Life After Life

 

 

 

 This is my entry in the Favorite TV Episode hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts

 

What happens after we die? 

 Every religion in the world (and most cultures) has some idea,  and they are as varied as a Wheel of Fortune game.  Some religions are more people friendly than others, to be sure.  Ken Jennings (the guy who wowed the world by winning Jeopardy for 70+ times in a row) published a book titled 100 Places to See After You Die, while, maybe not comprehensive, is a pretty interesting look at how cultures view what happens after we leave our mortal coil.

The standard view of the Grim Reaper is one that will come to mind to most people who are reading this blog entry.  The Grim Reaper has been characterized as a skeletal figure with a hooded robe and a scythe, and, except for a few times in movies (such as Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey), is a pretty scary apparition.

 

But what if Death didn't look like that?  What if he was a well-mannered, clean-cut guy in a tailored suit and smoked Oasis cigarettes?

 

Rod Serling, the host of The Twilight Zone, took viewers into often surreal realms, and the afterlife was no stranger to the series.  (Although he wasn't Death in the series episodes. Usually he was just a guy who let us into those private worlds.) In at least a dozen or so episodes, the ultimate destination of a man (or woman) was addressed.  Sometimes the ultimate end was not so sweet, and occasionally, the end turned out to be not so fearful as it was imagined to be.  In all cases, the essential theme of the show came through, however.

The essence of The Twilight Zone was usually categorized into one of two different themes.  In some, a not too likeable character got his just desserts, while in others a hapless victim found himself in a situation that, while maybe unwarranted, gave the victim a new perspective (although not always for the benefit of the victim...)

Spoiler Alert!  In most of these encapsulations I reveal the gotcha! denouement that ended the episode, so if you want to watch them first, don't read anything but the title of the episode, go watch it, then come back.

In the first set of stories we are dealing with people who have a less than respectable past and are in their own kind of punishment for their misdeeds.

 Judgement Night:  The afterlife for Karl Lasner (Nehemiah Persoff) is nightmarish, to say the least.  He is trapped on a British boat, during the height of WWII, with no idea how he got there.  The one thing he is sure of is there is some impending doom coming.  In essence, he is sure there is a German U-Boat stalking the ship, and he knows, I mean KNOWS, that the ship will be sunk.  It becomes apparent that that indeed is what will happen, and the reason he knows is because he has been condemned to an eternity of reliving the event because he was the heartless U-Boat commander that sunk said ship.

A Nice Place to Visit: In this episode a small time hood/thief is shot and killed in a gun battle.  Rocky (Larry Blyden) finds himself as a guest to his guardian "angel", Pip (Sebastian Cabot) who administers to his every need.  And he has everything he could possibly want in this afterlife.  He can't lose at gambling, he gets every woman without any effort etc.  But it gets boring and he finally tells Pip that he is tired of this Heaven and wants to be sent to "that other place". Whereupon Pip informs him that THIS IS "that other place".

 

The two episodes above fall into that category of someone getting their "just desserts".  Karl is at the end of his first encounter an entirely unfeeling and sadistic (typically) German sailor, who even ridicules one of his subordinates for even having a hint of sympathy for their victims.  And although the episode is played for laughs, Rocky is not a very likable fellow himself at the beginning.  You MIGHT feel some sympathy for him later in the episode, but then you have to remember, not only was he a crook, but he even attempts to shoot the police as he is being chased.

In the case of people who are likable and just having a rough time of it, I present a set of episodes.

Nothing in the Dark:

An elderly woman (Gladys Cooper) lives in what is determined to be a condemned building.  She keeps the door locked because she is afraid that the next person who enters it will be Mr. Death, come to take her away.  She doesn't want to die, she is afraid of the other side.  But a policeman (Robert Redford) is shot outside her door and, against her better wishes she brings him inside. When he finds out she is afraid he does his best to calm her fears.  A man claiming to be from the company sent to demolish the building tries to entice her outside to safety, but she is sure HE is really Mr. Death.  Only, as it turns out, the "policeman" she admitted is the real Mr. Death..  But by this time he has convinced her that the next life is nothing to be afraid of.

A Passage of Trumpet:

In New York City, a wannabe jazz trumpeter struggles with coping with the down side of life.  Joey (Jack Klugman) used to be a top dog on the jazz circuit, even having once played with Tommy James, but now he is an alcoholic and misses the limelight.  He even has to sell his cherished trumpet just to get money to drink, and ultimately steps in front of a truck.  He finds himself in limbo, neither alive nor really dead.  A visit from someone who eventually turns out to be the angel Gabriel (John Anderson), convinces him to give life a second chance.

