Bond at 50

I have a lot of fond memories associated with the James Bond movies. As a kid, Mark was the first friend I had that got a VCR. His family had one long before anyone else I knew did. And whenever I’d spend the night at his house, we’d have his mom or dad or one of his older brothers take us to the video rental store. We’d often get three or four or sometimes even five movies out at a time and have marathon sessions watching them in his family’s finished basement. Although we were preteens and teenagers during this time, I remember us renting the Death Wish movies, and renting Kentucky Fried Movie along with Used Cars and Moving Violations. But most prominently, I remember renting James Bond movies and staying up all night watching them. (I also remember Mark and I seeing A View to A Kill at the old Gold Circle Cinema in North Canton – the same place he and I saw Ladyhawke and WarGames.)

I have seen all 22 Bond movies along with Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again many, many times in my life (and read all of the original books), but it turns out that prior to a few weeks ago, my wife had only ever seen a handful of the Pierce Brosnan Bonds, and our kiddo hadn’t seen any of them. The trailers for Skyfall caught Jack’s eye, and although he’s not going to get to see any of the Daniel Craig Bonds any time soon, I have been educating Tracy and Jack on vintage Bond… one movie at a time.

We’re not watching the movies in any particular order, we’ve skipped around, hitting Bonds from every era. We’ve made it through a dozen of them so far, and Jack’s favorite by a wide margin is Goldfinger. I guess there is no denying a classic.

I have come to realize, however, as we go through this exercise, that as a child of the ’80s, I kind of got gypped as far as Bond goes. I mean, by the time Mark and I were renting the videos in the early ’80s, Sean Connery had originated the role 20 years earlier, so he wasn’t “our” Bond. And by that time, Roger Moore was old (and looked it) and driven the character far into the jokey, hokey world of one-liners and over-the-top gadgets. When we finally got a new Bond, it ended up being our generation’s George Lazenby: Timothy Dalton. After a nice turn in The Living Daylights, the franchise produced License to Kill, which was simply an action movie with a main character who happened to be named “James Bond.” (Seriously, change Bond’s name to “Riggs” and you’ve got a passable script for Lethal Weapon 2.) The series dumped Dalton after that, and then we got Old Remington Steele as Roger Moore’s Bond. Like I said. We got screwed.

That is why I’m relishing the Daniel Craig Bond. Despite the dip in quality with Quantum of Solace, he’s still my favorite Bond at this point. Nostalgia for For Your Eyes Only or A View to a Kill will only get you so far. And though You Only Live Twice, then Thunderball were my favorite Bond movies for years, the Casino Royale reboot tops it in every way for me.

I have to say, though, revisiting the previous 22 movies has been a lot of fun. I find that it’s been very easy for me to overlook their problem spots (Live and Let Die’s J.W. Pepper, Diamonds Are Forever’s Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, along with Bambi and Thumper, etc.) and just roll with the good stuff and enjoy the movies and the girls and the cars and the gadgets and the quips, and revel in the rest of my family’s first-time viewing joy.

Parting Thought: If I ever had an audience with anyone even remotely responsible for the Bond movies, I would relentlessly push for a Daniel Craig reboot of Moonraker. That movie is ripe for updating, à la Casino Royale. Someone get on that, please!

What I've Been Waiting For

I have never attended a midnight movie premiere before. It’s just not something that’s ever been on my radar. And, frankly, I was hard-pressed to think of a movie I’d want to see a midnight premiere of. It wasn’t until we were leaving the theater after watching Captain America: The First Avenger that I realized it, but Marvel’s The Avengers is that movie for me.

Seeing this movie at the midnight premiere and sharing it with my wife and kiddo is an experience I'll always appreciate. The atmosphere was unbeatable. We arrived at the theater around 8:30 and found our line. It wasn’t bad at all, and they ended up letting us into our theater right around 9pm. We were fortunate to not have to spend the next three hours on the floor, and instead were able to settle into our oversized XD theater seats where Jack read the movie prequel comics, Tracy read The Walking Dead, and I bounced between tweeting, meeting up with friends who were still waiting out in the hallway to get into their theater, and getting pwnd by the kiddo in many rounds of Zombie Dice on the iPad.

There were plenty of folks in costume, and our theater was completely packed by 10:30. When the house lights eventually dimmed, I couldn’t believe I was actually about to see an Avengers movie. And I was rewarded for my decades-long patience.

The crowd made this an event. Cheers for the first 3D trailer we got – Amazing Spider-Man – and for Prometheus. Cheers for the feature presentation’s main titles. Someone yelled, “Cleveland!” during the first on-screen scene shot here in the hometown and the place erupted.

I’m not a fan of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, which birthed the reimagined Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, but I have completely bought into it over the course of the last five movies leading up to this. And I am a huge fan of Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson. Brilliantly conceptualized, he is to the Marvel Movie Universe what Boba Fett could have been to the Star Wars Universe. Where Boba Fett was a background character whose cachet was based solely on the mystery of his presence then squandered with a pandering, sloppy origin and overexposure in the prequels, Coulson was grown organically to provide real weight to the character’s actions and importance to the story. Nothing wasted. Nothing easy.

