LOOK, up on the screen...

Christopher Reeve was a great pick for Superman.  I enjoyed the first two movies of the franchise.  I watched the second with my nine year old daughter last night.  We both had a good time.  She's big into super heroes, Superman is at the top of her list.  My favorite of all the Super Man movies made in the '70's and '80's is Superman II.  Terence Stamp played the evil General Zod.  Stamp stole the show with his villainous presence and dirty deeds .  Superman II was Christopher Reeve's favorite of the series too.

The first two Superman movies still hold up after all these years.  The third and forth installment are terrible.  Christopher Reeve contributed to the fourth installment, having the theme focused on nuclear disarmament.  The show bombed at the box office and Reagan ended up saving the day.  Superman IV was an embarrassment for Reeve.  He didn't want to talk about it.  After IV he was through with the role and ready to move on.  No need to fear though, he did a great job as the Man of Steel in the first two flicks.  He was fortunate not to be typecast playing Superman as his predecessor George Reeves had been.

Out of all of Reeve's work, it isn't his role as Superman, it was his time traveling romantic  role in Somewhere In Time that he really shined.

He put the K in custom.

Geroge Barris started out with a hobby of tricking out his model car kits.  He (and his brother Sam) were given a 1925 Buick for helping at the family restaurant.  They both took the heap and got her running and commenced to trick it out.  Eventually they were asked to customize other cars which led him to customizing/designing cars for television and the movies.

Every boy from Boomerville, USA might not know the name George Barris, but they clearly remember his creations for television which include The Batmobile, The Black Beauty (Green Hornet), The Munster Mobile and so many more.  Almost every custom car seen on television then and since are designed/tricked out by Barris Kustom Industries.  Back in my day, you couldn't turn on the television without seeing a Barris creation. 

When we were serving time at R.A. Mitchell Elementary in the '60's, my pal Jim Young would constantly ask me to draw pictures of a hot rods.  I'd usually try to draw him something weird and wild with a Barris influence.  Either like Barris like a Rat Fink car art.  Kid's from Boomerville, USA saw George Barris works on television, on t-shirts, bubble gum cards and yes - plastic model kits.

Oh to have riden with John Wayne

In 1971 I was twelve years old.  I clearly remember being in a classroom (during a break) looking over a spread in LIFE magazine about John Wayne's up and coming movie.  The article had lots of pictures about a movie that was in the works.  I had heard that the people who were producing the new movie were looking for some boys to be cowboys in Wayne's next venture entitled The Cowboys!  I really wanted to be in that movie.  I remember filling out little form to apply for the part.  I don't remember where I got the form.   I'm sure millions of boys did the same.  The world seems much smaller to me at the time and so I guess I thought I had a chance.  I never told anyone about it, but I could just see myself riding along side THE DUKE himself.  I remember that the call from John Wayne never came.   I was very disappointed when the movie came out without me.

As it turned out, the boys that were cast were either bona-fide actors or bona-fide reall  little cowboys.  The young actors helped coach the young cowboys how to act and the young cowboys helped teach the young actors how to ride horses and do other cowboy stuff.  I could do neither and I know that John Wayne probably looked over my name and figured I was just a city kid that he'd have to spend extra time teaching how to act and ride horses and shoot a gun. Shucks. I wouldn't have minded in the least.

I was thinking as I watched this movie again a few nights ago, about how this script would've been the better story for John Wayne's last film rather than The Shootist.  In The Cowboys, John Wayne's character, Wil Anderson, lost his seasoned cattle drivers due to a gold rush.  They left him short handed.  Wil had a limited time to move the cattle and had to rely on young boys to drive herd across 400 miles of territory before Winter.  The boys had to quickly and literally be shown the ropes before saddling up for the venture.  John Wayne became a father figure to the boys and taught them to be men along the way.

Who could forget Bruce Dern in this movie?  Bruce Dern played a cold-blooded character 'Long Hair' who shot John Wayne in the back.  The story I heard was that John had told Bruce before production that "America will hate you for this."  Dern wryly replied, "Yeah, but they'll love me in Berkeley."I guess the reason this would've made a better final film for Wayne is because he was a father figure for so many of us boys.  We all looked up to him.  He was more than a screen legend.  He was a role model. He was the giant good guy that we all grew up watching. My heart sank when I saw that giant fall after Dern shot'm in the back.  Those boys though, those young cowboys, they buried that old man and went about to finish the job they promised to finished.  They had become men along the way.

Cimarron: They didn't even dig him a decent grave.
Wil Anderson: Well, it's not how you're buried, it's how you're remembered.

This is not Wayne's best, but it's good.  I've got to close for now - "We're burning daylight!"

What an actor!

George C. Scott was a great actor.  There are two movies that reveal the versatility of his acting abilities.  In the movie Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Scott is the glue that holds Stanley Kubrick's dark comedy together.  The movie is chock full of great talent, but Scott is simply genius when he's acting and when he's across the room reacting.

George C. Scott could deliver very funny as well as very serious. The other movie that immediate comes to mind is Patton (1970), where George C. plays General George S.  I've talked to veterans who served under General Patton, and each one of them stated that George's Patton was very close to the real deal.


There is another movie that comes to mind.  The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) starred Scott and was directed by the renown John Huston. The first time I watched this movie it took me in completely.  It's a clever murder mystery with a surprise ending.  In the List of Adrian Messenger, not is all what it appears to be.

Hey you wanna go for a ride?

There were some great movies that were released in the eighties.  Sure Lucas and Spielberg entertained us, but there were some unusual little masterpieces that were born during that decade.  David Lynch brought us the very surreal film-noir Blue Velvet (1986).  Dennis Hopper did a lot of incredible during his lifetime.  His portrayal of a very creepy and very disturbing Frank Booth gave all viewers the willies.  Dennis was a little to real in this flick.

The movie pealed back a facade of what seemed a normal life to an nightmarish underworld experience - like maggots eating away beneath flesh - termites inside a wood.  I didn't just watch this movie when it was first released.  I was drawn into it. It was hypnotic to watch it.  It was like a wicked carnival ride that I couldn't get off until it was over.  I had to know how it ended.

It's been a couple of decades since I saw Blue Velvet.  I remember foul language poured from Booths mouth that would make a sailor blush.  I remember it was noir as noir could get.  The tone was so creepy that I don't know if I ever want to go back there and watch it again.  It was that good.