October Positivity: The Climb (dir by John Schmidt)

Posted on October 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2002’s The Climb is about two mountain climbers who begin as rivals and end up as friends.

Derrick Williams (Jason George) is an arrogant and cocky climber, the type who enjoys conquering mountains for his own personal glory. (See where this heading?) Even though his girlfriend’s father (Clifton Davis) does not approve of him, Derrick still says that he’s planning on marrying her. Or at least, he does until he finds out that she’s pregnant and he realizes that being a father will require him to take on a lot of new responsibilities.

Michael Harris (Ned Vaughn) is a selfless climber who sees every climb as a team effort and who does everything for the Glory of God. (Again …. see where this heading?)

Businessman Mack (Dabney Coleman, bringing a villainous edge to a character who I don’t necessarily think was meant to come across as being villainous) hires Derrick and Michael to climb a notorious mountain, all as a way to promote his business. At first, Derrick doesn’t want to climb with anyone else but when his girlfriend tells him that she’s pregnant, he decides that he could use some time away from her and promptly heads off to the mountain. Michael, on the other hand, is reluctant to climb because he doesn’t trust Mack’s company to keep all of their promises. Michael feels that climbing the mountain for Mack would be the same as endorsing the company and telling people that the company is an honest company.

You can probably guess what happens. Michael and Derrick climb the mountain. They talk. They bond. They discuss they’re differing views on religion. And then one of them tragically dies and the survivor is forced to reconsider his life. It’s not a surprise when one of them dies because a movie like this can only really work if one of the two friends has tragically passed away before the end credits. And it’s not really a surprise as to who passes away because it’s not like a faith-based movie is going to kill the guy who needs to learn a lesson about taking responsibility and being a father. From the start, it’s obvious who among the two is doomed and, as such, there’s not much suspense to be found in The Climb.

On the plus side — and yes, I realize that I do always go out of my way to find something positive to say about nearly every movie I review but that’s just because I think every movie has something about it that can be appreciated — some of the climbing sequences are visually impressive. It’s obvious that the film’s producers decided to spend a little money on the mountain scenes and, as a result, the scenery is nice to look at. I’m a fan of nice scenery and I’ve sat through more than a few bad films just to see a pretty mountain.

Personally, and this won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, I’ve never felt the need to climb a mountain. If I can see what the top looks like from the ground, that’s enough for me.

A Movie A Day #140: The Rescue (1988, directed by Ferdinand Fairfax)

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

A group of Navy SEALs enter North Korea on a mission to destroy a submarine that has fallen into Kim Il-sung’s hands. They destroy the submarine but are captured before they can safely cross the border back into South Korea. With the SEALs facing a show trial and probable public execution, Admiral Rothman (James Cromwell) draws up a plan to rescure them. The U.S. government, not wanting to escalate the situation, shoots down the plan. (Americans giving up? Is Carter still president?) However, Rothman’s nerdy son, Max (Marc Price), gets a hold of the plan. Before you can say “Why didn’t anyone else think of this?”, he and the children of the SEALs are sneaking into North Korea and rescuing their fathers!

This is a pure 1980s film. Like Red Dawn, it shows that America is such a great country that even our teenagers are stronger than the average well-armed communist. Of the actors playing the rescuers, the best known is Kevin Dillon. He plays the rebel who smokes cigarettes and rides a motorcycle. Though their relationship may be strained, his father (Edward Albert) is still happy when Dillon suddenly shows up in North Korea. Soon, father and son are working together to blow up America’s enemies. This movie’s about as dumb as they come and it’s another example of Hollywood presenting North Korea as just being the junior varsity version of China but it’s also undeniably entertaining, especially if you don’t care about things like plausibility. Watch it the next time that Kim Jong-un threatens to blow you up. Who needs Chuck Norris when you’ve got Kevin Dillon?

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Apollo 13 (dir by Ron Howard)

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I just finished watching the TCM premiere of the 1995 Best Picture nominee, Apollo 13. Of course, it wasn’t the first time I had seen it. Apollo 13 is one of those films that always seems to be playing somewhere and why not? It’s a good movie, telling a story that is all the more remarkable and inspiring for being true. In 1970, the Apollo 13 flight to the moon was interrupted by a sudden explosion, stranding three astronauts in space. Fighting a desperate battle against, NASA had to figure out how to bring them home. Apollo 13 tells the story of that accident and that rescue.

There’s a scene that happens about halfway through Apollo 13. The heavily damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft is orbiting the moon. Originally the plan was for Apollo 13 to land on the moon but, following that explosion on the craft, those plans have been cancelled. Inside the spacecraft, three astronauts can only stare down at the lunar surface below them.

As Commander Jim Lovell stares out the craft’s window, we suddenly see him fantasizing about what it would be like if the explosion hadn’t happened and if he actually could fulfill his dream of walking on the moon. We watch as Lovell (and, while we know the character is Jim Lovell, we are also very much aware that he’s being played by beloved cinematic icon Tom Hanks) leaves his foot print on the lunar surface. Lovell opens up his visor and, for a few seconds, stands there and takes in the with the vastness of space before him and making the scene all the more poignant is knowing that Tom Hanks, before he became an award-winning actor, wanted to be a astronaut just like Jim Lovell. Then, suddenly, we snap back to the film’s reality. Back inside the spacecraft, Lovell takes one final look at the moon and accepts that he will never get to walk upon its surface. “I’d like to go home,” he announces.

It’s a totally earnest and unabashedly sentimental moment, one that epitomizes the film as a whole. There is not a hint of cynicism to be found in Apollo 13. Instead, it’s a big, old-fashioned epic, a story about a crisis and how a bunch of determined, no-nonsense professionals came together to save the day. “Houston,” Lovell famously says at one point, “we have a problem.” It’s a celebrated line but Apollo 13 is less about the problem and more about celebrating the men who, through their own ingenuity, solved that problem.

That Apollo 13 is a crowd-pleaser should come as no surprise. It was directed by Ron Howard and I don’t know that Howard has ever directed a film that wasn’t designed to make audiences break into applause during the end credits. When Howard fails, the results can be maudlin and heavy-handed. But when he succeeds, as he does with Apollo 13, he proves that there’s nothing wrong with old-fashioned, inspirational entertainment.

Of course, since Apollo 13 is a Ron Howard film, that means that Clint Howard gets a small role. In Apollo 13, Clint shows up as a bespectacled flight engineer. When astronaut Jack Swiggert (Kevin Bacon) mentions having forgotten to pay his taxes before going into space, Clint says, “He shouldn’t joke about that, they’ll get him.” It’s a great line and Clint does a great job delivering it.

Apollo 13 is usually thought of as being a Tom Hanks film but actually, it’s an ensemble piece. Every role, from the smallest to the biggest, is perfectly cast. Not surprisingly, Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan, and Ed Harris all turn in excellent performances. But, even beyond the marquee names, Apollo 13 is full of memorable performances. Watching it tonight, I especially noticed an actor named Loren Dean, who played a NASA engineer named John Aaron. Dean didn’t get many lines but he was totally believable in his role. You looked at him and you thought, “If I’m ever trapped in space, this is the guy who I want working to bring me home.”

Apollo 13 was nominated for best picture but it lost to Mel Gibson’s film Braveheart. Personally, out of the nominees, I probably would have picked Sense and Sensibility but Apollo 13 more than deserved the nomination.