That Awful Feeling of Pouring Money Down AMC Drain

by

Bring your own pre-popped Jiffy Pop in a pear-cake bag, and then use their liquid butter machine. And bring your own drinks. Simple.

AMC trailer reels run between 17 and 20 minutes. Okay, I’ll allow for the possibility of 22 or 23 if you count Nicole Kidman. They certainly don’t run a half-hour.

@cledevon My opinion on movie theaters. #movies #movie #theater #expensive #f1 #f1movie #reviewphim ♬ original sound – CLEDevon

Here Comes The Sun, doo-doo-doo-doo

by

Instant blind hate for Project Hail Mary (Amazon/MGM, 3.20.26). From the geek brains of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, another jerkoff galactic lone-schlubbo-protagonist plot from the guys who wrote The Martian. (original novel by Andy Weir, adaptation by Drew Goddard). Ridiculous egoistic glorification of oafish, sympathetically flawed solitary man charged with saving the world. Words can’t express how much I loathe and despise this film, sight unseen. Five seconds after I began watching this fecking trailer I wanted Ryan Gosling to die…painfully, I mean. Howling agony.

Poor Sandra Huller!

Synopsis: “Astronaut Ryland Grace awakens on a spacecraft with no memory of himself or his mission. He slowly deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system in search of a solution to a catastrophic event on Earth. In his search for answers, Grace must rely on his vast array of scientific knowledge, sheer ingenuity, and human will– but he may not have to search alone.”

Save us, Ryland! You can do it! We know you can!

I Don’t Do Suicide Missions As A Rule

by

Three strategic logic issues with the second half of The Bridge on the River Kwai, initially posted on 10.25.10:

1. When Jack Hawkins and Geoffrey Horne chase an armed Japanese soldier into the jungle, Hawkins orders Horne to “use your knife, man, or we’ll be shooting each other.” Use your knife to kill a a guy with a loaded rifle? What kind of sense does that make?

2. Why does the commando team have to blow up the bridge at the precise moment when the train’s about to cross? Who cares about the train? Wouldn’t this action guarantee that Japanese troops not killed in the blast would hunt the commandos down and almost certainly kill them? How could they expect to escape when they’re positioned so closely? It’s a hopeless suicide mission.

The more sensible approach would be to blow up the bridge in the dead of night and then hightail it into the jungle while the Japanese are still waking up. Not getting killed in the aftermath of the explosion isn’t against the rules, is it? Isn’t it better to complete the mission, escape and live to fight another day?

3. Near the end Hawkins tells Horne to set up the detonation plunger on the far side of the river and then “swim back” after the explosion. Swim back? He’ll get shot. The smarter thing would be for Horne to scamper into the jungle on his side of the river and then meet up with Hawkins and the others at a rendezvous point a few miles away.

2010 replies:

Chase Kahn
15 years
“Simply blowing up the bridge during the night while everyone is sleeping wouldn’t give us much ‘madness'”.

moviemorlock
15 years ago
“Blowing up the train on the bridge eliminates supplies and reinforcements, not just the supply line. It also adds a rescue mission for troops on the ground with far more distractions and the ability for prisoner escapes. I never had a problem with this. Plus–it’s a movie and one hell of a climax.”

Jeffrey Wells
15 years ago
“I thought the train was just carrying dignitaries, and was also going to take the sick men to a hospital. Who says the train is carrying supplies and reenforcements? I don’t recall that.”

TheCahuengaKid
15 years ago
“If the empty bridge is blown up in the middle of the night, then David Lean has no awesome climax for his movie.”

the analog kid
15 years ago
“The train carries VIPs and troops. It is specifically stated in the film. One could infer there are supplies on it as well.

“They actually talk about blowing the bridge with timers, but they decide to trigger it manually so they can get the train as well.”

“And they blow up the train because it would be ‘something’ if they did.”

Gandolfini Pit Stop

by

Located in Montvale, New Jersey, the Garden State Parkway’s James Gandolfini service area feels like a place of semi-solemn observance — well north of Satriale’s pork store in Kearny, northeast of Saddle River, northwest of Gandolfini’s birthplace of Westwood, just south of the New York State line.

