25 From 78: My Favorite Films Of 1978

 What does a massive Yuletide train-wreck look like? This one-time-on-air special that even George Lucas, with copious amounts of avarice, has denounced answers that question.
 Big time.
 And yet, as horrible as it is, every year on when the Christmas season arrives, I find myself still inclined to slip it into the VCR. Then, just as I resolute myself to turn it off and just throw the tape away, I always find that morbid curiosity continually prevents me from looking away.

Hey, this is the look on your face when you saw that I put the Star Wars Holiday Special on this list.



  I'm pretty sure that from here on end, every person reading this list is thinking to themselves "How can I take whatever this guy says seriously ever again?".
The truth is, this is a case wherein I really only had 24 movies to put on the list, so in order to make it an even 25, I included the Star Wars Holiday Special more as a bad (very bad) joke.
 There are several films from this year (such as Days of Heaven, Coming Home and Pretty Baby) that I heard are very good but haven't gotten around to seeing yet. I'm sure that I'll eventually stumble across a motion picture that'll make the make this a more legitimate top twenty-five list.

 Wow, look, it's the Lord of The Rings saga in one movie. And what's even more, it's a cartoon.
  The good news is that it's a Ralph Bakshu cartoon. One of the innovators of 1970's animation when it came to its application to cinema, Bakshi's work was a very refreshing and welcomed alternative to the Disney formula which had been running rampart for decades when it came to applying hand-drawn images to the silver screen. My favorite part about his style of animation was that it focused heavily on more adult oriented far as compared to the Mickey Mouse movie machine's emphasis on "family viewing" which really meant that the motion picture was directed more towards very young children. Bakshi also tended to experiment a lot with early motion capture style, which by today's standard may appear a bit clunky, but back when this Lords was released, it was looked upon as quite cutting-edge stuff.
  Still, due to the limited technique of the medium of the time, not to mention, trying to condense the rather dense story of LotR into a single movie, there's doubt that this film adaptation can't compare to the expansive or jaw dropping elements that Peter Jackson's big, budgeted trilogy brought to the genre of sword & sorcery cinema almost two and a half decades later. But for young fantasy film fans such as myself back then, it was still kinda cool to see any kind of serious effort (no matter how rudimentary) being put forth into a movie of this specific type of saga-spanning subject matter. Especially since this was back before my viewing abilities were desensitized by the level of sophistication that CGI brought to the table of special effects, and therefore, the lack of sword & sorcery material coming out of Hollywood's output at the time made this type of animated magic sweeping saga quite the rare treat.  

 Okay, so, in the last entry, I described the Bakshi Lord of the Rings movie as an adult alternative to the more kiddie friendly fare that Disney was pumping into the world of movies and had monopolized its brand onto. Well, in the same year that the first LotR film adaptation had hit the theaters, there was also this animated feature that could easily had fooled kids into thinking that it was an anthropomorphic adventure in the style that they were used to seeing being cranked out by the mouse-eared movi-making megalith.
   Now, whereas the 1978 cartoon version of LotR was cool because it was a big screen sword and sorcery saga, Watership Down is cool because it's an cartooned flick about a bunch a bunnies that creeped the heck out of me as a kid.
And if a cartoon about a bunch of bunnies can creep the heck out of me, even if I was a just a kid at the time, then you know that it's gotta be at least somewhat bad-ass.

Aspiring to become an accomplished virtuoso piano player while making a living as a loan shark collector, Jimmy Fingers is aptly named.
Lost in the shadow of films like Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Harvey Keitel "shines" in this forgotten little gem about a dysfunctional thug being pulled in two completely opposite directions.



Letting his fingers fly on the keyboard by day and breaking fingers by night, Jimmy leads a schizophrenic existence between the high class road to Carnegie Hall and the low class street of grit level organized crime.

