Tag Archives: review

Film Review: Airport ’77 (dir by Jerry Jameson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Airport ’77 is the one where the plane ends up underwater.

If the first two Airport movies emphasized the competence of the the crew in both the airplane and the airport, Airport ’77 takes the opposite approach.  The first of the Airport films to be released after Watergate, Airport ’77 is a cynical film where no one seems to be particularly good at his or her job.  Viewers should be concerned the minute they see that Jack Lemmon is playing Captain Don Gallagher, the pilot of the soon-to-be-submerged airplane.  As opposed to Charlton Heston or even the first film’s Dean Martin, Jack Lemmon was always a very emotional actor.  He excelled at playing characters who were frustrated with modern life.  Just as with Heston and Martin, Lennon plays a pilot who is having an affair with a flight attendant.  The big difference is that, this time, the pilot is the one who desperately wants to get married while the flight attendant (played by Brenda Vacarro) is the one who doesn’t want to get tied down.  As an actor, Lemmon didn’t have the arrogance of a Heston or the unflappability of Dean Martin.  Instead, Jack Lemmon was the epitome of midlife ennui.  He’s disillusioned and he’s beaten down.  He’s America at the tail end of the 70s.

Another sign that Airport ’77 is a product of the post-Watergate era is the character of co-pilot Bob Chambers (Robert Foxworth).  Chambers might seem like a nice and friendly professional but actually, he’s the one who comes up with the plan to knock out all of the passengers with sleeping gas and fly the plane into the Bermuda Triangle so that his partners-in-crime can steal the valuable art works in the cargo hold.  Chambers plans is to land the plane on an unchartered isle so that he and Banker (Monte Markham) can make their escape before the rest of the people on the plane even wake up.  Instead, Chambers turns out to be as incompetent a pilot as he is a criminal.  He crashes the plane into the ocean, where it promptly sinks to the bottom.  The impact wakes up the passengers, all of whom can only watch in horror as the ocean envelopes their plane.  With the water pressure threatening to crush the plane, Captain Gallagher and engineer Stan Buchek (Darren McGavin) try to figure out how to get everyone to the surface.

As usual, the passengers are played by a collection of familiar faces.  Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten play former lovers who are reunited on the flight.  Christopher Lee is a businessman who is unhappily married to alcoholic Lee Grant.  Grant is having an affair with Lee’s business partner, Gil Gerard.  A young Kathleen Quinlan plays the girlfriend of blind pianist Tom Sullivan.  Robert Hooks is the bartender who ends up with a severely broken leg.  As the veterinarian who is called to doctor’s duty, M. Emmet Walsh gives the best performance in the film, if just because he’s one of the few characters who really gets to surprise us.  Actors like George Furth, Michael Pataki, and Tom Rosqui all wander around in the background, though I dare anyone watching to actually remember the names of the characters that they’re playing.  Airport ’77 has the largest number of fatalities of any of the Airport films, largely because even the good guys aren’t really sure about how to reach the surface.

George Kennedy returns as Joe Patroni, though his role is considerably smaller in this film than it was in the first two.   He shares most of his scenes with James Stewart, who plays the owner of the plane.  Fortunately, neither Stewart nor Kennedy were on the plane when it crashed.  Instead, they spend most of the movie in a control room, getting updates about the search.  They don’t get to do much in the film but it’s impossible not to smile whenever Jimmy Stewart is onscreen, even if he is noticeably frail.

Airport ’77 is the best-made of all of the Airport films.  The crash is well-directed and the scenes of water dripping into the plane are properly ominous.  There’s not much depth to the characters but Jack Lemmon and Darren McGavin are likable as the two main heroes and Christopher Lee seems to be enjoying himself in a change-of-pace role.  Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten, two old pros, are wonderful together.  That said, Airport ’77 is never as much fun as the first two films.  Even with the plane underwater, it can’t match the spectacle of Karen Black having to fly a plane until Charlton Heston can be lowered into the cockpit.

Film Review: Airport 1975 (dir by Jack Smight)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

About halfway through 1974’s Airport 1975, Sid Caesar has one of the greatest lines in film history.

