Flying from Lisbon to New York City, a commercial airline is flying over the ocean when two of its engines fail. When the propellers fail to restart, Captain Steve Williams (Gary Merrill) realizes that he will have to land the plane in the ocean. The Navy is standing by to rescue the passengers. It’s just a question of whether or not Steve and his crew can land the plane without injuring the passengers or causing the plan to break in half.
This is a disaster film that doesn’t really have a disaster. The members of the crew all work professionally and efficiently to make sure that the landing is a success, even though none of them have ever had to ditch a plane before. The Navy shows up on time and ready to help. With one exception, the passengers react calmly and do what they’re told. An Orthodox priest prays for the plane. The flight attendants neatly pack all of the kitchen utensils. The only drama comes from a boy who is traveling with his dog Wilbur and is upset to hear that Wilbur will have to stay in the back of the plane, where he will probably drown. The boy’s father says, “I’ll buy you a new dog,” and the boy asks that his baseball cap be placed by Wilbur’s cage so that Wilbur knows his owner was thinking of him. Don’t worry kid! Steve Williams isn’t going to let your dog die.
It’s strange to see a disaster film without any real drama. The crew thinks that Williams can be overbearing but it turns out he knows what he’s doing. At home, his wife (Nancy Davis, in her final film role) thinks that Steve is too hard on their son. Their son is going to grow up knowing how to land airplanes in water. This is almost the Sully origin story. Otherwise, the film emphasizes the way that everyone works together and doesn’t panic. The scene where the plane lands in the water features some good special effects but otherwise, the movie is pretty dull. It could have used Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves.
Actress Nancy Davis retired from movies after this one but she remained in the public eye as the wife of future President Ronald Reagan.
From 1989’s MajorLeague, this is the way every baseball game should end. What I really love about this scene is that Tom Berenger wins the game not with a home run but with a bunt. That’s what baseball is all about.
Have you guessed yet that I really, really love baseball?
THE CALL OF THE WILD (1997) is based on Jack London’s classic story about Buck, a domesticated dog who lived the first four years of his life on the regal estate of Judge Miller. In 1897, he’s kidnapped and shipped up north to the frozen arctic regions where powerful dogs are in high demand. And Buck, a St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix, is as powerful as it gets.
On his journey, we see Buck fall into the hands of three different masters. First, he’s purchased by a dispatch courier for the Canadian government named Perrault (Luc Morissette) whose sled driver is Francois (Robert Pierre Cote). Perrault and Francois are kind to the dogs, but life is still harsh as they carry their dispatches across the snowy, frozen north. Buck sees a dog killed by other dogs for the first time. This is where he first learns that only the strong survive, and he soon has to prove it when he’s forced to fight and kill Spitz, the lead dog of the team. Unfortunately, circumstances require Perrault to sell Buck and his sled team to a group of greenhorns led by Hal (Charles Edwin Powell), his sister Mercedes (Bronwen Booth) and her husband Charles (Burke Lawrence). These morons have no business looking for gold in the Yukon. They have no clue as to what they’re doing and seem to be leading the group to certain death. Starving, tired, and sensing disaster, Buck is lucky that the group arrives at the camp of John Thornton (Rutger Hauer) just in the nick of time. Collapsing at the doorstep of Thornton’s tent, Buck refuses to get up and go any further. As Hal begins to beat Buck with a stick, even going so far as pulling his gun to shoot him, Thornton forcibly takes Buck from the morons. With Thornton, Buck has finally found his “human.” John Thornton nurses Buck back to health and the two become inseparable. Buck has found love for the first time with Thornton and will not let him out of his sight for fear he might lose him. Then something strange happens, he starts feeling a call from the forest, and the promise of a freedom he’s never known before. His love for Thornton is strong, but is it as strong as the call of the wild?
Even though this 1997 version of THE CALL OF THE WILD is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and includes the great actor Rutger Hauer in its cast, the true star of this film is Buck the dog. We really pull for Buck as we see him adapt to his new way of life after he’s stolen from his comfortable southern home. As hard as it is to see the animals kill the weakest among them, these are important lessons for Buck. His new world is no place for the weak, and he decides that he will never be weak again. Even though Buck has gotten tough, it’s still a relief when he ends up with John Thornton, the Hauer character. My favorite part of the film is when the two take off together in search of gold. Hauer is only in the film for about thirty minutes, but the relationship he shares with Buck is the highlight of the film as far as I’m concerned.
