An Afternoon With Two Great Movies - Patton and the Magnificent 7

George C.Scott as Patton - One of the greatest movie performances - EVER

After a week in Disneyland I took a break last weekend to resume watching old movies with my father-in-law who suffers from dementia. And yes, I can confirm that both Patton co-stars George C. Scott and Karl Malden are indeed dead. Interestingly enough, George C. Scott who refused to accept as Oscar also refused to mark his grave and Karl Malden who died in 2009 at the age of 97 was survived by his wife. He was married more to her than 70 years at the time of his passing. Patton is my favorite war movie to sit down and watch (at about 3 hours long). Six of the Magnificent Seven have also passed on to the great beyond with only actor Robert Vaughn still among the living. The Magnificent Seven is my second favorite Western ever behind Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter.

More trivia about the movies: George C. Scott apparently was one of the most intimidating actors ever. One well known actress who was appearing with Scott in a play on Broadway complained to the play's director Mike Nicolls (Academy Award / Tony Award winning director) "I'm a afraid of George." To which Nicolls replied "My dear, we're all afraid of George C. Scott".

Magnificent Seven costars Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen had a legendary dislike for each other. With Brynner getting the top billing, the actor was always thinking the McQueen was trying to steal the scenes in which the two actors appeared together (which he was if you watch the movie closely).

One of the great minor memories of my life was being able to see Yul Brynner live on stage in San Francisco give one of his great performances of The King and I. He did the role around the world more than 4000 times and won both an Academy and Tony Award for the playing the King. A great night once upon a time.

The Magnificent Seven

The Monuments Men - Movie or Party?

Sometimes movies are made for art; sometimes movie are made for a chance at making a lot of money; and sometimes a movie is made so a bunch of guys can party and have a good time. George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman..... I'm betting on the latter for The Monuments Men and something of a transformed Oceans 11 even though the story is based on a true event.

Monuments Men is a George Clooney project with a release date of February 7, 2014. Definitely the first must see movie of 2014 for me anyway.

It Really Was A Fantastic Voyage

I saw Fantastic Voyage in the theater as a kid. Some years later, a science teacher showed the movie in a junior high science class (this was pre-video days so I'm assuming 20th Century Fox made the movie available as a teaching aid). Here is the premise. A government scientist goes into a coma after an assassination attempt. The only chance to bring him back to life is perform laser surgery to remove a clot to his brain. In 1966, this kind of laser surgery can only be done from inside the body so the government has a miniaturization program to shrink humans to a microscopic size and inject them into the body using a kind of miniature submarine to get from point A to point B, the point where the surgery must be performed. This is science fiction at its best,

But its the medical aspects of the story and actors interracting inside the human body that brings out the best of Fantastic Voyage. This isn't an A class list of actors. The dialog can be kind of hokey at times. But the movie itself is quite compelling and well worth watching. Or maybe Raquel Welch in a wet suit is compelling enough. The movie also has Donald Pleasence as the bad guy and I don't if there was ever a creepier actor in the movies. 

Anyway, the movie was just released on Blu-Ray and I couldn't get it fast enough to watch it and plan to watch it again soon. It is that good of a movie.

Anchorman - Still Funny But Slipping

When I first saw Will Ferrell's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy in the theaters back in 2004 when the film was first released, I thought it was one of the funniest movies ever. I put it up there in the Animal House pantheon. There are scenes (and lines) in the movie that are hysterically funny. "I'm kind of a big deal".

I watched the film again last night in preparation for the sequel Anchorman 2 set to come out before the end of the year. And while Anchorman still is fun to watch, I have to admit it has slipped over the years in my subsequent viewings. Uneven is probably a good word for it. While Ferrell and Christina Applegate really stand out in their roles, the supporting cast is pretty much hit or miss. Some of the gags work, some don't. 

I can still recommend Anchorman to someone looking for a funny movie to watch. I just don't have the enthusiasm for the movie I once did.

The Star Trek 2009 Reboot

Maybe I've been watching too many movies that are over 50 years old lately, movies that were actually filmed on a sound stage with things like scenes and dialog. The original Star Trek television series was like that since computer graphics and advanced special effects didn't exist yet. And while there were special effects in place for the 6 movie Star Trek series that began in 1979, varied drastically when it came to quality.