That consistency carried over to Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark. By far the biggest star in this thing, writer-director Joss Whedon matched the tone of Jon Favreau’s first two solo Iron Man movies seamlessly. Similarly, Chris Evans was surprisingly believable as the man-out-of-time Captain America who ascends to the leadership role over the billionaire Stark and Asgardian God of Thunder by earning their respect. Thor’s entrance elicited cheers from the sold out crowd, and rightly so. It was a brilliant moment that Chris Hemsworth pulled off effortlessly.

As expected, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow really shone under the contradictory hand of Whedon, known for not only his strong female characters, but also his penchant for framing his leading women’s posteriors in shots. I would have liked more screen time for Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill, but it was great to have her on-hand in any capacity (and, again, more ass shots).

Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner was much more thoughtful than Ed Norton’s previous run at the character (and I really enjoy the underrated Norton Incredible Hulk movie). Ruffalo pulls off the tortured scientist in every way. Hawkeye is one of my all-time favorite Avengers. (See my loving look at the character's history in issue #56 of BACK ISSUE magazine.) And the glimpse of him in Thor was great, but I have to say he’s not the standout for me in The Avengers. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to pick any one character as my favorite. This is truly a super-hero ensemble movie.

There was actually only one moment – a split-second gag – in the movie I didn’t care for. It was the only time while watching the film that I was jarringly aware I was viewing a "Joss Whedon film," and the moment was completely unnecessary and didn’t serve the story.

And there was one thing that took some getting used to: The rendering of the Green Goliath. I remember a lot of press about how you would be able to really see Ruffalo’s Banner in the Hulk onscreen. And you could, in the face and upper body, almost to a fault, but it has grown on me the more I think about the movie and the representation. And this was more than balanced by the personality infused into gamma-irradiated giant. Hulk truly shines in battle. Given what was revealed in the eight-issue Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week comic book miniseries about the fate of Dr. Samuel Sterns (Mr. Blue) from the Norton movie, I really hope they pick up that thread and run with it in another solo Hulk movie.

Whedon nailed the character cameos, and Loki – Wow. Tom Hiddleston takes his performance to its scenery chewing limits, then dials it back just enough to keep you grounded. A wonderfully realized villain that builds progressively on the character we saw in Thor.

As far as the stingers go, Avengers comes packed with two of them. One at the beginning of the credits and one before the final fade out. Both are great in their own way. The first for its nod to fans of the comic books, and the second for the way it releases the tension of the previous two hours. Brilliant.

Marvel’s The Avengers is the movie 12-year-old me has waited 30 years for. This is the movie I would wait in line for. This is the movie I would sacrifice sleep to discover unspoiled on the largest screen in the area, in 3D, with my wife and 10-year-old son beside me. If I have ever been gobsmacked, it was during the two hours shortly after midnight on May 4 when I saw The Avengers for the first time. There were so many moments that made me cheer, or my jaw drop, or simply sit there with the biggest damn grin plastered across my face, it was a completely satisfying experience.

C2E2: The Sketches - Agent Coulson by Gabriel Hardman

“God, This Is Not a Good Day for Me.”

The kiddo and I finally got around to watching Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. Whereas the Airport series is unconvincingly linked by the appearance of disaster magnet Joe Patroni, the Poseidon Adventure movies benefit from a more straightforward approach to sequels.

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure begins just before the original movie ends. Michael Caine is the ever sturdy Captain Mike of the tugboat Jenny. Along with first mate Wilbur (Karl Malden) and the passenger they picked up in their last port Celeste Whitman (Sally Field), we see the Jenny loose her cargo but otherwise safely weather the same storm that overturns the Poseidon. In the clear skies of the next morning, Captain Mike and Wilbur realize that without their cargo to deliver, the bank is going to seize the Jenny, but they spot a French Coast Guard helicopter speeding overhead – presumably carrying Detective Rogo and his group of survivors from the first movie to safety.

Captain Mike and Wilbur decide the helicopter must mean a ship has gone down nearby and arrive at the conclusion that claiming salvage rights on it is the best way to make at least some money off the trip and potentially stave off the bank.

As the Jenny reaches the capsized Poseidon, another ship also arrives. Captained by “Dr.” Stefan Svevo (Kojack himself, Telly Savalas), the Irene brings new arrivals claiming to be there only to aid any survivors, so Captains Mike and Stefan enter into a tenuous agreement to not necessarily help each other, but not hinder each other in their quests. So these seven people – Captain Mike, Wilbur, and Celeste (who Captain Mike and Wilbur amusingly refer to as “Monkey” throughout the film), along with Captain Stefan and three of his men – board the Poseidon through the hole cut in the first movie. And they do so without any knowledge of the ship schematics, stability, or things like flashlights and other basic navigation or survival items.

After reversing the previous movie’s climactic steps back through the propeller shaft room and into the engine room, the team finds their way to the ship’s gym. An explosion rocks the Poseidon and traps the combination salvage/rescue team.

