EricJ

First Man (2018) 👍 The weekly trip through the library DVD section is usually the good excuse to catch up on all those "guilt" Oscar nominations everyone says they're going to get to, but never wants to pay for on digital. I'd been meaning to see this one, as it certainly looked like it wants to be "this generation's The Right Stuff" in terms of NASA history, but--reuniting "La La Land" director Damien Chazelle with star Ryan Gosling--it does often seem like it's this generation's The Right Stuff before going on to the historical spectacle. In recreating the Apollo 11 landing (which doesn't happen until the last half hour of 2:15), it does the same job of capturing the technical cockpit pressures of keeping the space capsules flying, and the by-the-pants attempts to pull out solutions to problems--But it never captures either the white-nails problems of Tom Hanks in "Apollo 13", or the goofy gung-ho camaraderie of the Right Stuff astronauts. The story instead focuses on Gosling as Neil Armstrong, who is historically depicted as closed, elusive, technical, and basically shut off from his emotions after the death of his young daughter early on. (And who even treats his "last" conversation with his kids before liftoff as a kitchen-table NASA press conference.) While it captures the look of the mission perfectly, the book's focus on Armstrong's inner demons ends up dragging it back down to personal drama, and we're left wondering about Corey Stoll's depiction of the not-always-graceful but more enthusiastic #2 Buzz Aldrin. "First Man" does a good job of capturing a good, essential mainstream pop-history story, even if we basically get the story of a dedicated pilot who spent eight years just...mooning about. 😔

Since RogerEbert.com won't archive Ebert's classic review at the time of Airport '79, you'll just have to look up the whole thing yourself (preferably in his compendium "I Hated Hated Hated This Movie"): Q: Gee, Dr. Science, what's a Concorde? A: A Concorde is an airplane like the one you see in this movie, Penrod. It flies faster than the speed of sound. It can travel from Washington D.C. to Paris, France in less than four hours. What does it do then? It lands, Penrod. Then it flies to Moscow in the morning. But...golly whillikers, Mr. Science! Why doesn't it just fly to Moscow in the first place?? Because, then, Penrod, there wouldn't be the scenes in Paris where Robert Wagner takes Susan Blakely out to dinner, and George Kennedy takes Bibi Andersson out to dinner. But gosh-all get out, Mr. Science! Why does Robert Wagner take Susan Blakely out to dinner in the first place? After all, she has the secrets that could destroy his industrial empire, and so, when the plane was flying, he tried to shoot it down with one of his guided missiles! When you are older, Penrod, you will discover that there are some great restaurants in Paris. 😂

And they are the three words that best describe the Grinch. (And I quote.)

Also, the fate of completed-but-recut Fox-Marvel movie The New Mutants--which tried to spin the superhero comic way off-book into a "teen-horror" tale, since it was from Deadpool's producers, and couldn't tread on property owned by the X-Men franchise--is still in limbo, with no one quite sure of whether it'll be going direct-to-streaming, or trying its "luck" in a buried theatrical release, just like "X-Men: Dark Phoenix".

(Keep working on it...Try looking at the horse from the other end.) Nuh-huhh, I said: (Well, close enough.)

From the Mad Magazine parody of The Godfather (1972): "We were going to leave the horse's head in your bed...But seeing as you're a movie producer, we thought THIS might be more appropriate."

Cave Girl (CG?)'s posts began sounding suspiciously like "Gordon Cole" (GC?)'s posts, and they "both", for the same reason, would start developing psychological vendettas against the same poster for not-always-explainable reasons. "Gordon" probably filled in during her first absence, and while you can have duplicate accounts, using them (especially using the pseudonym for all the attack posts if you don't want a second permanent ban on your first account) may be a questionable activity for the Mods.

"Do we?" "Yeah, we did." "We did, didn't we? "Yeah, we do." "Don't we, 'dough?"

Yuk yuk--Now, how do you Hide Spoilers? I've been trying to figure that out. (Uh, ix-nay on the Ifty-fay, Joe, you know who that sets off...)

Watcher hints at supernatural/ghosts, but has a much more conventional resolution at the end--Although you'd have to watch the deleted endings on the DVD to figure out what the heck it is, as the theatrical cut (which rushed and chopped off the ending for being way too silly) isn't much help. Bette's character is a straightforward good character, despite the buried secrets. And Return From Witch Mountain is pretty straightforward mad-scientist, even despite the presence of Christopher Lee.

(Okay, it's running through my head now, and the only I'll get it out is to type it: ) "They were practicing witchcraft! And not just the women, but there were men witches too, male witches!" "'Warlocks'." "--It's true, I tell you! And then they said they had to sacrifice a virgin, and they all started...y'know...looking in my direction." "And what steps did you take?" "Bloomin' LONG ones!" --Benny Hill

By the time TCM had grabbed up most of the Warner movies, and before AMC discovered Mad Men, it seemed as if AMC had become a never-ending rotation of Jaws, The Omen, The Blues Brothers, Cleopatra and Blazing Saddles. Not sure if The Exorcist was in there too, it's been a while.

No, even as a Warner movie, think that was one of the Five AMC Movies, back when their rotation of titles started becoming a bit...limited. (Or do I have that confused with "The Omen"?) This, and I've never understood how British slang turned the onomatopoetic "Whining" into "Whinging". I've never heard a 3-yo. go "whinge, whinge".

