SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Drago_Head_Tilt A young, naive post-nuke couple (Steven Curry with Sideshow Bob hair, and Martha's mother Shelley Plimpton) leave their commune to search for "the city" (using Wonder Woman comics as a reference). They never do find it, and she dies during childbirth at the end of this mostly dreary, low-key 16mm American Film Institure-backed effort that received an X for casual nudity when released in '71. The best part is early on with Garry Goodrow (a jobbing character actor who later co-wrote HONEY I BLEW UP THE KID) excellent as a lecherous motormouth travelling "magician" who puts on a show (great use of The Rolling Stones' Time Is On My Side). Shot in California and Oregon. The first screenplay attempt by then-hip novelist Rudy Wurlitzer, he wrote TWO-LANE BLACKTOP next. McBride had already made a couple of documentaries and David HOLZMAN'S DIARY. He made HOT TIMES (also with Curry) next.Movie reviews at: spinegrinderweb.com

m_bryce74 Science Fiction/fantasy is a genre different in certain ways from other genres. In order for its ideas to be communicated a physical world usually needs to be constructed, and in order for this to happen, big dollars need to be invested. The most high brow concepts fall in a heap when the sets start wobbling or the cheesy music starts. There are not many low budget Sci- Fi/fantasy success stories. Glen and Randa is an exception. On an absolute shoe string budget a work has been created of genuine vision. In terms of a narrative there isn't much to speak of. The story tells of two teenagers who, after being visited by a traveling merchant in a post apocalyptic world, trek across the country side in search of a city. Something they have read about in comic books but never seen. It is never alluded to what caused the breakdown in society, but people live in it's remnants, in a kind of stunned simplicity. The story is told in a long series of scenes, which tell a story, but they are really there to give impressions of a world devoid of social structure and technology. Rather than creating elaborate sets and situations, Glen and Randa explores this through examining the internal world of the two main characters. They experience the world around them with a mixture of innocence and ignorance. They have a horse but no idea that it can be ridden, They aren't able to understand what a minute is, and when Randa becomes pregnant, they have no understanding of what that means, or how to deal with it. The internal logic of the film plays out without any flaw, always a real acid test for any work in the genre. Situations are often troubling, but not illogical. And through use of whatever locations were handy, an otherworldly reality is effectively created without a dime spent on lumber. It took a while for the film to work it's magic on me, because it was such unusual story telling. Because of it's early 70's origin I figured it would have a Hippy kind of naturalist message like Gas or wild in the Streets, but it became apparent that it went much deeper than that, which, to me is why it is such a crime that this film has been so completely overlooked. My advice is if you enjoy the genre beyond Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, then take any opportunity you get to watch this film, if you can bond with its ideosyncratic style of story telling you definitely won't be disappointed.

Woodyanders An intriguingly spartan and offbeat avant-garde early 70's excursion into post-nuke sci-fi survivalist cinema centering on the obsessive Glen (muscular, curly-haired Steven Curry) and his more passive female companion Randa (a sweetly disarming performance by the lovely, willowy Shelley Plimpton), a pair of guileless youths trying to eke out a meager existence amid the desolate ruins following an atomic war. After a wily, lecherous old magician (a wonderfully rascally turn by Garry Goodrow) visits Glen and Randa's camp and fills Glen's head full of tales about a great lost city, Glen and a now-pregnant Randa (the magician impregnated her) embark on a dangerous trek across the harsh, ravaged terrain to discover this great city that Glen first read all about in an old "Wonder Women" comic book. During their perilous quest Glen and Randa meet a friendly, doddering elderly man (an endearingly crotchety Woodrow Chambliss; Uncle Willie in the funky '72 made-for-TV creature feature favorite "Gargoyles") and Randa gives birth to a baby.Director Jim McBride (who later helmed such better known big budget films as "The Big Easy" and "Great BAlls of Fire") skillfully uses an extremely plain, basic and unpolished no-frills cinematic style to plausibly create a vivid depiction of the banality and hopelessness of day-to-day post-holocaust existence, thus giving this bleak, albeit strangely haunting and affecting apocalyptic vision an unshakable sense of gritty, lived-in conviction. The bare-bones, but eloquent and sometimes wittily droll script by McBride, Lorenzo Manns, and Rudolph Wurlitzer (who went on to write "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid") relates with deceptive simplicity and straightforwardness a lyrically powerful parable with provocative religious allusions (Glen and Randa's odyssey could be interpreted as Adam and Eve's fall from grace after leaving the garden of Eden) about lost innocence and a futile search for an irrevocably vanished past paradise. Kudos as well to Alan Raymond's flat, spare, minimalist cinematography, which uses long, lingering, unedited takes, stately tracking shots, and elegant fade-outs to convey a wealth of striking visuals: the rusty hulk of a car with tree branches growing out of it, a horde of grimy survivors glumly rummaging through the rubble for cans of food, Randa ravenously devouring grass and worms, Glen savagely beating several fish with a stick, and the oddly poignant final shot of Glen and the old man drifting out to sea on a rickety boat are all indelible moments that stick in your memory after seeing the movie. A pleasingly quirky and truly novel one-of-a-kind experimental oddity.

Gene Bivins (gayspiritwarrior) I find it interesting that nobody has yet mentioned how much casual nudity there is in this film. It's what got the film its "X" rating, even though there's no overt sexuality connected to it. It's more of a device to underline the innocence of Glen and Randa and their nomadic life. Nothing in the film would get it more than an "R" today. There are no special effects as such, just vistas of nature and of the ruined technology from which the survivors glean their living. The young actors are very appealing, and there's a quiet inevitability to the story's unfolding. I wish this were available on DVD, but given that there's no studio money behind it, this is unfortunately unlikely. This little film has stayed with me for many years since the release. It's too bad so few people know about it; it deserved a better fate.