Customer Reviews

Boom! [VHS]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Utterly incomprehensible and totally entertaining! People expecting this to be "camp" in the sense of singing transvestites or trained parakeets are bound to be disappointed (Ok, Liz does have a dwarf henchman). However, you can only laugh at a caftan or Taylor's moment of impromptu Kabuki theater for so long. Rather, it's a triumph of continuous irrational behavior from the characters AND the film-makers. Tennessee Williams' sensibility is evident, but transplanted from his usual Dixie environs to a Sardinian fairytale castle, it is even more scintillating than say, the film of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Burton actually gives a really interesting performance as Flanders, but he is totally overshadowed by Taylor's Cissy Goforth. Hacking up phlegm at every turn, she is constantly irritated by EVERYTHING which is the sensibility that really connects this with John Waters' early work (it's a favorite film of his, and the poster shows up prominently in "Pink Flamingos"). Divine in "Multiple Maniacs" is very much a resounding echo and fracturing of Liz Taylor in "Boom!", and that is definitely a compliment to both great actors. The occasional totally unexpected hooting or stream of creative cursing from Cissy is also a brillant addition to the screenplay. It's like watching a film infected with Tourette's syndrome. For the historical record, Taylor in "Boom!" is supposedly the first female star to utter the "F" word in a studio film. John Barry's score is also notable: circus calliope and tipsy piano together with his trademark brassy orchestral James Bond sound. It perfectly complements the movie.
Certainly not to everyone's taste, but I doubt if it was ever meant to be. Take a chance on it!
This one really should be on DVD with widescreen framing!

Liz and Dick after Virginia Woolf with NO DIRECTION from Losey and one of Tennessee's worst plays, and an island with Noel Coward on it, and Liz is dying, supposedly older than everyone, but she looks fabulous and ypouthful and not sick at all. She wears headdresses that are unforgettable; she postures and preens for the camera while Burton recites sententious lines that make one howl like a Banshee. Liz dominates all of the scenes she is in and you want more and more even at the close.

It is a camp cavalcade not to be missed. I wish it were on DVD, but at last it is out in some form..so we rejoice.

One sees why Waters would love this, and he is not the only one.

Nonstop drama makes this movie a cult classic. What more could you ask for? Injections! Booze! Inevitable Death! Liz at the height, I mean, weight of her career! These are the ingredients that make the world go round. Think ocean cliffs, contemporary design and servants. Truely this movie is incedibly campy and that is what makes it so entertaining. Liz give another stellar performance, there is classic Taylor-Burton chemistry. I recenctly heard at a film festival that Tennessee Williams said that he felt this was the best movie adaptation of any of his works. It definitely gets five stars from me.

It was worth it to buy this movie even if I had to get it in a Dutch Region 2, PAL-formatted version -- worth it just to have this scenery-drenched, top-music-score movie ready to pop into my player. Yes, I had to get myself a code-crunching superwizard to do the converting (no easy task), but after all the fuss and bother, up came the magnificent 2.35 widescreen shot of foamy breakers on the rocks and the glittery-as-gold opening titles.

The movie itself is Tennessee Williams' "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," its geographical setting slightly shifted, and -- to be mercilessly frank -- the story line and dialog are totally moronic, which is why it bombed at the box office and why Leonard Maltin's "Movie and Video Guide" tags it as a "thud" -- but I STILL love the movie, not just for the Liz-and-Dick flying sparks (Liz Taylor, Richard Burton), but for the SUCCULENT cinematography (filmed at a rocky hilltop villa that is a Dalí'esque DREAM and then some: every room of the place is a separate designer's portfolio, which might explain why Liz and Dick literally bought the pile after the movie was made) and take-me-into-another-world music score by the Brit film composer John Barry (the man behind the early 007 scores), not to mention a tasty walk-on by Noël Coward and the general mood of faraway luxury surrounding this aging-and-cancerous matron (Liz Taylor), rich-as-Croesus enough to order the very molecules in the air to switch vectors.

Maybe it's not your cup of camomile, and admittedly the plot line wanders like a drunk on Saturday night, but I still love the movie for the PARTS, not the whole, and the result for those who can value atmosphere and mood even above narrative is an aesthetic drench. Sip sip and be glad, and be carried off.

