The Usual Choices
Coming Home (Hal Ashby)
Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick)
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)
Halloween (John Carpenter)
Midnight Express (Alan Parker)
But how about...
Go Tell the Spartans (Ted Post)
A Vietnam War movie that manages to be a little different from the rest: set in the early part (1964) of the war when the mire was just starting to stink; no Hendrix / Doors / Motown soundtrack to inject instant history; no important battles with big names that live in infamy; no smiling psychopaths who enjoy what they do. Instead, this story is based around a rather pathetic skirmish that spun out of control, fought by a group of men who we don't get much backstory on, but we still feel as if we know them anyway...just ordinary guys roped in to do a job (conscription was just starting). But what is most striking is the tone of the film: sarcastic, casual and resigned. Even the professional military men want to know: What the bloody hell are we doing here? With its emphasis on recognisable human experience (these soldiers come across as young men fresh from childhood, led by veterans who have simply had enough), this is easily the best of the 1978 Vietnam War movie bunch.
...and what about...
The Fury (Brian De Palma)
Secretly a superhero movie (this would make a dandy X-Men backstory...Jean Grey? David Haller?), this is an often-overlooked ripper of a psi-fi thriller. Being a De Palma movie, there are the usual Hitchcock references (the injections of humour; the Vertigo flashbacks; the Strangers on a Train berserk carousel), which simultaneously pay tribute to and freshen the great master's work. The acting by all is strong, with Kirk Douglas manfully playing his last appealing action character and Amy Irving eliciting sympathy and terror in a could've-been-an-annoying-simp role. The soundtrack is lush and rousing; the script takes a rather pulpy premise and wrings all possible excitement, paranoia and tension out of it; the climax is genuinely shocking, which is topped by a classic coda. But the real highlight is Brian De Palma himself; he shows off a tour de force of cinematic craftsmanship.
...not to mention...
Newsfront (Phillip Noyce)
My choice for Australia's Greatest Film. Made by Australians, starring Australians, about a quintessential Australian experience: the eating away of our cultural identity by the Yanks (Coke, hotdogs and money, lots of money)...and how we simply went along with it, easily-impressed and self-ambivalent as always. This movie tells the story of a 1940's newsreel company and its recording of Australian life in the postwar years. Bill Hunter plays straightshooting cameraman Len and we follow his cinematic career in social history from PM Ben Chifley to a television in every home. Various features of the film are a joy: one of the most spot-on music soundtracks (resigned melancholy runs through it) + flawless era details, including correct slang and leisure activities (the pub; chainsmoking; stirring each other up) + seamless integration of old and new footage + the script, perfectly laconic. The acting is subtle and lowkey (apart from Gerard Kennedy's overripe American accent) and the ending is heroic in a quiet way. And that's us...or, rather, how we would prefer to see ourselves.
...and one personal unmentionable...
The Medusa Touch (Jack Gold)
No film as stupid as this should risk having its lead actor open with the line "I have a talent for disaster". Richard Burton (in full enunciating baritone) is a writer who has the ability to will people to death, from making them succumb to measles to creating nuclear armageddon (that's some range). Can an intrepid police inspector stop Dickie before he kills the Queen? No actor comes out of this unscathed: Lee Remick is awfully dull (the thankless role of the buttoned-up psychiatrist who rationalizes everything), Harry Andrews & Gordon Jackson & Derek Jacobi & even Michael Hordern can't avoid melodramatic mugging, and poor Italian import Lino Ventura looks sick 'n' tired right from his first appearance... and he no doubt fired his agent shortly afterwards. My fave cringer is when a parishioner is clobbered by a falling piece of cathedral the size of an SUV, and he shrugs it off like it's an unwanted piggyback. From the painful The Days of Our Lives dialogue to one of the most unconvincing plane crashes on film, this is a professional embarrassment for all concerned.
