kerr-g's Reviews

Mamma Mia! (2008)

1/10

29 December 2008

I liked ABBA in the '70s.

I saw "Mamma Mia" on stage in Vegas, and loved it.

Then I saw "Mamma Mia" the movie.

Oh dear!

I've never agreed with the notion of bringing in big-name stars to create a film version of an already popular musical, but in the past, when a few of those big-name movie stars couldn't sing, the directors (and I would assume the non-singing stars who didn't want to embarrass themselves) had the sense to bring in the Marni Nixons, Bill Lees, Margery McKays, Giorgio Tozzis, etc. to dub the sound tracks.

No such luck with "Momma Mia."

Dominic Cooper is good as "Sky," and Amanda Seyfried is more than good as Sophie, but the rest of the cast is too old and can't carry a tune in the buckets it looks like they are about to kick.

In the 2000s, "Duets," "Chicago," and "Moulin Rouge" were pleasant big-name star surprises.

What happened with "Momma Mia"? Could they not find Marni Nixon's phone number?

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Airport (1970)

6/10

Changed Air Travel

24 November 2008

Warning: Spoilers

So here I am, taking a few days off from work, and I thought I'd watch something I haven't seen for a while. "Airport" sounds good. Bummer! I'm sure I've recorded it to VHS at least once, but I can't find it.

So now, I'm just thinking about the movie and all of the things that have changed since, and maybe because of, "Airport." "Airport" was released in the summer of 1970, a decade after the dawn of the Jet Age, but also the sunset of the Golden Age of flying.

In the summer of 1970, my brother and I flew from Atlanta to El Paso, carrying our rifles on board the airliners with us. I was 17 and my brother was 13 that summer, but just like the summer of 1967, which is when we started our annual unaccompanied trek to and from El Paso, nobody paid much attention to the two of us carrying rifles through the Atlanta, Dallas (where we changed planes), and El Paso Airports. When we boarded planes, we always asked the crew where we should stow our rifles. American and Continental pilots usually "let" us give them the guns so they could safely keep them in the cockpit, but Delta crews usually told us to just find a place in the back of the coat rack. (Overhead bins were virtually non-existent in the 1960s.)

In the summer of 1970, when "Airport" came out, no PAN AM airplane had ever been blown up over Lockerbie Scotland. In the summer of 1970, no one had ever heard of D.B. Cooper much less of anyone threatening to blow up a passenger plane in midair if a ransom was not paid. 9/11 meant nothing in 1970.

In the summer of 1970, we certainly didn't have metal detectors at airports. Can you imagine my brother and me walking through a metal detector in 1970 with our rifles?

Beeeepp!

"Hey, hold it up right there boys. You set off the metal detectors!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Security Guard, but I think it's just these two rifles and our pocket knives."

"Well, I hope that's all! We don't want you trying to sneak any of those beatnik Peace medallions past us . . . or anything else that you boys know you shouldn't be carrying ." (Whoopee Cushions? Straws?)

"Oh no sir, it's just these two rifles and our knives."

"Okay boys, go on. Get out of here. Have a nice flight."

Finally, in the summer of 1970, flying wasn't glamorous, but it was still a somewhat pleasant experience. The lobby of the theatre that was showing "Airport" was decked out to look like an airport. I can't remember for sure, but I think our theatre tickets came with boarding pass jackets. I do remember that the signs in the lobby pointed, not to the theatre entrance, but rather to "the boarding gate." The theatre was trying hard to once again make flying seem glamorous.

In many ways, "Airport" was similar to the 1950s movie "The High and the Mighty" (substitute a pistol for a bomb and a partially-detached engine for a cracked fuselage and you've got the same in-flight drama), but "The High and the Mighty," perhaps because in the early 1950s we lived in less of an activist, knee-jerk, 60-minutes and 20-20 asking probing questions type of world, did nothing really to change flying.

"The Crowded Sky" (1960) came out about midway between "The High and the Mighty" and "Airport," but, unfortunately, its story of a military jet crashing into a passenger plane was hardly new.