Apparently the French Coast Guard wasn’t trying too hard, because a group of survivors turns up almost immediately. There’s Peter Boyle’s war vet Frank Mazzetti, the hothead father trying to locate his daughter (of course, Boyle will always be the Monster from Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein) with Mrs. Partridge herself, Shirley Jones, as ship’s nurse Gina Rowe. Veronica Hamel, who I’ve crushed hard on since her Hill Street Blues days, is along as the beautiful Suzanne Constantine.

Captain Mike and Svevo agree to split up -- Team Jenny (now including the three survivors) heads for the Purser’s Office to break into the safe there and snag some loot, while Team Irene ostensibly looks for more survivors.

Team Jenny finds the Purser’s Office and the safe is buttoned up tight, but an explosion rocks the safe through the ceiling down to the next level, cracking it open. While liberating the cash, uncut diamonds, and gold doubloons, Mazzetti’s daughter shows up (The Sound of Music and Lost In Space’s Angela Cartwright), having been looked after by Slim Pickens’ completely sloshed “Tex” and dreamy Mark Harmon’s ship elevator operator.

Suzanne uses the moment to slip away from Team Jenny and rummage through some filing cabinets in the Purser’s Office, find some information, and take off on her own to find Team Irene. She locates Svevo, with whom she clearly has a history and knows what they are really looking for. They have a brief exchange before Suzanne tells him she is going back to Team Jenny because getting off the ship safely is more important than recovering whatever it is they’re after. Svevo orders one of his henchmen to follow and kill her because they can’t have any loose ends. The henchman shoots Suzanne, but she gets away and puts a fire axe into his chest.

Team Jenny, meanwhile, figures the missing Suzanne went to find Team Irene and begin looking for an alternate way off the ship. Picking up on the idea that Boyle’s Mazzetti plays contrarian to Caine’s Captain Mike, mirroring the dynamic between Borgnine and Hackman in the first movie, the kiddo observed that “both [Poseidon Adventure movies] had men that doubted they’d get out.”

Making their way through one of the ship’s kitchens and beyond, Team Jenny finds the Meredith’s – wife Shirley Knight and her blind husband Jack Warden. They decide to find Team Irene and get off the ship. Stumbling on Suzanne’s dead gun-shot body, they realize that Svevo is probably not who he portrayed himself to be.

Captain Mike leads the group upwards, and they pick their way up a makeshift ladder. This leads to a number of great “oh, shit” moments with the blind man and his wife. They eventually find the axed henchman, realizing Team Irene is between them and the surface. Team Jenny finds a weapons cache along with Svevo and his two remaining henchmen. Svevo’s finally found what he came for – a barrel of plutonium – and a gunfight erupts between Team Jenny and Team Irene. (I have to wonder if that is really the soundest idea on a sinking, capsized ship in a room with plutonium?) Another explosion rocks the ship, trapping Captain Mike and his group in the next room.

Mazzetti is shot during the exchange of gunfire. He dies, but not before having a moment with his daughter while at death’s door. The group thinks they’re trapped in this next room, but the blind guy’s apparent heightened Daredevil senses allow him to recognize that there is a door hidden behind a car they can escape through. While helping Mrs. Meredith (who previously separated her shoulder) up a ladder in a flooded passageway, Captain Mike loses his booty and the woman, resulting in another “oh, shit” moment. (Kiddo: “I did not see that coming. Poor blind man’s wife.”)

In the meantime, Svevo makes it back to the surface through the hole cut by the French Coast Guard and tries to bring up the plutonium using a cargo net and the men he left on the Irene.

Captain Mike finds an exterior door and three scuba tanks for Team Jenny to employ in an attempt to make it to the surface. They use the buddy system for sharing the tanks and split up. They lose the ailing Wilbur in the dive, but everyone else makes it, coming up on the other side of the ship from where Svevo is trying to extract the plutonium. Captain Mike and Monkey take two of the tanks and swim back to the Jenny. While Sally Field crouch/runs to the back of the tug to release the anchor, the kiddo exclaimed, “she’s walking like a monkey!” Thus, completely validating the nickname.

Svevo is aware of the duo as soon as they fire up the tugboat, and open fire. Tex gets shot while swimming for the boat with the others, but everyone else makes it safely onto the Jenny. Team Irene is left standing on the Poseidon when it explodes fantastically!

Talking in the wheelhouse while motoring away from the wreckage, Captain Mike confides to Monkey that he’s worried he’s going to lose his boat since he lost all the treasure he was trying to get off the Poseidon. Monkey reveals she had one of the raw diamonds tucked in her shirt. They kiss and, presumably, live happily ever after.

This sequel was entertaining from beginning to end. The kiddo pointed out in the opening tugboat scenes that “you can tell it’s fake just by the way the boat is rocking,” but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the effects in the final Airport installment. We both found the movie much less dark than the original and certainly watchable. I was honestly dreading Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. I had heard that it is a horrible movie and one of the worst of the disaster genre, but it was actually one of my favorites so far! Definitely recommended.

“Are You Going Out with a Whimper?”

So after making our way through the entire Airport series, the kiddo and I decided to move on to other disaster movies of the 1970s. We started by dipping our toes in the chilling waters of The Poseidon Adventure.

