Waste of time

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Little Murders is a film about the 'little deaths' we all live - in order to survive.I love this move for so many reasons - including it's terrific cast - of many great character actors, the script/screenplay by Jules Pfeiffer is top-notch, and it takes place in somewhere near and dear to me - 'my' NYC - and my neighborhood; the upper west side.Back then, it wasn't yuppies, sky-high prices, it was young families, - middle-class, primarily, and older families as well. This film was made just a few years before the infamous 'Ford to NYC: Drop Dead' cover of the Daily News, as the city was dying, our finances were a shambles, chaos was everywhere,e but, we all tried to lead some semblance of normalcy amid the chaos.So many people when they found out I was from NYC, they'd say; it's it as dangerous as they say,' and I was a kid, and I wasn't scared, nor were the many others - kids, families - it was our home, and it pulsed its a life, which is now - so, so sadly - almost gone - replaced by vacuous big-box chains, hollow-eyed people from 'elsewhere,' who - well, they're not like we were. We all died little deaths back then.As this film is a black ConEdy (uproariously so - Lou JacobI's ('endless) speech about how hard it was for his parents and family, back at the turn of the century (in which every fact, including the number of relatives, rooms in the apartment, and street where it was) change with each telling, but, amidst the changes, facts don't; people came here, and it was hard But, they persevere in order to make a better life for their families.Another standout is Donald Sutherland as Rev. Dupas, who's wedding sermon is so funny, so biting, but, 'that's okay,' as, wed just about ended the 'Summer of Love' era, and were moving into the 'me decade,' - the 'do your own thing'-era.Alfred Chamberlain (Elliot Gould - in the ONLY film I can tolerate him, and, the ONLY role - I think, aside from MASH - he's perfect in) says he's a nihilist, but, I think the reality is, he's more emotionally dead, because, it's easier to not feel. Feeling things is much harder. It leaves one open to - yes, love, but, also hurt, pain, but, if one doesn't feel, doesn't allow this bad and good to happen, they become static, unchanging.Marcia Rodd - so wonderful, and so, so underrated is Patsy - the woman who's going to change Alfred from the unfeeling man he is, into the vision manhood she wants him to be.Many of the other reviews here will tell you much more in depth about this marvelous film than I want to. I want you to watch it, oh, most definitely, but, what I want you to take from this little entrée is to try and peel a little bit away the surface, and try to feel for yourself what it is Alfred so desperately doesn't want to.

