Yo Adrian, My Top 10 Favorite Movies By Year: 1976

772   7.1   8 

While I tend to agree with the general consensus that this movie shouldn't have beat out other films like All The President's Men or Taxi Driver for the Best Picture Oscar, I still consider it my favorite of the this particular year.
One of the reasons is just the nostalgic connection I have to this film. I remember watching this first installment of the Italian Stallion series as a child, & even at an age when I believed that the female sex to be rife with cooties, just adoring the love story between two "loser" types of Adrian & the original Rock. And this was probably the first movie I ever watched that literally hand me jumping up & down at the end.
Rocky's plot just seemed to be able to pull all the right heart-strings for me, that even to this day I still feel a slight jitter in my chest whenever I watch this flick.
Either that, or maybe I've developed a life-long heart murmur.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

318   7.7   8 

Deep Throat was one of the first x-rated flix I ever watched.
Now here I am, years later, wasting my life away, if not downloading vast amounts of onion booty porn,
then I'm either posting ghetto girlfight videos on youtube or I'm aimlessly commiseratin' with all of my fellow Listophiles.
So, yeah....
I know exactly where that particular "left turn" was that led me down the empty road of existance that is currently my life.

Which I know has almost next to nothing to do with this movie, but I guess that term "Deep throat" sparked off a nerve or something.

Anyways,
back to the list.....

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

1198   8.2   8.6 

In my opinion, this was the first film to establish Robert Deniro's persona-stereotyped method of acting that he's known for even up until to this day.
And that's probably more because the film's director, Martin Scorcese really seemed to allow Deniro's mannerisms to freight this portrayal of a cab diver whose loniless in the vast sea of grime that was '70's era New York City to consume him to the point of razor-edged madness.
It was an acting freedom that Scorcese used to maximum effect also allowed also with the suporting characters, including Jodie Foster, Cybil Sheperd, Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks & Danny Boyle.
While Martin Scorcese is more famous for his mafia-themed films, I feel that his talent for depicting the grit of the streets, particularly of this time-period cannot be understated & is what really carries the feel & weight of this film.
A true staple in the decade of 70's films, that I just enjoy watching over & over again.

And yeah.....
I'm talking to you.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

128   7.4   7.6 

Is it safe?

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

391   6.9   7.6 

This movie continues the great tradition begun with Rosemary's Baby, & then masterfully followed up with The Exorcist as the Devil himself is seriously depicted, though never shown, in a manner that is genuinely intended to keep even the most heartily-minded awake at night.
As in those earlier works, in The Omen, Satan is the unseen antagonist who uses a human in the form of a child to dote out his diabolical deeds of death, despair & destruction.
Y'know, for me, there's something about the 70's era that seems to really lend itself to the atmosphere of hellish dread that are these types of films. Maybe it's because since this was the decade in which "movie realism" had finally come to touch the ground (evidenced thru the films of actors like Dustin Hoffman & Al Pacino), the monster genre had really started to become a caricature of itself, many times to the point of being cartoonishliy silly. Therefore, one of the few avenues of true horror left was to those that focused the evil that resulted from the more sins of man, which of course can be personified best by he who most represents it, ol' Lucifer hisself.
Or maybe it's just because such evil could only come from the decade that was also responsible for polyster suits, platform shoes & dancing Travolta movies.
Whatever the reason,
The Omen carries with it a new-found injection of horror that rattled our nerves more on a biblical sense of hopelessness than thru the fear of a Hollywood-spawned rubber-suited creature of which many movie-veiwers had becomed largely desensitized to at this point.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

742   6.8   7.4 

Honestly,
I don't know what Carrie's big deal was with the pig's blood an' all.
I mean, at least she had a date for the prom.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

68   6.4   6.6 

Typical Dirty Harry fare, but now with a female partner.
However, despite being forced to side up with a Women's Lib quota filler,
Clint Eastwood still manages to carry a 70's machismo chip on his shoulder, talk thru incessantly gritted teeth, piss off his superiors & weld big handguns like they were just a natural extension of what makes Harry so dirty to begin with.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

117   7.4   7.8 

Same thing I said about The Enforcer, except replace "Dirty Harry" with"The Man With No Name But Now With A Name", "Women's Lib quota filler" with "Social-Conscious National Regret", "70's" with "1870's", and "big handguns" with "long-ass six-shooters".

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

24   6.2   6.6 

Personally, I was never a big fan of early World War II movies with the exception of maybe The Longest Day & Tora! Tora! Tora!.
But Midway is a great example of taking an important military battle and depicting the grand scale of this real life historical event on film, despite the obvious perspective to the American side (which was usually the standard back then anyway).
The fact that at certain points, the film focuses on varoius specifics of the major decisions which resulted in the manner the battle would eventually unfold, helps in adding weight to the portrayal of those in military higher-ups who were instrumental in shaping this event.
Adding to the significance of the story is an ensemble cast of heavyweights of the time such as Charles "They-Don't-Get-Any-Bigger" Heston & Henry "I'm-Barbarella's-Dad" Fonda.

The Mighty Celestial's rating:

216   7.9   8.1 

I'll be honest with you guys ....
I'm not really all that mad.
And I could probably take a little more.

The Mighty Celestial's rating: