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Hello Lee Pfeiffer and Crew:
I purchased the current issue of Cinema Retro on the promise of its insights into the obscure film, Candy. Instead, I was punished with a four-page rant by Dean Brierly who, in his brief bio, could not supply the name of a single film he liked (his "favourite films are the ones nobody's heard of") nor the name of any article of note. You do list magazines he's written for, including Men's Health. Why I make mention of his scarce credentials is because he so severely botched the opportunity to discover in a film its many treasures -- foregoing the requisite fairness called upon when assessing someone else's work.
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For one, Brierly fails to mention the inspired Dave Grusin soundtrack (in fact, so inspired that Steven Soderbergh uses it in Ocean's Twelve), which makes effective use of Steppenwolf prior to Easy Rider. The music serves the film's surreal aspirations and it is through that lens that many positive assessments have sprung forward -- certainly positive enough that most people wouldn't wish to have "committed suicide halfway through" or preferred "having a root canal without anaesthetic" to watching it again. A bit over-cooked, that writing from Brierly, and certainly not justified in its humor or wit. While he uniformly ridicules the performances, many fans out there have pointed out how wryly funny Brando is while using his role to poke holes in his very own iconic status. Brierly writes that "Brando's excruciating exhibition foreshadows his eventual artistic decline," proceeding to briskly gloss over one of the greatest comebacks in show business! He makes grudging mention of The Godfather (considered to be one of the greatest films of all time) and Last Tango in Paris, but forgets to add Superman, The Nightcomers, Apocalypse Now and his lively performance in Don Juan DeMarco. These omissions are more glaring considering that, on page 8 of the same issue, your very own esteemed Raymond Benson lists Apocalypse Now as one of his "Top Ten Favourites" of 1979, and Lee Pfeiffer agrees with Richard Schickel on page 15 that "the most underrated work of Marlon Brando's career... Reflections in a Golden Eye remains one of his best performances," released just a year before the offending Candy. On the Cinema Retro webpage, you just have to scroll down five blurbs from Lee Pfieffer's half-hearted defense of Brierly to get to the news on Superman, where "Brando memorably played Jor-El."