1976: The Year that The Italian Stallion and Tricky Dick Faced Off

Best celebrity death match ever? I think so. I know I just put up a blog like two days ago, but I had already seen a few of the films for this year since they're actually good. Don't worry: there's still plenty to complain about. But this year also contains yet another of my childhood (or pre-teenhood as it were) favorites and also a film that is now one of my all-time favorites too! America celebrated its 200th birthday by not making me angry. Stay classy, USA.

Just not with this movie, one of the most overrated that I've seen recently: All The President's Men. I'm going to give it faux brownie points for assuming that it's a take-off of "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again." If not, then it loses one of its only creative aspects. The film gives us such a realistic portrayal of the Watergate investigation that it's really quite boring at times. And I can't imagine it being interesting to people in 1976, all of whom knew about President Nixon's infamous scandal. I've said this before and I'll say it again: illustrating an injustice that everyone already knows about is neither brave nor interesting. It just...is. And they could have at least done something interesting with the filmmaking. The opening of the film and the exact end are done in an interesting fashion, but the other 2 hours and something basically give you the same experience you would have sitting in an editor's office. The Netflix sleeve told me the movie is still shown to journalism students, well good! It'll give them an idea of how tedious their jobs will be. But since when are Troy McClure-esque films worthy of the Academy's recommendation? In addition, the movie has like 11 F-words and it's rated PG! It was initially rated R but they lowered it because it "carries important social significance." Translation: we don't want to negatively influence children unless we're also teaching them something that they could learn from literally any newspaper, radio station, or hobo on the street. Slightly-more-cynical-but-probably-more-accurate-translation: even though everybody already hates Nixon we want to make sure they also hate him at the movies. It's all just one big social statement, which would be fine except the entire movie consists of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman talking to people on the phone. That's as creative as it gets. Ron Howard's excellent 2008 film Frost/Nixon illustrates many of the same points as this movie while also giving us some interesting insight. I completely endorse and appreciate social/political commentary in film but I think it should be displayed in a thought-provoking fashion and not just as a really long episode of 20/20. On a positive note, the acting is solid and the writing is good. But that's about it. And the AFI added it to their top 100 list just after Deepthroat's identity was brought to light. Hmmm...how interesting. Feebly trying to remain socially relevant AFI? For shame.

Somewhat in the same category, though certainly better, is the movie Bound For Glory. This film deals with a lot of the same issues as one of my most universally despised books: "The Grapes of Wrath." I'd rant about that now but I have to save it for the movie version from the 40s, which I'll probably get to sometime around the alleged Mayan apocalypse. Anyway, the movie illustrates many of the societal problems that occurred during the "dust bowl" period of American history, and at least does so in a comparatively interesting fashion unlike the movie I was just talking about. The film is about a guy, played by David Carradine, who wanders around the American West and finds people who are having trouble while also befriending and helping them...wait a second, isn't that the plot to Kung Fu? I mean, it's based on a true story...so it's more probable that Kung Fu was the television adaptation of Woody Guthrie's life, where he beat people up instead of singing songs with his guitar, and then when the show was canceled they decided to adapt the story more accurately with a film version. That is the indisputable truth on the subject, the foot has spoken. Anyway, if you've heard the song "This Land is Your Land" (or more importantly: the Jib-Jab version) then this is the story of the guy who wrote that song. It's also about that guy if you haven't heard the song. Much like Nixon's movie, this film goes on for too long while essentially making the same point over and over again. But it's long enough after the real-life events that inspired the movie that the initial point-making is at least justified. The story is essentially what I've already described, but the nuances are too varied to list here. They include various ways of portraying how bad it was for many citizens back then, especially citizens who made their living through farming. Woody Guthrie used his gift of singing and song-writing to give a voice to the plight of the common farmer, to the point that he even refused to become consumerized/famous/rich. If that's the way he wanted to live then I guess that's respectable, as long as it was for his own peace of mind and not because he thought it would be unfair to people who couldn't sing or write songs. Because then that's just dumb. And as Quark once said on DS9: "dignity in an empty sack is worth the sack." I jest, but in all seriousness I think it's cool that he lived his life the way he wanted to live it by using his music to bring hope to those that really needed it and not Ivy League college students who would listen to his music and ergo felt they were entitled to say they "recognized with the commoner." As I said, the movie goes on a bit long for what it is but it also has some filmmaking innovations that are difficult to notice today (since they're now in every movie). So I give the director of photography his due credit and I'll say it's a fairly solid movie overall.

