Hal Ashby's unsatisfactory Woody Guthrie biopic from 1976 uses a shovelful of sentiment to flatten out most of the bumps in Guthrie's life, but David Carradine contributes a glorious, low-key performance as the visionary legend who travelled his country throughout the Great Depression, singing for the beat-down folk and fighting off the Fascists. The real star, though, is Haskell Wexler's radiant dustbowl cinematography.
Four years before The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino made his debut as writer and director with this macho love story, starring Clint Eastwood as a typically crusty old bank robber and Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges as his wide-eyed and adoring young sidekick. Excellent support from George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis as a couple of hoods after Clint's ass (as it were).
Ridiculous documentary in praise of the gigantic ego of producer Robert Evans, 'somebody' in the '70s but a self-promoting Hollywood Del Boy now. Sure, he bankrolled great films once (The Godfather, Chinatown), but this indulgent, visually static puff-piece (chiefly composed of photos and Evans saying what a fabulous mogul and stud he is) isn't one of them.
Filming in Venice and Morocco whenever funds permitted, Orson Welles shot this adaptation of The Bard's play in scraps over four years in the late 1940s. The circumstances—there were literally years between shots—inspired kaleidoscopic editing and audacious improvisation:when costumes failed to arrive for a critical murder, Welles restaged it half-naked in a Turkish bath. The result:the most vibrant slice of Shakespeare-noir ever filmed.
Burt Lancaster, gruff and manly, and Tony Curtis, delicately fey, star in Carol Reed's howlingly homoerotic tale of two leotard-clad acrobats in '50s Paris, vying for each other's respect, for the affections of Gina Lollobrigida, and for mastery of the triple somersault. "Teach me the triple!" says wide-eyed Curtis to Lancaster. "Are you crazy?!" splurts Lancaster, outraged.
Time has been kind to Less Than Zero. This kitschy exposé of teenage dysfunction in Beverly Hills, now freed from the weight of Bret Easton Ellis, has much in it to admire, from the fluorescent art direction and uber-'80s soundtrack to Andrew McCarthy's glassy-eyed performance and Robert Downey Jr's eerily prescient depiction of a rehab recidivist.
The promising 1996 debut by Greg Mottola, The Daytrippers is the epitome of early-'90s Sundance syndrome, where fulsome character and sharp dialogue take precedence over narrative logic. Thus, on the whim of daughter Eliza (Hope Davis), the entire Malone family (including indie queen Parker Posey) take an entertaining but essentially unjustifiable day trip to Manhattan.
Arthur Penn's follow-up to Bonnie And Clyde, based on Arlo Guthrie's blues hit about his arrest for littering and how it led to him being rejected for service in Vietnam. Penn's movie follows Guthrie as he wanders the US from draft board to college to commune, providing a time capsule of the dreams and rituals of late-'60s drop-out America; and one that, with its lingeringly downbeat ending, now looks prescient.
Lengthy adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about poor black folk in Georgia during the first half of the 20th century was Spielberg's first 'serious' film. The territory is admittedly dark (incest, domestic violence) and, despite its faults, it succeeds thanks to visual skill and a sterling cast led by Whoopi Goldberg.
