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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 5, 2017 13:13:34 GMT -5
In 1977, Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as President of the United States, Apple went into business, and punk rock became commercially widespread. It was a time of unpredictable change. Peter Finch, Joan Crawford, Groucho Marx, Bing Crosby, and Charlie Chaplin died. Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Tom Hardy were born.
Though nobody could have known it, film, and Hollywood in particular, was at a crossroads. A decade earlier, the end of the Hays Code and a sudden increase of creative control by a new generation of professionally-trained directors– many of them political and artistic radicals– had radically transformed the American cinema in terms of artistry, technique, critical acclaim, and (most importantly for the studios who funded them) box office revenues.
But in 1977, things were changing. Conventional wisdom among some older cinephiles has long held that the aforementioned outpouring of artistic integrity was steamrolled by the likes of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg– men who embraced the Old Hollywood and (the horror) didn’t keep mistresses or drop acid! This attitude is often pushed forward by filmmakers like Peter Bogdanovich and Robert Altman, who were unable or unwilling to adapt to changing times, and perhaps misread why their own films had been popular. In reality, Lucas, Spielberg, and many filmmakers who made their debut in 1977 and soon after were part and parcel of the New Hollywood, and as a decade of experimentation steadily killed the novelty of sex and violence on American screens, and a nation bored of cynicism and despair yearned for new, unapologetic excitement, an industry answered.
Next Time: The Sentinel
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 7, 2017 12:59:46 GMT -5
The Sentinel
Dir. Michael Winner
Premiered January 7, 1977
The 1970s, it is well-known, was a golden age for horror movies. The Sentinel is not proof of that.
Based on a book by Jeffrey Konvitz and adapted for the screen by Konvitz and Death Wish’s Michael Winner, The Sentinel was purely an attempt by Universal Studios to copy the success of other, better films. The middle-class New York setting, creepy home environment, and a sexually charged nightmare all recall Rosemary’s Baby; the showbiz protagonist and overbearing Catholic imagery The Exorcist. But with its aimless, meandering plot, zero-dimensional characters, hokey expository dialogue, and tragic waste of vintage cheesecake, The Sentinel is most reminiscent of 1967’s so-bad-it’s-good classic Valley of the Dolls.
If asked what The Sentinel was about, I would have no choice but to recount the entire plot, as it doesn’t really have a story. Model Allison (Christina Raines) is inexplicably wary of moving in with her boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon), and so moves into a converted brownstone owned by the Catholic Church. Her upstairs neighbor is a blind invalid priest (John Carradine) who shouldn’t be any bother. But things start to go sideways when she gets to meet her eccentric other neighbors (Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles, and Deborah Raffin), and police (Eli Wallach and Christopher Walken) get involved when Allison is convinced that she’s stabbed her perverted father’s ghost in her new home.
Determined to help his beloved, Michael begins sleuthing, and makes a series of horrifying discoveries: not only are all of Allison’s neighbors convicted murderers, they’ve all been dead for years, and only she can see them! What’s more, the priest living in the attic was just a stranger who assumed the identity of a priest after a suicide attempt. And he’s part of a long line of randos who’ve assumed the identity of a priest and moved into that attic, dating all the way back to the Archangel Gabriel. Why? Because, of course, the building is a gateway to hell, and these priests are needed, as “sentinels,” to keep evil from escaping into the rest of the world! And Allison’s next!
If that sounded needlessly complicated, and you find yourself what any of these things have to do with each other, you’re not wrong. The Sentinel is mindlessly convoluted and random, all plot, much of it seemingly cobbled from other films, with no actual story or theme. The characters exist solely to deliver exposition and move the plot, and even then the film can’t settle on a protagonist. Allison is the subject of the film, but most of the time it’s Michael who moves everything along. Both of them are blank slates, but at least they have really long, complicated backstories with no bearing on the plot, as if that will make up for their total lack of personality. And while the film is mostly good-looking, it abandons any semblance of class for a laughably shoddy, rushed climax.
Finally, The Sentinel has no theme, no stakes. What made Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen great is that their supernatural horror was rooted in real fears: the fear of losing one’s mind, of being unable to trust anyone, fear for one's safety, or the safety of your child. There’s nothing genuine to be found here. What would it be? The universal fear of demonic character actor roommates coming to life and annoying you? Of vaguely foreign-accented lesbians masturbating at you? Of awkward, stilted conversations with police? Of being transfigured and mutilated into a nun or priest? Of Ava Gardner (who plays Allison’s realtor)? Yeah, real relatable.