Let's see, in the real world an F-89 collided with a DC-7 in January of 1957 over Southern California. An F-100 collided with a DC-7 in April of 1958 over Las Vegas, and a month later, over Maryland, a T-33 collided with a Vickers Viscount. Combine those three military/civilian accidents with the earlier, and even more horrific 1956 United/TWA mid-air collision over the Grand Canyon, and you can understand how the U.S. Congress was able to pass, and President Eisenhower was able to sign, a new Federal Aviation Act by August of 1958. That Act brought about the Air Traffic Control system that Arthur Hailey wrote about in the book "Airport," and that the movie "Airport," at least partially, showed.

I'll admit that I was too young to know or care about the 1958 Act when I was watching "The Crowded Sky," but I had heard of some of the real-life mid-airs, and I just assumed that everything that could be done was being done to prevent future accidents. I'm also sure that, other than a few squeamish movie-goers canceling their future air-travel plans when they walked out of the theatre, "The Crowded Sky" played no major role in shaping or changing public perception of aviation. It told us what had been, not what was to be.

Things really changed after "Airport," though.

I can only wonder what flying would be like today if D. O. Guerrero hadn't set off that bomb in "Airport."

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Beyond the Sea (2004)

10/10

Better than Bobby Darin

28 December 2006

Watch the movie once and you'll like it. Watch it again, and you'll love it!

The orchestration is just fantastic. Kevin Spacey captures the feel of Bobby Darin, without exactly impersonating Bobby Darin. He moves like Bobby Darin, and he sings "like" Bobby Darin, but he's clearly not Bobby Darin -- in many ways, he's better than Bobby Darin!

I now put the movie in the DVD player and play it like a music CD. I also have the album from the movie, but the way the movie blends dialog with songs makes the DVD better than the album.

Clearly I like the music, but the story isn't bad either. I've never been a Bobby Darin fan, I've never been a Kevin Spacey fan, but I sure am a "Beyond the Sea" fan. This is an easy to watch, compelling, interesting, well-edited movie. Okay, there was one thing I didn't like: I didn't enjoy watching a Cadillac -- was it a '62? -- get beat with a golf club.

From a story point, it helps to watch the movie a second time to better understand the reactions of the people who know what Bobby, and the audience, don't learn until late in the movie.

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Why Would I Lie? (1980)

7/10

A bad movie that's great.

21 October 2006

My wife and I saw this movie when HBO or Cinemax broadcast it sometime around 1982. We still talk about it.

My wife's boss also saw the movie in her home at the same time, and it seems that all of us were just too tired or lazy to get up and change the channel (this was before the days of wireless remotes for cable).

The movie is SLOW and just incredibly B O R I N G!

But then, like a steam engine pulling a long train, the movie starts picking up speed. By the end of the movie, my wife and I were on the edge of our seats. We later found out that my wife's boss had the exact same experience.

I'd love to see the movie again, but it seems that the slow first part of this movie has turned so many people off that few people have seen the whole thing, and therefore, there's virtually no demand for this nail-biting, on-the-edge-or-your-seat story.

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Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

6/10

On February 23, 1945, an insignificant event became one of the most significant events of World War II.

14 October 2006

"Flags of Our Fathers" is the story of the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who raised a replacement flag on a stinking little island six-hundred miles south of Tokyo. An Associated Press photographer, who wasn't ready and was caught off guard, snapped a picture of them raising this seemingly unimportant second flag. He had no idea what he had just done.

That one picture is said to be the most reproduced picture in the history of photography.

I toured Iwo Jima in 2000 with my father, a private in the 5th Marine Division, who, along with the flag raisers, landed on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945 -- the opening day of what would be the costliest battle in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps.

I can't say enough good things about the realism of Clint Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers." Visually, the movie made me think that I was back on Iwo Jima, and emotionally, I felt like I was witnessing what I had been told by Iwo survivors and what I had read in Richard E. Overton's "God Isn't Here: A Young American's Entry into World War II and His Participation in the Battle for Iwo Jima."

James Bradley's book "Flags of our Fathers," is wonderful, and this movie of the same name is very faithful to his book.

But, the editing of the movie takes the viewer through so many flash-backs and flash-forwards that it's hard to keep things straight -- even if you have read the book!

The movie opens with Harve Presnel (I think it was Harve) playing the role of what I thought was a narrator. Later, it looks like he's just one of many people that James Bradley interviewed for his book.

