Monthly Archives: April 2021

The Bad News Bears (1976)

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The Bad News Bears
Directed by Michael Ritchie
Written by Bill Lancaster
1976/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Engelberg: You’re not supposed to have open liquor in the car. It’s against the law.
Coach Morris Buttermaker: So is murder, Engleberg. Now put that back before you get me in real trouble.

Gee, I love this movie!  Along with everything else, I think this may be Walter Matthau’s best performance.

Morris Buttermaker (Matthau) is a beer-guzzling pool maintenance man.  In the old days, he was a second-rate minor league baseball player.  A local politician sued for the right to add an additional team to the area’s ultra-competitive Little League, one that would allow misfits who were never chosen to play.  He hires Buttermaker as coach.

The team is hopeless and Buttermaker is in it strictly for the money.  He half-heartedly trains the boys.  But something about the condescending attitude of the gung-ho parents and coaches of the other teams gets him interested in helping his hapless charges when the season starts.  He bribes Amanda (Tatum O’Neal), whom he taught to throw a mean curve ball when he was dating her mother, to pitch for the team.  Eventually she entices the local “bad boy” (Jackie Earle Haley), a cigarette-smoking motor-bike riding twelve-year old with a powerful swing, to join.

The fortunes of the team improve.  Will Buttermaker succumb to the winning-is-everything attitude of the other coaches?  And how will the Bears perform in their last game?

One need have no interest in baseball to enjoy this movie.  One just needs to remember what it was like to be a child.  I love it because all the kids have so much personality and the script is hilarious with plenty of heart. And Matthau is absolutely superb.  Warmly recommended.

 

Network (1976)

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Network
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
1976/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Howard Beale: Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

In 2021, this scathing critique of the TV ratings game seems less outrageous than prescient.

Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has been the evening news anchor at UBS (the “fourth network”) for eleven years.  The network is under new ownership by Communications Corporation of America (CCA).  CCA executive Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) will no longer tolerate low ratings for any program, including the news.  News Bureau Chief Max Schumacher (William Holden) has the task of giving Howard, an old friend, two weeks notice.  The next night Howard gets on the air and announces his retirement and his intention of committing suicide on the air a week later.  He is summarily fired but soft-hearted Max allows him to make a formal farewell to his audience.  Howard, who has been hearing voices, takes advantage of this opportunity to launch into his famous populist rant and urge his audience to express their pent-up rage audibly.  When shouts are heard coming from windows all over America, the executives know they have a hit on their hands.  Max is disgusted.

In the meantime, a new ratings-obsessed entertainment programmer, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), is in town.  She successfully pitches the idea of having a part reality TV, part drama called the “Mao Tse Tung Hour”.  A domestic terrorist organization will stage a real “happening” and the network will create a drama based on the event.  Diana also manages to move Howard from the news division to the entertainment division to capitalize on his rabid following.   He is now billed as the mad prophet of the airways.

Despite his contempt for Diana’s ideas about television, Max cannot escape his attraction to the much younger woman.  For Diana, the affair is strictly sexual.  She is all business all the time.  Meanwhile, Howard’s madness intensifies.  When he protests CCA’s acquisition by the Saudis, the management tries a couple of different tactics to stop him. With Beatrice Straight as Max’s wife and Ned Beatty as the CEO of CCA.

Network looked into the future, a future that looked far-fetched at the time but seems increasingly realistic as the years have gone on.  Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant script anticipated both reality TV and sensationalist, politicized news programming.  Are we but one step away from the Q-Anon Show?  All the components of filmmaking come together to create something that perfectly achieves its intentions.  Highly recommended.

Network won Academy Awards in the Categories of Best Actor (Finch); Best Actress (Dunaway); Best Supporting Actress (Straight); and Best Original Screenplay.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor (Holden); Best Supporting Actor (Beatty); Best Director; Best Cinematography; and Best Film Editing.

