Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786300269453 Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC ISBN: 6300269450 Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: April 01, 1992 Running Time: 120 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: 1978-05 Sales Rank: 17643
Amazon.com: John Milius charts a decade of social change as three surfing buddies use the sport as a personal touchstone for their lives while growing up in the turbulent 1960s. Irresponsible hot-dogging legend Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), serious and stable Jack (William Katt), and mad misfit Leroy, a.k.a. "Masochist" (Gary Busey), are teenage surf bums in 1963, living at the beach in a perpetual summer under the sway of surfboard-maker Bear (Sam Melville), guru, mentor, and keeper of the lore. But the times they are a changin' and boys grow up in the shadow of Vietnam while adulthood pushes them into hard decisions. John Milius mixes the nostalgia of American Graffiti with the reverence of a John Ford cavalry drama. Surfing becomes a kind of spiritual quest spoken of in awed mythic tones and photographed with the epic grandeur of a rite of passage. Milius's heavy-handed direction and reverent attitude slows the films and will turn off some viewers, but Milius fans will appreciate his macho stylings and philosophical musings, and surfing fans will love the spectacular surfing footage, including the dazzling stylings of world champion Gerry Lopez (who Milius later cast in Conan the Barbarian). Lee Purcell costars as Matt's supportive wife, with Patti D'Arbanville, Barbara Hale, and Robert Englund in supporting roles. Look for Ford stock player Hank Worden in a small role and Milius himself in a cameo selling marijuana in Tijuana. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - big wednesday
I got this for my husband for chirstmas. I sat down and watched it with him and enjoyed the movie very much.
Rating: - An absolute surfing classic and commentary of the times
A great surf flic! Brings back allot of memories from growing up in Malibu Ca... I am from a later generation, the times changed but the local surf bums haven't. Very entertaining and an interesting social ... Read More
Rating: - "The Endless Bummer"
Nostalgia aside, you gotta admit: it was a '70s ultra-cheese fest, starring future burn-outs Jan-Michael Vincent and Gary Busey, and William Katt, who would go on to star in one of the most lame TV shows of ... Read More
Rating: - A "bombed" masterpiece
When I first saw this film on release in 1978, many of the critics had panned it with several observing that it was only interesting when in the water, given surfing is its main excitement and the movie subsequently ... Read More
Rating: - A Day Like No Other
The story of three surfing buddies from the 1960's into the 1970's, it is also John Milius most personal movie, written with a surfer buddy about those days. Sam Melville's "Bear" character is pretty much Milius. For ... Read More
- big wednesday
- "The Endless Bummer"