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A Decade Under the Influence
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The Way We Were
A Decade Under the Influence
Unrated
2003, Docurama
Movie buffs will swoon at A Decade Under the Influence, a documentary love letter to Hollywood in the '70s, an era that wasn't that long ago, yet today it seems like the events and the movies took place on another planet.
Co-directors Richard LaGravenese and the late Ted Demme led a production team in recording 60 hours of interviews with 29 artists and filmmakers and the pared result is a sleek, fast-paced nostalgia trip.
Newsreel footage of the Hello Dolly movie premiere sets up the story. The studios became increasingly irrelevant by the late '60s as their big-budget musicals and costume epics failed to attract young audiences. It was the perfect time for a new wave of film artists, people with a different set of criteria regarding movie entertainment, to move in and take over the town, if only for 10 years.
Iconic films like The Graduate and Easy Rider share screen time with lesser-known movies that are just as important: Brian de Palma's race satire Hi Mom!, Hal Ashby's The Landlord and John Avildson's Joe, starring Peter Boyle as a construction worker who attacks anti-war protesters.
Directors Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) and Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) discuss theirs and other films with intelligence and clear affection.
Watching actor/director Dennis Hopper reminisce about his first production days on Easy Rider is thrilling; but the most compelling insights come from British actress Julie Christie, the dazzling star of landmark films like McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Shampoo.
Demme and LaGravenese keep the film from becoming college-book serious. Film Auteur theory is mentioned only briefly. More time is given to the college-age, counterculture audience frequenting movies like Easy Rider, their predilection for outcasts and celebration of personal freedom.
Everything comes together perfectly when images from French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless are matched with the Rolling Stones song "Street Fighting Man." It's guaranteed to put a smile on movie buffs convinced that nothing is cooler than Godard paired with the Stones.
A Decade Under the Influence Grade: B
And the rest
In filmmaker Gurinder Chadha's fun-loving, coming-of-age romance, Bend It Like Beckham (Fox), Parminder K. Nagra stars as Jess Bharma, a young soccer fanatic who hides her spot on a competitive girls team from her strict Indian parents. Nagra's Indian ethnicity is integral to the plot. It's also a colorful bonus that separates her from present-day Hollywood teen actresses. ...Better Luck Tomorrow (Paramount) director/co-writer Justin Lin follows a group of California Asian-American teenagers whose school scam leads to trouble. The film tests audiences with cynical storytelling and malcontent characters. The result is a serious teen drama equal to recent classics like River's Edge and My Own Private Idaho.