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Big Wednesday
Big Wednesday is a 1978 American epic coming of age buddy sports comedy-drama film directed by John Milius. Written by Milius and Dennis Aaberg, it is loosely based on their own experiences at Malibu, California. The picture stars Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey as California surfers facing life and the Vietnam War against the backdrop of their love of surfing.
Raised in Southern California, Milius made Big Wednesday as an homage to the time he spent in Malibu during his youth. Milius and his friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg famously agreed to exchange a percentage point of Big Wednesday, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind prior to the release of the three films throughout 1977–1978. Spielberg in particular was certain that Big Wednesday was going to be a box office hit, opining it was like "American Graffiti meets Jaws", two of the decade's most successful films.
The film tells the story of three young friends whose passion in life is surfing. The friends include Matt Johnson, a self-destructive type who has a devil-may-care attitude; Jack Barlow, the calm and responsible one of the bunch; and Leroy "The Masochist" Smith, whose nickname tells a lot about his personality.
Their surfing lives are traced from the summer of 1962 to their attempts at dodging the Vietnam War draft in 1965 (including faking insanity, homosexuality, and all manner of medical ailments), and to the end of their innocence in 1968 when one of their friends is killed in Vietnam. The three make the difficult transition to adulthood with parties, surf trips, marriage, and the war.
The friends reunite years later, after Barlow has served in Vietnam, for the "Great Swell of '74". With this reunion, the transition in their lives becomes the end point of what the 1960s meant to so many as they see that the times have changed, and what was a time of innocence is gone forever.
In addition, two-time Pipeline Masters champion Gerry Lopez, who served as one of the six surfing masters in the production of the film, also appears in a cameo as himself during the final surfing section of the film.
Milius wrote the script with his friend and fellow surfer, journalist Denny Aaberg. It was inspired by a short story Aaberg had published in a 1974 Surfer Magazine entitled "No Pants Mance", and published by Australian surfing magazine Tracks in April 1973 and the lives of a group of friends who used to surf with Aaberg and Milius including Lance Carson.
In writing the script Milius and Aaberg interviewed a lot of their friends from the 1960s. "It was a special time," said Aaberg of the 1960s. "Surfing was a brand new sport with its own aristocracy."
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Big Wednesday
Big Wednesday is a 1978 American epic coming of age buddy sports comedy-drama film directed by John Milius. Written by Milius and Dennis Aaberg, it is loosely based on their own experiences at Malibu, California. The picture stars Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey as California surfers facing life and the Vietnam War against the backdrop of their love of surfing.
Raised in Southern California, Milius made Big Wednesday as an homage to the time he spent in Malibu during his youth. Milius and his friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg famously agreed to exchange a percentage point of Big Wednesday, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind prior to the release of the three films throughout 1977–1978. Spielberg in particular was certain that Big Wednesday was going to be a box office hit, opining it was like "American Graffiti meets Jaws", two of the decade's most successful films.
The film tells the story of three young friends whose passion in life is surfing. The friends include Matt Johnson, a self-destructive type who has a devil-may-care attitude; Jack Barlow, the calm and responsible one of the bunch; and Leroy "The Masochist" Smith, whose nickname tells a lot about his personality.
Their surfing lives are traced from the summer of 1962 to their attempts at dodging the Vietnam War draft in 1965 (including faking insanity, homosexuality, and all manner of medical ailments), and to the end of their innocence in 1968 when one of their friends is killed in Vietnam. The three make the difficult transition to adulthood with parties, surf trips, marriage, and the war.
The friends reunite years later, after Barlow has served in Vietnam, for the "Great Swell of '74". With this reunion, the transition in their lives becomes the end point of what the 1960s meant to so many as they see that the times have changed, and what was a time of innocence is gone forever.
In addition, two-time Pipeline Masters champion Gerry Lopez, who served as one of the six surfing masters in the production of the film, also appears in a cameo as himself during the final surfing section of the film.
Milius wrote the script with his friend and fellow surfer, journalist Denny Aaberg. It was inspired by a short story Aaberg had published in a 1974 Surfer Magazine entitled "No Pants Mance", and published by Australian surfing magazine Tracks in April 1973 and the lives of a group of friends who used to surf with Aaberg and Milius including Lance Carson.
In writing the script Milius and Aaberg interviewed a lot of their friends from the 1960s. "It was a special time," said Aaberg of the 1960s. "Surfing was a brand new sport with its own aristocracy."