 One for the Angels:

In this episode, Lew Bookman (Ed Wynn) is a likable guy who makes his living as a street peddler.  Everyone in his neighborhood likes him, especially the kids.  When Mr. Death (Murray Hamilton) shows up and announces that he has come for lew, Lew tries to get out of it.  He negotiates a deal that he gets one last "pitch", one he calls "one for the angels" before he goes.  But wily Lew has an ace up his sleeve.  He states that he will not even try for his pitch.  But Mr. Death will not be outsmarted so easily.  He tells Lew he still has to take someone, and that someone is going to be one of the children. Ultimately Lew makes his pitch to none other than Mr. Death and accompanies him into the afterlife.

In all three cases, the afterlife is not so nearly as devastating as it's made out to be.  In the first, the woman gets to go on to a better life on the other side, while in the second, Joey gets a new outlook on life and continues on with his life, but the afterlife waiting for him farther down the road is at least a little more optimistic.

Then, of course, as was sometimes the case, we get the sentimental stories.  In these, the main character passes on to the next life, and finds that the new life is not so bad.

The Hunt:

Written by Earl Hamner, Jr (the writer of what eventually became the TV series "The Waltons"), this is the story of a backwoods man (Arthur Hunnicutt, Jr. who goes out hunting with his dog.  An unfortunate accident results in the death of the two, but they find they really don't know what has happened until later.  Once he determines that he is indeed dead, he continues down the road.  He first comes to a gate that he thinks is Heaven, but the gatekeeper refuses to let his dog come with him.  He decides that eternity without his best friend is unacceptable and continues down the road.  At the next gate he discovers that the first gate was actually the entrance to Hell, and the gatekeeper refused to let the dog in because the dog would have known instantly something was amiss. 

A Stop in Willoughby:

An ad exec (James Daly) who is pressured by his boss and his rather unsympathetic wife dozes off on his commuter train.  While asleep he dreams he is on a much older tain which makes a stop in an unfamiliar town called Willoughby.  From the window he notices that it a peaceful and rath Elysian town where things are far more laid back than his hectic day to day life.  He dreams of getting back there, so the next day, when he dreams of this halcyon heaven he steps off the train.  But, since he is only seeing it in his dreams, when he actually steps off the train, the real train is still moving.  He makes it to Willoughby, only it is in an afterlife, but it is a step up from the horrible life he has to endue. 

One particular episode stands out because it addresses what happens during times of intense strife, and what we might see at the end of that strife.

In The Passerby a Confederate soldier (James Gregory) pauses on the way back home after the Civil War to have a chat with a woman (Joanne Linville). During the episode many soldiers pass by on the road and it gradually becomes apparent that the road is not filled with those going home after the end of the war, but are actually ones who died during the war and are going on to their new home in eternity.

There are several other episodes in the original pantheon that sometimes deal with an afterlife, albeit peripherally.  For instance, in Elegy three astronauts have to crash land on an asteroid which turns out to be a glorified cemetery where the caretaker manufactures a scene of the dead persons biggest wish and then eternally ensconces them in this scene. And in The Hitchhiker a woman is forever being haunted (hunted?) by a hitchhiker who turns out to be Death come to collect her soul after she had died in a car wreck earlier in her cross-country trip. 

But by far one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes is A Game of Pool in which our returning actor, Jack Klugman comes on the scene as a wannabe pool star who is forever dealing with being called second rate compared to a legend (Jonathan Winters) who is no longer among the living.  He wishes more than anything to be given the chance to prove himself against this star player, and is given the chance when the star returns from the afterlife to play him a one-on-one game. Ultimately he wins, but the curse he gets as a result is he takes the place of the star after he dies and has to answer the call whenever another would-be hustler wants the chance to prove himself.

 

The thing to remember in all of this is your next life (or afterlife) is always going to be based on how you conduct yourself in this present life.  So be good and remember that no matter where you go you will be affecting that future state.  Assuming, of course, there actually is one.  In The Twilight Zone there always was, but then, I won't state for a fact that there actually is.  Have a good journey, however, just in case...

Note: A word of thanks to Ken Jennings, who inspired this post, since he had a chapter dedicated to The Twilight Zone in his book mentioned above.

Quiggy

 

 

Book Review: Box Office Poison by Tim Robey

 Box Office Poison by Tim Robey

 

 

 

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a bomb from Hollywood!

Between 1978 and 1986, the brother writing team of Michael and Harry Medved published several books that occupy space on my bookshelf, beginning with The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time, The Golden Turkey Awards, which was followed by the 1986 sequel, The Son of Golden Turkey Awards. In 1984, the two also banded together for another book, The Hollywood Hall of Shame: The Most Expensive Flops in Movie History.