Signs This Was Made in 1977
No women own bras. A realtor assumes Michael is gay because he’s good-looking, in spite of his engagement to Allison. While Allison’s desire to get her own apartment before planning to marry Michael is purely a plot contrivance, I can’t help but feel a subtle attempt by the film to pass this off as a mangled understanding of second-wave feminism.
How Did It Do?
The Sentinel was a non-technical flop, earning $4 million against a $3.7 million budget. Many of the film’s minor actors (Jerry Orbach, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken) went on to have far better careers than the film’s stars. Michael Winner went back to making Death Wish movies and becoming an inexplicable punchline for British comedians. If someone can explain that, be my guest.
Reviews for the film were scathing at the time. Time Out decried the film’s allegedly backwards sexual politics, which modern, post-AIDS audiences likely won’t ascertain (I barely saw what they were talking about, and I went to film school). More recent reviews have been increasingly positive, with the film currently holding a 58% rating on RottenTomatoes, but many of those reviews seem to enjoy the film for its camp value, and I don’t find it quite bad enough to enjoy ironically.
If The Sentinel had any influence whatsoever on popular culture, it wasn’t enough to stop an unrelated 2006 thriller from taking its name, or a TV show, or the robots from X-Men.
Next Time: Stroszek
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 7, 2017 20:24:20 GMT -5
Say what you will about discovering that you had to guard the gate of Hell, at least you'd know your day-to-day work was contributing something to the greater good. Beats working at Arby's.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Jan 8, 2017 8:35:27 GMT -5
The X-men sentinels pre-date this movie
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Post by MarkInTexas on Jan 9, 2017 12:37:24 GMT -5
Nice to see that, even 40 years ago, the first new film of the year was often a trashy horror movie, albeit with a much better cast than today's early-year horror movies usually have.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 9, 2017 17:17:52 GMT -5
Stroszek
Dir. Werner Herzog
Premiered January 12, 1977
Stroszek, I can definitively say, is the first film that I have had to review which I truly don’t get. I watched it with a friend who was a great fan and felt nothing but pure bewilderment. Nowhere in it do I find the Werner Herzog I know. No humanity, no triumph, no ambition. Only...this.
After being released from prison, Alcoholic Bruno Stroszek (Bruno Schleinstein) returns to the West Berlin apartment kept by his landlord Mr. Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz) and fails to make a living as a street performer in the economically depressed town. He allows his friend and ambiguous love interest, a prostitute named Eva (Eva Mattes) to stay with him, but this only puts both of them in the crosshairs of Eva’s pimps. Despondent, the two join Mr. Scheitz as he retires with his American nephew (Clayton Szlapinski) in Wisconsin.
There, Bruno works in the nephew’s garage, Eva works as a waitress but returns to prostitution to make ends meet, and Mr. Scheitz pursues an interest in animal magnetism but becomes convinced that there’s a conspiracy against him. Unable to pay their bills, their trailer is repossessed. Finally, Bruno steals a tow truck, sets it on fire, and a chicken dances. The end.
You see what I have to deal with? I understand what Herzog was going for, that Bruno’s hopes and dreams were ultimately unfounded, but I don’t see why that should play out as it does. I really don’t get the chicken thing. But Harmony Korine likes it, so yay? I didn’t hate it, but it’s my least favorite Werner Herzog film of the eight I’ve seen.
Signs This Was Made in 1977
Berlin is a cultural and economic wasteland. Bruno, in his mid-forties, recalls growing up under Hitler.
How Did It Do?
Like many if not most films for this project, I was unable to find any information about Stroszek’s finances, but I suspect it had a very small budget and was able to make it back. It is the first film in this series to receive a whopping 100% rating on RottenTomatoes, but not the last. Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis hung himself while watching it. I still don’t get it.
Next Time: Pumping Iron
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 10, 2017 13:18:30 GMT -5
After being released from prison, Alcoholic Bruno Stroszek (Bruno Schleinstein) returns to the West Berlin apartment kept by his landlord Mr. Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz) and fails to make a living as a street performer in the economically depressed town. He allows his friend and ambiguous love interest, a prostitute named Eva (Eva Mattes) to stay with him, but this only puts both of them in the crosshairs of Eva’s pimps. Despondent, the two join Mr. Scheitz as he retires with his American nephew (Clayton Szlapinski) in Wisconsin.
