Marathon Man (1976)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Graduate student/runner encounters toothy hijinx.

Not as good as Straight Time, I didn't think.

[Vic Sage]

"iss it safe?"

[Guest themetfairy]

My father took me to see this the day before I had a dental appointment.

I still haven't forgiven him for that....

[Frayed Knot]

This is one of those popular ones I just never got around to for some reason.

[Guest sharpie]

Has moments.

I liked the shots of New York in the '70's.

[Edgy MD]

I think there are certain movies from the seventies that provoked such a visceral reaction so as to permanently insinuate a new phrase into our national lexicon of metaphors. Midnight Express gave us "Turkish prison" and this movie gave us "Nazi dentist" --- two phrases used regularly today even by folks who have never seen or perhaps heard of either film.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

In terms of skillset, range (if we're REALLY being honest), and aesthetic, Dustin Hoffman was really, REALLY born at just the right time, wasn't he? Born 30 years later, and he's not getting yanked by Olivier and "stomaching" Peckinpah and co-owning a cinematic decade-and-a-half-- he's Adrien Brody, getting an Oscar, and moving on to subsist on weird-ass cameos and remake King Kong with Jack Black.

[Edgy MD]

You'd think the being the Jewish one of the trio of contemporary brown-haired method actors (along with Pacino and DeNiro) would get him typecast. But instead, with those two being Italian-American, the typecasting played in his favor. They got to be mobsters and cops and he got to be everything else. And if Hollywood wanted a more caricatured Jewish performance, they could go with Richard Dreyfuss. (Thanks, Spielberg!) The field was wide open for him in a way.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Edgy MD wrote: I think there's certain movies from the seventies that provoked such a visceral reaction so as to permanently insinuate a new phrase into our national lexicon of metaphors. Midnight Express gave us "Turkish prison" and this movie gave us "Nazi dentist" --- two phrases used regularly today even by folks who have never seen or perhaps heard of either film.

And I always thought "Turkish prison" originated with Airplane!

[Edgy MD]

There you go.

Turns out, Turkish prisons don't compare so poorly on the world prison scale, and the Turks were pretty pissed about how Oliver Stone turned them into a stereotype.

[metsmarathon]

wouldn't you know, i don't think i've ever seen this movie.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

surprisingly little marathoning in it.

[Vic Sage]

for more Hoffman:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=19178

[ashie62]

Roy Schieder...

[Vic Sage]

what about him?

I like Roy Scheider; very underrated actor and one of the best of the 1970s. surprisingly wide range... good guys, bad guys, leads, character roles, even a MUSICAL for crissakes.

[u:pfeklf4n]selected films of the 1970s[/u:pfeklf4n]:
Klute (1971)
The French Connection (1971) (Academy Award nomination)
The Seven-Ups (1973)
Jaws (1975)
Marathon Man (1976)
Sorcerer (1977)
Jaws 2 (1978)
All That Jazz (1979)(Academy Award nomination)

There wasn't much of interest in the subsequent decades (except for maybe 52-PICKUP (1986), a Frankenheimer action film), but he was one of the defining actors of that period.

[Edgy MD]

Dude, Seaquest.

[Vic Sage]

Dude, what about it?

I, who will watch just about anything remotely science-fictionish, couldn't get through a single episode, despite repeated attempts to do so.
In fact, the show was so bad that even Scheider hated it, demanding to be released by the 3rd season.

[Edgy MD]

Which is QUITE an accomplishment, I think.

[Vic Sage]

good point.