The first three books mentioned dealt with the kind of cheesy low-ball crap that I love to watch and write about. But that last one veered away from the main theme to point out some movies that had HUGE production budgets, but failed to end up on the right side of the ledger when it came to making money at the box office.  However, since it was published in 1984, and no sequel ever came from the two, that left about 40 years of flops that were never touched upon by them.  I never really thought about it until I finally did acquire that volume, but then I started thinking... What about the failures since 1984?

So it was with great pleasure that I discovered this new book. And although the author does delve into some pre-1984 movies, only 8 of the 25 movies are from that era. And Robey only covers one movie that the Medved brothers covered in their volume.  That movie, BTW, is Intolerance, the D.W. Griffith silent film fiasco from 1916.  (And, after all, any author with serious ambitions to talk about flops almost HAS to include the first REAL flop of the industry.)

Over the course of his volume, Robey spends about 5 or 6 pages talking about the background of each movie and the factors that lead  to these films being such colossal money spenders and why they failed to find a niche in the public eye after their release.

The book is fascinating, although I have to admit that occasionally the author's own politically correct feelings would annoy me.  To wit: some of the treatment that women received in certain movies...  One in particular is when he laments the way Uma Thurman was treated on the set of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. So Uma was treated as a sex object?  Oh, boo hoo! Whether the PC crowd of today, in retrospect, frowns upon such behavior, it was something that happened, and probably quite frequently, before the advent of Political Correctness. And whether it affected the financial failure of said films is debatable.

The best sections of the book cover movies I already had a familiarity with, and, (dare I say it?) even paid money to see in the theater.  And a few of them I actually enjoyed, although my $5 ticket wasn't much in the coffers to profit the movie (obviously). Among those that I either saw or even liked that he covered are: Dune (1984), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Cutthroat Island (1995), Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), Rollerball (2002), and The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002).  (I'll leave it up to you to guess which ones I actually liked, but if you've read this blog much, you probably already have a good idea, even though I haven't actually blogged on any of them... yet.)

With the exception of a few, in my opinion, unnecessary moralistic judgements, I think Robey treats each movie pretty fairly. And he even inspires me to seek out a couple on my own to watch that I never got around to seeing the first time.  One in particular, A Sound of Thunder had completely escaped my notice.  Which is surprising since the movie involves time travel and I absolutely adore time travel stories and movies.

One other thing to note about this book (one that has nothing to do with the content). The library director at Denison Public Library acquired this book and it just arrived and was processed for circulation last week.  My sister, who knows I like books about movies, set it aside for me.  Thus, I was honored with being the very first patron to check it out.  Thanks, Karen. 

Give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Quiggy

 

 

The Return of the Midnite Drive-In

Well, folks, it's been about two months since I last logged on.  In the interim I transitioned the drive-in (and by the same token, my residence) from south Texas to north Texas, where I am now living with my sister.  As a result,  I had to put the drive-in on hiatus.  And entries will be less frequent over the next couple of months, at least until I can get internet set up at my sister's house.  But rejoice, dear hearts, because following this post will be a new entry, and it's going to be one of my infrequent book reviews.

 

Keep watching the ether.

Quiggy

Hey, I Know That Guy! Episode #3

 

 

 

Hey! I know that guy!

 

 

Here we go with another installment of the ongoing series.  To refresh your memory, the plan is to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone and highlight one of the actors or actresses appearing in the episode and talk about their career before and after their role in the episode.  Usually I will be taking a secondary character as my focus, not one of the stars.

As per my wont, that rule is not set in stone.  If you remember, last episode  (Hey I Know That Guy #2)  involved an episode of The Twilight Zone which only had two actors on screen. So, occasionally I will be focusing on someone who has more than a fleeting moment in The Twilight Zone episode.  Such is the case this time.

In the 5th season of the series, The Zone had reverted from what some people consider a bad decision in the 4th season.  The first 3 seasons the episodes had a 30 minute running time, but in the 4th season they tried their hand at an hour long length.  Not that many of those episodes weren't good, but I think it was a bad decision.  Many of those 60 minute episodes could easily have been condensed to a 30 minute running time and not lost any of the impact.

Anyway, in the 5th season, the producers went back to the 30 minute running time, and many of the 5th season episodes are among my favorites.  In particular is The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms.  Of course, one of my abiding interests in the science fiction realm is the concept of time travel.  Thus, in my list of the top ten episodes of the series, at least three of them involve some aspect of that theme. And one of those is this one.

To encapsulate, in the present day a patrol of 3 men are scouting a ridge for the U.S. Army in performing a series of war games.  The crew consists of Sgt, William Connors (Ron Foster), Pvt. Michael McCluskey (Randy Boone) and our focus actor of this post, Warren Oates as Cpl. Richard Langsford.  It seems that the three have stumbled across a genuine Native American teepee.  Which, since both McCluskey and Connors are avid history buffs, they know that's exactly what happened 80 some odd years earlier in the preamble to the event most historians know as The Battle of Little Big Horn.

