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The question, as Frost would say, is "what to make of a diminished thing," thus Robert Altman's view of youthful rebellion in the Eighties as a Zabriskie Point burlesque. A pox on bourgeois suburbia in the form of Arizona high-school dickheads (Daniel H. Jenkins, Neill Barry), the prankish arsenal must be expanded, "destruction just isn't permanent anymore." War on the insurance-company ninny next door (Paul Dooley), the objective is a hot nurse for Gramps (Ray Walston). Stolen crustacean buffets, exploding water fountains, monstrous gas-guzzlers. The jungle is a weed hideout, out of which steps Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now fatigues. "You guys veterans?" "Does Ho Chi Minh eat Rice Krispies?" Bird shit at the wedding ceremony, Astaire and Rogers and machine-guns at the reception, plenty of concealed flasks for the tippling matriarch (Jane Curtin). "Goddamnit! Eight hundred thousand dollar house and a four dollar gate." A nice, long piss on teen comedies, and all the reactionary Reaganite rubbish they represent. Summer air filled with radio hubbub, on the telly is the Nashville politico still ranting. Attitudes and fashions so obnoxiously ugly the seamy impresario (Martin Mull) gives them a name, "hog couture." Anderson's If... for the lads' love of African music, as good a reason as any to bring King Sunny Adé for a performance. "Enough of this picaresque, Uncle Remus bullshit," grouses the wino (Melvin Van Peebles) who gets a poignant burial in the golf course. Gay fiesta down Mexico way, fireworks in the survivalist's bunker, altogether a merry Fourth of July. Try to domesticate a cactus and get pricks, an Altman lesson learned by MGM and National Lampoon. With Tina Louise, Cynthia Nixon, Jon Cryer, Louis Nye, Donald May, Carla Borelli, and Nina van Pallandt.
--- Fernando F. Croce |