Where the Boys Are (1960) is an American coming-of-age comedy film, written by George Wells based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout, about four Midwestern college co-eds who spend spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The title song "Where the Boys Are" was sung by Connie Francis, who also co-starred in a supporting role. The film was aimed at the teen market, featuring sun, sand and romance. Released in the wintertime, it inspired thousands of additional American college students to head to Fort Lauderdale for their annual spring break.Where the Boys Are was one of the first teen films to explore adolescent sexuality and the changing sexual morals and attitudes among American college youth.
The Graduate (1967) is an American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College.The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder Willingham. The film tells the story of Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), a recent university graduate with no well-defined aim in life, who is seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), and then proceeds to fall in love with her daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross). In 1996, The Graduate was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It ranked as the seventh greatest film of all time on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) is an American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton. The film was groundbreaking for its positive representation of the controversial subject of interracial marriage, which historically had been illegal in most states of the United States, and was still illegal in seventeen southern American states up until June 12 of the year of the film's release, when it was legalized by the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia. It was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. The movie's Oscar-nominated score was composed by Frank DeVol.
The film tells the story of Joanna "Joey" Drayton, a young White American woman who has had a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice, a young, idealistic African American physician she met while in Hawaii. The plot centers on Joanna’s return to her liberal upper class American home in San Francisco, bringing her new fiancé to dinner to meet her parents, and the reaction of family and friends. The film depicts the discomfort of her parents, and also of John's father (a retired postal carrier, who with his wife, are also at the Drayton's dinner) as they all try to accept the choice of their son and daughter. A senior Catholic priest friend of Mr. Drayton's is also present at dinner and is a voice for tolerance. The film also touches on black-on-black racism when John is taken to task by his father and the household cook (played by Isabel Sanford) for his perceived presumption.
The film is also notable for being the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn (filming ended just seventeen days before Tracy died). In Tracy's final speech of the film, Hepburn's tears were real—they both knew that this would be the last line of his last film, that he had not much longer to live. Hepburn never saw the completed film; she said the memories of Tracy were too painful. The film was released in December 1967, six months after his death.The key line of dialogue from which the film got its title, "Guess who's coming to dinner?" (meaning the parents of the character played by Sidney Poitier), is spoken by Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy.
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" (commonly referred to simply as "Alice's Restaurant") (1967) is one of singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie's most prominent works, a musical monologue based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the same name. In an interview for All Things Considered, Guthrie said the song points out that any American citizen who was convicted of a crime, no matter how minor (in his case, it was littering), could avoid being conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War. The song lasts 18 minutes and 34 seconds, occupying the entire A-side of Guthrie's 1967 debut record album, also titled Alice's Restaurant. It is notable as a satirical, first-person account of 1960s counterculture, in addition to being a hit song in its own right. The final part of the song is an encouragement for the listeners to sing along, to resist the U.S. draft, and to end war.
The War at Home is a documentary film about the anti-war movement in the Madison, Wisconsin area during the time of the Vietnam War. It combines archival footage and interviews with participants that explore the events of the period on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film focuses on student protests of government policies in the Vietnam War, clashes between students and police, and the responses of politicians and the public to the turmoil. Among the major events included is the Sterling Hall bombing. Intended to destroy the Army Math Research Center in the building, the bombing caused massive destruction to other parts of the building, resulting in the death of a physics researcher, Robert Fassnacht, who was not involved in the Army Math Research Center.
The War at Home (1996) is a motion picture starring Emilio Estevez, Kathy Bates, and Martin Sheen. Estevez also directed the film and also served as co-producer. Estevez plays Jeremy Collier, a returning Vietnam War hero whose haunting experiences leave him unable to adjust to the quiet realities of small town life. The film lays bare the hidden costs of war on the soldiers who fight, and kill, not for the rightness of their cause, but simply to survive.
Sheen plays Bob Collier, Jeremy's father. He expects his son to go back to the way his life was, not understanding the problems of post-traumatic stress disorder. Kathy Bates plays Estevez's mother, Maurine, who treats Jeremy "like he's a 10-year-old", and also seems to think he should forget about his war experiences. His sister Karen, played by actress Kimberly Williams, is a little more but not completely understanding of his re-adjustment problems, but their father doesn't want her to help her brother.