I love watching these things with the kiddo because of the perspective he brings to the table as a 10 year-old. The first thing he said to me as the opening credits were rolling was, “There really aren’t any stars in disaster movies, are there?” This led to me stopping the film and the two of us having a conversation about the concept of an ensemble cast and just how big the stars that appeared in these movies were at the time.

Speaking of stars, this thing is right in line with anything we saw from the Airport franchise: Gene Hackman as Reverend Frank Scott, Ernest Borgnine as Detective Mike Rogo, Stella Stevens as Rogo’s ex-prostitute wife, Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters as Manny and Belle Rosen, Red Buttons as health-nut bachelor James Martin, Carol Lynley as hippie singer Nonnie, Roddy McDowall as Acres the doomed waiter, Pamela Sue Martin as Susan Shelby traveling with her little brother to meet up with their parents abroad, and Leslie Nielsen as the ship’s captain.

The S.S. Poseidon is making its final voyage across the Atlantic and through the Mediterranean from New York City to Athens before being decommissioned. The boat’s new owners have put Mr. Linarcos in charge of things, and he orders the ship to go “full ahead” against Captain Harrison’s objections and even though the ship has not filled its ballast tanks.

An undersea New Year’s Eve earthquake triggers a rogue wave that the Poseidon is unable to evade. The wave crashes into the ship just after a mayday distress signal is sent, killing the captain and everyone on the bridge. Without the necessary ballast, the ship capsizes, forcing a ragtag band of survivors to make their way up towards the surface by climbing from the dining room to the propeller shaft at bottom of the boat.

Leading the charge for a small group of survivors is Reverend Scott. He tries to convince others along the way to follow him, but isn’t always successful. When he’s unable to persuade one particular survivor to join him, my kiddo asked me, “Who was the gray-haired guy he was talking to?” And when I reminded him it was the ship chaplain I got an “Oh, I liked him. Too bad he had to die,” in reply.

Thankfully, Acres and Robin, Susan’s little brother with a curiosity for the ship’s inner workings, are along to help navigate the motley bunch to safety. They make their way through the galley and various corridors to an access tunnel. They lose Acres when an explosion rocks the boat, but the group forges on. They come upon other survivors moving in the opposite direction. Scott is certain they are headed towards their doom and unsuccessfully tries to convince them otherwise.

Scott scouts ahead for the engine room, but by the time he goes back for the others, the corridor has flooded. He attempts to swim with a length of rope from the group to the engine room so they will have a trail to follow, but a door collapses on Scott trapping him. Fortunately, Belle is a former champion swimmer, and she goes in after Scott, freeing him and getting them both to the engine room. Unfortunately, Belle isn’t in the same shape she was when she swam competitively and suffers a heart attack almost immediately after reaching the engine room. My kiddo, an avid swimmer, insisted on trying to hold his breath along with Scott during his dive.

The group has to cross a catwalk to enter the propeller shaft room, and while crossing Rogo’s wife dies, prompting Rogo to go off on Scott one more time before a ruptured steam pipe blocks the group’s progress. After losing Acres, Belle, and Mrs. Rogo, Scott goes off on God, telling Him “We didn't ask you to fight for us, but damn it don't fight against us!” before jumping for the valve, shutting off the flow of steam, then sacrificing himself. The six remaining survivors make it into the propeller shaft room just as rescuers are banging on the hull above them. The rescuers blowtorch their way in to the survivors, who are immediately flown to safety.

The movie is fairy intense in spots and certainly keeps the viewer on edge regarding who will make it and who won’t – especially after Acres dies, and they start dropping like flies during the last 20 minutes or so. The kiddo was far more affected by Belle’s death than any of the others we’ve seen in these disaster movies so far. I took that as a sign that the characterizations here are well-executed. (It’s hard for me to be objective about these stars with all the baggage I bring to the table – Jack Albertson is forever Grandpa Joe and The Man to me.) But it’s the character dynamics that were most intriguing.

The Poseidon Adventure’s central conflict is alpha males Reverend Scott and Detective Rogo continually posturing for dominance of the group. While you never really believe that Rogo will take over, the hot-headed threat looms throughout. It starts with Mrs. Rogo harping on her husband in their cabin. (Kiddo: “I don’t like her. She’s sassy and mean.”) That carries over to their New Year’s Eve dinner at the Captain’s table, where Scott is also seated. There is clear tension between the married couple that leads directly to crazy-ass machismo bets and constant bickering between the two rivals after disaster strikes. The bottom line, though, is that Rogo bitches and Scott leads.

“They Don’t Call It the Cockpit for Nothing, Honey.”

Every one of the Airport movies is its own beast. And The Concorde ... Airport ’79 couldn’t be more different from its predecessors. This thing opens like an episode of The Love Boat... Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert, John Davidson, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, Avery Schreiber, Sybil Danning, Sylvia Kristel, Jimmie Walker, and Charo! And plays out like some horrible made-for-TV movie.