“The stewardess is flying the plane?”

Hell yeah, she is!  After a collision with another plane takes out the crew of a Broening 747, it’s up to head flight attendant Nancy (Karen Black) to keep the plane from crashing until another pilot can somehow be lowered into the cockpit of the stricken airliner.  Nancy’s never flown an airplane before but she is dating Al Murdock (Charlton Heston), who may be scared of commitment but who is still described as being one of the greatest pilots who has ever lived.  None other than Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) says that no one knows more about flying than Al Murdock.

George Kennedy is the only cast member to return from the original Airport.  When we previously met Patroni, he was the cigar-chewing chief mechanic for Trans World Airlines.  In Airport 1975, he’s suddenly an executive with Columbia Airlines.  His wife (Susan Clark) and his son (Brian Morrison) are also on the plane.  Joe Patroni and Al Murdock are determined to bring that plane safely to the ground in Salt Lake City and if that means dropping a pilot into the cockpit from a helicopter, that’s what they’ll do.  It’s all a question of whether or not Nancy can keep that plane from crashing while they round up a helicopter and a pilot.

Airport 1975 is so famous for being the movie where the stewardess is flying the plane that it’s often overlooked that it’s also the film where Linda Blair plays a young girl in need of a kidney transplant.  When Sister Ruth (Helen Reddy) sees that the girl has a guitar with her, Ruth sings a folk song that has everyone on the airplane smiling.  (If I was on a plane and someone started playing folk music, I’d probably jump out.  That may seem extreme but seriously, you don’t want to test me on how much I dislike the folk sound.)  This scene was, of course, parodied in Airplane!  In fact, it’s pretty much impossible to watch Airport 1975 without thinking about Airplane!

It’s also overlooked that Gloria Swanson is one of the many stars to appear in this film but Swanson is the only one playing herself.  Gloria Swanson starts as Gloria Swanson and I assume that this 1974 film was set in 1975 in order to generate some suspense as to whether or not Swanson was going to survive the crash.  Swanson talks about how, in 1919, Cecil B. DeMille flew her over California.  She does not talk about Joseph Kennedy or Sunset Boulevard and that’s a shame.  As I watched Airport 1975, I found myself thinking about how different the film would have been if Gloria Swanson had been the one who had to pilot the plane instead of Karen Black.

“Gloria Swanson is piloting the plane?”

As entertaining as that would have been, it would have meant missing out on Karen Black’s intense performance as Nancy.  At times, Nancy seems to be so annoyed with the situation that one gets the feeling that she’s considering intentionally crashing the plane into one of Utah’s mountains.  At other times, she seems to be at a strange sort of peace with whatever happens.  There’s a scene where she attempts to clear some of the clutter in the cockpit and an instrument panel falls on her head and it’s such a powerful moment because I know the exact same thing would have happened to me in that situation.  There’s another moment where I’m pretty sure she accidentally kills the first pilot who attempts to drop into the cockpit and again, it’s a mistake that anyone could have made.  The film doesn’t call her out on it because the film understand that none of us are perfect, except for Charlton Heston.

Speaking of which, Karen Black’s emotional performance contrasts nicely with the performance of Charlton Heston.  This is perhaps the most Hestonesque performance that Charlton Heston ever gave.  Al Murdock is confident, he doesn’t suffer fools, and he’s condescending as Hell.  Every time he calls Nancy “honey,” you’ll want to cringe.  And yet, it’s hard not to appreciate someone who can be so confident while wearing a tight yellow turtleneck.  Charlton Heston watches as the first pilot to attempt to enter the cockpit plunges to his death and immediately declares that it’s his turn to try.  “Get me in that monkey suit!” he snaps and it’s such a Heston moment that you have to love it.

