New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.

Follow Me

• The Innkeepers ***1/2
• The Woman in Black ***
• The Grey ***
• Man on a Ledge ***
• Underworld Awakening **
• Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos ***
• Haywire ***
• Beauty and the Beast ****
• Contraband ***
• The Divide *
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ****
• The Devil Inside **
• The Iron Lady **
• A Separation ***
• Pariah ***1/2
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ***
• The Darkest Hour **
• War Horse **1/2
• In the Land of Blood and Honey **
• The Adventures of Tintin ***1/2
• More

• Adaptation
• Dream House
• Drive
• Frida
• The Magnificent Ambersons
• Malcolm X
• The Mill and the Cross
• The Moment of Truth
• Outrage
• The Piano
• The Thing
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• 2011: The Year's Best DVDs and Blu-Rays
• More

• 2011: The Year's Best Films
• Year's Best DVDs and Blu-Rays
• San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards
• Interview: Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender
• Interview: Simon Curtis
• Interview: Werner Herzog
• Interview: John Cho
• Interview: Roland Emmerich
• Interview: Stephen Bishop on Moneyball
• Interview: Nick Swardson
• Interview: Lynn Hershman Leeson
• Interview: Lone Scherfig
• Interview: Jesse Eisenberg & Aziz Ansari
• Interview: Wayne Wang
• Interview: Andre Ovredal on 'Trollhunter'
• Interview: Ewan McGregor & Mike Mills
• Interview: Kelly Reichardt (Examiner link)
• The 54th San Francisco International Film Festival - 2011 Coverage
• Interview: Emma Roberts
• Rainn Wilson & James Gunn (Examiner link)
• Interview: Tom McCarthy
• Interview: Abigail Breslin (Examiner link)
• 2010: The Year's Best Films
• 2010: The Year's Best DVDs & Blu-Rays
• Interview: Sofia Coppola
• Interview: George A. Romero
• The Decade's Ten Best Films: 2000-2009
• My Top 100 Films [Updated]
• My Top 60 Directors [Updated]
• Christmas Movies
• Essential Halloween & Horror Movies
• Cult Movies
• Actress Interview Gallery
• More Features and Interviews

• Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, by Alonso Duralde
• Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone
• James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee
• Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis
• More Books

• Home
• Reviews A-C
• Reviews D-F
• Reviews G-J
• Reviews K-M
• Reviews N-Q
• Reviews R-T
• Reviews U-Z

The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

SEARCH MOVIES / CELEB

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

It's OK with Me

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Long Goodbye on DVD

MGM's widescreen transfer of this great classic was one of the great pleasures of this DVD year. Director Robert Altman took on a Raymond Chandler novel and re-set it in the 1970s with a shabby Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) living in a world of hippies, stoners and freaks. He agrees to help out a friend accused of killing his wife and ends up meeting the drunken, Hemingway-esque writer Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden, in a great performance). Altman further turns the genre on its ear with his audacious ending. Uber-composer John Williams turned in one of his most unique scores here: a series of endless variations on the same tune (Muzak, blues, etc.). Future governer of California Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in an early, unbilled role as a thug.

The disc contains two short featurettes and a trailer.

Starring: Elliot Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, David Arkin, Jim Bouton, Warren Berlinger, Jo Ann Brody, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Written by: Leigh Brackett, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler
Directed by: Robert Altman
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 112 minutes
Date: December 5, 2002