Federation Airlines has purchased the Concorde, and it’s making its maiden flight from Dulles International in D.C., to Moscow by way of Paris on a pre-Olympics goodwill tour. Aboard are members of the U.S.S.R. Olympic gymnastics team, the head of Federation Airlines and his trophy wife, Jimmie Walker as a tokin’ saxophonist, and the terminally incontinent Martha Raye. There are also a couple of reporters on board: John Davidson’s is in love with the star Russian gymnast, but the one you really want to keep an eye on is Susan Blakely’s Maggie Whelan. She’s the girlfriend of Robert Wagner’s weapons manufacturer and illegal arms dealer Kevin Harrison.

Whelan has learned about Harrison’s dirty dealings and is duty-bound to expose him. Instead of silencing her discretely, Harrison opts for a Goldfinger-scaled plot that involves attempting to bring down the Concorde by firing one of Harrison Industries’ surface-to-air Buzzard missiles at it, having an F-4 Phantom attack it, and sabotaging the cargo hold to open during flight causing the plane to rip apart. Thankfully, Federation Airlines hired Joe Patroni to pilot this bird, because only on his capable shoulders could the passengers and crew make it through.

During the Buzzard attack, Patroni is able to evade the missiles through his skill and sheer force of will, and by that I mean he executes perfect barrel rolls. Now, Patroni is the only character we see in all four Airport movies, but this is the first time we see him in the cockpit in the air. And it was at this point that the kiddo turned to me and stated with that mix of deadpan and sincerity that only a 10-year-old could pull off, “Patroni’s a really good flyer.”

As atrocious as the special effects in this thing are even when dialing back to era-appropriate expectations, it’s the credibility-stretching logic that really does it in. Thankfully, Patroni knows everything about the attacking fighter planes and the weapons being fired at them. To evade the heat-seeking missiles during the F-4 Phantom attack after making it to French airspace, Patroni decides his best course of action is to depressurize the plane, open a cockpit window, and stick his arm out while zipping along at Mach 2 to fire a flare.

I’ll wait a moment while you let that sink in. Got it? Ok.

When the flare gun jams, Patroni brings his unharmed and amazingly still attached arm back inside the cabin and promptly accidentally fires a flare inside the cockpit. (Cue The Breakfast Club quote.) It damages some hydraulics and equipment, but otherwise they’re all fine. Patroni then elects to cut the engines to evade the remaining missiles, pulling out of a nosedive that the fighter jet can’t. With the reverse thrusters damaged from the errant flare, Patroni executes an emergency landing in Paris with runway nets and emergency brakes.

We learn that Patroni’s wife (Webster’s mom from back in ’75) has recently died in a car crash – I guess even with all the air travel mayhem that seems to follow old’ Joe around, planes really are safer than cars! During the stopover in Paris, the French co-pilot offers to set Patroni up on a date that evening. Patroni accepts because he’s nothing if not a smouldering hunk o’ masculinity, and after dinner this playa bags the girl on a rug in front of a roaring fire under a satin comforter. Then three minutes later goes back for more!

Again, let me give you a moment to either let that sink in or try to scour that image out of your brain with some mental bleach. Ok?

Next day, back in the cockpit, Patroni’s co-pilot buddy informs him that his date was actually a prostitute. And everyone has a good laugh (as you do in such a situation).

While Patroni was getting his freak on, Harrison was working on his latest plan to get rid of the incriminating documents his reporter girlfriend has in her possession. Harrison arrives in Paris and meets with Whelan, who informs him she’s going to run the story as soon as she gets to Moscow. Instead of efficiently killing her when they’re alone, Harrison figures it would be better to destroy the entire plane and its passengers and dispatches a henchman to rig the luggage door to open remotely mid-flight and rip the plane apart.

The door opens en route from Paris to Moscow and the plane does start to come apart at the seams, prompting the pilot to exclaim, “We’ve got explosive decompression!” and Eddie Albert – still strapped into his seat – plugs the hole in the floor of the plane by falling into it.

The craft is hemorrhaging fuel and doesn’t have enough to make it to Innsbruck. Thankfully, Patroni’s co-pilot has skied in the Alps and knows the terrain well. He radios ahead to a nearby ski patrol that mobilizes and marks a makeshift landing strip and sets up a triage hospital in record time. Patroni belly flops the Concorde into the snow, at which point the kiddo turns to me and declares, “That plane’s a survivor!”

Broadcasting from the crash site, Whelan reports that she also has a breaking story on Harrison Industries. From his private jet, Harrison watches news coverage of the plane’s miraculous landing and his girlfriend’s announcement, and puts a bullet in his head. We then learn that the fuel tank has ruptured and the pressure of the snow the Concorde’s buried under is going to make it explode. Presumably saving everyone the trouble of figuring out how to get the husk of the plane out of the Alps. Huge explosion. Fade to black.

I can easily find reasons to recommend Airport, Airport 1975, and Airport ’77, but there really isn't anything good to say about The Concorde ... Airport ’79. In fact, its only redeeming quality was pointed out by the kiddo. I asked him which of the four movies he liked the best, and he shocked me by saying, “The Concorde," and when I asked him why, he told me "because nobody died in this one. Except the bad guy who killed himself at the end. But all the passengers made it this time!” Yeah, I guess he's right. That Patroni is a really good flyer.

