THE MOVIE OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Candidates for 1976

Our Country’s Bicentennial Year...which meant my mom dragged me and my two brothers to see the Big Ships as they passed the Statue of Liberty on July 4th.  We’re still living on 76th Street, and I’m hanging with my next door neighbors Amy and Frankie--and spending Far Too Much Time with Joe, who lived up the block, was a general Bad Influence and stole some authentic Neal Adams X-Men comics (the debut of Sauron!) by ‘borrowing’ them and claiming they were lost in a fire.  Joe is intrinsic to one of my moviegoing memories, as we took the journey all the way to The Oasis on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood from our Woodhaven homes to see Godzilla vs. Megalon all by our lonesomes, a journey that required two buses.

Anyway, your candidates for 1976 are as follows...

BUGSY MALONE

As I’ve mentioned before, I love musicals.  This an obscure-bordering-on-cult-film here in America, but it’s apparently quite celebrated in England (right, Andrew Leyland?).  Given that Paul Williams did the music (I know y’all are oohing and ahhing because of The Muppet Show, but my fondness for his work comes from The Phantom of Paradise, the only film of Brian DePalma I actively like) and that it’s a gangster epic played entirely by kids with guns shooting marshmello fluff, I’m surprised I didn’t watch this sooner.  And if you choose this, I finally will.

THE PASSOVER PLOT
I could just point out that in this film, Zalman King (a man whose...vigorous acting style I discussed during last year’s Halloween Horrorfest) plays Jesus.

But it’s not just that.  It’s one of a rash of films that sort of grew out of the paranoia of the Nixon Era, based on a book that posits that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was actually a well staged stunt to sway his followers to revolution against the Romans.  From everything I can glean, it’s kind of silly in a ‘We’re Gon’ Blow Your Mind, MAN’ way, so I’m intrgued.

Also....Zalman King as Jesus.

THE MESSAGE
And speaking of somewhat ill-conceived religious epics, here’s a biography of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, directed by Moustapha ‘that guy who brought us those cheap-ass Halloween sequels John Carpenter wanted to delete from continuity twice’ Akkad.  And what fascinates me about this film is that Akkad films this biography without depicting the subject of said biography, his wives or relatives.  There are some scenes of characters addressing the camera as if it is Mohammed as well as shots of Mohammed’s sword during battle scenes, but no other depiction of the prophet or his inner circle.  I’ve been told it’s both inept and extremely well-shot, unintentionally silly and respectful.  I want to see it and decide for myself.

SILENT MOVIE
I know there are people who think Spaceballs is a classic, but I am not one of them.  I do think both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are major classic, but after that I have issues with his stuff (issues I feel come from Brooks deciding to take center stage in front of the camera, especially doing so without the genius that is Gene Wilder).  This is the film that he followed up Young Frankenstein, and I'd like to see if my hypothesis that the more Brooks takes control, the less effective his comedy is.

There you go.  You’ll have one week to head over to my Twitter Page and vote for you choice of which film I will view and comment on.   Have fun!

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