Off to See the Zard

Wow, has it been two weeks since I last posted? Tempus fugit.

Anyway, over at Movie Mis-Treatments, there is a new post--the 1974 Sean Connery shamefest Zardoz.

After director John Boorman’s 1972 film Deliverance became a smash hit, he was given carte blanche (if not carte budget—$1 million, pretty paltry even by 1974 standards) to make whatever project he wanted. A recipe for over-the-top self-indulgence? You betcha. Written, directed, and produced by Boorman, Zardoz is an imagining of what human society has become by the year 2293. And it ain’t pretty. Or even coherent.

It’s a triumph of visual style often at the expense of narrative coherence. Heck, Zardoz makes the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey seem as clear-cut and understandable as a Scooby-Doo episode. My guess is the narcotics budget for Zardoz far exceeded the visual effects budget.

It stars Sean Connery, who had just quit the James Bond series and was apparently so hard-up for work that he agreed to don an upsettingly skimpy red sarong and cavort around the Irish countryside groping women who bear more than a passing resemblance to Eric Idle.

And probably the last thing any human should ever have to see is Sean Connery in a wedding dress. From Russia with Love, indeed.