The Hindenburg (1975)

This is a story of the historically tragic Hindenburg flight of 1937. George C. Scott plays a Germany spy of sorts who is called upon to monitor the activities of this flight due to letter claiming the flight was doomed. This flight was taking place during the rise of the Third Reich, and Scott was not a Nazi lover, but to keep peace in his life he accepted the mission. The visual imagery of the Zeppelin is very impressive, and I love the sound engineering of the movie each time you see the exterior or skeletal interior of the aircraft.

This story had a slow development but eventually built up to a fairly good suspense due to a hidden bomb on board the aircraft. It was a cat and mouse chase. This was not one of the greater George C. Scott films. I felt it could have been a great movie if they would have spoken in native tongue to each other and broken English to the American passengers.

The director used actual footage of the disaster at the end of the movie, mixed with handheld camera work for the fictional re-enactments. All of the disaster was shot in black and white giving it a newsreel feel to it.

I liked this movie in a Towering Inferno kind of way, but this movie could be a really good Titanic or Schindler's List film if done properly today.

California Suite (1978)

Lame movie staring Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, Walter Matthau, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Michael Caine. I give it one star. I only watched it because I am trying to watch all of Jane Fonda's movies. This one is about a bunch of people that come to Hollywood for the Oscars.

Killers (2010)

Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher. Dumbest movie I have seen in about 3 years. My wife made me watch it with her.

The Pride of the Yankees (1941)

Gary Cooper stands up to the plate. The pitch is on its way... its a stand up double. Next up is Teresa Wright, and she hits a two run homer. Both players are stars. Okay enough of the funny business. Simply put, this is a 4 star movie which portrays the life of Lou Gehrig.

What impressed me the most is that the movie was made one year after Gehrig's death. The reason that is important, is because the director was able to use real Yankee players, and ex Yankee players, to be in the film. These were men who played with Gehrig, and here they are working alongside Gary Cooper as he pretends to be Gehrig. Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey playing themselves in a movie- I think that is such a great idea, and it worked perfectly.

Nominated for 11 Oscars, the film only took home one. And I truly felt that Teresa Wright deserved an Oscar, which she did not get. Her role as Gehrig's wife was a standing ovation performance. Cooper did a great job portraying an innocent, child like personality in Gehrig, even when he was an adult.

This is a great movie for all baseball fans, or any American for that matter. Imagine how Americans felt watching this movie right after Gehrig died, this would have been very emotional for those viewers, as it was for me even 70 years after his death. A time when there were no steroids, just real baseball.

The Andersonville Trial (TV 1970)

As I was looking for an instant movie to watch of George C. Scott’s I ran across this movie. He did not act in this one, but he was the director. It is a play, and the movie feels like it (the visual appearance of it is just like a soap opera). With that aside it was an interesting watch.

William Shatner played the Judge Advocate for the Union. Buddy Ebsen and Martin Sheen had bit roles in the play as well. This is the trial of Confederate Captain Henry Wirtz who was one of the leaders over the horrors that took place at the Andersonville compound in Atlanta Georgia. Witness after witness come in and explain more and more of the horrors that were allowed to take place there.

I liked this from the perspective that it was a play and not a movie, so the acting and angles were that of a play. If I went to the movie theater to see this I would have been angry, but if I would have gone to a theatre to see this I would have been well pleased. It is an interesting watch for a historic perspective, but nothing else.

The Hustler (1961)

I hated this movie.

I started this film a couple of weeks ago (the disk was skipping…it is now an instant watch on Netflix), and I loved it. The marathon pool match between Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats was fantastic. Gleason and Newman were amazing actors, and I had high hopes for the movie; enter Piper Laurie and the movie was ruined. Many people enjoyed her performance, but for me it was very flat and uninspiring. I guess I just didn’t care about her, so I found no depth with her.

From the first forty minutes of the film I thought it was going to be a lot of pool when in fact it was just another show about the decline of human decencies. Newman, Gleason, and Scott all gave superb performances but I will never waste my time with this show again. 2 out of 5 for me.

Touch of Evil (1958)

If you watch this and appraoch it as a "B" noir type movie movie, you will give it at least 3.5 stars. Orson Welles is a genius despite what anyone says. His mind was created to change the film industry. I liked this movie. Janet Leigh (Psycho) and Marlene Dietrich were beautiful. Charlton Heston is a good actor, I need to watch more of his films.

The movie is about a crooked cop (Welles) who will stop at nothing to protect his name. I would only recommend watching this movie if you like Orson Welles. This movie it really is about Welles, and him and how they have remade this movie to be like what he wanted. the studio dumped Welles as he was a pain in their side during post production (which he was do every director he worked for). He wrote the director a 58 page memo of the changes he demanded. This DVD version has those changes. The man was a crazy genius.