There, Bruno works in the nephew’s garage, Eva works as a waitress but returns to prostitution to make ends meet, and Mr. Scheitz pursues an interest in animal magnetism but becomes convinced that there’s a conspiracy against him. Unable to pay their bills, their trailer is repossessed. Finally, Bruno steals a tow truck, sets it on fire, and a chicken dances. The end.
"Terrifically, spontaneously funny!" - Vincent Canby, apparently a pretty sick bastard. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 10, 2017 13:39:38 GMT -5
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 10, 2017 13:45:28 GMT -5
The wife and I have been watching Herzog documentaries pretty regularly over the last couple of months, so I can believe it. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 12, 2017 22:19:30 GMT -5
Pumping Iron
Dir. Robert Fiore and George Butler
Premiered January 18, 1977
Noted for its introduction of future action star and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the wider world, 1977’s Pumping Iron is regarded by an overwhelming number of critics as one of the foremost documentaries of the 1970s. If that truly is the case, I’m not looking forward to other docs in this project, because I found it to be a singularly mediocre, uninvolving film.
As uncomfortable as I am criticizing any movie for its subject, said subject made me squirm even more. My father once told me that weightlifters lift weights and bodybuilders look at themselves in the mirror, and Pumping Iron does nothing to dispell that statement, because whereas weightlifting is an Olympic sport, bodybuilding is shown to be the stuff of glorified beauty pageants, such as “Mr. Olympia ’75,” where a young Brooklyn upstart named Lou Ferrigno challenges young Mr. Schwarzenegger for his multiple-year championship. Ferrigno is likable enough, but most of the other competitors evince a litany of overcompensating vanity-related complexes. I’m sure there’s someone else who could talk about the aftermath of the Vietnam War and its toxic impact on American masculinity, but this would be a perfect example.
The film’s choice to depict bodybuilding so uncritically is as ineffective as it is discomforting. Hovering stylistically between exploitation film and television advertisement, Pumping Iron feels as inoffensive and reassuring as a One Direction concert movie. There is a constant air of desperation and mental illness that is never addressed, as if the film were to be credited on the strength of beefcake alone. Forty years on, this comes feels even sleazier than if directors Robert Fiore and George Butler had done a hatchet job. Pumping Iron is currently on Netflix, and while anthropologically interesting, I wouldn’t say it’s worth your time. My key rubric for a documentary is whether it gets me interested in the subject, if only for ninety minutes, and this certainly didn’t.
Signs This Was Made in 1977
Avowedly heterosexual men marvel unselfconsciously at the near-nude male form.
How Did It Do?
Pumping Iron garnered a 96% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes. I couldn’t find information on its grosses, but with a budget of $1 million and a fond memory that lives on today, I suspect it did well. Would that data from before 1981 were more comprehensive and publicly available; I would’ve loved to see the demographic breakdowns on this thing.
Lou Ferrigno parlayed his reputation from the film into a television career as The Incredible Hulk. Of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a Hollywood fixture ever since. And director George Butler, who is still alive, received a premature memorial in 2008 on Charlie Rose, because Charlie Rose.
Next Time: Operation Thunderbolt
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 13, 2017 11:12:33 GMT -5
To me the oddest thing about Pumping Iron is how.... not quite there Ferrigno seems. Like, he's nice and all, but I remember him just seeming kind of dumb. Ahnuld's hella charismatic though (and an asshole.)
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 14, 2017 14:03:46 GMT -5
Operation Thunderbolt
Mivtsa Yonatan
Dir. Menahem Golan
Premiered January 27, 1977
In June of 1976, Palestinian Terrorists led by radical German Communist guerillas hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris, embarking en route in Athens, and took the plane first to Benghazi and then to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, then ruled by friendly dictator Idi Amin. After allowing all non-Jews to leave, the terrorists demanded the release of dozens of convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel as ransom. Neither hijackings nor hostage situations nor anti-Israeli terror were unfamiliar in the 1970s, but this was the most daring– and most famous of all. Equally famous was the rescue mission by Israeli paratroopers, whose leader, the military hero Jonathan Netanyahu, was killed in action.
The Israeli film industry, under the direction of national auteur Menahem Golan, immediately went to work dramatizing the events. The budget was limited and production was rushed. Even then, the Israelis were beaten to the punch by two star-studded made-for-TV movies in America, one of which air just eighteen days before the release of this film: Operation Thunderbolt.
