The Point (1971)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is definitely a must see. I first saw it in the early 70s and loved it. Years later, when my kids were 4, 5 and 6 while at a video store I rented it for them. It brought great such joy to all of us - I wound up buying the video. When my son got his first dog, he named him "Arrow,". This movie has a wonderful message, and great songs. Now that it's on DVD, I will definitely buy it for my grandsons!!!!

Its hard to fathom right now, but at the end of the 60s, the nature and future of narrative was in the hands of The Beatles. They had consciously experimented with new forms based on underlying mechanics that today would be called "new age" and considered bogus. Their White Album was based on the kabbalistic structure of Alice in Wonderland, obfuscated by superficial stories and elaborated by hallucinogenic dynamics.One of the "best friends" during this period (friends of John and Ringo) was Nilssen. Out of that relationship came this.It preserves some of the mechanics: the relationship of small form song narrative to a larger assembly; the hallucinogenic imagery in word and film; the references to Pepperland and Alice, and even after a period of fighting for Ringo, he appears as the narrator. But as Harry was essentially a sweet drunk, it lacks the underlying ambition of The Beatles: to re- invent the common cosmology around less destructive geometry.Taymor would mine this for her visual exploration of the Beatles.And because Nilssen was a sex addict as well, much of the key imagery follows that, allowing for the transmission through the director/artist. (This whole thing was written during a series of sexually enhanced acid trips.) For instance, the first "pointless" thing with a point after the stoned guy is three dancing fecund redheads. Check out redheaded Marijke, the Beatles' Tarot reader of this period.As with Beatles songs, this is appreciated for its small form sweetness, and the larger aspiration is ignored or discounted as naive.Except for perhaps the inescapable notion of going to the forbidden, unknown and risky "forest" to discover self.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This is a great feature. I have seen all three versions (narrated by Ringo Starr, Dustin Hoffman and Allen Thicke). Allen Thicke sounds the most like a father and therefore, the movie plays best with him narrating. Mike Lookinland (Bobby Brady of the Brady Bunch)is great as Oblio but the Harry Nilson songs steal the show. This is a great movie that shows that everyone, no matter how different, has a point and matter. I had this movie recorded on Betamax but have since lost it. I am fervently looking for an Allen Thick copy of the movie to this day. If anyone can shed light on this situation, it would be much appreciated ([email protected]).

The Point is one of those films that crawl inside you and never lets you go. I saw this film as a small child but could never remember the name of it. As an adult I asked other people if they had heard of it, and the faces of every single one of them lit up from the memory and they recalled how it had effected them as a child. But no one could remember the name of this film.It wasn't until it came out on video that I finally discovered the name. I was particularly excited to learn that the voice of Oblio's father, the Pointed Man's Right Head, and The King was none other than Paul Frees - the spooky Ghost Host of Disneyland's and Walt Disney World's famous Haunted Mansion attraction, as well as the voice of several pirates in The Pirates of The Caribbean attraction.This film ranks at the top with other childhood favorites, such as the Rankin-Bass stop motion animated Christmas specials "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".