This one?
Not sure if these haven’t been mentioned but they should have. GREAT movies:
- Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
- The Hobbit (1978) … Not the recent shitz one.
They’re related, but only indirectly. Travis doesn’t give a crap about the politician personally. Travis cares about making a mark, being somebody, getting acknowledgement and respect from the world he cannot connect to. His attempts to impress Betsy stem from the same urge to be recognized. Obviously Travis is … not very good at it. His attempts to impress the world just result in the world pushing him away.
So he decides to shoot someone. That’ll show 'em I’m somebody! They can’t ignore me then! (Trivia: Travis was based in part on the guy who tried to assassinate Presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972 and his diaries.) But … he chickens out.
Later on, he shoots some other people. And because of who he shoots the movie ends with some people labeling him a “hero.” But the point of the movie is that it’s just a fluke. Travis is really a creepy nutcase assassin. He just happened to luck out and shoot “bad guys” before he worked up the nerve to achieve his original ambition: imitating Lee Harvey Oswald.
Written by the late, great Elmore Leonard. A.k.a. the guy who wrote the source material behind Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, 3:10 to Yuma, Justified, etc.
I hadn’t heard of this movie and had to wiki it, and now I am more surprised I hadn’t heard of it. As a high school student when it came out it sounds like a movie we would have snuck into or used fake ID’s to watch. I think that is how I first saw MAS*H.
There are some great movies on this list and I remember seeing many of them at Saturday Night Midnight Movie showings. It is also a decade where I would still pay money for a drama, something I just don’t do anymore.
Sutherland looks like the quintessential 70s dude in that. Gotta watch it now.
Sutherland had a good run in the 70’s with MAS*H, Klute and this movie. I am sure there were others as well. When was the Clint Eastwood WW2 buddies steal gold movie?
Kelly’s Heroes was released in 1970.
Don’t forget Invasion of the Body Snatchers!
Kelly’s Heroes. Woof, woof. Wanna hear my other dog imitation?
Kelly’s Heroes? Pretty sure that was 70s. And don’t forget Animal House!
Edit: holy crap, beaten twice!
A couple of my other favorite comedies from the 70’s:
Used Cars
Love at First Bite
I saw Love at First Bite at a theater in Lisbon that was showing it in English.
I wish Zorro, the Gay Blade was a 70s movie. 1981, though. Hamilton really had a comic revival there at the turn of the 80s.
It was one of my Dad’s and my favorite movies.
“Three Silver Bullets through the heart to slay a Vampire!”
Blam! Blam! Blam!
“No, Dr Rosenberg, that is for a werewolf.”
“A werewolf? Really?” turns to crowd
“No harm done, that was for a werewolf! I’m a Dr. I know what I’m doing!”
“Or you’ll do what? Eat your lunch in my office?”
“No, my lunch will eat you!!!”
There’s a moment in Don’t Look Now that spooks me to think of even now, 20 years after I last saw it. Jesus Christ.
Warning: Duel Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen it, don’t read it. Do yourself a favor and rent the movie on Google or somewhere and watch it.
Duel was one of those cult classics that I always meant to watch, but found it impossible to actually find. No video store ever had it. Then no DVD rental place ever had it. And then Netflix-disc version had it, but it always languished at the top of my queue, listed as very low availability, or something like that. It never got sent to me.
It was one of those situations where I didn’t really want to get my hopes up. After all, it was Spielberg’s first movie.
When the movie starts, and the camera backs out of the garage, then drives down the street, I was hooked. Oh my god. Was the whole movie going to be first person car view like this? Sadly no. When the movie finally switches to a different perspective, the protagonist’s car is not what I was expecting. Honestly, I figured a movie called Duel would feature classic American Muscle, you know what I mean? But you can tell Spielberg has the eye for what looks good in a landscape, doesn’t he? The beautiful mountain scenery, the lone bright red car standing out on the two lane highway. And then the true star of the movie arrives, and you realize why it wasn’t American Muscle.
I can’t say enough good things about this truck. From the word Flammable emblazoned across the back, to the nasty fumes coming out, to the way it’s the filthiest, dirtiest truck you’ve ever seen in your life.
The highway scenes in this movie are just so well done, I’m kind of blown away. This might actually be the best driving/chase movie I’ve ever seen. Road Warrior and Mad Max: Fury Road might be close though, I’ll have to think about that and watch them again. But Duel’s sense of speed is so well done, I’m not sure how they filmed it. There’s scenes here where we see continuous shots of the red car and then on the same tracking shot, the truck. It’s done several times, obviously from another vehicle speeding alongside them. Everything in the movie has a heft to it, there’s no cheating. When he gets stuck on a bus, you really see it, it looks real, it doesn’t look a contrived plot point. The editing is so well done. From long continuous tracking shots to short cuts to the speedometer and closeups of the protagonist’s face, to shots of the rear view out of the car. Honestly, this is almost the perfect movie.
The only reason I say ‘almost’ perfect is because the protagonist has a voice-over in some scenes where we hear him thinking. I’m not opposed to that necessarily, but in this movie it was completely unnecessary. Both the scenes in the Cafe and then later in the car, I feel, didn’t need his thoughts to be said out loud to the audience. His acting and the camerawork were good enough that we really didn’t need the exposition.
Aside from that little nitpick though, I just absolutely loved this movie. One of the rare movies where I would say it’s absolutely timeless. You can recommend it to people from now until the end of time with no caveats, and this movie will hold its own. It’s a thing of beauty.
Just wanted to say, I really enjoy your write-ups on these. Keep 'em coming!
Huh. It was on British TV all the time when I was a kid. It’s one of my earliest film memories.
Herzog Report: Fata Morgana
An odd bird, this, sort of halfway between his more recent stuff like Encounters at the End of the World and something like Koyaanisqatsi. Not really my thing, I have to say.
It still pops up on American TV occasionally.