American Graffiti (Collector's Edition) (High School Reunion Collection) Review
This movie will take you back to the fun times of the early 1960s.
Director George Lucas lived it in the early 1960s in Modesto, California.
If you were a teenager or young adult during the late 1950s and early 1960s, then you're sure to remember the kind of fun that teenagers and young adults had back then - going to drive-ins, drive-in movies, drag racing, cruising, etc. It seemed like everything that was fun seemed to revolve around cars. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but there is some truth to it. People back then worshipped their cars just like people today worship their computers, blackberries, and other technological gadgets. In this era society was cleaner and safer. The middle class prospered. Jobs were plentiful and paid well. Wealth was distributed more evenly. A person could work at the same company for 30-40 years and retire with a pension. Generally speaking, most people were decent people with morals and values. People weren't nearly as greedy as they are now. Illegal drugs were rare in society. Radicalism was at a minimum. America was still in an age of innocence. To quote Bill Maher, "The early '60s were the '50s. There really wasn't much radicalism going on".
My mother was a teenager in the 1950s and in her early 20s in the early 1960s. She always used to talk at great length about all the fun times she had as a teenager cruising Woodward Ave. near Detroit, going to drive-ins, drive-in movies, going on dates, the rock music of that time period, etc. and how the young people of today missed out on all the fun and can't relate to what she did as a teenager. She always proudly said she had 78 boyfriends before she met my father, and a lot of that resulted from cruising. She was a fan of American Graffiti and used to mention it quite frequently and said it is an accurate depiction of what cruising was like in the '50s and early '60s.
If you're someone who lived these fun times back then, then you can relate to this movie, as this movie is set in September 1962 in the area of Modesto, California. Even if you weren't alive back then, you can appreciate this movie. The basic plot is this: It is September 1962 and it is the last night of summer before everybody goes to college. There are actually four stories that are all happening simultaneously (classic George Lucas style - think of the Star Wars movies), but in this movie, they're not related to each other. You'll see scenes showing cruising, school dances, drag racing, drive-ins, and many mischievious acts. Kids out to have a good time before they enter the real world and go their separate ways. The movie takes place almost entirely at night, from sunset to sunrise the next day.
This movie stars Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Suzanne Somers, Mackenzie Phillips, Paul LeMat, Candy Clark, Charles Martin Smith, and legendary disc jockey Wolfman Jack.
This movie is LOADED with rock 'n roll songs from that era. The music starts at the beginning of the movie and never really ends. There are a total of 41 songs that can be heard throughout the movie, and all are big hits from the '50s and early '60s. There is no actual musical score, no background situational music. Instead, the rock songs ARE the soundtrack. Everything from Buddy Holly to Bill Haley & The Comets to The Beach Boys to Chuck Berry, this movie has it all.
This DVD comes with excellent extras, particularly the documentary called The Making Of American Graffiti. It has in-depth interviews with director George Lucas, executive producer Francis Ford Coppola, and nearly all the cast members. It runs about 1 1/2 hours. The stories are very interesting, particularly the stories about the mistakes that were made in the movie, but were kept in the movie by George Lucas. There are also production photographs, the theatrical trailer, and never-before-seen screen tests of the cast.
I can relate to this movie, at least somewhat. Every year near my hometown there is an event called the Woodward Dream Cruise, a car cruise on the third Saturday of every August where people cruise down Woodward Ave. near Detroit in their classic cars from yesteryear. It's a huge event that easily attracts over a million people and is even televised locally. I've been to all 16 of them, from 1995 to 2010. This event was invented to bring back the nostalgia of cruising down Woodward Ave. in the '50s and '60s. Radio stations play songs from that era all day long. Myself, I listen to my hard rock and heavy metal while driving. Generational gap!
But you see? People yearn for this sort of thing. People want to at least pretend to escape back to a time when America was more innocent, safer, more prosperous, cleaner, more secure, had nicer people, far less greedy, and when people weren't so obsessed with chasing the buck as they are now. That's why we've got a national drive-in chain called Sonic. People want to be taken back in time, even if it's just for an hour. I even went to a drive-in movie a few years ago in the parking lot of the now unused Pontiac Silverdome. I hadn't done that since the '70s, because they all disappeared.
So, if you're somebody who lived what is portrayed in American Graffiti, this movie should bring a smile to your face. If you're a younger person, you need to see this movie, and I'll bet you'll like it.
American Graffiti (Collector's Edition) (High School Reunion Collection) Overview
A look at one hectic night in the life of a group of high school friends just before they go off to college, jobs, or the army.
American Graffiti (Collector's Edition) (High School Reunion Collection) Specifications
Here's how critic Roger Ebert described the unique and lasting value of George Lucas's 1973 box-office hit,
American Graffiti: "[It's] not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant." The time to which Ebert and the film refers is the summer of 1962, and
American Graffiti captures the look, feel, and sound of that era by chronicling one memorable night in the lives of several young Californians on the cusp of adulthood. (In essence, Lucas was making a semiautobiographical tribute to his own days as a hot-rod cruiser, and the film's phenomenal success paved the way for
Star Wars.) The action is propelled by the music of Wolfman Jack's rock & roll radio show--a soundtrack of pop hits that would become as popular as the film itself. As Lucas develops several character subplots,
American Graffiti becomes a flawless time capsule of meticulously re-created memory, as authentic as a documentary and vividly realized through innovative use of cinematography and sound. The once-in-a-lifetime ensemble cast members inhabit their roles so fully that they don't seem like actors at all, comprising a who's who of performers--some of whom went on to stellar careers--including Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, and Paul Le Mat. A true American classic, the film ranks No. 77 on the American Film Institute's list of all-time greatest American movies.
--Jeff Shannon
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