Langsford it appears is the voice of reason of the three because both Connors and McCluskey are convinced something odd is going on.  Like maybe they crossed some boundary and are really back in the past, just prior to that epic battle.

Their superiors, including a captain, tell them to get their heads in the right place and continue on with the maneuvers of the war games.  Which is what they should do, of course.  But on the second day they find a deserted village of teepees, just like had happened in the earlier history. And, after going up to scout out this deserted village,  McCluskey comes back telling the other two that if it is a mirage, it's a doozy, because he now sports an arrow in his back. And just around the bend they come upon the de facto proof they have crossed into unknown territory when they witness the battle.  And, being gung ho soldiers, they join in the fray.  Note: At no point do we see the battle our present day soldiers see, we only hear it, giving credence that it may or may not be just their imagination... But...

Meanwhile back in the present, the current army finds the deserted tank, but no soldiers, and, as per Twilight Zone gotcha moment, the three present day soldiers names are among those listed as having died in the battle 80 years earlier.

In the course of his career as an actor Warren Oates had some memorable roles. Beginning in 1956 he was a frequent guest star in TV shows, like many actors.  But he also had some notable film roles.  Many of you will remember him as Officer Sam Wood in the movie version of In the Heat of the Night.  He was also memorable as one of The Wild Bunch playing Lyle Gorch in that epic.  He won the role of the title character of John Dillinger in the 1973 film Dillinger (and there's a film just waiting to make it's appearance at the Drive-In). One of my favorite appearances of him is when he was paired with Peter Fonda as a group of people being chased by renegade Satanists in Race with the Devil.

But probably more people will be familiar with him due to what was one of his final roles, that of the put-upon Sgt. Hulka, who had to put up with as well as mold into some kind of reasonable facsimile of soldiers the recruits in Stripes.

In Stripes, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis play a couple of malcontents who join the Army on a whim, figuring it to be a free ride.  Additionally in the platoon are more would-be losers, played with varying degrees of ineptitude by John Candy, Judge Reinhold, John Diehl and Conrad Dunn.

Throughout the boot camp scenes, Sgt. Hulka does his best to instill a semblance of pride in his recruits.  Whether or not he is successful is your call, because at one point he ends up in the infirmary as a result of a mishap on the training course. And Murray and cohorts end up completing their training (if you can call it that) without him. And manage to fool the brass that they are a crack outfit and desrve the plum job of guarding a Winnebago converted to a tank.

Bad idea, as Murray and Ramis end up in Soviet Russia with valuable (and needless to say "secret")  U.S. Army equipment.  Leaving Hulka and the rest of the malcontents to get them (or at least the equipment) back into U.S. control.

Oates is never a caricature, even when he plays what is essentially a caricature.  You watch this movie for Murray and Candy, of course, but Oates as Hulka is a real treat.  And you get the idea that Hulka would just as soon take on the whole Russian Red Army single-handed than to rely on the nitwits he has to help him.

Oates passed away in 1982 after a bout with influenza which may have brought on the actual heart attack that took his life.  Celebrate his legacy  by watching one of the movies mentioned here (or any of his others).

Quiggy

Super New Year

 

 

 

 

First off, I can't believe I never got around to Superman before now.  Going on 9 years, off and on, on this blog, and with some of the entries being memories of childhood, a mention of this movie would have seemed to fit.  

Early on in my childhood, movies were a rare treat. I don't really remember all of them.  Most likely I saw several Disney animated films as a child.  One of the podcasts I regularly listen to, All 80's Movies Podcast, has frequent guests on it's show.  One of the questions the  hosts ask  their guests is "What is the first movie you ever saw?"  For me, my earliest memory is Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but I can't really remember one damn thing about the movie except that it had Angela Lansbury in it.

Likewise, I went with my parents and sister to see Patton at the drive-in, and I can't remember diddly about the first experience.  But I do know that it caused my father to determine that we as kids would be allowed to see no movie rated higher than G.

I had to beg and plead for my sister and me to be allowed to go see Star Wars. I  am not sure if my arguments on the subject convinced him to relent or if he was influenced by some other people that it was not that bad.  I always say that his main objection to PG and higher was the presence of language, since, if it was violence he probably would have not even considered Patton in the first place.

So Star Wars is probably my earliest theater going experience i can really remember.  A year later, on Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, I am not sure which, we were allowed to go see our second PG movie, Superman.

The producers promoted the film with a memorable tagline : "You'll believe a man can fly."  And, as I can recall, it was pretty impressive at the time.  Nowadays it looks pretty quaint, having been exposed to CGI and the like, but it still looks pretty decent. 