“Radios Don't Work Underwater!”

Three movies into the Airport franchise now and the kiddo and I are still holding strong, but it’s amazing what a few years can do. Where Airport had some comedy and camp elements, and Airport 1975 had a high-flying adventure spin, Airport ’77 is all claustrophobic suspense. Right down to its very ’70s score (the kiddo loved the ominous musical cues), and Edith Head award winning costumes, this is a movie steeped in the decade more so than either of its forerunners. It has a completely different tone.

Keeping in line with the all-star cast tradition, this time out we have Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Christopher Lee, and Olivia de Havilland alongside recognizable faces like Darren McGavin, Kathleen Quinlan, Gil Gerard, and M. Emmet Walsh. Filling the Helen Reddy role of singing passenger from the last film, we have blind singer Tom Sullivan as the inflight piano man. Notable TV director Jerry Jameson (The Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum, P.I., Dallas, Dynasty, Touched by an Angel, Dr. Quinn) helms this high flying – and deep diving – adventure.

The premise is wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens (Stewart) flying a bunch of guests aboard his new tricked out luxury aircraft (complete with a piano bar, table-top Pong arcade machine, and a Laserdisc player!) to meet him at his private Palm Beach estate. Along with the people, including his estranged daughter and grandson, Stevens is transporting his private and valuable art collection. Unfortunately, a trio of art thieves that includes the co-pilot is also aboard the flight.

The hijackers plan to knock out the crew and passengers with sleeping gas, land the plane on an abandoned airfield, lift the art, and get outta Dodge before everyone comes to. To get to the deserted airfield, the co-pilot art thief has to fly the giant 747 low across the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle to get the plane off radar. Everything goes according to plan until an unaccounted for fog reduces his visibility and he clips an oil derrick, damaging an engine. They crash into the ocean and immediately descend, coming to rest on a shelf ledge.

To recap: Trapped passengers on hijacked and crashed plane under water in the Bermuda Triangle. Yep, that about covers it.

The impact wakes the drugged passengers while killing two of the three hijackers and badly injuring the co-pilot, and it’s up to Captain Don Gallagher (Lemmon) and airplane coordinator Stan Buchek (McGavin) to try and save the trapped passengers from inside, with the eternally promotable Joe Patroni (George Kennedy reprising his role from the first two Airport installments) and the U.S. Navy to organize efforts from the surface.

Captain Gallagher and Stevens’ assistant Eve Clayton (Brenda Vaccaro) are romantically involved and both on board the plane, and we see Stevens’ concern for his daughter and grandson from afar. But this time around, the love story focuses on a triangle between two business partners (Christopher Lee and Gil Gerard) and one partner’s wife (Lee Grant). It’s dark and tragic and mirrors the overall tone of the movie.

When I asked the kiddo how this movie stacks up against the first two Airport movies, he said this one is definitely “scarier, but the captain [Lemmon] is by far the best actor we’ve seen!” I thought the movie was every bit as entertaining as the previous one. Because of its claustrophobic nature, it certainly ratchets up the suspense over its predecessors.

Much in the same way each of the Alien movies is of a different genre, the Airport movies seem to share that quality. And because the fourth Alien movie sucked so hard, I have my concerns about The Concorde … Airport ’79. Things don’t bode well for the franchise’s final installment…

“There’s Just a Hole Where the Pilots Usually Sit!”

So, after Airport, the kiddo and I decided it was worthwhile to continue on through the franchise. Airport 1975, released in the fall of 1974, stars Charlton Heston (and his eyebrows), with George Kennedy reprising his role as Joe Patroni. Where Patroni was the chief mechanic in the original, he’s now been promoted to Vice President of Operations for Columbia Airlines. Naturally, Heston’s Alan Murdock, Columbia’s Chief Flight Instructor, is involved with Karen Black’s Nancy Pryor, the head stewardess on the imperilled flight.

There was some groovy dialog, but no knocked up stewardesses or cheating husbands in this one. In fact, whereas in the first movie the people in danger didn’t necessarily have strong connections with the folks on the ground trying to save them, in this installment not only is Murdock’s lover on the flight, but so is Patroni’s wife (played by Webster’s mom – Susan Clark!) and son (not played by Emmanuel Lewis, I’m sorry to report).

Amping up the tension is Linda Blair in her first post-Exorcist role, on board as a child in need of a kidney transplant. Thankfully, she is soothed by Helen Reddy’s singing nun character, Sister Ruth.

The pop culture cavalcade continues with Erik Estrada as the doomed flight engineer, Myrna Loy as an alcoholic passenger continually hit on by Sid Caesar’s nervous chatterbox. Norman Fell, Jerry Stiller, and Conrad Janis play three buddies on the transcontinental flight. In an excellent meta role, Gloria Swanson plays herself, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who my generation knows as Remington Steel leading lady Stephanie Zimbalist’s real-life dad and lead character Remington Steel’s on-screen dad, plays the one surviving flight crew member.

