Those 70s Shows
May 13, 2016 9:14 PM   Subscribe

Every 70s Movie: The Best, The Worst, The Weirdest, and Everything in Between. A new review a day since October 2010.
posted by MoonOrb (37 comments total) 48 users marked this as a favorite
 
Reading from most recent backwards, I see we are into some pretty deep cuts. I grew up in the seventies and I have seen many, many hundreds of movies, but I had to go the better part of a dozen before I got to one I had even heard of (The Devils) and about forty in before I found one I had seen (Somewhere In Time).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:25 PM on May 13, 2016


Man, with so many of these I can only read the title in my head with a slightly muffled movie trailer voice: Shirley MacLaine in The Possession of Joel Delaney, rated R
posted by teponaztli at 9:31 PM on May 13, 2016


Say what you will about Tarantino, he does know his movies.

Actually a good friend of mine is a film archivist who specializes in 70s exploitation cinema, and I bet he has prints/negatives for a lot of these titles. It is thanks to him that I have seen more than a few of these. I wonder if he knows about this blog.
posted by teponaztli at 9:38 PM on May 13, 2016


I always recommend The Taking of Pelham One Two Three as the quintessential New York in the 70s movie. It came out in 1974, but I saw it in Times Square on New Year's Eve 1975 in a double bill with Three Days of the Condor. A total peak 70s moment.
posted by maggiemaggie at 10:24 PM on May 13, 2016 [16 favorites]


I grew up in the seventies and I have seen many, many hundreds of movies, but I had to go the better part of a dozen before I got to one I had even heard of (The Devils) and about forty in before I found one I had seen (Somewhere In Time).

I had to look some of them up to confirm that I wasn't looking at a kin of liartownusa.
posted by bongo_x at 10:54 PM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is fantastic.
posted by mazola at 11:21 PM on May 13, 2016


Dammit, I have to go to bed.

Three more. Then bed.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:10 AM on May 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


How does the writer even get a hold of all these films? Does he watch them all?
posted by mary8nne at 3:05 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm glad he did this, but I do not enjoy reading the black-on-dark-gray type.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:10 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wow, this is a time sink alright. It's the writing of Peter Hanson, the man behind Tales from the Script, a documentary that I recommend without hesitation to anyone really interested in filmmaking.

These reviews definitely have some succinct and accurate humor:
is The Stunt Man a confused endeavor at war with itself, or a brilliant fusion of disparate elements? Yes.

Unlikely as it may seem, Saturn 3 was directed by Stanley Donen of Singin’ in the Rain fame, and to say that he’s got no feel for horror and/or sci-fi is to make a great understatement.

As should be apparent by now, The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go is befuddling, incoherent, and random from its first frame to the last. Whereas some WTF movies bewitch viewers by functioning as windows into other planes of consciousness, The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go is merely a compendium of bad ideas that didn’t merit exploration.

And he doesn't even spoil The Wicker Man for readers! How nice of him. My only beef is that I'm crazy about Cassavetes' films and he straight up hates 'em, but I reckon intelligent people can disagree. This is an excellent resource. Thank you, sincerely.
posted by heatvision at 5:10 AM on May 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


He is oddly down on one of my favorite movies, Colossus: The Forbin Project. I think there's a little too much 21st century in his take on the technology (this was almost 20 years before Verner Vinge coined the word Singularity) and Eric Braeden's wooden performance, like Christopher Walken's performance of Dr. Brace in Brainstorm was perfect for a character who thought he was in control of everything.

Abrasive, cruel, rude, and vulgar, A Clockwork Orange is so excessive that watching the movie for the first time is like getting bludgeoned, but it’s also one of the few truly unique narrative features ever made. Okay, check.

Every frame of The Man Who Fell to Earth is depressing and weird -- can't argue with that

And sure enough, writer-producer-director John Boorman’s sci-fi epic Zardoz is so earnest about delivering laughably nerdy futuristic concepts and visuals that it’s entertaining despite itself. Wait, what? I actually liked Zardoz for my own reasons but don't you lose your film crit license for saying anything nice about it?

