Author Topic: 70's US  (Read 17895 times)

verbALs

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9446
  • Snort Life-DOR
Re: 70's US
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2015, 01:00:15 PM »
When was that? Friday? Sorry I've got a short attention span.  ;D
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Antares

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 5013
Re: 70's US
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2015, 04:31:23 PM »
20. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)

Usually like Spielberg, but the last 30 or so minutes of this film are essentially meant to engineer a response which reduces the audience to the status of a child, filled with awe and wonder, jettisoning the complexity of Dreyfuss's earlier character moments and replacing them with a false sense of validation.

Great line. I've never liked this film, but could never put into words how I felt. This nails it because the ending of the film resembles a mobile set over an infant's crib. A lot of oohing and aahing fluff. Sadly, this is what plagues a lot of Spielberg's films.
Masterpiece (100-91) | Classic (90-80) | Entertaining (79-69) | Mediocre (68-58) | Cinemuck (57-21) | Crap (20-0)

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: 70's US
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2015, 10:51:34 PM »
I'm about halfway between liking and disliking the ending of Close Encounters. I really should revisit it as I don't really remember too much of the rest of the movie. What you say, roujin, has a note of truth to it based on my recollections, though.
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: 70's US
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2015, 01:06:52 AM »
I've always loved the final scenes of Close Encounter.  Until I watched The Special Edition, which added more lights and alien like things and an alien city... which added absolutely nothing.  I love fireworks as well as the next person, but really, it was so tedious in that cut.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

roujin

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 15508
  • it's all research
Re: 70's US
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2015, 12:26:28 PM »
Debating whether to include films I saw fairly recently (within the last two years) but before this project started. Should I rewatch those, too?

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: 70's US
« Reply #15 on: February 02, 2015, 04:38:23 PM »
If you already reviewed them, you should just repost the reviews here. If no words, it's like it was never viewed.  :P

roujin

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 15508
  • it's all research
Re: 70's US
« Reply #16 on: February 02, 2015, 08:45:10 PM »

21. The Spook Who Sat by the Door (Ivan Dixon, 1973)

Thought this would be a some blaxpoitation thing, which I guess it still is, but it’s actually a truly radical piece of political cinema. The film’s main character is trained by the CIA after the organization is told to integrate, but after a while he debunks in order to teach his black brothers and sisters how to become militarized and overthrow their white oppressors. And it’s completely serious. 40 years later and we’re still waiting.

★★★


22. The Lickerish Quartet (Radley Metzger, 1970)

A family of jaded continental Europeans spend all day lounging around in their huge castle. On the first night we join them, they sit around one of their living rooms, huddled around a projector, watching a b&w stag film. The dad provides running commentary (amused), the mom wonders how anyone could do this in front of a camera, while the son rages around them, disgusted at the whole notion. But soon the visions of the film begin to manifest themselves in real life. Doppelgangers pop up and, since this is a Radley Metzger film, start doing it with the family members. The film's best sequences are actually those hookups, as each one provides a window into how images/cinema can be used to satisfy our desires (the husband's episode counters his impotency, the son's is a blissful deflowering free of pain, confusion, consequences) Plus Metzger's editing patterns frequently suggest a discontinuity of events (we get glimpses of events, memories, during certain scenes), or rather a sense of being freeflowing, as if both everything and nothing happens all at once. Or maybe that our memories and desires are always with us, always waiting to be acknowledged or be fulfilled or something. Fascinating film.

★★★


23. Score (Radley Metzger, 1974)

A couple of swingers have a little competition going on - the wife thinks she can bed a shy, new bride under a certain time period. The husband on the other hand has his eyes on the husband. What follows is a good-natured sex comedy, where the acting is pretty stilted and awkward, the zooms are a-plenty, and the editing (specially in the finale) turns rather Roeg-like. Did I also mention that this is porn? Cuz I should probably put that out there at some point. The film is actually rather light on the sex stuff for most of its duration; it mostly consists of the wife/husband's attempts to exploit their targets and get them weak at the knees with something that they didn't know they wanted (tho the husband pretty much turns out to have been a little curious the whole time - when he was young he wanted to be a cowboy!) It's only during the film's final 20-minute spell that the audience actually sees the "goods," as it were (your rewards are explicit gay blowjob scene, sapphic cunnilingus and other surprises). It's a groovy time, made all the much better for the presence of some random telephone repair man named "Mike," who exists solely to party.

★★★


24. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974)

A bunch of old-timers, ruff, practical men who are puzzled/exasperated by broads in the workplace, diversity, minorities in positions of power, and that there are no wars in Africa to mine for profit. They get to bounce off each other for a couple of hours as the film cycles through its brutally efficient and satisfying plot mechanics. Of course, Matthau is a pleasure, the wheels turning in his mind, punchlines and smiles beautiful character grace notes; Robert Shaw is delicious, too, honorable in his own weird way, aware that his time may be up, and still utterly annoyed at these new people that he has to associate with. Sargent keeps things nimble, quick-footed enough that there are no lulls and that the audience has no time to question the complexity of its characters or anything. We simply keep moving and moving and moving, "gesundheit" and credits.

★★★


25. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974)

Warren Oates hang out in mexican bars, playing the piano, being the token gringo. Then a way out is introduced, an opportunity to leave the drudgery of an ordinary life. Oates ignores his girlfriend's wishes and gets down in the muck of violence and death, alcohol-fueled and gripped by mania. Another cynical classic in the vein of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Peckinpah delves into the psychosis and the bizarre tenderness of Oates' death pursuit with gusto, while also being acutely critical of the behaviors that got us to that place. A brutal, unflinching film; no weak bones, no weak moments. Get drunk, taste mud and blood, CINECAST! life, for this is a masterpiece.

