I agree that "Sorcerer" is a greatly overlooked movie. The performances were well done, and the tension was awesome. I think the title definitely threw people off, and either they avoided it because they didn't want to see a movie about wizards (sorry, Harry Potter) or they did and were upset when they discovered it wasn't.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Great Escape, Presumed Innocent , Apocalypse Now are some of my faves but Night Moves (1975) is slowly creeping up there on me.
These old Siskel and Eberts before the blockbuster '80s began and the "New Hollywood" era ended circa 1982 are great, when you could see adults discuss more than popcorn movies. "Sorcerer" actually came out a month after "Star Wars," but the point is taken in the bigger picture. "Sorcerer," "The Late Shift," and "Night Moves" all were released in the summer, and even though the summer blockbuster thing wasn't an industry standard practice until the early '80s, after "Jaws," "Star Wars," and "Superman" hit it big in the late '70s, these films that they examined are more mature, adult movies that should have been released in the fall and winter, when the kids are in school. No parents are going to drag their young kids to noir detective movies in the summer. It was either Star Wars, Disney, or much lighter fare.
I love it that they talk about seeking out a movie in a revival house. I watched their discussions evolve from talking about Laser Disc to Video Tapes to DVD to Blu Ray.
The Late Show, Night Moves and Sorcerer are all great, classic films of the 70s. My personal favorites. I liked Straight Time, but not as much as Gene did.
STRAIGHT TIME is so beyond great! Love this!@ Hoffman should have won for this film instead of that junk KRAMER VS KRAMER. Scary and great part of the film is how Hoffman makes you believe he is tough guy.
Mean Streets is a good movie but never thought it was really a gangster movie but rather about street punks and lowlives getting themselves into trouble and sticky situations
i didnt hear about Sorcerer until a few years later on cable in the early 80s sometime, i was a kid then and i was VERY into medieval fantasy type stuff so i was super excited when i saw the title, then i was soul crushed when i tried to watch it and saw it had nothing to do with what i thought and ive still never forgiven it or watched it LOL.
Oh, are the full of it, in 1978 Lilly Tomlin and young Johnny Travolta were in Moment by Moment, she gave exact same performance there and both of them poo pooed the film to no end. I saw it, it was fine, better than that scene there in the Late Show (which looks like a big load tbh)
They were filming these shows for a mass audience. Much like you don't get 2,000-word comments on these Internet threads, you can't broadcast a film review that spends thirty minutes on elements of cinema in each movie. Mass market TV, even public TV back then, had to have some mass appeal. And you know how lazy most people are. The state of Hollywood today is evidence of viewer laziness.
