be untrustworthy and unreliable. Although it was the 4th highest earner in the box office for the year 1975 it seems to have been largely forgotten since then.