The last thing I want to mention about the film is that it’s directed by Peter Svatek. Svatek’s next film, BLEEDERS (aka HEMOGLOBIN) would also star Rutger Hauer, and he would follow that up with SILVER WOLF, starring Roy Scheider. For what it’s worth, the man definitely had something going for him since he was able to work with talents like Hauer and Scheider!
I’ve never read Jack London’s novel, but I have read that this version of THE CALL OF THE WILD may be the most faithful adaptation of the book out there. If that’s truly the case or not, I still really enjoyed this adaptation, and it’s an easy recommendation from me.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
As a photographer, I love a good silhouette shot. Here are some of my favorites.
4 Shots From 4 Films
Fantasia (1940, Dir. by Samuel Armstrong)
Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004, Dir. by Quentin Tarnatino)
First released in 1969, The Fourth Wall opens with a series of photographs.
The grainy photographs all appear to have been taken at a political protest in London. The protestors are holding signs that say something about leaving Nigeria alone but the exact cause that is being supported is still left vague. Eventually, after viewing several photographs of long-haired college students holding signs, we reach some photographs of the police violently breaking up the protest and carting several of the protestors off to jail.
Amongst the protestors is a young Italian named Marco Baroni (Paolo Turco). Marco has spent the past four years in London, studying and apparently becoming politically active. However, it is time for him to return to Italy. When he reaches his home, we discover that, for all of his talk of protest and revolution, Marco comes from a wealthy, upper class family. Papa Baroni (Peter Lawford) is a businessman who is willing to bankrupt even his best friends and who openly flaunts the affair that he’s having with his Swedish secretary. Marco’s mother, Christiana (Francoise Prevost) spends her time in a haze of alcohol and ennui. Marco’s younger sister, Marzia (Tery Hare), is a fashion model who has become infamous for a serious nude photographs that were taken by the enigmatic Lona (Corraine Fontaine). Marzia’s room is full of picture of herself. When Marco returns home, she greets him more as if he were long-distance boyfriend than her brother. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that there is more to Marco and Marzia’s relationship than just sibling closeness.
It’s an odd and meandering film. Marco, having had his consciousness raised in London, is disgusted by his family’s decadence and hates the fact that his father seems to represent everything that he was arrested for protesting in the UK. At the same time, as much as Marco whines about the sins of his family, he finds himself repeatedly drawn to Marzia and her wild lifestyle. At one point, Marco finds himself observing a group of student radicals who can’t even agree on what they want to protest. At another point, he walks in on one of Marzia’s parties and watches as a rather tame orgy breaks out. This is the type of film where Marco spends a lot of time complaining about Marzia being more interested in hedonism than politics but the camera itself lingers on the nonstop nudity and the sight of Lona and Marzia kissing. For all of the film’s political pretensions, director Adriano Bolzoni obviously understood that sex sells better than speeches.
Bolzoni, himself, was not primarily a political filmmaker. The majority of his films were a mix of giallo thriller and spaghetti westerns. There are hints of the giallo genre in this film, with its vibrant colors and its shots of Marco slowly losing his mind as the full extent of his family’s decadence becomes clear to him. (That said, it’s hard not to laugh at the scene in which Marco runs through the rain while screaming, “NO!” over and over again.) The instrumental score is pure Spaghetti western, leading to some unintentionally funny moments. When Marco spots his father with his mistress, the mix of a zoom lens and a musical sting that sounds like it was lifted from a Sergio Leone showdown is more likely to leave you laughing than gasping. There are other scenes that are scored to songs that were apparently written to sound like Simon & Garfunkel’s contributions to The Graduate soundtrack.
