THE ANDERSON TAPES: a master director disappoints

Question: what's the thread that links 'The Wizard of Oz' with 'Kangaroo Jack', 'Diff'rent Strokes,' Cary Grant, 'St Elmo's Fire' and 'The Hunt for Red October'?
Answer: the 1971 crime thriller THE ANDERSON TAPES.

How come? Well, Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West in 'The Wizard of Oz.' Christopher Walken sullied his reputation in the 2003 movie starring a digitally created Kangaroo. Conrad Bain played the adoptive father of Willis and Arnold Jackson in tv's 'Diff'rent Strokes. Cary Grant was married to Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam played a pushy dad in 'St Elmo's Fire' and Sean Connery starred in 'The Hunt for Red October.
And Hamilton, Walken, Bain, Cannon, Balsam and Connery all appeared together in THE ANDERSON TAPES.
And other than mentioning that a very young Walken is impressive in his big screen debut, that's really the only interesting thing I have to say about this film. I wish there was more, particularly as it's directed by Sidney Lumet, who's made some outstanding films ('The Verdict', '12 Angry Men', 'Network', 'Dog Day Afternoon' etc etc). For me, this is one of his misses. Sean Connery appears uncomfortable playing an American with a Scots accent, Martin Balsam camps it up outrageously as a parody of a gay antiques dealer, the cutting edge technology which plays such an important part in the story, looks terribly dated, and Quincy Jones headache inducing 'sci-fi' score is just an irritating racket.
Lumet was prescient in his portrayal of how much of our daily lives and conversations are watched and monitored by a multitude of government agencies none of whom are coordinating with one another but the end result doesn't quite hang together.
Perhaps he hoped we'd be so caught up in the unfolding caper that we wouldn't notice the holes in the plot.

PILLOW OF DEATH: the horror, the horror.......

PILLOW OF DEATH could have been the kiss of death for a less resilient actor. But not Lon Chaney jr. He'd survived many low budget horrors by the time he churned this one out in 1945 and he'd survive many more in the future.
PILLOW OF DEATH isn't actually a horror movie but it is horrifically bad. The kind of film that's so bad it can put a serious dent in an actor's reputation if they have one to dent. Which is where Chaney was lucky. He'd already made five of these Inner Sanctum cheapies in very quick succession by the time the cameras rolled on this final installment so expectations were pretty low all around.
The studio had clearly run out of enthusiasm and inspiration by this point - they'd even given up on the distorted head in a glass bowl introducing the story - and there's an obvious lack of commitment by everyone involved. The script is beyond ridiculous in its contrived implausibility, and no one in the cast seems able to summon up the energy to even try to give their best.
Chaney moves in slow motion for much of the story, failing to react as any normal human being would to the sight of his murdered wife, or a scream in the night, or the discovery that his dead wife's body is now missing from her coffin. He even has trouble finding the second floor in the big old house when he's on the first floor and standing directly in front of the staircase.
Brenda Joyce as his love interest is so cold and unaffectionate that I was amazed to discover she wasn't the murderer, and it's a little sad to see Dorothy's Auntie Em from 'The Wizard of Oz' - veteran actress Clara Blandick - in the thankless role of a harridan aunt whose sole purpose is to be smothered by the titular pillow.
On the plus side, much of the slow moving action takes place in a sumptuously designed and decorated grand old house set obviously built for a more prestigious production recently shot on the Universal lot. It's the only classy element in the entire film.

WINNEBAGO MAN: cussing his way to internet immortality

Documentary films used to be the preserve of the famous - famous people, famous places and famous events, and if they weren't famous they were special or inspiring (see my earlier review of 'Best Boy'). Maybe it's the fault of The History Channel and the A & E Channel but it seems these days precious few film makers are interested in creating documentaries on worthy subjects. The focus has switched to mining pop culture's rich seam for subjects with instant name recognition, even if we don't actually know their name.

WINNEBAGO MAN is a perfect example.Director Ben Steinbauer sets out to find Jack Rebney, better known as 'Winnebago Man' or 'The world's angriest man' following his appearance in a compilation of outtakes from a late 1980s promotional video for Winnebago's RVs. The clips showing Rebney repeatedly losing his temper and swearing profusely as he forgets his lines made the rounds for years on VHS and then beame an internet sensation thanks to YouTube, but he appears to have vanished from the face of the Earth.
Steinbauer wants to discover what Rebney thinks of his internet notoriety and whether he's even aware of it. It's a thin premise for a 90 minute film but Steinbauer succeeds in stretching it out by creating drama where there really isn't any and endowing Rebney with far more meaning than he deserves.
Rebney's a cantakerous old coot living alone in a cabin in rural northern California. He's still got his foul mouth and short temper but he's not the cult figure that Steinbauer's so eager to paint him as. There's a couple of half-hearted attempts to launch him as a kind of video-blogging Howard Beale who's "mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore" but it's clear that beyond a general dislike of the Bush-Cheney administration Rebney has no organised philosophy or message.
What's also very clear is that despite his often contemptuous attitude towards Steinbauer and the fans of his Winnebago outtakes, Rebney loves the attention and can't resist playing up to the camera. The real Rebney is finally forced out into the open when he attends a film festival in San Francisco celebrating the world of weird and wacky videos and comes face to face with his admirers. He turns into a gruff but sappy teddybear who has nothing but smiles, compliments and thank yous for those who've paid money to meet him.

It's not that his anger and profanity in those 1989 outtakes was an act, it's more that 20 years later he's not that same man however much he tries to turn back the clock for Steinbauer's camera. And while it might appear that it's the director manipulating his subject in an effort to create a story that fits his initial premise, the reality is that they're both using each other.
The result is a series of events that feel more staged than organic, and while it's certainly interesting to discover more about the star of this viral video sensation, WINNEBAGO MAN also destroys the magic. Just like in 'The Wizard of Oz' the man behind the curtain isn't half as fascinating as his public image.