It doesn’t quite compute that this Michael Cimino movie is now 35 years old. But my, what a movie – so intense, it’s at times almost unwatchable. Yet it’s an important movie to see, because of the astounding work by its impeccable young cast. Robert De Niro already had made Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and The Godfather: Part II by the time he got to this 1978 Vietnam war movie, but The Deer Hunter was of that same high caliber. Yet he’s not the only standout here: Christopher Walken, John Savage, and John Cazale match him in intensity, and Meryl Streep, as the proverbial girl back home, shows strong proof of her early talents as well.