This is most notably portrayed in the movie when the family's Thanksgiving celebration occurs and Jeremy refuses to put his "nice" clothes on and instead decides to wear his combat uniform and medal. The film climaxes at the conclusion of the Thanksgiving celebration when Jeremy pulls his semi-automatic handgun on his father and his family, explaining the hate he feels for his father because he wouldn't lend Jeremy money to leave the country to escape the draft.
He also explains how he was able to execute a Vietcong prisoner only because he saw his father's face instead of the enemy soldier's face. Jeremy finally breaks down hugging his father only to be thrown out of the house by him despite pleas from his daughter that Jeremy needs help. A teary-eyed Jeremy is seen buying a bus ticket and the clerk asks if he is all right; a voice-over then explains that Jeremy would be all right and that he was among the thousands of veterans who made the trip to Washington for the unveiling of the Vietnam Memorial.
The film was made for $3 million, and was distributed by Touchstone Pictures. It is regarded as a box office failure. Disney didn't advertise the film very much, and it grossed only $43,000. The film was released on DVD in the US in September 2002. The film is faithful to the time period, using music from artists such as Buffalo Springfield, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Singer Jena Kraus is featured singing a folk version of the song "Me and Bobby Mcgee" as well.
Easy Rider (1969) is an American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers (played by Fonda and Hopper) who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood phase of filmmaking during the late sixties. The film was added to the Library of Congress National Registry in 1998.
A landmark counterculture film, and a "touchstone for a generation" that "captured the national imagination",[3] Easy Rider explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise and fall of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle. Easy Rider is famous for its use of real drugs in its portrayal of marijuana and other substances.
Coming Home (1978) is an American drama film, directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jane Fonda, Jon Voight and Bruce Dern. The screenplay, written by Robert C. Jones, Waldo Salt, Nancy Dowd and Rudy Wurlitzer (uncredited), is based loosely on the novel of the same name by George Davis. The plot follows a love triangle between a young woman, her Marine husband and the paralyzed Vietnam War veteran she meets while he is overseas.
The Big Chill (1983) is an American comedy-drama film directed by Lawrence Kasdan, starring Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams. It is about a group of baby boomer college friends who reunite after 15 years due to the death of a friend. Kevin Costner was cast as the dead character Alex, but all of the scenes showing his face were cut. It has been compared to John Sayles's Return of the Secaucus 7.
The Big Chill was filmed entirely on location in Beaufort, South Carolina and was shot at the same antebellum home used as a location for The Great Santini. The soundtrack features 10 Motown classics, including "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", "My Girl" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman".
The television show thirtysomething was influenced by The Big Chill.[1] However, this was not before the movie was directly adapted to television in CBS' short-lived 1985 comedy-drama Hometown.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) is an American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Robert Getchell. It stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow who travels with her preteen son across the American Southwest in search of a better life, along with Alfred Lutter as her son and Kris Kristofferson as a man they meet along the way. It also stars Billy Green Bush, Diane Ladd, Lelia Goldoni, Lane Bradbury, Vic Tayback, Jodie Foster, and Harvey Keitel.
Burstyn won the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance, and the film won the BAFTA Award for Best Film.
Network (1976) is an American satirical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System (UBS), and its struggle with poor ratings. The film was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, and stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall and features Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, and Beatrice Straight.
The film won four Academy Awards, in the categories of Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
Network has continued to receive recognition, decades after its initial release. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2002, it was inducted into the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame as a film that has "set an enduring standard for U.S. American entertainment."[1] In 2006, Chayefsky's script was voted one of the top ten movie scripts by the Writers Guild of America, East. In 2007, the film was 64th among the Top 100 Greatest U.S. American Films as chosen by the American Film Institute, a ranking slightly higher than the one AFI gave it ten years earlier.
Movies source: American University Communications Dept.
Movie information Source: Wikipedia
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