In the same spirit as Moustapha Akkad’s contemporary Muhammad biopic The Message, Operation Thunderbolt was filmed twice: a multilingual but mostly Hebrew-language version, and a shot-for-shot rendition entirely in English; I opted to see the former, since it was the more famous of the two, though I watched it unsubtitled. The aforementioned low budget and rushed production are plain to see: the film was shot on super 16mm film, in a 4:3 aspect ratio, Idi Amin (Mark Heath) has a distinctly American accent while the bulk of his army look suspiciously like Ethiopian Jews.
At the same time, Operation Thunderbolt is easily the most visceral depiction of the Entebbe Raid that I know of. While every such rendition makes reference to the Holocaust, then well within living memory, Golan’s framing feels way more lived-in. When blond Germans with machine guns (Klaus Kinski and Sybil Danning) are ordering Jews to separate from other passengers (the French crew bravely refusing to leave them), and emphatically speak only German to a tattooed survivor, no introduction is necessary.
Operation Thunderbolt also uniquely explores the internal politics at the time. Nearly half the film is dedicated to goings on in Israel, such as the military’s preparation for the raid while the press and general public are necessarily left in the dark (several leading politicians appear through the use of archival footage and stand-ins). Easily the weakest link is the portrayal of Netanyahu (Yehoram Gaon). As the great fallen hero of the day, he gets less characterization than any other speaking character, an obvious pitfall of making the film so soon after the events that inspired it. Otherwise, though, the film is poignant and engaging, if you’re willing to look past a few production shortfalls.
Signs This Was Made in 1977
The film specifically offers thanks to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres. Many if not most of the Israeli actors speak Hebrew with the then-officially sanctioned Sephardic accent, which is nearly extinct today. Women are still able to wear bikinis in Jerusalem.
How Did It Do?
I wasn’t able to find any information on Operation Thunderbolt’s finances, and it has only one review on RottenTomatoes (a positive one, but still only one), but it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1979, director Menachem Golan and his cousin/producer Yoram Globus purchased the American film consortium Cannon, made a fortune producing action B-movies, and developed a reputation in the west directly inverse to their legacy in their native Israel.
Because Operation Thunderbolt was released so soon after the actual Entebbe Raid, the political aftermath bears some discussion. In spite of the success at Entebbe and previous efforts against terrorism abroad, Israel’s Socialist government, which had held power since independence, was unable to recover from its perceived mishandling of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. On May 17, 1977, Yitzhak Rabin’s Alignment Party was unexpectedly swept from power. Known ever after as the Revolution, the ascendant Likud Party, led by founding father Menachem Begin, both signaled and commanded a steady but dramatic shift in Israeli society. Jonathan Netanyahu, a career military officer from a Likud family, was expected to eventually become leader of the party before his death. In his stead, that responsibility fell to his younger brother Benjamin, who is Prime Minister at the time of this writing and appears likely to be forced from power soon.
Next Time: Cross of Iron
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Post by Floyd Dinnertime Barber on Jan 14, 2017 22:44:10 GMT -5
To me the oddest thing about Pumping Iron is how.... not quite there Ferrigno seems. Like, he's nice and all, but I remember him just seeming kind of dumb. Ahnuld's hella charismatic though (and an asshole.) I haven't seen Pumping Iron, or if I did, it was near the time of it's release, and I don't really remember much about it, but I do recall that Ferrigno is hearing impaired, and I believe somewhat speech impaired as a result, which might explain some difficulty of communication for him. |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 14, 2017 23:46:47 GMT -5
To me the oddest thing about Pumping Iron is how.... not quite there Ferrigno seems. Like, he's nice and all, but I remember him just seeming kind of dumb. Ahnuld's hella charismatic though (and an asshole.) I haven't seen Pumping Iron, or if I did, it was near the time of it's release, and I don't really remember much about it, but I do recall that Ferrigno is hearing impaired, and I believe somewhat speech impaired as a result, which might explain some difficulty of communication for him. He honestly seemed (as I recall - I saw it four years ago) as if he was only doing the bodybuilding thing as an avatar for his s dad's dreams. I'd have to rewatch it to say for sure. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 15, 2017 21:58:49 GMT -5
Cross of Iron
Dir. Sam Peckinpah
Premiered December 28, 1977
Whichever way you cut it, Cross of Iron was a risky proposition. That one of the great New Hollywood auteurs would try his hand at making a film about the war was inevitable, but it was just as inevitable that, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the finished product would not be a gung-ho endorsement of battle. Even today, filmmakers are hesitant to give such a morally grey treatment to what Studs Terkel famously dubbed “The Good War;” to have done so in the 1970s, when most of the men who fought in the war were only in their fifties*, was downright daring. Director Sam Peckinpah’s solution to this problem– showing the war from the point of the view of the Germans– should have been no less controversial.
