Category: Movies

It’s our new-ish New Year’s Eve tradition with the boys to watch a movie and play a game to pad the hours until midnight, and this year we watched Rush Hour. Which, apparently has two sequels.

I don’t remember if I saw this film in the theatre–I can hardly imagine a time where we went to the theater and saw ten or more movies a year. I don’t know if I see that many at home these days. But that’s because all my books are calling in way the my accummulated videocassettes and DVDs are not. This film, though, was on a DVD, but it’s a little clearer now that we’re running it through a different receiver.

If you don’t remember the plot: Basically, Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong police inspector who breaks up a crime organization right as the British are handing Hong Kong over to the Chinese. The Chinese consul to Hong Kong ends up in Los Angeles with his wife and young daughter, who is close with Jackie Chan (come on, Jackie Chan is playing Jackie Chan, as he always does). The daughter is kidnapped for ransom by the very criminal mastermind whose organization was disrupted in Hong Kong, and the consul imports Jackie Chan to help the FBI. The FBI, though, wants nothing to do with the inspector, so they bring a loud, brash, unconventional LAPD detective, Chris Tucker, playing Chris Tucker, to entertain Chan. But they end up solving the crime after various set pieces and beginning to understand each other’s culture.

So it’s a funny movie. But twenty years on, the honeymoon for Hong Kong is over, and one cannot help but wonder how much the Chinese government influenced the film to put China in the best possible light. Even then. I didn’t sit through the credits, but I would not be surprised to see at the end a thank you to some Chinese agency or bureau. Twenty years on, we all look at things with a bit more of a gimlet eye.

But the film is my boys’ first exposure to Jackie Chan (and Chris Tucker). A virtual decision tree unfolds: What next? The Jackie Chan path? Rumble in the Bronx? That’s rated R. Perhaps Legend of the Drunken Master? Or the Chris Tucker path? Certainly not Friday, but they’re old enough for The Fifth Element by now. What about the Jackie Chan+1 fish out of water path? Shanghai Noon has Jackie Chan playing Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson playing Old West Owen Wilson. I haven’t actually seen that one yet. However, it would require buying the movie–and we own many of the others listed, and I’m saving my money for jazz and metal CDs.

Time will tell, and it could very well say, “You won’t decide this question until next New Year’s Eve.”

I’m a little late writing this one up–this is the film we watched on Thanksgiving, but I have had it sitting on my desk since then and a text file with the title in it (I do my drafts for these On… posts and the book reports in a text file editor before I copy and paste them onto the blog–clearly, I had one such post eaten by blogging software at some point in the past or I just wanted to template out the basics of each post–the title, the image, and back in the old timey days the Amazon affiliate link). So because I am very slow in reading these days–David Copperfield is like 750 pages, but I’m enjoying them–I have decided to tell you about what I watched two months ago.

You know, you kind of had to be there for the early Mel Brooks. I mean, stuff like Blazing Saddles remains funny and quotable unless you have a modern mindset where That’s not funny. Somehow, it’s crude but not crass. Or maybe I hold it in enough esteem that I overlook its crassinosity. Later comedies like Space Balls and Robin Hood: Men in Tights were hit or miss with me–they have a more modern speed and sensibility, unlike this film and Young Frankenstein (which I rewatched a couple years ago)–they move more slowly and require a little familiarity in the material that the film spoofs. In the middle 1970s, we saw those films on television on weekends. In the 21st century, not so much.

At any rate, this film spoofs sixties thrillers, especially Alfred Hitchcock movies. A noted psychologist is recruited to run an asylum where people have mysteriously died, including the most recent head. He discovers that some of the other staff are keeping rich inmates against their wills and after they’re cured–and the Mel Brooks character is dealing with his own Vertigo-like issues that come into play. I would say the name of the character, but, come on, as with Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams!, Mel Brooks, Harvery Korman, and Cloris Leachmann are playing their respective characters, the ones they tend to play in all these mid-Brooks movies.

