Big Wednesday

Perfect coming of age, end of innocence, buddy movie. A little misogynistic (sp?) but that's Milius all over. Plus points for the Keola Beamer / Bail Poledouris soundtrack

American Graffiti with surfboards. Almost. Milius' nostalgic look at bygone youth is a surprisingly poignant ode to old fashioned masculine virtue, friendship and the end of innocence. He occasionally overplays his hand and allows schmaltz to overcome him--the finale of aging surfers reconvening for their last hurrah is played out in an overly heroic register--but its sincerity pays dividends. The performances are appealingly naturalistic and Surtees' sun drenched photography is excellent.

Right-wing politics in the guise of a surfing movie.

A silly movie that treats this story of three California surfers like some kind of modern-day Greek myth, but mostly works just because it's just so damn sincere

The best part is the draft-board scene.

80.500

Still so underrated. Perhaps the greatest sports and friendship film, one that combines the silliness of the youth -- brawls, sense of 'oh, we will never grow old', like the friends trying to trick the military and escape Nam -- with the passage of time and the weight of timeless melancholy it leaves on us -- fact we have to move on, pay taxes and get jobs, leave our friends in the past and barely see them. Cemetery reunion is one of New Hollywood's definitive images. Masochist is my favorite.

Amargo Reencontro estreava há 45 anos na Itália. Tenho sérios problemas com filmes cujo pano de fundo são esportes, não gosto mesmo, o bom aqui é que ele é só pano de fundo mesmo para algo maior. Box Versátil O Cinema da Nova Hollywood Volume 3.

Milius's epic-scale treatment of three surfing buddies and their California Casual lifestyle is always pleasantly absurd, but its most side-splitting possibilities, in the mock-heroic mode, are not realized until the lugubriously nostalgic second half, when the three blond beachniks must face up to the problems of Aging, the Changing Times, and finally the mightiest set of waves ever to pound the West Coast.

77.500

A little rocky and rushed in the beginning, sometimes losing its flow. Also, a little too melodramatic at times.