Bonnie & Clyde - 1967

Had this on my list for sometime and finally got to it. This movie reminded me of watching Oh Brother Where Art Thou for the first time. You need a couple of days after the film is over to think about why the director did things a certain way in the movie, why actors played their parts the way they did, and why the movie was so different than any other movie you have ever seen. This movie stands out because it is in a different class- it doesn't fit anywhere. Yes you learn what the true story is of the famous couple, but you also learn about their love affair and how demented and strange it was. Bonnie wanted to rush of loving a crook but longed to be a good girl. The misfits that follow them around are just strange- one of them played by Gene Hackman. Billy Wilder has a small but funny role. I would rate this PG-13 if it came out today. Very strange but effective movie. 3 stars.

The Jazz Singer (1980)

Here is a remake of the 1927 Al Jolson original of the same name.  Neil Diamond stars as a young Jewish cantor who would rather present his singing talents as a pop singer.  Regrettably he has to give up his family and faith in New York and head out to California to find this dream.  Along the way he divorces his wife, changes his name, signs a record deal, becomes a big deal, runs away, marries, has a kid, and ends on top.

The music was good, and acting was ok, the storyline was simplistic, and I really struggled with him so willingly throw away who he was to become who he wanted to be.  This is worth a one time watch, but is very predictable.

Iron Man 3

Tony Stark is struggling with anxiety since the large battle in New York, and he is wondering about his role moving forward as a super hero. Throughout the show he struggles with this, but is confronted with a new enemy. A large battle ensues, and the ending is one to surprise the viewers; will there be any more Iron Man? I liked this movie and felt it was another good addition to the Marvel movie collection.

Yankee Doodle Dandee - 1942

James Cagney delivers a 5 star performance as he plays the lead role of a real life American hero- George M. Cohan. Nominated for 8 Oscars and took home 3- including best Actor for Cagney. I didn't know a lot about Cohan's life so I found the movie very informative as well as entertaining. My kids loved the music and I loved everything about this movie. I am sort of a sucker for any type of movie that depicts life for people on the Vauderville circut and portraying the ups and downs associated with theater circuits. I can only imagine all the rehearsals that it took to make this movie- thousands of dance steps, songs to learn, stage props, costumes, my goodness what a movie. 4.5 stars. Deserves to be on AFI's top 100 and it is, I am glad I watched it.

Wuthering Heights - 1939

I am a little ashamed that I am watching this movie for the first time- it is a top 100 movie according to most polls and has been remade 17 TIMES since 1920- according to IMDB! The movie is based off a very popular book novel written by Emily Bronte. Not sure what took me so long to get to it. The movie was nominated for 8 Academy Awards. I grew up with a girl in my ward (let’s call her Naomi) and we have been friends our entire lives. The past 15 years of her life have been difficult. She has never given her marriage what it needs, because she feels her heart was given to somebody else before her marriage. That somebody else is also a good friend of mine (let’s call him Eric). Eric has been married to someone else for 15 years, as has Naomi. He has no interest in Naomi, but he understands that she still fantasizes about him all the time. She drives by his house, calls his phone, talks to others about how she should have married him, etc. You may think I am making this up but I am not. It is a very sad situation and we have all told her to move on with her life and appreciate the husband and four children she has. She has chosen to live a life of misery and the grass is greener on the other side mentality approach to marriage. Some people believe that there is only one person for you to marry in this world; others believe that you can love more than once. I have always been a believer in the latter. Naomi feels that once your heart is saved for someone the rest of your life is misery unless you are with them. She had her chance to marry Eric and she turned him down. It was her choice. Eric did love her at one time, but like the rest of us he moved on and now loves the person he is married to. I could laugh Wuthering Heights off as a stupid chick flick - three tissue - tear jerker. But to me it wasn't silly, it was sad. It made me realize that the movie represents real people and their problems. Merle Oberon delivers an Oscar winning performance in my opinion (she did not win) as Cathy Earnshaw. Cathy grows up as a rich socialite on the shores of England. She loves the fanfare of being a part of the upper crust but her heart belongs to a stable boy named Heathcliff. Heathcliff is played by Laurence Olivier (who also should have won an Oscar). Heathcliff was taken in by Cathy's father and given a place to live- but when the father dies Cathy's older brother places Heathcliff where he belongs- in the stable. A beggar and peasant should never live with royalty. Healthcliff and Cathy grew up best friends and romantic interests, even thought they kind of are adopted brother and sister. It is Cathy's brother that stops her from being able to love Heathcliff because he doesn't deserve to have a normal life. Cathy then makes the decision that haunts her forever- she decides to move on and marry a rich person instead of the person she loves. I don't want to tell you everything about the movie in case you want to watch it. Just be advised this is A BIG TIME CHICK FLICK! Very sappy, very sad, very over the top dramatic. The close up shots of the actor’s faces are fantastic. It is a great lesson in how black and white cinematography should be done. 3.5 stars for me but I won't be putting this tear jerker in my top 100 list, but at least I can undestand why it made some people's top 100 list- there are some good things about this movie. The overal moral is that hate, jealousy and revenge only lead to sadness.

