American Graffiti Tough Film Review

This week I have posted a 1973 Film Heritage with a review of American Graffiti that describes Debbie as a "F#ckable blond" and John as a "Tee-Shirted car freak with no future" It's a must see for the die-hard Graffitiacs.
http://jeffsallgraffitiallthetime.blogspot.com

Enjoy
Jeff

 

ooo this should be a interesting read.
chris.

 

Great site!!!

 

Got a kick out of that, but I also enjoyed the American Graffiti references in the Homer Simpson video! Very funny.

 

Thanks for a look at the past looking at the past.....I wonder how we will see ourselves in another twenty years..Will we wax nostalgic for how things were back then? (now)....

I sure as he!! hope not....

 

Love your site. Thanks for posting the review. My parents took me to see AG in 1973 when I was 8 years old because I was such a car nut. I'm sure glad they didn't know how insidious the movie really was Not to sound sexist, but that review showcases everything that was bad about the "women's liberation" movement of the 70's. And there were a lot of positives as well. I though Maude was reviewing the movie Good reading.

 

Hmm... interesting read. However, the author doesn't really review the film, as much as she uses it as a vehicle for her post sixties feminist agenda. She seems to dwell on the few instances in the film where she feels women are exploited or used by the male charecters as a "means to an end".

Only briefly does she comment on film technic and the soundtrack. By the way, AG was the first film to have four stories developing at the same time. Something that has been copied numerous times. She also failed to note that the songs playing in the background were chosen and used to follow the action on the screen.

If I had read this review back then, I'd have written a very angry letter to the author and publisher.

Thanks for posting and I enjoy your blogs.

 

Whoa! Do the authors have an axe to grind?! HAHAHHAhahaaaaa
I'm really surprised they saw ANYTHING redeemable at all.

 

"American Graffiti, like the whole 50's revival, seem to be good harmless fun. But, in fact, they are both insidious, luring us into mindless nostalgia that saps our strength and makes us forget what things are really like."

This writer needs to take things a bit less seriously.

 

I think you had to really be around in 62 to "get" how close to real life that movie was. Every town had one car that was the baddest, a jock and his GF, some nerdy motorscooter riding guy, and life for us teens that revolved around cars, drive in restaurants, and trying to get lucky.

It ain't Gone with the Wind, but it sure is a very enjoyable, watchable movie............one we never get tired of watching when it comes on. I think it shows how brilliant Lucas was even early on.

Don

 

THANKS GUYS!!!!! Glad you all enjoy. Jeff

 

Amen to that!

Its a movie. Its fiction but we like to remember that it was like that. Theres enough misery in the world without those reviewers adding to it.

 

Yes, it was 'just a movie' but it is fantasy. Make believe. But look how much of a hold it has taken on peoples minds the last 37 years. Drive our old cars today, near everyday and it becomes stylized transportation. 'Not like it was'. Drive yours today? I put 100 miles running errands today.

 

First time I saw AG was at the drive-in. 1979. My mom would not let me see it in '73. The blond with me was ticked that I ACTUALLY wanted to see the movie! I made it up to her during the second movie! Good times. peace

 

If you look at sugar cube long enough even it can become a bridge to the non realty of a bitter cup of tea or the syrupy concoction of a slo-gin fizz coupled together with the ribbed prophylactic that awaits the Popes condemnation. Now where did that sugar cube go?

 

I'm... not sure what this has to do with the movie. Sugar cubes, prophylactics and... the Pope?

 

Jeff,

Maybe a silly question, but why is the other Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids song, missing on your jukebox ? Did it not make it onto the soundtrack ?

I saw those guys a couple years ago, most of the originals still there, put on a great show. Just call themselves the Continental Kids now, since Flash has passed away.

Johnnie.

 

Sometimes a movie is just a movie.

 

Agreed.

I find it ammusing that academics over analyse a film like this. They seem to think it is some kind of authoritative social documentary of the era. That it is not. Just a fun film, filled with the cars and music of the day.

I find it ironic that a feminist writer would use the term "fuckable blonde" in this piece. Any feminist concerned about the rights of women surely would not use such a crass epithet as this that only serves to objectify women. Whilst that may be her description of the character I don't believe it to be helpful description and simply taints the readers view of the author from the outset. Could do better.

 

FEM A NAZI!!!!lol

 

After spending a career in academe, I am all too familar with the mindset that might pen such a screed! Such masturbatory self-indulgence would hope to result in those of a similar posture sitting around and nodding their heads in agreement at anything that tends to find fault with such "lowbrow" indulgences. Just find some small, perhaps unintended element and harangue about it. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

The Music player song list is a bit limited. Still working on getting the full soundtrack to play. Paying attention to the details. I like that Thanks Jeff

 

Glad I am not the only one who thought that!

 

Jonnie
I just checked and found She's So Fine So it's now in rotation. Thanks!!! I like Flash too.

 

Nostalgia is a seductive liar.

 

Thanks for posting this site, very kool!

 

Quote:
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by KrisKustomPaint
"American Graffiti, like the whole 50's revival, seem to be good harmless fun. But, in fact, they are both insidious, luring us into mindless nostalgia that saps our strength and makes us forget what things are really like."

This writer needs to take things a bit less seriously.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Quote:
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by norton58
Nostalgia is a seductive liar.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

These are both excellent points. Hell, Lucas didn't set out to make an American epic with a deep, mysterious message as Welles did with "Citizen Kane." And AG contains no gospel, so those who look in the rearview mirror and read TOO much into what was actually a pretty simple nostalgic yarn, full of laughs, action, appealing cast, cool music and obviously intended stereotypes just don't understand the charm of the movie.

Lucas spun a tale based on adolescent attitudes, lifestyles and mind sets that were actually the norm during his own SoCal teen years; and, yeah, many of those were not well founded in reality. Ha, we WERE, after all, kids, gradually, often uncomfortably, trying to come to grips with how we'd fit into the workaday "real world." It's hard for most of us to let go of the things of youth and take on the unknown. That's not deep but merely the human condition. Lucas managed to wring humor and poignance out of some 90 minutes of film, and he did it without being preachy or stuffy.

Really, the major difference between AG and any other so-called coming-of-age movie is the cool trappings of 1962 and the still relatively peaceful years preceding Vietnam. Those who want to insinuate any sociopolitical messages into Lucas' cool little movie are victims of their own fancy and revisionism, IMO. They should just enjoy the movie for what it is.

But, then, I guess they have fun gabbing with other "intellectuals" over cocktails, eh? If it makes THEM happy, fine, but I ain't buying any highbrow analysis of a movie meant to be taken at face value and enjoyed for the sake of nostalgia, gags, cars, period music and plain ol' entertainment! ("Hey, wait! Blood initiation???")

 

One can only wax nostalgic to something or another if one was there.

We have a tendency to take a movie such as American Graffiti as history when in fact it was just a movie. After the fact if it is not something that you actually did in somewhere USA you really cannot relate. What ends up happening is that we have taken it for fact instead of the fiction that it was and life begins to imitate art.

The only thing I have to say good about it is that a lot of our new rodders watch it instead of Grease. I would hate to think that everyone thought that we all ran around dancing and singing at each other and that we had to have a nemesis called pizza face.

 

Gee... I wonder what she'll think about the second movie. More American Graffiti ?

 

It was just a well made, fun movie that spoke to a lot of people - including many from lands and cultures far distant from So Cal in 1962.

It doesn't have to be any more than that - why do critics go to movies expecting some sort of artistic revelation?