  When it comes to the question of which is my favorite Bruce Lee film, even though I often tend to interchange my answer between Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury, I have to admit that Game of Death is the one that I find myself watching the most.
   A big part of the reason for that is that since the actual movie remains an unfinished project due to the sudden and unexpected passing of the martial arts legend, (in my eyes, those post-Lee parts that were filmed in order to complete the project in order to cash in on his name, they don't count... ) GoD, leaves lots of room for interpretation on what could have been. At least it does so in my head.
 I think that it's no argument that after Lee's death, the martial arts genre took a very steep nosedive as far as the kind of quality, and even more importantly, the kind of integrity that Bruce was striving for in order to make this particular type of motion picture a much more respected and accepted form of cinema by mainstream audiences. Especially to the English-speaking sector which was and still is the biggest part of the movie making market.
  Fortunately, with the global success of Asian style action film franchises such as Ong-Bak and the Raid, the New Millenium has seen the genre take many strides forward as far as being taken more seriously as a viable cinematic artform. Still, every time I look at the ideas that Bruce was trying to explore in this early "kung fu flick", I can't help but wonder about the potential that the original Dragon must have dreamt, strived and hoped for within the type of cinema that his fist furiously made famous. 

Columbo's Peter Falk comes out to the other side of the trenchcoat to play the role of that of a low-level criminal mastermind instead of a low-level criminal catcher.
Instead of solving crimes, he's now solving problems to will allow him to commit crimes. Particularly, a crime known as The Brinks Job.
Now being that this is a movie that came out in the seventies, TBJ is a heist flick whose plot may not be at the level of creativity that the more over-the-top details that make today's outstretched cinematic bank jobs,
but considering that is based on a true story, it's still a pretty creative, if ill-fated, criminal endeavor for it's time. And still a pretty entertaining watch no matter what context you may put the movie's time frame.

Three blue collar friends work at the same factory are continually frustrated by their jobs, their unions and by their respective home lives. After reaching a mutual breaking point, the trio plan a caper in which they break into their union's offices and rob the company safe.
An "outside" job that proves to have benefits that are neither rewarding or beneficial to their pockets, status or friendship.

  I don't know if it's because on any long-term sociological effect that dropping the very first atomic bomb on their homeland had their people, but it always seemed to me like, after World War II, Japan has created and released some pretty crazy-ass shit when it comes to entertainment. When you look at some of those kaiju films and the freaking monsters that they designed despite the super-cheap lookin' rubber suits that they were made of, or at the premise of a many of the early anime television series that were aimed towards children, the most obvious response that can expected me would be "Who the hell comes up with this stuff?".
  Therefore, as a result of that kind of off-hinged type of entertainment, a kung fu flick that is about a martial arts style that is based off being dunk off your ass might come off as a bit tepid. 
  Luckily, it was written and produced to cater to the goofy antics and manic moves of its star, the wildly energetic and charismatic, and then upcoming legend, Jackie Chan. After a few minor roles is some Bruce Lee motion pictures, he was able to pave his own unique way into the fight film industry and make the kind of name for himself that kept him from becoming yet just another Lee clone (which I believe many of the top men in the movie industry of the Orient had planned for him). And this initial chapter into the inebriated inspired franchise was one that first helped his star to rise in the distinctive manner that it did.  



 Now while I agree with most karate konnoisseurs that the sequel to Drunken Master, which navigates between the names Legend of The Drunken Master and Drunken master II, was technically a better and more "masterful" movie, and the film that started it all, and was responsible for bringing Jackie's signature style of "comedic combat" to my attention. There are still times now when I watch the super kinetic action scenes of DM and I am amazed at how they still seem as energetic, cool and creatively crazy today as back when movie goers were introduced to them back in the 1970's.
  And I gotta confess, as someone who doesn't shy away from indulging in a few pints or two, there are many times when those alcoholic induced martial arts moves inspire me to this day to think to myself "Man, I bet I could fight like that if I was drunk enough."
And I mean, like, really, really drunk enough.

 The saga of the son of Satan continues through this crazy thing that we call life. Of course, I am referring to the tiny terror that we were introduced to in the first Omen, a little boy who went by the named Damien and who also just so happens to be the hell-spawn of none other than the Lord of Flies himself. In other words, he's the Anti-Christ that we were all told for centuries had a time that was nigh. This is the franchise that showed us that the nigh was now now, and this is how "Lucifer Jr.'s" destiny unfolds. 
 In Damien: Omen II, we get to see that the little devil is not so little anymore, and well on his way to becoming a man. This sequel takes the opportunity to focus on something that we didn't really get to see much of on the first film, and that just exactly who this young dark prince really is (outside of being Beezelbub's first born).  Here we get to see what Damien the person is really like as he struggles through the growing pains of anti-christ-like adolescence. What are his likes, what are his dislikes, what are his dreams, does he have a girlfriend,
 And just like any boy approaching manhood (or half-manhood, half goat-hood), he soon finds that even a pathway towards a demonic destiny is bound to be paved with a few blemishes and pimples along the way.

