Shampoo by Hal Ashby; An Inconvenient Truth

Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude was such an odd and beautiful gem, that when Shampoo came in the mail, Joe and I were looking forward to seeing it. Joe says he remembers the furor the film made in 1975, as it was considered rather racy back then. But unfortunately, Shampoo turned out to be more oddly confusing than oddly entertaining. Warren Beatty produces, co-writes with Robert Towne, and stars in this odd film as a hairdresser who sleeps with many of his clients, but who seems more interested in doing their hair. It's a comedy but not very funny. Joe and I had an ungoing debate about whether Warren Beatty's character was supposed to be ridiculous or genuinely sexy. It's set in 1968 and his hair is an incredible pouf. Julie Christie plays the woman that Beatty falls in love with, though there is no palpable chemistry between them here, unlike in Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Towards the end of the film, Beatty does her hair so that she ends up looking like a drag queen. Again, Joe thought she was supposed to be sexy after the style of the times, though failing, but I thought she was supposed to be ridiculous. I mean, it's a comedy! Clearly, Goldie Hawn and a very very young Carrie Fisher are both way sexier but Beatty goes for the drag queen! Is that where the comedy is? I dunno. Very hard to figure out. "Shampoop" says Joe.

The next film we saw was An Inconvenient Truth, which we'd been meaning to see for a long time, but never really felt like it since, after all, global warming is a bit of a downer. But it turned out to be solidly entertaining as well as a highly convincing, frightening, effective, really well-made film. Al Gore is a charming and even funny lecturer. It's heartbreaking to think where we might be now if things had turned out differently and he'd been made President. And it ends with hope. There's still hope! We must all take action now! Joe said the only thing about the ending was that it should have been thoughtful and meditative, instead of trying to rock out with Melissa Etheridge.