Lets go to the 1970's! Reviewing some 70's Fun!

Oh 1970's, how I loathe you. But in all honesty, the 1970's is such a mixed bag of movies. Some are gritty hard boiled dramas with great run and gun styles while others are excruciatingly long winded and unfocused dramas which pain me to watch. Lets see what kind of 1970's movies I have seen thus far in 2022!

Hardcore (1979)

This film had a solid first half due to George C. Scott's great performance of a religious man who is searching for his daughter who has gone missing. The movie worked when he was forced to navigate the seedy underworld he believed his daughter had gotten mixed up in.

The second half falls flat due to the repetitive script, a poor performance by Season Hubley, and the forced happy ending.

Peter Boyle, who is a great actor, is unfortunately given nothing to do as the private investigator Scott hires who is absent for much of the film thereafter.

Coma (1978)

This is a good thriller that is elevated by some amazing cinematography and extraordinary stunt work as seen in the poster on the right.

Michael Crichton did it all, director, screenwriter, author, what a talent. Many will know him as the mind responsible for writing Jurassic Park, Sphere, Twister, Disclosure, and more!

This had a strong female perspective for much of the film up to the end where it resorted to having Michael Douglas be the hero instead of Genevieve Bujold which is a shame.

The Swarm (1978)

This could be a case study on how not to write a script. Plot points dropped without reason and any character development leads to a dead end.

Noteworthy special effects included some interestingly bad CGI that is balanced out with those moments where actors were impressively covered from head to toe in bees.

Decent performance by Henry Fonda here while Michael Caine is given nothing to do and somehow does less.

The Candidate (1972)

Great direction from Michael Ritchie, a clever nuanced script, and outstanding performances all around especially from Robert Redford and Peter Boyle. Watching Redford slowly become disillusioned to the political process was chilling especially with the contrast between his character and Boyle's who seems to have accepted the corrupt political system for what it is.

Really enjoyed the subtleties in this one including Redford's slow descent into becoming a philanderer who is unfaithful to his wife such that at one moment where he is needed at an important meeting we see women leaving his hotel room which is only shown in the background of the frame and no music is present to heighten the drama as if to show that this is commonplace in the political world.

This is one of the better political dramas that I have seen and I think it is especially relevant and compelling at a time when the 2024 United States Presidential Election is just around the corner. This one is worth watching.

This scene is my favourite moment in the film where Redford cannot hold his laughter in anymore as he has become fully aware of the charade the political system is and the fraud he is perpetrating to them in an effort to win an election.

Badlands (1973)

This is a great anti western with fascinating unemotional characters. Sheen plays a typical western outlaw but instead of praise he is pursued by police. However, once he is captured and his aimless life is given direction he becomes calm and mild tempered.

Sissy Spacek is phenomenal here as a naive girl who gets caught up in the bad boy craze until she eventually grows out of it and loses all interest in Sheen. The subdued tone and upbeat music all the while the criminogenic plot played out make for a confounding yet compelling viewing experience.

I imagine on repeat viewings more will be revealed, this is a complex and nuanced film well worth a watch and perhaps more thereafter.

American Graffiti (1973)

To me this seemed like a convoluted precursor to the films of John Hughes or a movie like Superbad in that it comes close to being a good coming of age story but fails to get out of its own way by juggling too many different genres in place of telling a coherent story.

Paul Le Mat who plays a sort of rugged outcast who is forced into ushering around the youthful and antagonistic Mackenzie Phillips all night long was the best part of the film. Seeing the pair go from badgering each other to finding common ground and companionship was heartwarming.

Richard Dreyfus’s endless charisma carried his scenes while his character arc in the film did not make much sense nor was it particularly interesting at times. His best moments come when he befriends a motorcycle gang and a philosophical disc jockey imparting words of wisdom.

The two storylines mentioned above were both engaging while Ron Howard’s scenes were entirely absent of any entertainment value and were a pain to endure. From his heartless character who is redeemed at the film’s end for no good reason to him being portrayed as the cool kid, it was all absurd and hard to take serious.

The striking Candy Clark befriending the nerdy Charles Martin Smith was a fun little story but again, and this is not a fault on the movie itself, it has been done many times over and while this may have been one of the first to do it it still was not very interesting.

Harrison Ford also makes a sort of cameo appearance here which is better to be forgotten as his performance was… it’s hard to describe such buffoonery. Point is, it’s bad, and I’m sure Harrison Ford would rather forget this performance in place of all his other starring roles.

The filmmaking technique of showing conversations out of car windows was clever. Ultimately, this is a decent ish movie with some great performances, fun moments, and a catchy soundtrack that is worth seeing if you have an interest in this time period or a film of this kind but otherwise may be better off forgotten.

One final note, the tacked on text crawl at the end of the film which shoved the movie into being a chilling pre Vietnam war drama felt very out of place in light of the goofy story being told and lacklustre character development. One of the stranger endings I can remember seeing.