Flick Pick: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming

The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
(United Artists, 1966)

Long before Peter Benchley scared the pants off New England beachgoers with the story of a monstrous shark, his father Nathaniel penned a splendid little tale about a Russian submarine inadvertently beached on mythical Gloucester Island, which was later made into a star-studded Cold War comedy by Norman Jewison, with Carl Reiner, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, and nominated for Best Actor in his first major film role, Alan Arkin as the sane Russian trying to protect his men, his captain, his boat, and his dignity. Jonathan Winters putts Don Knotts' deputy to shame, Brian Keith is the picture of a perfect small-town sheriff, and Carl Reiner demonstrates why he was the king of comedy, managing one epic comedic scene while gagged and tied to the town switchboard operator, without uttering a single intelligible line. And he kills. He's 92 now; see him in his prime. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, and deserved the honors. Between this film, yesterdays', and Dr. Strangelove, it's notable that the Cold War is the only war where all the best films are comedies. There's a lesson in there, I think.

Flick Pick: One, Two, Three

One, Two, Three
(United Artists, 1961)

Billy Wilder's relentless comedy starring James Cagney and Horst Buckholz in the best send-up of communism ever. Cagney carries this picture from beginning to end, and just when you think it's going fast, Khachaturian's Sabre Dance kicks in on the soundtrack, and it hits afterburner. The pace and burden were so overwhelming that Cagney retired from movies for twenty years afterwards because "I felt I was slipping". If this is Cagney slipping, in gear he must have been a fireball. Filming was taking place in 1961 Berlin the day the Russians put up the Berlin Wall, and the movie was re-discovered by West Berlin audiences in 1985, forming no small amount of impetus and backdrop to Reagan's speech there when he uttered the famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech in 1987.
Happy May Day.

Flick Pick: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises
(Warner Bros., 2012)

Final (?) installment in the Dark Knight trilogy, yet another billion-dollar gross, with almost all the old characters back, and the addition of the always lovely Anne Hathaway, as a cat burglar in skintight pleather(! - you had me at Anne Hathaway), trying to go straight and tripping over Bruce Wayne/Batman. Everyone claims total agnosticism about how all that pro-conservative anti-Occupy messaging got in these movies; yeah, it's a mystery to us too, esp. given how right-wing friendly Hollywood has been for the last 40 years. (Not!) But evidently if you sneak it in with orcs, wizards, or superheroes, it's okay with them, since they always turn out to be 10-figure earning pictures. Almost as if the audience, millions of them, likes movies where the hero is a good guy, and wins. Don't tell the studios, it'll just be our little secret.

Flick Pick: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight
(Warner Bros., 2008)

Second of Christopher Nolan's eventual trilogy of Dark Knight Batman films, better and bigger than the first, becoming a billion-dollar movie when all was said and done, and featuring Heath Ledger as the Joker in the role that killed him. But he got an Oscar anyway, so it wasn't a total loss, and for a two-fer there'll be no Brokeback Mountain II.

Flick Pick: Batman Begins

Batman Begins
(Warner Bros., 2005)

Christopher Nolan's successful iteration of the long-suffering Batman franchise, marking a decided turn for the better, and finally featuring the hero instead of the villains as the centerpiece of the story. A star-studded cast delights, and the bulk of the shots being live action rather than CGI satisfies the eye. It only took Hollywood a few decades to re-discover that crime shouldn't pay to reignite this series, and set it on the path to cinematic greatness.

Why The Monkeys Rage

Low Information Jackholes: case in point

Jim Klein said...

You're hopeless on the big issue until you offer a full retraction, but maybe you'll share with your readers a more accurate rendition of the legal aspects of the land.

Ever hear of the Statute of Frauds? It's more than 300 years old. Because of that, we KNOW that Bundy was not a tenant as you wrote. You cannot produce a clear document spelling out that tenancy; therefore according to Law, it does not exist.

With regard to the title of the physical land, it belongs to either the US or Nevada. I don't know and it doesn't matter. Bundy had an estate in the grazing rights superior to either. How do we know this? Because nobody had claimed those rights prior to his ancestors and nobody made a timely claim that those rights are anyone's but his.

This is what it MEANS to create an estate in something; it's what property IS. Absent a State statute to the contrary, an estate is created just like that...one takes something without value and creates something of value. The created value is the creator's property. The fact that there is no specific statute addressing estates in grazing rights, doesn't mean that they can't exist. That would be like saying computers don't exist because the government never explicitly granted their existence. And in the case at hand, no statute to the contrary exists.

So the grazing rights WERE his and his family's all along. Now that may render the charging of fees and so forth an illegal taking in the first place, but that's a rather separate issue.

In fairness, if the fed offered value as compensation for the SPECIFIC taking of those grazing rights, then at least they'd be in accordance with the Fifth Amendment, with the question of whether or not that compensation was "just," a matter for civil procedures. I don't know and I doubt you do either, and the compensation would have to CLEARLY note that the money was compensation for the exact property of the grazing rights in the land. Otherwise, the Statute of Frauds applies and the compensation was for something else.

And even if every single element of the Law were against him--which they're not, since they're for him--it still wouldn't justify strafing and napalming. I'll let you figure out why, and maybe that two minutes of thinking will motivate you to do the right thing, and fully retract.

April 27, 2014 at 12:21 PM

Sorry Jim, but the big issue IS the legal aspects of the land.

That is what makes Bundy a thief, in the same aspect the difference between teller and bank robber is which end of the gun you're standing on.

The land is where Bundy was never more than a tenant, having leased the land in question for grazing without a peep for decades himself, exactly as his father did beginning in 1954, long after that land first belonged to the U.S. government, up through 1992. One pays for that which is not his, and Bundy and his ancestors paid for federal leases on land they never purchased outright, because they never even lived there before 1948, and the BLM had jurisdiction over it since 1946. Whoops.

They did this under the auspices of the Bureau of Land Management in 1946, successor to the US Grazing Service in 1939, which arose out of the General Land Office going back to 1812, 36 years before the land in question was acquired by the United States Government. So clearly, the value of the land and the rights to graze on it were not valueless, and seen as having value by the US government some great number of decades before Bundy was in the picture, in fact before he was even born. Looking no farther than Wikipedia:

The Bundy family purchased their farm outside of Bunkerville in 1948; the farm would serve as headquarters and base property for their ranching operation, which began in 1954, on federal land. They had moved to the area from Bundyville, Arizona (near Mount Trumbull). Cliven Bundy's father, David Bundy, was born in Bundyville in 1922.^[90] David Bundy had married Margaret Bodel Jensen of Bunkerville, and after starting a family in Arizona, they purchased their property outside of Bunkerville in 1948.^[44]
 

Cliven had argued in court that his "Mormon ancestors began working the land in the 1880s".^[91][92] This argument has basis in Cliven's maternal grandmother's ancestral line, but not among his paternal or other maternal lines. Cliven's mother's father, John Jensen, was born in Utah, but her mother, Abigail Christina Abbott, was born in the Bunkerville/Mesquite area. Abigail Christina Abbott's parents, both born in Utah, were among early settlers of Bunkerville/Mesquite in the 1880s; this includes lines from the Leavitt and Abbott families. These early families moved in and out of the area on several occasions, and polygamous marriages meant some wives and their families were kept in different towns. As such, there is no continuous line of family births and habitation in Bunkerville/Mesquite from Cliven Bundy to the few ancestors who settled the area.^[44]

In 1993, he ceased paying to renew his grazing lease, but without removing his cattle, making him a trespasser. He continued to do so, and admitted all of this in sworn depositions, despite losing two cases in federal district court in Las Vegas, under the insane contention that somehow a non-existant Nevada had title to lands that belonged to the federal government in perpetuity since Mexico signed it over in the Treaty Of Hidalgo in 1848. The Territory of Utah was formed shortly afterwards, and the Territory of Nevada  was formed out of that some years later. QED.