So it was amusing to me in a I see what you did there fashion. Both of my boys watched it, which means the older one is growing in his cinema appreciation to be able to sit through something more slow-moving than a ten minute speed run YouTube video. They laughed at one bit, but the youngest proclaimed it a bit cringey. You remember RiffTrax, the thing where you can record your own commentary a la Mystery Science Theater 3000 on a movie? I think if you mashed up 21st century young people watching old movies, you would probably have pure comedy gold. Actually, someone has probably already done that as Kids Try To Figure Out and Reaction videos are all the rage. Or so I heard; I only use YouTube to watch Mizuho Lin sing and my accountant cast pods.

Also, whilst we’re on the subject of Mel Brooks’ usual suspects, I have recently discovered that Madeline Khan was all that.

I mean, my early exposure to her would probably have been Blazing Saddles, where the blonde look really didn’t work for her, and Oh, Madeline on television, which she did when she was forty-one, which was to then-me old but to now-me young. I didn’t really like her voice when I was eleven or twelve either, but it has grown on me since.

Also, she was older than my mother, so that would be a definite deal breaker for an eighties kid. I am not so sure how that would be now, as women might be looking better later in life, or maybe I’m just later and life and think so. It would make for an awkward conversation with my boys, one that I will avoid for the nonce. Boys, given that your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, what about Elizabeth Hurley who is sixty?

Still, back to the film we’re talking about. Or more related topics. When researching this film, I discovered Silent Movie which I had not heard of. It sounds like Steve Martin’s Bowfinger. I’m going to have to look for that one at garage sales. And, probably, have to order it someday when I’m feeling profligate and think about the film again–perhaps whilst reading this post in the future.

While researching the preceding paragraph, I discovered that Heather Graham and I were born in the same hospital, albeit a couple years apart. Huh. I will be sure to mention that the next time we see something with Heather Graham in it, probably License to Drive since I have boys coming of that age. Of course, I will act as though I always knew it as I always know everything about Milwaukee.

The end, he said, before he fell more into the Wikipediaverse and didn’t get anything of value at all done today.

On Sunday evening, my beautiful wife and my oldest son were out of the house for a church youth group event, so the youngest and I had an opportunity to watch a film. So I picked this one because the youngest is a good sport and will watch black and white moviews with his father. Also, Big Brother Alphabet says I should watch some Abbott and Costello.

In the film, “Buzz”–Abbott–and Stanley Livingston–Costello–work in a book store in New York when people come in looking for an out-of-print book with a map of Africa in it. Although they do not have the book, the people offer Costello (come on, I’m not going to call them by their character names because they’re not playing different characters–they’re playing Abbott and Costello) large sums of money to draw the map. Abbott catches on that there’s bigger money involved and inveigles them onto a safari whose purpose is ostensibly to capture wild animals, but in reality seeks diamonds. So it sets up several set pieces with African animals, bad guys, and cannibals.

The film comes from 1949, which means I would have seen it as a kid when it was a relatively fresh 30 years old instead of (shudder) 70 years old. My son watched it silently for a while, but toward the end he found some of the bits amusing and laugh-out-loud funny. So some of it endures. I was amused, too, but I was steeped on Abbott and Costello bits and movies growing up–enough that I prefered them to Laurel and Hardy.

Researching the film led me to some interesting tidbits. First, by the deep-dive research of looking at the credit card, I see that Shemp Howard played a role in the film. I didn’t recognize him, but that means this film is Abbott and Costello and a Stooge. So it was like a bonus.

Also, two of the bits in the book come when Costello, who has been played up as a great African hunter, tells exploits to two men he meets. One is Clyde Beatty and the other is Frank Buck–both actual celebrity animal collectors who played themselves. I have to wonder who amongst the audience in 1949 would have recognized them and gotten the joke before the moment when they reveal their real identities to Abbott and Costello. I mean, this is before television. I would have had a tough time picking Marlin Perkins out in a movie in 1980. Of course, when Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom came on, I often changed the channel. Which is why I can hear Perkins saying the title of the program but not much else about it.

At any rate, an amusing little film that you probably won’t find streaming anywhere even though I’ll bet it was on television plenty back when we only had limited options.