There’s a ton of people in this movie.  Norman Fell, Jerry Stiller, and Conrad Janis play three rowdy drunks.  Erik Estrada, Efrem Zimbalist, and Roy Thinnes are the unfortunate members of the flight crew.  Dana Andrews has a heart attack while piloting a small private plane.  Myrna Loy appears not as herself but as Mrs. Delvaney, who spends almost the entire flight drinking.  Christopher Norris plays Bette, who says that she may look like a teenager but she prefers to be called “Ms. Teenager” and that she’s trained in Kung Fu.  Beverly Garland played Dana Andrews’s wife.  Larry Storch is an obnoxious reporter.  Character actor Alan Fudge plays Danton, the Salt Lake City controller who keeps Nancy calm until Charlton Heston can start snapping at people.

The first time that I watched Airport 1975, I was pretty dismissive of it but, over the years, I’ve rewatched it a few times and I have to admit that I’ve fallen in love with this wonderfully ridiculous film.  There’s just so many odd details, like American Graffiti showing up as the plane’s in-flirt entertainment and Sid Caesar saying that he’s only on the flight because he has a small role in the movie and he finally wanted to see it.  (It seems like it would have been cheaper to just go to a drive-in but whatever.)  And there’s Karen Black, giving the performance of a lifetime and letting us all know that, in 1975, the stewardess flies the airplane!

And she does a damn good job of it too!

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Airport (dir by George Seaton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1970, Airport is a real time capsule.

As one can guess from the title, it takes place over 12 hours at an airport.  The airport in question is a fictional one, Chicago’s Lincoln International Airport.  Over the course of one night, almost everything that can happen does happen.

A sudden snowstorm causes almost all of the other airports in the midwest to shut down for the night.  On Lincoln’s Runway 29, one of the airplanes gets stuck in the show when it lands.  No one is hurt but, until Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) and his men can dig out and move that plane, no one is going to be able to land on 29.

Runway 22 is still open but the homeowners association is currently picketing the airport to protest the amount of noise pollution that is caused whenever airplanes use Runway 22.  Using 22 in the middle of the night is sure to prove their point and make trouble for the airport.  Mel Bakersfield (Burt Lancaster), the airport manager, thinks that the only solution is to buy up all of the land around the airport but the Board of Commissioners disagrees.  Mel says that airports have to adjust to changing times but no one is willing to put up the money.

Mel is unhappily married to the wealthy and socially ambitious Cindy (Dana Wynter), who is not happy to learn that, due to the storm, Mel is going to miss an important dinner party.  Tanya Livingston (Jean Seberg), head of customer relations for Trans Global Airlines, is in love with Mel but Mel isn’t the type to cheat, even if his marriage is troubled.

On the other hand, Mel’s brother-in-law, pilot Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin, the hippest pilot in the sky), has absolutely no problem cheating on his wife (Barbara Hale).  Vernon is currently having an affair with flight attendant, Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset).  When Gwen tells Vernon that she’s pregnant, Vernon says that “it” can be taken care of in Sweden.  Gwen says that she wants to have the baby.

Meanwhile, Ada Quonsett (Helen Hayes, who won an Oscar for her performance here) is an elderly woman who has developed an addiction to stowing away on flights.  She manages to sneak onto a plane flying to Rome, the same plane on which Vernon is the co-pilot.  (Technically, Vernon is on the plane to evaluate the captain, who is played by Barry Nelson.  Yes, the same Barry Nelson who played Jimmy Bond in 1954’s Casino Royale and Mr. Ullman in The Shining.)  Ada ends up sitting next to a nervous man named D.O. Guerrero (Van Heflin).  Having failed as a businessman, Guerrero has a bomb in his briefcase and is planning on blowing himself and the airplane up so that his wife (Maureen Stapleton) can receive an insurance payment.

Seriously, that’s a lot of drama!  It seems like this airport has a little bit of everything!  But you know what this airport doesn’t have?  It doesn’t have the TSA groping people and telling them what they can and cannot take on the plane with them.  It doesn’t have the endless lines full of tired travelers who just want to be allowed to get on with their business.  It doesn’t have the suspicious atmosphere that has become a part of modern air travel.  Compared to the average airport experience of 2026, the movie’s airport is a paradise, full of people who are working hard, who are polite to each other, and who all seem to know what they’re doing.  I’d take the drama of 1970’s Airport over the reality of a modern airport any day.

