The '70s (2000) User Reviews

Ummm...

[llihilloh · 7/10 · 14 January 2001]

I'll be honest. I enjoyed this mini-series. Maybe because I didn't live through the real thing. I was born in the glorious eighties, so this may be the reason that I am the ONLY person who found this series 'watchable.'

I can't comment on the history too much, so that just leaves the acting, music, and writing. The acting was a little touchy but still good. Touchy because the four main characters are somewhat newcomers to acting, but they still did a nice job. Smart, Rowe, Torry, and Shaw worked well as a team and were good overall. Other supporting actors and characters were alright.

Hooray for the music! I love music from the sixties and seventies, so this worked out well. Nothing better than listening to disco for four hours. (What is the runtime?) Seriously, the mixture of some of the greatest songs were nicely put together.

The writing was okay and the story lines that followed the four college students were well thought out. Quite a few twists and turns for Smart's character but I could still handle it. Rowe's role with the Watergate scandal was a little hard to take. It briefly covered it but after a while into it, it became really dull. Torry's performance as Dexter was nothing great, nothing terrible. He buys a theatre, ends up in the hospital, and so on. There could have been a little more effort put into this character but no more screen time. I'm liking it, so don't bore me. And Shaw's Eileen was the best of the four. I liked the problems dealing with her parent's divorce, the lawsuit against what's-his-name, and her ups and downs with Byron.

Like I said, I can't comment too much on the era itself, but I will say that the settings and props were well put together. I love the wardrobe. Also, the added in little actions referring to the seventies was kind of funny. (streakers, masks of Nixon, reference to Mary Tyler Moore, and the list goes on)

After watching non-stop promotional ads on NBC for this mini-series, I looked forward to watching it. I didn't expect anything too big, since what the outcome of 'The '60s' was. But I was still happy and content with how it started and how it ended. (I definitely enjoyed this more than 'The '60s'.)

Shameful Promotion of Soundtrack

[Greatornot · 5/10 · 6 December 2009]

This Mini-Series would have been a lot better without the entire production being a shameful promo for the soundtrack. Many times I could not even hear the dialog or many of the news clips from the 70s because of these shameful plugs. It was so obvious. The shame of it all, is that if you can get by this ruthless music promotion; The film was pretty good. Basically you had 4 people,of a clique, that protested the Vietnam war at Kent University. National Guard, tragedy and the film flows from there. Basically the film explores the different roads the 4 main characters take on life's journey. Exploring their individual political ideologies,hopes, dreams , tragedies and just life in general. In this clique we had upper middle class brother and sister, lovelorn female friend and young prideful black male. The stories meshed interwoven with actual trials and tribulations of the decades news. The premise was wonderful , the acting so so and nonstop loud music drowning out the substance of the film was annoying. Even though the film was barely average,it is still watchable. Just do not expect Shakespare.

Well... Could've been better.

[michaeldinan · 5/10 · 31 March 2016]

It feels like the director focused on the set and cinematography. The acting was flat and the screenplay only worked for Byron but no one else's story seemed to be as important. I feel if the story would've been better if you focused on Byron and Dexter only, you would have the story focused on the political side and the activist side throughout. That and make a 2000 movie not feel like a cheesy 70's movie (yes pun intended) the music worked throughout but it feels like the director places it all in the wrong places switching between soundtrack and score. Really this movie had potential but failed to deliver a powerful impact it could've had.

Amazing piece of TV

[dannyr · 11 April 2001]

Compared to The 60's (1999), The 70's was a piece of television genius. Although there were some historical innacuracies, I was impressed overall at the way that the film makers were able to portray the heartache and disbelif felt within the USA and around the world during the decade that shaped the way the world looked at itself.

I am, however, concerned about the fact that the next mini-series to be produced, in order, will be The 80's :)

Brisk panorama of a decade

[Wuchakk · 6/10 · 9 October 2016]

Released to TV in 2000 and directed by Peter Werner, "The 70s" details the major events and hit songs of the decade through the eyes of four protagonists who graduate from Kent State University in 1970. The four are played by Vinessa Shaw, Brad Rowe, Amy Smart and Guy Torry.