Kings of the Road (1976)

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Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit)
Directed by Wim Wenders
Written by Wim Wenders
1976/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Originality now is rare in the cinema and it isn’t worth striving for because most work that does this is egocentric and pretentious. What is most enjoyable about the cinema is simply working with a language that is classical in the sense that the image is understood by everyone. I’m not at all interested in innovating film language, making it more aesthetic. I love film history, and you’re better off learning from those who proceeded you. — Wim Wenders

The final film in Wim Wenders’ “Road Trilogy” deals with existential loneliness and the death of cinema.  Sounds dreadful but it definitely works.

Bruno Winter (Rudiger Vogler) is a laid-back movie projector repair man, who drives from one small town’s decrepit theater to another in a huge old bus.  The current journey takes him through towns on the border between West and East Germany.

One day, he witnesses Robert Lander (Hanns Zischler) drive his VW beetle into a lake.  At the last moment, Robert changes his mind and swims to shore with one small suitcase. Bruno helps Robert dry off and offers him a sleeping place for the night.  Slowly there is a wordless agreement that Robert will stick around for the ride.  We learn later that Robert has just split up with his wife.

The two drive leisurely to the soundtrack of rock ‘n’ roll music.  At one stop, Bruno meets a woman who sells tickets at a porno theater he is servicing and has a one-night stand with her.  Bruno is quite willing to make detours and both men eventually visit their childhood homes.  Robert visits his father and forces him to finally listen to him and his views on how he never listened to his wife.  Bruno visits the now empty home he grew up in.

The two encounter a man whose wife crashed their car into a tree and killed herself.  They stay with him until the car can be towed.  Finally the journey is interrupted by the border. The two get drunk and indulge in some boozy soul-searching.

This is definitely a slow burn and the viewer spends a lot of time waiting for something to happen.  But the journey itself is interesting and there is a lot of wry humor to be enjoyed. The movie theaters that Bruno stops at all contain memorabilia of the Golden Age of Hollywood now lost and replaced by porn or sensationalist fare.  At the last theater, the proprietor says she is keeping her closed theater in working order in case movies that are worth seeing get made again.  The film probably would reveal even more on a rewatch. Fans of action need not apply but if you are looking to experience a leisurely road trip with some important points to make, I can recommend.

Taxi Driver (1976)

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Taxi Driver
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Written by Paul Schrader
1976/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Travis Bickle: You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Oh yeah? OK.

Martin Scorsese’s first masterpiece is as relevant now as it was then, sad to say.

Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a lonely Vietnam veteran who can’t sleep at night.  So he gets a job driving a cab for 12 hours a night.  Already preoccupied with the sin and corruption of New York City, his job as cabbie just provides him with more evidence that some kind of avenging rain should come and wash the trash, human and otherwise, off the streets.  Despite his hatred for vice, he spends much of his time in porno theaters, where he does not seem to be watching the movies.

His one vision of innocence comes when he sees Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) walking down the street in a white dress.  Betsy is a campaign worker for Senator Charles Palantine who is running in the primary for the Presidential nomination (party unstated).  Travis drops into NYC campaign headquarters and chats Betsy up.  Intrigued by his crazy adoration, she agrees to have coffee with him.  Then she agrees to a date.  He takes her to a porno movie and she drops him like a hot potato.

Travis gradually becomes more unhinged.  He decides it is he that has the mission to clean up the dirty city,  He encounters Iris (Jodie Foster),  a twelve-year-old prostitute, and it becomes his mission to save her as well.  The only way he can get to her is to pay so he does and gives her a lecture on how she should go home and have a normal teenage life.  Iris agrees to meet Travis for coffee and a conversation in which it is clear that the teenage hooker has it way more together than Travis does.

As part of his mission, Travis acquires an arsenal of weapons.  He spends much of his off-time at shooting ranges or at home practicing his draw.  He continues on his downwards spiral.  I will stop here except to note we get a bloody climax and a very interesting denoument.  With Albert Brooks in his film debut as a campaign worker; Harvey Keitel as a pimp; and Peter Boyle as a fellow cabbie.