Airport is very much a celebration of competent people getting the job done.  On the whole, we really don’t learn much about the characters played by Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Barry Nelson, and George Kennedy but we definitely learn that they’re all very good at their jobs.  Even Helen Hayes’s stowaway is meant to be likable precisely because she is so good at stowing away.  The only person who is portrayed as being a failure as Van Heflin’s D.O. Guerrero and he’s so upset about not being good at his job that he decides to blow himself up.  Though the film is full of split screens and dialogue that was probably risqué by the standards of a 1970 studio film, one gets the feeling that Airport probably felt old-fashioned even when it was first released.  One can only imagine what George Kennedy’s hard-working Joe Patroni would have thought about the characters in a film like Easy Rider.  About as close as Airport gets to the counterculture is Dean Martin mockingly calling Burt Lancaster “dad” while telling him to get his favorite runway cleared.  This is a film where even Dean Martin is a stickler for regulations.

Based on a best-selling novel, Airport is often listed as being one of the worst films to ever be nominated for best picture.  And …. well, okay, it’s definitely not a great film, especially when compared to some of the other films of the early 70s.  The film was the highest grossing film of 1970 and that, more than anything, probably explains why it was nominated.  Airport moves at a very deliberate pace and and visually, it is pretty flat.  It looks like a competently made television pilot.  When I first did a capsule review of Airport in 2010, I was fairly harsh towards it.  I have to admit, though, that when I recently rewatched the film, I actually kind of liked it.  Compared to today’s world, there’s something comforting about the competence of the characters in Airport.  Airport has its flaws and it definitely should not have been nominated for 11 Oscars but it presents a world that seems almost cozy compared to what we have to deal with nowadays.

Dean Martin as a pilot?  Helen Hayes as a chatty stowaway?  George Kennedy chewing on an unlit cigar and complaining to Burt Lancaster about how incompetent the TGA pilots are?  Hey, why not?  If it means not having to deal with the TSA and knowing that everyone is dedicated to getting me to where I’m going in comfort, I’m all for taking my next flight out Lincoln International.

Scene That I Love: A New Year Begins In The Godfather Part II

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy New Year!

Well, the clock has now struck midnight on the West Coast and that officially means that it is 2026 in the United States!  What better way to start things off than by sharing a scene that I love from one of the greatest and most important films of all time, 1974’s The Godfather Part II?

The scene below takes place on New Year’s Eve.  The scene starts in 1958 and it ends in 1959.  Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and his brother Fredo (John Cazale) are in Havana at the invitation of Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg).  Roth know that Cuba could be a gold mine for the American mob but Michael, from the start, realizes that the country’s corrupt government is on the verge of collapse and that it’s about to be replaced by something even worse.  (Admittedly, that’s my opinion.  Director Francis Ford Coppola had a much higher opinion of Castro and the communists than I did.)   Tragically, it’s also in Havana that Michael realizes that Fredo betrayed him to his enemies.  On December 31st, 1958, as the new year is celebrated in Havana, the rebels ride into the city.  While the President of Cuba prepares to announce that he will be fleeing the country, Michael confronts his brother and tells him that he knows the truth.  Later, as they both attempt to flee the country, Michael and Fredo see each other on the streets.  Fredo runs from Michael, refusing his offer to help.  Though Fredo would eventually return to the family, the film’s ending revealed Fredo’s first instinct was the correct one.

Here’s a scene that I love, featuring great work from both Al Pacino and the brilliant John Cazale:

The Films of 2025: Him (dir by Justin Tipping)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For an athlete, what does it take to become the greatest of all time?

Does it take natural talent?

Does it take determination and a willingness to keep playing and practicing through the pain?

Does it take going to an isolated desert training camp and getting regular injections of someone else’s blood?

That was the question asked by Him, a so-called “sports horror” film that came out in September of this year.

