John Cox

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Tagged 1970s · everything

slate.com

Why Soylent Green Got 2022 So Wrong

A critic of science-and-society storytelling revisits Soylent Green on the 50th anniversary of its titular "future" year and argues the film's heavy-handed, dogmatic dystopianism actually undercuts its own message about overpopulation, corporate greed, and environmental collapse. He contrasts it unfavorably with Harry Harrison's more nuanced source novel Make Room! Make Room!, contending that preachy apocalyptic certainty tends to entrench existing beliefs rather than change minds, and champions ambiguous, conversation-opening sci-fi (Children of Men, Ex Machina) as a better model for grappling with real present-day crises like climate change and AI.

Permalink technologyenvironmentfilm1970s

ComicBook.com

3 Forgotten ‘70s Movies That Actually Shaped Their Genres (Including 2 Cult Classics From Beloved Directors) - ComicBook.com

This ComicBook.com list makes the case that three underrated 1970s films, Spielberg's Duel, Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, and Saul Bass's Phase IV, shaped later genres (road-thriller horror, tense siege action-horror, and eco-horror creature features) despite being overlooked today. The piece is useful mainly as a catalogue of how these movies' tropes and techniques quietly spread into the work of later filmmakers.

Permalink filmhorror1970smovies

YouTube

Apple Music - Web Player

kottke.org

Dolly Parton and Kermit the Frog Sing Everyday People (1987)

Plays from YouTube. Nothing is loaded from Google until you press play.

I don't see a saved article here to summarize. What you've shared appears to be a kottke.org post about a clip from Dolly Parton's late 1980s variety show in which she performed "Everyday People" with Kermit the Frog. If you'd like me to summarize this post, the content is already quite brief: it documents a musical performance featuring Dolly Parton and the Muppet character, provides links to watch the clip on multiple platforms, and notes that the full episode is available on YouTube with several guest stars. If you meant to share a different article for me to summarize, please paste the text and I'll be happy to help.

Permalink musicentertainment1970smuppets

Apple Music - Web Player

Apple Music - Web Player

Better Homes & Gardens

www.slashfilm.com

5 Forgotten '70s Western Movies That Still Hold Up Today

A roundup of five overlooked 1970s Westerns worth revisiting: Charlton Heston facing a vengeful outlaw in "The Last Hard Men," Robert Aldrich's bleak Vietnam-allegory "Ulzana's Raid," Charles Bronson's train-set whodunit "Breakheart Pass," Franco Nero's spaghetti-Western revenge tale "Keoma," and Lee Van Cleef's underseen "The Grand Duel." The piece argues that the genre's '70s output grew more cynical and violent than classic Hollywood oaters, deliberately puncturing frontier myths rather than romanticizing them, and that these particular titles got lost in the shadow of New Hollywood landmarks like "Jaws" and "The Godfather" despite still holding up. Worth keeping as a quick watchlist of underrated genre gems with a shared skeptical streak toward the "Old West as noble adventure" narrative.

Permalink western1970sclassicsspaghetti western

www.udiscovermusic.com

70s Motown Albums You Need To Know: Overlooked Soul Classics Rediscovered

Motown Records released numerous sophisticated albums throughout the 1970s that have been overshadowed by the label's reputation for singles and by a handful of canonical works like Marvin Gaye's *What's Going On*. Across releases by The Temptations, Valerie Simpson, the Commodores, Eddie Kendricks, Jackson 5, and others, the label produced mature, inventive soul and funk albums that rivaled the artistic ambition of rock's progressive and singer-songwriter movements, yet have largely escaped critical reassessment. The piece surveys these overlooked records track by track, demonstrating that Motown's album legacy extends far beyond its most celebrated titles and deserves serious recovery.

Permalink music1970svinylalbums

www.nytimes.com

Is Gen X Actually the Greatest Generation?

I was born in 1976 and this essay argues that [[Generation X]] — the cohort whose members recall the shared, broadcast-TV moments of the late twentieth century — made outsized cultural contributions, as epitomized by the watershed year of 1994, which included the deaths and headlines around [[Kurt Cobain]] and [[O.J. Simpson]]’s white Ford Bronco chase, the presidency of [[Bill Clinton]] and the coming into force of [[NAFTA]], and the debut of shows like [[Friends]] and [[ER]]. The author situates personal memory (after‑school aloneness, wood‑paneled basements) alongside a cascade of influential films and albums to interrogate where Gen X begins and ends, how its boundaries are contested, and why its artistic output and collective experience warrant reconsideration as a defining cultural force, and its generational legacy in politics and the economy.

Permalink culturetelevisionhistorymusic

www.gearpatrol.com

This Immaculate Vintage Mercedes Q-Ship Reminds Us Why It’s One of Benz’s Coolest Cars In the Past 50 Years

Gear Patrol traces the legend of the Mercedes-Benz W116 450SEL 6.9, the AMG-adjacent hot rod born from Erich Waxenberger and Hans Werner-Aufrecht's "Red Pig" racing experiments, which stuffed a massaged 6.8-liter M100 V8 and Citroën-derived hydropneumatic suspension into a full-size luxury sedan to create the world's fastest production sedan of the mid-1970s. The piece uses a pristine, Cannonball Run-podium example currently listed on Bring a Trailer as a hook to explain the engineering (dry-sump lubrication, anti-squat/anti-dive geometry, early Bosch ABS) that let a 4,400-pound sled outrun contemporary sports cars while retaining Mercedes comfort and safety, earning praise from journalists like David E. Davis and Brock Yates. Worth keeping as a compact history of a cult classic that prefigures both AMG performance and modern adaptive suspension tech.

Permalink engineeringperformance1970s

Flickr

Design Bombs

Annapurna Expedition 1970: Design Beautiful Retro Poster in Photoshop | webexpedition18

I can see a list of article titles and dates, but without the actual article content or summaries, I'm unable to write the summaries you're requesting. To provide the kind of substantive, two-to-three-sentence summaries you've described—ones that distinguish each piece from similar articles and explain why it was worth saving—I would need access to the full text of each article, not just the headlines and publication dates. If you'd like me to summarize specific articles, please share the content itself, and I'll be happy to write the summaries according to your guidelines.

Permalink designvintageadventure1970s