I've never been a big fan of Terrence Malick's films. While most critics and connoisseurs like to defend his films as being works of "artistic expressionism", I find then to be aimlessly vague.
That said, I do like two of his earliest movies, Badlands and this one, Days Of Heaven.
In it, Malick manages to use the expansive scenery as thick brushstrokes of storytelling. Combined with the narration that is told by the POV of a young girl, the end result is a simple story with multidimensional layers, the kind that can keep true fans of cinema seated at their roundtables for hours.

In reference to the title of this movie, not only can heaven wait,
but as far as I'm concerned,
hell can wait even longer.

Sally is involved with two military men.
Her husband, who is out in Vietnam fighting,
and a returned soldier whose war inflicted injuries has left him confined to a wheel chair. Married to the first, in love with the second, she must confront her her ambling life direction and decide which principles she will stand for. The hawk-like dedications of her betrothed or the dove-like protests of her beloved.
Coming Home is an emotionally intelligent movie for grown-ups that is full Academy Award winning performances, triangulated drama, and statements of after effects of conflict that can result both from the battlefield and from the home front.

  Way before the popularity of High School Musical, there was this high school musical. And despite that one was a made-for-TV movie wile the other was a theatrical release, they both shared a couple fo elements outside of the fact that they were musicals centered around the theme of high school. One, they both kickstarted the mega-star careers of their lead actors.... Zac Efron for High School Musical and John Travolta for Grease. Two, they both were accompanied by number one smash soundtracks. And finally, three, they were both much bigger successes than anyone involved with them could have expected. However, I would have to say that Grease was probably the bigger success between the two in that it actually reached the level of becoming a cultural event that is still to this day, legendary. HSM, with its sequels, appeared as though it had a chance of reaching that level also. but now, almost two decades later, you don't hear people talking about it as much. Where as there is a pretty good percentage of today's generation of kids who have heard about Grease.



 After graduating from being a sweat-hog to become a disco-hopping, drug-popping hardcore dance machine, John Travolta continues onto his rise as the biggest megastar of the 70's by turning down it down a notch or two in this 50's revival teen musical.
So take if you prefer profanity ridden scripts that reflect the more real side of later adolescence, well pal, you can take all those cuss words and racist slangs, stuff 'em in your pants and "just sit on it".

...and speaking of the 1950's teen scene and music....



A trio of Crickets decide to band together and end up creating more noise than expected, quickly rising through the early heirarchy of the Billboard charts. Led by the strong performance of Gary Busey, The Buddy Holly Story is an old skool ditty that is told with the kind of gosh-darn-honest sentiment and musical joyfulness that can make anyone believe that even a gawky, lanky nerd with thick-rimmed glasses can be a rock 'n' roll star.
That is, if he's got the soul.

....and speaking of rock'n'roll bands and their end....

It's the last concert on the road for the band known as The Band, and for this last waltz, they're not going it alone. Featuring a score of guest recording artists like Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, plus, with Martin Scorsese directing the whole thing, is it any wonder why this music movie is considered one of the best concert films ever made?



As I was thinking about what to write in the entry for this film, it occurred to me that we don't see many concert films like this any more. These days, the mass marketed state of the film industry has resulted in acts like Katy Perry, Justin Beiber and the Jonas Brothers getting their latest tweener-centered tours made into movies. Because, nowadays, it's all about music merchandising as opposed to back when it was "all about the music, man".
Which gives me a strong urge to wanna get on my soapbox and lecture to all the kids out there how none of 'em would know good music if it bit 'em on the ass. But the truth is, I know better than that. Lecturing words to the youth, in any generation, will always fall on deaf ears and deafer minds.
So instead, I console myself to today's reality by remembering those famous lyrics that someone once sang, "the times they are a'changing".
It is only then that I feel that I can watch something as rockin' and as cool as The Last Waltz with as much peace of mind as allowed for an old skool music fan such as myself..