Now, did you want to actually talk about the land's history of ownership or were you just making chitchat?

Since you admit to agnosticism on this point, perhaps you should spend the four seconds it would take to look it up, since repeating seventh grade social studies, this time with a passing grade, is probably too much to ask. It's all readily available facts in the public domain.

The thing about creating an estate is that you actually have to have the title to the property in question. Bundy has nothing but chutzpah; the feds repeatedly demonstrated his claims to be nothing but tinfoil-hattery, and lacking any substance or standing, he lost both cases in about as long as they took the clerk of the court to type them up.

Notably, he had no problem paying the money for leases until 1993, when the owners of the land, the federal government, changed the conditions under which they would allow him to use it. The nerve of the actual owners trying to tell lessees what they may and may not do on property they don't own, and never have! Because they didn't tell him what he could do on his ranch, they told what he couldn't do on their land, and that was when Bundy decided to stop renewing his lease. This isn't government expansion, it's mere stinginess on Bundy's part that they were squeezing off the government teat he and his family have sucked on since at least 1954. Boo frickin' hoo.

Had you the wit to have read the ruling, the second case further demonstrated that Bundy's herd had now grown and spread out over not only the lands he ceased to lease, but onto new trespass lands upon which he'd never grazed, because he'd never leased them, nor had his family, ever, period.

This is all public record, so you're either illiterate, lazy, or deliberately being stupid. I could give odds upon which is most likely...

As for all that, you're right, it wouldn't legally justify strafing and napalming him.
Fortunately, I never argued that it did.

I also didn't argue that the multiple criminal counts against him including taking up arms in opposition to court orders would justify it in law either.

But that's what makes dealing with people like you so much fun. You don't read, you spew.
I did type that "in my humble opinion" the feds would be so justified, but you can't discern a private opinion from force of law, as evidenced by your own ramblings against common sense contrary to the law, which correspond exactly to Bundy's.

But the reality is, the feds are neither going to strafe Bundy's herd nor napalm his home with him in it. More's the pity.

But what they are likely to do is thrown a net over him in the very near future, so that he can continue his lunatic cries from somewhere inside a deep dark federal hole, while they round up his cows and sell them for Big Macs. And if he decides the lemon is worth the squeeze, he'll get killed resisting. Just like Dillinger, or Bonnie and Clyde. If not, he'll die broke and in prison. And either way, they'll probably seize the small ranch and whatever other real and personal property he does actually own, and then credit his bill against a generous fair market price, removing him and his heirs from that land in perpetuity.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

And during Round Two, I hope they similarly apprehend anyone who shows up to help him obstruct justice, and if they offer resistance, I hope they kill them too - mainly to save court costs and time.
You and the Lunatic Fringe can't tell the difference between thieving lunatics, and people with actual grievances and a legal leg to stand on. So when one of the latter comes along, other people won't be able to tell the difference between principled resistance to actual government tyranny, and a mob. People like you are the reason John Adams defended the British troops involved in the Boston Massacre, and got them acquitted.

"Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams, 1770 Boston Massacre trial 

You're arguing against reality. Good luck with that tack.

And as you aren't even putting your ass on the line in the desert, you aren't even willing to back up your lunatic assertions with any risk to your own skin.

THAT is why I wish the feds would napalm Bundy and strafe his herd, because cases like this give idiot anarchists an excuse to agitate for a war. And we need more of that like we need a dose of the clap. It's the lunacy of Timothy McVeigh, except without even the semblance of personal commitment.

Like most of your ilk, you're content to chivvy others onwards, in this case a senile old thief, and the Headless Chicken Posse, but without having the personal honor to back it up with anything but your own desire to foment a riot.

There's a word for people like that, it rhymes with "Howard".

Some people have feds pointing guns at them because they're just terminal fuckwits.
That's Bundy to a "t". One doesn't suck at the federal teat every day of their life, and then have a coincidental epiphany on Big Government when the feds change the deal. Bundy's just a crook upset at his slice of the loot.

Call back when you find someone who isn't a multi-decade thief from the taxpayers, to the tune of millions of dollars, before you prop another lunatic up as some imaginary folk hero of the would-be revolution. And recognize that not everything the government does is absolutely evil, and not everyone who opposes them is worthy of even moral support, let alone fifteen minutes of notoriety.

Until then, you should probably get back under your bridge, before the feds drop a house on you.
Or at least stay where your sophistry passes for brilliance.

But hey, thanks for helping make my point about people who spew without knowing what they're talking about.

I'm sure the administration minions are really broken up about getting the 147 active members of the Lunatard Army frothing to support a crook like Bundy, and marginalizing and parodying themselves, for anyone with a brain, and all the world to watch. You're doing their job for them too.

Maybe spend your Sunday catching up on old news, cupcake.
And have a nice day.

Flick Pick: Gotcha!

Gotcha!
(Universal, 1985)

Between Revenge Of The Nerds and Top Gun, Anthony Edwards appeared with Linda Fiorentino in this perfect little 80s spy drama as a college student smuggling "spy shit" out of East Germany. Funny and exciting, this little gem is perfect entertainment for a weekend afternoon. You also get to re-visit a time in no-sh*t America, when normal college students actually played games on real campuses with toy guns, and ZOMG, no one died or had a hissy fit. It was all the rage, seriously. And this is also one of the few movies that show Edwards back when he had hair. Enjoy.

Flick Pick: The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven
(United Artists, 1960)

As a western re-envisioning of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (which was itself Kurosawa's take on John Ford's westerns), John Sturges' gunslinging classic was mostly panned by critics at the time, and barely broke even at the box office, owing mostly to foreign ticket sales, because it was pulled by UA after only a week. But with time it has become one of the most revered classics of the western genre, aided by the later rising fortunes of almost all of the stars, an all-time epic Elmer Bernstein score, Eli Wallach's over-the-top portrayal of the villain, and by deservedly becoming the second most-played movie on TV in the last 50 years, after only The Wizard Of Oz.

Flick Pick: The Electric Horseman

The Electric Horseman
(Columbia, 1979)

Modern day western adventure starring Robert Redford, and in one of her few personally  tolerable performances, Jane Fonda. The last for not least of which because she spends most of the movie as exactly the journalistic rabble-rousing airhead she was in real life for most of her life, and she self-parodies well. The film is consistenly engaging, marking the fifth of seven times veteran director Sydney Pollack teamed to direct Redford, almost invariably to excellence, and also marks a debut for Willie Nelson, who provides five songs to Dave Grusin's score, and the second film appearance of an older newcomer named Wilford Brimley. It's beautifully shot across  the wilderness areas of Nevada and Utah, as well as on the Vegas Strip, all biographically familiar to Redford.

Low Information Jackholes

Media pundits have lovingly trotted out the evidence that the lunatic Left is populated by room-temperature IQ retards who spout party-line rhetoric with knee-jerk predictability like good little brainwashed communists.

Okay, of course they do, well-played.

Now comes the tale of a lying thieving insaniac multi-millionaire, and the mirror is pointed the other way.

I refer to one Cliven Bundy.

For those who haven't paid much attention (and that would be 85-95%, based purely on direct interactions) Cliven Bundy is not Robin Hood, he's a robbing hood.

To set the scene, Bundy's family has owned a ranch in Bumfuck, Nevada, since the 1870s .
UPDATE: Since 1948. As Casey Stengel said, you could look it up.
Note that approximate date, you'll see this information again. They also paid the federal government for cattle grazing leases on adjoining federal land they never owned outright. This will become important too.

