Editor’s Note: It can be lonely sometimes being a film critic. Why? Just ask Freeline Media critic Mike Fried as he explores some favorites films that he alone might be appreciating. Is it tough to stand out in the crowd? Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
THE GORGE
4/5
This movie sort of reminded me of The Great Wall, a film with the premise that the Great Wall of China was built to keep monsters out. Here, there is a deep gorge, and at each side there is an operative — one Russian, one American — who stand outside the gorge to keep its evil from coming out.
The big difference is that The Great Wall stunk on ice — and this movie was pretty darn interesting
And at its core, this is because its another effort from the Scott Derrickson/C. Robert Cargill team that has consistently provided excellent entertainment; but also due to pitch perfect performances from Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller as the two elite snipers on either side of the gorge that strike up an unlikely relationship despite the literal void between them. Not only must they prevent creatures known as “the hollow men” (there’s actually a couple of references to the TS Eliot poem in the movie) from getting out of the gorge but they find themselves protecting each other. They even find themselves playing drums and chess together across the gorge (incidentally, this was in the script before queens gambit and whiplash were cast and they wanted it taken out, but Derrickson refused.)
You’d also think that the two characters would have a long distance relationship but the nice script by Zach Dean (which was rightfully included in the Black List for 2020) gets around this and when the two characters get together they have an undeniable chemistry together. So at first it starts of all romancey and it works because of two great actors.
And then the action/sci-fi/horror/conspiracy part of the movie kicks in, which makes it even better, especially as Derrickson and Cargill are experts at this genre. And the Hollow Men and various other assorted creatures make the creatures from Middle Earth look like Teddy Bears.
Speaking of the creatures from Middle Earth, Sigourney Weaver has a nice role as the dubious person who has recruited Teller’s character.
Horror is alive and there’s a reason that this is the highest viewed movie on Apple TV+
This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper.
WATCH IT!
FLY ME TO THE MOON
4/5
Kelly Jones is a hard charging Madison Avenue advertising executive in the late 1960s and we first see her pitching an ad for the Ford Mustang as a pregnant woman. She loses the account when they realize she’s not pregnant. She meets up with a man, a shadowy figure, named Moe Berkus (a CIA agent??) with an offer to run NASA’s Public Affairs office to boost its profile and he will clear up her past. Along the way she also meets Cole Davis, the Launch Director and astronaut wannabe who was grounded with atrial fibrillation. Now, this guy Moe is pretty serious, and he wants to ensure that the world will see the United States dominate Russia, so he sets up a plan to fake the moon landing. Meanwhile, NASA is bedeviled by a black cat, which spooks out everyone.
When you have low expectations going into a movie, it’s kind of pleasing when the movie exceeds them even though it’s not hard to do.
This movie heavily leans into the conspiracy theories that the moon landing was faked but does so in the context of a romantic dramedy, which is quite different from the films that have tackled the subject in the past.
Scarlett Johansson is at her breezy best as Kelly Jones, Madison Avenue executive turned NASA Public Relations Chief, so charming she can fake her way through any situation until she gets what she wants. Channing Tatum is at his steely best as Cole Davis. In a departure for him, he doesn’t really play the character for laughs. Rather, he plays the role of Cole with deep seriousness and reverence for the program and for the men whom he lost on the ill-fated Apollo 1. His character is loosely based on Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury astronauts, who had a similar health issue and did not fly during that program and later became the director of flight crew operations. Woody Harrelson is his typical smarmy best playing a character very similar to the role he played in White House Plumbers, E. Howard Hunt, and he chews the scenery. Interestingly enough, Harrelson’s father claimed involvement in the JFK assassination of which E. Howard Hunt was allegedly involved. Ray Romano has a nice small part as the Deputy Launch Director who gives Kelly some background on Cole, and he is fine in his small comic role. Finally, there is Jim Rash, the Academy award winning screenwriter, best known to audiences as Dean Pelton on the TV show Community who plays the film director hired to fake the Moon landing and he is so difficult he prompts Kelly to say “I should’ve hired Kubrick“
The film is given a great deal of verisimilitude by the fact that majority of it was filmed at Cape Canaveral. The look and the feel of the 1960s is achieved really well by the production designers and the glimpse inside the various buildings just adds to the overall enjoyment of the film. Further, director Greg Berlanti and cinematographer Darius Wolski (who plays the cinematographer of the faked moon landing set!) had access to many thousands of hours of actual launch footage that they were able to incorporate into the movie and, to be honest, you cannot tell what is real and what is CGI – from what I have read, most of it was real footage!