This has it all: brilliant acting; a scathing and powerful script; stunning visuals; and a fantastic score by Bernard Herrmann. Ticks all the buttons for a time not so unlike our own: loneliness, isolation, paranoia, demagogues, ideological violence, political violence,  angry white men; etc., etc.  Not for the faint of heart but highly recommended.

Taxi Driver was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Supporting Actress (Foster); and Best Music, Original Score.

Trailer

 

Rocky (1976)

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Rocky
Directed by John G. Avildsen
Written by Sylvester Stallone
1976/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Apollo’s Trainer: He doesn’t know it’s a damn show! He thinks it’s a damn fight!

Americans have always loved a good rags-to-riches story.  Sylvester Stallone came up with a perfect one to celebrate the country’s 200th birthday.

Rocky Balboa (Stallone) is a small-time boxer on the Philadelphia scene.  He wins a few and he loses a few.  His day job is as a collection agent for a loan shark. He is scary enough physically to coerce payment but at heart he is a softie.  He has a crush on mousey pet store salesgirl Adrian (Thalia Shire).  He tries to chat her up but she is too shy to respond.  Rocky is also friends with her loser brother Paulie (Burt Young).  His trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) throws the clothes from his locker at the gym out into the street to give the locker to a better prospect.

Concurrently, heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is determined to have a championship bout in Philadelphia on July 4, 1976 as a kind of bicentennial celebration. His intended opponent is injured and his management is unable to find a worthy opponent for that date.  Undeterred, Apollo flips through some photos and decides that Rocky “The Italian Stallion” would make an appealing underdog for the fight.  Apollo is basically Mr. Show Business and figures he will not even have to go into training.

Rocky, on the other hand, takes the matter deadly seriously.  Mickey is suddenly anxious to train him once again.  We watch as Rocky trains and visibly becomes more and more fit.  He also wins the heart of Adrian.  Paulie, feeling threatened with the loss of his live-in housekeeper, thinks this is his opportunity to cash in.  He provides access to the carcasses in the meat packing establishment he works at for use as punching bags and brings in the press.

The climactic fight is thrilling and unforgettable.  Well, actually I did forget the result, so I won’t spoil it here.  When I left the theater on original release, I felt pumped up with victory.

Rocky is a simple story that has been told umpteen times throughout film history.  Between the writing, directing, and acting, it works and it works perfectly.  And that music! Highly recommended.

Rocky won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Director; and Best Film Editing.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Actor; Best Actress; Best Supporting Actor (Meredith); Best Supporting Actor (Young); Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Stallone); Best Sound; and Best Music, Original Song (“Gonna Fly Now”).

Trailer

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Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

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Harlan County U.S.A.
Directed by Barbara Kopple
1976/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Where it’s dark as a dungeon, damp as the dew
Danger is double, pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls, the sun never shines
It’s a dark as a dungeon way down in the mine – Lyrics by Merle Travis

Barbara Kopple gives us the ultimate in political documentaries, with lots of Appalachian culture as a bonus.

The film depicts the 1973-74 strike by miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky against Eastover Mining Company and its parent Duke Power.  A strike in the 1930’s had resulted in the county being called “Bloody Harlan” for the violence involved.

This strike was also violent and seemingly everything was lined up against the workers. The local police force and judge were solidly behind the management.  People on the picket line were arrested, some hit by baseball bats, shot at, and struck by cars. Many of the most fervent and effective supporters of the strike were miners’ wives.

We also get inside the United Mine Workers union, where J.A. Boyle had held sway for years. He was known for caving in to management.  His opponent Joseph Yablonski was murdered in 1969.  Boyle was later convicted for ordering this crime.  In 1972, Arnold Miller ran as a reform candidate and won.  He  said that the rank and file would vote on any new contracts.  This promise was short-lived.

The strike lasted 13 months.  The murder of a young striking miner by strikebreakers was the catalyst that brought the two sides back to the negotiating table.

Along the way, we get some pretty fabulous mountain music written to inspire the strikers. We also learn about black lung disease.  Management claimed that it had not been scientifically shown the inhaling coal dust harmed miners’ lungs!  The company would not compensate a worker disabled by black lung until the diagnosis was confirmed by an autopsy!  We go inside the abysmal company housing provided to the workers.  The houses are little better than shacks and lack electricity or running water.