The farm passed from Bundy's father, to Cliven Bundy, somewhere about the 1970s. Who continued to pay the federal government for those adjoining annual leases, until 1993. Because at that point, the feds, via the BLM and EPA, had determined that in order to protect a tortoise, they needed to limit the number of cows that could be grazed on the federal lands in the area, to include the specific lease that had been renewed with the federal government every year for about twenty years before that point by rancher Bundy.

Ignoring the fact that he didn't own the land, he was just a tenant, he claims that the feds' decision to set terms of use on their land violated his rights to do whatever in hell he wanted, because evidently the tinfoil under his cowboy hat was too tight.

After several years of non-payment of his traditional lease, by 1998 the feds noticed his cows were grazing on federal lands, without their owner having any right to be there whatsoever. Doubtless after several lesser enforcement actions, like a visit, then a letter or twelve, they did what federal agencies do: filed suit in federal court seeking judgement to tell him to GTFO. Surprising no one with a brain, Bundy lost.

His entire argument was that the feds didn't own the land, but the court noted the finding of fact that the land in question had been ceded from Mexico to the United States (nota bene, not to the Territory of Utah, nor to the later Territory of Nevada eventually carved out from amongst the lands of the Territory of Utah, since in 1848, neither such Territory existed), and that therefore Bundy's whackdoodle contentions that the feds didn't own the land, didn't even pass cursory common sense and rules of settled law going back to about Hammurabi.

The feds set a trespass fine of $200/head/day, going back to 1998. Come some years ago, after dickering, arguing, cajoling, and such with Bundy, during which time he admitted and stipulated that the cows were his, they were on federal lands, and he would round them up, he did no such thing. The feds even offered to round them up for him, and hand him the money for the sale. (FYI, a head of cow goes for in the neighborhood of $5K@).

When all this failed, the feds once again went to court, obtaining in July of 2013, another federal summary judgment, affirming that Bundy and his herd of over 600 cows were in fact trespassing on the lease he hadn't paid for the use of since 1993, as well as now spilling over to new lands he'd never leased, at any point in time, in perpetuity.

The court found his claims that the land wasn't the feds' were prima facie nonsensical, granted the feds the right to seize the offending herd on federal land anytime after 45 days from the July 9th 2013 federal district court judgment (that would be August 25th, 2013 and following on my calendar), and the right to seize any future trespassing strays in perpetuity.

The feds waited another nine months, and finally, having had enough of Bundy's 20 year theft of government resources, acted to seize his cows, in obedience to federal law and the order issued by the federal court.

Whereupon Bundy wet himself, vowed to oppose the feds with force of arms, vowing not to be taken alive, and whilst fondling firearms. Ignoring the latter-day domestic terrorism violations, that right there is about 5 specific federal felonies on the federal books since the 1800s. Put there by such evil over-reaching oppressors as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. (That would presidents Number 2, 3, and 4 if you didn't buy a program at the front gate.)

Then Bundy called upon the Whacktard Legions to join his jihad of stealing from the feds, because Mom, Apple Pie, and the Flag.
And they came.

Bundy has racked up, by a rough count, a potential fine of over $650,000,000 in trespass fines, besides the price of the unrenewed leases, if we look at 600 cattle x $200 fine per head per day x 365 days x 15 years. That's from 1998-2013.

His cattle herd, at market price, is worth perhaps $3,000,000 dollars.

So:
1) He is a multimillionaire, not some oppressed pauper, and
2) He's going to come up a little short on paying his fine.

There's nothing wrong with being wealthy per se, provided you come by it honestly. But when you pretend to be some poor working man put upon by Evil Uncle Sugar, when in fact you've enjoyed three or more generations of government handouts in the form of grazing leases from the same hand you're now biting, and secondly by stiffing the government for even that pittance for the last two decades, you aren't a working man, you're beyond morally challenged, you're a straight-up working thief. And crying for help when the cops have you by the scruff of the neck for that thievery is chutzpah the size of Texas.

Enter "our" side's fucking retarded legions.
Bundy cries "Big Government! Help!" (That would be the same Big Government who three generations of his family paid for those leases without a peep until 1993, and the same Big Government whose teat he was content to suck on as recently as the Clinton administration) and the dog whistle of insanity draws them like moths to a bonfire.
The Headless Chicken Posse ignores that the feds are simply enforcing, ever so gently and slowly, federal law on federal lands in compliance with the permission of the federal court, which has found against Bundy every time they've offered an opinion, and which even the lunatic 9th Circus Court refuses to overturn. (Of course, this will offend the strident lunatics and anarchists among us, who think the federal government should be non-existant. But usually they're too busy fapping to Ayn Rand's picture to bother anyone.) 
They ignore that they're violating about 27 federal laws, felonies all, in furtherance of the criminal enterprise of a multimillionaire who's flouted federal law with the impunity normally reserved for indicted Democrat congressman and Columbian drug lords. 

IMHO, at this point, the feds would be entitled to strafe Bundy's herd with attack aircraft, and napalm him inside his own house for threatening criminal violence towards agents attempting to end his twenty year and $650M thieving run.

I wish they would, and would happily cheer them on if they did, despite the fact that I think the federal government is bloated beyond metastasis, stupid beyond imagining, and on its best day, merely vile and loathsome.

Because Bundy is that wrong, that criminal, and that overdue for a good dose of comeuppance.
And all of this information is readily and easily available about 2000 places on the internet, for those with any modicum of wits and a yellow belt in Google Fu.

But instead, "our" pundits continue to whip the rabble into a froth against the federal government enforcing the laws against thieves stealing a national resource from every taxpayer in the country, because Barack Obama is evil.

This is the same shit we decry when black juries acquit black defendants who murder and rape black people because The Man Done Been Keepin' Us Down.

And of course, we can depend upon this administration to enforce the law as written, because that's what they've always d...wait, never mind.
Because we know that having found the Poster Child for crazy right wing gun-toting anti-government criminality, they want those visuals and the multiple news stories to go away, because midterm elections are coming and they don't want to see more stories like...wait, never mind.
Because Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, AG Holder, and His Nibs, Emperor BHO the First, aren't hardcore acolytes of Saul Alinsky, and would never read his Rules for Radicals, follow them in lockstep, or keep pushing situations that favor them over and over, because that's not how they roll since...wait, never mind.


"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period.

The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.

Maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it."
                                          - Saul Alinsky, Rules For Radicals

That's about half of them, right there.

And now comes Bundy, spouting racist nonsense that would warm the hearts of the KKK, and the quickest way to get trampled would be to stand between any one of his public supporters, and the nearest exit. People haven't moved this fast since the LZ Hindenburg tried to land in New Jersey, on their heads. And clearly, Bundy's fifteen minutes are about up.

The last time there was someone on TV this stupid named Bundy, it was on Married With Children. Which, unlike this round of silliness, was at least occasionally funny.

So if you're one of those idiots who's been chanting "Bundy good, government bad" shame on you.
If you're one of the fucktard legions standing in the desert with him, please attempt to suck-start your pistol or shotgun, and up the overall IQ of the planet, let alone our side.
And if you're one of the dipshit pundits who's been cheering this silly horseshit on, please stand next to one of the fucktard legion members when they're doing that.

You're the problem, not the solution to it, and you'll figure it out about ten minutes after you piss away any chance of winning a landslide in the upcoming midterms, and the rejuvenated Democrats in Congress announce a sweeping pushback of firearms laws because of all the terrorists in the desert, you stupid mouthbreathing morons. And doubtless you'll be the loudest whiners at that turn of events, with a suitably silly look on your face.