I was expecting some corny things in the movie, like seeing the flag raising picture taking up the full screen in the theater while the Marine Corps Hymn played. That didn't happen. After I heard what I thought was a narrator, I thought that anyone who didn't know what was going on in the movie would probably be kept informed of the not-so-obvious things . . . like it was Howlin' Mad Smith who was demanding, and not getting, additional bombardment of the island; like it was Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, who told Howlin' Mad Smith that "...the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years." These events were in the movie, but the characters were neither introduced by name in the movie, nor were they described by "the narrator," who seemed to come and go at odd times.

Ira Hayes is a tragic character. It's obvious that Hollywood likes tragic characters just because of all of the attention that he gets in this movie, and because Tony Curtis made a movie about Ira Hayes back in 1961. The actor who plays Ira in this movie is great!

Stephen Spielberg and Clint Eastwood obviously had to tap dance around an "Elephant in the Room" when it came to showing what happened to John Bradley's friend on Iwo Jima. If you've read the book, you know what happened. The movie does a masterful job of bringing the subject up, but not bringing it up in a manner that would offend the squeamish, or, for that matter, bringing it up in a way that would make it impossible to show the movie to a Japanese audience.

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Of Mice and Men (1992)

5/10

Beautifully done, but S L O W

23 August 2006

For the right-brained, in-touch-with-their-and-everyone-else's feelings type of person -- for any English Major! -- I'm sure this is a wonderful story and a wonderful movie.

For the left-brained, "just the facts, Mam" type of person, it is excruciatingly slow and tedious. It's still a well-made movie, but I think I can sum it up with two questions for discussion: 1) Is it merciful and "right" to put down an old dog? 2) If you have a loved one who doesn't fit into society, or who very soon isn't going to be able to continue the life that he or she is accustomed to, is it merciful and "right" to put that person out of the misery that's sure to come?

I consider the subject matter of this story to be EXTREMELY mature. No, there's no sex, language, or extreme violence, but the subject matter requires a mature intellect. ...or maybe it requires no intellect and absolute immaturity: A sixteen-year-old might easily be able to see the black and white and right and wrongs of the story; A sixty-six year old will only see the gray shades of the dilemmas.

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LAX (2004–2005)

LAX was below minimus, just like SFO 34 years earlier.

25 February 2006

I spent about seven years of my life as a pilot, airport bum, and air traffic controller. Airports can be very interesting, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the pilots, mechanics, controllers, coyote hunters, plumbers, dish washers, wing walkers, and bums at airports are any more interesting than the people who work and hang out at libraries. The secret to a good story is in the telling. LAX just didn't tell us any good stories, and, as I recall, SFO, the 1970 version of LAX staring Lloyd Bridges, wasn't any good at story-telling either. If you're looking for an interesting career, I can definitely recommend aviation. If you're looking for interesting stories, TV's track record suggests that you steer clear of shows that are set at airports.

Bummer!

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The High and the Mighty (1954)

7/10

John Wayne isn't just whistling Dixie

23 July 2005

It's a long way from Honolulu to San Francisco in a DC-4. Will a troubled plane with a cabin filled with troubled people make it? Like the actual flight, this movie is VERY long and mostly VERY boring. I recommend paying attention to the boarding procedures (Hawaii wasn't a state when this movie was made, and this is way, way before 9/11), and then, once aboard, take a nap or try a little remote control time travel to get to the "oh my God, are they going to make it or not" ending.

I'm an aviation nut. The airplane, airport, control tower and center shots are now vintage stuff. The depictions of Oakland Center didn't show a single radar scope--which makes sense for the time. The discussions of early 1950's navigation are also great from an aviation history point of view. Ernest K. Gann, the author of the book on which the movie is based, also wrote the screenplay for the movie. He was an airline pilot during the golden age of Air Transport, so you'd expect a realistic story; but, other than the last 15 or so minutes of the movie, there is very little action.

I remember thinking during the early part of the movie that there sure were a lot of petty little people with a bunch of petty little problems. (I later checked the book out from my local library and, much to my horror, discovered that the book too introduced a bunch of petty little people with a bunch of petty little problems. I never made it through the book.) but the movie, well, the last fifteen minutes of the movie just about make up for everything else.

