LoathsomePete

No way man, 180 A.D., the zoetrope was the pinnacle of visual storytelling. Nuff said.

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jackhammer

Impossible to answer for me. Sure we have the recognised classics from the 70's (No Taxi Driver Loathsome? shocking!), the 80's gave us the age of the blockbuster and video nasties the 90's a return to more character based films and the ago of CGI but the 20's gave us cinematic language, the thirties ushered in sound, the 40's gave us Film Noir, the 50's gave us paranoia and Sci Fi, the 60's gave us kitchen sink drama and the emergence of the auteur and the 00's onwards gave us a right load of old crap

If really pushed I would say that the 70's really was a great time for movies with theatre fillers that possessed intelligence and boundary pushing films in terms of taste and decency where even mainstream directors were given more free reign to fulfill their ambitions (for better or worse, usually the latter - Heavens Gate New York, New York etc) but the 80's for anyone over the age of 30 is much more defining in terms of cinematic appreciation due to VHS.

Members here such as myself, bob, Janszoon etc were exposed to so many films due to VHS but also had to sit through an insane amount of crap due to the lax laws (at that time) that we can happily watch a B movie and appreciate it's merits as much as a bona fide classic, because we were not always fed a diet of well produced/financed films and so the expectation levels are lower and much the better for it. *

I have said on here many times that I would much rather watch a film that cost $3 million where a filmmaker has to use his imagination and challenge himself than a $30 million film that looks like every other film.

I waffled a little in this post didn't I? Sorry!

*Apologies Jans and bob if it isn't so but I know it is!

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bob.

yeah it's true

by the way while looking at movies made in the 70s i came across the fact that the Suspiria remake is cast and in pre-production with a release date in 2013

fuck i hope the world ends on December 21st

after looking through stuff i would say 1975-1985

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Janszoon

I would agree with that, except for the fact that Big Trouble in Little China came out in 1986 and Raising Arizona in 1987.

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bob.

FUCK!

can we just say that in this parallel universe a decade could if it wants to equal 12-15 years?

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A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.

Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.

Howard the Duck

in the VHS era, Malaysia had abundant illegal taping and rental was only USD25 cents

the amount of crap I saw!!!!!!!

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LoathsomePete

Taxi Driver really did use to be one of my all time favourite movies, and I still feel a tangible connection to Travis Bickle in our desire to wipe the filth off the streets, although I doubt I'd go quite as overboard as him. I've definitely had fantasies about being a taxi driver though, I'm a good driver and I know my way all over town using shortcuts and back streets, so I'd probably be good at it.

That said though, over the last few years I've really started to take a serious look at cinema of the '70's and what I found just blew me away. Straw Dogs still sends shivers down my spine every time I watch it, and Chinatown is easily one of the best neo-noir movies at a time when the style was still relatively new. The newest one on there is Assault on Precinct 13, but holy crap what a movie! I actually just gained a new appreciation for the original Star Wars after watching a Mr. Plinkett audio commentary that highlighed how awesome the movie was in 1977, and how much George Lucas fucked it up in 1997. Alien is still the quintessential sci-fi horror movie which every other one must be judged by, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre has some really trippy scenes that I totally don't remember when I was 13 and watching it for the first time. Eraserhead and Stalker are there to keep up my pretentious film-buff cred, while also being great examples of foreign cinema from "the enemy" and something that was just... bizarre... Network has one of the best written scripts of all time, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was one of the films from my childhood that I love.

After all that, Taxi Driver still holds a special place in my heart, but I would watch any movie on my list before it, if given the option.

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LoathsomePete

For the people who voted 1970's, what year within that decade do you think is the best?

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Howard the Duck

73 - 75

a lot of the films tend to ramble

and not the late 70s

the popcorn blockbusters were coming into force

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razielalex

Movies become so crap lately is all about boxoffice