Recommend me 70s movies

How’d I miss this thread? Damn, I’ve got a lot of posts to read through now, but I’ll start with this one, because I haven’t seen either of these films, despite being a huge noir fan. I guess I didn’t know they were considered noir.

I’m assuming these were shot in color? And thus I have my doubts, because all of my favorites were from the 40’s and 50’s. The attempts I’ve seen at noir since then have not sat well with me, and I just cannot imagine the 70’s color film style would lend itself well to the noir genre.

I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong, however, and I guess the only way to find out would be to watch them.
The cast lists do seem appealing.

Boy, to be able to to go into Chinatown blind again…

It always blows me away that people haven’t seen Chinatown. Personal prejudice, I realize, but that movie looms large in my personal noir library.

I was staying with my in laws some time back and my father-in-law was flipping channels and saw it was on, and remarked that he hadn’t seen it. I made him watch the whole thing with me, and when it was over he turned to me and said, “That was fucked up.” And it was.

Just watch them.

$7.00 total rental on amazon.

Four Stars. Quote Ebert:

“Night Moves” came after a lull in Arthur Penn’s career; he and Hackman worked together in “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and then Penn made “Alice’s Restaurant” (1969) and “Little Big Man” (1970). For Hackman, it was a period of astonishing work in such films as “I Never Sang for My Father” (1970), “The French Connection” (1971) and “The Conversation.” What he brings to “Night Moves” is crucial; he must be absolutely sure of his identity as a free-lance gumshoe, even while all of his craft is useless and all of his hunches are based on ignorance of the big picture. Maybe the movie is saying that the old film noir faith is dead, that although in Chandler’s words “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid,” when this man goes down those streets he is blind-sided by a plot that has no respect for him.

Now regarding Chinatown. Hell, it may be the best movie of the Seventies, period.

Better than Benji? I mean, better than Network? No way.

Better than Network. And Taxi Driver. And The Godfather. And Apocalypse Now, even. Yes.

That’s a good enough endorsement for me!

Fine, fine. My curiosity is up now.
I remember when Chinatown came out, I was a teen, and Mom and Dad came home from the theater, and Dad immediately found me and said, “I think you’d really like this film.” Then, decades later, he operated our local “Cinema 100” film club-type thing, and he brought this movie in to a local theater again, and once again tried to talk me into seeing it. But Dad and I had far different tastes in film (I thought. Years later, I’ve come to love some of his favorites -“The Misfits” was one-), and so I passed.

John Huston made for one of the most skin-crawlingly evil characters I’ve ever seen on film. And the fact that (spoiler) in the end, he wins makes it so much worse.

Oh, my, yes.

To your earlier point, regarding color, Polanski uses gorgeous pastel color that really works in the genre. And it being a period piece also helps set that tone. As well as being a great Noir it is also the story of the Twentieth Century American Dream, the Original Sin that begat it, and the endless debts to be paid for that Sin.

Chinatown is great but I would take Taxi Driver, Days of Heaven, and The Godfather to my desert island first.

Those three are totally worth checking out, especially if you’re cataloging great 70s cinema, but they don’t speak to me like Chinatown does. That probably doesn’t say good things about me.

Chinatown is fine, but it stars one of my least favorite actressess ever, Ms. Faye Dunaway.

Agree. She annoys me. And she is in three of my favorite movies (Bonnie and Clyde, Network and Chinatown). What gives??

Many actors and actresses annoy me in the personas they seem to have off-screen, but on-screen they blow me away. Two of them off the top of my head:

Shirley MacLaine: Goofy in real life, from what I’ve read, and yet a stellar actress that I’ve always enjoyed greatly.

Tom Cruise: I could never tolerate hanging out with the guy in real life (although it would be interesting to say the least), but put him in a movie, and I’ll watch it and enjoy his acting.

It says you’re a nosy little fella. You know happens to nosy little fellas?

…as little as possible…

I’m with you on this one. I couldn’t make it past the Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head sequence.