The Sterile Cuckoo [Blu-ray]

I feel in love with this movie while still in high school (1972) and it is one of my favorites. There are so many good scenes that it would take forever to list them. But two stand out and are the best in the film. The scene where Pookie and Jerry are going to have sex for the first time is sweet and honest and absolutely hysterical. Liza's telephone scene ranks up there with Louise Rainer's in "The Great Ziegfeld" and Barbra Streisand's in "The Way We Were". It will tug at your heart strings like no other scene in any movie in recent years. Liza should have beat out Maggie Smith for the OSCAR for this one for which she was nominated. A wonderful movie with laughs, tears, good music and incredible performances. Please bring this to DVD PLEASE!!!

Film review: THE STERILE CUCKOO HITS A HIGH NOTE!
Since no one has seemed to write a review on this wonderful movie, I thought I would like to have a chance.
I first heard about "The Sterile Cuckoo" way back in 1969-70, when it first came out. It was popular, I read a bit and heard alot about it, but never saw the movie. Not until December 17, 1988, on television, on my old Black & White Sylvania television set! Believe me, it was love at first sight! The music, the scenery! And imagine, in the summer of 1988, just some months before, I was up in the area where they filmed it!!!!! YoWWWWWW! I was visiting a friend up in Herkimer, New York. We were in the Clinton area, and Linda said to me, "oh, there's the bell/clock tower that was in the "Sterile Cuckoo". I just said "oh how nice", and that was about it. If I only knew, I would have freaked out, and then proceed on a nostalgic tour of the "Sterile Cuckoo"!!!! (IT WAS LARGELY FILMED AT HAMILTON COLLEGE)
But I digress....
I think that if they had made a sequel to the "Sterile Cuckoo", Pookie Adams would have become a successful writer. Remember her saying on the bus that she will read "anything, anywhere, anytime"?
A sensitive person like Pookie would have become a writer. She would have found her place in life. I would like to think that she did. I kind of get her drift when she calls people "creeps and wierdos". I don't blame her at times. Everyone is so into being the same at times, they don't get the people who are interesting and individual. And it can get frustrating, because they don't even want to try. Jerry (Wendel Burton's character) did or at least tried. I am sorry he did not carry through his commitment to her. I don't understand why. So she got drunk at that college party?? Everyone else did. She kind of went over board on the comments about her fellow college students. (Nancy Putnam and her plastic surgery)But that's the way it goes sometimes.
In all, the story is great, but what is the best part is the GORGEOUS SCENERY, and THE AWESOME MUSIC!!!!! Those two things haunt me endlessly. My hat off to Mr. Alan Pakula, the director of this movie. I am sorry You are gone. You are missed, and will forever be in our hearts as a great director. Thank You.~~~definitedoll

In my review of 'Cabaret', I rather rashly claimed that Liza's turn as self-destructive Ingenue Sally Bowles was her 'once-in-a-lifetime' performance. That, however, was before I caught this 1969 Gem, 'The Sterile Cuckoo', on Sky Classics.

Beautifully-directed by Alan Pakula in that strange, isolated, stereotypical 1960's-flick style, 'The Sterile Cuckoo' tells the bittersweet, emotionally macabre tale of anally-retentive college freshman Jerry Payne (Wendell Burton), and his intense relationship with the scatterbrained, maniacal Pookie Adams (Liza Minnelli), an enigmatic and energetic girl with a sad past.

Liza's first Oscar nomination was very thoroughly deserved. Even as late as 1969 the Oscars were not yet the meaningless PR-Fest that we now know them to be, and it's nominations for odd, thought-provoking performances like Minnelli's, here, that restores our faith in that system. She's absorbing and heart-wrenching, infuriating and devastating, all at the same time. Her perfect foil comes in the guise of the extremely skillfull performance turned in by Wendell Burton, in the role of her hapless boyfriend Jerry. He's the ideal contrast to Minnelli's mania, and though we are oftentimes infuriated by his apathy, we can't help but simultaneously sympathise with him.

Pakula's direction is excellent. The vistas are beautiful; simple and isolated, with so much 'New England' jumping from the screen as to make you all but feel the leaves crunching beneath your feet. The sparse countryside, punctuated by violent outbursts of colour, is the perfect metaphor for the central relationship, and Pakula makes extremely clever use of this in the scenes of Pookie and Jerry's early relationship.

A classic slice of 60's ideal surrealism, this is a beautifully-crafted, emotionally absorbing movie that REALLY should be on DVD by now. Highly recommended.