Tonight’s a Good Time for Bad Timing

When Nicolas Roeg’s film Bad Timing was first released in 1980, its distributor Rank Films disowned it. Now, you don’t typically think of movies as orphans, especially one that opens as promising as this one: a lovely couple (Art Garfunkel and Theresa Russell) examining a Klimt painting while Tom Waits...

By Jamie Laughlin

February 28, 2008

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When Nicolas Roeg’s film Bad Timing was first released in 1980, its distributor Rank Films disowned it. Now, you don’t typically think of movies as orphans, especially one that opens as promising as this one: a lovely couple (Art Garfunkel and Theresa Russell) examining a Klimt painting while Tom Waits rumbles away as accompaniment. Who would want to distance themselves from that? Well, the next scene involves an overdose, a tracheotomy, and a lot of lustful climaxing; yeah, this shit is hot. Bad Timing became one of the first sexual warfare films where obsession, passion, incompatibility, and adultery collide, leading to two people’s undoing.

Rank Films didn’t like that too much – perhaps it was the full-frontal or the necrophilia that put them over the edge? – which led to a spokesman for the company calling it “a sick film for sick people by sick people.” And since you and all of your friends fall into that audience category, you should check it out tonight at the Upper East Side Garden (7244 Biscayne Blvd., behind Divine Trash, Miami), the adorable Miami green space that shows cool, nearly-impossible-to-find-films (this one was finally released in the U.S. on Criterion). Thursday nights will soon become the best bargain of your week: Seven bucks gets you popcorn, a cocktail, and a movie. Toss a few more dollars in the donation bucket and get another cocktail and a round of artfully constructed putt-putt in the “Back Nine”. The garden opens at 5 p.m.; Bad Timing starts at 7. Visit http://web.mac.com/uppereastsidegarden.
Thu., Feb. 28, 7 p.m., 2008

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