When I decided to watch The Final Countdown, I was expecting to get a Shitty Movie Sundays review out of it, but the movie failed to live up to expectations. It is not a shitty movie. It’s not great, but it was good enough to keep me interested. I remember seeing the film as a kid, a long time ago, and I remembered that the premise was incredibly wild. Add in the fact the film has faded into obscurity, and I thought I had a winning combination of shitty. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: The Final Countdown”
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong is a personal hero of mine. Not because he was the first American to set foot on the moon, but because he was the first person to do so. He was the first person to set foot on any natural celestial body outside of the earth. That accomplishment is not a national accomplishment. It is an historic accomplishment. He didn’t do it alone. Thousands of people, thousands of hard workers and great minds made the Apollo missions possible. While it was an American effort (with German assist), in direct competition with the Soviet Union, the payoff could be celebrated by all — something Armstrong understood and stated in his immortal words upon hopping off the lander. Continue reading “Neil Armstrong”
The Empty Balcony: The Arrival
Once upon a time, there was a decade called the ’90s. In that decade, Hollywood fell in love with CGI. Not because it looked good, or that it served to immerse a viewer further into a film. It certainly did not matter that CGI was still in its infancy — that there were better methods for applying visual effects to film. Nor was there a sense of charity on the part of the studios — a nurturing instinct meant to develop a process that was clearly important to the future of film. Goodness, no. CGI was cheaper than traditional F/X, that’s all. And boy, did it look cheap. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: The Arrival”
The Empty Balcony: Where Eagles Dare
Steven Spielberg once proclaimed 1968’s Where Eagles Dare his favorite war movie, partly because of its inherent unreality. One of the great movies of the, well, unrealistic era of war films, the great lesson of Where Eagles Dare is that when wielded by an American or a Brit, an MP-40 is the ultimate weapon of death. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Where Eagles Dare”
Oval Office Thunderdome: Paul Ryan
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has been sputtering. Under a relentless attack from the Obama campaign, while holding to a steadfast refusal to define its candidate or his policies, the Romney campaign has had to face up to the fact that without a change in trajectory, they cannot win. Enter Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Continue reading “Oval Office Thunderdome: Paul Ryan”
The Foam Rubber Wholesalers Convention
Christopher Nolan has wrapped up his epic interpretation of the Batman saga, and the viewing public has benefited greatly. After two of the most epic and well-made superhero films of all time, and fine films in their own right, the tale comes to an end this summer. Nolan, and his screenwriter brother Jonathan, should be credited with legitimizing and dragging into believability an aged franchise that at times wears its history and legacy as a seventy-year-old burden.
Only the most basic of continuity from the DC Comics characters remain in the Nolan retelling. Ra’s al Ghul? Dead after one film. Joker? One film and done (extenuating circumstances do apply). Two-Face? Dead, and a far cry from the criminal mastermind of the comics. Even Scarecrow, a stalwart of the Rogues Gallery, saw his menace pass with Batman Begins, settling for mere cameo in the subsequent films.
One of the things regular readers of the serialized Batman comics can count on is the lack of finality in any story. Sure, Joker, or Killer Croc, or Zsasz will wreak their havoc upon Gotham City and its inhabitants, but Batman always prevails, and Arkham Asylum welcomes the vanquished villain with open, inadequately secured arms, sure to let their ward escape to challenge the Masked Manhunter again...editors willing. Continue reading “The Foam Rubber Wholesalers Convention”
The Empty Balcony: The Virgin Spring
Ingmar Bergman is one of those foreign film geniuses that is an acquired taste. Brilliant as he was, his stuff is hard watching for anyone raised on standard Hollywood fare. He was an artist. He put art to film. He was even able to pull off wearing a beret. Not many guys can. Art is often hard to digest, and The Virgin Spring is no different. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: The Virgin Spring”
Reprieve
The NCAA came down hard on the Penn State football program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky conviction and the Freeh Report. The punishments include loss of scholarships, a four-year postseason ban, five years of probation, the vacating of 14 seasons worth of wins, and a $60 million fine. It was harsh, but could have gone further. The university avoided the dreaded death penalty, the dismantling of the program itself, for one or multiple seasons. There will be football in Happy Valley this year. It just won’t be very competitive. Continue reading “Reprieve”
The Empty Balcony: The Avengers, or, the War of the MacGuffin
Dictionary.com defines MacGuffin as “an object or event in a book or film that serves as the impetus for the plot.” Wikipedia goes further, defining it as “a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist (and sometimes the antagonist) is willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to pursue, often with little or no narrative explanation as to why it is considered so desirable (emphasis added).” Alfred Hitchcock is credited with popularizing the term in the movie industry, employing it himself, even turning Cary Grant into a MacGuffin in North by Northwest. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: The Avengers, or, the War of the MacGuffin”
The Empty Balcony: The Grey
Man vs. nature, and by extension, man vs. his own nature. It’s not an uncommon theme in film. Usually it involves the breakdown of a group in an isolated environment, becoming feral, members desperately trying to maintain their humanity. Director and screenwriter Joe Carnahan’s The Grey dispenses with much of the metaphor and instead keeps things simple. Mere survival is the theme here, pitting a group of humans against a pack of wolves.
Set in the Alaskan wilderness, The Grey tells the story of a group of oil industry roughnecks who survive a plane crash on a mountain far away from civilization. Not long after the seven survivors organize themselves enough to get a life-saving fire burning, they discover they are being stalked by wolves. The wolves don’t seem to be interested in hunting the men for food. Rather, they seem intent on just killing them for being in the wrong place.
Led by the grim Ottway (Liam Neeson), a sniper employed by the oil company to protect the roughnecks from wolf attacks back at the camp the men originated from, the film follows the men as they try to escape from the wolves’ territory, their numbers whittled down throughout the course of the film. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: The Grey”