My Top 10 Films of 1978
 |
| Tokyo Backpackers Hostel. |
#02 A The Fury (De Palma)
#03 A- Go Tell the Spartans (Post)
#04 A- Dawn of the Dead (Romero)
#05 A- Blue Collar (Schrader)
#06 A- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Kaufman)
#07 A- Death on the Nile (Guillermin)
#08 A- American Hot Wax (Mutrux)
#09 B+ Fingers (Toback)
#10 B+ Girlfriends (Weill)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ Straight Time (Grosbard)
#12 B+ The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Schepisi)
#13 B+ Superman (Donner)
#14 B+ Halloween (Carpenter)
#15 B+ Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (Kotcheff)
#16 B+ The Buddy Holly Story (Rash)
#17 B+ An Unmarried Woman (Mazursky)
#18 B+ Coma (Crichton)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Coming Home [strong and affecting anti-war story which infuriatingly turns into The Joy of Sex, page 139]
> B House Calls [an amiably-mild comedy where we are asked to accept Walter Matthau as a stud]
> B Days of Heaven [stunningly beautiful to look at but uninvolving and cold; great kid though]
> B The Deer Hunter [about machismo & mateship, but not about human emotion as we know it]
> B Movie Movie [a mock double-feature where both movies are more mock than feature]
> B Absolution [just for a change, a Catholic schoolboy preys upon and terrorises a priest]
> B- Pretty Baby [while the subject matter gets more and more disturbing, this film will remain fairly dull]
> B- The Driver [car chase movie where I kept pining for other actors...Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset...]
> B- The Boys from Brazil [cute performance by Lord Olivier and a ridiculous one by Gregory Peck]
> B- Magic [Anthony Hopkins withers in comparison to the impact of Michael Redgrave in Dead of Night]
> B- Interiors [I tried to feel for these people, but all I did was think of real problems like the mortgage and hunger]
> B- Grease [containing one peppy pop song, this musical is about as rock'n'roll as Andrew Lloyd Webber]
> B- Eyes of Laura Mars [thriller with an interesting premise but its potential just lays there]
> B- The Shout [Arty horror film that's far, far closer to peculiar than to scary]
> C Midnight Express [aka Be a Drug Trafficker and See the World...Briefly]
> D Who'll Stop the Rain [a drug movie stocked with unlikeable people and too much Creedence]
> D The Class of Miss MacMichael [and the search for a good and accurate film about teaching continues]
> E The Medusa Touch [A Personal Unmentionable]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1978 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Big Wednesday (Milius); The Boys in Company C (Furie); The Brinks Job (Friedkin); Comes a Horseman (Pakula); Convoy (Peckinpah); Corvette Summer (Robbins); Goin’ South (Nicholson); I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Zemeckis); Killer
of Sheep (Burnett); The
Money Movers (Beresford); Mouth
to Mouth (Duigan); My
Way Home (Douglas); National
Lampoon’s Animal House (Landis); Northern
Lights (Hanson); Piranha
(Dante); Remember
My Name (Rudolph); The Scenic Route (Rappaport); The Silent Partner (Duke); Silver Bears (Passer); Skin
Deep (Steven); A
Wedding (Altman)
Best Performances of 1978
Gary Busey in The Buddy Holly Story
Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman
Robert De Niro in The Deer Hunter
Jane Fonda in Coming Home
Dustin Hoffman in Straight Time
Jon Voight in Coming Home
Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter
But how about...
Tim McIntire in American Hot Wax
I was born in 1959 to teenage parents so I was brought up on Little Richard and Bill Haley 45's blasting out of a 3-in-1 Rank Arena stereogram. When puberty hit me, I started reading Rolling Stone and found out that rock music had a history and that those old 45's were the start of it. My joyful exploration began.
Tim plays Alan Freed, the guy who has been called everything from the King of Rock and Roll to its Godfather & its Midwife. This film is about the man, a Rock and Roll show he puts on and how the Establishment wants to shut it down (the loud jungle music is turning teenagers into animals, you see)...all very Don't Knock the Rock, for sure. It doesn't matter that the film screws up the facts (Truth is usually overrated anyway); it doesn't matter that Alan Freed probably wasn't this much of a saint...as Tim beautifully portrays it, the story is about SPIRIT, way beyond mere cuddly nostalgia. How plain unfair that this didn't lead him to a shining career rather than to drink & drugs.
P.S. Like Alan Freed, Tim McIntire died young of a heart attack. A pair of broken hearts for sure.
...and what about...
Harvey Keitel in Fingers
One of my favourite quotes is attributed to Diogenes: "People are good and bad but mostly and". This is the perfect one-line summary of Harvey's character in Fingers. A musician who plays Brahms but listens to lightweight pop music ("Angel of the Morning"??); a man who attracts homosexuals but is rampantly and aggressively heterosexual; a nice, well-mannered guy who pistol-whips in a flash if the mood takes him; an empathetic soul who menacingly collects debts on behalf of his ganglord father; a would-be concert pianist who is accomplished in private but is a stage-fright dud in public; a man who holds both his domestic-violence victim mother and ruthlessly vicious father in his heart. Clearly a man with issues then (and a permanent Reserved sign in the nuthouse carpark), the role is an actor's dream...and a potential nightmare: how do you make such a guy seem real? Somehow, Harvey does. He will frighten you while you pity him. Neat trick.
