Serial

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.

"Serial" IS the Seventies!!! With the exception of Disco (and I'm not complaining) this movie captures all the angst, sexual pseudo-liberation, and self-help movements we experienced in the 1970s.

Martin Mull and Tuesday Weld made a perfect Harvey and Kate Holroyd, a "typical" Marin County couple. They make their way through a sea of 1970s kitsch, complete with sexual experimentation and cults. Their teenage daughter Joanie also tries everything, eventually joining "The Sunnies," a religious cult.

The movie abounds with scenes of the 1970s. For example, in Kate's women's conscious-raising group, the wives invite the African-American maid to join them. When they ask her about the sex in her marriage, her husband's prowess doesn't disappoint them. When they ask her about Black men's sexuality in general, she answers "I wouldn't know. I've never been to bed with anyone but Wong." Reverend Spike (Tommy Smothers) makes religion hip at all occasions.

Kate and Harvey both learn the hard way that sex is not the euphoria as overhyped in the 1970s. They separate for a while, and Harvey has an affair with an 18-year old cashier from the supermarket. They have so much sex that Harvey gets worn out. Kate has a very unsatisfying affair. She also tries to start something with a young South American man who turns out to be gay and living with her hairdresser, who nearly uses his scissors on her in jealousy. Kate also tries est, a popular cult of the time. I got a special laugh from the est references, as I worked with a few estholes (that's what they call themselves) who tried to recruit me. Kate and Harvey manage to retrieve Joanie from the Sunnies and they get back together, giving the film its obligatory happy ending.

I also highly recommend the book, "The Serial" by Cyra McFadden.. It may not still be in print these days, but if you can get a hold of it, you won't stop laughing. I had the opportunity to read the book before I saw the movie and I got a lot more of the subtleties. There were a few elements, like the Skulls and Rev. Spike, that the film added. I believe the book was originally written in installments (hence the name "Serial") in Marin County.

If you ever get the chance to see the movie or read the book, do it! A great comedy gem!

I was always curious about this film. I had always figured that it would be a throwaway heavy-handed hit-and-miss increasingly dated piece about the 70s. Having spent the past 20 years in the SF Bay area, and "encountered" much of the new age mentality that still thrives there, I knew I'd have to at least give it a shot.

Well, Serial turned out to be a treat -- a brilliant, unexpected satire. It had me smiling or laughing from beginning to end, a few "pansy" comments notwithstanding. Sure, the pre-AIDS sexual situations are exaggerated and from another time. But nearly every target -- self-actualization, meditation, medication, cult groups, fad therapy, relationships, etc. -- is hit. Martin Mull plays the central character in the midst of all the mumbo jumbo with perfect subtlety.

Maybe some of the low votes come from people who think that people couldn't possibly talk and act the way these characters do. Well, they did and still do.

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!

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!...