"Boom" is a blast! This is one of the most fun of the Burton, Taylor films. "Boom" is also a gassy misfire that draws one into the veiled world of aging homosexual desire disguised as a heterosexual struggle between an aging, dying woman and the unattainable youth in the Angel of Death.
This is story wearing a beard. Taylor's role is really that of an aging rich gay man who is trying to hang on to youth and the beauties that great beauty attract. After all, her name is Sissy. Burton's role is that of the hustler who is all that is left for the old queen to attract. But as with so many Williams works it all must be encrypted and coded so that the America of the late 1950's and early 1960's could handle his true intentions, the soft underbelly of his plays.
Burton is too old for the role that was written for a man in his twenties and Taylor is too young and too healthy looking to be the dying Sissy. But despite that, the story of a struggle of great wealth against the inevitable grows from loopy strangeness to a compelling and moving ending. Here Taylor gives one of her oddly finest post Virginia Woolf studies in a dramatic/comic performance. There is in fact so much subversive humor in her performance that she is at times hilarious. Her vocal range dances from the shrill to the silly to the grand dame and all to serve her imperious and ultimately terrified Sissy Goforth. In the last desperate half hour of the film she does some of her finest work. Burton is rather cool and distant at first but builds his Angelo De Morte into a truly fine character study. In particular, listen to his fine delivery of the speech about the old man in the sea.

Particular note should be made of the cinematography, which is gorgeous, and the stunning sun washed bone toned opulent glamour of the sets. I understand that the Burtons owned the house in Sardinia for a while after the film was completed. The spare and haunting score by John Barry is an added delight to his impressive repertoire. And for you jewelry fans there is plenty of Miss Taylor's own jewelry on hand. So get out your copy of "My Love Affair With Jewelry" by Elizabeth and thumb along as she parades her diamonds in the Mediterranean sun.

Campy? Yes! Great? Maybe we will know about that in another 40 years. Is it worth your time? Only if you like a challenge and are willing to let the Burtons take you into the world of Tennessee Williams camp classic.

This is a movie that I just keep coming back to over and over again. It even gets pride of place (I taped it off TV years ago, 80's) in a really old bulky ex-rental plasticky video box, that probably used to house "Scanners", or something like that, which failed to get returned. From the opening scenes you'll be mesmerized like some jaw-dropped carnival creature, by the haunting musical score and the sunlight shimmering across the mediteranean ocean, as Burtons character, the supposed old poet/letcher/gold-digging prophet of doom, wends his way on a hired boat to Mr's Goforths (Taylor) absurb prison, come paradise dedicated to OWL architecture. This is something that becomes immediately apparent when you see her fab white sun-shades in the opening minutes.

I adore this movie due to it's utter surreal quality. Everything the other reviewers have said stands so I won't repeat them here, but moments such as the Kabuki dinner at sunset and her drunken state are all time greats! Other great moments and cameo's are the great Noel Coward, known in the film as the Witch of Capri. The Witch rides the inclinator all the way to the top of the Candy Castle hooting for Cissy like some possessed owl!

All in all the alienation of the characters from one another and their seeming need to find some kind of fullfillment vicariously through one another, serves as the paradoxical glue which binds them together. The mysterious abuse/power play between Cissy (Taylor) and her female personal assistant is remarkable as she becomes sympathiser/saviour and go-between for both Burton and Taylor. She is caught in the tantalizing web of both these despicable spidery things.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the film score as it reprises over and over modulating into forever and underpinning the endless waste of time and talent that both Burton and Taylors characters seem to embody. The beautiful thing in all this is that with every endless, useless, timeless booming of the ocean against the rocks down below, each boom comes as the ticking of some great big universal clock counting down to the end of us all and particularly that weird creature on the rock! Wooo Hooooooo!!!!!

This movie will be laughed at in the same way, by the same sorts of people and for the same sorts of reasons... as a defense mechanism against the poetic life. This movie speaks to and is essentially about a rare type of person: the poet. Most people will find his story funny, incomprehensible or absurd.

Boom is a story set in the fantastic and exotic, that has nothing to do with small town America nor its tunnel vision understanding of itself. At root it is a morality tale or allegory that comments on the inexplicable, often absurd and soul sickening conditions of the 'beautiful' people. It points to the tragic fact that we have to die, though what it really teaches is ambiguous, never fully revealed. But that mystery is lived by the poet. The movie is sublime and reaches for an almost mythic understanding of the poet as a lover, with his connection to death always hovering slightly in the background -- the perfect backdrop for (Boom...) "the shock of still being alive."