The headline on the article is a little more, erm, accurate: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ hauls in $16.7M with highest box office opening during COVID:

Released on Christmas Day, “Wonder Woman 1984” was the highest box office opening of the pandemic, hauling in $16.7 million in ticket sales in the US and $36.1 million globally, according to Warner Bros.

During the football game on Sunday night, they mentioned that Aaron Rodgers was about to break–and broke–the record for the most touchdown passes thrown in the second quarter of a regular season game.

Sports records, and apparently all records, are getting very granular indeed to make sure that every game or every movie or every celebrity somehow gets to break one in an artificially historic moment every time they make a doody.

Question to ponder: Is it more because of the modern participation trophy mindset (I have a collection of medals for runs and triathlons I have merely finished kept separate from medals for events where I actually, you know, won or placed) or is it more because commentators and talking heads of all stripes have to fill up the dead air with something? Or is it an even balance of both?

(See also: Davante Adams, Aaron Rodgers become Packers’ record-setting connection for more granular Historic Record news.)

In a recently released video showing a Rare, behind-the-scenes look at ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, Mark Hamill mentions the tauntaun dance which is three steps and then you fall down.

Which is completely different from my famous (that is, mentioned once on this blog in 2003) dying tauntaun impression.

Which is more than three steps this way, rolling the head, making a tauntaun sound, and then falling down.

See? Completely different, and Mark Hamill can fight me for the international rights to it if he sees fit.

(Link via Neatorama.)

Or, “How I Learned My Boys Like War Movies”.

It started, as it so often does, with a girl.

Continue reading “On Sergeant York“ →

James Hong, ‘Hollywood’s most prolific actor,’ may finally get Walk of Fame star:

He has more credits than nearly anyone in Hollywood, yet he still isn’t a bona fide “star.”

In his legendary career, actor James Hong — who recently went viral as “Hollywood’s most prolific actor” — has accrued more than 600 acting credits and inspired countless careers, yet he still doesn’t have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Now, a growing group of fans is actively trying to change that for Hong, 91, whose diverse projects include “Seinfeld,” “Big Trouble in Little China” and “Blade Runner.”

Also Wayne’s World.

Hopefully he gets the star. Although, to be honest, the headline aside, I would not have signed an Internet petition because I think they’re worthless and a waste of time. I prefer to spend my worthless and waste of time on an old timey Web log.

I mentioned that I did not watch Ice Pirates with my boys when we wrote Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” this spring.

However, my oldest boy talked about herpes for some reason today, in passing, as a meme joke of some sort, and the film features a Space Herpe, so it was time.

My youngest went for a bike ride with his beautiful mother, and my oldest, the sophisticated cinemataster that he is, only made it through half, so I watched it mostly myself. And I made a mistake.

When Killjoy appears, I recognized it was a former football player gone Hollywood, and I initially thought Lyle Alzado, but it’s actually John Matuszak.

Lyle Alzado	John Matuszak

You might understand the confusion. Defensive linemen from the 1970s who went to Hollywood who had dark hair and beards and played supporting roles in sometimes cheesy offerings. One could throw Merlin Olsen in this mix, but his hair was dark enough to not quite look the same, plus he had his own starring roles on television which cemented his distinction a bit. Also, he’s a little older than the others, as he played in the 1960s (as recounted in Jerry Kramer’s Instant Replay which I reviewed in 2004 and 2015.)

I say I should never make the mistake between Alzado and Matuszak because Matuszak was from Milwaukee and played a year of college football at Mizzou. So he should be on my list of “He’s from Milwaukee, you know” and has not been so up until this time. And he will be from now on.

Not that I won’t still have to think when I see one of them in a movie or television show from here on out. They do look enough alike for my confusion, don’t they? Humor me here, gentle reader.

We’re spending time at home again, so we have had the opportunity to watch a couple of films over the weekend.

