More American Graffiti

I'm guessing a lot of folks that have complained about the split screen in MAG kid of missed yet another bit of cleverness that seemed to fly over the heads of a lot of viewers.

Each section (year) is shot in a different manner to make a secondary visual comment. The Vietnam stuff is all shot on 16mm, hand-held and grainy as hell to simulate the stuff we were watching on the nightly news back then.

Milner's sequences are shot in super widescreen, Debbie's stuff is split screen, sped up, slowed down - your basic "statement" crap from the late 60's and Ron Howard's happy home life is shot with the over-lit, over-tailored feel of a "mainstream" comedy ala Doris Day/Bob Hope circa 1965.

Personally, I found it amusing.

..this sequel is actually pretty good, the different film style for each segment works (especially the hand held camera style for the viet nam segment)...I'd rather watch this than most of the crap lucas puts out these days ...milner's character was fleshed out a bit more here from the first film, and to good effect ...my only complaint is that each segment feels like it should be a year later than the date indicated on screen (eg....no one in 1966 San Francisco would have ANY idea who Jimi Hendrix was, and those student protests on campus were more common AFTER 1967)

The final frames of the original "American Graffiti" provide one-line summaries of the fates of the film's four central male characters. While somewhat sexist in omitting the female characters, the ending of the original film provided all the information about those people that even the most ardent fan of the movie would want. However, someone felt that mega-bucks could be made by detailing the dreary lives of these characters after the original film ended. Bad move. Making an insurance salesman and his wife, a nerdy private in Vietnam, a drag race driver, and a overgrown hippie into interesting characters in interesting situations was far beyond the talents of those who wrote this nearly unwatchable movie. While most of the original cast is back, with only Richard Dreyfuss having the good sense to stay away, "More American Graffiti" is a mess of silly situations that involve protests, car races, country singers, and the Vietnam war. The use of split screens, once thought innovative and daring, is overused here to the point of distraction and adds confusion to the already confused goings one. This is a sequel that demonstrates nearly everything that can go wrong with a sequel. Perhaps it should be screened in film schools as a lesson. Even the use of period music, which was a delight in the original, is poorly done here. If you want more "American Graffiti," see the original twice.

First off, you can not expect a sequel to excel. We get lucky sometimes but usually they are either totally lame or they fall into some sort of formula hellhole. This film, as many many reviewers have pointed out, does have flaws. Most films do. It is not that different in structure from the original either, following different story lines with different characters, albeit in different years rather than in the same night. The Vietnam sequences with Terry the Toad and Little Joe from the Pharohs gang are the best part of the movie. They could almost have made a single full-length sequel following that story line. A lot of reviewers liked the Milner sequences more than the Debbie sequences. I sort of go the other way around. I thought the Milner storyline was weak and there just wasn't much there. Maybe the hippie sequences were more familiar to me, but I related to that and thought most of it was hilarious. They could have dropped the entire other sequence as well ... it just labored to tell their story against a backdrop that was much bigger than they were.

Also liked the cameo by Falfa, Harrison Ford.

Anyway, maybe someone will come back and make the rest of the Terry-the-Toad in Vietnam story. Feel the same way about D-Day "whereabouts unknown" in Animal House. There's a movie there waiting to be told.

There was no way More American Graffiti was going to be a great film. It was following up one of the most popular movies of the 70's. George Lucas was barely involved in the production. It had a messed up story that took place on 4 seperate New Years Eves. Considering all the things working against it, I suppose it's not all that bad. There are some great scenes, but there's also an equal amount of bad scenes. John Milner's story is fairly entertaining. Toad's Vietnam story is a lot of fun to watch. But the other two stories are mediocre at best. I guess you can say half of the movie works, and the other half doesn't. Parts of the film are very funny. The highlights being Toad's attempts to get out of the Vietnam War, and Harrison Ford's cameo as a traffic cop. As a huge fan of the original American Graffiti, I got some enjoyment out of seeing all the characters again. But for most people, More American Graffiti will probably feel like a waste of time.