There are any number of actual cases and causes to oppose oppressive over-reaching dictatorial government actions.

Pay attention now:

THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE CASES.
GOVERNMENT EXISTS TO SECURE RIGHTS, NOT CEDE THEM TO CRIMINALS.
YOU'VE BEEN A VERY NAUGHTY BOY.
STFU, AND GO HOME.
AND STOP PLAYING WITH YOURSELF, KENT.



All this is, is a senile sumbitch caught robbing the bank, and bitching that there's a fed trying to put handcuffs on him and haul him away.
Gravity works. Boo frickin' hoo.
 

Update:
Equal time for the easily bamboozled...

Evidently it's "wealth envy" to note that someone is prospering from theft, and has been doing so for at least twenty years. My apologies that in this case, the perpetrator's first name isn't Congressman.
Nonetheless, a crook is a crook is a crook.
Sane people get this.
If you have a rational counterpoint to make, feel free.

For the rest, let us know when you'll be storming the Bastille to free all the income tax cheats. But if your only mission venturing here is to hurl your feces, be sure and dig around the corners of your cage. That way when you're done, you'll have a clean place for the other monkeys to sleep; no sense wasting a trip.

Flick Pick: My Darling Clementine

My Darling Clementine
(20th Cent. Fox, 1946)

John's Ford's ahistorical but masterful western retelling of the Shootout At The OK Corral, with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday. Like Stagecoach shot 5 years earlier, and The Searchers shot ten years after this film, John Ford + Western = American film masterpiece. It would be nearly 50 years before there was a better telling of this tale, and there has never been a director as in command of his craft as in any movie with John Ford directing somewhere in Monument Valley. Period.

Flick Pick: Pretty Woman

Pretty Woman
(Touchstone, 1990)

The most untraditional princess fairytale romantic comedy ever backed by Disney, and the literal Godfather (Godmother?) of the genre. Made by Garry Marshall for $14M, brought in  over $463M, and after half a dozen then-bigger stars passed on the script, 21-year-old Julia Roberts rocketed to superstardom, and into a nomination for Best Actress for this role. (We note that historically, if an actress wants an Oscar nomination or the actual award, she should play a prostitute. The tally bears this out time after time. Which says a lot about Hollywood one way or the other.)
And yes, the movie works because every woman who saw it wanted Richard Gere to drive up in a Lotus and offer them a ride, and every guy would love to own Julia Roberts for a week. But it also works because Marshall is a comedy directing maestro, Hector Elizondo nonchalantly and masterfully steals every scene he's in, Jason Alexander can be a good guy or a bad guy so well because he knows where the line is and when to push, and because everyone from Ralph Bellamy to the last one-line actor in the movie delivers top-notch performances right on cue. A title from the kickass song by Roy Orbison, and the song itself didn't hurt. And everyone likes a happy ending.

Flick Pick: The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada
(20th Century Fox, 2006)

Coming of age film inside the world of high fashion, with Meryl Streep as the dragon lady running a fictional fashion mag, in her 14th outing nominated for an Oscar, Stanley Tucci razor sharp as one of her lieutenants, and the always lovely Anne Hathaway as the country frog turned into a city princess. Dialogue alternates with music pieces, as a series of vignettes based on the novel, which come off like the cinematic equivalent of magazine ads. Reasonably accurate according to industry insiders, and hugely successful at the box office, though too much of a stretch for any of the actors, mainly because the only sketchier prima donnas than film talent would be high fashion models and the minions that groom them.

Flick Pick: The Devil's Brigade

The Devil's Brigade
(United Artists, 1968)

Somewhat fictionalized account of the 1st Special Service Force, which makes a good story, and a decent war flick, shot on location in Utah and Italy. Boasts a very solid cast, headed by William Holden and Cliff Robertson, with cameos by everybody. 

Flick Pick: Ben Hur

Ben Hur
(MGM, 1959)

Made for $15M when that was a lot of money, pulling in $146M initially, winning  a then-record 11 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Heston), Best Supporting Actor (Griffith), and incidentally one of the greatest films ever made, William Wyler's historical epic set the standard for filmmaking for the next 20 years, while Miklos Rozsa's sweeping Best Score was issued as a separate album, and influenced later works by John Williams. The climactic chariot race was iconic, taking five weeks to film over three months of production, and carefully recreating some aspects of the 1925 silent version, while in others taking full advantage of the widescreen color cameras used to shoot the movie. The returns on this movie saved MGM singlehandedly, and Ben Hur was second only to Gone With The Wind for biggest grossing movie of all time.

Flick Pick: Spartacus

Spartacus
(Universal, 1960)

Universal's biggest-grossing picture to date, directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Dalton Trumbo based on Howard Fast's novel, the later two both blacklisted and unable to work in Hollywood since the '50s. To his everlasting credit, executive producer/star Kirk Douglas publicly announced their participation and basically dared anybody to make anything out of it. Audiences showed up in droves to see one of Hollywood's classic historic dramas, with Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, and Tony Curtis, and the film won four Oscars, including one for Peter Ustinov for Best Supporting Actor.

Flick Pick: The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments
(Paramount, 1956)

Cecil B. DeMille's epic biblical masterpiece, which he narrates, and one of the highest-grossing films of both its day, and all time. It's been shown on ABC annually over Passover/Easter week since 1973, and consistently wins the night and garners 6-8 million viewers every year. Filmmaking in all its widescreen Technicolor splendor, and great performances from Heston at the top of the bill, to uncredited appearances at the bottom, and everyone in between.

Flick Pick: Harvey

Harvey
(Universal, 1950)

Your Flick Pick Easter Bunny is this absolutely delightful comedy gem, starring Jimmy Stewart in a masterpiece performance, Josephine Hull in a Best Supporting Actress award-winning role, and of course, a 6 foot 3 1/2 inch pooka named Harvey, as himself. 

Flick Pick: The Abyss

The Abyss
(20th Century Fox, 1989)

Gripping undersea sci-fi from the last glory days of the Cameron-Hurd partnership. In many ways Ed Harris' and Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio's characters are biographical of the off-screen breakup, but the driving forces were a good yarn and killer effects, not least of which obtained by shooting the entire movie in a flooded never-completed nuclear reactor containment building in 55 feet (seven and a half million gallons' worth) of water, draped over and shot at night to capture the realism of being 2000' under the ocean. On a grueling shoot for cast and crew, Cameron cemented his legendary status as a screaming a-hole perfectionist in mid-divorce, having dive helmets made where crew members could only listen, and only Cameron could talk, but in the end it was nominated for four Oscars, winning one for Best Visual Effects. Due to delays and budget excesses, it basically broke even, and probably would have fared much better had Fox let Cameron put the ending in it he wanted; the studio's choice basically fumbled the ball on the 2 yard line, until the director's cut came out in re-release, adding thirty minutes' footage and a less ham-fisted finish to a movie now over three hours long.

Flick Pick: Titanic

Titanic
(Paramount/20th Cent. Fox, 1997)

Listed here on the 102nd anniversary of the tragedy, the most epic disaster film ever made, highest grossing film of all time when released, on the highest budget ever spent, and tied for most Academy Awards with Ben Hur and later Lord Of The Rings, winning eleven, including Best Picture, and Best Director for James Cameron.
A fictional love story wrapped inside the greatest special effects and the most realistic (9/10ths scale) recreation of the ill-fated star ever built, with the added virtue of the physics of the sinking being as close to true as will ever be had 80 years after the fact. Despite being a legendary screamer, Cameron managed to successfully create one of the greatest movies of all time out of one of the modern world's biggest disasters, making it not merely a film but an experience, and deserves the awards and accolades this movie subsequently garnered.