Man, 1971 sure was a violent year in movies, wasn't it? Perhaps it was a very accurate depiction of the period - I wasn't alive then, so I can only surmise from reading books or asking relatives or seeing the movies - and look at the bunch that were out that year: Straw Dogs, Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, The Devils, Punishment Park, even Duel or Play Misty for Me. And in the midst of all of this is one of those "sleeper" films, directed by Alan Arkin (would be direct again, who knows, but this was his shot and he took it), scripted by Julies Feiffer (Carnal Knowledge), Little Murders is among the most violent. It may not have the viscera of 'Clockwork' or the more notorious side of 'Dogs', but it's set in motherf***ing New York City in the early 70's and violence is, seemingly (or actually) everywhere. Right from the start, hell, the man and woman who make up the main couple here meet under circumstances of violence, and it ends with something that one might expect in the movie If...It's very difficult to describe what the movie's "about" except to say that Alfred (Gould) is a photographer who likes to take pictures of s*** (the word he uses for it isn't bleeped by the way) and doesn't really like to fight people - he says he doesn't feel anything, but seems pleasant enough - until during one of these fights he meets the (Alfred's word) "formidable" Patsy (Newquist), and as they have a kinda-sorta romance over time she brings him to meet her parents. And then they decide to get married. And try to live a life. And will Alfred change? Who knows... maybe, and then...This is irreverence cinematically personified, even more than something like MASH, which also had Gould and Donald Sutherland, the latter of whom I'll get to in a moment. Because the satire here is at such a fever pitch, even in the down-time moments, Arkin won't let the audience catch a break. I imagine that was also the case in Feiffer's play, and how much that differs from this film I can't say. Having Gordon Willis shoot your film certainly makes things much more ambitious and, of course, DARK. And there's some strange... strange is the word to continue using here, better than quirky, things that the filmmakers do here. The lights, for example, at the Newquist's apartment keep dimming in and out for... reasons. It's explained as much as why their son is such a wild lunatic. Of course for other familial quirks, you just got to, as Alfred sort of does, take things in stride.What Little Murders ultimately is "about", if anything, is the powder-keg like nature of New York, and how it makes its characters and denizens totally crazy. This is more akin to something like Taxi Driver than what one might expect given these actors and the director (MASH, which was its own sort of irreverence, or Altman or Mel Brooks or take your pick of wild risk-takers, is light as a feather compared to this). A big part of it is that everybody here, I must say again, all of the major characters are varying degrees of nuts: even Alfred, who is supposedly the closest to an audience surrogate, is a case study of a sort of withdrawn, don't-give-a-damn personality that, in the wrong hands, could be a disaster of a performance.Thankfully, Gould is brilliant here, in both the small moments and when he finally does go "big" at the end, which also feels like a tie-in to Taxi Driver in terms of the dark-violence department (though the very last line has the cutting "HA!" feel of Drangelove, just trying to make things connect a little, folks, it's a real original of a film), and the actors who play the parents - Gardenia and Wilson - give their characters some dimension here and there that probably wasn't there on the page. And even in the small roles people are like whacked-out cartoon characters (no wonder, Feiffer was and still is a cartoonist): Sutherland and Arkin himself as the detective are the best positive and negative examples of this. While Sutherland almost threatens to steal the movie with his show-stopping, gut-bustingly/deadpan funny performance as a minister at the wedding, giving the sort of monologue that is gold for an actor to recite... Arkin, directing himself, goes so far over the top to a point where it doesn't work, even, yes, for Little Murders.You don't get many movies like this any more. Sure, there are "quirky", "off-beat" New York comedies, and sometimes they can get shocking in their violence. But rarely do you ever get a film that demands the viewer pay attention, even when (or because) it's at its most non-sensible and strange. And characters *do* have to face obstacles here and face change, which is impressive. By the time Gould's Alfred reaches that final 15/20 minutes, it's really more of a tragedy than anything else, and the delivery he has right before this when he comes to a personal realization about himself, and then that is taken from him in a snap, and then his final turn around at the end, it's a roller-coaster of a look at the horror of a mega-violent, nihilistic place like New York could get then.If only the first half was a little stronger or more consistent - there are points things are SO manic with the family when we first meet them it seems like it could go, and does go, on too long - it would be a masterpiece. As it is, Little Murders reflects a point of view and psychology that is deranged, twisted, and often very funny, a mirror for the time and place not unlike the UK with Clockwork.

Yet another 'I should probably see again' film (sigh). Sometimes very funny, occasionally disturbing super-black comedy about the absurdity of modern urban life. On first viewing, while some of the performances were wonderful (Donald Sutherland), some were merely OK (Elliott Gould in the lead) and some are over the top and annoying (Lou Jacobi, and, surprisingly, the great Alan Arkin who also directed, perhaps trying to do too much at once). Too often the cast feel like actors are in different movies, with different styles and levels of reality. This is a very brave and odd film, with some unforgettable moments, but others that feel awkward and trite. Most reviews were stronger than my reaction, and I could definitely imagine this being one of those films where the strengths would seems stronger, and the weaknesses less annoying on repeated viewings. Nice cinematography by Gordon Willis.

I just watched this film because my dad recommended it as a movie heremember as being funny…mabey. I was skeptical at the beginning, I thought to myself a dated film with an absurd summery on the back. The only reason I sat and watched it was the list of actors, Sutherland and Gould. I was immediately enthralled. I have been a fan of Terry Gilliam films for a long time and to see a film that can achieve his insanity and social messages with out the elaborate sets and costumes Gilliam uses is astounding. The acting is superb, there is no other word that can encapsulate these performances. Every character is riveting until the end. The monologues given are thought provoking to say the least. My original thought that this film was dated could not be farther from the truth, I was in fact surprised by the connections that can be drawn to our modern times. I am surprised that this film did not receive more praise. It is also disappointing that the other Alan Arkin films were given less than glowing reviews. The only question I have is: is it to late to have a cult following for this movie? Anyone else in?