Thank God It's Friday (1978)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Best movie of this year hands down!

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

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.

I decided to putter around the apartment while I recorded this movie, but that was scuttled when the chick's leg with the mile-high blue platform shoe emerged from the bus. I laughed. I remember platform shoes - had a pair of my own. The laughs kept coming. So I sat down and watched the movie.It's not great cinema, but it doesn't have to be. "Thank God It's Friday" is a silly, goofy, infectious bit of fun about a disparate group of people who converge on a disco one night, each with their own agenda. A couple of teeny-boppers want to enter the dance contest and spend most of the movie trying to crash the place. A suburban couple show up - the woman wants a good time, but the man is so uptight he spends all his time whining until, that is, he meets a disco chick with lots of pills, and he becomes Party Guy. And so on. There's also Donna Summer. Love Donna Summer!There are so many characters and story lines going on that it's a miracle the writers kept them all straight. They manage to intersect at the right moments, making for some comic situations. There are some moments that made me uncomfortable, however, and they need to be brought up. The drugs, for one thing. They may have seemed innocuous at the time, but in reality they wrecked a lot of lives. Also, one lone young woman elects to go home with several guys to booze and soak in a jacuzzi. I found that sad and creepy. In hindsight, hedonism did have its price. Watch this movie with a group of people, remembering that you need to take it for what it is, a relic of a time and place - and feeling - that is long gone.

TGIF feels like a Robert Altman disco film -- multiple characters and story lines intersect and bounce off each other. Released a few months after Saturday Night Fever, TGIF is a wonderful artifact of the 70's. Looking back almost 30 years later, it all seems so carefree and innocent.There are some delightful surprises in the cast -- Debra Winger makes her film debut. Jeff Goldblum gets his biggest film role to date. And best of all, Donna Summer makes her film debut. It is great to see Donna caught on film, performing at the height of her powers. She does the show-stopper Last Dance, a song that would win the Best Song Oscar.In addition, the Commodores make a cameo appearance. Lots of great music throughout -- great Casablanca Records soundtrack.Lots of great character actors -- Chuck Sacci as Gus, a garbage collector who meets up with an unlikely computer date.It is great to see L.A. as it was in late 77/early 78 -- billboards on the Sunset Strip for Eric Clapton's Slowhand and other 1977 albums. Plus, Osko's disco on La Cienega, which is now a strip mall. In one shot looking north on San Vincente, there is a giant gap where the Beverly Center currently sits. Also, gas prices were a lot cheaper back then.In sum, this is a fun movie, a great escape from all the bad news we're bombarded with today.

THANK GOD IT'S Friday needs to be reissued in Dolby digital and promoted like the GREASE 20th anniversary was in 1998. TGIF is a very funny film with an very recognizable cast - Jeff Goldblum even still looks the same! Does he have a painting in a cupboard getting old instead? Debra Winger, (the late great) Paul Jabara and Donna Summer and all those brown clothes and hideous cars! It was released with 4 track magnetic sound in 1978 and became quite a hit with all us flared up dance pants disco moviegoers. It is not Paul Jabara's only film appearance, he turns up in drag in DAY OF THE LOCUST the dark and scary look at 30s Hollywood. There is a place for this film in 2005 and I hope Columbia see the value. They also have a lot of other great music/concert films of the 70s that deserve another cinema reissue because of the sensational music content: WATTSTAX, FILLMORE and maybe the Fox doco CONCERT AT BIG SUR. If THE LAST WALTZ and GREASE can get out again to new audiences, so deserves TGIF and those others mentioned above. It is a very entertaining musical for lots more reasons than in 1978. The world of 1978 is almost enough alone.

If you like multi character movies, this will not disapoint. The mainly unknown cast are all rather likeable folks. and Paul Jabara is very good in his only screen role. YOu will be touched by the scene of him and a lovley young girl who are locked in a stairway but end up boogooing anyway. I especially love the plot about the fat guy and the tall thin schoolteacher who are mismatched by a dating service. Except for a few drug scenes, this is a terrific family picture, too. And the best you will ever see Debra Winger on screen. She looks soft and pretty. The music is very good, strong voices and tunes, much better than the dance music of the last 20 years. Check out this movie for some good light entertainment.