First Blood (1982)

A couple of my fellow Clinic Managers are on a mission to help me watch more manly movies.  Since their first attempt was an epic failure, I was not to optimistic about watching "Rambo"; I do have to admit that this movie has more of a manly culture than Days of Thunder.  I was not sure what to expect when I sat down to watch this film, I knew Iwasn't going to like it, but I had committed to watch it so that I could expand my manly exposure in movies.

John Rambo is a Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War, and a Special Forces Green Beret.  Wandering around the country he is trying to catch up with his old buddies, but learns that they have all died and he is the lone survivor.  As he is walking through a small community as a vagrant, he is escorted out of town and eventually arrested.  The small town cops take it upon themselves to teach him, with an iron fist, how he should comply with societal rules.  During this abuse he has horrific flashbacks on torture sessions during the war, and snaps.  He makes easy business of the cops and escapes to the mountains.

While he is on the run he takes on the cops and the national guard in a one man war.  Needless to say he wins, but in the end his old Colnel convinces him to turn himself in.  This movie is fast paced, it does have a few laughs, but mostly it is a sad movie because of the way society treated him.  He obviously has PTSD, but during that time no one appreciated that, or even knew how to help him.  I thought this movie would help me feel manly or pumped full of adrenaline, but it did the exact opposite for me...it depressed me.  I got the same feeling after watching the Deer Hunter (Do not watch that movie, it is a downer of a show).  Overall 2 stars for me.  Up next Rambo II

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)

What is there to say?  Everyone but me has already seen this movie....and I loved it!!!!!!!

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

I was in a western mood so I decided to watch this film.  Boy I was not disappointed, guns, horses, trains, guns, girls, and more guns.  In my opinion this is one of the better films that Henry Fonda was in, and he played his roll marvelously.  Charles Bronson plays a bad guy on a mission to find and kill the men who changed his life forever.  Jason Robards is just a bad guy.  Henry Fonda is a bad guy playing a hit man for a rich train baron who is building a train track across America so he can see the Pacific Ocean.  He is buying up every piece of land along the way but a corrupt Irishman is standing in his way.  Fonda makes quick and easy work of the Irishman and his family, but he does not take into account the Irishman's new wife, played by Claudia Cardinale.  Come to find out the new wife is nothing more than a money grubbing prostitute from New Orleans.  Do you catch the drift of the movie?  There is not one good person to cheer for, you actually find yourself trying to side with one of the bad guys and root for them...I am so conflicted.  I really enjoyed the filming of this movie, the director allowed for facial expressions and long stares to tell the story.  If you like westerns this is a must watch.

