Can I Do It … Til I Need Glasses? (1977/Code Red/BCI Eclipse DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C Film: C
As a
follow up to his successful-enough If
You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind!!! in 1975, I. Robert Levy made Can I Do It … Til I Need Glasses? two
years later. The argument for this film
is that it is a counterculture comedy made of vignettes that are then-racy in
nature and certainly pre-AIDS in intent, serving as a time capsule of the time
long gone. Some will bash this film
while defending junk like Date Movie
and its imitators as justified as “they are supposed to be dumb” and their
ideas of sex far more idiotic than these films, with their rawer attitude.
No, it is
no masterwork and with it many racial and ethnic jokes, politically incorrect
as anything and goes much further in that respect than the new cycle of
overprocessed junk releases. Everyone is
an unknown, expect for a scene with Robin Williams that was re-added in a
reissue to steal audience from Robert Altman’s box office disappointment Popeye (1980) with Williams as the
famous sailor. It is a curio worth a
look if you are interested and I like the flow of barely related ideas, but we
have seen far worse from major studios in the same mode, whereas this was an
independent production and benefits from that.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft, though color can look good at
times and it is an interesting shoot.
However, this is too soft throughout and the film needs some more work. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is more compressed
than expected and may be a generation or tow down like the image, which is
supposed to originate in 35mm. A trailer
for this and other Code Red DVDs are the only extras, but they are interesting.
- Nicholas Sheffo