...not to mention...
Glenda Jackson in House Calls
If Glenda Jackson can win the 1973 Best Actress Oscar for that piece of unmitigated crap A Touch of Class, she can certainly be nominated for an Alternate Oscar for this vastly superior (which really isn't saying much) sex comedy. In House Calls, Glenda Jackson is actually likeable, something which she has rarely been (the only other time was in 1985's wonderful Turtle Diary). The film is a pleasant-enough romance with Glenda underplaying (minimal raging & screaming) as a middle-aged divorcee who falls for Doctor Walter Matthau...how's that for an unlikely coupling? The woman is amusing, sensible, unflappable and attractive, so you can see why prune-faced Walter quickly realises that he has found the one for him. I'll say it again: Glenda Jackson is likeable. Now that is acting against type.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Gregory Peck in The Boys from Brazil
"I've got a script here about infamous Nazi monster, Josef Mengele."
"Geez...who could possibly play him?"
"The story is about how Mengele lives in Brazil, and is hatching a diabolical plan for a new global Reich."
"Geez...which actor could believably portray that enormity of evil?"
"Mengele has cloned Hitler and has implanted the DNA into women from many countries, where they have given birth to sons. He has even replicated the children's domestic upbringing so they match that of the young Adolf."
"Geez...who could make that seem even vaguely plausible? Who could we get? Who could do it?"
"Why...the same guy who played Atticus Finch and King David of course. Hello?...Hello?...Are you still there?"
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1978
 |
| Airport Security. Cough. |
#02 Robert Morley in Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?
#03 Linda Manz in Days of Heaven
#04 Yaphet Kotto in Blue Collar
#05 Dai Bradley in Absolution
#06 Harvey Keitel in Fingers
#07 Christopher Reeve in Superman
#08 Melanie Mayron in Girlfriends
#09 Dustin Hoffman in Straight Time
#10 Tim McIntire in American Hot Wax
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 The male cast of The Deer Hunter
#11 Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman
#12 Jon Voight in Coming Home
#13 Bill Hunter in Newsfront
#14 The cast of Interiors
#15 Theresa Russell in Straight Time
#16 Alan Bates in An Unmarried Woman
#17 Meryl Streep in The Deer Hunter
#18 Glenda Jackson in House Calls
#19 Gary Busey in The Buddy Holly Story
#20 The three leads of The Shout
#21 Amy Irving in The Fury
#22 Bette Davis & Maggie Smith in Death on the Nile
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Jane Fonda in Coming Home [just one of her WASPy woman roles where men's experiences change her]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1978 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: Newsfront (Phillip Noyce)
SILVER: The Fury (Brian De Palma)
BRONZE: Go Tell the Spartans (Ted Post)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Harvey Keitel (Fingers)
SILVER: Christopher Reeve (Superman)
BRONZE: Dustin Hoffman (Straight Time)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Melanie Mayron (Girlfriends)
SILVER: Jill Clayburgh (An Unmarried Woman)
BRONZE: Glenda Jackson (House Calls)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Robert Morley (Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?)
SILVER: Yaphet Kotto (Blue Collar)
BRONZE: Dai Bradley (Absolution)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Angela Lansbury (Death on the Nile)
SILVER: Theresa Russell (Straight Time)
BRONZE: Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Robert De Niro & Christopher Walken & John Savage & John Cazale & George Dzundza & Chuck Aspegren (The Deer Hunter)
SILVER: Diane Keaton & Mary Beth Hurt & Geraldine Page & E.G. Marshall & Richard Jordan & Kristin Griffith & Maureen Stapleton & Sam Waterston (Interiors)
BRONZE: Alan Bates & John Hurt & Susannah York (The Shout)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Linda Manz (Days of Heaven)
SILVER: Moosie Drier (American Hot Wax)
BRONZE: TBA
The Alternate Razzies for 1978 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
The Medusa Touch (Jack Gold)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Oliver Reed (The Class of Miss MacMichael)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Isabelle Adjani (The Driver)
