TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

Remember Sledge Hammer? That was a great show.

Is that your testimony?

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah, I saw that commercial.  National Geographic has officially joined the ranks of shitbirds TLC and Discovery.

My only refuge now is the Smithsonian Channel, and I fear it's days are numbered the "reality" bug catches on with them.

[garbon]

If mommy plane and daddy plane love each other very much, they go and buy a model kit.

At 8, my parents gave me a book about sex that said imagine your parents naked. I'm now a homosexual.

Best part was that neither of them had read it. They just gave it to me on the reccomendation from a parent they knew.

[Viking]

If mommy plane and daddy plane love each other very much, they go and buy a model kit.

At 8, my parents gave me a book about sex that said imagine your parents naked. I'm now a homosexual.

Best part was that neither of them had read it. They just gave it to me on the reccomendation from a parent they knew.

So, what you are saying is that your parent's lack of care and attention caused you to become a homofaggit? So, the Marcus Bachman's of the world a right about it being a choice and can be cured?

[garbon]

[Viking]

That doesn't look like an answer

[Eddie Teach]

Sure it can be cured, just ask the Iranians.

[CountDeMoney]

So I woke up in the middle of the night, and waddled out to the sofa just in time for Airport (1970), one of the greatest seminal genre films of all time--the genesis of both the "cast-of-thousands" '70s disaster flicks as well as the primary source material for the spoof Airplane!, which effectively used so many memes from it.

Airport, based on the same novel, is a hefty, multi-plot funfest:  the fictitious Lincoln International Airport, somewhere near the fictitious Chicago, Illinois, is beset by the biggest blizzard in 10 years;  community aggravation over the noise complaints of a runway; a suicidal bomber on board an intercontinental flight to Rome;  a married older pilot knocking up his much younger stewardess lover...all in a single evening!

In Airport, YOU will SEE--

BURT LANCASTER, the embattled yet competent airport administrator because he's BURT LANCASTER, fighting NATURE, DISASTER, MEDDLESOME AIRPORT COMMISSION BOARD MEMBERS and an ANNOYING WIFE who KEEPS CALLING HIM AT WORK and wanting to know when he's coming home...all at 11pm from an office that Don Draper could only dream about!
DEAN MARTIN, the suave veteran pilot, relatively SOBER and only SLURRING some of his lines, looking GREAT in his UNIFORM!
GEORGE KENNEDY, the TWA master engineer, at his SLIMMEST since high school, chewing on the SAME CIGAR all film long!
JACQUELINE BISSET, in all her gorgeous youth, complete with ENGLISH ACCENT and HIGH CHEEKBONES!
HELEN HAYES, the SPUNKY and HUMOROUS octogenarian con artist and stowaway!
VAN HEFLIN, as your STEREOTYPICAL suicidal bomber!
MAUREEN STAPLETON, as your STEREOTYPICAL suicidal bomber's wife!
A PRIEST, straight from Central Casting, in charge of PRAYER!
An actual MINORITY FEMALE with ONE speaking line!
...And the BOEING 707, the FINEST and STURDIEST civilian aircraft EVER BUILT! EVER!

In Airport, YOU will SEE--

Atrociously kitschy '60s decor and technology you wish was still available other than on eBay and Etsy! 
Private sector crisis management without the slightest Federal interference or assistance whatsoever! 
Actual customer service at an airport! At 11 o'clock at night!  With real people you would interact with!
Airport security only as marginally annoying as the snack bar line!
Middle-of-the-night emergency action by airline and airport ground personnel--without a single union issue!
Outdated airline companies no longer in existence today! 
Outdated air traffic control technology still in existence today!
Compliant, sexy stewardesses!
Compliant, sexy and medically proficient nuns!
Dated references to mental health issues!
Bland yet supremely professional cockpit crews and ATCs! 
White people as obnoxious but well-meaning stupid passengers!
Short-sleeved shirts with ties!
Skycaps!
Stationwagons! 
Ashtrays!
Snow!


