California Split
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Movie Reviews of California Split
Movie Review: At Last - But......
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, so it should have been a 30th anniversary celebration edition, with all the extras that implies. But at least it can now be seen in its proper format. It's a great movie and certainly the best ever made about gambling. What we internet scribblers should now be doing is campaigning for the DVD release of "Thieves Like Us". Movie Review: At last
Summary: 5 Stars
Though this movie deserves better treatment and more fanfare, the important thing is that it's coming out; it was never even released on cassette, to my knowledge. I got my bootlegged copy on ebay. Everyone talks about Three Women being Robert Altman's forgotten's masterpiece, but this tops my list. The greatest movie about gambling ever made, and certainly one of the great buddy films of all time. Thanks to Roger Ebert's new site, you can read his 1974 review of the fim, where he said it was superior to MASH. Hopefully this release will bring it all the attention it deserves.Movie Review: My favorite film finally shows up on DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
OK, so it's coming out as what appears to be a bare-bones disk instead of a juiced-up Criterion collection title (doubly sad since other Altman classics like "Secret Honor," "Tanner 88" and "Short Cuts" are getting the CC treatment the same month) but that doesn't matter.
What does matter is that I'm finally going to get to see my favorite film in widescreen.
I taped "Split" off cable years and years ago. I remember setting up the recording at some ungodly hour (3:25 a.m. or something) because I didn't want to miss it and I ended up watching the movie in its entirity.
Elliott Gould gives an amazing, lived-in performance as a lucky card player who takes a liking to a less fortunate gambler and, through a series of episodes, we watch them pass a few weeks hitting the track, going to boxing matches, playing poker, drinking, getting beat up and using a neat home remedy on their bruises over Fruit Loops. Their friendship is one of the best I've seen on-screen. Screenwriter Joseph Walsh appears briefly as Sparkie the shylock and it's a perfect cameo, a pre-"Sopranos" portrait of a crook haggard by the life ("Didn't I tell you that I've got busts happening all over the city, that my parents are in town, and you come in here and you don't have dollar one?")
This is a woefully underseen Altman classic, mostly because it's not available on tape or DVD, it's pretty rare. But it's a great movie -- I even have the one-sheet for "Split" hanging over my computer -- and I'm very, very pleased that I'll finally be able to see something *besides* the opening and closing credits in letterbox (it always seemed to underline the cruelty of pan-and-scan when, after the credit "Directed by Robert Altman" my beloved black bars disappeared).