Flick Pick: Terminator III

Terminator III
(Warner Bros., 2003)

Final worthwhile installment of the series, with the largest production budget of the bunch (largest ever at the time) it still paid the studio back, and generally the audience as well, although by twenty years in, Arnold is somewhat the worse for wear, Cameron had run out of gas - the screenplay was by others - and didn't direct this outing either, but there was still enough momentum to get it made, and deliver on the threat from the original idea: the entire world taken over by machines and menaced by terminators. So it goes long on action, and short on plot development, all the backstory having been delivered in the first two go-arounds. Which we can live with in this one.

Flick Pick: Terminator II

Terminator II
(Tri-Star, 1991)

Arguably the greatest sequel of all time, definitely the best in sci-fi, four Academy Awards, and half a billion dollars in box office more than argue for adding this flick to the year's list.
It should come as no surprise, Schwarzenegger having warned us "I'll be back."

Flick Pick: The Terminator

The Terminator
(Orion, 1984)

The film that cemented two careers: mega-storyteller writer/director James Cameron, and box-office force of nature Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cameron sold the screenplay to Orion for a dollar on the condition he get to direct it. The movie was made for $6.5M on the theory that it would be sci-fi schlock in and out of theatres in a week or two. It went to #1 immediately, made $78M, and stayed in theatres for 13 weeks. Introduced audiences to Linda Hamilton (at the young and cute stage), and Cameron go-to actors Lance Henriksen and Michael Biehn. In one interesting side note, one of the possible choices for the Terminator was Orion studios' suggestion O.J. Simpson, but Cameron didn't think O.J. was believable as a killer.

Flick Pick: Predator

Predator
(20th Century Fox, 1987)

Absolutely pure undiluted testosterone from beginning to end. This movie has one female character, and she was harder and tougher than most guy action stars today. The crew with Arnold Schwarzenegger who make up his team are so tough they make Apollo Creed look like the pansy in this cast. This flick builds up steadily, until it's coming hot and heavy, and audiences always know the one thing you need to know in a movie like this: even if you're an interstellar bad-ass, it's always a mistake to pick on Ah-nuld, who taught us all in the memorable line: "if it bleeds, we can kill it."

Flick Pick: My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny
(20th Century Fox , 1992)

Joe Pesci's tour-de-force, Marisa Tomei's Oscar-winning role as Best Supporting Actress, and sadly the last film with an altogether perfect appearance by Fred Gwynne before he died. This one gets the comedy right, gets the courtroom procedure right, and absolutely nailed the casting of every part to make a surprise hit comedy with no villain, other than the wheels of justice themselves.

Flick Pick: Operation Petticoat

Operation Petticoat
(Universal, 1959)

Blake Edwards comedy set aboard a submarine at the beginning of WWII with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis being Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, and getting along marvelously, especially with the helpful addition of five Army nurses along for the ride. The saddest thing about this little tale that was a box office hit is that it never actually happened. Co-stars include Gavin Macleod, Marion Ross, and Dick Sargent.

Flick Pick: U-571

U-571
(Universal, 2000)

Well-done fictionalized account of submarine skullduggery to get the German Enigma code machine, changed to an American exploit for dramatic purposes. Great action, and solid performances from Matthew McConaughey and Harvey Keitel, from the last brief period of time when Hollywood didn't hate America or its fighting men on general principle.

RIP John Pinette

The funniest standup comic working in America died this weekend. John Pinette , 50, was just too damn much funny to fit in a normal sized body. In nearly 30 years of touring, multiple specials and CDs, he entertained tens of millions of fans his entire adult life. A gifted mimic, Broadway show singer, and tireless fountain of good cheer, he didn't pick on anyone personally, and avoided political or topical humor, concentrating on food, his love of it, and the results of that for himself and his travels through life. Through recorded performances from the past, he'll be entertaining people for years to come, leaving nothing behind but a satisfied audience and an empty plate.

Sidelined from touring by recovery from recent surgeries, one of his recent Twitter posts tells it best:

"...I'm on the mend, and I promise to hit the stage as soon as humanly possible so I can once again have the honor of making you guys, my friends and fans laugh like you've never laughed before. That's my promise! Thank you for being patient and most of all thank you for allowing me to entertain you for all of these years.

Now I have to go, I think a girl scout just rang my doorbell.

Sincerely, Your friend,
John Pinette"

What a great guy. I hope there's a Chinese buffet in heaven, and John is just settling in after his 20th trip to load up a platter.

Flick Pick: Run Silent, Run Deep

Run Silent, Run Deep
(United Artists, 1958)

Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden, and Don Rickles in his film debut, in a taut WWII drama of the Silent Service, on board a submarine war patrol in the Sea Of Japan, in glorious black & white. When someone says movies used to be better, this is what they're talking about.

Flick Pick: Das Boot

Das Boot
(Bavaria Films/Columbia ,1981)

One of the best war movies ever made, and certainly the best submarine story ever, the saga of the fictional U-96 by Wolfgang Petersen, based on the actual exploits of the real U-96,  was one of the most expensive productions ever undertaken in German cinema - at all of $12M - and set new standards for historical realism in this epic tale about German submariners in the North Atlantic wolfpacks of 1941.

Flick Pick: Tin Cup

Tin Cup
(Warner Bros., 1996)

Lest anyone think I'm keying only on the opening of baseball season, and ignoring the imminent Master's, today's choice is writer-director Ron Shelton once again teamed with Kevin Costner, and once again, a notable sports flick romantic comedy hit. When a guy can make golf this much fun, you're in the presence of greatness. Caddyshack was funny; this flick is comedy genius. Rene Russo is marvelous, Don Johnson shows you why he was such a hit in the '80s, and Cheech Marin's superb supporting performance throughout is worth watching the entire movie just to see.
After watching this and Bull Durham, I want to lock Ron Shelton in a room with a word processor and ESPN for six months, so he can write the next ten other greatest sports movies, with or without Kevin Costner, and then turn him loose to make them.

Flick Pick: Field Of Dreams

Field Of Dreams
(Universal, 1989)

Phil Alden Robinson's adaptation of "Shoeless Joe" became a runaway hit, surpassing Costner's effort in Bull Durham the previous year, and featuring career standout performances from Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, and featuring Burt Lancaster in a memorable final screen performance in a long and celebrated career.

Flick Pick: Bull Durham

Bull Durham
(Orion, 1988)

Writer and rookie director Ron Shelton's debut movie was a grand slam, combining great actors, great story, great instincts, and great filmmaking, and producing arguably the best movie about baseball ever made. It masquerades as a romantic comedy about people in love with each other, but it's really about three people in the story all in love with the same game, by a director with the same affliction. The result is magical.

Flick Pick: Major League

Major League
(Paramount, 1989)

One of the best sports comedies ever made, with a cast of then mostly unknowns who went on to do quite well. Sprinkled throughout are enough actual former major league players, enough of a glimpse inside baseball to make it fun, including Bob Uecker in an understated but over-the-top portrayal of a baseball announcer ever, and a perfect Randy Newman score. Play ball!

Flick Pick: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
(United Artists,1963)

Stanley Kramer's epic starring...everybody, in one of the absolute greatest American comedy films of all time. I can't think of a more appropriate film for April Fool's Day.

Flick Pick: Crocodile Dundee II

Crocodile Dundee II
(Paramount, 1988)

Opening with Mick Dundee fishing in NY harbor with Dupont spinners, the sequel lives up to the original, despite critics doing what they do best, which is crapping on success.
Turning in $240M on a $14M budget, Paul Hogan got the last laugh.

