Hal Ashby's Commingling Seventies.

Hal Ashby's status in film-critic circles as an underrated genius has become, by now, somewhat overstated," writes Sean Nelson in the Stranger:

If he was overlooked as film historians began the process of lionizing the great auteurs of the 1970s, books like Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution have gone a long way toward affirming him as one of the essential, unique and tragic filmmakers of that essential, unique and tragic decade. Still, it's about time. Now, Northwest Film Forum is joining the hallelujah chorus with its forthcoming series of the late director's incredible streak from 1970 to 1979 - The Landlord (1970), Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978) and Being There (1979). This series includes two interesting novice works, two acknowledged minor classics that are actually major classics, two shatteringly great films that somehow no one seems to talk about, and one perfect diamond that everyone adores.

Updated.

"Along with Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, Martin Scorsese and the late Sydney Pollack, he shaped, for better or worse, the way I look at film (I was a child of the 70s)." A personal reverie from Kathy Fennessy at the Siffblog.

Earlier: A big thumping Ashby roundup from Jennifer Wachtell in Good Magazine, featuring contributions from Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, Alexander Payne, David O Russell and Jason Schwartzman.

The series runs from Tuesday through August 2.

Updates: "In 1970, The Landlord - Ashby's debut feature, a spacey ode to a rich white kid's radicalization by his black Park Slope tenants, a movie permeated with all sorts of intoxicants—impressed Paramount's Peter Bart enough to give the director Harold and Maude (1971), and with it the chance to establish a running theme that would survive a decade increasingly inhospitable to the message: Straight man gets bent." Rob Nelson reviews the career for Moving Image Source.

"Not surprisingly, Apatow and other auteurs in Wachtell's roundup politely avert their eyes from Asbhy's films of the 80s, which are widely viewed as disappointments of varying degrees," writes Joe Leydon. "But while it's true that most are undeniably dismissible - Let's Spend the Night Together has the rare distinction of being the most boring Rolling Stones rockumentary ever made - it should be noted that 8 Million Ways to Die, Ashby's final completed feature, is not without its admirers. Indeed, I remember once speaking with an Oscar-winning director (not one you'd expect) who only half-jokingly told me that he'd love to swipe one of the movie's more offbeat conceits..."

Posted by dwhudson at June 27, 2008 8:47 AM