re: Movies We Agree Don't Suck: 1970's Edition

6. Blazing Saddles
Dir. Mel Brooks
(1974)
by H-Town Tiger



“Where the white women at?”



Blazing Saddles is a movie I’m not sure would be made today. It’s full of typical Mel Brooks, rude, crude and politically incorrect humor that pushes well past any boundaries. It’s both a spoof of the classic Hollywood western and a satire about race. Sadly, many would mistake the liberal use of the “N” word as racist, but its really used to belittle the white characters using it as racists. Richard Pryor is one of the co writers.



Unlike typical westerns, the star of Blazing Saddles, Bart (Cleavon Little) is black. In the opening scene, a group of white railroad workers badger the black workers to sing a work song. Little and the black workers sing a Cole Porter song. (Brooks does like to use anachronisms). Not impressed the white workers ask for a more typical 19th century tune and wind up singing The Camptown Races, dancing and sounding like a minstrel show. When singing it, the white workers sing in the dialect as the original lyrics, signing “Gwine to work all day”, but when Bart and another black worker sing the song they pronounce it correctly as “Going to work all day”. The black workers are like 20th century sophisticated urbanites, vs. the redneck white workers.



Not to say the movie is some deep message movie. It is still a Mel Brooks movie after all, full or crude humor like a full minute of cowboys farting while eating beans. Beans, get it? The grand finale has the town folk building a fake town and eventually spills off the screen into a gay version of a Top Hat and onto the Warner Bros lot complete with a pie fight. It eventually winds up Grumman’s Chinese Theater for the premier of Blazing Saddles. It ends with Bart and sidekick the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder) riding off into the sunset, in a limo. While Blazing Saddles may confront the serious issue if race, it never takes it self too seriously. Brooks at his zany best.

Freaux, I've never cared for Holy Grail, but that was a great write up.

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Spielberg delivers one of his and the decades best.

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Agreed. He didn't even get nominated for Best Picture.

4. Chinatown
Dir. Roman Polanski
(1974)
by iwyLSUiwy



One of the greatest movies of all time, Chinatown, directed by Roman Polanski, was released nationally in 1974. Three years later in 1977, Roman Polanski was arrested for raping a 13-year-old girl. Rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. And instead of being locked up for 20 years, the day before his sentencing he fled to France and has lived a rich and free life.

I ask you to NEVER support Roman Polanski by way of purchasing one of his flicks. I, Chase S******n, would never support this man financially in any way. But do whatever you have to to watch Chinatown. Rent Chinatown on iTunes! Watch it on Netflix! Find a torrent of it! If you haven't already, you're missing out.

I good writer doesn't let things like this cloud his judgement so I'm clicking the soap box button off and getting back to work.

***Official review begins here...
J.J. Gettis, played by Jack Nicholson, is a former detective turned private-eye. At one point he earns the nickname "kitty cat", not because he wanted to earn it, but rather because he was snooping around where gangsters didn't want him. But this is what J.J. Gettis does for a living, he snoops around. Gettis is a private-eye who makes a good living being hired by individuals who want to find out if their mate is cheating on them. Not exactly the most well respected job in town, but he makes a good living off of it; and he's good at his job. Real good. Something gained by years of experience in detective work, working in the worst part of town... Chinatown.

The movie is driven around the mystery of two things: who killed Hollice Mulwray, and where is the water going? Those two things entail murder, incest, greed, corruption and lies. You can tell early on that when Mr. Gettis Starts something, he is going to finish it. Who killed Hollice Mulwray, and where is the water going? I think that's part of the reason him and Faye Donaway's character, Evelyn Mulwray get along so well. They both are dead set on getting what they want. Who killed Hollice Mulwray, and where is the water going?

Not many people get along with Jack Nicholsons character very much. He is as cocky as they come. So while Gettis is snooping around and the gangsters come up on him "you're a very nosy fella kitty cat. You know what happens to nosy fellas? Huh, wanna guess? Huh, no. They lose their noses." the man proceeds to cut his nose wide open. So Gettis walks around almost the rest of the entire movie with a giant bandage covering his nose. I love that. In most movies if a guy gets punched in the face and gets a black eye, the next day it's completely gone. But that cut is a constant reminder of who Gettis is. "What happened to your nose, Gittes? Somebody slammed a bedroom window on it?"
Jake Gittes: "Nope. Your wife got excited. She crossed her legs a little too quick. You understand what I mean, pal?" I mentioned he was cocky right? Cocky and badass. Some people say that this was Jack Nicholsons best role, I tend to agree.

