ZARDOZ
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| Rated R
| | Copyright 1973 John Boorman Productions
| | Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 'a long time ago'
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- Zed - Sean Connery! The ultimate in human evolution, but still an "exterminator" who wishes to destroy the Eternal society. Dies of old age.
- Arthur Frayn - Eternal, a trickster who has orchestrated Zed's existence through selective breeding. Shot by exterminators.
- May - Eternal, their foremost scientist. This girl has a huge number of freckles, it's almost grotesque.
- Consuella - Eternal, she hates the male sexual organ, but falls in love with Zed for some reason. Dies of old age.
- Friend - Eternal, he is a prick. Shot by exterminators, that is all.
- Star - Eternal, she's the wiggy "meditate" sort. Shot by exterminators.
- The Eternals - Humans who never age, drawing their power from a mystic "tabernacle."
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Where can you find Sean Connery running around in a loincloth, worshipping a HUGE FLYING STONE HEAD (hehehehe!), being hounded by naked women, and battling immortals? The seventies baby, the seventies...
...oh boy, where do I start with this one? Zed begins as a total ape man, but in the end we discover he is the pinnacle of human evolution! Even turns back time at one point; it took me a few viewings to decide that was indeed what happened. So he starts off a Neanderthal man, but finds out Zardoz (the GIANT FLYING STONE HEAD) is really a construct used by other men to control his people. That pisses him off. Do not piss off Sean Connery in a loincloth.
Bent on revenge, he hides inside the head and travels to "Vortex Four" where the "Homo Eternals" live. After running into random naked woman number one (Star, and she's riding a horse?) he is captured by May. The Eternals can do this neat paralyze-brutals-with-my-eyes thing. The immortals decide to study him and his presence causes all sorts of problems in their already dysfunctional society. It seems people were not meant to be immortal. They go insane in some fashion after a time - becoming renegades or apathetics.
I liked the apathetics. Friend had a tendancy to just walk around screwing with them and Zed tries to have sex with one girl. She does not respond, it annoyes ape boy, and he shotputs her! Eventually Zed finds a way to destroy the Tabernacle and free his masters from the imprisonment of living. At the same time all of his exterminator friends show up and start shooting people. They love it (the people being shot). It is like a party; there's even a band playing (until somebody shoots them).
May, and a few choice women who Zed impregnated, escape to continue evolution while he and Consuella take refuge in a cave. After that we get a time lapse section: they have a kid, he grows up, he leaves, they turn into skeletons, the end. Still can not figure out how him and Consuella fell in love. She spends most of the movie being a feminist penis hater. Definately a well, creative film.
NOTE: I am sick and tired of people saying that I "did not get" this film. Apparently, you people have not watched the DVD with its commentary track. Want to know something? Boorman does not "get it" either. Most of the commentary consists of stuff like, "The head itself is a model." (duhhhhh) or, "She was really looking forward to being raped by Sean Connery." He also devotes an enormous amount of effort to talking about how little money they had for the production. The only major thought in this film is that people were not meant to live forever. If you like the movie, that is well and good. Trying to see more in it than the director is fooling yourself. |
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| Things I Learned From This Movie: | |
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- Having a disembodied head for your announcer is not a good start.
- Ammo can be a fashion statement.
- Your memories are from a third person perspective!
- Nets look pretty sexy on a girl.
- Erections sound like guitars.
- If you kiss a girl and she doesn't kiss back - SHOTPUT HER ASS!
- Immortality causes impotency.
- Human genetic structure looks like a jellyfish or euglena. (Oh stop looking at me and find a dictionary.)
- Flowers are an impassable barrier.
- Sean Connery looks pretty darn good in a wedding dress, sets a guy to thinking...
- People can remain in one place for sixty years.
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- 2 mins - OH YEAH? Who used a cheap marker to draw that ugly ass goatee on your face?
- 4 mins - It's a GIANT FLYING STONE HEAD!
- 11 mins - Why are those people vacuum wrapped?
- 18 mins - RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOT!
- 30 mins - Sean Connery just licked that guy's hand!
- 41 mins - RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST THE APATHETIC WOMAN!
- 44 mins - Naked female mud wrestling? They do have a superior culture...
- 53 mins - Man, thank goodness that scene is done with.