The first of the potential Superman franchise had it's eye on it's sequel already, so there were some setup scenes that included the introduction , early in the movie, of the villains that would serve as foils for the man in the blue suit in the sequel, Superman II.  The first film had some pretty good clout in the form of it's stars.  One particular note was the name Marlon Brando.  His name appears, along with Gene Hackman, before the title "Superman" appears on screen. Such was the clout of Brando, given that his screen presence only really occupies less than 10 minutes of the opening scene. 

In addition, Glenn Ford had an all too brief appearance as Clark's ("Kal-El") Earth father. Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill, who played the original Superman and Lois Lane in the first 1940's live-action version of the Superman saga made a brief cameo as the parents of a young Lois Lane on a train.  Among others who had cameo roles, if you are quick, you can see Larry Hagman, John Ratzenberger, and Rex Reed.

The casting for Superman was probably not quite as expansive as the casting of some other coveted roles, like, say, Scarlett O'Hara, but quite a few names were in the running.  For instance, the producers sought out James Caan, and imagine that for a minute.  Hard to think of the same guy who had recently played a very emotional and rough character like Sonny Corleone trying to pull off the shy and reserved Clark Kent...  I also read that Arnold Scwarzenegger tried for the role.  (At least HE wouldn't have needed any padding as Superman, but even Jimmy Olsen would not have been fooled by the Clark Kent disgiuse in that case...)  

From wikipedia I gleaned the information that a whole raft of other then big names were either courted or tried out for the role.  Among these were Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Sylvester Stallone and even Paul Newman.  The one that caught my eye, however, was Neil Diamond.  That would have been the biggest mistake of the movie had it gone that way.  Diamond is a great singer, but he couldn't act worth squat. His one starring role, in 1980's The Jazz Singer, proved that.

The cache of big names didn't stop there.  The script was written by Mario Puzo, the same guy who brought us The Godfather saga, after William Goldman turned down the offer.  Puzo was a great writer in his own right, but I would love to have seen what Goldman would have done with the story.  (Goldman is the man responsible for the scripts for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride as well as a host of other great dialogue driven films, so the dialogue would have popped for sure.  He won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for All the President's Men, which I've been meaning to track down a copy of to review,)

As well, instead of Richard Donner, look at the list of "who could have been"  in the director's chair: Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, George Lucas. And, if the producers had been a little more confident in him during pre-production, Steven Spielberg.  But by the time they got the ball rolling Spielberg was already involved in his next opus, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The movie had what was, at that time, the biggest budget, at in the neighborhood off $55 million. Fortunately for the financial backers it was a huge hit and made well over $300 million in it's first run, a good enough showing that all that pre-setup in the picture to point to the sequel wasn't wasted.  (Just as an endpoint, since I won't be reviewing it here, the early scenes involving Jor-el and the three rebels figures prominently in Superman II.) 

Superman: (1978)

On the planet Krypton, Jor-El (Marlon Brando) delivers a sum-up of his case against three renegades, General Zod (Terence Stamp) and his cohorts Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O'Halloran).  In the end the three are sentences to a life (actually "Forever") sentence in The Forbidden Zone (essentially a two-dimensional prism that floats endlessly through space.)

After the trial Jor-El pleads with the council to listen to his aguments once again that Krypton needs to be evacuated immediately because it is on it's last legs.  He is silenced and forced to eep it to himself, because none of the powers-that-be want to admit that there might be something to his predictions, (And isn't that the way with ALL politicians when world-changing scenarios come into the fore.)

Jor-El swears that neither he, nor his wife, will attempt to leave planet Krypton.  But he didn't say anything about his son, Kal-El.  Just before all hell breaks loose on the planet, he manages to send his son off in a space ship, destined for a remote planet called...Earth.

The ship takes a little while to make the trip, since Kal-El is a baby when it leaves Krypton, but by the time it arrives on Earth, the baby is about 3 years old. (Which makes one wonder what kind of technology Krypton had to keep him alive and well-fed all that time, since he obviously couldn't have operated any computer functions himself...)

When the ship crash lands on Earth, it is conveniently near an older couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent (Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter).  They adopt the kid as their own, using the ruse that the boy is an orphan from Martha's side of the family to hide his true origin.

Fast forward 15 years.  Young Clark (Jeff East) is struggling to be accepted in his coterie of friends because he is such a geek.  Of course, we all know that the "geek" is just a front, since Clark could handle the entire football squad single-handedly.  Clark has a tendency to show off, secretly using his superpowers, but since the kids don't know his secret, they just think of him as more of a "geek".

When Clark's adopted father dies, Clark discovers, hidden in the barn, a crystal from his space ship. He takes the crystal and treks north to the frozen tundra of the North Pole where he creates the Fortress of Solitude with it, and spends the next 12 years under the tutelage of his real father, via hologram.