People look down on this television production because the story threads that link the various events are brisk and lack depth; but if the writers offered more depth it would be a 4-5 hour movie. Besides, I felt like I knew the characters by the end; they're not one dimensional and are all likable in one way or another. Sure, there are some dubious melodramatics and acting, but "The 70s" entertainingly accomplishes what it sets out to do – highlight the significant happenings of the decade, starting with the Kent State shootings of May 4th, 1970, and on to Watergate, feminism, disco, the Guyana cult tragedy and so on, all to a soundtrack of 70's radio hits.

On the babe front, Shaw is intelligent and winsome whereas Smart is flighty, but babelicious. They coulda done more with them, but they do enough. Rowe comes across as a low-budget Brad Pitt while Torry is a compelling choice to represent black culture, his wife too (Leslie Silva).

The film runs 170 minutes and was shot in Southern California with historical footage from all over the USA.

GRADE: B-

Revisionist history plus Melrose Place plus Forest Gump Bad

[gologa · 1/10 · 30 April 2000]

To describe this mini-series (The 70s)as a Pathetic attempt by NBC to boost ratings by target marketing this pathos-driven, banal drivel to the older Melrose Place/late baby-boomers crowd would be too kind. The acting is, well, ordinary at best. The chosen actors are laughably WAY too old to play college kids, they look exactly like they were pulled from the set of Ally Macbeal or Melrose place; their actual ages are a range of 25-32 which is not very convincing. The artful cinematography reminiscent of the dreamy-eyed Forest Gump is the best feature of the movie series. Finally, the sentimental baby-boomer oriented whining is annoying and the shameless Pathos runs amock here, A la "Saving Private Ryan", confounded by a trite and hackneyed series of 'themes' and life-lessons that only a 3yr old would miss, further burdened by a smattering of revisionist history (key your eye open and your history text nearby and watch for it)... Anyway, find something else to watch, ANY History channel show would be far, far more fullfilling.

Good try

[gato · 10/10 · 16 April 2003]

For those who have no idea what the 70's were all about, this is a good try to a good insight. Not totally accurate because of the limitations of the story, the movie manages to give an overall view of the era but does not accomplishes its purpose.

Beyond bad

[mwartoad · 1/10 · 7 March 2011]

I am not in the habit of nasty reviews. I understand that it is very easy for me to sit in the back row and criticize than it is to do any of this. I usually try to find that one gem or aspect that, I can praise. Sometimes there is an actor or a scene, or character or even a song who will rise above mediocrity and show me something. Unfortunately, I cannot find any gold nugget in this one.

Okay, first of all, the 70's are a tough decade to categorize. Many different things were happening in different places. To do an epic on the 60's or 40's or many other time periods is far easier. Suffice it to say this was an extremely ambitious and arduous task to say the least. Whether it could be done in a 4 hour period would a huge labor.

Having said all of the preceding, this mini series failed on almost every level. The plot was pretty lame. The writing was so bad that, it was down right funny. The characters were so shallow and one dimensional that I was laughing and groaning at times.

We could say that the acting was bad but, it would have taken an amazing cast of the best actors in the world to make this dog hunt. This cast just did not have the chops to pull this one out. Even so, the acting was absolutely, plastic and depth-less.

The only recommendation, I would make is for people with film ambitions, acting, writing or directing to watch this and take careful notes so that you know what not to do. This could be worth it just so you could avoid these mistakes.

For anyone else, I would not waste your time.

Awful, Revisionist history-banal-trite infested-Pathos...etc..

[gologa · 1/10 · 1 May 2000]

Dont waste your time with this pathetic NBC attempt to boost lagging ratings, it is very much a Hackneyed rif-off of Forest Gump-type rememberances and pathos driven, late baby boomer sentimentality. Yuck! Even the actors are B A D, way too old to play college kids; not to mention the annoying and obvious 'Ally MacBeal'-'Melrose Place' type personalities and pretty bourgeoisie faces here. Vapid and Insulting. Click over to History channel instead.

History in the faking...