Columbia Airlines flight 409 takes off from Washington Dulles International Airport, headed for Los Angeles. The west coast is “socked in” so the flight is rerouted to Salt Lake City International Airport. Simultaneously, a businessman takes off in a private Beechcraft from New Mexico headed for Boise, Idaho, but is also routed to Salt Lake. After both planes are stacked into their approach patters over Utah, the businessman suffers a heart attack and crashes into the cockpit of the Bowing 747. Tragedy ensues.

There are problems with the autopilot, and the obvious dearth of qualified pilots on board the commercial flight leads Murdock and Patroni to take the company jet to Salt Lake, where they hope to somehow find a way to help the crippled craft safely to the ground. After enduring plenty of sexist banter from the flight crew before the disaster, Pryor capably assumes control of the plane with very few woman-in-peril moments, and those clearly serve to ratchet up the tension.

At one point, a TV news crew shows up at the Salt Lake airfield with the widow of the businessman. Similar to the social commentary of the noise pollution subplot in the first movie, this brief aside clearly takes aim at the sensationalization of news but isn’t long enough to gain any traction.

Ultimately, Murdock and Patroni enlist the help of a nearby air base and attempt an in-flight transfer of a pilot from an Air Force helicopter into the flight deck through the gaping hole. Like the “oh, shit” moment when the passenger detonates his bomb in the lavatory of the plane in the first movie, the kiddo and I had the same reaction during the Air Force pilot’s attempt to board flight 409 in this movie.

Ultimately, the plane is safely landed, the inflatable emergency exit slides are deployed, everyone makes it off the plane, and an ambulance is waiting to rush Linda Blair to the hospital for her kidney (apparently they found a replacement kidney in Utah, since the one she was scheduled to receive was in Los Angeles). On the other side of the plane, Pryor and her pilot hero are able walk off the plane and onto a waiting mobile ramp stairs, preserving their dignity.

Although I’d never seen Airport or Airport 1975 prior to this past weekend, I love the movie Airplane. I haven’t seen it in years, but I can quote it ad nauseam. And now, having seen these two disaster classics, the parody’s reference points are all the more amusing.

After watching the second installment in the Airport franchise, the kiddo declared he knows what the calamity will be in Airport ’77: “Since the first movie had a hole blown in the rear of the plane, and this one had a hole blown in the cockpit, I bet in the next movie there’s a hole blown in the middle of the plane!” We’ll see. I’m just happy that when he finally gets around to watching Airplane, he’s going to get so much more out of it than I did for the first 30 years.

“Hold On, We’re Goin’ for Broke!”

I watched the 1970 classic Airport for the first time this weekend. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the granddaddy of all disaster movies, but think I got my money’s worth. The movie is over 40 years old, so reader beware... spoiler-iffic details to follow.

Taking place over a single night, Burt Lancaster’s Mel Bakersfeld is the manager of Lincoln International Airport outside of Chicago, trying to keep the airport open and functioning during a paralyzing snowstorm. He’s also in a loveless marriage and clearly taken with Trans Global Airlines’ PR agent, Jean Seberg’s Tanya Livingston.

Bakersfeld’s brother-in-law is Dean Martin’s TGA pilot Vern Demerest. Demerest is cheating on his wife (Bakersfeld’s sister) with head stewardess Gwen, played by a luminous Jacqueline Bisset. We find out Gwen is pregnant with Demerest’s child, and there is talk of how to deal with the situation, including adoption versus abortion – a pretty dicey topic in the pre-Roe v. Wade years.

So not only are the two main characters cheating on their wives – one in his heart and one literally – both end up with their mistresses in the final moments of the film’s happy ending. The portrayal of Bakersfeld's wife justifies his ending up with Tanya, but you can’t help but feel bad for his sister. Demerest is cheating on her and leaves her for his pregnant girlfriend. That's just cold.

My ten-year-old son watched the movie with me. The abortion talk was subtle enough that it went over his head, but he was astounded that the two men ended up with different women at the end of the movie. Mel’s wife complains throughout that he’s married to his job and doesn’t make time for her (but it was pretty ridiculous for her to bitch about it on this particular night when there was an obvious environmental calamity and a terrorist threat on one of the flights that, as airport manager, he has to deal with). At the end of the movie, however, when Mel declines to deal with a new problem that’s come up at the airport and literally drives off into the sunrise with Tanya, the kiddo turned to me and said, “Why didn’t he do that with his wife? They’d probably still be together!”

There are a couple of passengers on the flight with Demerest and Gwen, originating at Lincoln International and heading to Rome, Italy, that play key roles in the film. Helen Hayes won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of elderly stowaway Ada Quonsett, and Van Heflin played bomber D.O. Guerrero. There was some nice comic relief with Hayes’ character, and a melodramatic-but-story-propelling turn by Heflin.

The all-star cast was awesome, and extended to the ever-reliable George Kennedy (the only actor to reprise his role through all four of the Airport movies), Maureen Stapleton as Guerrero’s wife (whose performance is actually more deserving of the Supporting Actress Oscar nod than Hayes’ turn), Barbara Hale as Mel’s sister and Vern’s wife, a young Gary Collins as the second officer on the disaster plagued flight, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them uncredited appearances by Marion Ross and Christopher Lloyd.