The next thing you know, Clark is a fully grown man and has gone to Metroplolis where he has a job as a reporter, and meets three of the main characters he will interact with the rest of he film: Perry White (Jackie Cooper), his boss; Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure), the paper's star photographer; and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) one of the star reporters.  (One thing, played for laughs in some scenes is Lois asking someone how to spell some word.  It's funny, but it made me wonder how she got a job as a reporter when she lacked the wherewithal of vocabulary... or at least a good dictionary...)

Superman reveals his presence very early when Lois, who is on a helicopter to go meet the President of the United states gets into a bind and nearly crashes.  Subsequently he foils a robbery, snares a guy trying to get to the top of the building without using the building's elevator, and rescues a cat in a tree.

Everyone wants to know about this mysterious hero, and Superman eventually agrees to an interview with none other than Lois.  Making Superman and Lois seemingly bosom friends (at the very least...)

Meanwhile, deep under the subway in his secret lair, mastermind criminal Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) is making plans for his domination of the real estate market by planning to hijack two nuclear warheads and use them to destroy most of southern California nd make all the desert land he bought up prime coastal property.  In this endeavor he is helped by his dimwit flunky, Otis (Ned Beatty) and his woman, Miss Tessmacher (Valerie Perrine).  (With stalwart help like this, who needs enemies...?)

Eventually things come to a head when Luthor entices Superman to his lair.  But Luthor is not an idiot.  He didn't entice Superman without a backup.  He has a piece of Kryptonite, a remnant of Superman's home world on hand, which will render Superman useless when he comes in contact with it.

With Superman out of the way, and the warheads on their  destination, things seem bleak.  But when Miss Tessmacher finds out that Luthor has sent one of the warheads to Hackensack, NJ(?), she rescues Superman, on the promise that he will stop the warhead going to NJ first, because that's where her mother lives.

(OK. Interjection here.  Superman is "faster than a speeding bullet". So why is he taking such a long time to overtake the first warhead?  We need that to happen so that the next part will happen, but it just doesn't compute...)

Superman does stop the first warhead, but the second one does it's damage by causing the San Andreas Fault to malfunction and start causing serious damage.  But Superman is able to keep the entire coast from disappearing into the Pacific Ocean.  Unfortunately, one of the losses in the event is the life of Lois.  Which doesn't really set well with Superman...

One of his father's admonitions during his training was that it was "forbidden for him to interfere with human history".  But Superman refuses to let that stop him.  He roars into space and using his super speed manages to reverse the turning of the Earth to go back before Lois died. (And thus, even though he took his own precious time chasing down the first warhead, he finds the wherewithal to fly faster than that to reverse time.. go figure.)

All's well that ends well, at any rate.  Lois is still alive and Luthor and Otis end up in prison.

 This movie is still pretty good even now, 47 years later, although at times, as I said before, it comes off a little dated by it's special effects.  But I can't fault it for that, after all, it was the best that Hollywood and the science of filming had to offer at the time,

Well, folks, time to fly off to the home front.  Drive safely.

Quiggy

Safety Last

 

 Unsafe on Any Screen by Scott Phillips

I was browsing the books at the local used bookstore a couple of weeks ago, and I think I found my long lost twin brother.

Well, not really, since I only have one sibling and she's my sister.

But I did find a book written by someone who must have come from the same malcontent group of angels waiting in line to be born into this world.  The guy's name is Scott S. Phillips.

Not to be confused with the Scott Phillips of The Ice Harvest fame.  This Scott Phillips is also an author, but his output is as far removed from The Ice Harvest as, say Citizen Kane would be from Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh. 

Some of the other books written by this Scott Phillips are Pete Has Risen From the Grave and the screenplay for The Stink of Flesh.  Quality stuff, as you can probably tell...

According to the introduction, Phillips worked for a time as a movie critic for an alternative newspaper in Albuquerque, NM, The Weekly Alibi. As far as I can tell, it was probably something along the lines of a local alternative newspaper here in south Texas, The Austin Chronicle.

Anyway, by what I gather, Phillips was given free reign to watch whatever movies he wanted and write about them in his weekly column.  The type of movies he gravitated towards during this jaunt are a like a wish list for me to seek out in the future.  

My hero, whom I have mentioned before, Joe Bob Briggs, also did these kinds of movies when he wrote his column (although Briggs was doing recent releases that were then playing at the local drive-in.) 

The movies that Phillips covers run the gamut of time from the early 60's until the early 2000's., and he rates each one based on a scale he invented that comes in two parts: One is an Apes scale (in which he rates it from 0-5 as to how many greased apes he'd wrestle to watch said movie: ) being bad and 5 being pretty damn decent.) The second part of the rating system he calls the Bourbon scale (in which he rates on how many shots of bourbon he'd have to drink to wrestle those apes. In this case, the 0 is good and the 5 is near godawful).

