The Hal Ashby Poll

i remember it being great, 38 years ago

Just saw a clean-cut 20-something Ashby on an episode of Art Linkletter's "People Are Funny" (kind of a reality game show) on Decades. He was pulled from the audience to take the roll of a "Mr. X" who'd been anonymously wooing this woman. They sent him out to introduce himself and get a date with her. He succeeded and won a trip to Las Vegas (and the woman won a TV).

Just now noticed that there's a documentary about him opening up here in a couple of weeks.

http://boxoffice.hotdocs.ca/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=80975~fff311b7-cdad-4e14-9ae4-a9905e1b9cb0&epguid=a1a41036-cbe1-4f35-bc34-1ed13d4bd525&

Cool, thanks for the heads up.

Gave one of my brothers the gift of Ashby for xmas (Being There, The Last Detail, and Bound for Glory on blu).

I still have never seen Bound for Glory. It might be the most famous (or at least highly regarded) mainstream American film of the '70s I haven't seen. I always wanted to see it in a theatre for the first time, but it never plays.

As my other brother noted, you don't really even need to know/care much about Woody Guthrie going in to get something out of it. I guess it would make it onto my very short list of solid biopics.

The documentary reinforced the picture I got of him from some other documentary I saw on American film in the '70s (I don't think it was the Biskind film but a different one): revered by everyone who worked for him, typically (for the era) difficult if he was the one working for you. Made me want to see all the films again, and I guess that's what you hope for.

Shampoo is so sad... and what amplifies that is the lack of a score, despite the "original music by Paul Simon" credit at the beginning, all or nearly all of the music in the movie is diegetic... opening with "Wouldn't It Be Nice" playing verrrrrrrry quietly from a radio through the Sgt. Peppers songs at the party... there's so much silence, dead air, and space... the setting & sociopolitical commentary are broad enough that they don't bog down the essential, universal story of people thinking they know what they want, but ultimately failing or missing out by the skin of their teeth. it's all near misses and elisions, and the title is perfect because despite following a hairdresser and dozens upon dozens of shots of people getting their hair cut and done, I don't think there's a single shot of actual shampoo or shampooed hair.

Drove down twice this past week to watch Shampoo on a big screen. First time, the online listing was set for the wrong day--I went down on a Friday, but the screening was Monday/Tuesday. Tried again Monday, driving though a ridiculous snowstorm; got there in time, theatre closed. Almost tried again yesterday, but I checked first, and they'd actually cancelled both screenings last week (announced on Facebook, but without updating the schedule on their website) even before the storm.

So I stayed in and watched the DVD.

Shampoo is really something, I guess Warden lost the Oscar cuz he was a little too close for comfort for older male AMPAS members.

If he'd been alive Warden could've played Biden in 2009.

joe doesn't have a bad toupee

It has its unrealized bits, but I'd vote forThe Landlord today.

I'm starting to compile a working list of movie scenes where men throw temper tantrums (usually ending with their better judgement reasserting itself):

1. Beatty in Shampoo after being rejected by the bank (picks up his jacket at the end)
2. Hackman in The Conversation after getting paid (picks up the briefcase filled with money in the end)
3. Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces after walking out on Karen Black (invites her along in the end)
4. Macy in Fargo scraping his windshield (regroups, buys his daughter's way into Harvard in the end)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s5f_kJsN7c

5. Clooney in Out of Sight after Albert Brooks condescends to him when they meet after they complete their sentences.

That's right--ends with a freeze-frame, I think.

However long that list gets, it'll never be long enough.

I think the rich newspaperman in Citizen Kane throws a tantrum at one point; Brando has a mini-tantrum at the dinner table in A Streetcar Named Desire.

There's a good half-hour discussion on the Shampoo Criterion between Frank Rich and Mark Harris, covering Beatty going "meta" playing a lothario and the shock of Julie Christie saying "I want to suck his cock," both very rare ploys at the time. Also Beatty says in a late '90s interview that he found his character "pathetic," which the film bears out.

I can't imagine Shakey was making any sort of obscure joke when he started this thread, so I'll fix the title.

Shampoo is only 104 minutes yet drags in places, especially a montage in the first forty minutes of Jack Warden approaching the house where Beatty's George is with Julie Christie; Ashby cuts back and forth between them so often that I go, "I get it." And it's impossible for a Gen X-er like me to believe women or men ever thought Warren Beatty was sexy. Not one fingernail.

Yet it's still quite something; its live-and-let-live esprit is foreign to American films.

Shampoo really feels, to me, like one of those "you had to be there" 70s movies, like M*A*S*H*, Zabriskie Point or Ashby's own The Landlord. I didn't dislike it; I just didn't get much out of it beyond a few strong performances and a good period soundtrack (I appreciated them going with "Manic Depression," my fave Hendrix song, over any of the more obvious choices). And yes, selecting today to watch it was a conscious choice on my part.

I like it a little more than that, but I agree, it's wholly of its moment. I've read two, maybe three instances of writers identifying different real-life sources for Beatty's character.

So The Landlord is actually pretty goddamn great, huh? No idea why I skipped it when I first worked my way through all of the prime Ashbys two decades ago. Liberal racism looks pretty much identical half a century later. I think I'd put it up there with my faves (Last Detail, Being There, Bound for Glory). Keen to finally dig into the rest of Bill Gunn's miniscule filmography now, as well.

Most social satires and dramas from the 1970s are still, unfortunately, relevant and "the same," for lack of a better word. This is a very good example. Great early DP job by Gordon Willis. I remember not really liking the lead though (the landlord, lol), obviously the character must be a wormboy, but as I recall he was a little too broad and bumbling. Absolutely worth seeing, though. An underrated and under seen film.

Several times a week I walk past the block that the landlord's house was on (and it's still there). If the landlord had held onto that house he would now own a multimillion dollar property. There's a line in the film where I think Lee Grant describes the neighborhood as a "slum," which would be a guaranteed laugh today if the film were shown locally (which it occasionally is).

more and more The Landlord feels like Ashby's most essential flick.

He strikes an unusually harmonic balance of drama/humor/relevance in it. I like Being There fine, but it's more farce-heavy.

Watched The Last Detail this weekend, such a fantastic film.

These days I'm pretty certain its his best.

It really is up there with Being There, for sure. Quaid's naive cluelessness was great, though a little wild to watch knowing where he'd end up.

Being There's the only one of his '70s I squirm through. Sellers' routine gets wearing imo.

I'm here for The Landlord, The Last Detail, and Shampoo tho.

*wearying

I need to see The Landlord and, actually, probably Shampoo again since I haven't seen that since the early '90s.

Being There and Harold and Maude were huge movies for me in my teens, but I feel like I've cooled on them quite a bit. The Landlord, Shampoo and Bound for Glory never really clicked for me, the first two might benefit from rewatches (I don't see my first impression of BfG as a beautifully-shot but rote biopic changing).

Bound for Glory is among the 'less than or equal to the fingers on one hand' number of biopics I actually like. And I'm fairly indifferent to the subject, even.

Finally saw The Landlord a year or two ago and thought it was great. I don't know why I was under the impression that it was less well-regarded than his other '70s stuff, but I well-regarded it.

Shampoo is the '70s Ashby flick I've long been IDGI about. But then it's been a very long time since I've seen it so I should probably reassess. I'm much more familiar with/enamored of the work of Julie Christie and Lee Grant than I was a quarter century ago, for a start.

I had to accept that Warren Beatty was the least cute and least charming actor in it.