Ultimate 70s Blogathon Conclusion

Hello, friends! I hope you’ve enjoyed the last three weeks as much as I have. Kim and I have had a blast sharing everyone’s reviews of their favorite 70s flicks. There have been a wide range of films reviewed and if you missed any of them, here they are:

Tranquil Dreams – Alien

Drew’s Movie Reviews – Saturday Night Fever

Box Office Buzz – Star Wars: A New Hope

Movie Reviews 101 – Kramer vs. Kramer

MovieRob – The Exorcist

Ten Stars or Less – Slapshot

Riley on Film – Westworld

Emma K Wall (Explains It All) – The Exorcist

Plain, Simple Tom Reviews – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

MovieRob – 5 Easy Pieces

Film and TV 101 – The Godfather

Starry Traveler’s Road – Snoopy, Come Home

Rhyme and Reason – For Pete’s Sake

From the Depths of DVD Hell – Island of Death

Drew’s Movie Reviews – Dirty Harry

Tranquil Dreams – Disney Double Feature (The Arisocats & Pete’s Dragon)

Wow, what a great set of films reviewed, and what an even better group of bloggers participating! Seriously, you guys are all great for joining in the blogathon. I’ll admit that I had a little difficulty choosing what to review but most of you seemed to instantly have a film in mind. There were entries for science-fiction, comedy, horror, sports, and animation. A little bit of everything really shows how wide everyone’s tastes are and how they could find something from this decade to fit that. I’m rambling, so here to say a few words is my lovely co-host:

Hey everyone! Time flies when we’re having fun! Before we know it, its time to say goodbye to the Ultimate 70s Blogathon. The 70s is before both me and Drew’s time but it’s nice to see that there were many movies that made marks in all of our participants’ lives. There were different genres and highlighted some staple actors, like Jack Nicholson for example and movies that were more than one person’s choice like The Exorcist. Its always nice to see a variety of titles showing the diversity the decade had to offer and even some obscure titles. With that said, I’d love to say a huge THANK YOU to each and every one of you, whether you participated or commented, liked or even just read and shared the reviews. It means a lot to us to see the love for this 3rd year of our Ultimate Decades Blogathon. Of course, this blogathon wouldn’t happen without my awesome co-host, Drew! Hopefully, we’ll be back for a 4th year and dive into another decade next year! 🙂

Well said, Kim! I know Kim said it but I’ll say it, too: thank you! All of you who participated, commented, liked, or even just stopped by, you all made hosting this blogathon a blast. And thank you to my co-host. It’s always fun working with you and I look forward to hosting our fourth Ultimate Decades blogathon next year! 🙂

And that officially concludes the Ultimate 70s Blogathon. Thanks for reading. Hopefully you found some new blogs to follow, or a film or two to add to your watch list in the process as well.

Until next time, cheers!

Ultimate 70s Blogathon Finale: Dirty Harry (1971) by Drew’s Movie Reviews

And lastly, I my final review of the Utimate 70s Blogathon is my review of the Clint Eastwood action film Dirty Harry. Ultimate 70s Blogathon Finale: Dirty Harry (1971) by Drew’s Movie Reviews

And that’s it! The final final review of the blogathon. Come by tomorrow for a summary of the blogathon and closing remarks from your hosts.

If you’ve missed any of the entries, you can find a list of them all here.

Ultimate 70s Blogathon Wrap-Up: Disney Double Feature by Tranquil Dreams

I come bearing some sad news: today is the final day of the Ultimate 70s Blogathon. But don’t fret, we had a good run. Earlier, Kim shared my review of Dirty Harry, my second and final review of the blogathon. Now it’s my turn to share Kim’s closing reviews. Every Ultimate Decades Blogathon we’ve hosted, Kim has included some sort of look at some of the Disney feature films to come out that decade. This blogathon is no different. She’s wrapping up this blogathon with reviews of The Aristocats and Pete’s Dragon.

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The 1970s for Disney was a pretty solid decade filled with titles like Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Robin Hood and The Rescuers along with today’s double feature, The Aristocats and Pete’s Dragon. To celebrate the 70s, I decided to choose one of my favorite Disney films, The Aristocats which I’ve seen many times over and might explain my excessive love for cats. Followed with a first time viewing of Pete’s Dragon, a movie that has enough love to be rebooted last year.