If I have one criticism of the movie is that it was a tad long for a romantic comedy/dramedy and probably should have been about 20 minutes shorter. But I am generally a big fan of movies about the early space program and, especially, movies that are done well. So, I am probably rating this movie a smidge higher than I normally would, but I am telling you to….
WATCH IT!
NOTHING TO LOSE
4/5
DO NOT LISTEN TO THE CRITICS ON THIS. THE AUDIENCE ON CINEMASCORE GAVE THIS AN A-MiNUS!
Advertising executive Nick Beam finds out that his beautiful wife is cheating on him. He is despondent. He gets in his truck and starts driving aimlessly. At a street corner in a rundown section of Los Angeles, a bumbling thief named Terrence jumps into his car and demands his wallet. Nick says “Boy, did you pick the wrong guy on the wrong day” and turns the table on his would-be carjacker and drives them both to Arizona. Then in an unlikely event, they team up to rob Nick’s boss whom Nick believes is sleeping with his wife.
This is an extraordinarily funny movie. Besides featuring Martin Lawrence in one of his best most-defined roles, it shows a slapsticky comedic side to Tim Robbins that is rarely, if ever, seen.
And the thing is these two guys, one a future Oscar winner and the other, well, not but still funny make an excellent comedy team. Martin Lawrence can show his serious side and Tim Robbins shows his totally goofy side.
And the script and direction by Steve Oedekerk is spot on. It’s nothing new, the unlikely partners movie, but the misadventures that Oedekerk puts his heroes through are hysterical. It doesn’t hurt that there are two vicious robbers, one black and one white, for whom Nick and Terrence are mistaken.
There are sight gags galore and some very funny dialogue. Nick’s shoes get lit on fire (details are unimportant) and when Nick walks into a gas station the clerk sees his smoking shoes and says “You must be really fast.” It is a truly a laugh out loud moment.
Besides Lawrence and Robbins, the two bad guys are played by Giancarlo Esposito and John C. McGinley and they play their bad guy roles with relish. But, most importantly, this movie was the breakout role for 78 year old Patrick Cranshaw who had been acting since 1950 and who was outstanding as Henry the Hardware store clerk. Most people know him as Blue from Old School. If not in this movie, likely there’d be no Blue.
It is a riotous buddy movie with a satisfying conclusion; if you’re in the mood for a laugh, I can’t recommend this enough.
WATCH IT!
AIRPORT (1970)
4/5
During a freaking snowstorm a plane lands at a midwestern airport and cuts the turn while taxiing back to the terminal and gets stuck in the snow. The general manager of the airport has to deal with this issue and with many other issues, including a pain in the neck wife, protests by residents for noise pollution, a pain in the ass pilot brother in law and, oh yeah, there’s a guy on a plane with a bomb.
This is the granddaddy of soap opera disaster movies. Hysterically and undeservedly nominated for Best Picture and 9 other Academy Awards, this is such a cheesy, yet enjoyable movie. The Today Show’s film critic, Judith Crist called this movie “The best movie of 1944.” And she is not wrong. It’s a Grand Hotel of the air. Yet audiences flocked to it and it grossed $100 million worldwide- and that’s 1970 dollars. A totally crappy movie doesn’t do that type of business.
