Popular reviews

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  Review by pd187 ★★★★ 1

  "you-ness. me-ness. us-ness. we-ness."

  this unfocused r-rated sitcom packs crying of lot 49 tones into its nonstop 70s one-liners & social satire, tracking a petty-boug klatsch of washed-up hippie cokeheads fumbling around the bay suburbs & (more importantly) the meaninglessness of self-help ethos, macrobiotic sects & nude orgys with your analyst. the whole earth catalog-worthy script bristles with codewords & hidden meanings, corrupted pop-psych slogans & new age catchphrases ("she's an est graduate!") til we reach the logical endpoint of illuminati high priestess* tuesday weld saying "i cant believe i called the high priest a cocksucker."

  thats to a love-bombing "oriental harmony" cult her & martin mull's snotty daughter has joined, an underexplored setup for dry, manhattanesque yuppie quips (some by vegan grocer nymphet stacey nelkin,…

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  Review by Micko ★★

  Watched as part of the Movies released into US theatres during 1980 list.

  34. U.S. Release: March 28, 1980

  With a number of the films I’ve been watching from 1980, I find I sometimes have trouble imagining them ever actually screening in a cinema.

  It’s not necessarily because the films are bad but because they just seem so suited to running on television as the midday movie, complete with regular interruptions from insurance commercials.

  Serial is one of those sorts of films. It follows the lives of a small group of suburban upper middle class white people as they search for meaning in their lives while dealing with numerous new-age fads.

  Magnolia (1999) this ain’t. Scattered with tiresomely dated moments…

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  Review by Bear Nugget 🌈🐻 ★★★

  Martin Mull Marathon #09 🧔🏼
  Our boy died a few days ago on the 27th of June, 2024. He was a great comedian, and one of my biggest celebrity crushes, but I basically only knew him as Willard Kraft from Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996-2003) and as Colonel Mustard from Clue (1985). He did a lot of respected TV shows, but he was fairly unknown in the movie world. Therefore, I will take this opportunity to celebrate his life by submerging myself into his strange and obscure filmography. Rest in peace, dear king!

  A bunch of married couples dealing with hippies. The only thing that women and kids want nowadays is to become vegetarian and go see a therapist! Dated…

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  Review by The Pine Drive-In Podcast ★★★ 2

  Serial is a cynical, unfunny comedy epitaph for the Me Decade. In others words, it's sort of perfect.

  An explanation of that horrid title- it's based on The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County, a 1977 book of San Francisco Chronicle articles satirizing life in the affluent Marin County suburbs.

  The film compulsively lampoons every 70's Marin County stereotype imaginable- orgies, hut tubs, wife swapping, est, health food, the jogging fad, "rap sessions", love cults, I'm OK You're OK, quaaludes, gurus, New Age drips- in a compulsory sitcom style. It's a sprawling would-be Altman esque ensemble piece, but with flat staging and lazy SNL punchlines.

  Even the dog rejects the granola. Get it? Health food sure is…

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  Review by Scott Kelly ★★½

  These on the nose “this is how we live now” satires always seem to play better for me decades later. At the time of release the cringe elements and phoniness dominates; but as a museum piece it has some weird anthropological value. Most suburban skewering films play like naughty sitcoms that ultimately lack any real edge and validate the middle American status quo (How to Beat the High Cost of Living, The Last Married Couple in America, Fun with Dick and Jane, Harper Valley P.T.A., A Change in Seasons, etc.). The more high concept stuff like The Stepford Wives, Real Life, or even, the underrated, Health seem to work better (even Richard Dreyfus making a model of Devil’s Tower out…

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  Review by Johnny Pomatto ★★★★

  After hearing of the passing of Martin Mull, there was only one film I wanted to watch in order to honor the man, but I was slightly afraid to do so. This largely forgotten "new age" yuppie satire has been largely forgotten and I thought it might be for a good reason. Its reputation isn't all that great, but I had remembered really enjoying it when I first saw it several years ago. What a relief to rediscover that this whacky trip is still very much on my wavelength. Famed television writer Bill Persky directed this, his only feature film, at just the right time. All these middle aged hippies of Marin County who were clinging to their roots and…

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  Review by My God's kitten ★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

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  Review by nicky 📹 ★★

  yaaaasssss lets hear it for traditional values!!!

  boring. mediocre. lazy stereotyping. i mean i went into this expecting it to suck, so im not exactly shocked. but if i wanted to watch christopher lee play a gay man i couldve just watched like, dracula. or the wicker man. whatever. at least i can say ive seen it i guess.

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  Review by oscine ★★★

  went in expecting a time-travel trip back to 1980. instead was faced with the reflection of 2021!

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  Review by FilmFan1971 ★★★½

  You have to love any film that casts Christopher Lee as the silver masked head of a gay Hell's Angels gang.

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  Review by robert2339 ★

  Even Christopher Lee playing the leader of a gay motorcycle gang couldn’t save this waste of celluloid.

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  Review by Robert_Dewitt ★★★

  If you took the scene in Annie Hall where they’re at the party in LA, moved it north 400 miles, and stretched it out over 86 minutes you’d have this movie.

  Clever dialogue, but totally incomprehensible story. Like it’s a total mess but haha pretty funny. If I wanted to explain Marin stereotypes to someone I’d show them this.