- 65 mins - RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST THE APATHETIC WOMAN!
- 79 mins - RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOTS!
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| | Audio clips in wav format | SOUNDS | Starving actors speak out | |
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| File | Dialog |  | zardoz1.wav
| Arthur Frayn: "I am Arthur Frayn and I am Zardoz. I have lived three hundred years and I long to die, but death is no longer possible, I am immortal."
| | zardoz2.wav
| Zardoz: "The gun is good."
(Exterminators chant back)
Zardoz: "The penis is evil, the penis shoots seeds."
(Silence from the chanting dudes now.)
| | zardoz3.wav
| May: "No brutal has ever penetrated a vortex. It therefore requires study."
| | zardoz4.wav
| Tabernacle: "Arthur Frayn died. Reconstruction has begun."
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| Click for a larger image | IMAGES | Scenes from the movie | |
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| | Watch a scene | VIDEO | MPEG video files | |
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 | zardoz1.mpg
- 3.1m
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| Zed just kissed this woman and she didn't respond so he is obviously wondering what is wrong. Friend tries explaining everything, but the only result is that our violent hero decides to shotput the poor woman!
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| | Leave a comment | EXTRAS | Buy the movie | |
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Re: Zardoz
Reply #81. Posted on December 15, 2007, 11:16:17 AM by indianasmith
This was definitely one of the strangest movies I've ever seen, Exhibit A in my argument that the 1970's were truly "The Decade Without Taste."
Exhibit B is Jimmy Carter.
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| Re: Zardoz
Reply #82. Posted on April 24, 2008, 03:37:42 PM by Bert
I love Zardoz a-lot. I used to work in a video store (circa 1984) and we had it. I ended up buying the VHS copy for $1 due to it NEVER getting rented. That copy got watched till the wheels fell off. I picked t up a few years ago on DVD and I've probably watched it 20-30 times since then. I'm always intrigued by films that have odd premises and Connery in a leather diaper is just a hoot! I've showed it to all my friends and most of them enjoyed the experience. Some were confused...but they're the ones that like Waterboy or Cruel Intentions. So, they don't count. I highly recommend Zardoz and I love your take on it! The timeline is a riot...
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| Re: Zardoz
Wierd movie, not the worst I ever saw, but one of the strangest.
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| Re: Zardoz
Reply #84. Posted on October 18, 2008, 11:27:15 PM by Giant Claw Jr
Sean Connery going from JAMES BOND to playing some doofus riding on a horse wearing a pampers while a big stone head floats around just how bad can it get?   |
| Re: Zardoz
Reply #85. Posted on February 19, 2009, 11:25:50 PM by qwerty
I saw parts of this 5 or 6 years ago and ever since I couldn't get it out of my mind. I don't know why. I don't think I like it or dislike it, but I'm drawn to it. I do happen to think that the women in this movie were incredibly hot, and I'm glad they showed their boobs  I plan to make my friends watch it. |
Re: Zardoz
Reply #86. Posted on March 12, 2009, 08:02:14 PM by ChewyMatty
I subcribe to the "gated community" reading of this movie but try and take it even further. We, the people of the western world, are the immortals, the ppl on the outside of the screen are the worlds poor like africans etc, and Zed represents ppl like saddam hussain, idi amin, etc. He is an agent of the rich to hold down the poor and keep the wolf from our door. The immortals who bring him in are like todays libs lol, who are sick of life and want the poor to overrun us, because in their minds its only fair.
Having said that, great movie. one of the best of all time .
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| Re: Zardoz
Reply #87. Posted on October 21, 2009, 12:26:39 PM by dartek
Kudos to you all and to all behold. This is a transcendent film by mere content alone. Who has dared unravel such a comprehensive and ambitious synopsis of the human psyche? Not since Wells and his Time Machine has their been such an exploration of "where does it all end"? To answer T.S. Eliot ... YES .. it would have been worthwhile. So apart from the wonderful cacophony of literary themes there remains a puzzle. What is that force that restored nature over the human species? For years I assumed Bormann was asserting God himself. If not then are we to conclude that nature will find a way to subject us as a species?
God .. could you imagine Burt Reynolds as Zed .. clearly Burt refused because he didn't understand any of the concepts ... Sean is very convincing as an Intellectual.
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