The 2009 Star Trek reboot with an all new cast (except the return of Leonard Nimoy) is a different kind of Star Trek altogether. It is a special effects geek fest, digitally charged, rapidly cut and edited, and meant to inflect new life into a deteriorating franchise heading to towards being irrelevant for a modern audience. I saw the 2013 Star Trek: Into Darkness when it came out earlier this summer. When that movie came to video, some bright guy thought of bundling Into Darkness with its predecessor in a single package for one low price (about 25 bucks). I actually thought I had seen the 09 Star Trek film but apparently not when I plopped in the blu-ray player today to watch with my father-in-law earlier today. The confusing time bending story that more blasted on the screen rather than play had him bailing out about an hour into the film to take a nap. I stuck it out to the end and generally thought that it was good film that told the origins of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the major Star Trek characters but could have done a few of the plot points much better than what came out in the finished product.

But director J.J. Abrams gave the franchise what it needed and brought it up to date to what the current movie viewer wants from a space movie - special effects, special effects, and more special effects that tell an interesting story without being laughably silly. If you like that kind of thing, Star Trek 09 fits the bill - wish it was about 20 minutes shorter though.

A Look At The Dark Side - Rear Window

What did people do around the house before there was television to watch at night? Perhaps sit in an apartment by a window that overlooked a courtyard filled with other apartment windows and each window had its own story to tell. What if one of the stories going on through one of those windows is murder? Rear Window about voyeurism pure and simple. both the entertaining side and its most unseemly side. Due to a fractured leg and confined to a wheel chair, Jimmy Stewart gets up close and personal with his neighbors but the stories are from a distance, enhanced through binoculars and a huge telephoto camera lense. Whatever he doesn't know about the lives of his neighbors he just fills in the blanks. Lives out of context. But when one of the neighbors acts suspiciously like he murdered his invalid nagging wife, the voyeurism steps into the direction of a murder mystery.

Stewart gets Grace Kelley and Thelma Ritter as his girlfriend and nurse to do his leg work. He calls on the services of a police chum to serve as the go-between with the cops as the mystery unfolds. Rear Window is a film by Alfred Hitchcock. A film about voyearism would most likely be looked at as an underbelly unsettling type of film. In the hands of Hitchcock, Rear Window is a masterpiece for taking the unseemly topic and adding black comedy, drama, sadness, tragedy, suspense, and in the end, a mystery. Every life is a story. Hitchcock allows glimpses of everyone's story whether real or imagined.

I'm not a fan of Alfred Hitchcock. The films he is most noted for - Psycho or The Birds, I find too disturbing to enjoy. But I have enjoyed Rear Window several times through the years. Sometimes unsettling paintings on museum walls are works of art as well. Rear Window is a work of art by a master craftsman.

Blue Ray Release Dates

These are some blu-ray release dates of note (to me anyway) from now to the end of the year. For more blu-ray movie release dates go to http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/releasedates.php.

September 17:  World War Z

September 23  Iron Man 3



October 1:  The Little Mermaid, Stuck on You

October 8:  Airplane II, Fantastic Voyage, Momma Mia, Tomb Raider, Star Wars IV-VI (new packaging)

October 15:  High Plains Drifter, Slap Shot

October 29:  Monsters University



November 5:  The Right Stuff

November 12:  Man of Steel, JFK

You Must Remember This... Casablanca Is a Movie Icon

Unlike The African Queen which I saw for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I've seen Casablanca a number of times through the years. It's a movie that is infinitely watchable - scene by scene, line by line. It all adds up to a classic film experience in the truest and finest sense of the word. Casablanca is an icon, with a cast of who's who of Hollywood legends - Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Paul Heinreid.... it goes on and on. Bogart won his Academy Award for The African Queen. Was he better in that movie than Casablanca? Nope, not even close. Bogart's Rick is one of the great characters ever written or portrayed on film. 

Is there a more lovely looking woman ever shown in the glow of black and white film than Ingrid Bergman? Again, no. Her soft flawless skin bathed in light and shadow highlights the best of what non-colorized films can offer to a viewer. Casablanca is the ultimate story of love and sacrifice, a movie that was considered a classic of its time and has only become more firmly entrenched now almost 75 years after it was released. If someone wants to call it the best movie ever, be my guest. It's somewhere in the top 5.

