Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

Brilliant and touching

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

What's it been...39 years. But having the CD brings it all back, and I played it four times this afternoon. The funny thing is I've never liked Neil Diamond. This work in my book is the one thing he's done worthy of the awards for it. Awful conceit about the man. When it came out, I raced after work to catch the early showing, and could hardly stand afterward for how completely moved I was. I knew it would go over like a lead balloon, and it did. It was gone in no time. But boy for us writers and lovers of music. If you have the least smidgen of philosophical spirituality, you will adore the movie, the book and the music. If you have mature children, preteens or teens with high ambition, they'll hug you for it, especially cut #7, Anthem, on the CD. The album back when had voluminous notes of how Diamond went to Hawaii and mulled months over how to best do the book justice. It was nominated or won for cinematography and editing, so you know already it was gorgeous. It brings tears of joy.

The first thing that struck me about this film is the extremely cruel way in which seagulls were treated in the making of this film. This film would never have been allowed to be made in the same way today. Many many scenes were probably "staged" at the expense of the life of a seagull or two. Birds with feathers saturated by seawater to the skin would find it difficult to recover. Similarly, how does the camera just happen to capture a fight scene between a seagull and a hawk without it being staged (eg seagull tethered so it can't escape etc). Seagulls released away from their natural habitat into a freezing, snow bound environment where they may not survive. Cruel beyond belief

This painfully boring movie was the worst movie i had ever saw until UFO-Target Earth came out in 1974, i actually fell asleep in my chair at the movie house while trying to watch this..It was cheap made, and really had no kind of plot or storyline whatsoever!! I don't usually walk out of a movie i had paid to see, but this sorry thing was just too much for me...I never read the book this was supposed to be about, but it had to have been better than the movie, in the 33 years since it was made, i have never heard anyone mention it again... so that must very indicitive of just how bad this movie was.

This review is based on the first 45 minutes of the film - it is the only film I have ever walked out of. The single worst film I have ever seen. Pretentious drivel masquerading as some sort of art. Not even watchable in a "so bad its good" way. It is way, way below that standard. A seagull who wants to "fly" - not fly, "fly" (possibly with 2 y's). It is every bit as bad as the plot synopsis (and that is the entire plot) sounds. I thought that the book had had some interesting ideas, even if it was a bit on the twee side, but the film removed any vestige of charm from the book in favour of a literal interpretation of the book's message. All we have is a seagull who wants to "fly".(Please note that this review was not written by SoylentGreenIsPeople91, who has actually never seen this film)