It takes a twisted mind to watch some of these movies in the first place.  (And since I am 15 years sober, I have to avoid drinking bourbon or anything else to get up the gumption to watch movies.)

After reading this book, there are a number of them I have already watched, proving that we have some rapport in tastes.  The best part about his book is that no matter how bad he thinks a movie is, he makes most of them sound like they are worth giving them a shot.  One that falls into that category is The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, one that has been on my radar for some time.  I always say if someone tells me a movie is a crock of excrement that's like saying "I DARE YOU: to me.

I have reduced the number of movie books on my shelf over the last few months in anticipation of making a move to a new location, but this is one i will be keeping.

Quiggy

Ho Ho OMG

 

OK, let's settle this argument once and for all.  Die Hard is NOT a Christmas movie. Just because you set a movie at Christmas time, and insert a few genial "Merry Christmas"es into the film, and maybe put a guy in a Santa suit in it somewhere does not automatically give it the status of "Christmas" movie.  

I mean, you've got these lists of so-called "Christmas"  movies, like Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, L.A. Confidential and even Batman Returns, all of which are solid action and/or dramatic movies, but the connection to Christmas is tenuous at best. All of these movies would work just as well if the holiday in question  was Thanksgiving, or Easter or even Earth Day.  Maybe the events leading up to John McClane arriving in California to hook up with his estranged wife would have to be tweaked.  But it wouldn't detract from the actual plot.

I admit there are some good arguments for considering Die Hard a Christmas movie, especially the idea that McClane is solidly tying to promote family values by being present with his family on this hallowed holiday, but those same family values would not be out of place if he showed up on his kid's birthday.  (And the teddy bear he has in tow at the beginning would fit in just as well...)

But this movie was not a Christmas release at the time it came out.  It was firmly entrenched in that classic "summer blockbuster" portion of the Hollywood tradition, having been released on July 15. 1988.  Although, to be honest, 1988 doesn't seem to have been a banner year for that summer blockbuster theme.  Some of the other movies released that summer ( Big, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Red Heat to name a few), probably would not be considered blockbuster material.  In fact, July 4th weekend saw the release of License to Drive, Arthur 2: On the Rocks and Short Circuit 2, neither of which seems like Hollywood expected 1988 to be a big year for the summer movie goer.

And neither Bruce Willis nor director John McTiernan lay claim to he fact that this is meant to be a Christmas movie. If the two major names behind it deny that it is one, doesn't that seem to imply that people have a wrong idea/? I  mean. if you want to pick this  movie as your go-to Christmas Eve tradition as opposed to, say, Miracle on 34th Street or one of the many versions of A Christmas Carol, both solidly Christmas movies, then go ahead, but trying to justify it by saying it's a "Christmas" movie is pure folly, in my opinion.

Given that, so why am I choosing to do this post so close to the day in question?  Because, despite my reticence to accept it as a "Christmas" movie, it's still a damn good movie.  And  besides, what says Christmas more than a bunch of terrorists being taken on by a one man army...?  All we need is Santa Claus to show up in camo with an army of commando elves.  And to celebrate the victory, a healthy dose of alcoholic beverages by the blazing fireplace afterwards... Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum. Then we really could call this a "Christmas" movie.

 Besides Bruce Willis, who was just starting out in his film career, the film does have a cache of great actors in it.  Of course, everyone knows the fabulous Alan Rickman as the head baddie, Hans Gruber, made his first feature film debut.  But additionally we got what I like to call a big trifecta of memorable actors well known for playing "assholes". and/or villains.  

First we have Paul Gleason.  Gleason, of course, is well remembered as Assistant Principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club and Clarence Beeks in Trading Places, neither of which are very likeable characters.  Additionally, there is William Atherton, the jerk who tries to get the Ghostbusters group shut down in the film of the same name.  And Robert Davi, who here is the head of the F.B.I. was memoable, for me, as the villain in the James Bond film, Licence to Kill.

But that's not all.  Reginald VelJohnson, Carl from the TV series Family Matters, is a solid presence as McClane's ground contact during the siege.  Bonnie Bedelia. who I first saw in the 1979 version of 'Salem's Lot, is here as McClane's estranged wife. And one other character, Argyle, the limousine driver, is played by De'vereaux White.  He doesn't have the cache of roles that the others had, but, interestingly enough for me, he was the kid who tried to steal a guitar at Ray's Music Exchange in The Blues Brothers.