My Sister Eileen - 1955

What a snoozer. Made it about 70 min and turned it off- 1 star. Stars Jack Lemmon and Janet Leigh. IMDB Review- "Ruth and her beautiful sister Eileen come to New York's Greenwich Village looking for "fame, fortune and a 'For Rent' sign on Barrow Street". They find an apartment (such as it is!), but fame and fortune are a lot more elusive. Ruth gets the attention of playboy publisher Bob Baker when she submits a story about her gorgeous sister Eileen. She tries to keep his attention by convincing him that she, (a "spinsterish old-maid writer") and the gorgeous, man-getting Eileen are one and the same person."

Dark Victory - 1939

Watching the special features on the DVD helped me appreciate this film even more. 1939 is known as Hollywoods best year- Wizard of OZ, Gone with the Wind and Wuthering Heights all came out that year and those movies are found in most critics top 100 list. Dark Victory actually was a smash success at the box office and was nomintated for just as many Academy Awards as those other three films- but didn't collect on the nominations and is therefore not as well known as the other three. Bette Davis begged Jack Warner at Warner Brothers to buy this script. After a few years he finally gave in. He didn't feel that the American public wanted to see a movie about a rich girl dying of brain cancer- and he was wrong. Bette Davis felt the movie would give her another Oscar - but it didn't do that, even though I felt like it was an amazing performance. The movie was ground breaking in that it proved you could have a movie about death that audiences would pay to see. Davis plays Judith- a rich younger 20's girl with more money than she needs. She is stubborn, pretty and very head strong. She goes through all the major steps of a major illness from denial down to acceptance at the end of her life. The word cancer wasn't used back in those days so they refer to her disease as a growth or tumor. Davis falls for her Neurosurgoen Dr. Steele played by George Brent (who had an affair with Davis in real life). Brent holds his own in the movie. Davis' best friend is played by British actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, who makes her American debut with this film (her only daughter is a result of a brief affair she had with Orson Wells in real life). Ronald Reagan plays Alec, one of Davis' friends, and has about 15 lines in the movie. A young Humphrey Bogart plays Davis' perosonal irish horse trainer named Michael O'Leary and is really just a support actor in this one. Because of Davis' performance I will give this 3.5 stars. Her rapid delivery of lines and body movement is 2nd to no one. She really was one of the best. The story is a sad one but delivers a great message- and without Davis I would give it 2.5 stars.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

AFI got this one right- it is a top 100 movie and it gets 5 stars from me. I love how the characters change. I love the loyalty that both the British and the Japenese soldiers possess towards their respective countries. Beutiful scenery adds to this great film. I brought my kids in to watch the last ten minutes so they could see the bridge explode.

An American In Paris

I wouldn't have put this on the AFI Top 100 list. Great dancing and singing but I thought the story was boring and predictible. 2 stars.

Days of Thunder (1990)

Cole Trickle, played by Tom Cruise, is invited to drive Nascar for the first time in his career; he is accustom to open wheel cars and short tracks.  The only problem is that Cole does not know how to properly drive these cars, and is not willing to really listen to the advise of his crew chief.  This stubbornness gets him into a wreck that could potentially end his career as a professional driver.  Throughout the recovery he falls for his neurosurgeon and begins to take life a little more serious, along the way he finds that he can overcome his internal fears.

I am here to tell you that this is a man's movie through and through, and it is quite possibly one of the best man movies I have ever seen.  The first part of the show displays Dennis Quaid playing a straight role of the team owner.  He is interacting with Robert Duvall (probably one of the finest character actors of a generation) who is a reluctant and stubborn retired crew chief.  Together they devise a plan to bring in a new driver that will take them to places they have never been before in the racing world.