Not only does the flick overflow with recognizable actors, it has an overabundance of story crammed in there! Along with the snowstorm, bomb threat, and romantic plot points, there are subplots involving picketers, airport noise pollution (while it may have provided some social commentary on the times, it falls flat), and a plane stuck in the snow on the airfield's longest runway.

Crazy to think that Airport started the disaster film craze of the ’70s. It was two hours and 16 minutes of slow burn story evolution that can easily veer into camp, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it... so much so that I've already moved on to the first sequel!

Saving 12-Year-Old Me from the Avengers

Twelve-year-old me is positively beside himself about the Avengers movie coming next spring. And, I have to admit, 41-year-old me is pretty excited about it, too. I have never done an opening night, midnight screening of a movie, but I told Tracy and Jack when we left the theater after seeing Captain America that I am all about it for the Avengers premiere!

The interwebs and Twitterverse were abuzz last week when the first official trailer for Avengers was released. I was so excited when I finally hit the “play” button on my iPad, but, if I’m honest with myself, I was ultimately pretty let down by it.



There were three things that played against it for me...

First, the bulk of the trailer’s action sequences consisted of the explosions filmed in Cleveland this summer. When director Joss Whedon and his crew descended on Northeast Ohio earlier this year the Avengers hype reached a pretty high mark. I was fortunate enough to hear all kinds of cool behind the scenes details about the big budget production from a fellow POP! club member who was an extra during filming, and I don’t think I know anyone who avoided long and short clips of the action filmed here playing on the local news and YouTube months ago.

Second, the use of Nine Inch Nails’ “We’re in this Together” off 1999’s The Fragile felt horribly out of place. It was similar to my reaction rewatching the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie recently: The soundtrack dated the movie horribly. My affection for Nine Inch Nails, though deep, apparently does, in fact, know bounds.

Finally, there’s the thing that really rubbed me completely the wrong way about the trailer: Samuel L. Jackson’s first line in the trailer as Nick Fury is the answer to Agent Coulson’s off screen question, “What do we do?” And instead of a “We kick some ass!” or “We defend Earth!” or any number of bad ass quips you could hope for, you get a completely neutered, “We get ready.”

Wait.

What? We just... get ready?!

Every time I hear that line, it’s delivered in my head in Eddie Murphy’s mocking-the-up-tight-black-cop “You’re not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe” voice from Beverly Hills Cop.



Now, I realize this is a “getting the band together” movie, and the overall theme of it probably is actually about, well, getting ready… the heroes we’ve seen in all the other great Marvel movies being gathered by S.H.I.E.L.D. and preparing for battle against this movie’s Big Bad. But, man, I really expected more badassery out of the gate when Nick Fury first opens his mouth.

I guess I need to avoid any more promotional hype for this juggernaut whenever I can, for my sake and the sake of 12-year-old me who really, really wants to love this movie.

The Karate Kid 2.0

Had a fun “guys” day with the kiddo Saturday. After a week of business travel away, it was great to have some one-on-one time together. He caught up on his Summer Bridge workbook pages while I mowed the lawn, then we headed over to the Metroparks for a three-mile walk. Afterwards, we came home and he helped me clean the interior of my car, then it was time for showers, lunch, and The Karate Kid.

The kiddo has been so excited about this movie for a good month now! I have a fond place in my ’80s heart for the original film, so there was no way I wasn’t going to indulge him in seeing this remake. I debated watching the original movie with him (it’s available on Netflix instant streaming) in the weeks before we saw the new film, but I decided to take a page out of my buddy John’s book and his Star Wars wisdom to recognize that “every generation has a legend.” And John’s absolutely right. Who was I to burst my son’s bubble of excitement over this retelling of the underdog tale? Did he need to know this was a remake of a movie that I probably think a little too highly of because of my own nostalgia and the fact I saw it through a young teenager’s eyes? No.

And where the protagonist of the original film is of driving age, the main character of the remake is 12 – a far closer and relatable age for my kiddo. So he went into the theater armed only with what he knew from the trailers and with zero knowledge of the original’s existence. And we both had a great time! The movie clocked in at two hours and 20 minutes, but hit all the right notes and never felt drawn out or padded. For those of us who remember the Reagan Era, there were nods to the original that were reverential without ever feeling like they were ripping anything off.

The arcs for both Jaden Smith’s Dre Parker and Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han were affecting and resonant. Smith carried the movie like a pro, indicative of his pedigree. Chan was beautifully understated, surprising me by plumbing some emotional depths I didn’t know he could pull off.

One thing I really admired about the movie is that, despite taking place in China, it never dumbed down the language barrier. Instead of going the route of something like The Hunt for Red October (a movie I love) where suddenly the foreign language is abandoned for English with the corresponding accent, the characters who spoke Chinese did just that with subtitles throughout the entire film. A bold choice for a movie aimed at adolescents.

I thoroughly enjoyed this remake of The Karate Kid. I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those movies that leaves an impression on my kiddo and this generation like the original did on me and mine. And that’s a good thing, because there’s always room for well-told underdog stories to inspire us.