The Aristocats (1970)

Director: Wolfgang Reitherman

Voice Cast: Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Dean Clark, Liz English, Gary Dubin, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers

With the help of a smooth talking tomcat, a family of Parisian felines set to inherit a fortune from their owner try to make it back home after a jealous butler kidnaps them and leaves them in the country. – IMDB

To be honest, The Aristocats’ story feels a little like a mash-up of a few other Disney stories, like 101 Dalmatians with their kidnapping and abandoned to Lady and the Tramp with O’Malley being a smooth talking tomcat opposite a well-taught and elegant cat, Duchess. Of course, you can also credit some similarities of the puppy cuteness from 101 Dalmatians to the kitten cuteness with Duchess’ little ones, Marie, Berlioz and Toulouse. With a Parisian backdrop and a nice variety in the music style, the main cast itself carries some banter and some silly moments with a bunch of funny characters along their feline journey home. It’s kind of a road trip film but animated and with cats if you think about it a little bit more.

While I think the characters a ton of fun to watch and incredibly funny, the best part of The Aristocats is its soundtrack. Be it a Parisian opening and Madam dancing to a classic opera piece like Carmen to the fun and education music lesson with Duchess and the kitchens playing a rough piano version of Scales and Arpeggios and to one of the most catchy and maybe because of the jazzy song of the film, Everybody Want To Be A Cat. The soundtrack here is a lot of fun to listen to and it’s not song after song particularly but finds a nice balance between story and musical segments.

If you like cats and catchy music, The Aristocats is a really nice 70s animated Disney feature film that fits the bill. The Aristocats is one of those films which carries a lot of cute and unique characters that packs in a lot of fun and entertaining moments. I loved it when I was younger and still enjoy it today.

Pete’s Dragon (1977)

Director: Don Chaffey

Cast: Sean Marshall, Helen Reddy, Jim Dale, Mickey Rooney, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters

An orphan boy and his magical dragon come to town with his abusive adoptive parents in pursuit. – IMDB

Mary Poppins opened up a world of blending animated characters with real characters and to be fair, there’s a few segments in Pete’s Dragon that calls back to it, particularly the song and dance of I Saw A Dragon which has somewhat of a Chim Chiminey where the bar replaces the rooftop choreography. Its amazing how its taken so long to catch up with Pete’s Dragon and really not know too much about it. Pete’s Dragon is a fun little adventurous tale filled with friendship, family and packs in a decent amount of laughs and emotions, along with a lot of nice musical pieces.

Being a fan of Mary Poppins, the appeal of Pete’s Dragon struck me almost instantaneously especially when Pete’s Dragon, Elliott is around quite a bit and he is designed fairly friendly with tuffs of pink hair and wings contrasting with this green body which actually makes Elliott one of the most charming parts. Pete and Elliott’s friendship is an odd one and its also why for a good part of the film, no one actually believed him and took Elliott as something of an imaginary friend sort of deal, which of course, it wasn’t. In fact, Elliott actually parallels a little like Mary Poppins instead he is a dragon that helps kids in need and then moves on when his job is done. Which is pretty much what Mary Poppins does but she is much more there. Drawing comparisons to Mary Poppins a lot here because there was a strong sense of similarities between the two, however, being similar to Mary Poppins is a not a bad thing, in fact, its what makes Pete’s Dragon so much fun to watch.

Pete’s Dragon is filled with musical segments. It definitely has a lot of really catchy songs. Some energetic and others soothing to listen to but all in all, rather positive messages all around. In fact, I’d like to think that Pete’s Dragon takes a look at finding a place to belong and not losing hope for a better tomorrow. Its a hopeful film and one that teaches a lot about friendship and just emotions in general as Pete leaves for the big world and faces the situations no matter how scared he actually is about not finding someplace to be and what to expect next. And that is essentially what makes Pete’s Dragon a nice little family film.

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And that’s it! The final reviews of the blogathon. Come by tomorrow for a summary of the blogathon and closing remarks from your hosts.

If you’ve missed any of the entries, you can find a list of them all here.