Around the twelve minute mark the making of a great film is ruined when Maverick rides his motorcycle in from Top Gun to show Quaid, Duvall, and John C Reilly how he can drive a Nascar car.  As he gets off of his bike you can literally see the camera angles change so that you do not see the boxes that Tom Cruise is standing on to make him look as tall as the other actors.  To tell you the truth it was not until this show that I realized how one-dimensional Cruise was as an actor.  While he was arguing with Duvall, it felt like he was arguing with...well anyone from his movies (this guy cannot act!!).  Even though he has performed with some of the most talented actors of our era, I am convinced it is only because he is eye candy for the ladies; but I will get to that in a moment.

You might say that this movie was not that bad, and frankly it can't get any worse than what you have already read, but wait there is more.  How do you make Days of Thunder worse, I will tell you, add Nicole Kidman as his doctor.  Her acting was so wretched it felt like you could also envision the queue cards that were being held off set for her to read.  There was no chemistry for these two on the screen, but as a viewer you got sucked down the rabbit hole of the moronic writing of this film.  I could not look away from a movie that had the line, "You look like a monkey f$%(*ing a football."  If that is not a line for a man movie I don't know what one is.

Did I just refer to this movie as a man movie for the second time in this review....ugh, what am I thinking?  This was a chick flick through and through!!!  As my wife so lovingly said to me as I was watching this film, "Why are you watching a chick flick, all this is is a love story surrounded by racing so the girls could get their guys to watch it."  "Great," I say back to her, "now you have just ruined Top Gun and turned it into a chick flick as well."  Oh how true it is though.  The story lines were pathetically similar, the love story was identical, and the ending was intolerably predictable. 

To tell you the truth, the only reason I watched this movie was because a co-worker/friend told me how great it was, and how it was a manly movie.  Well, I hate to break it to them, but they have fallen victim to clever advertising, weak story telling, and action packed sequences all wrapped up tidily in a chick flick, honestly, what is next?  Steel Magnolias?  Up next...Rambo I - XIV

Why Soylent Green Sucked.

1. The story took place in 2022, but it felt like they were stuck in the year 1977.  Be creative, use a little imagination to try and make it feel like it is in the future.  Even 2001 A Space Odyssey tried with their space crafts; granted they still had phone operators, but at least they tried.
2. Where are all the children?  There are over 40 million people in New York alone, but there are no children.  I can understand how they would not be able to procreate since they were stacked on top of each other on stair ways.
3. Did no one care about their relatives?  If a giant front loader truck came along and scooped up your family member and you never heard from them again wouldn't you begin to worry?
4. Why all the pollution?  People were not driving cars, they were just wandering around like zombies.
5. Why all the rationing?  People are born and people die, there is no over populating of the plant.  I think I am being too harsh on this because that was a common fear during the era of the film production.
6. Charlton Heston?  Really?  Was Clint Eastwood too busy making Every Which Way But Loose?
7. People had the option to remove themselves from this miserable existence but they chose not too?  What?  I would march myself right up to the giant Colosseum and commit suicide?  In 1977 did they really think that this was going to be a norm for 2022?  I mean that is just nine years away for us.  Frankly, I do not think our children's future is going to be that much more different from our current lives.
8. Did innovation and creativity cease?  The humans just turned into zombies.
9. Why was everyone wearing the same clothing?
10. You cannot convince me that Heston had not tasted strawberries, but he had tasted Brandy.  If you were to take this movie back forty-five years from 2022, it would have put his birth in 1977 and they were not having these problems back then.

This movie deserves a Mystery Science Theater treatment.  LAME, LAME, LAME.  Next time you tell me not to watch a movie, try and convince me better.  This movie sucked rocks!!!

The Wild Bunch - 1969

This was on AFI's top 100 so I couldn't resist. This was not the kind of movie I was expecting. The wild bunch is a small group of outlaws who have unwavering loyalty to each other, but would kill their own mother if it meant getting some money out of it. the movie rated R for easily over 100 killings, blood and some nudity. Not your typical western. A machine gun is used in the final scene to kill about 50 people. There were some great one liners and some decent scenes in the movie, including the bridge explosion. 2 stars at best for me.