Runtime: 94 minutes
Directed by: Donald Cammell
Starring: Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, Gerrit Graham, Berry Kroeger, the voice of Robert Vaughn
From: MGM!
What a motion picture to view while drinking some limoncello.
So, I was not expecting Road House to be my final movie reviewed of 2021. However, the night of the 30th I was still exhausted so a second movie that day wasn't in the cards; instead I caught up on sleep and that was one of the reasons why I felt much better on the 31st. I had other things to do on New Years Eve besides binge drinking. I stayed at home aside from picking up an order at an Amazon locker. In the evening I had limoncello that my aunt made herself and gave to me on Christmas. It's an interesting concoction... as with everyone else the Betty White news made me sad, so at least there was a good reason to have some booze.
I don't remember when I first heard of this wacky “only in the 70's” movie, which is not surprisingly pretty strange considering it was adapted from a Dean Koontz book; way back when I read some of his books-not this one, though-and bizarre they were. Why this was on the Criterion Channel for a few months I am not sure but the viewing ended only 45 minutes before it left the service. Basically, imagine if HAL 9000 turned downright evil due to not understanding mankind. Fritz Weaver and gang create Proteus IV, a supercomputer-which hilariously runs on 8 inch floppy disks!-that somehow uses RNA (!) in operation. Weaver is about to separate from his wife Julie Christie-he is too focused on work and has become cold, you see. Note that Old Fritz also has an automated home; it's more than just Alexa... rather improbably the system can make food & drink also. Anyhow, the machine (voiced by an uncredited Robert Vaughn) has noble intentions-it could cure cancer-but naturally as happens often in fiction and hopefully never in our actual future, the sentient machine goes haywire.
Imagine the horrors when Proteus is not allowed to learn more about humanity and via contrivances is able to infiltrate the automated home, imprisoning poor Christie. Actually, you probably can't imagine how absurd and out-there it gets. Contrivance upon contrivance happen, and as others have noted there are some who will feel uncomfortable in a bad way not only with how sexual (!) it gets, but also how manipulative and abusive. While a terrifying scenario, it was not the most enjoyable one to experience either. What kept me going: hilariously colorful psychedelic images, one sequence of which was rather obviously a short ripoff of the Stargate scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The 70's technology & aesthetic did tickle me pink, and the same goes for Gerrit Graham as a stereotypical 70's computer nerd—he was literally the type of guy who would have pictures of both Albert Einstein and Bob Marley hanging from his monitor.
There was no shortage of perplexing films from the 1970's and no way this was the most shocking example of that when the other options include such fare as Hausu, The Visitor and various animated films from the likes of Ralph Bakshi and foreign examples. However, this is one which could rub some the wrong way and I am not the only one to proclaim that they don't feel like ever seeing this again. I can say one thing: what a brief career director Donald Cammell had: he only made a few films but this was somehow released by MGM, he acted in Kenneth Anger movies and was friends with the likes of Brando. Later in 2022 I need to explore both Performance & White of the Eye.
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