As pretentious as the film is — and make no mistake, this is a very pretentious film — The Fourth Wall does do a good job of capturing Marco’s growing sense of unease as he returns home convinced that he’s figured out the world just to discover that no one else really cares about his politics, his ideals, or his outrage. Marco goes from being stridently idealistic to drowning in his own paranoia and it’s hard not to regret that Paolo Turco was a bit of a dull actor because, with better casting, the character’s descent would have been truly heartbreaking. Peter Lawford plays Papa Baroni with just the right amount of ruthless charm. He might be the epitome of everything that Marco is against but just watching him, you know that Papa Baroni is always going to get exactly what he wants. It doesn’t matter how much Marco whines or how many meetings Marco goes to or even how the film’s final burst of violence plays out. Papa Baroni will always thrive and survive.
Larry Sutton (Randolph Scott) is an engineer who has been sent to take over operations at a radium mine that is owned by the Ballard family. Previously, Larry’s bother-in-law was in charge of the mine but he has disappeared and is suspected of having murdered the foreman at the Ballard Ranch. With Jim Ballard (George F. Marion) on his deathbed and being cared for by the foreman’s wife (Caroline Dudley, credited as Mrs. Leslie Carter), Ballard’s nieces (Ann Sheridan and Kathleen Burke) and nephew (Howard Wilson) have come to the ranch to find out about their inheritance.
Soon, a cloaked figure starts to murder Ballard’s heirs, one-by-one. Working with eccentric Deputy Sheriff Tex Murdock (Chic Sale), Larry tries to discover the identity of the killer and keep the mine from falling into the wrong hands.
Rocky Mountain Mystery is unique in that it is a Randolph Scott western that takes place in what was then modern times. Even though both Larry and Tex prefer to ride horses, the murderer tries to escape in a car, people use phones, and the entire plot revolves around a radium mine. The film mixes the usual western tropes of grim heroes, eccentric lawmen, and valley shoot-outs with a dark mystery that actually holds your attention while you’re watching the film. Always ideally cast in these type of films, Randolph Scott is both tough and intelligent as Larry Sutton. He may be a cowboy but he’s a detective too. Scott gets good support from a cast of familiar faces. Ann Sheridan is especially good as the niece who knows how to handle a rifle.
These B-westerns can be a mixed bag but Rocky Mountain Mystery held my attention with a plot that was actually interesting and a strong performance from Randolph Scott. Watch it and see if you can guess who the identity of the Ballard Ranch murderer.
Adam Smasher (Jason London) is the family friendly version of Howard Stern, an obnoxious shock jock who has just been fired from his radio job and, due to nearly crashing into a cow, finds himself stranded in a small North Carolina town. He gets a job on the local radio station, co-hosting a call-in show with Eve Cassidy (Lauren Harper). At first, Adam and Eve don’t mix. Adam is cynical and Eve actually wants to help people with their relationship issues. After a few days, Adam learns to appreciate country living and Eve falls in love with him even though she’s dating the station manager, Jamel (Ian Reier Michaels). Adam shows he’s a soft touch when he buys a bunch of sandwiches for a poor family and Eve starts to loosen up and have more fun on the air. Eve is offered her own show in Chicago and has to decide between her career and Adam.
This isn’t a Hallmark film but it might as well be. I enjoyed it even though I knew everything that was going to happen, from the minute Adam first heard Eve on the radio and called in to “smash” her. (I actually had to check to see when this movie has been made because Adam’s whole act seemed to be from the 1990s.) This is one of those movies where you know what you’re getting from the start. If you’re surprised that Adam brings a carousel down to the station for Eve to ride during a commercial break, you’ve probably never seen one of these movies before. I liked the cozy small town town feel of the location and I think Jason London should be in more movies. I also think it’s funny that 99% of these movies start with someone having car trouble. If people knew how to drive, they would never fall in love.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Here are 4 shots from 4 films about my favorite sport!
4 Shots From 4 Baseball Films
Eight Men Out (1988, Dir. by John Sayles)
A League Of The Own (1992, Dir. by Penny Marshall)
42 (2013, Dir. by Brian Hegeland)
Everybody Wants Some!!! (2016, Dir. by Richard Linklater)
It’s almost time for Spring Training and I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite baseball movies!
There are a lot of movies that I like but my absolute favorite baseball movie has to be EightMenOut, which is about how the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. What I like about is that, while looking at the economics and the politics about baseball, it never lost sight of everything that makes the game so special.
In the scene below, fans at a minor league game think they’ve spotted Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the best players to have ever been banned from baseball, at bat.
