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Ten Best List for the Year 1968
- Faces -- Director John Cassavetes intense study of the marital crisis of a middle-aged, middle-class couple (Gena Rowlands and John Marley) who discover that divorce isn't the answer to their personal emptiness and despairing search for meaning in life. Troubling, sardonic, somewhat depressing treatment of a mature theme that is part of so many contemporary relationships. Some rough language, sexual innuendo and a suicide attempt. A-IV-adults with reservations (R) 1968
- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter -- Sensitive adaptation of a Carson McCullers story about a deaf-mute (Alan Arkin), his frustrations in trying to help others and his friendship with a teenager (Sondra Locke) which is simply not enough to compensate for his isolated world of utter silence. Director Robert Ellis Miller successfully treads the line between sentiment and sentimentality. A-II-adults and adolescents (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1968
- Nazarin -- Mexican story set in 1905 when a young priest comes into disfavor with his inflexible religious superiors, the civil authorities and even the poor among whom he tries to live a life of simplicity, poverty and charity. Though director Luis Bunuel's work is not very optimistic about the possibility of idealism winning over the world, it's not critical of religion, only pious hypocrisy. English subtitles. Perplexing themes. A-III-adults (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1968
- Oliver! -- Rousing British musical drawn from the Charles Dickens classic, "Oliver Twist," but bearing little resemblance to the original. Lionel Bart's adaptation borrows only the chief characters and turns them loose in what amounts to a colorful, swirling-stomping-singing Cockney street show. As Fagin, rubber-faced Ron Moody carries most of the burden as if it were light as a feather, with Mark Lester perfectly winning as Oliver, Jack Wild stealing scene after scene (along with handy wallets) and Harry Secombe as a bumbling Mr. Bumble. Under Carol Reed's direction, it all adds up to delightful fare for the entire family. A-I-general Patronage (G) 1968
- Rachel, Rachel -- Joanne Woodward plays a painfully lonely and somewhat repressed woman teaching school in a small midwestern town and concerned about becoming a dowdy spinster. When an old school chum (James Olsen) visits, she falls hopelessly in love and has a brief, intense affair that ends harshly and with bitterness. Directed by Paul Newman, the story is poignant and terribly human with excellent performances. A-III-adults (R) 1968
- The Two of Us -- Excellent French story of a little Jewish boy (Alain Cohen) who is hidden from the Nazis on a remote farm in Occupied France by an elderly anti-Semite (Michael Simon). Directed by Claude Berri, the movie is a very touching, gentle sort of comedy, told simply through an accumulation of incidents rather than a tightly-knit plot. Everyone can identify with and enjoy the warm, human relationship between the old man and the young lad. A-I-general Patronage (Not rated by the Motion Association of America) 1968
- 2001: A Space Odyssey -- Director Stanley Kubrick's epic work, co-written with Arthur C. Clarke, is both science fiction and metaphysical poetry using an unconventional mixture of visuals and music to bridge humanity's reconstructed past, identifiable present and projected future, all tied together by the recurring image of a monolith as symbol of a superhuman existence. The central narrative follows the struggle of two astronauts (Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood) to wrest control of their spacecraft from HAL, a talking computer (voice of Douglas Rain), on a half-billion-mile trip to Jupiter and the unknown. For young people and imaginative adults but too long, deep and intense for children. A-II-adults and adolescents (G) 1968
- War and Peace -- Massive Russian version of the Tolstoy novel, originally released in three parts, evokes both the feeling of an era (1805 Russia threatened by Napoleon's march East) and Tolstoy's vision of individuals and destiny. Directed by and starring Sergei Bondarchuk as the contemplative Pierre, the movie in its sweep and detail provides an absorbing visual rendition of a great classic. A-I-general Patronage (PG) 1968
- Will Penny -- Fine Western about an illiterate, aging but still capable cowhand (Charlton Heston) who after the fall roundup is sent to tend the cattle wintering in the hills where he gives shelter to a lost pioneer woman (Joan Hackett) and her son until the spring thaw. Director Tom Gries has achieved a realistic portrait of a cowboy whose code of morality reflects the rigors of frontier life, the shortage of marriageable women and the rudimentary nature of early Western justice. Some sadistic violence. A-III-adults (Not rated by the America Association of America) 1968
- Yellow Submarine -- Wonderful animated feature for young and old, with music from the Beatles' Sargeant Pepper album, follows the adventures of John, George, Paul and Ringo to the never-neverworld of Pepperland where they find that the Blue Meanies are overrunning its lovely terrain. Director George Dunning's animation is a wonder, the music a delight and, of course, Sgt. Pepper and his Lonelyhearts Club Marching Band get their peaceful land back at the end, and those Blue Meanies are not all that mean. A-I-general Patronage (G) 1968
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