Ultimate 70s Blogathon: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) by The Hypersonic55’s Realm of Reviews and Other Stuff

We’re almost finished! Today’s Ultimate 70s Blogathon review is the last non-host review of the blogathon and comes from Curt from The Hypersonic55’s Realm of Reviews and Other Stuff. Curt’s passion for film and all the aspects that make films enjoyable easily comes through in his writing. He also hosts the Film Focus podcast that I have been luckily enough to be a guest on several times. I highly recommend you go give his site a look. But before that, Curt brings with him the second and final review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

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Good day to you ladies and gents, today I get to talk to you about one of my all-time favourite films; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Now I first saw this film in college I think back in 2009 and after that, it became a film I had to own, and even though I’ve only seen the film a handful of times after that, every time I watch it, I feel the same range of emotions each time.

The plot can be summed up as the following: “A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.”

I love the story in this film as it is so interesting and gets more engaging as the film progresses, what begins as a simple plot about a guy trying to avoid hard labour in prison turns into a personal battle against the head nurse. I like how there is a balance between levity and seriousness, because of the setting you have a lot of the patients dealing with real mental issues which leads some dark, uncomfortable and sad moments throughout, but at the same time because of the characters, their interactions and situations they get into his leads to many strange, wonderful and hilarious points which make up some of my favourite moments in film. I also think the humour works well because of good dialogue and the timing of the verbal/physical jokes. Overall even though the story can be hard to go back to due to nature of some of the events that take place, it really resonates with me and after a while I find myself wanting to revisit this film.

As for the characters, they are all wonderful. All of the characters from the main cast to the supporting members all give solid and memorable performances. Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy is incredible, even though McMurphy is technically a bad guy and does a lot of questionable things, he’s very charismatic, hilarious and has the kind of personal qualities that make him magnetic. Plus he’s not evil, and just doesn’t like to conform to the rules and likes to have a little fun, unfortunately, his means of finding fun things to do gets him trouble. Louise Fletcher is also really great as Nurse Ratched, she is a stern, calm and collected type of lady who likes rules and order, and at first she seems fine enough, it is not until McMurphy comes along and starts to disrupt her perfectly crafted system that we start to see her true colours and good gravy she is an evil witch. McMurphy and Ratched have an interesting relationship as things start out on the wrong foot in a subtle way, and from there onwards, McMurphy challenges her authority on multiple occasions which causes her to enforce harsher rules for him and some of the other patients, they are like oil and water; they don’t mix and seeing these two go at it is fascinating. Will Sampson is great as “Chief” Bromden, he plays such an interesting character who comes across as an anomaly because he’s deaf and dumb, but the guy sure has a lot of great and memorable moments, and I won’t reveal the surprise with his character, but I’ll say this, I knew about beforehand because I saw it referenced in The Simpsons, but it was still a great revelation.

Now I gotta talk about my favourite patients, firstly I love Sydney Lassick as Cheswick, he’s very childish but so adorable, then there’s Christopher Lloyd as Taber, that dude seems to be very blunt, rude and frigging hilarious and Danny DeVito as Martini, wow, such a different role from what I grew up seeing him in, but I loved his strange yet cute character. And of course, I can’t ignore my man Billy played by Brad Dourif, he was one of the most compelling characters due to his younger age, condition and story arc. Also, William Redfield is also good as Harding, he’s a character who always seems to have a stick up his ass but he has some good moments in the film and even Scatman Crothers has some memorable scenes as Orderly Turkle. And the film score from Jack Nitzsche is one of the strangest yet most interesting and delightful scores I’ve ever heard, I couldn’t tell you what the main instrument that was used for the music in the beginning and end of the film, but it has an odd, otherworldly feel to it and yet it suits the film so well.

In conclusion, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a really great film which I love to come back to every so often because the story is so interesting, the characters are so memorable and despite the darker nature of the film, I still find myself enjoying a lot of the film especially when it comes to the humour and brilliant central performance from Jack Nicholson. It’s definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it already. 🙂

So have you seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and if so what did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and I’ll see ya in the next review, laters! 😀

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And that’s it for reviews from all our participants! Tomorrow, Kim and I will conclude the Ultimate 70s Blogathon with a few more reviews of our own. See you there!

If you’ve missed any of the entries, you can find a list of them all here.

