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Seconds is a powerful, scary film by John Frankenheimer from 1966 starring Rock Hudson.

Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is an unhappy man who receives a call from an old friend, one he believed dead, offering him a chance at different life. Arthur goes to see what it's all about.

It seems an organization, The Company, will fake your death and give you a new face, identity, and profession for $30,000. They also make sure you agree by drugging you and filming you murdering a woman, though that's fake as well.

Arthur isn't sure, but after talking with the kindly big Kahuna (WIll Geer) he realizes he is in a sterile marriage, doesn't see his married daughter much, and basically just exists at his job. Thus he agrees to plastic surgery and all that comes with it.

I think many men would like to have plastic surgery and wake up as Rock Hudson, but the transformation into a younger man, hanging out in Malibu as an artist, turns out to be much more complicated.

After he gets drunk at a party and shoots his mouth off, Arthur, now Tony, realizes his new friends are "reborns" like him, and that a woman (Salome Jens) he likes is a spy for The Company. Uncomfortable with his new identity, he decides to return to the company and try again.

Filmed in black and white, with unforgiving, garish lighting and fish-eye lens closeups, Seconds is an intense experience. During his long career, Hudson appeared in many major films, but he must have found Seconds a gratifying experience. It really gave him a chance to show what he could do dramatically.

When one thinks about the way he started out - with a high-pitched, annoying voice and 38 takes to deliver one line, obviously he had come a long way.

There are some top character actors in Seconds besides Geer, including Jeff Corey, Frank Campanella, Murray Hamilton, and Wesley Addy.

A dark, underrated film.

No matter how many times I see something about the Titanic, I keep hoping the iceberg hits dead on instead of slicing across the ship, that the nearby ship Californian had responded and helped, that the lifeboats were full - unfortunately, the end is always the same.

The British film, A Night to Remember from 1958, is a particularly good telling of the tragic story. It stars a British cast including Kenneth More, Ronald Allen, Alec McCowen, and Honor Blackman, and was directed by Roy Ward Baker. David McCallum has a small role.

The stories are poignant and the movie was very well researched. The film did not use special effects, but they weren't missed due to the characterizations and incidents.

Kenneth More played real-life Titanic survivor Lightoller, who strictly adhered to the women and children first rule. The characters of Captain Smith, Guggenheim, and Lightoller were portrayed fairly, which was a complaint about the Cameron film. Eric Amber did a beautiful job on the script, adapted from the book by Walter Lord.

An emotional and powerful classic.

The Dead Zone is a 1983 film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, and Herbert Lom.

After awakening from a 5 year coma after a horrendous car accident with his girlfriend Sarah (Adams), high school teacher Johnny Smith (Walken) finds that he is now psychic and can predict the future. However, people become frightened of his gift.

As a result, Johnny moves out of town, determined to start over. One day, he shakes the hand of political candidate Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) and realizes that this man is evil, will become President, and his tactics will destroy mankind. Johnny needs to use his gift.

Based on the Stephen King novel, this is an excellent adaptation, especially having Sarah and her husband enthusiastic over Stillson's candidacy. This film is a different one for Cronenberg, less "out there" and very human.

Herbert Lom is fantastic as a doctor who is told by Johnny that his mother, from whom he was separated during the war and assumes is dead, is actually alive in the next town. He hears her voice on the phone but hangs up. "It wasn't meant to be," he tells Johnny. A poignant scene.

A superb performance by Christopher Walken ties the incidents in The Dead Zone together.

An underrated film.