It totally works.
Although Cross of Iron was Peckinpah’s only war film, he is an inspired choice. Best known as the man who brought blood into the western, Peckinpah’s trademark style emphasizes the brutality of battle in a way that is beautiful to look at, but conscientious and thoughtful rather than dehumanizing and fetishistic. The film introduces a German Army that is anything but respectable. Reeling from the epic defeat at Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht is in a desperate race back across Russia; ordinary men scarred by years of combat wait to die for a country they no longer believe in; particularly the fatalist Captain Kiesel (David Warner) and the necessarily stiff-upper-lipped Colonel Brandt (James Mason).
In contrast, Sergeant Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) is deeply bitter towards his superiors but far from resigned to an anonymous death. Both of these qualities are put to the test when Steiner’s company gets new leadership in the form of Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell), a haughty aristocrat fresh from occupied France who, although emphatically not a Nazi Party member, has no compunctions against committing war crimes, and is driven solely by a collector’s desire to acquire the vaunted Iron Cross. Stransky’s obsession is enough to get him to take credit for a dead officer’s bravery, only Steiner refuses to go along with the ruse. Stransky retaliates by leaving him and his platoon stranded behind the Soviet line, and with surrender to the Soviets a death sentence in all but name, Steiner must find his way back to company command, with unsettling results.
Although based on Willi Heinrich’s 1955 novel The Willing Flesh, the parallels to the more recent conflict in Vietnam are unmistakable, not least the summer heat, woodland setting, depictions of endless replacement soldiers as naïve conscripts, severe discontent between enlisted men and officers, and the willfully unflattering depiction of many ordinary soldiers. It is a strange but interesting sensation to feel, at times, that you are meant to root against the characters, as when some of Steiner’s men attempt to rape a garrison of female Soviet troops– or when Steiner pointedly leaves them to be torn limb from limb by the women. But while it is not always subtle, Cross of Iron is devastatingly successful in its unexpectedly hopeful message, as conveyed by Colonel Brandt: “the new Germany, if such a thing is allowed to exist, will need builders, thinkers...wars end, nations are defeated, but life goes on. Tomorrow will be another day, and it’s at least worth trying to live for.
Additional Notes
*Among that generation was America’s brand new President, Jimmy Carter. Although not a combat veteran, he did answer the call, training at Annapolis to help lead the Invasion of Japan when the war ended. Within my own lifetime, the United States would have another WWII vet as President, George H.W. Bush.
What’s more, popular culture before MTV was far more interested in appealing to older people than it has since– there’s a reason Frank Sinatra is still so beloved– which accounts for why no fewer than four films in this project are set in the Second World War. Today, pop culture for the aged is either mediocre, kitschy, or awards bait, and goddamnit, they deserve better.
How Did It Do?
Contemporary discussions of Cross of Iron suggest it performed poorly. Although the most popular film of the decade in Germany, the film struggled to overcome a modest but apparently bloated $6 million budget, and wasn’t very commercially appealing to begin with. Critical acclaim was and continues to be glowing. Among the film’s boosters were Orson Welles, who compared it to All Quiet on the Western Front, and Quentin Tarantino, who drew inspiration for Inglourious Basterds. Director Sam Peckinpah, whose most celebrated work was behind him, followed the film up with Convoy, embarrassingly his biggest financial success.
Next Time: Suspiria
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Jan 15, 2017 22:56:41 GMT -5
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Post by Buon Funerale Amigos on Jan 17, 2017 9:15:48 GMT -5
Cross of Iron is a pretty great movie, but it suffers because in the 70s, actors were totally unwilling to cut their hair into period-appropriate styles. It's missing the fascist semiotics of the Nazi undercut.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 17, 2017 11:24:48 GMT -5
Cross of Iron is a pretty great movie, but it suffers because in the 70s, actors were totally unwilling to cut their hair into period-appropriate styles. It's missing the fascist semiotics of the Nazi undercut. If I'd been able to grow my hair out like that and have it be culturally admired I would have hesitated to cut it off too. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 19, 2017 11:52:54 GMT -5
Suspiria
Dir. Dario Argento
Premiered February 1, 1977
Dario Argento’s Suspiria is the most famous Italian horror film ever made. Its name is whispered by genre picture buffs as the stuff of legend and presented to newcomers as a rite of passage. The titular character in Jason Reitman’s Juno invokes it for maximum coolness points. The recent bumper crop of upscale horror films, which favor creeping dread over cheap scares, has drawn comparisons to Suspiria, not least The Neon Demon, my favorite movie of last year. People have, unbelievably, invoked its name in defense of I Know Who Killed Me.
