David Vining's Blog, page 3

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John Frankenheimer: The Definitive Ranking

John Frankenheimer will always be known for his tear of a run in the 60s from Birdman of Alcatraz to Grand Prix, and there’s no reason not to remember him for it. They’re mostly really good (a few outright great) films stacked together in about a six year span. It’s one of the best single runs of a director I can think of.

And then he worked for 30 more years.

Sure, most people love Ronin, but who loves 52 Pick-up or 99 and 44/100% Dead or Prophecy or The Challenge?

And there’s a lo...

Path to War

This might be the best way for John Frankenheimer to stop making filmed entertainment. Frankenheimer was a huge Kennedy supporter, even being at The Ambassador hotel to drive Bobby Kennedy after the event when the former AG was shot, an event that convinced Frankenheimer to move to Europe and pick up cooking as a hobby. Making a movie about LBJ, his ambitions, and his treatment of war aims in Vietnam feels like a certain level of closure to his career. I don’t think the treatment is quite as...

Mark Talks too Much About: Ronin 5/5 stars

What is Admirable?

There is one thing I admire more than anything else, in life, in cinema, in literature: competence.

I hate people who get to win through luck, divine intervention, destiny or anything of the like.  What pleases me, is competent good guys beating competent bad guys by just being a hair better.  This is why Ronin is not just one of my favorite 100 films, it is in my top 5.  

There are very few ‘perfect’ movies. Movies where I can’t find fault with the script or char...

40th Birthday Trip – Day 13, Salzburg

And so we come to the final, full day of my trip.

We left our apartment in Vienna, actually took the bus to the Hauptbanhof, and took the train across Austria to Salzburg. It was like living in Amadeus, with trains, though.

Anyway, Salzburg is a tiny place, and the only real reason to do it seems to be seeing Mozart’s birthplace and seeing the locations from The Sound of Music. Well, my wife made sure that the oldest saw the film before we left and it settled rather deeply in his mind. Kid...

40th Birthday Trip – Day 12, Salzburg

And so we come to the final, full day of my trip.

We left our apartment in Vienna, actually took the bus to the Hauptbanhof, and took the train across Austria to Salzburg. It was like living in Amadeus, with trains, though.

Anyway, Salzburg is a tiny place, and the only real reason to do it seems to be seeing Mozart’s birthplace and seeing the locations from The Sound of Music. Well, my wife made sure that the oldest saw the film before we left and it settled rather deeply in his mind. Kid...

Reindeer Games

I made an extra effort to get to the Director’s Cut of Reindeer Games, John Frankenheimer’s final theatrical feature film. He went back to the cutting room after the initial release and for the DVD release to add in 20 minutes, and I have to say…it probably didn’t help the film much. There’s character work throughout, but it’s never that interesting or compelling. In addition, it’s supposed to be a thriller (something Frankenheimer had shown extreme aptitude at for decades), but the infectio...

40th Birthday Trip – Days 11 and 12, Vienna

Fewer pictures these couple of days. I was tired and kind of stopped thinking about the camera so much.

We arrived in Vienna at the central station, our night train experience having been better than our first because of more time and slightly expanded quarters, our rented apartment a little more than half a mile away. So, of course I had us walk it (I truly am my father’s son). We stayed a few blocks west of the Schloss Belvedere, and our general idea was to rest. There was no great push to ...

40th Birthday Trip – Days 10 and 11, Vienna

Fewer pictures these couple of days. I was tired and kind of stopped thinking about the camera so much.

We arrived in Vienna at the central station, our night train experience having been better than our first because of more time and slightly expanded quarters, our rented apartment a little more than half a mile away. So, of course I had us walk it (I truly am my father’s son). We stayed a few blocks west of the Schloss Belvedere, and our general idea was to rest. There was no great push to ...

Ronin

John Frankenheimer makes a Michael Mann movie, and he does it very well. And in Europe because Frankenheimer loved living in Europe. It’s a conspiracy thriller, man on a mission film, and revenge film all twisted up into one terse package.  We’re never in the dark too much, never feeling lied to by the script by J.D. Zeik (with massive rewrites by David Mamet). Frankenheimer keeps the tension up expertly throughout. And it’s just a really fun thrill ride through some European locales.

Sam...