I had resisted watching. Childrens fantasy isn’t my thing. Also I’d heard J K Rowling invented a large vocabulary for the books. Kids know all the made up words. I’m not
The first movie is pretty good. I have to credit Rowlings imagination and creativity for designing such an ambitious world as Hogwarts. The characters and sets are very good.
I am seeing similarities with the original Star Wars movie. Luke is an orphan who knew nothing about his Jedi lineage. He is trained
by Obi-Wan Kenobi and then tested by the dark force represented by Darth Vader.
Obviously the setting of the two movies is totally different.
IF (2024). A passable kids movie that nevertheless had some very touching moments. The premise is cute but then seems not to be followed all the way through. It did not keep my attention throughout even though I enjoyed the performance of the main cast as well as the voice acting.
//i\\
p.s: There is an inside joke in the credits that made me laugh, and I wonder if that particular production company will continue to use it.
The mean adoptive-parents taking in the orphen is a Trope going back to Snow White.
Luke’s adoptive-parents in Star Wars weren’t evil. Just strict and protective.
Harry Potter’s adoptive-parents were a-holes. Abusive.
I’m watching Chamber of Secrets and they’re terrible. They are worse after Harry completed his first year at Hogwarts in the first movie. Harry should have used his invisibility cloak and left.
Unfortunately, the movies don’t capture his pickup in the 6th book. Dumbledore does it himself and uses it as an opportunity to tell them off.
“You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you.”
Agreed. I wanted to like it more than I did, although I did like it . The scene in the under-the-amusement-park home for Aged IFs went on way too long and was more of an excuse to shoehorn in more and more and more celebrity voices. That inside joke in the credits made me belly laugh.
Snow White wasn’t adopted. That was her stepmother. The evil stepmother is a bigger trope than the adopted kid.
watched a good for the 70s horror movie with James Brolin called “The Car” via rokus “universal monsters and horror” subchannel they show all the old classics hammers catalog and other things
An ugly as hell one of a kind driverless car showed up in an (I think) Utah town that turned out to be Newhall CA (or the downtown shots are of it anyway)
It would have been better if it maybe had 20 more minutes explaining the car’s background and why it was there … although Brolin’s sheriff character denies there’s anything supernatural about it to the very end
Sometimes, a movie’s pleasure comes from watching good, reliable actors performing their craft well, even if the movie is only so-so. Such is the case with “The Little Things,” a 2021 effort starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto, now available on Netflix.
Washington plays a washed-up former L.A. homicide detective, now relegated to being a small-town Deputy Sheriff, who teams up with a hotshot younger dude (Malek) to solve a series of baffling murders, with creepy Leto the main suspect. It’s a tried-and-true trope, and basically it works, thanks largely to the three leads. It begins to drag a little at the 1:30 mark, but picks up toward a most satisfying conclusion. Yes, there are some plot holes along the way, but it’s a good watch if you don’t look too hard.
I’d watch anything with Denzel Washington. He’s an actor who always elevates whatever he is in to a higher plane.
Airport (1970), revival theater, big screen, 70mm; it looked fabulous.
Since Airplane came out, it’s probably impossible to take Airport seriously, and there were people in the audience laughing at moments that were not originally intended to be funny. But I’m old enough to remember when it was serious. It works as a time capsule of how much flying has changed, and how much movies have changed. There’s rather frank discussion of abortion (without using the actual word) which was probably rather scandalous for the time. It’s rated G.
Helen Hayes is lots of fun as the little old stowaway. George Kennedy is wonderful as the mechanical genius who can fix anything in return for a box of cigars.
It’s been decades since I’ve seen this movie all the way through; noticed a couple things I hadn’t before. There’s one character who is the designated asshole. He complains about the cost of the bus to the airport, being stuck in traffic, when the plane is too cold, when the plane is too hot, and when his nuts are stale. He’s the guy who fucks things up when Guerrero is about to hand over the bomb. He starts getting hysterical and yells that they’re all going to die. Honestly, he deserved more than just getting smacked by a priest.
The film is also rather strangely paced. I didn’t check my watch, but it felt like the flight with the bomber didn’t even take off until the movie was half over. There’s an awful lot of setup before things start paying off.
One other reason I wanted to see this is that I was at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport a few months ago, where Airport was filmed. Parts of the old terminal buildings still exist, but you have to know where to look.
The same theater is doing a few more 70mm films this month. I may go to some of them.
Airport 75% rating was one of the early disaster films that focused on the passengers.
The Poseidon Adventure 80% and Towering Inferno 68% are from that same early 70’s period. Definitely worth watching if you liked Airport.
Ratings are from Rotten Tomatoes
Now I want to rent The Poseidon Adventure this weekend. I remember Ernest Borgnine and Gene Hackman said in interviews that it was difficult to make. They were uncomfortable in the watery sets.
“The Towering Inferno” deserves better than 68%! It’s essentially a 3-hour soap opera with special effects but it’s still pretty terrifying and has a stellar cast. (Please ignore OJ Simpson.)
I saw “Poseidon” when it was first released and hadn’t seen it again until it showed up on TCM a couple of years back. I started watching it and before long was totally caught up in it, corny as it tends to be. And of course one of the stars was the comely Carol Lynley, one of my earliest teenage crushes, and the lovely Pamela Sue Martin, who was about my age when I saw the movie the first time.
Between the announcer who says that the white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only and the one who says that that is the white zone, right?
According to the book “ Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!” the abortion conversion between the announcers was taken almost verbatim from an Arthur Hailey novel, because they were having trouble figuring out how the argument should go.
I found a script for Airport online. Here’s the relevant exchange:
There’s a bit more, but that’s the gist of it. I can see a vague similarity, and how it might have inspired the exchange in Airplane, but the tone is quite different. Maybe it’s different in the novel, or maybe the Airplane writers took it from another Hailey book.
