TV/Movies Megathread

[Syt]

My temptation is generally to treat 67-76 as something of a dark age,

Godfather 1+2, Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, Exorcist, The Sting, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Midnight Cowboy ... total black hole.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, I need to watch the Godfathers again.  Didn't like 'em as a kid, never came back.  But I should, because--actually, I don't know why.  There are tens of thousands of movies I've never seen.  So "cultural pressure," I guess.

I specifically said the Exorcist isn't very good.  I mean, like it if you want, it's a free country, but I just don't think I especially care for Friedkin.

Clockwork Orange is British.  Filmed in Britain, starring Brits, directed by a more-or-less Brit (he didn't die here, anyway), only with some American money and an American distributor.  And Kubrick is Kubrick anyway.  Even leaving aside the tautology, he's not a New Hollywood director in any shape or form.  So a movie is in the English language, has a rape in it, and was made in the 1970s?  Pretty broad net.

Midnight Cowboy is fine, iirc.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an oversight, and a valid point.

The Sting I've never seen, though apparently it made like a billion dollars or something adjusted for inflation.

[Ideologue]

Also, yes, Network is 76.  Went by memory and made a mistake.

[celedhring]

Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Jaws, Rosemary's Baby, Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid...

And that's without even getting into non-American films.

[Admiral Yi]

You are a ferocious knucklehead Ide.

[katmai]

You are a ferocious knucklehead Ide.

you are too kind to him.

[Maladict]

2001, Once upon a time in the west, Planet of the Apes

[Ideologue]

Kubrick, an Italian movie, and a 1968 sci fi film starring young new face Charlton Heston: New Hollywood!

Also, it's not helping the case when everyone keeps repeating the goodmovies I've already mentioned.

Rosemarys Baby is ok, iirc.

[Syt]

Kubrick, an Italian movie, and a 1968 sci fi film starring young new face Charlton Heston: New Hollywood!

Also, it's not helping the case when everyone keeps repeating the goodmovies I've already mentioned.

Rosemarys Baby is ok, iirc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hollywood#List_of_notable_films

[Ideologue]

Kubrick, an Italian movie, and a 1968 sci fi film starring young new face Charlton Heston: New Hollywood!

Also, it's not helping the case when everyone keeps repeating the goodmovies I've already mentioned.

Rosemarys Baby is ok, iirc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hollywood#List_of_notable_films

OK, can we define our terms here?  I'm not going to say that every movie that came out between Bonnie and Clyde and Jaws sucks.  I'm also not enthusiastic about calling every English language movie that came out between Bonnie and Clyde and Heaven's Gate "New Hollywood."  At the very least, it should not be made by foreigners in a foreign country, like Kubrick's or Leone's movies; after all, Toshiro Mifune showing up in Grand Prix does not make it a Japanese Golden Age film to be categorized alongside, say, Samurai Rebellion.

I'm not saying that creation by the younger, hipper directors of the day means something sucks either.  I've not seen every movie made by young directors from 1967 and 1980 (or 1976, when it was Spielberg Time).  I've not seen but a sample.  And I even like or love many of them, but as a general rule the alleged super-classics are not as good as even obscurer films from the first thirty years of sound, nor as a class do they stand up to the 1980s, 90s, and beyond.  The latter is less empirical, since I was around to watch movies in those decades, so I caught things that might've fallen through the film-historical cracks.  But my ongoing survey of pictures through the 30s, 40s, and 50s--the well-named Golden Age--makes a strong and overwhelming comparison versus the 60s and 70s.

What I'm communicating is an impression: that while it may have been a "renaissance" in terms of the previous five years--the middle years of the 60s were a very bad time economically and artistically--but calling it a "renaissance" in comparison to the decade barely gone makes no sense.  Hitchcock, Kubrick, Arnold, Wilder, Huston, Wyler, Donen, DeMille!  (And since we're counting Britain apparently, Dearden!)  So you think Bonnie and Clyde or The Graduate or The Conversation or even Taxi Driver are better movies than Ace in the Hole or The Ten Commandments or Dial M For Murder or The Killing?  Reasonable minds can differ, and I certainly differ on that.

I'm also trying to communicate that the films from the 70s that I do really enjoy have a more Golden Age style, pace, and writerliness to them, rather than the inarticulate, gritty languor of a Bonnie and Clyde or French Connection.

(I'm almost entirely unversed in the Japanese and French/Euro New Waves, but I've initially begun to perceive the same pattern.  It's new!  It's different!  It's exciting!  It lacks content and elevates form and attempts at mood over storytelling!  Hooray?)

Anyway, specifically speaking, Planet of the Apes is an iffy case, imo: it does have some kind of vague countercultural vibe, and Heston certainly transitioned himself into some kind of weird 70s sci-fi icon, but such is a day's work for the greatest actor of them all.  However, it was also directed and written by Golden Age people, not young turks.  It's in the same vein and nearly the same format as a Twilight Zone episode.  It's barely distinct from 1950s science fiction.  If it serves as a bridge into 1970s sci-fi, it's mainly because of Heston, if not entirely because that's just when it was chronologically made.  His other two big SF films are also more like Golden Age product, no matter how 70s they really are in content and theme.  Logan's Run and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are what I would go to if I wanted to point out the New Hollywood style influence on sci-fi--because they ask the all-important question, "How does this affect me, a Baby Boomer?"  (Also there's Star Wars, which might be the most consciously classicist film ever made.)

So why don't you folks shout at me some more?  That'll totally make me reevaluate my opinions rather than use them as sandbags.

Yeah, remind me again why he review films here?

Because fuck you, Boomer, that's why.  The Greatest Generation thinks you suck, and they are whom I and mine look up to, not your self-absorbed, pretentious lot.

[Ideologue]

[CountDeMoney]

Still doesnt change the fact you're a ferocious knucklehead.

[Ideologue]

I know you like Network, tho, you Goddamned humanoid.

[Admiral Yi]

I thought Network was contrived pap.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, but you're bound by oath to.