Boom! (1968)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

1968! That year again and here's another major oddity thrown up for all to enjoy. You will read all about the 'camp classic' claims and that John Waters uses it to assess whether he can be friends with someone. All good stuff but and then some of these 'fans' sit and hoot with laughter at every line. No need to worry, this is fine. More than fine it is really good. Tennessee Williams, the writer, can be somewhat overwrought and melodramatic but here, whether due in part to director, Joseph Losey or simply to the main couple, that is not a problem here. Indeed, Noel Coward and Joanna Shimkus are good but it is the central performances of Taylor and Burton that ensure classic status upon this film. The script is not quite 'Who'se Afraid of Virginia Wolf?' but these two performances pretty much are. Taylor especially seems to revel in displaying her range and simultaneously amusing, annoying and thrilling both us and Burton's character. I understand that the Taylor part was written as a dying gay man and even Coward's part as a woman but it all works well like this and as I intimated earlier might well have been just too much for this tale of dying and the vanity of the living to be delivered undiluted.

I always heard this film was not available on DVD yet I just found it here in Germany. What's that about? So I finally got to see it and I loved it. It was fun, fun, fun. As I read the reviews here most of the posters get the fun in this "über" costume drama. However the few posters who don't get the film and dislike it, miss all the nuance in the film. These people make me think of Oscar Wilde's quote, "What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." This film is a delightful romp. Costumes are great, The dialog is simple and the lighting is fine. I am not sure what the poster who criticized the lighting wanted. I think he may have watched "Dances with Wolves" too many times. The same goes for those who have a problem with Taylor's Italian. He character doesn't speak fluent Italian. Any better language skills in her character would ruin the fun. I wish, I could understand what that bird was saying. The sound is bad on my DVD. I loved those Easter Island stone heads in the back ground. I think, like John Waters we should value our friends on their reaction to this film. Any one that can't see the fun in this film must be a real moron. I work in the opera business so this film is very easy for me understand.

Boy, this was one lousy movie! While I haven't seen all of the Burton/Taylor collaborations, I can say with confidence that this is the worst. This rich but ill woman (Taylor, of course) owns this beautiful island in the Meditteranean, ruling over a put-upon staff when she's suddenly visited by this traveling poet (Burton), who mouths platitudes. At one point, Noel Coward drops in for some pretentious chat and looks very embarrassed, like he should. In fact, the whole film is just a talk fest, with much of the talk making no sense. Even in 1968, no one could make heads or tails of this pretentious nonsense, and the passage of time makes that even more clear. If it weren't for the beautiful cinematography and scenery, it would deserve a negative rating. The only thing this film is good for is its unintentional laughs at the expense of the stars.

How can a film be a 10 and a 1 at the same time? As serious art, Boom is a bomb. Yet, as a testimony, a very camp testimony, to the lives of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noel Coward, and Tennessee Williams, it is literally hysterical. As the Age of Aquarius was dawning on America, what were these pioneers of love, lust, decadence, and existential meaning to do? What is there to say, to do, to perform, two years after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1968. the play Hair is delighting Broadway. The hippies have overtaken the Beats. Where can the stars go? To the Old World, Europe, Italy, Capris... The movie reveals their state of mind: preoccupation with death, the emptiness of wealth, sex, and luxury. As we watch this undeniably amusing costume melodrama, we can't help wondering just what Taylor and Burton's "real" life there in Sardinia must have been like. Did they throw tantrums when their whims went unsatisfied, or was it the opposite? I'll have to leave the answer to the biographers. But this film makes it impossible not to imagine them all there in Italy, trying with desperation NOT to be what they were portraying. That is what makes the film intriguing.