But I didn’t find it to be that great, or even that entertaining. In fact, Suspiria is such an underwritten movie that it doesn’t appear to have ever been finished. But it was, leaving me perplexed as to its legacy. Only six movies into this project, I’ve had enough unpopular opinions to feel like an arrogant young’un who can’t appreciate the classics. And granted, my copy of the film was a dreadful second-generation rip from a VHS– unbelievably an official release. But my issues with it are pretty fundamental, so don’t get mad.
Suzy (Jessica Harper) has just been accepted to an elite dance school in Freiburg. Because she’s only arrived late at night, she’s not allowed inside, but she does see another girl named Pat (Eva Axen) run out of the building screaming; unseen by Suzy is Pat’s recapture and gruesome murder.
Returning to the school by day, Suzy quickly befriends the late Pat’s friend Sara (Stefana Casini), who has grown increasingly paranoid about goings-on inside the school. There’s no shortage of bizarre incidents to confirm her terrors, as when Suzy sees a disembodied pair of tiny green eyes staring back through her bedroom window, or when maggots fall from the ceiling. It’s the latter phenomenon that gets both Sara and Suzy to notice the distinctive snoring of the school’s headmistress, who supposedly isn’t there. In fact, though they claim to live in town, the teachers never actually seem to leave the building. And the disappearances continue.
Consulting a pair of psychiatrists, a believer (Rudolf Schündler) and a skeptic (Udo Kier), Suzy discovers that her school was founded long ago by a coven of witches, and as the bodies pile up and Suzy is henceforth forbidden to leave, she (correctly) assumes the worst.
Let’s start with the technical stuff. The score is maddeningly repetitive. The use of ornate locations and bizarre, otherworldly lighting, which recalls in my mind the earliest parts of the “Toccata and Fugue” segments in Fantasia, is distinctive but awkward. The film’s opening sequence, described three paragraphs earlier, is comprable to the worst action filmmaking of today in its disjointedness, though this is unrepresentative of the film as a whole.
My biggest issue, though, is the story. We never find out anything about the witches; their killings are an attempt to cover up their being witches, but to what point or purpose is never even hinted at. This setup isn’t inherently bad for a story, but usually those have said witches as the protagonists, or at least somewhat defined characters. Suspiria deliberately evokes fairy tales, but even fairy tales give us more motivation than this. Their use of magic is curiously inconsistent– seeming to prefer brute force– and their eventual defeat comes off as dumb luck.
Suspiria appears to want to be more of a cinematic experience than a traditional narrative film, but director/screenwriter Dario Argento leaves too much narrative in to ignore, and too little to matter.
Signs This Was Made in 1977
Animals– maggots– were harmed in the making of this film. The Exorcist is jokingly referenced, and the forced exposition with Udo Kier recalls a much better scene in that film.
Additional Notes
- That stereotypical bitchy girl Olga (Barbara Magnolfi) was pretty hot. She’s only in one scene. Either this movie was four hours long and was mostly cut out, or the people who made it gave no shits.
- This is a title I genuinely can’t think of without thinking of “Sussudio,” the most popular song in the history of drugstores.
How Did It Do?
Suspiria grossed 1.4 million lire in Italy and $1.8 million in the United States. I have no idea what the movie’s budget was, so I have no idea if it made a profit. But its influence reaches far and wide, with a 93% rating on RottenTomatoes and frequent appearances on lists of the scariest movies ever made. In my personal opinion, being scared requires knowing, or at least thinking you know, what you’re supposed to be scared of. I didn’t get that here. Sorry.
