The 1970’s is the decade that gave birth to the disaster movie genre. In my review of 1970’s Airport, I pointed out how that movie gave birth to disaster movies of that decade which in turn spawned disaster blockbusters of today’s age. These kind of movies are meant to be dumb, silly fun and the makers of these kind of movies embrace what these movies are meant to do: to entertain. You won’t be getting any thespian acting or a serious melodrama. Instead you’ll get an onslaught of special effects and a thin story usually about trying to survive and that is quite okay by me. Another early example of a rather entertaining disaster film is 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure. I enjoyed the film for what it was. It has a big cast of former Oscar winners and big-name movie stars, and they all seemed to have a grand ol’ time. Sure, the dialogue is cheesy sometimes but the action is what we are here to see. And in that regard, the movie clearly succeeds.

The plot remains simple and for good measure. The basic setup for the story is that a disaster strikes and the survivors must reach for safety. In this case, there is this passenger ship called the S.S Poseidon (loosely modeled after The Queen Mary) going on its last cruise before it reaches retirement. Out of nowhere, a large tidal wave hits the ship and turns the boat upside down. Now with everything in reverse, the survivors of the ship led by minister Reverend Scott (Gene Hackman) must climb to the now-uprooted bottom of the boat if they have any chance of escaping. See, this is a simple story but its a fun story regardless.

Ah, let’s talk about our characters. This movie is based off the best-selling novel written by Paul Gallico, and rumor has it that the characters are unlikable in the novel. Some of the characters are unlikeable in the film, but screenwriters Stirling Silliphant and Wendell Mayes and seasoned British director Ronald Neame did a solid job in tweaking some characters as to make them more sympathetic. Now, all the characters do what you expect them to do in this type of movie, so expect no surprises. The character development was rather surprisingly strong for some characters. As for the acting, no one gives a career-defining performance but everyone does a solid job. Gene Hackman as Reverend Scott and Ernest Borgnine as Rogo are arguably the two leads. They had a fun time, but they may have overacted especially in Borgnine’s case. Those facial expressions and the way he delivered the lines were cheesy, but fun. Check out the rest of this cast: Red Buttons, Roddy McDowall, Shelley Winters (who delivers a fantastic performance), Jack Albertson, Arthur O’Connell, Leslie Nielsen, etc. That is one heck of a cast.

We don’t see these movies for the performances, but rather for the special effects. It was amazing what this film was able to do with practical effects. The big tsunami wave that overturned a boat looked mightily impressive for a 1972 movie, but in reality it was just a large wave filmed in slow-motion off the coast of California. The production design was immense and the I love the way we see the capsized boat. Keep in mind the film was release before computers played a role in effects, which makes this movie even more impressive. If there is one thing I absolutely love, it’s the way how the movie looked and sounded and how the visual effects were implemented in the movie.

Another thing I liked very much is the score and the music. This film was composed by the young maestro, John Williams. Williams would eventually become a film legend with all the famous films he would score, but this is the movie that got him his big break. Some people go as far to call this his best score ever. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s high on my list. The overall tone of the score is dark, but the theme is rather light and there is something about it that makes it special.

When originally released, The Poseidon Adventure received good reviews with lots of praise going for the visual effects-and rightfully so. Of course this film is a blockbuster and not meant for any award recognition, but somehow it received nine Oscar nominations mostly on the technical side though. Although Shelley Winters received an nomination for best supporting actress. The film was very fun, and very entertaining. The story is nothing special, but if you’re looking for a movie with great visual effects, campy acting, and a story about surviving then this film is for you.

My Grade: A-

Let me open this review with a little history lesson. (I know, sooooo boring right?) My hometown of Lebanon used to be a bigger town. But in the 1970’s, part of my town was leveled in order to create a reservoir. So people living in the area where the reservoir was being built had to leave their homes. So a part of our civilization vanquished for a manmade body of water. There is a similar theme in this film, Deliverance. The film takes place in the mountains of Georgia and a river which is very dear to our main characters is about to disappear because of a dam building which would flood the area. Like in my area, people have to leave their homes to escape the flooding. It is a very sad situation all around, but that theme makes this movie all the more better.