I can’t imagine worse work than toiling in a coal mine.  The strikers let Kopple into their lives and the result was a documentary as compelling as any fiction film.  I love a good documentary and this is one of the very best.  Highly recommended.

Harlan County U.S.A. won the Oscar for Best Documentary, Feature

 

 

1976

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The “sleeper” film Rocky made its debut. It was filmed in twenty-eight days with a budget of about $1 million, and ultimately grossed well over $100 million.  Sylvester Stallone supposedly wrote the script for the sports comeback film over a three-day period.  He became the third person in Oscar history to be nominated in a single year as both an actor and as a screenwriter.  The other two were Charles Chaplin for The Great Dictator (1940), and Orson Welles for Citizen Kane (1941).

The Steadicam (a stabilizing device for hand-held cameras), developed by Garrett Brown, was used for the first time in director Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory,  for which DP Haskell Wexler won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.  Marathon Man and Rocky also used the new device.

The first VHS cassettes and players, which cost about $885 each, were released by JVC in October. The system was designed to compete with Sony’s Betamax magnetic tape system, with a longer recording time.  By 1987, VHS had acquired about 90-95% of the consumer market. The new technology was considered a threat to the film industry but in subsequent years was re-evaluated as a boon when studios discovered videos to be a major source of income. By 1986, the home video industry’s annual gross rentals exceeded rentals paid for films by theatres.

For his performance in Network, Peter Finch became the first person to win a posthumous Best Actor Oscar.  Beatrice Straight won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the shortest role to win an acting Oscar, for her less than eight minutes of screen time in Network .  

Futureworld (1976) featured the first use of 3D CGI in a live-action film – it was a brief view of a computer-generated face and hand.

Sal Mineo was murdered.  We also lost Roger Livesy, Lee J. Cobb, Busby Berkeley, Luchino Visconti, Howard Hughes, Carol Reed, Fritz Lang, Alistair Sim, Dalton Trumbo, Edith Evans, Jean Gabin, and Rosalind Russell.  Albert Brooks, Amy Irving, Jessica Lange, Brooke Shields, and Deborah Winger made their film debuts.

“Silly Love Songs” by Wings spent 5 weeks atop the Billboard Charts making it the number one pop single of the year.  Humbolt’s Gift by Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  A Chorus Line by Michael Bennett etal won for Drama.  Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was Jimmy Carter.

The United States celebrated 200 years of independence.  Jimmy Carter was elected President.  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple.  The Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars. The first recognized outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease killed 29 at the American Legion convention in Philadelphia.

After the death of former leader Mao Zedong in September, Hua Guofeng was announced as the new leader of China. One of Hua Guonfeng’s first tasks was ordering the arrest of the so-called Gang of Four which consisted of party officials accused of treasonous actions.  Their arrest and Hua Guofeng’s leadership lead to the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Palestinian extremists hijacked an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda, where Israeli commandos stormed the plane freeing the hostages. The first Concorde flights took off.

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The list of 1976 releases I will select from is here.  Suggestions or warnings will be appreciated!

 

1975 Re-cap and Favorite Films

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My viewing for 1975 was truncated by real life.  I viewed 29 films that were released in 1975.  A list can be found here.   From the 1001 Movies List, I did not watch The Mirror (unavailable); Salo (no way in hell); India Song; Deewar; and Jeanne Dielman.  I have Cria Cuervos listed as a 1976 film. My Favorites List is in no particular order, though the three I rated 10/10 top the list.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Directed by Milos Forman

Jaws – Directed by Steven Spielberg

Seven Beauties – Directed by Lina Wertmuller

The Story of Adele H. – Directed by Francois Truffaut

Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven – Directed by Ranier Werner Fassbinder

Dog Day Afternoon – Directed by Sidney Lumet

The Man Who Would Be King – Directed by John Huston

Grey Gardens – Directed by Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Muffie Meyer

The Magic Flute – Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Barry Lyndon – Directed by Stanley Kubrick

 

 

Barry Lyndon (1975)

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Barry Lyndon
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick from the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray
1975/UK/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

End Title card: EPILOGUE: It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.