In the late 90’s, I was all in on actor Chow Yun-Fat. Having only discovered his excellent Hong Kong film work a couple of years earlier, I was so excited to see what kind of splash he would make in American films. I loved his first American film THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS (1998), but I will admit it was an exercise in style over substance, and it really didn’t show off his acting abilities. Chow was working hard to improve his English language skills during this time, but that limited his performance the first time around. As I settled into my seat on the film’s opening weekend at the box office in March of 1999, I was hoping to see the Chow Yun-Fat I loved from his Hong Kong movies. But more on that later…
THE CORRUPTOR opens with a bomb going off in Chinatown, followed by a sidewalk assassination in broad daylight. It seems there’s a turf war being fought between a street gang called the Fukienese Dragons, led by Bobby Vu (Byron Mann), and a Chinese criminal organization called the Tung Fung Benevolence Association, led by Uncle Benny Wong (Kim Chan) and Henry Lee (Ric Young). We then meet Nicholas Chen (Chow Yun-Fat), a heroic, highly decorated NYPD cop who runs the Asian Gang Unit. His unit is tasked with trying to keep the peace in Chinatown, but with all the recent violence, they’re clearly failing. Knowing he needs more help, Chen requests additional manpower and gets the young and eager Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg). The two men don’t hit it off immediately as Chen had wanted a more experienced, Asian cop. Over time, however, Chen begins to trust Wallace and begins to let him into the inner workings of the unit.
We soon find out that things are much more complicated in Chinatown police work than they might have appeared at first. Chen is not quite as heroic as initially presented. He’s a morally conflicted man who wants to do good work for the people of Chinatown, but in the process, he’s compromised himself by taking sides and forming a delicate alliance with Uncle Benny and Henry Lee. And Danny isn’t quite the young, green cop he was presented as either. In fact, he’s been secretly tasked by Internal Affairs to monitor Chen and his unit. As Wallace sees what’s really going on in Chinatown, and after Chen saves his ass on multiple occasions, it becomes harder and harder for him to do his job and build a case against Chen. As the film reaches its conclusion in this world of grey, we will see if Chen and Wallace can work together and take down Henry Lee and Bobby Vu, who have formed an alliance to take over Chinatown’s criminal activities. And we will find out what Wallace will do with the information he has on Chen.
I’m a big fan of THE CORRUPTOR, and the primary reason is the excellent performance of Chow Yun-Fat. No other American made action film showed off the extraordinary charisma that made him a superstar in Asia in the 1980’s. In this film, Chow is able to play both sides of the law and still remain incredibly likable. He pulls this balancing act off in a way that appears effortless, and yet there are very few actors in the world who are capable of doing it. Mark Wahlberg had emerged as a major film star a couple of years earlier with the runaway success of BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997). I think he’s very good in this film as well, as his character must reconcile his ideals against the reality of fighting crime in such a dangerous environment. There’s a scene near the end where Chen has been informed that Wallace is internal affairs and confronts him about it. Wahlberg is incredible in the scene, setting the stage for the exciting resolution of the film.
THE CORRUPTOR has several excellent action set-pieces, beginning with a shootout at a lamp shop. This is when I knew this movie was going to present the Chow Yun-Fat I know and love. His personality is displayed in the scene, along with his two guns blazing in slow motion. There’s also an intense car chase through crowded streets and a final showdown on a cargo ship that really stood out to me. Director James Foley was probably hired based on his prior work that showed an ability to deal with moral ambiguity in films like AT CLOSE RANGE (1986) and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1992). While he wouldn’t be my first directorial choice for an action film, he does a fine job in my opinion.
Overall, I recommend THE CORRUPTOR to any person who likes Chow Yun-Fat, Mark Wahlberg, or an entertaining action film. It’s not in the league of Chow’s best Hong Kong films, but it is his best American action film, because it actually gives him a strong character to play. That went a long way with me.
Flying from Lisbon to New York City, a commercial airline is flying over the ocean when two of its engines fail. When the propellers fail to restart, Captain Steve Williams (Gary Merrill) realizes that he will have to land the plane in the ocean. The Navy is standing by to rescue the passengers. It’s just a question of whether or not Steve and his crew can land the plane without injuring the passengers or causing the plan to break in half.
Through the Shattered Lens 