Bound for Glory is outstanding biographical cinema, not only of the late Woody Guthrie but also of the 1930s Depression era which served to disillusion, inspire and radicalize him and millions of other Americans.

While art by definition must trigger certain emotional responses, occasionally there’s too-obvious a feeling of really being manipulated and stroked. Fact that Rocky gets his big chance from cynical schemers–with a black public hero as the instigator–rests uneasily at moments. Then there are occasional flashes that the film may be patronizing the lower end of the blue-collar mentality, as much if not more than the characters who keep putting Rocky down on the screen. However, Avildsen is noted for creating such ambiguities.

While falling short of its comedy promise (except when Richard Pryor is on the screen), Silver Streak is an okay adventure comedy starring Gene Wilder on the lam from crooked art thieves aboard a trans-continental train.

Producer Sam Spiegel's contribution is admirable, but Elia Kazan's direction of the Pinter plot seems unfocussed though craftsmanlike. Robert De Niro's performance as the inscrutable boy-wonder of films is mildly intriguing.

Carrie is a modest but effective shock-suspense drama about a pubescent girl, her evangelical mother and cruel schoolmates. Stephen King's novel, adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen, combines in unusual fashion a lot of offbeat story angles.

Sidney Lumet’s direction is outstanding.

An off-the-beaten-track story [based on the novel by George La Fountaine] of a football stadium crowd menaced by a sniper, combined with above-average plotting, acting and direction.

The Next Man emerges more a slick travesty with political overtones than the cynical suspense meller it was designed to be.

Novelty of a gang swearing a blood oath to destroy a precinct station and all inside is sufficiently compelling for the gory-minded to assure acceptance. John Carpenter’s direction of his screenplay, after a pokey opening half, is responsible for realistic movement.

Car Wash uses gritty humor to polish clean the souls of a lot of likeable street people.

The horror is expressed through sudden murderous impulses felt by Black and Reed, a premise which might have been interesting if director Dan Curtis hadn't relied strictly on formula treatment.

Film spends literally half of its length getting some basic plot pieces [from the novel by William Goldman] fitted and moving.

It’s a brave, funny and winning pic which is nearly – but regrettably not quite – a triumph.

At the Earth's Core, from the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, is an okay fantasy adventure film. Made in England, it's a fast-paced, slightly tongue-in-cheek tale about stalwart hero Doug McClure's battles with underground monsters.

This follow-up to White Lightning never takes itself seriously, veering as it does through many incompatible dramatic and violent moods for nearly two hours.

Don Siegel's terrific film is simply beautiful, and beautifully simple, in its quiet, elegant and sensitive telling of the last days of a dying gunfighter at the turn of the century.

Futureworld is a strong sequel to Westworld in which the rebuilt pleasure dome aims at world conquest by extending the robot technology to duplicating business and political figures.

Robertson’s low-key performance is as crucial to the manifold surprise impact as Bujold’s versatile, sensual and effervescent charisma.

Based on a novel by English author Dennis Wheatley, the picture makes a few too many pretensions to serious exploration of the occult, that hamper the flow.

The Gumball Rally is a silly forced, one-note and strident comedy about a cross-country auto race by a bunch of formula-kooky characters. Former stunt coordinator Chuck Bail produced and directed but he didn't have much of a plot.

An unsatisfying film, of uncertain focus on a 30-ish guy who doesn't yet seem to know what he wants. Script takes Sam Elliott through another Southern California beach summer as a career lifeguard, encountering the usual string of offbeat characters found in the type of made-for-TV feature which this project resembles.

Cannoball will please those who won’t rest until they see every car in creation destroyed and aflame.

A silly but moderately effective chiller about creeping parasites that systematically (and comically) 'infect' an entire highrise population with nothing less than sexual hysteria.

The screenplay [based on the book Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter] is another one of those violence revues, with carnage production numbers slotted every so often and intercut with Greek chorus narratives by John Vernon and Chief Dan George.

A tale of a paranoid breakdown of a little bureaucratic clerk that wastes no time in trying to be clinical. It has a humorous tang, underlying the macabre. (Review of original release)

Suspenser starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as the unwitting parents of the Antichrist. Richard Donner's direction is taut. Players all are strong.

It appears that the idea here is to expose and debunk the Buffalo Bill legend, revealing it for the promotional distortion which, in some ways, it most certainly has to have been.

Logan's Run is a rewarding futuristic film that appeals both as spectacular-looking escapist adventure as well as intelligent drama.