Interesting factoids about Airport, cribbed from Wiki:

The film surpassed Spartacus as Universal Pictures' biggest moneymaker.
The movie won Helen Hayes an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and was nominated for nine more Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design for renowned Hollywood designer Edith Head.
Airport was released on March 5, 1970. It made $100,489,151, and adjusted for inflation this was equivalent to $558 million in 2010, the 42nd highest-grossing film of all time.
Only one Boeing 707 was used: N324F, a 707-349C leased from Flying Tiger Line. It sported an El Al cheatline over its bare metal finish, with the fictional Trans Global Airlines (TGA) titles and tail. This aircraft later crashed while in service with Transbrasil.
Burt Lancaster himself dismissed the film as "the biggest piece of junk ever made".


I give it 4.5 "CdM's Moms Who Saw It In The Theater While Pregnant With CdM At The Time And Felt The Film Dragged On Longer Than Her Pregnancy" out of a possible 5.  A true gem on many levels.

[garbon]

That doesn't look like an answer

You don't deserve one.

[CountDeMoney]

That doesn't look like an answer

You don't deserve one.

Cut his face.

[Viking]

That doesn't look like an answer

You don't deserve one.

Uh, OK.

[Ed Anger]

1941. Still great. Enjoyed the shots of chicks in stockings and underwear.

[Ideologue]

Man, I wanna see Airport now.

High and Low (1963).

Unsure if spoilers are necessary for a movie from 50 years ago, but it's all foreign and shit.  I guess have some discretion.

A kidnapper targets shoe magnate Gondo Kingo's (Toshiro Mifune) family, but botches the job: instead of taking his kid, he accidentally takes his chauffeur's.  He demands the money anyway.  Gondo does have the money, every yen, because he's gone deep into debt in a bid to take full control over his shoe company, but if he pays, he'll lose not only the company and his collateral--his mansion, his car, even his furniture--but his job, because his corporate opponents are closing in.  So what will he decide?  He tries to trick the kidnapper into revealing himself, but the kidnapper is too savvy, and when the time comes from the trade, Gondo gives up the thirty million in cash for the boy's life.

55 minutes pass in High and Low before the location changes from Gondo's sweet mansion on the hill (there's an exterior shot of Tatsuya Nakadai's detectives arriving in their camouflaged "delivery" van, but this doesn't count).  When they finally do leave this house, it's actually kind of a shame, because, except for the 10 exciting subsequent minutes on the express train that follow, High and Low segues from a really great, intense crime movie that also functions as a fascinating (if a little heavy-handed) digression on social justice, into a police procedural with a lot less inherent energy.  Until Gondo makes his final decision, it's really, really terrific.  It's only good after that, but usually you'd want to structure your movie the other way around.

There's a fair amount of social commentary in the second half after the decision is made, but I could not shake the growing feeling that Gondo, like Sanjuro before him, is another wish-fulfillment fantasy on Akira Kurosawa's part.  He certainly doesn't kill the shit out of anybody--that's the schlockier but perhaps more invigorating Mel Gibson vehicle Ransom, although I think we can all agree Toshiro Mifune going on a revenge rampage would have been a lot of fun.  Indeed, Gondo serves largely as an off-screen presence in the latter half of the film.  But you get the impression that Kurosawa sure would like it if rich people really were like this, and if society were more like this, which the great measured by their responsibility along with their power.  Gosh, if only Mitt Romney were more like Gondo Kingo.

You also wait for the revelation of the kidnapper's motives.  It's clear that he's targeted the shoe man for a reason.  Did Gondo wrong him in some fashion?  Not really.  The kidnapper just lives in the slummier parts of Yokohama at the bottom of the hill, and has looked up at Gondo's crib for so long he--like all poor people--wants to destroy him out of pure envy and moral weakness.  If he were strong, he'd be rich like Gondo.  After all, he was once a mere Al Bundy, but he worked hard.

I was also bothered by the fact that this movie putatively about the relationships and obligations between the high and the low features police letting the kidnapper murder a random woman, just so they can pin on him his entirely equivalent crimes against a rich guy, and that they permitted this to occur with their arrogance and ineptitude is never even brought up once.

Still, the initial drama is grand; and the latter half is still a more than acceptable first half of a Law & Order episode.

B+

[katmai]

So the boner pills are working?

[Ed Anger]

I didn't know Ide was taking boner pills.