Tyriq Withers plays Cam Cade, a college football player who is on the verge of turning professional.  Every one is expecting Cam to be the number one pick at the upcoming league draft …. or at least, they are up until Cam is struck in the back of the head by a man wearing a goat costume.  Cam suffers a severe concussion.  The doctors warn his mother that another severe brain injury could end his career but both Cam and his family are determined for him to turn pro.  Even when Cam was a child, his father was grooming him to become a football star.  Cam grew up idolizing Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), a college quarterback who came back from a terrible injury, turned professional, and who has since led the San Antonio Saviors to eight championships.

In fact, Isaiah is willing to train with Cam!  Isaiah is considering retirement and he thinks that Cam could be a worthy replacement.  Cam travels out to the desert compound, where Isaiah lives with his staff and his wife (Julia Fox).  After making his way through the groupies who are angry at the thought of anyone trying to replace Isaiah on the team, Cam begins to train with his idol.  Isaiah spends a lot of time talking about Roman gladiators and how tough it is to be black quarterback.  He pushes Cam to his limits, forcing him to become a more aggressive and a more arrogant player.  Isaiah shows Cam that it takes more than just having talent to be the GOAT.  Instead, it’s an entire lifestyle.  Cam starts to have bizarre visions while getting regular shots (“for the pain”) from Isaiah’s doctor.  Eventually, Cam learns the truth about how great players are created and about how success can come at the cost of one’s soul.

Him is definitely a flawed film.  A major problem is that neither Marlon Wayans nor Tyriq Withers really have the screen presence to be believable in their roles.  Wayans, in particular, seems miscast and he gives a rather one-note performance as a character who is supposed to be as charismatic as he is athletic.  (Wayans comes across as being neither charismatic nor particularly athletic.)  The script attempts to deal with just about every controversy there is about football but it often does so in the most shallow, perfunctory way possible.  The whole gladiator thing?  We’ve all heard it before.

That said, the film’s narrative is so over-the-top (and, I believe, intentionally so) and the direction is so excessively stylish that it does hold your attention.  For all of the film’s flaws, the compound is a wonderfully ominous location and the use of X-ray shots to show us concussions and twisted limbs does rather forcefully drive home the point that football is not a gentle game.  Him may not be good but it’s just ludicrous enough to be watchable.

The Films Of 2025: Warfare (dir by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been said that it’s next to impossible to make a true anti-war film because war itself is so cinematic that even the most harrowing portrayals of combat ultimately make it look exciting and, for those who survive, cool.

Now, I don’t quite believe that myself.  Stanley Kubrick made three of the most effective anti-war movies ever made, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket, though it should be noted that the first two of those films were more critical of the incompetence of those running the war than war itself.  Both Lewis Milestone and Edward Berger made strong anti-war statements by adapting All Quiet On The Western Front.  Both films featured battle scenes that were devoid of the personal heroics that tend to crop up in other war films.  (Platoon may have been firmly against the Vietnam War but it’s still hard not to cheer when a crazed Charlie Sheen takes on the entire VC on his own.)  Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H made an effective anti-war statement by focusing on what comes after the battle.  The scene where a geyser of blood suddenly erupts from a soldier’s neck shocks, terrifies, and ultimately outrages us.  That said, it is true that an effective battle scene, especially one that leaves the viewer feeling as if they are actually in the middle of combat themselves, does tend to get the heart pumping and the adrenaline surging, regardless of the politics of the person watching.  We tend to look up to those who have been tested by combat, those who have come under fire and who have survived.  One can be anti-war while still understanding why war itself has been a popular cinematic topic since the silent era.

I’m thinking about this because of the online reaction to Warfare, a film that came out in April of this year.  Based on actual skirmish that occurred in Iraq in 2007, the film plays out largely in real time and follows a platoon of Navy SEALs as they set up operations in a two-story house and then later try to escape when they come under fire from insurgents.  The film was written and co-directed by Ray Mendoza, who was one of the SEALs involved in the actual incident.  In the film, Mendoza is played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai while other SEALs are played by actors like Will Poulter, Michael Gandolfini, and Charles Melton.  The film itself doesn’t tell us much about the individual SEALs.  We don’t get any heart-breaking stories about anyone’s homelife.  No one takes the time to pull out a picture of their girlfriend back home or any of the other usual stuff that happens in war movies.  There’s really not time for that.  For over an hour, Warfare puts the viewers directly in the middle of the battle and it does a good job of it.  The bullets, the explosions, all of them seem far too real as we watch.