Flick Pick: Crocodile Dundee

Crocodile Dundee
(Paramount, 1986)

With one step, Paul Hogan went from Australian TV star best known in America for a tourist ad where he'd promised to "put another shrimp on the barbee" for us, to laid-back comedy action hero superstar, and this movie was the step. His instincts about this story were absolutely perfect, and this movie went to number one everywhere, and in the same release year as Top Gun, gave Paramount a very comfortable feeling around the wallet. If nothing else, he tapped into the American sensibility that given the choice, most of us would trade away New York City for Oz in a heartbeat.

Flick Pick: The Goonies

The Goonies
(Warner Bros., 1985)

Steven Spielberg/Chris Columbus/Richard Donner's (there's three aces for you) well-woven little gem of a flick about a PNW treasure hunt gone gloriously right. You can thank Donner's experience directing all those episodes of "Danger Island" on The Banana Splits Show in the '70s for what you get here, with a much better budget. The only possible way this could have been better would be if the writers had been clairvoyant, and One-Eyed Willie turns out to have actually been Barbossa or Captain Jack Sparrow.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

After spending some quality time under my desk, while my cat tried to climb up my butt, I'm having a few flashbacks to this little soiree . It sucked ass then, and one 5.1 and 9 significant, sharp, aftershocks later (and a change of undershorts), from about 2-3 miles to the epicenter, it really, really sucks ass now. 
The problem with little earthquakes after going through a big one, is you can no longer count on the little ones to stay little, or conveniently stop after a few seconds. And this close, with a shallow epicenter, everything doesn't sway. It rattles and booms like a retarded driver's ed student who keeps backing into your house randomly at 5-10 miles an hour.

Worse was the 3.6 about 70 minutes before the 5.1 was pretty mean, but over in seconds. Which is tres bitchin', until you find out it was just a foreshock to the 5.1 that put me under the desk listening to the place get its ass kicked (oh, look, there goes the backup PC's CRT flying by...) until it stops. And you start wondering if that is the foreshock to something another 2 points higher on the scale (which, if you live on stable ground, is the rough equivalent of a Cat III-V hurricane, except delivered in about a minute and change).

So I have most of the preps I'd druther have (other than living in the middle of a stable tectonic plate), but I'm extremely over the "house and stuff in the house could fall on me in my sleep" BS. So I probably won't sleep much tonight, and if I do, it'll be fully dressed, boots on but loosened, B.O.B. in the truck, and cursing every snap, crackle, and pop until they stop happening some days hence.

All this while every fire truck, ambulance, and police helicopter are out on patrol doing canned surveys for damage to the dams, bridges, and overpasses (10 major interstates for 90 miles around with an overpass about every 1/4 mile...) for the next few hours.

May I state for the record, "Fuck fuck fucking fuckitty fuck!"

And this was a minor localized event, with the walls and windows intact, and the power and water still working fine.

50/50 if I survive to the back end of another monstrous big one, I'll stop driving when I hit Chesapeake Bay, and maybe take a short vacation thereabouts before coming back here. You only get so many blood pressure points in one lifetime.

Song Of the Day: AC/DC You Shook Me All Night Long

Flick Pick: Throw Momma From The Train

Throw Momma From The Train
(Orion ,1987)

Danny DeVito's comedy masterpiece starring Billy Crystal, himself, and Anne Ramsey as a force of nature in her Oscar-nominated role.

Flick Pick: Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
(Columbia, 1964)

Stanley Kubrick's black-humored satirical tour-de-force with Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens riding a nuke right to detonation, and introducing to film a baby-faced youngster named James Earl Jones.

Flick Pick: The Wizard Of Oz

The Wizard Of Oz
(MGM, 1939)

If you don't know this movie without being told about it, I don't want to know you.
While mediocre in original release, barely breaking even for its $2.7M budget, it was properly recognized by being one of the ten films nominated for Best Picture in 1939 (five of which continue to shine, and three of which make my list here). Won two Oscars for music, including Best Original Song for "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", timelessly and flawlessly sung by Louis B. Mayer's third choice for her role, a young studio protégé suddenly known for all time worldwide as Judy Garland, then all of sixteen years of age. It was once classified as a "cult favorite", until television ratings and DVD/BD sales indicated that would require "cult" to be re-defined as "nearly every living American born after 1930". It is now consistently rated at one of the Top Ten Movies Of All Time on list after list, and has passed beyond mere film to a touchstone of American culture, and rightly so.

Flick Pick: The African Queen

The African Queen
(United Artists, 1951)

John Huston's classic film of the C.S. Forester story, with Katharine Hepburn, and Humphrey Bogart in his Best Actor winning role. Made for $1M back when that was a lot of money, and so iconic it even inspired Disneyland's Jungle Cruise ride.

Flick Pick: Fight Club

Fight Club
(20th Century Fox, 1999)

Chuck Palahniuk's bleeding edge exploration of schizophrenia as sanity, and anarchy as creation, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton as each other, with Helena Bonhma Carter the sole relief to a two-hour-plus testosterone-fueled mayhem fest. The clarity of Brad Pitt's alter ego is highlighted by the self-destruction of the Edward Norton host, in an instruction manual of Sticking It To The Man. Even if you hate this movie, it's like watching a train wreck you can't look away from. And then...
oh crap, we're not supposed to talk about Fight Club.

Flick Pick: Cleopatra

Cleopatra
(20th Century Fox, 1963)

The Film That (Almost) Bankrupted Fox, the budget ballooned from $2M to $44M, and still turned a profit, even in 1963 with the average movie tickets going for 85 cents or so. Studio accounting still reported it as a loss, apparently money earned overseas not actually counting as income when one is talking to the IRS. (You'll see this material again in motion picture finance.)
Monstrously lavish beyond belief, this is unquestionably the biggest display of eye candy in movie history, back when they couldn't just whisk it in with a mouse and keyboard. Notably, they did it twice, wasting the first $5M when they built it in England, and then threw it all out to move to Rome for the production that made it to the screen.
Elizabeth Taylor, seen before her late-life blotation and self-caricature, is the diva beauty of legend so richly displayed in this epic. The movie is really two films, the first with Rex Harrison (fantastic as Julius Caesar), and the latter with Richard Burton as a splendid Mark Anthony. In fact, replacement director Joseph Mankiewicz begged Fox to split the movie (originally cut by him as a 6-hour monster) into two successive films, but Fox, fearing the loss of PR buzz over the Burton-Taylor scandalous tryst, went with cutting it to a single flick of a mere 4 hours and 8 minutes.

It took another decade for people like Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg to help the studios figure out the point of building sequelization and franchise properties as a movie-making technique and studio enriching plan, and failure to learn early nearly killed them. If they'd learned the lesson earlier, we might have gotten more installments on this level of production value and spectacle, and the former MGM backlot wouldn't be an industrial park in Culver City.

Flick Pick: The Agony and The Ecstasy

The Agony and The Ecstasy
(20th Century Fox, 1965)

Superb adaptation of Irving Stone's novel, pitting titanic performances of Charlton Heston's Michaelangelo Buanorroti against Rex Harrison's Pope Julius II, over the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Beautifully and stunningly shot when Hollywood films still paid homage to religion rather than open contempt (Noah, I'm looking at you) and on the most recent versions of this work, including a pre-movie featurette on the actual miraculous work of art that is the centerpiece of the film, and an inspiration to millions for centuries since it was first created. Simply magnificent and inspiring throughout.

Once Upon A Time, This Is No Sh*t

The title is the official format for opening fairytales from civilians or the military, respectively.

You may perhaps remember the LAX airport shooting of last November, or my blog post on the subject when it happened.