Such as this history lesson:

Which is not much of a history lesson at all, given that it’s purportedly set in the protodynastic period in Egypt which runs like 3000 B.C., when two actual Egyptians bore the title King Scorpion, and the Rock plays the last of the Akkadians, which is is out of time since the Akkadian empire did not rise until about 2300 B.C., seven hundred years after, and the “Akkadians” are assassins, which seems to be patterned on the Order of Assassins from roughly 1100 A.D.

So, that is to say, it was not a very good history lesson at all but rather a lesson not to get your understanding of history from the cinema.

An A.I. robot named Erica was cast in the lead role of a $70M sci-fi film:

An enterprising sci-fi film crew has devised an ingenious way to shoot their film while circumventing coronavirus concerns — by casting a real-life A.I. robot named Erica. The move marks the first time a movie will star an artificially intelligent actor, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“She was created from scratch to play the role,” says Sam Khoze, a visual-effects supervisor behind “b,” the $70 million science-fiction film in which Erica will star. The flick, backed by Bondit Capital Media and New York’s Ten Ten Global Media, follows a scientist who finds a glitch in his DNA-replication research and helps the artificial organism he designed (Erica) escape, according to the outlet.

Sounds like the story they fed the media about the 2002 film Simone:

Will 2002, the year of Simone, Andrew Niccol’s feature film, come to be seen as another pivotal moment – the moment that the power of illusion surpassed that of reality? Will that year of the first “real-or-fake?” feature movie actor be seen as a symbolic bookmark locating the era when we could no longer tell, nor care if we could tell, what is authentic?

Critics did not agree about Simone. Reviews ranged from raves to pans, with many critics in the “mixed” camp. However, intelligent commentary seemed in agreement that it was the premise of Simone, which delivered its potential promise. That premise is that an entirely fake actress, digitally created by a desperate movie director (Al Pacino), could woo an unknowing audience and become a phenomenal star.

But there’s more. Just as Simone, the centerpiece “character” of Niccol’s film, turned out to be a fake, the actual actress who portrays Simone, turned out to be real. Although Niccol, Pacino, and even the film’s credits claim that “Simone”, the digital character, played “herself”, members of the press have revealed that Simone was in fact enacted by Canadian supermodel Rachel Roberts.

Sounds very similar indeed.

From the story The Real Story Behind the ‘Star Wars’ Opening Weekend 43 Years Ago:

This was 43 years ago, a gap as great as 1924 was to 1977.

Bro, do you even add?

I suppose we’re just lucky he didn’t show the Common Core math techniques he used to get there with boxes and estimation and reduction and regurgitation until one goes through eight steps to arrive at the wrong answer. But you followed the process and will be rewarded!

(Link via Instapundit.)

In an article wherein the “journalist” says he has recently rewatched all of the Dirty Harry movies (possibly for the first time), he characterizes a well-known scene thus:

In the famed, “Do you feel lucky?” scene on Montgomery Street, Callahan forces an unarmed bank robber to play Russian Roulette for his life, for no reason whatsoever.

Dude, did you even watch it?

The bank robber has a shotgun within reach when Inspector Callahan walks up and delivers the speech. The hoodlum decides he does not feel lucky, and then Callahan picks up the shotgun. The hoodlum says he has to know if the gun was empty, and Callahan dramatically points the gun at the hoodlum and pulls the trigger. Because Callahan knew the gun was empty. It showed how cold-blooded Callahan was. At the end of the clip above (and the scene), the hoodlum curses Dirty Harry.

So at no point did anyone play Russian Roulette with an unarmed robber. Callahan faced a bank robber who had a loaded gun in reach even though he knew his own gun was empty.

In the “journalist”‘s defense, it was the first movie in the series, and if he made it all the way through The Dead Pool, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Did he watch ten hours of Dirty Harry movies or only nine?’ Well, to be honest, it’s a lot, and this was from the beginning. But he could have checked YouTube before making the assertion.

Or maybe the audience of SFGate.com wouldn’t know the difference, by and large not being Dirty Harry or Clint Eastwood fans.

(Link via Instapundit.)

Also, yes, I asserted by and large San Franciscans of the twenty-first century are not Dirty Harry fans without a “scientific” study (read: survey) to back it up. But it’s probably true.