THX 1138 may not be essential ’70s cinema, per se, but it’s easily among the smartest sci-fi movies of the decade. Wait, what?

Furthermore, as one of only three featues Lucas directed prior to his late-’90s resurgence, it’s a milestone in one of Hollywood’s most important careers. Okay, that explains something I think...
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:28 AM on May 14, 2016


Whelp. There goes my weekend. Thanks MoonOrb!
posted by valkane at 5:49 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


He is oddly down on one of my favorite movies, Colossus: The Forbin Project

I love that film too and always thought that the acting was great. There's been talk of a remake for years but I'm sure that they'd make a hash of it and tack on a Hollywood ending.
posted by octothorpe at 6:18 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


When I read The Bears and I as a kid it made me cry. Never saw the movie and never will.
posted by Splunge at 6:20 AM on May 14, 2016


This is fantastic. I've found so many movies that I watched when I was a kid (far too young!) that have existed on the edges of my memory without a name until now. 'Golden Needles' scared the crap out of me!

Thanks for posting, this is so good, I've been compulsively going through the movies as listed in alphabetical order for about 3 hours so far.
posted by h00py at 6:56 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


don't you lose your film crit license for saying anything nice about it?

No, at least not in my book. Sometimes critics like to pile on a film in a simplistic way and Zardoz is one of those films (Batman vs Superman is a contemporary example). That's not to say a movie might not have problems or is not outright terrible but for me, a critic who can overcome such critical peer pressure and give me something novel or at the very least their own take on a film is way more interesting to read, even if I don't agree with it, then "hurr hurr Sean Connery is dressed funny" type movie reviews. My cursory read of these reviews in the OP definitely has piqued my interest and will check them out. Another reviewer, that I like, who mines the "deep cuts" of the exploitation of the past is www.bleedingskull.com. He hasn't steered me wrong.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:03 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I thought that I knew a heck of a lot about '70s films but this guy has found some serious deep cuts.
posted by octothorpe at 7:30 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh good, they reviewed Across 110th Street, currently my favorite gritty 1970's New York crime movie.
posted by marxchivist at 7:34 AM on May 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


> THX 1138 may not be essential ’70s cinema, per se, but it’s easily among the smartest sci-fi movies of the decade. Wait, what?

Which part are you disagreeing with? I think the whole sentence is accurate.
posted by languagehat at 7:40 AM on May 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Great site. The reviews of the bad movies are hilarious. Thanks!
posted by freakazoid at 7:49 AM on May 14, 2016


This is the kind of site I could lose a season of my life to. But, because it matters to me having spent all of my teen years in the 1970s, the RATINGS terms (right side bar, near the top) need to be rated:

OUTTA SIGHT: Essential -- never used this term. We would say "far out", but only with tongue somewhat in cheek (riffing on Cheech and Chong).

RIGHT ON: Exceptional -- this got a little use but it would mostly be "right FUCKIN on"

GROOVY: Solid -- a joke by the time I was twelve (hint: if it was considered a "cool" on the Brady Bunch, it wasn't cool, strictly for pre-teens and square adults).

FUNKY: You Might Dig It -- funky either referred to music or something that was a bit run down (ie: same as today).

LAME: Bad Scene, Man -- lame actually got used a lot, and in this context. But nobody said bad scene past about 1972.

SQUARE: Unwatchable -- seldom heard in this context past say 1972, but square was used as a way to clarify that an adult did not get it.

FREAKY: Demented -- accurate.

What's missing? Two words instantly come to mind. Cool and variations (ie: fucking cool), wild and variations (ie: absolutely fucking wild).
posted by philip-random at 10:25 AM on May 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


I've been checking out this blog for a couple years, envious of his apparent access to films I don't have.

I absolutely agree with THX1138 being among the smartest sci-fi movies of the decade. To this day, really.

And I think Zardoz is a severely underrated sci fi work. It routinely gets scorned because it is so very weird. But this is a feature rather than a bug when it comes to imaginative and creative science fiction. Zardoz presents a world that is as unrecognizable and bizarre to us, as today would have been to someone from a millennia ago. Compare that with the big sci fi movie of the 70s, which presents a universe easily recognizable to moviegoers of the time, simply transposed to a space-faring age for novelty.