I enjoyed Deliverance very much. It has been regarded of one of the best films of 1972 and I think I can agree with that. This is just a simple adventure of four men traveling the rapids in pursuit of some adventure, but of course problems will arise. The movie works very well as a adventure film and it was interesting to see how each character develops with some of the action that goes on. This film delivers on its promise of characterization. Each of the four men bring their personality to the trip. One dude is a macho man named Lewis (Burt Reynolds). He is the tough guy of the group and this expedition was his idea. The other main character is Ed (Jon Voight) who also exhibits some toughness skills (just watch that cliff climbing scene). Then we have Bobby (Ned Beatty) who is an overweight man that is afraid of many things it seems. Finally, we have Drew (Ronny Cox) who took part in my favorite scene in the movie- “The Dueling Banjos” Scene where he squared off against a mentally-challenged boy in a contest between a banjo and a guitar before the group began their journey.

The scene that everyone talks about and that gave awareness to the movie is the scene where mountain men raped poor Bobby. It was a very well-made scene with such powerful lines of dialogue such as “I’ll make you squeal like a pig.” Regardless, it is a very brutal scene and it’s incredibly hard to watch. The sequence was a pretty long one, but it showed an example of how men can survive in a harsh, primitive environment. Kudos to Jon Voight’s character, Ed exacting revenge against the two men who raped Bobby. The film may seem like a quiet adventure film, but it becomes instantly loud the moment this scene appears. Director John Boorman does a wonderful job in creating tension and thrills setting up the scene before it actually happens.

The acting is very good and I could expect no less for a film that features wonderful character development. Burt Reynolds plays a man with a machismo personality (no surprise there), but he does it very well. Jon Voight impressed me in this film. He was so great in 1969’s Midnight Cowboy and was the best thing about 1970’s mediocre Catch-22, so he really comes into his own here. The way he scaled the cliffs in order to kill those men showed what a brave man he was. This film was not insured and to save costs, each of the actors did their own stunts. If you saw that cliff, you would be very surprised. Ned Beatty gives a wonderful performance and a pained one. That scene where he got raped (and you see all of it onscreen) is a powerful, intense scene and he gave such raw emotion. Ronny Cox arguably had the smaller role, but his scene where he is playing the banjo sticks out to me. His character seemed to be the most moral guy of the group.

The film makes good use of its cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond. He was the man who filmed the gorgeous 1971 movie, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Now he delivers great camerawork in this movie. It was a tough shoot because of the location of the movie set against rapids, but Vilmos really made it work and the picture is gorgeous set amongst the American wilderness.

John Boorman delivered an exquisite adventure film in the form of Deliverance. It is a movie about survival and how men from the city can survive in the wild using their primitive instincts. The movie gained some controversy because of the squealing pig scene, but it remains a very powerful scene that is hard to watch. The other scene to keep an eye on is the banjo scene. That is essentially all of the music the film has, but it is quite worth it. The film has a gorgeous, naturalistic look and it is very well-acted. If you are looking for an adventure story, look no further than Deliverance.

My Grade: A-

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

-Don Corleone

When I first saw The Godfather many years ago, I initially called the film “a long, boring piece of crap.” Needless to say, but there was something immensely wrong with my teenage brain. Luckily as I have matured, so have my tastes in cinema. This film is heralded as an American classic, and now I can wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. As famed critic Roger Ebert pointed out, this movie is the one where most people can agree on its quality. Hardly a single person dislikes this movie and that is a very good thing.

Ultimately, The Godfather is still a very long movie but I have come to appreciate it more with each viewing. The film is obviously about the mafia, but this is a different kind of mafia film. Prior mafia films and even those after this one deals with perspectives from an outsider and their perceptions of violence and death with the mafia. However, this film is told within the confinements of a mafia family. The story is told within the inside and that was a unique story angle at that time. I like how the film doesn’t show corruption from the mafia family, the Corleones. There are no civilian casualties from organized crime and the only corrupt person in the film is in the form of a police officer. Don Corleone doesn’t believe in dealing with drugs, because of how they affect people. The themes of the Corleone family and the movie itself is family and loyalty. As Michael Corleone points out in the movie, “never take sides against the family.” That is when crazy things begin to happen.