The Jewel That Is It Happened One Night

There a movies - nice, entertaining, fun, a diversion in the day to day activities that life puts upon us. And once in a while there are movies that are more - jewels, gems, treasures. It happened in 1934 with the movie It Happened One Night. Though the movie is described as the original "screwball comedy" it is so skillfully executed to perfection that the movie is so much more and one of the greatest films ever made even though its now about 80 years old. It swept the Academy Awards winning for Best Picture, Best Director (Billy Wilder), Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), and Best Screenplay plus many others.

I got to see It Happened One Night last weekend. It was the first time I had seen it in about 20 years or so (when I was so impressed with it that I went out and bought a copy for my VHS collection). Though the movie does show some drastic changes in values and morals from a different generation, the story remains fresh and vibrant and moves along at a wonderfully entertaining pace under Wilder's direction. Again, it is one of those rare movies that has no flaws in the story telling from beginning to end. The movie doesn't waste a moment of your time.

If you want to see movie making at its best - you can't go wrong with It Happened One Night. It shows up on the classic movie stations quite often for good reason. 

The New Batman Goes Lightweight

It seems a curious bit of casting by Warner Bros. After three scowling, menacing, phenomenal portrayals of the Dark Knight by Christian Bale, how does a lightweight like Ben Affleck get the role of Batman dumped in his lap for future films? Maybe it's some kind of payback for Affleck's Academy Award winning Argo distributed by Warner. The nerds on the Big Bang Theory still mock Affleck's portrayal of Daredevil. And they know their superheroes.

The Fascinating Story Of A Real Life Mutiny

Tiring of old episodes of The Big Bang Theory, the King of Queens, and Seinfeld, I try to find things on TV that hopefully keep my father-in-law entertained. He doesn't have much of a memory anymore but he does remember old movies for some reason. I stumbled up Mutiny on the Bounty a few days ago on Turner Classic Movies and flipped it on for him (and turns out for me too). We're no talking Mel Gibson's Bounty from the 80's or Marlon Brando's Bounty from the early 60's - we're going all the way back to 1935 and the original Charles Laughton Clark - Gable version of Mutiny on the Bounty.

I've never scene the movie before and my memories of the classic scenes all come from a Bugs Bunny / Yosemite Sam cartoon spoof of the movie (which was pretty much spot on). But the movie, now almost 80 years old, was absolutely fantastic and because the story is true and utterly fascinating, I went scurrying to Wikipedia after my viewing to find out more about this story right up to the fact the 46 descendants of the original mutineers and their Tahitian "wives" still live on the remote island in the South Pacific where the Bounty mutineers ended up following their capture of the ship.

If you get a chance, watch the original Mutiny on the Bounty. It is one of the great movies ever. Then head to the internet and find out what really happened in this true live story. While the movie is entertaining, the true story may even be more interesting as the movie's accurate depiction of historical events is somewhat questionable.

The Real Jungle Cruise: The African Queen

Maybe one of the side benefits of having Mrs. DisneylandTraveler's father come live with us is my opportunity to catch up on some old classic movies - like The African Queen which we watched together a few days ago. The old guy likes his movies but most of his movie interest seems to focus on 40 or 50 years ago. I think over the years I may have seen bits and pieces of The African Queen but I can't ever recall sitting down to see the whole think beginning to end. And seeing the film, some 60 years after it was first made, was really quite enjoyable.

At first I was put off by Humphrey Bogart's curious attempts to smile. "This guy won an Academy Award for this?" "This guy is someone many claim to be the finest actor of all time?" Eventually the movie won me over if you put it into the context it was made. I always thought of the movie as a serious adventure dripping with danger. That wasn't case at all as those involved with the movie saw it more of an adventure comedy. Bogart was having fun playing a character that went against some of his serious tough guy roles. He had reason to smile. He was making a movie with people he truly liked with Katherine Hepburn and John Huston. Much of the film was shot in either Africa or England so he was on location, and at least for the African portion of the shoot, he was excusably getting plowed regularly which was a lifestyle he embraced. He was an actor's actor who was at the very top of his game and knew exactly what he was doing and what the character was all about. 

With all the attempts Hollywood has made trying to remake movies, The African Queen has been left to its own existence through the years. You can't mess with perfection.