If anything, I feel kind of sorry for Hanson, having to sit through some truly shitty waste of time movies.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:48 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


philip-random;

I agree with your analysis 100%, it's weird but so common I didn't even comment on it.

This is a thing I find fascinating, how incredibly quickly history gets warped. Surely that guy is old enough to know? Those terms seemed as old and funny to me as a kid in the 70's as they probably do to kids today. That was hippy shit, we weren't interested in hippy shit.

Cool, boss, bitchin', kick-ass, fuckin'-A.
posted by bongo_x at 10:58 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


And I think Zardoz is a severely underrated sci fi work. It routinely gets scorned because it is so very weird. But this is a feature rather than a bug when it comes to

... that movie that just happens to be on late night TV as you're coming down from your first ever acid trip, which has been a blast, but nobody told you about the can't-get-to-sleep-for-hours part.
posted by philip-random at 11:05 AM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


OMG, McQ! I saw the Duke hisself walk through the line at the Harborview Cafeteria. Tall, sunburned and besporting an ill-fitting toupee, he called my friend Patricia 'little lady.'

And all those car chases under the pillars of I-5. Who could forget those ?
posted by y2karl at 11:50 AM on May 14, 2016


And I think Zardoz is a severely underrated sci fi work. It routinely gets scorned because it is so very weird.

Zardoz is a movie about an after-the-singularity world where aristocratic posthumans are trapped by their inflexible support AI into living lives they no longer want to live. IN NINETEEN SEVENTY FUCKING FOUR.

Saturn 3 also has a pretty good movie lurking underneath its silly shell.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:09 PM on May 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


THX1138 was a very smart movie, to be sure, but it was also a noncommercial pretentious art movie. It shared a decade with Forbin, Capricorn One, Zardoz, Saturn 3, Silent Running, Westworld and Futureworld, Logan's Run, Alien, Soylent Green, Solaris, The Man Who Fell to Earth, the whole Planet of the Apes series, The Andromeda Strain, and Dark Star, all of which were also very smart and all of which are still remembered even though their directors didn't go on to create Star Wars.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:47 PM on May 14, 2016


And now my Netflix queue is full again.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:51 PM on May 14, 2016


I was pretentious as they come back in high school, and by the time I was
16 mostly went to see foreign and art-house films. Looking forward to reading
Hanson's reviews of films by directors like Lina Wertmuller, Eric Rohmer, later
Truffaut and Goddard, Eric Rohmer, Fassbinder, Denis Arcand, Margarethe von Trotta,
and others.
posted by morspin at 12:51 PM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Those terms seemed as old and funny to me as a kid in the 70's as they probably do to kids today. That was hippy shit, we weren't interested in hippy shit.

But the people watching these movies at the time weren't kids, they were in their 20s and 30s, and so more likely to use slightly-older slang.

If you're going to use '70s kid words for "cool," you can't ignore FOXY!
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 4:13 PM on May 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh man, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, that was my dad's favorite movie back then.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 PM on May 14, 2016


I ♥ 70s movie posters.
posted by mazola at 1:07 AM on May 15, 2016


Oh this is so so so great.
posted by zardoz at 4:53 AM on May 15, 2016


Cool, boss, bitchin', kick-ass, fuckin'-A.

Jesus man be careful with that stuff. I had a whole-body convulsion of twitches reading that line.
posted by nom de poop at 5:39 AM on May 15, 2016


Wait, I just realized that he's done one a day since 2010. That's more than a little terrifying and considering how rare a lot of there are, impressive.
posted by octothorpe at 8:03 AM on May 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I've been reading them pretty much continuously since yesterday morning, and I'm only back to January, 2015. So it's looking like I've got at least until Wednesday, maybe Thursday. Which I am totally okay with.
posted by valkane at 10:40 AM on May 15, 2016


Holy Hell, I've seen The Gauntlet many times but I've never seen this Frazetta poster for it. Eastwood as Conan!
posted by octothorpe at 10:22 AM on May 17, 2016


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