I love the M/TV board, but I know i'm already at the to;dr portion of this write up, so I'll make it quick...

The movie is set in the 1930's, made in 1974 as mention. To this day, you watch the movie and you feel like you're in 1937. It's hard to explain how well done this movie is. If you were to just read the plot, you would think this was an episode from Days of Our Lives. But i've only seen a few movies that have done the "I'm living this movie right now" feeling quite like this. Nothing in this film is hard to imagine. I don't like saying it, but well done Mr. Polanski. Well done.

If J.J. Gettis had his way he would have never gone back to Chinatown. But he didn't blink when he had to. I've never ended one of my write ups with a quote from a movie. I like them to be a story that maybe one or two people read. I might not be good at writing but I enjoy it. So limiting quotes has been something I've always done. But...

"Forget it, Chase. It's Chinatown."

Have the people responsible for posting the write up for Holy Grail been sacked for posting in twice in consecutive posts?

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Great Britain, the land that has brought us Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, and Alfred Hitchcock. These directors have pioneered many of modern film's techniques and they have influenced countless filmmakers even to this day. But while they were masters of cinema, Britain itself was also a world leader in two other subjects: dentistry and comedy. Who would have thought that a movie about dentists would be so entertaining? C.M. Pennington-Richards 1961 opus to dental advertising, Dentist on the Job, is often hailed as one of the most accurate represen........... Edit: Sorry, the writer in charge of this review has been sacked. As were the people in charge of making that awful film about dentists. I mean, who really wants to a movie about dentists? Do they do anything except look in people's mouths? Actually, my uncle was a dentist. He wasn't a real dentist, he only thought he was. He did often operate on moose and llamas. Actually come to think of it, a moose once bit my sister. No really! She was carving her initials on the moose with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given her by Svenge-her brother-in-law- an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies.... Edit #2: We apologize for the fault in the review. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked. The review has been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute. British People? Check. Coconuts substituting for Horses? Check. An old woman? Check. MAN! Man, sorry. The repression of 37 year-old men named Dennis? Check. Bring out yer dead! A random guy with shaving cream during the Black Plague? Check. A faulty attempt at logic in the Dark Ages including mentions of gravy, very small rocks and......A DUCK!? Check. A black knight who refuses to succumb to what he deems flesh wounds and calls it a draw? Check. An insulting Frenchman who compares your mother to a hamster and your father to the smell of elderberries? Check. Camelot? It's only a model, but Check. Scene 24? Check. (It really is smashing) A woman with huge.....tracks of land? Check. A search for a shrubbery? Check. An enchanter? Check. What's his name? There are some who call him Tim. A carnivorous rabbit? LOOK AT THE BONES! Check. And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu... GET ON WITH IT!! What...is your name? What...is your quest? What....is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? . . . . . African or European?

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Movie should be higher on list IMO

Wow. I wrote almost the same review for Chinatown. Even used the same quotes. Crazy. Great job, iwy. Yours was better.

I should have written something for "A Clockwork Orange" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

2. The Godfather" Part I
Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
(1970)
by Baloo



“I believe in America.”

The story of The Godfather is no less than the story of the American dream. Don Vito Corleone is a brutal criminal, but he is also a family man. He does what he does so he can build a better life for the next generation, for his children and grandchildren who, as we see throughout, he genuinely loves.

Of course, since this is a movie that is an indictment of capitalism, the Family Business must destroy each in every person in the family. For all of the money and power that the Don accumulates, it cannot save his family and in fact, it is that money and power which ultimately dooms them. As the Don dies, his children all pay the price for the family’s sins. Some are in exile, some are murdered, but no one person suffers a fate as horrible as that of Michael.

Michael’s fate is to become his father, only without any of that pesky family emotion to get in the way of his ruthlessness. The old Captains of Industry at the turn of the century were ruthless, but they were also marked by a certain paternalism. They took care of their workers like one might take care of your children. Michael has no such soft spot, and like the new capitalists of the post-WWII era, he will ruthlessly crush anyone who stands in his way, for he is the embodiment of the Family. It is an open question on whether Michael is the corrupted or whether he was always corrupt, just waiting for the moment to unleash his true monstrous self on the world. But when he settles all family business, he leaves no doubt by what he means by the word “Family”. It means the Business.

And that's finished.

Glad it was on time....














Sorry folks.

2 votes.