Welcome to the 159th Edition of my long-running series. I hope everyone
had a Happy Thanksgiving. A TIME FOR CHRISTMAS is going very well and we
end that show tomorrow. Right after that is over, I will be starting
rehearsals for A FEW GOOD MEN. Through the years, I have thought up many
selection processes for this blog and soem stick and some really don't.
The one I am starting next week is what I call the Random Myspace
Selection. I put my top friends on random where I chose the top friend
that comes up. I ended up making nine selections which will come up
starting next week. Some editions may have none and some may have all
nine which is very unlikely, in fact next week I think it will be around
three. So if you are my friend on Myspace, you could be randomly
selected. Also note that the title is all I have to go on so if you say
just KING KONG, then any version is fair game. Also if you say something
like "all Robert De Niro" movies, then you never know what I might
select but I will still credit you for the selection. After I'm done
with these nin, then I choose the next nine.
War Eagle, Arkansas
(2007): This is one of the movies I saw at our local Harvest Moon Film
Festival. For right now, the only availability of this movie seems to be
at film festivals but this has been pretty well received and rightfully
so in my opinion. This takes place in a small-town where we have a
couple older youths. One is a high-school player but has a stuttering
problem named Enoch and the other is in a wheelchair nick-named Wheels
and both are best friends. Enoch meets a girl who accepts his stuttering
problem but puts a wedge between him and Wheels. Ths is a great movie
showing small-town values and the difficulty of living in a small-town.
Brian Dennehy is Enoch's over-bearing father and NYPD BLUE alum James
McDaniel plays a local preacher. It has a lot of nice references to the
underrated classic A PLACE IN THE SUN.
Report (1967): Now we go
back 40 years to this Bruce Connor short documentary, another
hard-to-obtain film. It shows some very good footage to the JFK
assassination and some other recordings from Jack Ruby. I found a
somewhat limited version of this short on http://www.download-finished.com/archive/bruce-conner-report-1967avi.html.
Three
Guys Named Mike (1951): Charles Walters directs this comedy which stars
Jane Wyman as a flight attendent named Marcy. She is very ambitious and
always wants to do the right thing only for something to go a bit wrong
and this could almost be some informational video on how great it is to
be a flight attendent. She then keeps meeting people, three of them
named Mike and all of which she is interested in and when it comes down
to it must choose. Van Johnson, Howard Keel, and Barry Sullivan play the
three Mikes. This is nothing great but still enjoyable and worth it for
Jane Wyman who I feel is not given the recognition she deserves in the
modern day.
Dark City (1998): Now I finally bring in a title that
some of you may actually know. Alex Proyas directed this sci-fi film
which stars Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch who awakens to find murdered
bodies and does not know anything that happened the night before. When
investigating, he encounters a strange group of people called The
Strangers who want to control his mind and powers. 24 star Kiefer
Sutherland is a doctor who is helping the Strangers and one of my
favorite actresses Jennifer Connelly plays John's wife who sticks by him
no matter what. Richard O'Brien who is most known for writing and
playing Riff-Raff in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW also co-stars. This
in some ways reminds me of THE MATRIX which came out about a year later
and this I like much better.
A Night in Casablanca (1946): Now I
bring you the Marx Brothers, well Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. They are in
post-war Casablanca and must stop a band of Nazis from getting a
treasure. This is much later work from the brothers which have a lot of
great comedic moments from all three so if you like the Marx Brothers
and classic comedy, you'll love this.
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005): I
chose my facebook friend Stephanie for this one who I went to Ball State
with. This is a documentary which takes place in urban New York which
has some elementary schools who learn ballroom dancing for a nation-wide
competition among other schools. I am a firm believer that just the
classroom is not enough for kids, especially low-income kids in the
urban area. They need something positive and with the popularity of
ballroom dancing, both girls and boys really enjoyed it and noted
changed behavior into a select few of the students. This was something
meaningful in their life where I truly believe that when children have
something like this that they are far less likely to do drugs and other
things. I'm sure you don't want to hear my little ramble but we all know
that the juvenile centers are filling up. I felt this was a very well
done documentary and shows there is hope.
Wizard of Oz (1925):
Everyone, notice the year and remember that talkies did not start until
1927. There were many versions of this film before 1939 and this was one
of the features that was about 70 minutes long. This one is quite
different from the version we all know today. This starts out with a
toymaker reading a story to his son or grandson which was the L. Frank
Baum classic. This was a story where Dorothy learns that Aunt Em and
Uncle Henry, who is a big, mean slob here are not her real aunt and
uncle and that Dorothy is really a princess in Oz. I won't go into how
we see the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion. A young Oliver Hardy
played the Tin Man, well the Tin Woodsman here and was quite funny and
would go on to become that Hardy part of the famous Laurel and Hardy
duo. There also appear to be no witches in this Oz. I got this on
Netflix and I see it's on Monday morning on TCM at 12:15 so if you have
DVR or any recording capabilities, it may not be a bad idea to check it
out.
The Slaughter Rule (2002): Alex and Andrew Smith directed
this small-town film that I found on TCM. Ryan Gosling stars as a
small-town guy cut from his football team. David Morse stars as a coach
named Gideon who coaches an underground 6-person team league. The two
then form a relationship that tests many limits. There's not much more I
can say here. This by no means in anything that will live on in my mind
but the performances make it worth a look with Clea Duvall also
co-starring in this film.
The Great Train Robbery (1979): I now
pay tribute to the late Michael Crichton who wrote the novel, screenplay
and directed the movie which is based on a real-life 1855 robbery said
to be the first train robbery. Most know him as the author of JURASSIC
PARK which I'm sure will be on here again one day but if I'm going to do
this I like to look at something a little more under the radar which I
felt was this one. Sean Connery stars as a master thief who masterminds a
big train robbery with the help of his girlfriend, played by
Leslie-Anne Down, and another top-rate thief played by Donald
Sutherland. This was a very interesting film making anti-heroes of these
thieves. It is a very enjoyable and somewhat slow-paced film. RIP Mr.
Crichton.
Hard Boiled (1992): I now end with this great John
Woo/Chow Yun-Fat collaboration. John Woo shows that he can turn absolute
violence into a beautiful artform. Chow stars as revenge-crazed cop
Tequila whose partner is murdered. He goes after a group of Triads, the
equivalent to our Mafia, to bring down their leader and teams with an
undercover cop, played by Tony Leung. These in my opinion are some of
the greatest action films of all time. Most people seem to only know
Chow Yun-Fat for his American work but this is an example of why you
should check out his Hong Kong work that inspired a lot of American
action films. You can get quite a rush when watching this movie and I
bought this for $9 at Wal-Mart.
Well, that is it for this week so
if you don't have your movie section filled out on your profile, you
should get that taken care of if you want to be mentioned here. Stay
tuned for next week which has another documentary, a war film, and
something with Cameron Diaz.
FUN LITTLE FACTS
Kiefer Sutherland (Dark City) and Donald Sutherland (Great Train Robbery) are real-life son and father.
Richard
O'Brien (Dark City) played Riff-Raff in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.
My facebook friends Kevin and Cody played the role in various
productions of Muncie Civic Theater's version of the show.
I was
in THE WIZARD OF OZ at the the Muncie Civic Theater in 2006 as the
Winkie General. It was based more on the version we know from 1939. The
Civic did the show I believe in 1999 where my facebook friend Kristen
played Dorothy. In the one I was in my facebook and myspace friend
Lindsey was Dorothy, Corey was the Scarecrow (as well as the one in
1999), and Marty was the Cowardly Lion.
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