[fivefids · 16 June 2000]

I certainly hope no one took this movie as history. Music and events were chronologically incorrect throughout the entire 4 hours. It seems that the picture was made entirely to sell advertising time to record companies to advertise their re-released music of the 70s as if you couldn't hear every one of these songs on any given "Classic Rock" station in any given city at any given time. Events and moods were captured well but not chronologically correct - for example: How could 'Whatever Gets you Though the Night' be playing during the 1972 Presidential campaign when the song wasn't released until 1974? How did they get a clip of Jack Benny on the Tonight Show they were watching at Christmas 1975 when Benny died in December of 1974? Why was there a streaker at the 1972 Presidential election party when the streaking fad took place in winter/spring 1974? It seems today, as far as TV writers are concerned, the 1970s were just one year and everything happened during it! I was there for the 1970s and I can assure you that 1971 was very different from 1978 but you'd never know it based on this pseudo-restrospective. Obviously the makers of this film were not as concerned about historical accuracy, as they were with portraying every event they could remember that occurred in the 1970s. It didn't matter when or where in the 1970s, just fit it in where you can, the order doesn't matter. If history were taught this way, we'd never know the truth about anything.

Possibly the worst movie ever made

[Catskillian85 · 4 August 2002]

If you're in the right age bracket to remember the '70s fondly, you'll enjoy the music that permeates this cinematic travesty. Apart from that, you'll probably find yourself watching this 4-hour hodgepodge of cliches with your mouth hanging open in horror. It's astonishingly bad.

Insipid dreck

[sychonic · 10 June 2001]

I have some basic memories of the seventies, and it was quite different from this garbage. THe plot is silly soap opera foolishness. THe political and social slant is decidedly Hollywood wacky left. The upper crust Republican is of course stupid and gets involved in Watergate, ignoring the complexities of the issue, he weepily confesses later how he was "on the wrong side." His father, of course, a scotch swilling fool is a not even comic book parody. The idiot of course berates his father after coming to his epiphany: "We're the enemy! We're the enemy!" Pogo is rolling over in his cartoon grave. It's all "of course" because that's the way Hollywood thinks, or doesn't think.

Asking for an in depth look at what happened during this miserable decade might be asking for too much. But come on, a string of music videos one after another does not a movie make. Poorly plotted, mediocre acting, and utterly indifferent direction puts this way down on the movie meter, even for made for tv style flicks.

THe Black Panthers are depicted as happy civic activists, no where is there the fact that they were also drug running murderers and terrorists. Even worse, they wear the worst wigs on the planet to approximate afros. It poorly documents the transition from the dammaging radical social movements of the early seventies to the hedonistic greyness of the Carter years. And it utterly fails to capture the real despair of the time, the depression, and economic heartbreak.

The mousy daughter has her advertising idea stolen by a slimy corporate type--such a cliche as to better suited to a bottom of the barrel sit com. THen sues for sexual discrimination, okay.

Who knows, perhaps the seventies were so stupid and ugly to begin with, they deserve a stupid an ugly movie about it. Accuracy would be nice though. The end was awful, the move into the eighties was utterly ignored, the vast transition. Ignore this garbage.

A Trip Through Revisionist History!

[jenparsons · 30 September 2011]

Four friends finish college together and make their way in the world beginning in 1970 at Kent State. Guess what happens next? You won't strain your brain trying to figure it out.

Get on the History Train, boys and girls. It's a magical trip through the 70s! The creators wanted to cram in every major event of the 70s and involve every character along with as many classic hits as humanly possible while still leaving space for some dialogue and hackneyed stereotypes, especially when it comes to Republicans, the military, and The Man.

One guy joins Nixon's staff and eventually becomes disillusioned with his own Republican-ness. Another joins the Black Panthers after his disgust with himself at being a National Guardsman at Kent State and is racked with PTSD and guilt. One gal starts hanging out with a bunch of disapproving feminists and sues the daylights out of her company for sexual discrimination and the other gal, her polar opposite is a shallow, wild-living disco queen who, deprived of her misogynistic daddy's approval, joins a cult.

Needless to say, in 1979, there's a big finish that brings everyone together. Now we've spanned the entire decade.

The show tried to ride on the coat tails of Forrest Gump popularity. It tried too hard.