 |
| "I made about a dozen masterpieces before this one!" |
Assuring that no one will ever go to this blog again, I'd like to make a final point about the 70s movies...they're overrated...but they are also some of the best movies ever made...does that mean that they still can't be overrated?
But how can the best be overrated?
When we act as if the film is an other worldly substance...or one all-too-worldly: "A Decade Under The Influence", the three-part smooch fest of 70s films, featured stars of the time gushing over theirs and their buddies' performances and "the experience" in a way normally reserved for the dry-mouthed club-goer at 1am.
But like cocaine, we wake and need more...or we need to be left to our own devices, but we can't...
The love of 70s films overwhelms us and brings us back outside the liquor store acting like whores in need of a fix.
But how can the best be overrated?
When we act as if the film is an other worldly substance...or one all-too-worldly: "A Decade Under The Influence", the three-part smooch fest of 70s films, featured stars of the time gushing over theirs and their buddies' performances and "the experience" in a way normally reserved for the dry-mouthed club-goer at 1am.
But like cocaine, we wake and need more...or we need to be left to our own devices, but we can't...
The love of 70s films overwhelms us and brings us back outside the liquor store acting like whores in need of a fix.
Bert Sugar said the "super fight" killed boxing; everyone's dad talks about how much better boxing was when there was fight on every friday night. Hagler/Hearns was one of the best three rounds in boxing history, and its hype contributed to making it a spectacle, right? (hype=accentuate...overrate)
But still, there were great fights every friday night in the 50s!
Now, we wait a year or two (some say a decade) before we get another good one. How could any fight purist call that good for boxing?
Though 70s films were more minimalist than previous decades, they were more iconic- Serpico, Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, etc- ...there can only be one Godfather and how dare anyone ever not have it in their top ten!
Like boxing, the impact on movies has been that people are bored, and as my buddy who won the Oscar for Best Student Film said of pitching to production houses, all producers are bored: "heard it."
Film is near dead. Boxing is near dead. In the 50s there was not the need to declare a handful films and fights "the best", and people stayed hungry and interested in the simple, basic story-line.
Anyone who believes 70s hype is good for film should be forced to do likewise with sports and sit next to someone at a bar talk "No one will ever be better than Tiger Woods..." and see if golf doesn't go the way of film and die of boredom.