Well, as the old saw goes, every project has several stages:

1. Enthusiasm,
2. Disillusionment,
3. Panic and hysteria,
4. Search for the guilty,
5. Punishment of the innocent, and
6. Praise and honor for the nonparticipants.

Under the heading of the last three stages, here is the fairytale from the City of Los Angeles, via their airport-running morons minions.

It's fascinating, even breathtaking, in the lengths to which they go to repeat fantasy despite the evidence of everyone's lying eyes, and miss the forest in order to focus on pruning a ficus tree in a clay pot.

For example, the report notes that the gunman entered the terminal area at 9:18, they began receiving shooting reports at 9:20, and by 9:25, the gunman was shot, down and in custody.

Once again, kudos to the LA Airport police for exemplary bravery and superb marksmanship, sparing the taxpayers further bloodshed, or even the necessity for a lengthy trial by their efforts.

But then, in a flight of fantasy usually reserved for serious writers of science fiction, the city goes on to say

"Airport Operations focused on passenger assistance and mass care for the 4,500 passengers who self-evacuated from Terminals 1, 2. and 3, and the more than 20,000 passengers who were sheltered in place on aircraft, and in terminals."

Much as the SS focused on assistance and mass care for the millions of Jews and such they "sheltered in place" in locations like Treblinka, Auschwitz, and the Warsaw Ghetto.

The report notes that operations were disrupted for days over an incident that was over in seven minutes. Then completely glosses over the fact that they interred tens of thousands of people needlessly from 9:30AM till nearly the time darkness fell without the slightest bit of information or assistance whatsoever, and left thousands more people, including children, pregnant women, and elderly passengers with wheelchairs and walkers, to fend for themselves, and trek miles and miles to reach safety, and access to shelter, water, and/or transport to parts of the city unaffected by their monumental civic stupidity on a biblical scale.

The one incontrovertible fact, totally ignored by the report, is that they provided somewhere between zero and NO passenger assistance or mass care for hours and hours and hours, and only let the Red Cross set up shelters miles away and distribute a pitifully small amount of water and blankets on site after it was clear to everyone but airport management that shelters wouldn't be necessary for the overwhelming bulk of those affected, due to them having successfully escaped the clutches of such institutional incompetence by fleeing on foot whenever able and as fast as humanly possible, lest they be "helped" any further that day.

So, other than glossing over that petty set of inconveniences and massive organizational and institutional incompetence, the report is fairly accurate in noting that after 9:25, they didn't do anything else right that day, or any day before or since, to include having no actual coherent plan for, y'know, actual emergencies, focusing their efforts on spending the millions of homeland security dollars on dealing with the day-to-day operations, while sort of completely neglecting any actual preparations sufficient to deal with even a lone gunman killed within minutes, thus dooming the city and over 1500 passenger flights to days of delays and flight cancellations and subjecting the airlines and their customers to millions and millions of dollars of lost revenue and delayed cargo shipments as well.

Having these buffoons self-critique their performance is a little like having clowns rate their own big top circus performance, if you like that sort of thing. I could go on, but their career-best performance of Assclownery On Parade can best be summed up by the line at the end of Raiders of The Lost Ark:
"Top. Men."

If so many as two active shooters descended on LAX on the same day, with rather more competence at terrorism that the sad little panda so well-ventilated on this recent outing, Los Angeles would probably be best served by simply shutting the airport down until the following summer, rather than straining the mental and managerial capabilities of city airport management, DHS, TSA, or the dozens of other incompetent levels of official stupidity we foolishly assign responsibility, to oversee the safety of people brighter than they are.

Sleep tight, America.

And remember, in any incident, the thing to do is GTFO as quickly as possible, because official assclownery is the only thing more comprehensively malicious than terrorist malice to get you killed in any incident they respond to, 110 times out of 100.

Flick Pick: My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady
(Warner Bros., 1964)

Absolutely spectacular George Cukor film version of Lerner & Loewe's Broadway musical, itself a musical version of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Audrey Hepburn shines in the role made famous by Julie Andrews; Andrews having been passed over because Jack Warner wasn't convinced she had the necessary screen presence for the role was busy making Mary Poppins down the street at Disney Studios, for which performance she won Best Actress.
My Fair Lady, meanwhile, came off beautifully, raked in returns at the box office, garnering eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor to Rex Harrison in a perfectly marvelous performance as Professor Higgins.
As proof that Hollywood currently can do nothing but generate an endless procession of unimaginative punchbowl turds, persistent halting efforts indicate that some bunch of idiots wishes to remake this classic, with an equally talentless procession of names tied to the project, the luckier of which will jump ship before going down with it.
This version is the movie for the ages, and remaking it would be nothing if not an attempt to reproduce the Mona Lisa by fingerpainting a by-the-numbers take-home edition.

Flick Pick: Around The World In 80 Days

Around The World In 80 Days
(UA, 1956)

Michael Todd's giant travelogue comedy, based on the Jules Verne novel, starring the incomparable David Niven, Chaplinesque latin comic actor Cantinflas, a barely post-teenage Shirley MacLaine in her third film, and cameos by practically every star in Hollywood. A tremendous critical and financial success, epic in scope and running length, universal in appeal, and recipient of five Oscars, including Best Picture.

Flick Pick: Aladdin

Aladdin
(Disney, 1992)

Developed from ideas pitched to Disney by lyricist Howard Ashman, and the last animated feature he fully worked on, then re-written by the team that later spun out Pirates Of The Caribbean, this was the biggest film of the year, starring a good story, great music, and Robin Williams doing a one-man extravaganza of 52 characters, which Disney animators then painted into existence.

Flick Pick: Always

Always
(Universal, 1989)

A Guy Named Joe was a longtime favorite of both director Steven Spielberg and lead Richard Dreyfuss, discovered mutually as they worked together on Jaws fifteen years earlier, and they both wanted to remake it. What makes Spielberg a legendary director is that even on relatively modest non-blockbuster works like this, he gets things absolutely right. Casting Holly Hunter and John Goodman were masterstrokes, Brad Johnson plays his part to perfection, a bit part with Roberts Blossom was inspired, and Audrey Hepburn's cameo in her last film role was the cherry on top of this perfect little romantic dramedy. All the details are done to perfection, none of them get in the way of the story, and Spielberg's instincts in doing this film are the epitome of expert filmmaking. As a rule, I'm not a fan of remakes, but I make the occasional exception when the new surpasses the old. As in this case. 

Flick Pick: The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man
(Republic, 1952)

A film that almost didn't get made, and yet has gone on to become a perennial favorite and screen classic. Turned down for production by every studio in Hollywood, John Ford was only able to get financing for it from Republic after agreeing to bring stars John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara and make them a cavalry western first (Rio Grande). This film is thus the second pairing of the two, and one for the ages. Beautifully shot in Technicolor on location in Ireland, the film was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture (the only Republic film ever to hold that distinction) and Best Supporting Actor for Victor McLaglen's larger-than-life screen performance here; it won two, for Best Color Cinematography, and for an all-time record-setting fourth Best Director honor, to John Ford. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Flick Pick: Back to the Future III

Back To The Future III
(Universal, 1990)

Filmed consecutively with part II, the concluding piece of the series. A solid film, combining western, sci-fi, and romantic comedy, and with Christopher Lloyd and his screen interest Mary Steenburgen doing most of the heavy lifting, with all the loose ends neatly tied up at the conclusion of the film. Overall, the series was nominated for five Oscars and won one, with combined production costs of $99M, and a worldwide gross of $957M. And we never get tired of seeing Tom Wilson (a darn good sport and solid stand-up comedian and painter these days) end up with a mouthful of horse dung. 