Most of the cast of others are of varying degrees of fame, but one other that I wanted to trow in in Al Leong.  Leong is a fixture in the kind of movies I like.  He appears in, among other movies, Big Trouble in Little China, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Lethal Weapon, and The Scorpion King.  He's hard to miss even when he has a brief uncredited role.  He appears here as one of the terrorists (an Asian terrorist in a German terrorist group?  Well, not much less likely than an African American one, and there is one of those too.)

Die Hard (1988):\

The film opens with our hero, John McClane (Bruce Willis) arriving at LAX, bound for a reunion with his wife and kids.  We get the meat and potatoes of the situation in bits, since McClane is a man who likes to keep to himself, but apparently his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) has taken the opportunity to expand her own career, despite John's ability to accept it.  She took on a job with the Nakatomi Corporation as an executive, which caused her to move with the kids to L.A. while John stayed behind in New York. (He's a NY cop, and a dedicated one at that.)

 

 

John is met by Argyle (De'voreaux White), the limo driver that Holly has sent to pick him up.  Even though Argyle tries to draw John out he's not very talkative.  Upon arrival at the Nakatomi Building Argyle offers to park the limo in the garage and wait to see how John's meeting with Holly works out, just in case he might need a ride to get a hotel in anticipation of a quick turnaround.

 

 

Fortunately, for those of us with a short patience for matrimonial drama, there is a quick change in scenery. At just a mere 17 minutes into the movie the terrorists invade the building and begin their onslaught.  The first of the victims is the security guard at the front desk, (because, after all, this whole thing can't go down if there is anyone who might throw a wrench into the terrorists' proceedings.)

The terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), quickly take over the Christmas party and take all those present as hostages.  He demands the security codes from the president of the corporation, but the man claims he doesn't know.  Whether he really does or doesn't we don't get to find out, because Hans has decided the man is uncooperative and therefore useless.  Victim #2.

 

 

Meanwhile, John, who has been winding down in Holly's office, hears the gunshots and realizes the s**t has hit the fan.  And now, the real meat of the film gets underway.  The third death in the movie, however, will not be an innocent hostage.  John takes out one of the terrorists and announces his presence to the rest of them.

 

 

Too bad that his first terrorist is the brother of one of the others.  That creates a bit of animosity that will crop up now and again over the course of the film.  Although Hans has a desire to take John alive, the brother has other ideas and often puts the entire endeavor in jeopardy.

While one of the terrorists (the electronics whiz) makes an effort to break down the security codes protecting the vault and Hans makes an effort to convince the hostages that he is a suave debonair and not entirely all bad kind of guy, the rest of the group makes an effort to track down this rogue would-be hostage who is making a mockery of them.  And not doing all that good a job of it at that.  There is a disparity of sides however.  The terrorists only have 11 guys to go up against John.  Probably needed to plan ahead a bit more.

Meanwhile, John, for his part is doing his best to get the attention of the authorities that something is not quite right at the Nakatomi Building.  He turns in a false fire alarm, but the terrorists manage to put the kibosh on that.  John tries to use the walkie-talkie he confiscated from the dead one dead terrorist he took out, but the police think it's just some joker.  They do send one squad car, manned by patrolman Al (Reginald VelJohnson)., but he determines there is nothing wrong, since the terrorist who took over the security guard position gives him the old "nothing wrong here" line.  But John manages to get their attention yet again when he shoves the dead guy out the window and it lands on Al's patrol car...  Now, John has their attention...

 

 

In comes the police headed by one of our resident Assholes-in-charge, Deputy Chief Robinson (Paul Gleason).  Robinson thinks he can handle the situation with a full-on raid on the building.  Not his best idea.  When things start to go a little south, the F.B.I. shows up, led by the second of our Assholes in charge, Big Jonson (Robert Davi).  And his ideas aren't much better.

 

 

Meanwhile, the third resident asshole, a smarmy "get the big story no matter what" reporter, Thornberg (William Atherton) is gumming up the works.  He eventually figures out who the fly in the ointment on the inside is, and who his wife is, and goes to try to get some of the story at the source by interviewing the kids of John and Holly.  (Yeah, that's going to put him in good graces with the parents...)

 

 

Of course, most of the movie involves John putting himself in harms way trying to take out the terrorists.  And I'm not exactly sure how many people end up dead in this film.  There are all of the terrorists, of course, and two of the hostages, but it is questionable how many of the police and F.B.I. guys end up dead.  Surely it doesn't come close to the body count in Rambo III (released the same year), but I would hazard a guess that the toll comes in the top 5 of movies released that year.  

Die Hard is definitely worth watching, especially if you like this kind of film.  However, I suggest if you want a family night movie for Christmas Eve, you are probably better off with It's A Wonderful Life.

The Plymouth ain't no limousine, but it is will get me home in style.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy