Serial

SERIAL takes aim at the late 1970's SoCal lifestyle and hits it. It perfectly lampoons -harpoons!- the empty, faddish idiocy embraced as "culture" by a stoned, zombie-like citizenry.

Martin Mull is superb as Harold, one of the only rational, cynical characters in the movie, spending most of his time astonished by the rampant absurdity unfolding around him.

If you've ever smiled when someone mentioned the "new age", "pyramid power", or "healing crystals", then you'll howl at this!

INCLUDES: #1- A guru played by Tom Smothers! #2- A cult complete with purple-clad love bombers! #3- Gay bikers with a mysterious leader! #4- An orgy! #5- Intense therapy! #6- Lentil loaf! #7- A wedding / joining of two beings into oneness!

Watch immediately!...

This is an underrated classic that doesn't get near the credit it deserves. We recommend it to friends and they add it to all-time favorite lists every time. Hilarious spoofs on California lifestyles of the seventies that are still funny today. This movie should be made on DVD for all the many fans waiting for it!! Who can I call?? Martin Mull gives his perfect, sarcastic every-man, Sally Kellerman is hilarious especially in her wedding vows (You-ness, me-ness, we-ness, us-ness) to which Mull whispers to Tuesday Weld, "Sickness." Bill Macy is the greatest mid-life crisis ever put on film and Tommy Smothers as Spike, the Preacher is one of the funniest characters he has ever done.

Martin Mull and Tuesday Weld prove to be a terrific comedic match as a married couple in fad-crazy Northern California who decide to separate yet can't seem to get into the swinging lifestyles of their too-groovy friends. Colorful supporting performances, lots of fast, brash talk, bitchy humor and funny set-pieces, yet "Serial" works only intermittently. It's structured like a naughty TV-sitcom, with wacky episodes, some of which hit and several which don't (the daughter's involvement with a religious cult was maybe good for one or two scenes, not an entire reel). Still, it's a pleasure watching Mull and Weld work so easily together, and theirs is a believable union which holds the morass together. A fitfully fun time. **1/2 from ****

This is in my top ten of all time favourite films.

Harvey Holroyd can't understand what's happening around him. His wife has started to raise her consciousness, his daughter is concerned about her rights, his best friend who has a preoccupation with the Johnny Carson show is bombed out on pills and he's been a loser for 5 years!

I can sum this fantastic film up in two quotes from it: "Reality is watching a pair of self proclaimed assholes getting pair-bonded by a priest from the gong show". "Are they hell's angels?" "No they're gay. On weekdays they're regular guys with regular jobs but at weekends they dress up like hell's angels and listen to a lot of Judy Garland record". Priceless!

Hilarious send-up of the PC tyranny of the late 70's, though this movie seems to work even better now than it did then. This film is a much more three dimensional criticism of American culture than Mull's hilarious TV shows, America and Fernwood Tonight. This is indeed Martin Mull at his best. Also a plus is all the great vintage 1979 character actors we all saw on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.