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"Day of the Locust"

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RobertSmith

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 9:11 AM

If you like Mullholland Dr., Sunset Blvd. and similar meditations on Hollywood, you will enjoy Day of the Locust (1975). Also fans of the excellent cinematographer Conrad Hall; his long lenses and use of light practically as another character in the room abound. Adapted from the novella by Nathanael West, the story is expanded and tastefully re-arranged to an epic 144 minutes, but the dazzling imagery and standout performances, particularly Karen Black as a never-was Norma Desmond, make it a riveting experience. William Atherton, who seems to have been typecast later on as an a-hole authority type, makes a nice stand-in for Robert Redford, if a blander gingery one. Billy Barty excels as a cock-handling little person (there is a cockfighting scene surpassed only by those in the film actually called Cockfighter, another 70's gem.) Dondald Sutherland brings a Glover-ian creepiness to repressed male-spinster Homer Simpson (YES, Homer Simpson). Jackie Earle Haley, Rorschach in Watchmen, plays a freaky boy actor in ringlets whose shenanigans touch off an act of violence leading to one of the most brutal riot scenes I've ever seen, chilling stuff. Just rent it, y'all.