Flick Pick: Back To The Future II

Back To The Future II
(Universal, 1989)

Middle film in the series, still as fun to watch as the original, and pure entertainment.
Like all bridge films, you have to enjoy the journey, without expecting anything but getting form one end to the other without too many obnoxious delays. The loss of Claudia Wells and Crispin Glover from the original were unfortunate, but well-handled, and proof that you can't expect actors to always be smart enough to say "yes" to a slam dunk, any more than they say "no" to obvious utter garbage.

Flick Pick: Back To The Future

Back To The Future
(Universal, 1985)

Wonderful Swiss Army knife movie: a sci-fi/action/adventure/comedy/romance, that does absolutely everything right, from the story to the casting to the score. Rewarded by great critical reviews, 11 weeks as number one at the box office from the 4th of July onwards, four Academy Award nominations and one Oscar, it became one of the most iconic movies of the last half-century.

Flick Pick: The Sure Thing

The Sure Thing
(Embassy, 1985)

Rob Reiner's second directorial effort, cementing his previously unimagined talents, and a classic romantic comedy (not just some teen movie), showcasing the phenomenal and still-untapped genius of John Cusack, all of 16 years old when this film was made. Co-stars Daphne Zuniga, who never shone as brightly again as she did in this film.

Flick Pick: Trading Places

Trading Places
(Paramount, 1983)

Another brilliant John Landis comedy done to perfection by Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, and a truly inspired supporting cast. Cinematic proof that living well is the best revenge.

Flick Pick: Glory

Glory
(Tri-Star, 1989)

The moving and well-done story of the Massachussetts 54th Infantry, the first black troops mustered to serve for the Union in the Civil War. Matthew Broderick and Cary Elwes are put through their paces in dramatic roles, and surpassing performances by Andre Braugher, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington, in the role that won him Best Supporting Actor, move this piece into the ranks of great American war films.

Flick Pick: Fiddler On The Roof

Fiddler On The Roof
(United Artists, 1971)

Topol and co. in the cinema version of the hit Broadway play, shot beautifully on location in then-Yugoslavia, and well-directed by master storyteller Norman Jewison (who, contrary to assumptions because of his name, is in fact a Presbyterian from Canada), who also has the rare distinction of being nominated for Oscars for both directing and/or producing some 7 times, and receiving not a one. No less than 4 of his works are or will be on this list by the time it concludes.

Flick Pick: Bullitt

Bullitt
(Warner Bros., 1968)

This movie left skidmarks on the prior attempts at the crime chase/action genre, including the original and still greatest car chase ever filmed, featuring Steve McQueen as the absolute king of cool, and one of the toughest anti-hero cops in cinematic history, who handles fast cars, beautiful women, and untangles a mob hit, while firing only three rounds in the entire movie, and only a few more words. There is more testosterone packed into this movie than can be found in entire Ivy-league colleges, most days.

Flick Pick: Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit
(Buena Vista, 1988)

Amazing blend of animation and live actions, uniting Bugs Bunny and Mickie Mouse onscreen for the first time ever, featuring Mel Blanc in one of his last big screen performances of his beloved voice characterizations, reviving animation as a medium, launching an entire addition to Disney's theme parks, and garnering 4 Oscars and several hundred million dollars in box office receipts.
The movie brought Bob Hoskins long overdue screen recognition, made Kathleen Turner's uncreditted role as Jessica Rabbit the height of sensuality, and combined Disney animation, Spielberg production, top actors, and a great story into a marvelous and unstoppable force of nature.

Flick Pick: Hopscotch

Hopscotch
(Avco Embassy, 1980)

Low-key and high-value spy comedy, with Walter Matthau as the spy on the outs writing a tell-all, Glenda Jackson as his straightman love interest, Sam Waterston as his protégé trying to stop him, and Ned Beatty as the epitome of every pompous bureaucrat deserving comeuppance, which Matthau's Miles Kendig delivers with irony and aplomb. That the score is mostly Mozart and/or opera, chosen to no small degree by Matthau himself, is an added bonus. Definitely a little gem of a movie.

Flick Pick: The Alamo

The Alamo
(United Artists, 1960)

More recent attempts at revisionist filmmaking about this event are best left unmentioned.
This was the most personal project for producer/director/writer John Wayne, who hadn't intended to star in it, but was forced to in order to secure financing. A screen epic and Academy Award-winner (Best Sound), most efforts to downgrade it, then and now, rest on distaste for Wayne's politics, rather than any failings of the film itself. The final battle scene is suitably grand. The sets were meticulously built to recreate a 3/4-sized version of the historical site brick by adobe brick, and the film accurately represents actual events in the larger scope, while taking a bare few cinematic liberties with individual characters. Not least of these is that 189 Texans did in fact resist 13 days of siege and fight off two attack waves before being defeated and slaughtered in detail by the third wave, of some 2000 soldiers under General Santa Anna, 178 years ago today. John Wayne is John Wayne, and Laurence Harvey is excellent as Travis. In one memorable scene turning down the order to surrender, he forgot that cannons recoil, and it rolled over his foot, fracturing it. He held back any reaction until after Wayne yelled "Cut!", demonstrating Harvey was just as hard and disciplined in real life as an actor as the man he was portraying.

Flick Pick: Star Trek

Star Trek
(Paramount, 2009)

The biggest box office of the entire franchise, a radically new imagining of familiar characters, the first film in the series to win an Oscar, and the pivotal moment in sci-fi when space got loud.
Not a sequel of Roddenberry's universe, but an epic and brilliant re-imagining of the old characters played by new cast members, this film solved problems with increasing actors' salaries by killing off everyone except Spock (Prime).
Not so much an action movie as a drama movie with bursts of action, and absolutely more primal at every level, from lens flares to fist fights.

Flick Pick: Star Trek - First Contact

Star Trek - First Contact
(Paramount, 1996)

Best iteration of the film series with the stars of ST:TNG, eighth film overall, and helped in no small part by a really solid story, with the Borg as antagonists, and James Cromwell's quirky and scene-stealing portrayal of a living legend as a protagonist.

Flick Pick: Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home

Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home
(Paramount, 1986)


Another blockbuster, cementing the tradition that roughly every other outing in the series doesn't suck, this one brought the story begun in Wrath Of Khan home, metaphorically, and literally, to present-day San Francisco. The crew of the 23rd century Enterprise interacting with 20th century San Franciscans are some of the best in the movie(s).
Well made, coherent, and fun to watch, Nimoy brought it in under budget, and it made quite a financial pile for the studio, despite cast salaries beginning to reflect their worth to the franchise (which, offscreen, directly contributed to Paramount rebooting the TV series with new, relatively unknown, and undeniably less costly actors).

Flick Pick: Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan

Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan
(Paramount, 1982)

After thoroughly botching the first Star Trek film, made over a decade after the series' TV cancellation, Paramount bounced back with this sequel, made for a quarter the budget of the first film, and roughly 50 times better. Not least of which for having a suitably epic villain, played by consummate professional actor Ricardo Montalban, lifted directly from the episode in the series he'd played originally. The focus on an actual coherent plot let the translation of the TV series to film hit its stride, and in this cinematic episode, secured the promise of future installments with equally impressive performances on the screen and at the box office. 

Flick Pick: Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet
(MGM, 1956)

One of the granddaddy films of great sci-fi, with Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielsen in a straight-up role, the stunningly beautiful and talented Anne Francis at all of 25, and the iconic Robbie The Robot, precursor of every good cinematic robot afterwards. Nominated for an Academy Award for visual effects, but just as conspicuously, in the hallmark of good science fiction, requiring the audience to use their minds as much as to oogle the screen magic.