Overall the movie was nominated for 10 Oscars. Two of the three deserving nominations were both for Best Supporting Actress. Both Helen Hayes and Maureen Stapleton were nominated. Hayes, as a grandmotherly stowaway, won for her comedic role and a lifetime of work. Stapleton, as the wife of the man with the bomb, deserved the Oscar, for her pathos-filled performance.
It’s a soap opera, nothing more, just as Arthur Hailey’s novel was. But George Seaton’s script and direction tries mightily to rise above the source novel. And it many cases it does, especially with the humor aboard the airplane as various characters interact ( especially the pain in the ass passenger- isn’t there one in every flight?!?!) as well as the tension when it is revealed that the passenger has a bomb. The “action” scenes aboard the plane are absolutely terrific. The rest of the movie is very soapy.
On some level the script succeeds. Besides the action scenes aboard the airplane, the scenes with Maureen Stapleton and Van Heflin are excellent. Heflin’s performance — in his final film — should have been nominated. He’s a man who doesn’t want to bomb the plane but he can’t provide for his wife. He feels his life insurance will help her out. His pathos is palpable. He is just that good. This is the Van Heflin of 3:10 TO YUMA. Strong but unsure of himself.
Burt Lancaster as the airport GM, hated this movie and you can tell. He is not in the groove and while top-billed, he is going through the motions. He is right in there with soap opera elements especially when complaining about his wife. But he does throw out the patented Burt Lancaster laugh at one point. Despite hating the movie, Lancaster made a ton of money. Plus, he got the studio to finance several smaller, less commercial pictures. And when he gets to vent his rage, he’s classic Burt.
George Kennedy started his four Airport film run as Joe Patroni, the wiseass TWA Chief Mechanic who is drafted by Lancaster to get the plane out of the snow so the runway can be reopened. He Patroni was the best in this movie. He is every bit Dragline ( COOL HAND LUKE) but in an airport setting.
But the movie is propelled by Dean Martin as the pain in the neck pilot. Who wouldn’t want Dino to be flying their airplane. He brings a much needed sense of humor to the film, even when he’s acting serious, despite his creepy love affair with stewardess Gwen who is half his age. Yucch. He’s a bully and he knows it and he doesn’t care (especially when Frank Sinatra ain’t around).
But who else could use pilot doublespeak when the doomed airplane turns back and a young kid noticed that the stars are different. When the kid asks him about it, Dino replies “You have a young navigator here! Well, I’ll tell you son… Due to a Cetcil wind, Dystor’s vectored us into a 360-tarson of slow air traffic. Now we’ll maintain this Borden hold until we get the Forta Magnus clearance from Melnics.” One of my favorite Dino moments.
One mention about the score. The theme music is out of this world and Is one of my favorite movie themes of all time. Alfred Newman (uncle of Randy Newman) was nominated for his 45th Academy Award for his thrilling score.
AIRPLANE! was based on the movie ZERO HOUR! almost word for word but there are many scenes in Airplane, especially on the plane, that are heavily influenced by this movie.
Dad loved this movie and it was his first VHS purchase. He and I used to watch this after we shoveled the first snow of every season. That’s why I’m watching this tonight. For dad, I’m giving this an extra star. Miss you dad.
The rest of you, WATCH IT!
It’s ridiculous but it gave birth to the disaster film genre, even if it was bested by its progeny.
Normally I’d give this a 3/5 but for Dad it gets a 4/5
HIGHEST 2 LOWEST
4/5
Ok, let’s get this out of the way: Can a Spike Lee/Denzel Washington reinterpretation of an Akira Kurosawa- Toshiro Mifune film be as good as the original? Can it? Not to my way of thinking. I didn’t think it before I watched it and I certainly didn’t feel that way after. As great as they are Spike Lee is no Kurosawa and Denzel Washington is no Mifune. High and Low is still the best adaptation of Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom.
