Midnight Cowboy

Rating:
Summary: Lifes ups and downs
Review: I agree wholeheartedly with the other reviews. I actually first saw this when I was very young, and was fascinated by the visual side of the film, as many of the themes went over my head. I'm sure the Jerky boys used elements of Rizzo to create some of their characters, but thats another idiom. You can tell a good film when the minds eye of the director is poured through the lens whilst simultaniously absorbing the age and culture he is filming. There are some truely classic dialogue moments, people are shown in all their glory and self loathing, a brutally honest look at what happens when you chase your dreams into a big city without a backup plan. I never tire of this timeless classic. Tutti Frutti!!
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Rating:
Summary: Skipping over the ocean like a stone........
Review: Oscar win = Best picture and Director that is all great but it deserved more. It deserved to win everything going no matter what it was against. It is by far the best film of the 60s and there is overwhelming evidence to support this.
1) The acting talent is outstanding, Jon Voight pulls out one of the best performances ever, he deserved to win Best Actor for his role as Joe Buck a stud from the ol' west who decides to go to New York to sell himself to all those women up there. When he arrives he is astounded by the different ways people act in the big city and his presence in the city is very much compromised by lots of people trying to scam him. First there is a random woman he picks up on the street, when they have finished their love-making he tries to get his payment for it, but she turns on a guilt trip and ends up scamming money out of him. Other scams include a pennyless homosexual trying to get some free action, but Joe didn't intend to have this action and not be paid.
2) The main scam artist however is the second lead character played by Dustin Hoffman who without a doubt deserved the Best Supporting Actor and maybe even Best Actor. He plays 'Ratzo' a small crook who is down on his look, it is a pretty basic story, Joe and Ratzo end up living with each other and Ratzo decides to help Joe get off his feet in the big city, but most attempts fail and as winter sets in Ratzo gets a virus, and in the last scenes as they are being taken to Miami where the 'real money can be made' poor Ratzo dies and it ends on a sad note with Joe Buck looking out the window a huge lump in his throat, you can even see it. This film is a classic and no others can compete - I don't care what anyone else says...
3) Oh and by the way the soundtrack is fantastic too.


Rating:
Summary: A Tender Rock
Review: This first X-rated film to get the Best Picture nod begins at the base of the pyramid, and climbs topward. Psychologist Herbert Maslow constructed an "Hierarchy of Needs" in the mid 20th c. At the base of Maslow's symbolic pyramid were things such as oxygen, food, shelter, love.....etc. Things all men need to survive...Joe Buck hated the desert. In Texas, he was just another dishwasher; but in his mind, "I'm a stud!". Joe had been sexually abused by his grandmother when he was ten. She called him "stud". Joe Buck hated the desert...The scratchy 102.7; "Hi. Larry? I moved to New York after my divorce hoping to find a real man. A man with strong legs, and a hard back. Larry? Why is New York all faggots?" 102.7 was Joe Buck's favorite station. He sure felt sorry for those New York divorcees and pledged to himself that he would help these older women. Help them with his strong legs, and his hard back. Joe Buck packed his stuff and got on the Greyhound. On the way, he listened to the scratchy 102.7..."I'm a God-damned stud I am. A God-damned stud! And a hustler too!"..The children of New York stole more from him than his money. One little boy stole something from Joe that Joe could never get back. Even his ever-worshipping "starving" old ladies took his body and soul; even his money. Then they hung him out to dry. In desperate need of shelter, Joe turns to petty thief Ratso Rizzo for help. Ratso Rizzo was a member of the New York Symphony of poverty and hopelessness. Ratso was good at both. Joe needed him. Joe was more than broke. The children of New York stole more from him than his money...Professor Maslow had postulated that man will do anything to survive. Oxygen, food, shelter, love....these are the basics. Joe was still at the food and shelter level...Together, Joe and Ratso tested pity, learned of want and greed, taught each other the fine art of failure, and formed a most unlikely friendship. Day and night rarely live together in the same abandoned slum. But for oxygen, food, shelter..... Both wanted more. Pride. Recognition. Plea. Overwhelmed by the banquet of nothingness they bought to the table, finally they learn of each others true dreams. Thier bus tickets bore the time-honored stamp of Mickey Mouse. They were going to Florida to catch that dream before it vanished...Psychologist Herbert Maslow considered love to be a basic need, yet he also believed love was a necessary component of the self, the actualization of all a man can be. Without love, Maslow felt, man would never be motivated to learn what fueled thier motives. Thus, they would evaporate in denial and self-loathe; without ever testing the truth...Very near thier destination, the truth explodes like a hidden mine. Constellations re-write. Nothing smells the same. Things get different..."Everybody's talkin' at me, I don't hear a word they're sayin', just the echos....."

Rating:
Summary: Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Review: If you have any intelligence, any emotion, anything beyond a desire to watch explosions and Vin Diesel, you will like this movie. While not often put in the same category as The Godfather or Casablanca, this movie is better than the others because it is NOT some huge epic family drama or war romance, but the story of two urban losers struggling to find a connection with something that makes life liveable. This was one of the first movies to combine American and European styles in one film and by doing became a more important film technically than given credit for. Who cares if it loses some shock value it once had? Every movie does eventually. That it still is absorbing proves its worth. Truly Great.

Rating:
Summary: Ahead of Its Time
Review: One of Jon Voight's first films, this was the one that kicked off his film career. This would be the film that also exploited Dustin Hoffman's true acting talent. This would also be the first X-rated film ever to win an Oscar for Best Picture (although by today's standards, it would barely even be rated-R). This would also be one of the first great films that kicked off one of the best decades of American film, the 1970s.

I'd been dying to see this film for some time. It was a landmark film in so many ways and it was great in so many ways. It's a story about a very positive, though very naive boy from Texas named Joe Buck (Jon Voight) whose past haunts him and wants to escape his hometown Texas life (and his past) for a life of sex and gigolo-ism in New York City. He finds that the New York life isn't all it's made out to be and he struggles, all the while getting hustled himself and having to subject himself to the pains and horrors of a small-town kid trying to make it in the big city. He befriends one of the guys who hustles him (Dustin Hoffman) and you see their friendship grow throughout the film as they struggle to survive together.

I thought the film was incredibly well done. It was real ahead of it's time for 1969, complete with flashbacks, flashing images, personal horror, violent emotion. The direction was phenomenal and the acting was some of the best these actors have done in their careers. The mise-en-scene portrays a very dark NYC complete with homelessness, violence, anger, etc. The kind of NYC you feel in many films of the 70s - Rosemary's Baby, Saturday Night Fever, any Woody Allen film etc.

I really felt every shift in emotion that I don't get from very many films nowadays. The flashes going through the mind aren't just of his past but of his present and of both simultaneously. His inner conflict is further complicated by his sense of southern positive yet naive attitude toward life that makes the viewer feel a huge sense of sympathy towards him. His ability to forgive those who've hustled him and to befriend complete strangers pains the viewer because you almost want him to walk away. To go back home. But as we learn later in the film, even his resilience is challenged.

His sympathy towards other human beings is what seems to keep him going. His desire to make it big is only paralleled with his desire to have a companion in life. He finds it in Enrico Rizzo (Hoffman) and you see a true friendship take form.

The film was overall pretty depressing but just a great feat of filmmaking that I would suggest to anyone who wants a great film to watch.