The online reaction to Warfare has definitely been a bit mixed.  There are quite a few people who are convinced that Warfare is a pro-war, “imperialist” film.  “Why did Alex Garland make this!?” cries one of the top reviews over on Letterboxd.  Myself, I disagree.  It’s not a political film.  It’s neither pro- nor anti-war.  Instead, it’s a film about a group of men who are fighting to survive.  And to me, it is an effective anti-war film because it shows exactly how much damage a bullet and a grenade can do to a human being.  When one of the SEALs is seriously wounded, there’s no glamour to it.  Instead, you feel his pain and you realize that it’s not even that clear what the mission was in the first place.  Warfare is a tough and gritty film.  It’s a combat film that makes me happy that I’ll probably never come under fire while also respecting the men who refused to leave anyone behind.

If peace could be achieved by didactic speeches and heavy-handed moralizing, it would have happened long before now.  Warfare presents what happened and leave it to the viewer to draw their own conclusion.

The Films of 2025: Steve (dir by Tim Mielants)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cillian Murphy plays the title character in this rather downbeat British film.

Though Steve has a properly depressing British flat in a properly depressing British town, he still spends the majority of his time at the reform school that he struggles to manage.  The students are rowdy and quick to fight but Steve insists that all of them can be reached if the teachers just try hard enough.  Steve has taken a particular interest in a student called Shy (Jay Lycurgo).  Shy alternates between moments of genuine insight and empathy and moments of pure rage.  He’s practically begging for someone to take the risk to get close to him but, at the same time, he instinctively pushes people away.

Steve takes place over one 24-hour period.  We first meet Shy while he’s getting high in a nearby field.  Later, he takes a call from his mother and she promptly informs him that he’s no longer allowed to be a part of her life.  As for Steve, he has to deal with not only a documentary crew but also the news that the building housing his school has been sold and that the school that he’s dedicated his life to will now be shutting down.  Steve tries to hold back his temper, self-medicating his bad back with painkillers and alcohol.

Directed in a frenetic manner by Tim Mielants, Steve is a film that seems like it should be better than it actually is.  It’s a film dealing with an important subject.  Steve cares about his dysfunctional students but that’s not going to make much of a difference if his school gets shut down.  Shy is intelligent but also only a few steps away from self-destructing.  Cillian Murphy, who also produced the film, gives a committed performance.  And yet the film is never quite as affecting as it should be.

The film itself is extremely British, which is a polite way of saying that the nonstop cursing got boring after about five minutes and the harsh lighting seemed to be designed to make sure that we understood that everyone was very, very tired.  Visually, the hand-held camera work couldn’t disguise just how drab everything looked.  Beyond that, though, I have to admit that, as the film reached the 60 minute mark, I realized that I was just tired of Steve.  I was tired of his scraggly beard.  I was tired of his constant back pain.  I was tired of his stupid tennis ball.  I was tired of the pained expression on his face.  I was tired of his nonstop resentment and his complaining.  I was tired of his inability to fight back.  I was just sick to death of spending time with him.  Murphy commits himself to the roll but Steve is not a compelling character.  If anything, he’s a bit whiny.  Seriously, Steve, don’t just lie down on the floor and talk about how much you resent things.  Get out there and fight for your school, dude.

There are parts of the film that work but there are other parts that just fall totally flat.  The use of the documentary crew feels unnecessary and there’s not really any payoff to their presence.  A scene where a stuffy member of Parliament visits the school and talks about the importance of not allowing Britain to go communist is so poorly-executed that it almost feels like a parody of a Ken Loach film.  Even when Steve finally does let go of his emotions, it feels like a false note.

In the end, I’ll give Steve credit for trying to deal with a real issue.  The fact of the matter is that society — both in the UK and in the US — is far too quick to give up on those who have been deemed as delinquents.  That said, the film falls flat.  It’s a noble failure but failure nonetheless.