Ultimate 70s Blogathon: Island of Death (1977) by From the Depths of DVD Hell

We’re nearing the end of the Ultimate 70s Blogathon. Today’s review comes from Elwood from From the Depths of DVD Hell as he looks at the video nasty film Island of Death. Ultimate 70s Blogathon: Island of Death (1977) by From the Depths of DVD Hell

If you’ve missed any of the entries, you can find a list of them all here.

Ultimate 70s Blogathon: For Pete’s Sake (1974) by Rhyme and Reason

Today’s entry for the Ultimate 70s Blogathon comes from one of the most unique participants in the blogathon. This person fuses his two passions of poetry and movies into one. I am of course talking about SG from Ryme and Reason. If you aren’t familiar with his work and don’t know what I’m talking about, head over to his site and see for yourself. He joins us today with a review of the Barbra Streisand comedy For Pete’s Sake.

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If only we could strike it rich
Like all the lucky folk
Who never feel privation’s itch
Or fear of going broke.

We’d live in mansions, drink champagne,
And pay our bills on time;
And when we spend like we’re insane,
We’ll laugh, “It ain’t a crime.”

With money, we could take a chance,
Like he who funds and lends,
Investing in high-risk finance
To rake in dividends.

It’s easy for the well-to-do
To risk such revenues,
But those like me and maybe you
Don’t have that much to lose.

So you won’t see me gambling
To frantically chase wealth.
Compared to poverty’s light sting,
It’s risky to your health!
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MPAA rating: PG

For this ‘70s Blogathon, I wanted to pick a lesser-known movie that could be a unique entry, so I went for an obscure little screwball comedy by the name of For Pete’s Sake. Barbra Streisand had already become a household name by this time with two Oscar nominations and one win under her belt, so the ‘70s saw her “stoop” in critics’ eyes to have some fun with comedies. For Pete’s Sake may not be her best since that honor would have to go to the hilarious What’s Up, Doc? from two years prior, but it’s still quite the amusing showcase of Streisand’s comedic talent.

Streisand plays high-strung housewife Henrietta Robbins, opposite Michael Sarrazin as her hard-working cab driver husband Pete, who affectionately calls her Henry. They’re deeply in love but struggling financially, and Henry’s frustrating encounters with unsympathetic stiff necks remind us why people hate dealing with banks, phone companies, and insurance providers, not to mention obnoxious family members. After considering a “solid” tip about pork belly futures, Henry takes out a shady loan and hopes for a life-improving windfall, only for harebrained misadventures to ensue when New York’s underworld comes to collect.

For Pete’s Sake isn’t a laugh riot, but it has amusement to spare, especially as Henry is traded to various shady enterprises to work off her debt, failing epically, of course. You don’t see many screwball comedies these days, at least not in the classic sense of zany situations gradually spiraling out of control in almost Looney Tunes fashion. At one point, Henry halfheartedly accepts employment by a motherly madam, and her visits from customers go horribly wrong due to her inexperience. The funniest segment, though, might be when she’s being chased by a police dog (something illegal goes south, as you might have guessed), and she and the dog spoof the subway train scene from The French Connection.

For Pete’s Sake is silly, undemanding fun, the kind that goes from a dream about pork bellies to Barbara Streisand riding a bull down a New York street. Streisand gives a likably harried performance and fittingly sings the opening theme “For Pete’s Sake (Don’t Let Him Down).” It’s also neat to play “Spot the Not-Yet-Famous Face” with these older movies; here you might recognize early roles for Vincent Schiavelli (from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Ghost) and Joe Pantoliano (from The Matrix and Memento and a whole lot else). For Pete’s Sake is also a pleasant reminder of ‘70s-era comedy, the cleaner kind before National Lampoon revolutionized it with movies like Animal House. Oh, and another thing about these older movies: They give away almost everything in the trailer, so don’t watch it beforehand. Seriously, it seems like the style of trailer-making has changed more since the ‘70s than the movies themselves.

Best line: (grocery employee at checkout, when Henry complains about the prices) “Nobody is forcing you to eat, madam.”   (Henry) “Yeah, I know, but every time I try to stop, I get withdrawal pains.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2018 S.G. Liput

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If you’ve missed any of the entries, you can find a list of them all here.