Kubrick’s sumptuous production of 18th Century Europe is a must-see.

Richmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) is an Irish young man of humble origins who lives with his widowed mother in the countryside.  He is having a romance with his cousin Nora.  But Nora’s family is deeply in debt and is trying to marry her off to a British officer of fortune. Nora does not appear to mind.  The alway reckless Barry challenges the officer to a duel which he appears to win.  He is shipped off to Dublin to avoid the law carrying his mother’s life savings.  Barry is promptly stripped of this plus his horse and firearms by highwaymen.

Barry’s best remaining option is joining the English army which is fighting the Seven Years War.  He is not cut out to be a soldier and takes the opportunity to desert when he is able to pilfer the uniform of an officer.  He travels through Europe in this guise pretending to be carrying a dispatch to a British General.  His ruse is quickly seen through by a Prussian captain and Barry is forced to enlist in the Prussian army.  His fortune changes when he saves the captain’s life.  He is then sent on a mission to spy on the Chevalier du Balibari, whom the Prussians believe to be a spy.  But Balibari is actually an Irishman and the two become friends and fellow card sharks.

After a few years of cheating his way through Europe, Barry decides he is ready for the high life and sets upon seducing Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), the wife of an extremely wealthy elderly English aristocrat.  Fortune smiles of Barry when the Lord promptly dies and his wedding to the widow soon follows.  With the widow, comes her young son Lord Bullington (Leon Vitali).  Soon the pair have a son of their own whom they name Bryan.

Barry treats his wife like so much furniture and cruelly whips Lord Bullington for any indiscretion.  Bullington grows to hate Barry heartily.  Barry occupies the next several years with lavish purchases, gambling, and debauchery.  The only love in his heart seems to be for his son Bryan.  Barry richly deserves a comeuppance and will get a devastating one.

Every aspect of this movie is exquisitely beautiful. John Alcott’s cinematography, done using mostly natural light, is stunning.  The story is interesting and well-told, though I wish Kubrick had picked up the pace a bit.  Ryan O’Neal’s acting is very good but he seems oddly miscast to me.  His flat American accent is jarring in this context.  That said, every movie-lover should make a point of seeing this splendid production.  Highly recommended.

Barry Lyndon won Oscars in the categories of Best Cinematorgraphy; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; and Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material.

Re-release trailer

Clip

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975)

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The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum)
Directed by Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta
Written by Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta based on a novel by Heinrich Boll
1975/West Germany
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Concluding text: “Characters and events are fictitious. Description of certain journalistic practices is neither intentional nor accidental, but unavoidable.”

This story of the impact of tabloid journalism on an innocent woman made me just as angry as it certainly was intended to do.

Katharina Blum (Angela Winkler) is a respectable maid whose strait-laced ways have caused her friends to call her “the nun”.  It is carnival season and friends invite her to a party.  There she makes an instant connection with Ludwig Gotten (Jurgen Prochnow) and invites him home for the night.  Unbeknownst to her he is a suspected terrorist and fugitive from justice.  Katharina has fallen in love.

In the morning, when the police burst into her apartment Ludwig is nowhere to be found. After ransacking her apartment, she is taken in to undergo a brutal interrogation.  The police eventually release her hoping that following her will lead them to Ludwig.

Simultaneously and with the cooperation of the police, a tabloid rag called “The Paper” drags her name through the mud.  They dredge up and sensationalize every incident from her past, making things up when the truth proves too boring.  Katharina begins getting disgusting obscene mail and phone calls.

Katharina does have true friends in her boss and her aunt who try to help but are unsuccessful.  The humiliation drives poor Katharina to the brink.

I was infuriated within ten minutes of the start of this movie and continued to be so through the ironic climax.  The story is gripping and moves along at a good pace.  Does freedom of the press justify the media tactics used to destroy a life?  If you are prepared for a couple of hours of injustice, I can recommend.