It’s not quite on the level of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello or JFK’s Hyannisport or FDR’s Hyde Park, but it’s a place that seems to culturally matter…”take your hat off, they serve hot dogs here.”

Gandolfini was a very young boomer (born on 9.18.61**, technically a member of Generation Jones, a cusp between boomers and GenXers). Way too young to have been a ground-floor Beatles or Bob Dylan fan or to have even sniffed the hippie thing…came of age in the early Reagan era…B-52s, Blondie, The Police, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”.

Gandolfini was 37 when season #1 of The Sopranos began filming in mid ‘98, and only 51 when he died in Rome of a heart attack on 6.19.13.

** Six weeks after Barack Obama.

Film Forum Can’t Hope To Deliver “Apocalypse Now” Properly

by

When you think of the most exciting, triple-wowser screenings of your life, it’s always a combination of (a) a knockout film, (b) a great crowd and (c) the film playing at a big-city, big-screen, technically tip-top theatre.

The original 1979 version of Apocalypse Now has always been and always will be knockout-level, but seeing it inside one of those Film Forum shoebox theatres can’t be much good. I’m sorry but it just can’t be.

I saw the original Apocalypse (147 minutes, give or take) at the Ziegfeld theatre two or three times in August and September of ’79, and the big-screen presentation was aurally and visually wonderful, especially in terms of sharp, punctuating fullness of sound.

Apocalypse Now was presented at the Ziegfeld within a 2:1 aspect ratio, which Vittorio Storaro insisted upon through thick and thin.

As we began to listen to The Doors’ “The End” while staring at that tropical tree line, John Densmore’s high hat could be heard loudly and crisply from a Ziegfeld side speaker. Before that moment I had never heard any high-hat sound so clean and precise.

Remember that “here’s your mission, Captain” scene with G.D. Spradlin, Harrison Ford and that white-haired Filipino guy? When that scene abruptly ends, we’re suddenly flooded with electronic synth organ music…it just filled your soul and your chest cavity.

When Martin Sheen and the PBR guys first spot Robert Duvall and the Air Cav engaged in a surfside battle, Sheen twice says “arclight.” In the Ziegfeld the bass woofer began rumbling so hard and bad that the floor and walls began to vibrate like bombs were exploding on 54th Street…the hum in my rib cage was mesmerizing.

As Duvall’s gunship helicopters take off for the attack on a Vietnamese village (“Vin Din Lop…all these gook names sound the same”), an Army bugler begins playing the cavalry charge. The “tirrah–tirrah–tirrah” was clear as a bell in the Ziegfeld.

First Liberty Island Visit Since ‘80

by

Blue skies, hot temps, no breezes.

Posted on 2.13.23:

Norman Lloyd‘s falling finale would’ve been better if Alfred Hitchcock hadn’t relied on that fake-looking process shot.

If I’d been in Hitchcock’s shoes, I would’ve had Universal’s prop department build a special wind-up mechanical dummy, one capable of moving its arms and legs a bit. Then I would’ve mounted the downward-facing camera on the railing of the actual Statue of Liberty torch, and then I would’ve simply dropped the dummy and filmed the long fall.

Then, in the editing phase, I would’ve shown Lloyd losing his grip and starting to fall, then a quick shot of Robert Cummings‘ horrified expression, and then cut to the falling dummy and stay with it until hits the pavement below. I would also have recorded the sound of a pair of tied-together watermelons slamming into the pavement from a height of, say, four or five stories.

Easily The Most Elegant Pre-Credit Signature Of Them All

by

The beautiful animated logo for Steven Rales/ Indian Paintbrush, primarily known for being the main financier and producer of Wes Anderson films over the last 18 years (the first was 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited — the most recent is The Phoenician Scheme)…the CGI logo was designed by Kelly Carlton at Intralink Film Graphic Design. The string/flute flutter was composed by Jamie Anderson at J Trax Music.

Read more

“I’ve Got A Baaad Feeling About This”

by

This line was spoken by Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back (‘80).

What are we supposed to get exactly from this image of a chick-of-color (presumably Chase Infiniti) holding a pistol outdoors? What’s the message? Who cares? Where’s Leo?

A Venice Film Festival debut, right?