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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Lions Gate
Salesrank: 35589
Released: July 25, 2000 |
| Our Price: $4.29 |
| Used Price: $3.98 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
70S THE: THE COMPLETE MINISERIES (DVD MOVIE)
Description of The '70s:
In 170 minutes, this NBC-produced miniseries hoped to capture a decade--and in many ways, it did. The '70s traces the lives of four friends from their senior year at Kent State (marked by the killing of four student protestors by the National Guard) through the era of Watergate and Tang. At its worst, it's a so-so soap opera held together by fascinating bits of historical trivia, giving equal time to the issues of the era (the Equal Rights Amendment, the oil crisis) and inescapable bits of pop culture (Mary Tyler Moore and the hustle). The characters are pretty obviously engineered to plumb every angle of the decade's cultural topography: the young black National Guardmember who deserts to Los Angeles in time to join the Black Panthers and open a cinema featuring hits like Shaft and Cleopatra Jones, the sorority girl turned disco queen turned California cultist, the young intellectual woman who finds feminism and abandons marriage in favor of a career, and the conservative law student turned Watergate burglar turned pipeline worker turned environmentalist. The acting's not bad and the story hangs together, but the show is really at its best when the soundtrack takes over, allowing montages of memorable photos and archival film clips to reveal (and revel in) the real history behind the melodrama. --Grant Balfour
The '70s Reviews:
Disco Ducko 
2008-06-14 - There was no more turbulent era, except for the late 60s, than the free wheeling, drug drenched disco 70's. The decade started with the Kent State incident, and the Lt. Calley Mai Lai Massacre and ended with Jimmy Carter's reign of mismanaged government.
The 70's mini series is fun to watch if you lived through the era, as I did. The dialogue is straight out of SNL and the wardrobes reminded me of my mis-spent youth.
However, it does not, no fictionized series could, capture the the heart and heartbreak of those times. Although I am a veteran, I protested the war in its later years, because I believed that it was wrong and because it was "the social thing to do." Fueled by drugs rock music and a sense of being lost in a futile future, the early to mid 70's was a tough time to think responsiblity. However there was an overiding galvanizing effect for youth groups, pro-establishment or anti-establishment, and a polarizing effect against the status quo.
By the late 70's Disco music and Saturday Night Fever became the mantra, the search for love and peace a distant memory.
This mini series is worth watching because it tries to cover the 70's by focusing on a group of friends and wathching the transitions occur as the social events unfold around them. They became the conduits for the events.
The acting is okay, given the hokey plot lines and dialogue. The thrill to this series is reliving an era that started with the we generation and ended with the me generation. You had to have been there.
Born in the 70s, learned a lot about the times. 
2008-04-23 - The story lines were fascinating of a group of friends and how they all lived in the same times, and had such a different take on the 1970s. It was amazing to see such a diverse contrast between their lives when they were all a part of the same townships, the same time, and yet they all led very different lives and had very different experiences that led them to very different futures. (How's that for not giving away any endings.)
My favorite part about this movie were all the clippings from that era. I felt truly as if I had stepped into the 1970s and saw what the world was like at the time of my birth. I began to understand my mothers world and understand all the things that were going on back then and even gained a certain admiration for my mother as she was a single mom and making ends meet during a time when that was obviously a bit difficult for women to do on their own.
I gained knowledge of the pop culture, politics, current events, and even about the threat of cults in that time. All that are very much a reality today as well - but in a different way.
I enjoyed this movie. I watch it every year at the time of my birthday. The only thing I had remembered of the 70s was the pop culture - in which this movie is full of the songs many will remember from the 70s. It was odd to feel so nostalgic from a movie's soundtrack. But it really does that to you, pulls ya in.
Anyway, I liked it. For the price, you can't miss. So give it a shot. I don't typically like NBC movies, but this one really was very good. :) But that is my humble opinion. :)
Loved it!
2007-10-17 - I found this movie along with another titled The '60's in a bargin bin at a swap meet. I paid 2 dollars for both. I enjoyed them so much I would have paid full price. I wondered if there was a third movie titled The '80's but Studio 54 was as close as I could find. Being born too late to remember the 60's, The '70's actually did spark memories for me, specifically cult fanatics and all the runaway teens who joined them. Vinessa Shaw is an absolute doll, I've had the hots for her since Hocus Pocus. She really needs to be a lead character hero a la Lara Croft.... Rent all 3, The 60's, The 70's and Studio 54 and spend a weekend revisiting 3 decades of excessive excess.
Not quite as good as the precursor
2005-03-25 - One shouldn't expect too much from what was a made-for-tv miniseries, with no real big names, but altogether it was a very good involving story. It followed the course of the decade from start to finish very nicely, encorporating in music and actual footage of the historic events together with the respective storylines of the four main characters. Still, it just doesn't seem quite as gripping and involving as the prior movie 'The '60s,' where there seemed to be more character development instead of, like this movie, seeming to focus a bit more on a lot of historic happenings and making as many of them a part of their lives as possible, instead of just choosing ones that would have naturally fit with whom the characters were. The plot seems to suffer a little because of this. There also seemed like there were more gaps of time than in 'The '60s,' with a few years passing between events a couple of times without letting the viewer know what year it was now supposed to be or how much time had passed.
What a MOVIE!!!
2003-07-16 - What an amazingly well done and well acted and well thought off movie...
All I can say is that if anyone had to try to make a better movie for the same historical period, I have a hard time believing it could be better made...
Congratulations to all who have parteciapated to the making of the movie.
Every actor was great. Superb acting from Amy Smart.