Metaphysical, poetic, mysterious, scenic, witty, elusive and something over the heads of yuppy suburbia with its taste for sameness.

Except for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "The Taming of the Shrew," the cinematic collaborations between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton never caught fire. "Boom!" (1968) remains the worst of the lot. Liz and Dick strike a pose in this pretentiously boring adaptation of a failed Tennessee Williams play, "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore." Burton's film career survived these lapses in judgment, but Taylor's never recovered. A good supporting cast is buried in the wreckage.

While Hollywood has choked the market with bad movies over the years, there are a select few stinkers that are so marvelously entertaining and ridiculous that they garner a cult following anyway. VALLEY OF THE DOLLS fits this category, as does SHOWGIRLS.

And now that it's finally getting a long-overdue video release, so will BOOM! The brilliant John Waters has been saying for years that this film is "failed art" and "perfect," and he's right -- watch this movie with an audience, or a group of unsuspecting friends, and you'll be in for a night of hilarity of the highest sort.

Taylor's performance, Taylor's outfits, and Taylor's monologues are all gut-busters. This is no one's proudest hour (not the cast, not writer Tennessee Williams, and certainly not director Joseph Losey), but this is a movie that will live forever in the hearts of those who find it just flat-out bizarre and wild.

The cast apparently started each day with a round of Bloody Marys, and you can tell. Keep an eye on the scene where Taylor declaims a long speech while wearing an ornate headdress -- in the middle, she just takes the thing off to start scratching her head, and you just *know* that wasn't in the script...

There have been some incredibly astute observations made by some of the earlier posts. Each has their merit and, as we humans have individual tastes, you can't find fault with those that don't appreciate this egregiously overlooked materpiece. Now, whether this film is a masterpiece of art or trash is the debate. Is it so profound and so deep most viewers can't even grasp what's really being offered? Or,is it so "off" it's perfect? For me, this film is simply sublime! It can be deeply admired on so many levels. The art direction could very easily be the star of this film. And, why COULDN'T art direction be the star? The Goforth estate is archetecturally mesmerizing! An inspiration of color and style atop the 1,000 foot cliffs of a Mediterranean island, with the ancient sea eternally "booming", battering, and churning on the broken boulders below. Is this setting a metaphor for Sissy Goforth herself? Incredibly beautiful, perched high in her world, but with a constant battering of life working its inevitable demise on her? Am I reading more into this than was intended? Or, am I on track with the style of this film? The score by John Barry could be the star of this film. And, why COULDN'T a score be the star? The recurring theme with its calliope gives the effect of a somewhat nostalgic, far away, adult child's memory of a circus, but in a somewhat haunted, meloncholy kind of way. Is this a metaphor for Sissy Goforth herself? Memories of good times shrouded by the lonely course her life has taken? Or, is the real star the costumes? Why COULDN'T they be the star? Magnificent, glamorous, sophisitated, works of wearable art with spectacular jewels any Queen would covet. You really could watch this film solely for any of these categories. But, naturally, the REAL star of the film is Elizabeth Taylor. There are some shots of her in this film that demand a good freeze-frame to languish and get lost in her unmatched beauty. Her Sissy Goforth is THE diva of all divas! She dresses the part, and she acts the part. Living in the rarified air of high society, incredible beauty, a long line of lovers, excessive wealth, and dominion over her own island, has made her out of touch with the rest of the world. She's pretentiously, deliberately over dramatic, arrogant, bitchy, lonely, vulnerable and terrified. And, Taylor acts those attributes without flaw. Many have said she is over-acting to the hilt, but could it be they aren't thinking through to realize a woman like Sissy Goforth would BE way over the top? Now, put all the elements together; art direction, score, costumes, Elizabeth Taylor, and whether the film ends up on your list of all-time favorites or not, it IS a film of great visual beauty, and it does weave its spell of being off-kilter, unsettled, and with a feeling of impending doom perfectly. If you're in an upbeat, giddy mood, don't watch Boom! Watch something upbeat and giddy. If you're in a quiet, introspective, serious mood, it would be the perfect time to introduce yourself to............"Boom!"