A movie that I found to be quite outstanding is Network. What a great film. I felt like I might have written it, if I wasn't -12 at the time. And it was interesting to note how many of the issues raised in the story are still incredibly relevant today. I'm sure I won't do the movie justice by writing about it now, because I've only seen it once and it's fairly layered. But I shall do my best. At its simplest: it's about a TV anchor near the end of his career who is fed up with the system. It's also about the TV station itself as it struggles with low ratings. The whole thing is done in a darkly funny and satirical way, but like most satire it has a deeply serious message. In this case: the tendency of human beings (and especially Americans) to blindly follow things and people they don't fully understand. Howard Beale (played superbly by Peter Finch) delivers his now-famous "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" speech right from the deepest depths of his soul. He was trying to tell everyone that the system was a sham and that they should destroy it before it took over their lives more than it already had. So what did the network do? They made his speech the catchphrase for his new show. They turned a rant against mindless viewership into a vehicle for mindless viewership. That is truly brilliant. Because even when people think they're opposing "The Man" they're really just serving a different "The Man" or possibly even the same one. Which is why my motto isn't "stick it to The Man" but rather "sometimes The Man is too big to be stuck." I recognize the system as ridiculous so I don't let it get to me, but I also have no delusions about changing the entire nation's way of thinking. But to return to the movie: the ending is a bit over-the-top but it fits with the satirical and already slightly over-the-top tone of the film. It can be overly chatty at times but the ideas being spoken are all quite fascinating and important to think about. Roger Ebert said that the film was "like prophecy" and I couldn't agree more. During one of the longer speeches near the end I couldn't help but think of Jersey Shore and the umpteenth amount of Saw sequels. The acting, directing, and writing of the film are all top notch. It's simply a movie that everyone should watch. I'm a big fan of this year's winner, and I understand why it won and I'm glad it won, but this is probably the better film and in another year it might have had a shot. It didn't fade into obscurity though and it's still rightfully listed on many lists as one of the best movies ever, so that's not too shabby.

Another great and somewhat depressing movie is Taxi Driver. Actually, change that to "definitely depressing." I probably should've watched this movie again as I've only seen it once and that was three-and-a-half years ago. I remember because I initially bought and watched it when it was recommended to me by the TA in my Study of Film class (which I may or may not have mentioned before, but it was the best class ever). He described it to me as an "Eastern" because it's essentially a Western in New York City in what was then the modern day. Now here's an example of a film that subtly deals with Vietnam-era America without being preachy. Travis Bickle is a former Marine and a misanthrope who drives a cab and ends up befriending a young prostitute played by Jodie Foster. And as I'm sure you're aware this was the film that "inspired" John Hinckley Jr. to shoot Ronald Reagan. I've always found that to be quite disturbing on many levels. The most disturbing of which is that I could see shooting some Russian higher-ups to get Bond girls to like you, but going after the president for 13-year-old Jodie Foster? Gross. The film also made quite an impact when it came out due to its fairly extreme violence and non-heroic/disturbing protagonist. Because of these things it was one of the pioneer films for anti-heroes. Even though Dirty Harry was the first, and one of the best, he still comes off as fairly heroic. I'll talk about that more in my 1971 write-up. Travis Bickle was a pioneer not for guys like The Punisher and Jack Bauer, but for guys like Vic Mackey and Dexter Morgan (from The Shield and Dexter, respectively). We're talking about guys you cheer for even though you know you really, really shouldn't. Bickle was a man scarred by the war to such an extent that he couldn't connect with other human beings anymore. After forcing himself to view people as things in the war, he couldn't come back from that. And so a young girl that can only be helped (in his mind) by a killing machine was the perfect way for him to feel human again. It's all played as far more disturbing than that, but that's the gist. Here is yet another film that in another year might have netted itself the Oscar. Although I think both it and Network were a little too "out there" to win, I find it interesting that in some ways they're not "out there" enough to win today. Maybe in the 80s...we all know that decade of nominees needed them.

And after all of that build-up we are brought to this year's winner: Rocky. I've seen this movie SO many times because I was quasi-obsessed with the series when I was like 13 or 14. Today people might think of it as the stereotypical sports movie, but it was really the first of its kind in a lot of ways. Basically every sports movie that comes out is still compared to it. And after several years of nominees and winners that were mostly depressing (excellent, but depressing) I think the Academy wanted to restore some hope. And I can respect that, especially since it made the movie much like its titular hero: Rocky Balboa. There's been a lot of interesting analysis about the film in recent years, including that it's representative of the white man trying to rise to prominence in an age dominated by female and minority heroes (in real life, not the movies). This is of course exemplified by the fact that the main "antagonist" of the film is a black man: Apollo Creed. While this is interesting, Stallone wrote this movie over the course of merely a few days and Carl Weathers got the job because Stallone liked his attitude during an audition. So basically all of that analysis is crap. In that it wasn't the intended message, but I do find it interesting. And it's possible that those ideas were in the back of Stallone's mind. It's also possible the producers thought of it. So let's roll with that for a second: during the 60s and 70s there were plenty of people like Rocky who were struggling just as much as anybody but who were also villainized by society because that was when the idea of "the evil white man" was coming into prominence. And so the point of the film, whether you look at it that way or simply as an underdog story (for the record, I just view it as an underdog story but I thought it would be fun to share), is that the man who thought he was worthless proves that he is worth something. Not necessarily that he was the best (not until part 2 anyway) but that he was better than people thought he was. I think that's extraordinary, especially in today's society of: "if I'm not number 1 and if I don't get a nice shiny medal then I'm no good." Rocky sums it all up himself better than I could in the much overlooked and underrated sixth film, Rocky Balboa: "it ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." And that's a good lesson for anybody. But it's better learned if you just watch the first one, the other ones are more fun than philosophical. Also of note: Burgess Meredith's fantastic performance as Rocky's trainer Mickey and of course the iconic "Gonna Fly Now" music by Bill Conti. If you haven't seen the movie, there's something wrong with you. Seriously.

Isn't the 70s shaping up to be better than the 80s? I am once again correct, not that anyone should be surprised. It'll probably take me a bit longer to crank out 1975 because one of the movies is about 3 hours long and even though it's a Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket taught me that that's not quite as reliable as a Scorsese of Coppola film. But anyway, all I can say about the next year for now is that it'll include more country music, more iconic John Williams music, and the musical tones of Al Pacino firing weaponry.