Next Time: Fun with Dick and Jane
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Jan 19, 2017 17:10:01 GMT -5
Yo, Return of the Thin Olive Duke. You takin' any requests, or are you moving through the year, week by week and respective to your own interests? If so, or if not, you gotta getcher peepers on 1977's Crime Busters. it'll give you a richer appreciation for Italian cinema of the 70s. Knowing this totally your thing and ignoring any impulse to stop my blather.... Desperate Living (1977) Allegro Non Troppo (1977) The American Friend (1977) Demon Seed (1977) Sorcerer (1977) Hausu (1977) Martin (1977) Rolling Thunder (1977) Wizards (1977) Slap Shot (1977) Damnation Alley (1977) Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) The Rescuers (1977) |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 19, 2017 17:24:47 GMT -5
Yo, Return of the Thin Olive Duke . You takin' any requests, or are you moving through the year, week by week and respective to your own interests? If so, or if not, you gotta getcher peepers on 1977's Crime Busters. it'll give you a richer appreciation for Italian cinema of the 70s. Knowing this totally your thing and ignoring any impulse to stop my blather.... Desperate Living (1977) Allegro Non Troppo (1977) The American Friend (1977) Demon Seed (1977) Sorcerer (1977) Hausu (1977) Martin (1977) Rolling Thunder (1977) Wizards (1977) Slap Shot (1977) Damnation Alley (1977) Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) The Rescuers (1977) I'm not really in a position to take requests, as it's already unclear whether I can finish this project before leaving the United States. However, I will be reviewing six of the movies you mentioned. After the mess that was the 2007 series, I committed myself to a few rules: 1. Nothing that was made for television, or received a foreign or festival release before January 1. 2. Any film I have already seen. 3. Any film that ranked among the top 10 highest-grossing films (unless it conflicts with rule 1). 4. Any feature film nominated for an Oscar in an above-the-line category (unless it conflicts with rule 1). Those are my "musts." Beyond that, anything that I've heard of or catches my fancy is fair game. I typically consult with several critics' year-end lists so I can seek out the alleged best and worst, but those basically don't exist before the 1980s. So for 1977, I ended up with 59 films to review. |
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,690
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Post by repulsionist on Jan 19, 2017 17:32:15 GMT -5
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 19, 2017 17:49:53 GMT -5
Let me put it this way: I will never omit an entry in the Disney Animated Canon from these retrospectives, and this year we got two. Once again, since 2007 was such an amorphous mess of a project, I now try to include any movie by a name director, or a name studio in the case of animation. Since I haven't gotten to talk about this, and won't get to until I write my conclusion, you might be interested to know that the number of films included in my "musts" actually increase with each year in history, through no means of my own. The reasons for this, as far as I can tell are as follows: 1. Both comprehensive end-of-year lists and the study of bad movies date back only to about 1981. 2. Film criticism as a widespread format only dates back to the 1950s. 3. Most notably for this project, there used to be a much broader overlap between box office receipts and awards nominations. The gradual divergence between the two begins precisely in 1978, when The Deer Hunter became the first true Oscar Bait film and birthed a cottage industry of movies made specifically to win awards. Lindsay Ellis has a great video on the history of that, which I suppose I could post right now: Incidentally, studios do hope that awards will incentivize people to see their movies, but they don't care. They're perfectly happy to lose money if it means winning an award. There's a really fascinating story behind that that actually connects to how 9/11 made movies better. |
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,690
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Post by repulsionist on Jan 20, 2017 14:11:55 GMT -5
I do hope you choose to cover Rolling Thunder. John Flynn has a directing history topical to your personal future re. The Jerusalem File. And, The Outfit is nonpareil.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Jan 20, 2017 16:07:56 GMT -5
It's by no means perfect, but it's possible to search for low-rated movies from 1977 on IMDB. I decided to run a search for any movie with a user rating of 5 or lower. The vast majority of results were for sex comedies (soft and hard) that were running rampant at the time, low budget horror movies, low budget sci-fi films, and other exploitative fare that was destined for the drive-in circuit, but there's a few mainstream titles among the junk. The first result was Exorcist II: The Heretic, and number #2 was Tentacles, a Jaws rip-off about a killer octopus that somehow got John Huston, Shelley Winters, and Henry Fonda to star in it. Also in the top 50 are You Light Up My Life, which actually managed to win an Oscar for the title song, and Ruby, a film I had never heard of, whose plot description seems to be a mix of Carrie and The Exorcist, that stars Piper Larue, two years removed from her Oscar nomination for Carrie.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 20, 2017 16:37:53 GMT -5
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 25, 2017 1:29:22 GMT -5
Fun with Dick and Jane
Dir. Ted Kotcheff
Premiered February 11, 1977
To the modern viewer, Fun with Dick and Jane is a film out of time.
I never would have reviewed it but for its 2005 remake, a film that was noted for coming out before the Great Recession and necessarily losing its poignancy in the process. The 1977 original seems similarly misplaced. A film about gauche, upwardly mobile yuppies losing everything, resorting to crime, and maybe learning a little bit about how the other half lives fits in just fine in the 1930s, or the 2000s, or even the 1980s. But the ‘70s? The earth-toned, Volkswagen-driving, peanut farmer-electing, Good Times and All in the Family-watching ‘70s?
