Notes from awards committee: 1979 was another splendid year for big screen movie fans. Our nominations for Best Picture include classic comedies (10 & 1941), a stunning sci-fi horror (Alien) and the kingpin of Paranoid Cinema – The China Syndrome. In a year with steep competition, the House Clark Best Motion Picture award for 1979 goes to Apocalypse Now by Director Francis Ford Coppola. See below for a full review. The World at Large
Fun Surprises – Apocalypse Now - the first hour (Act 1) is absolutely stunning, among the very best on celluloid, and there are just enough memorable moments in the rest to make this film one of FF Coppola’s most towering achievements. Act 2 is about the boat trip up the river to find Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), the renegade American officer. There’s a deliberate, too long, and clumsy effort to use the boat trip to cobble together a series of barely believable scenes to create an overarching narrative that the U.S. Army in Vietnam was a collection of bizarre, drug abused misfits. Act 3 transitions to a horror film and takes place in Kurtz’s base camp. The camp, deep in the jungle, is a visually striking and one of the most dreadful images in the history of film. AN has artistic style to burn. 10 - This movie was hot stuff when it came out in 1979: I am referring to both the movie, and actress, Bo Derek in her major movie role debut. Both Dudley Moore and Julie Andrews were already movie stars, but nobody had heard of Derek before this movie. She became an overnight sensation, posed for Playboy magazine and so on. She didn't need too many lines in the film to make an impact; she simply walked down the beach in her bathing suit. The camera loved Bo, and the number "10" suddenly had a new meaning in the pop lexicon. The story is about a guy suffering a mid-life crisis who proceeds to make a fool of himself over a girl half his age. There are some profound things to ponder in this film even though it never gets too serious. This is a career best role for Dudley... he's able to come across as a sympathetic, yet funny person. This film is also the sole, 100% good movie in Bo Derek’s career. An outstanding supporting cast gives this movie solid depth with never a dull scene. Alien – is one of the greatest horror/suspense/Sci-fi movies ever made, and a genuine motion picture masterpiece by Ridley Scott. This movie brings it all together: a deep space adventure with a superb script, haunting music score and brilliant acting. The cast of B-list actors knocked this one out of the park. Back in 1979, Sigourney Weaver was virtually unknown, yet she achieved overnight stardom for her stunning performance as Ripley. A classic, unforgettable movie. 1941 - was unfairly compared to Steven Spielberg’s wildly popular preceding films (Jaws and Close Encounters), and condemned by many as a flop. Not true. I admit the film is too long, but 1941 contains 90 – 100 minutes of cinematic genius and classic comedy. Where else can you watch fight-dancing and a submarine battling a Ferris Wheel in the same movie? Consider this film as a time capsule of American history in the early days after Pearl Harbor when the war jitters, anti-Japan mood and media hysteria was in full swing, especially in California. This underrated flick features some of the best SNL comedians in their prime, and backed up by veterans Warren Oates, Robert Stack and Slim Pickens. China Syndrome - By sheer dumb luck, this film was released a mere twelve days before the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) on March 28, 1979. In the movie, and in real life at TMI, a nuclear reactor core comes dangerously close to a meltdown and massive release of radioactivity. TMI remains the worst nuke accident in U.S. history, but has been overshadowed by Level 7 nuke disasters in Russia and Japan (Chernobyl in 1986 & Fukushima in 2011). Back to the film – it skillfully captures the zeitgeist of the 70’s activist era especially with Jane Fonda in the lead role. She turns in a great performance as TV reporter Kimberly Wells. She never looked better. Even if you are bored by the power plant operations and politics, this is a chance to watch a legendary actress in her eye-pleasing prime. The film has outstanding production – seamlessly flowing back and forth from a nuclear plant control room to behind the scenes of a TV news station. A good thriller that is still relevant, decades later, because it asks the hard question: What exactly will happen when the fancy, high-tech machines malfunction? In-Laws - Wacky fun with odd couple Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in this underrated comedy. The movie is a good political satire. It spoofs the American spy business, and Latin American dictators. Falk carries the film as Vince Ricardo, an old school CIA operative. Arkin plays a paranoid dentist unwittingly trapped in the spy game. The plot is a cheerful muddle of pure nonsense, as a screwball comedy should be. Mad Max – is a low budget, action – adventure set in a distinctly dark and violent future. This is the film that started the successful Mad Max movie franchise that continues today, and helped launch Mel Gibson’s star into orbit. Disappointments - Kramer vs. Kramer – is a simple movie about the negative blowback of Feminism ending in divorce and single parenting with 105 looong minutes of talking. But surprise, surprise, the film was a successful Oscar winner and managed to break even at the box-office. Not too bad for a glorified Made-for-TV movie with minimal visual impact, but definitely does not reach anywhere near Best Picture quality. The day after the Oscars, the world forgot this movie ever existed. Norma Rae – takes us on a slow trudge into the pro-Union propaganda of the 1970s with all the predictable friction between the owner class and the working class. Queue in the union organizer, in this case played by NYC Jew, Ron Leibman, and off we go. Sally Field was awarded a Best Actress Oscar and Hollywood did some cheerleading for working class Whites, a group that they actually despise in real life and consider them as “deplorable”. The bitter truth is the textile industry did unionize in the Seventies and Eighties, and it died in the Nineties (recall NAFTA). All those jobs are now in Guatemala and Bangladesh. A modern DVD should include a trailer showing the effects of Globalization on the American textile workers. Norma Rae ended with a victory for the workers, but it was short-lived and somewhat hollow.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWritten by Ben Clark. Copyright 2016-2023. All rights reserved. Archives
August 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed
