An anachronistic piece of twaddle

5/12/13, Shampoo, Best Supporting Actress, 1975

I wanted time to percolate before I wrote anything about Shampoo, thinking perhaps I would change my mind or feel differently. I would have to wait a long time, because it's been three days and I'm not feeling any different. I may also be carrying over my bitterness from seeing The Great Gatsby Monday night and losing two and a half hours of my life and getting to bed too late. Or, I put on my crabby pants today. Oh hell, it's probably all three. Some movies translate well over the decades, you might notice they don't have cell phones or they smoke in every scene in every restaurant (a big no-no these days), and maybe the clothes seem strange, but you still buy the premise and the characters. Worst case scenario, you get a cinematic history lesson. I don't know what it was, but I didn't like anything about the movie, not the characters (someone will have to explain the fascination people have with Warren Beatty because I do not get it), not the storyline, which was really how this oversexed hairdresser was hooking up with three women in the span of a couple of days (Wikipedia says 24 hours, but that must be Hollywood time, it didn't make sense to me). And by the way, for what it's worth coming from me, the hairstyles were awful, even for 1968 (but filmed in 1975). I had Barbie dolls with better hair. It was set on the eve of the 1968 presidential election (Nixon won) and there is a political dinner, but that really has very little to do with it. It's hedonism in its worst form, and perhaps that is the heart of my issue. I've never been accused of hedonism in any form, and that 'free love' of the late 1960s runs counter to the last thirty years which have seen the AIDS/HIV epidemic and subsequent fight to find a cure. I think if that would have been a smaller part of the movie instead of the whole plot, I might be writing a different review.  Lee Grant won for Best Supporting Actress, and I don't get that one either. Nothing stood out about her performance, and I kind of think Julie Christie should have been nominated, if just for having to wear one of the above-mentioned bad hairstyles. This is Laura from Dr. Zhivago for crying out loud. She deserves better. Omar Sharif would have fought for her dignity, at least.

It's off my list. I don't have to watch it again.I think I have a comedy coming from the library this weekend. Perhaps that will improve my disposition. Oh, and as for Gatsby, read the book and use your imagination.