The beginning of the movie is very crucial. It is basically a large wedding scene with scenes intercut of Don Corleone in his darkened office taking care of family business. This beginning is important for several reasons. We get the tone of the film and we understand who the Corleone family is. This is also where all the characters are introduced and explained. By the time the scene is over, we get the big picture of the film and we get a sense where the film is heading. The scene is a bit long, but I felt director Francis Ford Coppola did an excellent job on introducing all of his main characters in the film.

What exactly is The Godfather about? Well, it is a film about family and it takes advantage of the classic structure of handing power between generations. The patriarch of the family is Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) who is the head of one of the most powerful mafia families. His children, who play a huge factor in the family, are Sonny (James Caan), Michael (Al Pacino), Connie (Talia Shire), and Fredo (John Cazale). Also playing a huge role is the family lawyer, Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). The aging Vito decides to transfer power to one of his subalterns, and that causes a ripple between the five Mafia families in New York. The main child here is Michael, who didn’t want anything to do with his family and instead join the military. But after Vito is shot, Mike decides to join the family business and take control.

The acting is absolutely fantastic. Marlon Brando delivered one of the best performances of his career as the aging head of the family. He is known for using his devices in the beginning such as his puffy cheeks and the cat on his lap. The way he delivered his dialogue in such a soft-spoken voice is also very memorable. Al Pacino does a very good job, taking wise advice from his father while delivering on his own counsel. This is the beginning for Pacino’s illustrious career. Robert Duvall does a fantastic job as Hagen. Duvall has had a legendary career, but the one role I think of every time I reflect on his career is his role as Tom Hagen. James Caan does a great job as the quick-tempered Sonny, who unfortunately meets his demise in the film but in a scene that is one of the best scenes in the movie.

The one thing that does irk me about the film is the use of women. It seems like women has no part of the family. Mike’s sister, Connie (played solidly by Talia Shire) is only used for a target of her husband’s Carlo anger. He treats her like a piece of filth. Although, Mike does have a special place in his heart for Connie. Mike also has a romantic interest in the film named Kay Adams (played by the eccentric Diane Keaton). I didn’t think Kay was a strong character in the film. Also, Vito has a wife but she is just an insignificant shadow only meant for the family pictures. Finally, there is a Sicilian woman we meet. After Michael goes on exile in Sicily for shooting a cop who played a role in the shooting of his father, he falls in love with this girl…..but she ends up getting blown up. My only qualm abut the film is how little importance women play in it.

Although the film is a long film about the mafia business, it is also a very violent film. Two of the most memorable scenes not only in this film, but in the history of cinema is known for its violence. The first scene is that infamous scene where a film mogul discovers a severed horse head in his bed after he refuses to cast a friend of the family, Johnny Fontaine in a role for one of his films. The other scene is that baptism massacre scene towards the end. Michael is in the church watching the baptism of his son, but he issued orders for enemies of the family to be murdered while at the baptism….and this way he can be proven innocent. These scenes are violent, but they are incredibly well-done.

Let’s now talk about how the movie looks. The movie makes good use of a darkened palette and lots of shadows thanks to the expert work done by cinematographer Gordon Willis. He expertly crafts Vito’s office with darkness and shadows against the sunny feeling of the wedding. In fact, most of the film is shadowed in darkness and it works very well for the type of film it is.

Also playing a huge role in the film is the music. Coppola traveled to Italy to find a composer who can bring an Italian feeling to the film. His find, Nino Rota did just that. The main title is heavily influenced by Italian culture and it gave an authentic feeling to the film-as the main characters are an Italian family. It’s a shame that the Academy snubbed his music, because I felt it should have won an Oscar. It’s one of my favorite all-time scores.

Nominated for 11 Oscars and winning 3 of them including Best Picture, The Godfather is one of America’s most influential films. It is certainly the godfather of mafia films, no pun intended. The movie remains popular to this day and if you haven’t seen the film, you should see it. It’s almost three hours long, but this is a portrait of a mafia family that is all about family. Francis Ford Coppola did an amazing job directing this film from the very popular novel written by Mario Puzo. The movie is not perfect, but it’s almost perfect though. The Godfather is an instant American classic.