The last fifteen minutes tell you everything you need to know . . . that co-pilot John Wayne had some "bad luck" in South America, but that when the going gets tough, John Wayne (what a surprise) is the man you want in the cockpit. Of course, the going DOES get tough, and John Wayne has to slap pilot Robert Stack into shape, just like Robert Stack sort of has to slap Robert Hayes into shape (over the Radio) in "Airplane." (In fact, the slapping scene that takes place in the passenger cabin of the 707 in "Airplane" is a perfect parody of John Wayne slapping Robert Stack in the cockpit of their DC-4. Also, "Airplane's" flight attendant blowing air into an inflatable auto pilot is a great parody of "Miss Spalding" using her mouth to gently inflate a "Mae West" on a young passenger in "The High and the Mighty.") "Airplane" is a great movie, but if you haven't seen "The High and the Mighty," you might not realize that "Airplane" is just one continuous spoof of the horrors that afflicted the people and planes that Ernest Gann wrote about. "The High and the Mighty," "The Crowded Skies," and "Fate is the Hunter" were all books/movies that "Airplane" poked fun at.

I usually imagine John Wayne riding off into the sunset at the end of a movie, but at the end of "The High and the Mighty" he disappears into the fog, whistling a tune that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

WHAT AN ENDING!!!

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Fate Is the Hunter (1964)

We're only lucky until our luck runs out

8 January 2005

Ernest K. Gann's wrote two different stories, both titled "Fate is the Hunter": a book, and a screen play. Both stories suggest fate plays a large role in our lives, but whereas the book gives example after example after example, the movie concentrates on one incident.

If you compare the book's detailed story of how co-pilot Gann and his old curmudgeon of a captain survive a mid-western ice storm in a DC-2, an airplane that is inferior in every way except one (ice handling) to the DC-3 that they had expected and had wanted to take, to the detailed story in the movie of how a new jetliner crashes because of a peculiar series of events, or if you compare the movie jetliner's crash to the crash of an Eastern Airlines DC-4 that occurred because its pilot reacted to a vibration that Gann, in an identical incident, decided to ignore, I think you'll be pleased.

The DC-6 or -7 airliner that was modified in the movie to look like a prototype for a new, twin-engine jet airliner is great from a historical perspective. (Some people think that a Convair was modified for the movie.) Gann ended his airline career flying DC-4s for Matson. Continuing with the same basic DC-4 airframe in the movie (with fake jet engines stuck on the rear fuselage) certainly lends a Gann "air" to the film. And then there's the question: Did Douglas ever intend on continuing with their DC-4/6/7 design by making a jet version of it? Surely they at least considered it. And, just where did the movie get the airplane they used? Was it made in Hollywood, or was it a real mock-up or prototype made by Douglas? The jet DC-8, which was flying by the time the book and the movie were released, is very different from the DC-4/6/7 series of airplanes that Gann flew.

Douglas would eventually produce another very different twin-engine jet airplane, the DC-9, but from an economical standpoint, going with the existing DC-4/6/7 design for the DC-9, which began production in the mid 1960s, sure would have made a lot of sense. This movie was made while Douglas was designing the DC-9 so it made me feel like I had a front row seat to a very exciting time in aviation. If you're not into airplanes, all of this supposition about what Douglas may or may not have been considering as a design for its next jet is not going to be of any interest, but don't worry, it doesn't affect the plot at all and is only an added bonus for the airplane nuts out there.

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The Americanization of Emily (1964)

10/10

American sensibility vs. British nobility vs. British sensibility vs. American nobility

6 November 2004

In the early 1960s, Julie Andrews made three movies: "The Sound of Music," "Mary Popins," and "The Americanization of Emily." "...Emily" was the best!

Set in 1945 London around the time of the D-Day invasion, James Garner plays the very American and very cowardly hero, as only James Garner can. His principles and convictions can be summed up in one term: self-preservation. James Garner's "Dog Robber" character has figured out how to use and even beat the system, and he's darn proud of it.

Julie Andrews plays Emily, the noble British war widow who's carrying on as best she can. Working as a motor pool driver, she has the misfortune of being assigned to the obnoxious, egotistical, conceited Charlie Madison (James Garner).

The contrast between the two main characters is what makes this movie so compelling. They are both doing what they believe to be right -- Emily helping the cause, Charlie helping himself -- but, could it be that doing the "right" thing isn't the right thing to do?

Before special effects, movies used to rely on something called plot and dialog, and this movie has them in spades.

Though the title of the movie suggests that it is Emily who comes around to the American point of view, the movie could just as easily been titled "Making a Brit out of Charlie."

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