In this utterly forgettable comedy, Peter Sellers is a vain, womanizing television personality who meets his match in American teenager Goldie Hawn. It’s very talky, attesting to its theatrical origins, and the two are extremely mismatched in charm. The few amusing moments are outshone by the mundane and inconsistent actions of its characters.
This film runs like a less amusing version of Albert Brooks’s Lost in America. Californians Desi Arnaz Jr., Robert Carradine, and Melanie Griffith misguidedly move to Alaska with the foolish notion that it will only take a short while before they are making an easy living as salmon fishers. Reality quickly sets in and before they know it, they are broke and struggling at jobs not much different than they were working in California. The three leads are appealing in their continued optimism, but it’s hard not to get frustrated by their constant stupidity as they aimlessly jump from one misadventure to the next. 
It’s well established I have an unnatural affection for Blaxploitation films, but here we have Glynn Turman as a New Orleans law student who becomes possessed by a murdered 1940s gangster bent on revenge and it’s glorious. Turman completely goes for full Jekyll-Hyde vibes as his mild-manner character is gradually taken over by JD’s personality. There are fun, unexpected twists during the climax that makes me somewhat recall Angel Heart and not just because of the shared location. 
Toward the end of World War II, German high command comes up with the idea to kidnap Winston Churchill while he’s staying in a coastal Norfolk village. Michael Caine is tasked with leading this ludicrous mission. I thought Kelly’s Heroes was strange, but this takes it even further. The protagonists are Nazis with no redeeming features beyond that. Their main challenge comes from gung ho American soldiers, exemplified by Larry Hagman’s Colonel. Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall take aim at producing appropriate accents, but the British actors can’t be bothered with such nonsense. It’s silly, but seemingly is playing it straight and still manages to be fairly engaging. 
In this sequel to Funny Girl, Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice’s career continues to thrive while she has moved on, somewhat, from con artist Omar Sharif and finds new love in theatrical producer James Caan. I know Funny Girl is an iconic Streisand work, but it had failed to impress me and this does so even less. It’s like a rehash of the earlier work, but everything’s worse. The theatrical scenes are much weaker here as is the relationship and (lack of) chemistry with Caan. The film is both too long and drawn out while quickly jumping through the events in the relationship. It seems like Fanny Brice deserves better than to have her life told mainly from the view of her relationships. 
Oscar Nominations: Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; Best Sound; Best Music, Original Song; Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation
When blind musician Edward Albert meets his new neighbor, free-spirited Goldie Hawn, the two hit it off almost immediately. He’s impressed by her independence and she admires his adaptability. Complicating their newfound relationship is her inability to stick around when things get tough and his overbearing mother who is apprehensive about giving him more freedom. The two leads are appealing in their roles and play off of each other well. It’s a bit stagey as the action takes place almost entirely in his San Francisco apartment, but the large open space, decorated by the previous hippie tenants, provides plenty of area to keep it from getting stale. 
Oscar Win: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Oscar Nominations: Best Cinematography; Best Sound
When American diplomat Gregory Peck is told that his son died during childbirth, he agrees to pass off an orphaned boy as his own, unbeknownst to his wife Lee Remnick. Five years later, Peck has been appointed ambassador to the UK where mysterious events spawn around the family, seemingly centered on the child who has been named Damien. This is some great 1970s suspense horror, similar to The Exorcist or The Amityville Horror . It does slog a bit in the middle during a fact-finding trip and doesn’t make nearly enough use of Remnick, but it does make good use of the creepy old English atmosphere and has some rather creative murder scenes. A later career Peck does a fine job carrying the film, gradually changing from a hard nosed non-believer to a knife wielding demon killer. 
Oscar Win: Best Music, Original Score
Oscar Nomination: Best Music, Original Song
In modern times, this movie could be titled Toxic Masculinity the Movie. In a working class Bronx family, Richard Gere is a sensitive young man who doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life but definitely would rather work with kids than the union construction job his father and uncle have pushed onto him. His father Tony Lo Bianco is a philanderer who beats his wife to the emergency room when he just suspects her of infidelity and has caused her such general anxiety that in turn her influence brought an eating disorder in their younger son. It’s an appealing early role for Gere, though he seems like he should have just been born with grey hair. I particularly appreciate his bonding with children throughout the film and his relationship with waitress Marilu Henner.
Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
Beau Bridges has recently been released from a mental hospital. He meets Susan Sarandon working at a movie theater and with her help, tracks down his family and some answers to his mental issues. Bridges does a fairly good job portraying someone whose development has been stilted from years living in an institution but the rest of the film is somewhat of a mess. He spends most of his time bouncing off the actions of those around him who honestly aren’t any more mentally with it than he is. I prefer the original title of Dragonfly as it actually relates to Bridges’s experiences instead of trying to make it some grand love story.
Two Navy lifers Jack Nicholson and Otis Young are tasked with escorting Randy Quaid from Norfolk to a military prison in Maine. Along the way they entertain the naïve eighteen year old any which way they can before he starts serving his eight years in jail. There’s a great bit of interplay between the three men as they get to know each other and society over the course of several days.
Oscar Nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium