One of Sydney Pollack´s worst reviewed and received movies, starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas as the spouses who have to discover that their significant others had an affair, finding out about it after the plane they took for a getaway crashes.
Reviewers hated the movie because it was so downbeat (go figure!) and because it also told the continuing stories of Ford’s and Thomas´ character (his investigation as an IA cop and her campaign as a senator to get elected).
But this film is exactly about that: two lives who get entangled through a tragedy but still go on. It´s the moving on part which weighs heavily on these two. And while Ford’s cop feels the unbearable need to find out exactly when the affair started and why he did not find out about it, Thomas´ politician desperately wants to keep her memory of an intact family and forget about the affair.
This is such an interesting and adult subject, and Pollack once again expertly maneuvers the characters and their emotions with rawness and honesty in a very subtle way. Pollack always was searching for the love story in every film he did, and this is the most complicated one, yet absolutely riveting in its push-and-pull these characters have to endure in order to deal with the past and the terrible betrayal they suffered, in order to finally find a way to move on.
Such a wonderful movie. Shamefully underrated. And Ford and Thomas are absolutely fantastic.
I especially love how the hero seems to find a clever solution to stop Colossus… only to experience a terrible setback which leads to his and mankind’s enslavement.
I saw this movie the first time on TV one afternoon in the mid-70s and it genuinely freaked me out. I thought it was terrifyingly plausible. Decades later I saw it again and even though somewhat dated, it is SO ahead of its time. And this was before the appearance of AI. I can only assume its prescient foreknowledge has only intensified recently.
I used to be able to do a pretty darn good imitation of the “voice” of Colossus back in the day (not terribly unlike the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica (version 1) a few years later). Oh the skills that were never utilized in later life!
I know many of you are Stephen King fans and thought you might find this article on a mystery involving a photo in The Shining. Confession - I have never watched The Shining. Need to get around to that.
Sadly, there are far too many films I have missed out on for one reason or another. One of my goals when I retire is to go through all the classics I have missed. With The Shining, it’s been on my list for a while but I have just never gotten around to it. A perpetual problem I have with movies and tv shows (as well as household tasks as my wife will attest).
One film I avoided for the longest time was Shindler’s List. I used to work professionally on issues related to antisemitism; so this is a film that appealed to me. But everytime I thought of watching it I thought it would just be too depressing. When I finally watched it, I found it uplifting and reminder that there is good in the world - even in dark times and from people who are not saints.
The Bond related one. I have never seen the original CR even though I have owned it for more than 10 years!
Mr. Holmes (2015 film adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s novel, A Slight Trick of the Mind): I consider any film starring Ian McKellen worth watching, and this is one is no exception. McKellen stars as a 93-year-old Sherlock Holmes who is suffering with dementia and trying to remember his last case, which drove him to retire and seek isolation at a rural Sussex farmhouse.
As good as McKellen is, Milo Parker is a revelation as the widowed housekeeper’s son, Roger, who befriends Holmes. The two of them are absolutely wonderful together. It’s rare that Laura Linney is overshadowed, but as good as she is, with this pair she is relegated to a supporting player role. However, the scene in which she describes to her son what happened to his father is memorable.
Given all that’s going on these days, I needed something hopeful. Not saccharine, but something to help me believe, if only for a moment, that human understanding prevails. This film delivered.
Indeed, the recent unavailability of this film for purchase or streaming led some to suggest it had been erased from history by the AI-worshipping powers-that-be.
If I may ask, where did you see it? I’d love to revisit it after all these years; it was one of my grandfather’s favorite films.
I actually only recently purchased a blu ray which is available on the dreaded Bezos site, the British version, because it was quite cheap at 9.99 pounds. Like the Shout version it has an excellent transfer.
The more that I read on these forums, the more that I like. I see there is a substantial fandom for 1970s cinema! The last great decade of film, in my opinion, before movies were connected to the stock share prices of mega-corporations! For all of the horror of the Vietnam War experience, it helped to trigger a more candid, less sugary approach to storytelling themes.
Just last week I watched Charley Varrick (1973), a gritty crime drama with palpable characters and excellent acting. Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Andrew Robinson. Solid.
Next week I plan on Scarecrow, happens to be another from '73, with Hackman & Pacino. It’s been on my list for a while.
I have so many 70s favorites that it’s almost easier to list the films that I didn’t like. Some favorites off the top of my head are Five Easy Pieces , Network (did Chayefsky have a time machine, or what?!), The Getaway, Superfly, 3 Days of the Condor (it echoes and rhymes through today), Marathon Man (“Is it safe?!”).
In the 1970s, the studios were part/divisions of mega-corporations (mostly floundering divisions). One of the reasons that 70s cinema is so good is that the corporations were trying to figure out how sto make the studios they had acquired turn a profit, and let film creatives do their job.
Later, they were spun off as stand alone corporations, and proceeded to evolve into the mega-corporations that they are today.
One of my favorite title card sequences in all of cinema:
Watched MASH for the first time in at least a decade, still seduces, frustrates and amazes in equal measure.
Duval in particular, this watch I really focused on him being carted away, and then forgotten just like war I suppose. Tom Skerrits character this time round, I found highly irritating and unlikeable.
Opening sequence is still just awesome, all in all I thought it less than the rest of Altmans 70s movies, but a superb piece of filmmaking
@Stbernard, I think you touch on something that was genuinely unique to a large swath of 70s filmmaking—many films featured unlikeable characters. And that includes many (and in some cases all) main characters. There was an embracing of unsavory character traits and habits that brought them to life with realism, warts and all. I miss that era a great deal as 70s movies are my very favorite of all time.
Officially, Paramount still is owned by Viacom, pending government regulatory approval. The deal was signed almost a year ago, but the final deadline has been extended at least once already, most recently last week.
And judging by the current state of USA government bureauocrazy (not a typo) from the mole’s penetration, I wouldn’t take it for granted that this deal will be done.
M * A * S * H loses me with the humiliation of Hot Lips. Much of Altman’s treatment of women in his films is problematic, but the issue seems to get better in his late work.