★★★★

roujin

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 15508
  • it's all research
Re: 70's US
« Reply #17 on: February 02, 2015, 08:59:48 PM »

26. Busting (Peter Hyams, 1974)

Elliot Gould and Robert Blake are two roguish vice cops who pretty much do whatever they want. However, they got bosses and stuff and apparently those bosses are in the pockets of this one guy named Rizzo. Gould and Blake have ridiculously awesome chemistry (Gould with his mustache and gum and Blake with his unlit cigarettes) and walk around the world of the film like badasses, even after getting chewed out by Rizzo himself or their bosses or just random people. They're also probably irresponsible pricks (they instigate a shootout in a crowded market and a hospital). The whole thing's wholly un-p.c., too. There's a great scene where they're tasked to bust some random gay bar and some black queen stereotype tries to feel up Blake's character, which results in a hilarious brawl (the punchline to this entire scene is so hilarious). But what I think really makes it shine is Hyams' constantly inventive camera movement (backward tracks, circling around characters and/or spaces, a general fidelity to the scene). That coupled with the film's general sense of disillusionment with authority (the film's final freeze frame and voice over feels like a damning indictment of the way that institutions can simply wear some one down) makes it definitely worth tracking down. Also: great soundtrack.

★★★


27. Sisters (Brian De Palma, 1973)

This is one of the nuttier films I've seen in a while. One night stand turns nightmarish as the "sister" shows up, ready to play out your worst castration fantasies (not really) because of course the girl is horribly deranged (why wouldn't she be?). The film had me when it kept sliding further and further down into just bizarre shit. It's a hell of a lot less interesting when it's all about the girl across the way starts investigating all this. The film only really picks up again when we start getting into hypnosis and fake craziness and flashbacks embedded into fever dreams (it feels like you're going down the world's most CINECAST!ed up rabbit hole). All of which is pretty fun and creepy and unsettling, all things I enjoy.

Editor's Note: the beginning of the film is so hilarious. De Palma is pretty good with these sort of little autonomous clever sequences (the opening of Blow Out, music video in Body Double, I'm sure there are more examples).

★★


28. Cockfighter (Monte Hellman, 1974)

A series of crummy motel rooms, backroom deals, farms, still lives of country living, all inhabited by Warren Oates' silent hero, a man of wounded pride and of make-do ambition. It's a world populated by colorful characters: Harry Dean Stanton's friendly rival, Laurie Bird's scorned woman (who is ridiculous), slack-jawed yokels, hustlers, farmers, trainers, all out to make something of themselves. The cocks are avatars of their trainers, ready to fight out the economic struggles of their owners. Violent stuff, sure, but they're essential, for it highlights the disparity between lifestyles. Oates does what he does; he has no qualms about it, just work, money. But for outsiders, this is horrifying, brutal stuff, and the recoil is born of disappointment.

★★★


29. The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)

I've seen complaints regarding the film's opening hour or so online, regarding it as overly long and "when it will get to the point" and "hey I thought this was a Vietnam movie" and such. That's all nonsense. The film's opening hour pretty much wipes the floor with most of the films of the 70's, just by itself. Those slow rhythms are just wonderful. Nothing but drinking, dancing, camaraderie, all those goddamn rituals that I'm so uncomfortable with, but secretly wish to uphold and cherish. Just get shitfaced, man! This entire sequence is honestly just perfect. Where the film treads more dangerous and icky terrain is the Vietnam stuff. Yeah, all that stuff is complete fabrication, but I liked the Russian Roulette stuff as a metaphor for the craziness of war (and how this major event affects each character). I bought it, but your mileage may vary. A completely emotionally draining experience.

★★★★


30. Toys Are Not For Children (Stanley H. Brassloff, 1972)

Marcia Forbes' young, innocent girl keeps a couple of secrets from her fiancee. One, she has an obsessive relationship with the toys that her absentee father has gifted to her over the years. Another is that she masturbates using said dolls. On their wedding night, she suddenly goes all frigid and won't allow herself to be touched after the husband suggests that she put the toys away (she can't sleep without them). And this is just the start to the poor girl’s trials and tribulations. In a way, this is the ultimate Daddy Issues: The Movie. All of the main character’s anxieties and confusion get literalized in a series of extremely sleazy and uncomfortable sexytime scenarios, all of which are awesome and deeply CINECAST!ed up. The depths of scuzzy brilliance that this reaches seriously cannot be expressed. It also features one of my favorite credit sequences ever – a strange, plaintive theme song accompanied by images of toys fading into the hazy memories of an idealized father/daughter relationship that probably never existed. The young daughter being put to bed by her father dissolves into the young beautiful bride-to-be; it doesn’t get clearer than that.

★★★

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: 70's US
« Reply #18 on: February 02, 2015, 11:24:40 PM »
These continue to be interesting and informative reads. Would you go as far as to say that Busting makes you feel good?
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: 70's US
« Reply #19 on: February 03, 2015, 12:46:40 AM »
I was so disappointed in The Spook Who Sat by the Door . A great idea for a film, but it played like a Blank Panther speech re-enacted. I just didn't dig it.

I seem to find a recommendation for Busting every 6 months. I need like 5 of these films that I can marathon with smirnoff. Buddy Cop: The Beginning with Busting, Freebie and the Bean, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, Hickey & Boggs, and Partners.

Toys Are Not For Children looks and sounds interesting. Consider it on my radar.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2015, 12:50:04 AM by 1SO »

 

love