At a time when Dustin Hoffman was at his height in terms of popularity and in the eyes of film critics, comes along one his least known/overlooked pictures, Straight Time.
A story about a thief who, after a stint in the joint, tries to live a life outside of crime. But soon finds that the path on the straight and narrow is often wide with crooks and crinkles. Making those bad habits that die hard even harder to die.

  Hollywood has been trying to sell us a bill of goods when it comes to the issue of romance. For a long time, their moviemaking megamachine has been telling us that when after two people jump the hurdles that are a result of the process of falling, once the dust settles, then it's time for the amorously filled couple to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. The end.
  In "reel" life, once the movie ends, so does the story. Conversely, in real life, the story is going on. The wedding may be over, but the marriage is still there. Where do the happy couple go from there? That's a question the Old Hollywood system rarely, if ever truly tried to capture onscreen. Luckily, by the 1970's, New Hollywood was coming in and trying to do what Old Hollywood hardly ever did. It was a film movement that was now trying to delve in deeper in the cracks and crevices of what the true reality was and make the stories for movies based on that. 
  And one of those stories is that of An Unmarried Woman. In a star making role, Jill Clayburgh plays Erica Benton, a successful modern-day woman who seems to have it all together, particularly when it comes to her life with her husband, Martin. That is, until, almost out of nowhere, he confesses his infidelity. And even when she tries to get out of him what went wrong, so immersed into the formula of what society has been conditioned us to believe in, Martin hasn't got the words or reason to explained in a proper context to Erica how it got so "bad". To the point where he falls apart with lanky tears of confusion.
  In other words, the system has failed and now needs repairing. And as a result, Erica must now confront the fact that she is no longer married and has lost the identity that she thought she was expected to dutifully fulfill. In other words, now we have a story that focuses on how the "ever after" is not a "happily" conclusion, but the start of a process of self-exploration. Even as I typed those words, I could sense instantly that they do not make a movie sound as escapistly attractive as what many audiences expect from a film about the affairs of the heart. 
 But in utilizing the introspective quality that was this movement in Hollywood that I mention earlier, it shows that there are enough elements in that kind of deep diving to tell a different kind of story here.
  A story that is a different kind of an emotional roller coaster. One that will show its lead character, Erica, as someone who was never as together as she initially thought. A realization that she eventually finds makes her feel more liberated than any 1970's national movement could. It's a story well worth making a movie of (as An Umarried Woman proves), it's a story that is well worth watching, and most of all, it's a story that keeps going, even after the last of the end credits rolls up. 

In 2011, one of the films that appeared on most critic's "Best Of The Year" lists was Drive, starring Ryan Gosling and Albert Brooks.
And while I thought it was a solid enough flick, the truth is, I was bit underwhelmed.
I was hoping more of what could've been an update of this 1978 Ryan O'Neal vehicle, The Driver.



A gritty crime film about a bait and catch plot to catch a criminal-for-hire driver-with-no-name (now that's what you call a job description!).
Now, I'm sure it comes off kind of shallow comparing Drive to The Driver based on cool car chases, but the truth is, I like the fact this film did not have to sacrifice fast-paced action scenes in order to keep the story elements strong. Behind the wheel, The Driver is fueled with a certain level of expertise in it's ability to maneuver through the back streets and alleyways of L.A. with the same ease as when it turns and weaves through the plot elements that reveal the underbelly of La-La Land when it sleeps.

Check the "on button" to your brain at the door when entering the Animal House, pick up a handful of mashed potato, mixed greens or whatever your favorite choice of sloppy luncheon side order may be,
and then, prepare for battle.



Oh, and feel free to top this entry off by entering your own toga reference here.

For me, Midnight Express is the film that explicitly revealed why the term "turkish prison" is always equated with hope-abandoned fear. And as a result, mercilessly dashed my dreams of ever entering into the field of drug muleology*.