Nah, only George Burns can do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A72MAMTVnQo

Well, try the I Dream of Jeannie lyrics instead--Oh, c'mon, you remember, sing along: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/idreamofjeannielyrics.html I'll see your 60's Saturday-Morning childhood, and raise you my 90's Saturday-morning childhood: (Being a child of the 80's, I would have posted the Thundercats theme, but it wouldn't have been in keeping with the thread, as no show could live up to that opening.)

No, but the networks are still airing "The Ten Commandments", thinking it's an Easter film.

What, don't you know? Guillermo del Toro puts the Creature From the Black Lagoon in EVERY movie he makes (he reportedly consulted on "Monsters vs. Aliens" while developing projects for Dreamworks), and in this case, he wanted to be 80's-sentimental and remake "Splash": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Kx3jqEGh4

And any character with a great distinctive walk is automatically going to create his own iconic movie theme--Case in point:

Thanks for the clip--On the soundtrack albums, Moroder would always play the themes on his own studio keyboard, and for years, we were stuck with a gratingly tinny solo keyboard arrangement, instead of the dark full-orchestra that captured the tone perfectly. As one critic pointed out, when Kevin Costner and Sean Connery raid the post office, it's just a minor bust, but Morricone's theme makes you think Henry V had just won the Battle of Agincourt. As for TV, even though it was supposed to be a late-60's/early-70's high school, whose hopeful first week on freshman college campus DIDN'T have Jerry Goldsmith's Room 222 playing in their head while walking across the quad with their map?

It's nice and all--50's epics seemed to have a pre-occupation with reminding audiences how much better their religion was than "bad" religions (qv. "Greatest Story Ever Told"'s constant harping on how Christianity disliked ancient Hebrew sacrifices), but almost nothing that happens in the movie is actually FROM the Book of Ruth. In the text, a Moabite woman marries a Hebrew man, converts, and chooses to remain with the family after his death, and her loyalty inspires Boaz to remarry her...Umm, that's IT. It's okay for emphasizing the "Only good people convert" message of the OT--and the only reason we hear it is because they turn out to be David's grandparents--but cinematically, there's nothing to work with. Not even a decent place to put in the obligatory pagan temple dancer in the bikini.

Except that it was only the FIRST one that bore any faint passing resemblance to the genius-cool clockwork-team plots of the 60's TV series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zRtOpW8gOs Anything after that was just an excuse for Tom Cruise to have fun indulging Scientologist-indestructible X-stunts on Paramount's nickel.

Hey, what do you expect?--Anyone can be a Friend of Judy, not everyone can be a HUSBAND of Judy... All the seasons (at least back to Cathy Gale, although very little of Avengers '61 remains) came out on A&E DVD, at various points through the 00's. Also the Tara King '68 seasons, although those weren't prime, and even Patrick Macnee said he hated the addition of "Mother". The '67 color Peel season also went to Blu-ray, even if PAL conversion left the pacing a hair sped-up.

While this could have been more clearly worded, I believe this above sentiment accurately sums up the first OT character's death in the New Trilogy. ("Ohh, it's not your fault, Baldrick....(tosses him into pit)") No, but fans are starting to set their sights-of-blame on Disney/Lucasfilm producer Kathleen Kennedy, the one who thought we'd all rally around an insufferably spoiled Mary-Sue in "Rogue One", that loved showing off that her daddy helped ruin the Death Star for everyone. (And this from a fan who still likes Rey, even after everything TLJ tried to do to her...)

(Peanut gallery: ) "HIIIII, David! " Er, yeah: B$B was very much directed by Ken Russell. Ipcress gets a little too stylized, which is why I always found Funeral in Berlin the best "straightforward" Harry Palmer, for those who want their dose of snarky 60's-Michael-Caine-voice, although I'll have to watch it again to remember the plot. John le Carre' turned producer and got most of his own recent pseudo-spy novels onscreen. Probably best with Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer (and a scene-stealing Ken Russell) in The Russia House (1990)--which you now can't throw a rock in any MGM Streaming Orphans direction without hitting--and Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush turning in a shaggy Spy-who-cried-wolf story in The Tailor of Panama (2001)

I've said it many times: Start a conversation with a Millennial about "Why haven't they seen older classic films?", and I'll give you ten bucks if they don't mention "Citizen Kane", and why anyone would bother seeing it. Five if they don't mention "Forrest Gump". And twenty if they don't start a high dudgeon about the "racism" in Gone with the Wind. Millennials are rooted in their own indoctrinated notion (probably not their fault, the fault of overenthusiastically revisionist-history high school teachers) that they can defend their passive lack of curiosity by wrapping themselves in the "martyrdom" that everything that happened in the 20th century was bad, and evil, and wrong, or at the very least, socially or technically "broken" and in need of fixing from scratch by a confused new generation left adrift by tragic history. It's the first line of defense from publicly admitting that they don't know something, and that that something was made by an earlier generation. And then watch them turn "expert" and try explain its importance to you ("This was one of the great Oscar-winning classics of all time, and influenced other modern-day movies"), once they discover they liked it. Me, I just end up finding ways to restate the Roman senator Cicero: "Those who have no interest in what happened before they were born will remain a child forever." That's probably why later-20's Millennials have such problems adjusting to, quote, "adulting". (There...IS...no such word as "Irregardless". 😡 I see that picked on all the time, but didn't think anyone actually used it.)