Of course, it’s easy to say that in retrospect. The ‘70s weren’t really a decade of universal proletarianism anymore than the 2010s are a decade of universal neo-modern dapperness, so maybe Fun With Dick and Jane could work. But as it is, the film doesn’t dispell my misapprehensions about when it was made.
Fun with Dick and Jane begins with middle-aged aerospace engineer Dick Harper (George Segal) getting laid off in a very flippant manner by his souse boss (Ed McMahon). He’s at the top of his game, but lacks the seniority to stay on board. Suddenly bereft of the finer things in life, wife Jane (Jane Fonda) encourages Dick to take advantage of the welfare state with the help of a former co-worker (Hank Garcia) while both of them look for work. But those who enforce the social safety net don’t take kindly to the Harpers’ bourgeois lifestyle, nor do prospective employers look kindly on their diminishing fortunes. Refusing to let the middle-class decline, and with it America, the two decide to start a new career in larceny, taking on a series of increasingly audacious robberies.
I will say this: at least the film demonstrates that the protagonists are jerks, victims and perpetrators alike of casual racism, elitism, and transphobia whose prejudices do them no favors when they don’t have the cash to insulate themselves from the rest of the world– strikingly progressive for its time. The story is a caustic tale of degeneracy and decline, an invocation against greed and materialism with a happy face. It should work, but the presentation is off-base. The humor is too dry and catty, fine between friends and or perhaps on television, but unengaging in a feature film. George Segal makes an effort, but he’s too naturally easygoing for the role, ever the clueless dad, and his performance comes off as leaden. Jane Fonda is...Jane Fonda. I’ve never bought her in anything, and like Segal, her energy here is too low. The best laughs come from a handful of bit players, but the leads aren’t interesting to root for or against– the latter being the film’s intent.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but the riches-to-rags story usually involves the humbled main characters learning a lesson about what really matters. Fun With Dick and Jane has no such realization. They keep being greedy jerks until they get their way. It’s meant to be a cruel joke, a parting shot at the corruption of the American dream, but the final product plays it way too safe for such a conclusion to land effectively.
Signs This Was Made in 1977
A running theme throughout the film is the decline of the aerospace industry following the end of the space race. These people are going to shit themselves when the Cold War ends. Or maybe go on a violent rampage across Los Angeles. Dick invokes the Bicentennial in his defense of the American Dream. The astrology craze is mined for some topical laughs. Among Dick and Jane’s marks is an ersatz Norman Vincent Peale.
Additional Notes
At one point, Dick runs down a hallway, past a random poster of Moshe Dayan. Why? And where can I get one?
[How Did It Do?
Fun with Dick and Jane proved a hit with audiences, grossing $30 million against a $3 million budget, but was middlingly received by critics, who mostly found it too dull and safe for its own premise, earning a 60% rating on RottenTomatoes. In 2005, Galaxy Quest director Dean Parisot remade the film with a script by Hollywood kingmakers Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller and starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni. In many ways, Carrey seems to me a better fit than Segal, but his salary massively inflated the film’s budget to the point that it barely broke even, despite being one of the highest-grossing films of that year, and critics hated it.
If you were interested in a movie like Fun with Dick and Jane, there are a couple of movies, made not long after, that I’d recommend.
1. 9-to-5. Not my favorite movie, due mostly to the involvement of Jane Fonda, but the other leads are a lot funnier, the plot is knowingly absurd, and the villain is more than a minor character.
2. Trading Places. Directed by John Landis of Animal House fame, it’s a lot funnier than this movie, the characters actually grow to be likable, and it has something real to say about greed and materialism without descending into heavy-handedness.
Next Time: Wizards
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Post by MarkInTexas on Jan 25, 2017 10:30:55 GMT -5
Wait, this movie addressed transphobia in 1977?!!?
I haven't seen this one (I did see the 2005 remake), but the fact that 9 to 5 and Trading Places are still well-remembered, if not beloved, while both versions of this film have largely fallen down the memory hole pretty much says all that needs to be said about the quality of these four films.
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dＬᵒ
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𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓦𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓸𝓵 𝓨𝓮𝓽?
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Post by dＬᵒ on Jan 25, 2017 17:41:12 GMT -5
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 26, 2017 13:34:05 GMT -5
Wait, this movie addressed transphobia in 1977?!!? Indeed! A not-at-all-passing trans woman is getting unemployment because she was fired for being trans. George Segal comes up and says something ignorant and homophobic, and the welfare guy is like, "you don't know what you're talking about, go fuck yourself." |
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