David Vining's Blog, page 191
March 25, 2020
The Airport Franchise Ranked: The Definitive Ranking
Okay, its a franchise that no one cares about, is only four movies long, and is mostly kind of stupid.
But, the listicle gods must be appeased with sacrifices. So, instead of goring the bull of James Bond, I shall be disemboweling the sickly chicken that is the Airport franchise.
Its full of stupid characters doing stupid things in order to keep the movie going. The world was probably done a service by this movies failure followed by the blessing of Airplane! the...
Airport
We finally come back to it, the movie that started the franchise that ended with George Kennedy rated to fly the Concorde, and Im shocked to discover that he started the franchise as a maintenance man. Granted, hes the gosh darned best maintenance man at Lincoln Airport, but still. Its kind of jarring to watch that tortured character progression backwards. I cant imagine its that much smoother going forwards, though.
Anyway, the first in this franchise is markedly different from the rest....
March 24, 2020
Airport 1975
The core of this movie is the danger, and I thought that the danger was only moderately well handled, a limitation of its budget. Outside of that we get our collection of random nobodies that dont do enough to establish an emotional connection and a strained romance between the two most central characters. For a movie that seems to hinge almost entirely on spectacle, theres not quite enough of it done well enough.
I dont hate this movie at all. Its moderately entertaining in a low-rent...
March 23, 2020
The Concorde…Airport ‘79
Okay, Airport 77 was ridiculous, but this is both ridiculous and really frustrating. Its structure is way off, while it still retains all of the problems of the previous film in the franchise. For the first half hour or so, I was actually kind of on board with the film. It was about illegal gun sales and a plucky reporter, nothing terribly groundbreaking, but it sort of held together. And then they got onto the plane.
The movie begins with some loving shots of The Concorde over the credits....
March 20, 2020
Airport ’77
Im approaching this tiny little franchise weird, because the third film was the first that I saw. I dont think itll matter since the movies doesnt share much in terms of character, plot, or an overarching story. They seem to be individual disaster movies centered around airplanes. Anyway, this one is not good.
Disaster movies, especially the star-studded affairs like The Towering Inferno, are curious beasts. They exist somewhere between genres. On the one hand is the procedural where...
March 19, 2020
Kes
This movie is a bit rough from a technical perspective, but it doesnt get in the way of my complete love for it. Filmed in Yorkshire with a mostly amateur cast, the movie is as rough as the surroundings and the accents of the locals. However, at the very large center of the film is David Bradley, who plays the main character Billy. The story of a young boy, trapped in the mining town in which he was born, who finds his own small escape in the midst of it all is some wonderful cinema magic.
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March 18, 2020
The Last Emperor
I didnt intend to review this film when I threw it on. I bought it because its great, and I just wanted to watch it again, but then I read Roger Eberts review and I felt like he completely and totally misinterpreted the ending. And then I read the essay that came with the Criterion Blu-Ray by David Thompson that seemed completely scattershot and talked more about the rest of Bertoluccis career rather than The Last Emperor itself. So, I just felt like I needed to get my own thoughts down.
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March 17, 2020
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
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This might be the most inept and lazy epic fantasy adventure attempt Ive ever seen. It feels like the most generic script with Alice in Wonderland iconography tacked on as an afterthought. Everything about this movie is wrong. From the visuals to the storytelling to the acting, nothing fits.
So, Alice has grown up and lost all memory of her adventures in Wonderland. She goes out to a rich estate where she is to be engaged to a boorish ginger with an awful mother. As he asks for her hand in...
March 16, 2020
Hidden
This movie is small, hardly anyone has seen it, and its pretty new. It also involves a twist that I think completely undermines the film, so Im just gonna go ahead and give a spoiler warning right now. Im gonna talk about this twist rightnow
Okay, so the three main characters have the disease the whole time, but we only find out in the final act of the film. Why does this bug me? Why do I find my self repeating my little mantra that artists shouldnt lie to their audiences? Is it some sort of...
March 13, 2020
Terry Gilliam: The Definitive Ranking
Here I am, with another list, because the listicle gods are cruel and unyielding. May they be assuaged with my sacrifice of several minutes of my time to arrange Terry Gilliams films in the order that most appeals to me. At least its not a top 10 but a top 13.
Click the links for the full reviews, and do check out the rest of my Definitive Lists.
The movie is chopped up from individual ugly pieces that never really come together while splitting its thematic point across several...
