TAKING OFF: Milos Forman's First English Film
Prior to Milos Forman's groundbreaking adaptation of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST , he made a wonderfully radical film called TAKING OFF which featured extreme hippy overtones. This film has never received a wide DVD release and thus is holy grail to find. I viewed a VHS of it recently and it still lives up to what it was in 1971. The basic plot is simple: a married couple Lynn and Larry Tyne cope with their runaway daughter. What makes this so interesting is how they cope. The Tynes' have decided that their daughter shouldn't be the only one having fun and seize the opportunity to relinquish their parenting duties to dance, drink, smoke pot, gamble, and be merry. Among the twenty films in Forman's repartee, the Czech born director has achieved international acclaim with only a select few. First with FIREMAN'S BALL (1967), then ONE FLEW... (1975), AMADEUS (1984), and finally MAN ON THE MOON (1999). Each one with its own independent theme and feel. ...