Having said that, the dynamic in this movie is thoroughly different than Kurosawa’s classic. First and foremost, in H&L, the kidnapped kid was a child and generally oblivious to what was going on – aside from knowing that his friend was missing. Here, there is a full father-son dynamic with the protagonist’s son a 17 year old kid who hopes to be scouted by colleges for a basketball team and who fully understands that his friend is missing and that his father is doing nothing to get his friend back leading to a terrifically tense moment between father and son.
Second, the relationship between Kingo Gondo and his chauffeur Aoki is purely an employment relationship- there is no bond between the men and quite frankly, one remembers Mifune but I couldn’t tell you who played Aoki. Here, you have not only the best working actor in the business today but you have arguably the second best actor playing against him in Jeffrey Wright. The relationship is a truly emotional connection between the two men and it’s Wright who is most powerful in this film – most likely because his kidnapped onscreen son is played by his real life son.
But, third, and this is the most important, Spike Lee is smart enough not to remake an Akira Kurosawa film. Nope, he’s made yet another Spike Lee Joint – another love letter to the city of New York. I think he learned his lesson from his Oldboy debacle and he has put together something in between McBain’s novel and Kurosawa’s film. In fact, in one of the more humorous moments in the film, David King (Denzel) is taking the ransom on the 4 train – which is populated by Yankees fans on the way to a Red Sox- Yankees game and as the chanting goes on, longtime Lee collaborator, Nicholas Turturro, goes on an anti-Boston rant, looking directly for he camera and blames the bad guy’s pulling of the emergency brake on the Boston Red Sox. Truly a hilarious Spike Lee moment, tied together with an exciting street festival featuring a wonderful performance by Eddie Palmieri and his Salsa Orchestra.
This movie is decidedly NOT an adaptation of Ed McBain’s novel, except in the loosest sense. McBain’s novel is equally focused on both the mighty cops of the 87th Precinct as well as the bad guys. Yep- the bad guys as well, who play a tremendous role in the book. That’s something that even Kurosawa dispensed with in his mightily revered adaptation. Second, there’s no train ride in McBain’s novel with the money thrown- there’s a car ride where the cops triangulate the location of the bad guy’s hideout. Third, it’s the moll of the kidnappers who is responsible for the boy’s recovery, out of guilt. And fourth, in the novel, Douglas King refuses to pay the ransom. That’s right. He flat out refuses. Why? Because, like in Kurosawa’s film, the kidnapped eight year old is the son of the chauffeur, who is nothing more than an employee.
Finally, the motivations of the kidnappers are different from the novel and Kurosawa and this movie, running the gamut from straight kidnapping to kidnapping because of envy to kidnapping because of a slight.
So Spike Lee’s movie is a direct remake of Kurosawa’s film, a reinterpretation of you will. But – and there’s always a but – Denzel’s David King is as ruthless as McBain’s Douglas King. Denzel is all about the 24 hour news cycle – “next week they’ll be on to something else” – and there a little bit of that in Mifune’s Kingo Gondô but Denzel comes off much more ruthless. But they eventually both decide to do the right thing, unlike Douglas King who has a briefcase full of newspapers. Also, unlike the novel and High and Low, King’s son is a teenager, soon off to college so there’s a different dynamic and the father of the kidnapped boy is not merely an employee, he’s King’s best friend and confidant as well as his driver.
The final showdown between the King and the Kidnapper falls short of the emotional heft required for resolution that Kurosawa presented but it has its own emotions that work just as well.
Because, one thing that Spike Lee’s movie does much better than Kurosawa’s is show off the love for his hometown and his love of music. The train sequence – done mostly to the sounds of Eddie Palmieri and his Orchestra – is riveting.
I enjoyed it again – and this movie has something that Kurosawa’s did not: Norm Lewis’s soaring rendition of “O, What a Beautiful Morning” to the opening credits.
It’s a terrific film led by some bravura performances, stunning NYC cinematography and great music makes this a fun watch.
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