*And if you don't know what that word means, don't bother looking it up. I made it up.
Instead, go find yourself some quality Turkish hash, smoke it,
and then reread that sentence. I guarantee you, it'll make a whole more sense then.
And if not, don't worry about it. You're still smoking hashish.

Okay, let's get the obvious part out of the way:
This sequel does not and never stood a chance of being comparable to the original.
However as far as sequels go (particularly at the time it was made, when most blockbuster follow-ups were rarely any good at all),
Jaws 2 didn't pretty well with what it had.
Suspenseful, thrilling, and a story that explained the coming of a second shark in manner that didn't insult the viewer's intelligence.
It may have not kept as many people out of the water as much as the first film, but with that lack of big backing from Spielberg that it had, it kept it's fair share of beach-goers dry.

  While Texas Chainsaw Massacre introduced us the idea of an unstoppable masked maniacal force intent on making all mere mortals that it comes upon into its chopped sushi bitch, Halloween introduced us the formula of this theme before it became formulaic. And also, before the formula became stupid.
Pay attention to the handling of the characters, the situations of each victim and even the simplicity of the musical score, and you'll find that even though this film requires the usual suspension of belief that is needed to swallow the outrageousness of this genre, Halloween does not require that you hide your intelligence too much behind any kind of William Shatner mask in order to enjoy it.
Which is why, even though I'm not a big fan of the way the slasher genre is handled these days,
 H-1 still is and always will be a classic for me.

 After achieving success at the box office and then, outstanding reviews, The Deer Hunter became a critical darling and earned several awards, including a bunch from the Academy. Poised to become an icon of the era, it lost some of its luster after its director (and cowriter), Michael Cimino, the man whose creative vision this movie was, had a bloated budgeted follow up, Heaven's Gate, that became one of the biggest clunkers in cinema history. Which is too bad because even though TDH is still well regarded today, I don't see come up all that often in discussions about great movies.
  An amazing ensemble cast of Robert Deniro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken and a very beauteous Meryl Streep join all their high-powered acting forces together to form a story that conveys what can happen when the effects of war comes to a small working-class town, leaving wounds, scars, broken relationships and lost friends.
  Cimino (and Co.) gave this quality level roster a lot of sparseness in the dialogue to allow their thespian skillz to do all of the heavy lifting, a challenge that they successfully accomplish as each actor brings to this film to their A-game from start to finish.  Not much is said verbally but is effectively done as a portrayal of a group of ordinary people trying to deal with the set of unordinary consequences that was the Vietnam War.

  Okay, let's be honest here...

Superman is the guy who started it all.

  Yeah yeah , I know that there are some hardcore purists out there who will argue that there were a few obscure names in the superhero game who came before the Man of Steel (the most obvious one is the Phantom), but it was ol' Supe himself who put the concept of super-powered do-gooders on the map of modern-day society's consciousness.

  And even though the whole thing started out as mindless, empty entertainment that was printed on cheap newsprint paper and aimed at a prepubescent audience, as time went on, that particular target audience, like everyone else, grew up. Of course, as many of 'em did, they left behind comic books as a form of escapist fare, but a few of 'em did keep reading. And collecting. And as the hardcore readers matured, they demanded that their favorite caped crusaders do so also. 
  As a result, superheroes began to spring out of the four-color magazines that was used to be their usual home, and onto television, serials and even movies. However, since the camp never left the cape, none of it was really ever taken too seriously. 
  Then, in 1978, a project featuring the Last Son of Krypton was finally approached with the kind of serious consideration required for a big budgeted theatrical release that was aimed at "children of all ages".  Scripted by a prize-winning writer, starring actors of the level of Brando and Gene Hackman, and backed by a blockbusting sized bankroll, the end result was not only a win for the die-hard fans of comic books, but also demonstrated that mainstream audiences were willing suspend their sense of disbelief for the sake of quality escapist fare of the superpowered variety.



 Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, it is only fitting that Superman's big-budget movie debut should turn out to be the one that all others must be measured by. And while I know that this movie does have its dated flaws, it was, just like the character whom it portrayed, the one that started on the idea of how epic the concept of a superhero could truly be.
 This was the one that made all of believe, hardcore and casual fans alike, that a man could fly.