AMERICAN GRAFFITI SET:
American Graffiti(1973)
American Graffiti 2(1975)
AMERICAN GRAFFITI(1973):
The set-up for Happy Days! This catapulted the careers
of soooo many stars: Ron Howard(Happy Days), Cindy
Williams(Laverne and Shirley), Mackenzie Phillips(One
Day At A Time), Richard Dryfuss, Suzanne Summers
(Three's Company), and of course Harrison Ford!
This has one of the all-time best soundtracks in movie
history(along with Sound Of Music, Mary Poppins,
Lord of the Rings, Blue Hawaii, Friends, High Road To China,
Good Morning Vietnam, Singing In The Rain, Mama
Mia, The Sting, Titanic, White Christmas, Up On
Poppy Hill, Shrek, Beauty And The Beast, Fantasia,
The Lion King, Disney's Robin Hood, Tarzan, Beyond
The Sea)! A little slow in some spots, this is,
none-the-less, truly a great movie! A-
From Amazon.com:
Here's how critic Roger Ebert described the unique
and lasting value of George Lucas's 1973 box-office hit,
American Graffiti: "[It's] not only a great movie but
a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological
treatise could duplicate the movie's success in
remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that
cultural instant." The time to which Ebert and the
film refers is the summer of 1962, and American
Graffiti captures the look, feel, and sound of that
era by chronicling one memorable night in the lives
of several young Californians on the cusp of adulthood.
(In essence, Lucas was making a semiautobiographical
tribute to his own days as a hot-rod cruiser, and
the film's phenomenal success paved the way for
Star Wars.) The action is propelled by the music
of Wolfman Jack's rock & roll radio show--a soundtrack
of pop hits that would become as popular as the
film itself. As Lucas develops several character
subplots, American Graffiti becomes a flawless
time capsule of meticulously re-created memory,
as authentic as a documentary and vividly realized
through innovative use of cinematography and sound.
The once-in-a-lifetime ensemble cast members inhabit
their roles so fully that they don't seem like actors
at all, comprising a who's who of performers--some
of whom went on to stellar careers--including Ron
Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy
Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith,
Candy Clark, and Paul Le Mat. A true American
classic, the film ranks No. 77 on the American
Film Institute's list of all-time greatest American
movies. --Jeff Shannon
