In light of a recent review of an old (1997) movie and a response it elicited. I suggest a movie review based on one released the year you were born. Who knows, might be fun. I'll have mine later. Duty calls.
Off the top of my head, it would be La Dolce Vita, West Side Story, or Breakfast at Tiffany's among the leading candidates. What about people who were born before the advent of moving pictures?
OK, you're older than I am.... For me, off the top of my head it is Dr Strangelove and My Fair Lady, though I'm sure I could find an Audrey Hepburn in there....
I'm back, and I think I've just sold a house..! My first choice from the year I was born. One of the best loved action pics of all time. Although it was a few years later I got to see it for the " first" time. The Adventures of Robin Hood I caught it on telly just a few weeks back. It's still fun. As an aside. : One thing that has always bothered me from the books and movies. If Robin Hood shot his arrow into virtually the same hole in the centre of the bulls eye in target. How come he gets to be the winner. Surely it's a tie...??? Just sayin!
I could’ve easily gone with Easy Rider or Midnight Cowboy. But I love screwball comedies so I'm going with Take The Money and Run. When Woody was still funny and not obsessed with hotties half his age. Here we see the hapless Virgil attempting to rob a bank and failing miserably because of bad penmanship:
So many good choices . . . I will go with this one: In the Heat of the Night is a movie my parents showed me (or had on the television when I was younger and just around) every couple of years or so to see if I was ready to have a discussion about race. I was pretty clueless about the amazing acting of either Sidney Poitier or Rod Steiger, or how remarkable the cinematography is, until much later in life. I love this movie and will sit and watch it whenever it comes on. I like the way Steiger is an outsider in the town, which lets him change sooner than anyone else, but that he is still better than Poitier in his own mind. I like the way Poitier controls his anger for most of the movie, with it bursting out in controlled rage at moments like this: . . . and like in the scene where he slaps a rich, influential white man (who slapped him first); this scene shows the "otherness" of both Poitier and Steiger. A worthy winner of the Best Picture Award (though there were some awesome candidates that year as well).
Shamefully, I haven't seen it all the way thru, or anything else from the year (1963) Honorable Mentions: The Great Escape, From Russia With Love
In my year they had moving pictures, talking pictures and colour. Just... Funny though, some of the movies mentioned already.... I took dates to...!
Also from my year are (among others) Bonnie and Clyde, The Dirty Dozen, The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, Jungle Book, Camelot, Belle du Jour, Hombre, and The Producers (which has the most persistent - and inappropriate) ear worm that has ever plagued me: Mel Brooks' voicing a dancing Nazi officer singing the line "Don't be stupid, be a smarty; come and join the Nazi Party!"
I read a long review from Ebert on this movie. Seeing we enjoy foreign films I thought it might be one to watch. Seems to be one filled with deep meaning and innuendo. Might not be my cup of tea.
My son and I just watched this last night. And here's the slap: I love how fast Poitier is on the rebound...
He used to be fast didn't he? Then later on in his movie life he lost that timing. Enough to make one cringe at times, shame. He came on the scene at a good time for A A actors. I liked his early stuff.
I always thought Poitier should have repeated the question following the bitchslap- before the subhuman asked Gillespie to intervene.
It also won for best screen play (adaptation division). It was written by Stirling Silliphant, whose work my wife and I liked in the tv series he co-created, Route 66. That show went off the air three years before this movie hit the screens. There's some really fine writing in his early scripts (and a few dogs, but they did 30 to 32 episodes per season in tjose days, and the show was on location. My wife noticed, though, that the last few scripts of Route 66 credited to Silliphant in the shows last season were mostly examples of screwball comedies, which were big in the early 60s ... and then he turns out this. He wrote some disaster movie screenplays in the 70s (Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, The Swarm), plus Telefon, but he never matched his work in Naked City, Route 66, or this film.
My first exposure to this film was via the "The 4:30 Movie" on Channel 7 back in the mid 70's when I was 9 or 10. Didn't have much interest in the movie while my dad was watching it until the train became the focal point of the movie. As soon as the movie ended I headed for the basement and pulled out my Lionel trains and army men.
Just googling movies that were released in 1975 is an eye-opener: Jaws One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Monty Python and the Holy Grail The Rocky Horror Picture Show Death Race 2000 The Land that Time Forgot