1978
Noah’s Barks pages covering things relating to the year 1978.
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Van Halen – “Van Halen”
It’s easy to deride Van Halen in the light of the dozens of mediocre spawns they birthed, and they hold a large responsibility for ushering in the worst era of rock: glam metal—but make no mistake. Van Halen aren’t your usual KISS or Mötley Crüe. They’re actually a great fuckin’ band (Lee Roth era only) and their debut… (read more)
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The Fury
When talking about Brian De Palma‘s sense of excess in his films, it’s more often a positive—he makes even typical tales grandiose. The Fury is excess by lack of imagination. The Fury takes a silly concept and tries to run straight with it, fucking up all the way with horrible dialogue, pointless scenes, dragged shots,… (read more)
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The McCarthyism allegory was never necessary to induce fear. It worked in the first place because assimilation and ostracization are a natural human phenomenon in any culture. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a good movie that avoids becoming a great one by ignoring the unique venues promised by its own concept. The tense hot-seat… (read more)
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Watership Down
Watership Down is a classic adventure story with a youth-friendly aesthetic, but realizes children will eventually have to come of age and stop only watching comedies. Triumphs aren’t given by fortune but instead constant suffering full of threatening risks. The art and animation is pretty but blandly realistic, so it’s the surreal religious visions where… (read more)
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Dawn of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead is an almost unique horror movie. It’s the rare type that succeeds at being simultaneously tense and fun. The mall setting supplies a sort of “private clubhouse” wish fulfillment that makes it easy to root for the reasonably intelligent and competent cast, and George Romero divides the action and slow segments… (read more)
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Halloween
I don’t think I’ll ever understand what makes a man a slasher fan. Is it the tension? The tension that exists for less than 50% of every one of these “classics?” It can’t be the teen movie fluff that inadequately bridges the gaps with an awful uninspired script and mediocre acting. You can tell everyone’s… (read more)
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Kraftwerk – “The Man-Machine” (1978)
The reason I don’t like Kraftwerk is that they deliberately try so hard to make their music inhuman. There’s no humanity to be found in an indistinguishable vocalist blankly repeating “The Robots” into a microphone, tone or pitch never changing while plastic synthesizer beats repeat seemingly endlessly in a repetitive rhythm that doesn’t dare to… (read more)
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Alice Cooper – “From the Inside”
Despite the tough-looking cover, ‘From the Inside’ is Alice Cooper’s most flaccid album yet. (read more)
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Blondie – “Plastic Letters”
A definite step up from Blondie‘s self-titled debut album, but not by much, and Plastic Letters is certainly no comparison to the huge leap the band would take forward next with Parallel Lines. The pieces are all there: Chris Stein’s surf rock licks, Deborah Harry’s showgirl vocals (very unusual when compared to the other husky-voiced… (read more)
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Klaus Schulze – “X” (1978)
The classical string arrangements of “X” add a warmness and humanity that Klaus Schulze’s cold, bleak, now-vintage synthesizers couldn’t have hoped to achieve before. It’s just a shame they aren’t featured more often. Also: two hours? An ambient album is meant to be taken in one sitting, and the lack of gaps between tracks here… (read more)