My Grade: A-

Stanley Kubrick is back! And he brings with him another controversial albeit delightful movie. In the 1960’s, he directed two genuine masterpieces in 1964’s Dr. Strangelove and 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both were fascinating movies that had something to say-usually things that stirred the pot. In 1972, his most controversial movie of all was released titled A Clockwork Orange. I absolutely loved this film and I am not ashamed to admit it. I loved the film’s take on a bleak, dystopian future reminiscent of a fascist society. I loved the characters in the film despite their ultra-violence. I loved the music and the use of Beethoven and Rossini. Just every little thing about this film can be called a masterpiece. There were people who despised this film because of it use of violence. The kind of violence displayed in the movie was something that was very, very rare in 1972. Even in today’s standards, this film is violent. Maybe it even glorifies it, but its hard to say.

This film centers around a young man named Alex (Malcolm McDowell) who is a leader of a violent gang and to put it quite bluntly, a sadistic rapist. He is very violent to everyone, including his own gang members. One day, he murders a lonely old woman and is sent to prison for the crime. Whilst in prison, he hears of a program which would allow him to get back on the streets. This program is a form of aversion therapy-which would create goodness in him. He agrees to this controversial program and is released from prison after the procedure. Back on the streets, Alex finds it very hard to live a good life especially with all the violence he had a hand in creating.

One of the things I admire about Kubrick is how he doesn’t rely on a huge cast and he is always trying to find fresh talent to work with. In this case, Malcolm McDowell is the newcomer here. I’m not really familiar with his works, but he does an impressive job in this film. He plays Alex as a very tortured individual who feels violence is necessary to make him feel happy. He also has a huge knack for sex-whether consensual or not. But towards the end after the aversion therapy, it’s kind of hard not to feel bad for Alex. He wants to lead a good life, but his criminal past comes back to haunt him and there is really nothing he can do. Patrick Magee does a good job as Mr. Alexander, one of the victims of Alex’s crimes. I also liked the use of the English vocabulary. This film has a very weird dialect, but it’s delightful to listen to.

So you must be wondering what does this title stand for? Well, it has to do with one of the controversial topics in the movie. He goes under this psychology treatment under the totalitarian government to stop his immoral behavior. However, Alex is more or a less a robot after this treatment. This is one of the programs being instituted by the government to ensure total control over its citizens. To be a clockwork orange means you are an organic being on the outside, but on the inside you’re just a machine. Kubrick himself called this movie a satire on such psychological programs. Nonetheless, this scene in the movie was a very hard scene to watch. It was well-done, but watching Alex break down to scenes of Nazi Germany was very intense.

Speaking of intense, most of the violence in this film is displayed at such high intensity. Some of the violence was even too much for me, and I have a very strong stomach. But the violence is necessary to show because its part of Alex’s daily life. Kubrick took advantage of a changing studio system to insert this violence in his movie. He would not have been able to make the film as it is ten years earlier. But there are some crazy scenes to watch. The beginning of the movie has a crazy fight scene between Alex’s gang and a rival gang. Alex and his buddies were beating the rival gang just for fun and showing no mercy. A very hard scene to watch is when Alex broke into Mr. Alexander’s house and raped his wife. There was also an interesting scene where it shows Alex having sex with two women in fast-motion. It’s not hard to see why this movie caused controversy. It’s a very bloody, violent movie and I’m glad Kubrick didn’t do any foolish edits to the film.

Music plays a big factor in the film. Early on, we understand Alex loves Beethoven. His ninth symphony is used throughout the film to great effect. Many of the fight scenes are set to the music of Beethoven or Rossini. Just like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick used music to speak to the audience. As with 2001, some of the music speaks louder than words. Also, this film brought an interest of Beethoven to me. He is a very good artist from the classical era.

A Clockwork Orange is a violent, brooding movie set in futuristic England and despite all of the controversy surrounding it, it is a very unique film. It is also one of my all-time favorites. It is fascinating to see how people or even nations were affected by the movie. Upon its release, this film was actually banned in the United Kingdom. They didn’t get to see it for the first time until maybe fifteen years ago. Once again, Kubrick gave us another movie to challenge our minds and thoughts. He is a very meticulous director, but his efforts are worth it. Based on a popular novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange is a must-see as a visually-impressive futuristic movie about a man whose life is made out of violence. But that will be changed.

My Grade: A+