Nothing Lasts Forever

Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)

Runtime: 82 minutes

Directed by: Tom Schiller

Starring: Zach Galligan, the incredibly named Appolonia van Ravenstein, Lauren Tom, Sam Jaffe

From: MGM

Here's a movie with quite the unique backstory, something I explain in the Letterboxd review below. In short, it was unseen for many years for reasons unknown, but even that didn't last forever as it was on TV late last night. Onto the review and I'll be back tomorrow night:

Imagine my surprise when late last year while looking at TCM's website to see what they would be showing this month on TCM Underground, I saw that for the first time ever this movie would be shown to a wide audience, at least in North America. It was last summer that this film got attention. MGM shelved it before it was to be released and for unknown reasons the only way it was to be seen was if you saw it air on European television, as it did a few times. Well, some random person on YouTube got a copy and uploaded it to his page; it only got copyright taken down after articles were written about it. But finally it could be officially shown, albeit at a time (the middle of the night) where many may have completely missed it.

The reason why it got attention-aside from it being rare-is the talent involved. It was produced by Lorne Michaels and directed/written by Tom Schiller, who worked on Saturday Night Live in its early days. It stars Zach Galligan and has an eclectic cast full of old people (Sam Jaffe and Imogene Coca, for example) and has a brief role from Dan Aykroyd and a more substantial part for Bill Murray.

Oh, and it's weird, quite weird. It goes for a 1930's aesthetic and usually succeeds. A lot of it is in black and white but there are some sequences in color. As for the story, it involves an artist who isn't that great but he still tries; however, the society he lives in has become oppressive to such things so he has to work at a tollbooth, before meeting odd people that guide him along the way and it ends up with a bus trip... to the moon. Yeah.

If others got more out of this than I did, that is OK with me. I personally thought that while they got the style down and it is certainly bold in telling a unique story, I didn't think it was effectively told or paced right. Thus, I am not quite sure what the point of it was, besides paying homage to classic films of old, such as Battleship Potemkin); it isn't that funny and it's not exactly an airtight plot either. So I guess I'll have to rate it as average overall due to it being too oddball for my tastes.

At least it's different and plus, it's nice how it's not hidden away anymore.