Fat City (1972, John Huston)

Opens with a montage around the deteriorating city of Stockton CA over an instrumental version of “help me make it through the night”, promising. Did anyone else take the turn from 1940’s studio films into the shaggy 1970’s as well as Huston? All that optimism wears off as the movie proceeds – true, that’s the mood the movie is setting on purpose, but there’s way too much of drunken pathetic people yelling at each other (washed-up fighter Stacy Keach and oscar-nominated Susan Tyrrell). Give me more (but not too much more) of Jeff Bridges as a young hopeful fighter, losing every match then parking with his girl, ending up picking walnuts with Keach.