USCCB - (Film and Broadcasting) - Ten Best List for the Year 1978

Ten Best List for the Year 1978

The Buddy Holly Story -- Straight-forward screen biography of one of the pioneers of rock`n'roll music, from his initial success in 1956 to his death in a plane crash three years later at the age of 22. Both Robert Gittler's script and Steve Rash's direction are extremely competent but the movie's most engaging feature is the singing and acting of Gary Busey in the title role. Some unsavory aspects of the rock scene. A-III-adults (PG) 1978
Dersu Uzala -- Russian production about the friendship that grows between a turn-of-the-century explorer in Siberia and his guide, an aging Tungus hunter whose name gives the film its title. Japanese director Akira Kurosawa concentrates on evoking the vast remoteness of the Siberian wilderness, a world the Russian finds forbidding but one in which the hunter is perfectly at home. Subtitles. Finely acted, beautifully photographed, it is an admiring portrait of a man living in harmony with nature and with his fellow hunters. A-I-general patronage (G) 1978
Go Tell the Spartans -- Burt Lancaster plays an overage major who commands a small American cadre working with a motley collection of regular Vietnamese troops, mercenaries and militia in the hostile countryside during the early days of the Vietnam involvement. Director Ted Post handles the action sequences extremely well and, as a whole, the movie is intelligent, well-acted and moving. Violence and rough language, but conveys the contradictions and pathos of the Vietnam struggle. A-IV-adults with reservations (R) 1978
Heaven Can Wait -- Charming remake of the 1941 comedy, "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," has a past-his-prime quarterback (Warren Beatty) die prematurely but the angel responsible (James Mason) places him in the body of an eccentric millionaire just as he is done in by his wife (Dyan Cannon) and her lover (Charles Grodin). Enlisting the aid of his former coach (Jack Warden) to get his new body into playing form, the now rich quarterback returns to the gridiron and wins the love of a good woman (Julie Christie). Directed by Beatty and Buck Henry, the entertainment succeeds in being very innocent and yet wise and funny. A-II-adults and adolescents (PG) 1978
Movie, Movie -- Producer-director Stanley Donen has contributed a comic valentine to 1930s Hollywood movies by re-creating a modern version of the era's double features, pairing a black-and-white boxing melodrama and a musical in color, using virtually the same cast for both (George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Eli Wallach, Art Carney and others). The gentle parody captures well the innocent fantasies of a less sophisticated age, not to make fun of past movie conventions but to enjoy them in a more knowing way. Some ring violence and a sensuous nightclub dance. A-II-adults and adolescents (PG) 1978
Perceval -- Stylized French production based on the medieval romance about the knight (Fabrice Luchini) who joins King Arthur's court, fails to claim the Holy Grail when he has the chance, and is punished for his ignorance. Directed by Erich Rohmer, the visuals beautifully evoke the world of the Middle Ages and its code of chivalry as well as the conflict in Christendom between the spiritual and temporal. A-II-adults and adolescents (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1978
Pirosmani -- Russian import about an obscure Georgian painter whose work has grown in stature since his death in 1919. Director Georgy Shengelaya employs beautifully stark images to show how the artist's imagination was rooted in his rural environment and time period, one that is rather exotic because so unfamiliar. His kind of folk art appealed to the common people because of its traditional ethnic and religious themes and symbolism. A-II-adults and adolescents (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1978
Superman Reaching Earth from the dying planet Krypton, the comic-strip Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) becomes a reporter in Metropolis where he works with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and encounters master criminal Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) and cronies (Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine). Director Richard Donner's fun-filled fantasy adventure has some pyrotechnics that may be too intense for the very young. A-II-adults and adolescents (PG) 1978
Watership Down -- British animated version of Richard Adams' popular novel about a band of brave rabbits undertaking a dangerous journey in search of a new home has been done with taste and intelligence under Martin Rosen's direction. Among the voices are those of John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Denholm Elliot and Harry Andrews, with Zero Mostel providing comic relief as a zany Teutonic seagull. Some scenes may be too intense for young children. A-II-adults and adolescents (PG) 1978
Women -- Sensitive Hungarian character study of an unlikely and slowly developing friendship between the wife of a successful engineer (Marina Vlady) and a factory worker (Lili Monori) whose husband is an alcoholic. The melodramatic plot and its soap opera problems simply provide the background against which director Marta Meszaros explores the human needs that draw these two women together despite their differences in character, education and social position. Mature themes. A-III-adults (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1978