Blazing Saddles, Bad Taste, and Big Laughs

I fist saw Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles when I was still in college. That kind of explains the humor of Blazing Saddles - pretty sophomoric. I picked the movie up on Blue Ray a few weeks ago for 8 bucks.. It remains incredibly funny and and monument to bad taste and political incorrectness. You will get 8 bucks worth of laughs out of Blazing Saddles and you might even feel a little bit guilty for laughing at things that are really pretty offensive. But the genious of Mel Brooks is to take what people consider offensive and put it in the context of the people being offensive are pretty much morons and idiots anyway so being offensive isn't a reach.

After seeing Blazing Saddles, some things you will never see the same way again, beans, sitting around a campfire, and a right cross to a horse's mouth. Actually, Blazing Saddles is more of a series of sketches than a coherent single movie. Some sketches are funnier than others but it all adds up to Mel Brooks brand of comic madness. 

Return of Gru, the Girls, & the Minions in Despicable Me 2

Of all the movies I have sat down to watch here at home over the last three years or so, I have watched Universal's Despicable Me more than any other movie I own. I first saw Despicable Me at the theaters back in 2010. I may have seen it twice. Here at home, I probably have seen the movie at 4 or 5 times. That's about a half dozen viewings at least. Why? The movie is that good. Incredibly creative, the movie is smart, funny, well written, and has heart in abundance. It's wall to wall entertainment. And it has Minions by the score.

The Minions are the probably greatest group ensemble of animated movie characters ever created. Basically, the a group of flunkies and lackeys meant to serve the bad guys but suffer from short attention spans that can't stop them from picking on each other and find new and creative ways to be totally non-productive. Everyone's workplace should be so fun,

Early Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and I waited to see Despicable Me 2 and finally got our chance on my birthday few weeks ago. Continuing the Gru, the adorable girls, and the Minion tale - is it as good as the first movie? Maybe not quite as good but it is awful, awful, close. Despicable Me is a wonderfully entertaining movie and the filmmakers - Illusion Entertainment - should be proud of their effort. No one will walk away unhappy from DM2 and now the count down is on for when it comes to video.

And seeing a good thing when they have it. The Minions Movie is set to be released in December 2014. From the business side, Illusion Entertainment runs a tight ship. Despicable Me 2 cost about $75 million dollars to make. To date, it has made a little of $750 million dollars at the box office.

Another interesting note, Illumination Entertainment is U.S. company based in Santa Monica housed a modest office building. All the animation is done in France.

Jaws Is Simply The Best Movie Ever (Today)

The question is simple enough. "What is the best movie you have ever seen?" My answer has changed over the years. I can understand the infatuation with Orson Well's great Citizen Kane (though Well's The Third Man may even be better). For years, my answer was Mike Nichol's The Graduate, an homage to a generation who began to see things differently (my generation). I was partial to Woody Allen's Annie Hall for a long, long time.

But for the last 10 years or so, my answer has been to the best movie I ever saw is Jaws - the 1975 Steven Spielberg thriller that captivated a nation and kept countless people out of the water. Jaws is the perfect movie with every scene, every still image, every line of the movie forever frozen in my brain. Who can forget John Williams intense musical score where it is virtuously impossible to get two notes into the title theme without instantly recognizing the menacing theme from and equally menacing movie? Who didn't jump out of their seats the first time they saw that corpse head pop out of the bottom of the fishing boat that was just used as the shark's chew toy? And who can't forget that absolutely great performances of Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfus?

Jaws is a movie that has no flaws and I'm a person who absolutely does not like horror movies or thrillers. That's just it. There is nothing in there anymore that scares me after seeing it probably a dozen times or more. What I see now when watching the movie is Steven Spielberg's craftsmanship at every turn. Spielberg has gone on to direct many great, great movies but Jaws stands above the rest in my book. 

I remember Ed Bradley interviewing Bob Dylan on 60 Minutes years ago. Bradley began to read the lyrics to one of Dylan's more intricate songs that he wrote years ago and compare it what he was currently writing. A somewhat befuddled Dylan plainly said that he could never write songs of younger years because age changes everything. And that's how I look at Spielberg's work. His last movie, Lincoln, was outstanding but it wasn't what Jaws was or could ever be.

We gotta get a bigger boat.