It Happened One Night - 1934

This review is a bit of a cheat, because I'd never forget I'd seen this movie. It's one of my favorites. I needed something lighthearted after the war film I saw this morning and this was available on Tubi, so it was an easy pick.

Ellie is a brat. She married a man basically to spite her father, and now she's run away and is trying to get back to New York on her own. The thing is, she's not real good at working her way through the world alone. She's always had someone with her or looking out for her.

Peter is a newspaperman who needs a story. He recognizes Ellie as a once in a lifetime story and decides to help her. He's not holding any punches with her, though. He tells it like it is and a lot of it is truth she's needed to hear for a long time.

I love this movie. I think I love it more every time I watch it. The chemistry between Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable is great, and the entire story is endearing and sweet. I love the little normal things Peter teaches Ellie about, like piggyback rides and hitchhiking. The end is wonderful. I love Ellie's dad.

Something I learned on this watch was this movie is based on a short story by Samuel Hopkins Adams called "Night Bus." I don't see it available at present, but Adams has other books in public domain, and I think I'll read The Flying Death soon. Anyway, this movie is great. It's old, it's in black and white, but it's still worth watching. Great Movie!

 

They Fought for Their Country (Russian) - 1975

This is the story of a rearguard defending against the advancing German army as they march toward Stalingrad. The movie is in two parts totaling over two and a half hours. The director is one I'm familiar with for his series War and Peace and epic movie Waterloo (Sergei Bondarchuk). 

The rearguard goes through a lot and doesn't get much appreciation from the locals. It seems like every time they run into farmers (granted it was only twice, but still) they don't hold back their criticism of the soldiers' retreat from the German army.

It doesn't pay to become attached to anyone in this film. The one person I wasn't necessarily a fan of was the one that came out "unscathed." The film ends before the tragic battle of Stalingrad, so he may not have made it through that, but everyone else seemed to deal with some sort of trauma or die.

The movie felt a little long, and my subtitles were a bit suspicious at times. I can't imagine anyone, no matter what country they're from, saying, "bear with me, bro" in 1942. I got the general idea of what was going on, but moments of reflection could lose some of their gravity when the subtitles aren't quite right.

Overall, I felt the movie was a bit longer than it needed to be. Scenes dragged on at times, and I can't justify any real reason for that decision. The acting was good, and I felt like the aspect of the war being portrayed was explored pretty well. I wouldn't watch this one again, but I appreciate it for what it is. I also appreciate that a lot of the actors were veterans themselves. The movie just didn't grab me like some do.

EPIC: The Musical (Adaptation of The Odyssey)

While the kids were here over winter break, my younger daughter mentioned this to me. I had her send me the link to the animatics. I listened to a few of them, getting some ear worms in the process. Today, I was working on some sewing and decided to listen to a few more...or all of them.

So, a quick history is this genius Jorge Rivera-Herrans starts working on his senior thesis in 2019. I want to say right off that I'm glad I didn't hear about this until it was done. Just for my own sake. The final saga was released on Christmas Day.

Anyway, this musical is 40 songs of story and emotion. Almost all of them are so freakin catchy. My daughter asked me for some of my favorites, and I couldn't really do it. I could appreciate the attention to detail in the music, and I was picking up how the songs built on each other (listening to most of it in one sitting probably helped with that).

To be clear, the animatics weren't the draw for me. I started listening to it again with just the music, and I was even more impressed since I could focus more on the lyrics and musical choices. I asked my daughter if there was a full album, and she wasn't sure. I didn't see one yet, but I'm definitely keeping my eyes peeled. As of now, I'm only seeing the sagas separately.  I'm going to keep checking, because this was definitely a super experience! Excellent Music!

John Wayne: Behind the Scenes - 2007

Sometimes I just want to watch some John Wayne. It's mostly because my Dad would put his movies on all the time, so I've kinda inherited that. It's also a therapy thing when I miss him.

This hour and a half documentary is mostly production featurettes with some interviews and other snippets sprinkled in. I'd actually seen the one for McLintock! before. They cover a lot of the bigger hits including The Searchers, Green Berets, The Sons of Katie Elder, Stagecoach, Cahill U.S. Marshall, In Harm's Way and even a couple I was surprised to see like Brannigan and McQ.

I learned a couple things and saw a lot of the Duke. It made me want to watch some movies, which wasn't what I was going for. I was hoping this would scratch the itch so I didn't need to track down a John Wayne movie. But those featurettes were very effective. I suppose I'll need to go on the hunt. For this particular documentary, I'm on the fence. I was getting a bit bored here and there, but other parts were super interesting. Specifically, I want to learn more about Green Berets. Knowing John Wayne was a director and passionate about the story intrigues me.

The Black Watch - 1929

The beginning of the new year brought us a fresh set of public domain films. This was one of them. It was directed by John Ford, a man notable for being involved in numerous John Wayne films. This particular film starred Victor McLaglen, a man who I've seen in a lot of things, but there was a particular movie I was trying to think of. After some digging, he was in The Quiet Man.

A Scottish regiment called The Black Watch is being deployed to France. Donald has been asked to head to India instead. There's a woman who has the potential to rile up the natives in the hills. She's thought of as the fulfillment to a prophecy, so the rebels (?) will do whatever she asks.

This movie was so strange. Two things saved it for me. One was Mohammed. His epic line he'd speak asking for forgiveness right before harming someone was great. The other was the drummer of the pipe band. I hate bagpipe music (there's a backstory to that, but no one cares), so I found some fun watching the bass drummer twirl his mallet. Other than that, Donald was too busy falling in love with the super white Indian woman (they tried to explain that, but I wasn't buying it) to care about his mission. I was kinda glad when she died, and I normally like Myrna Loy.

The "chemistry" between those two was awkward. Their lines sounded like they were written by a man who'd never talked to a girl before. Anyway, at least they showed me what happened to Malcolm, because I actually cared about that. I didn't care one bit that they just mentioned Donald's medal from India, and everyone was so happy to have him back in The Black Watch. Thanks, Mohammed and Drummer Man for making the hour and a half not as bad. And side note: they needed to stop asking David to sing. It's not that the man couldn't sing, he just really looked like he was over it at the end. He's wounded - start your own sing-a-long!

 

One Day in September - 1999

This is a documentary about the 1972 terrorist attack that took the lives of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. It's around an hour and a half and includes interviews with various people involved, news clips from the time and schematics to help see get a sense of where things happened.

I'm not usually a documentary person. Seeing this was an hour and a half was a bit intimidating for me, but I wanted to know more about this. I wasn't alive when it happened, but it's one of those events that goes beyond understanding. I wanted to know if there were any answers.

A group of terrorists infiltrated the lax security of the Olympic village and took their hostages. Two of the Israelis died at the village. They fought back. The terrorists were demanding the release of over 200 Palestinians being held prisoner in various countries. For obvious reasons, that was never going to happen. 

What followed was some of the most unbelievably inept crisis management ever. If not the worst, it has to rank up there with some of the strangest choices ever made. And it wasn't one choice. It was a series of choices that led to the tragedy that ended up occurring. I know I'm armchair quarterbacking a bit, but it was ridiculous.

This is the type of story that makes you angry. When I heard the General describing the situation and laughing, I couldn't believe it. When I heard the Germans wouldn't let the Israeli government send in a team to try and rescue the hostages, but they didn't have any kind of special force, I was dumbfounded. When I saw the recreation of the events at the airport, I was furious.

The final living member of the terrorist group who gives an interview in this documentary is a type of person I don't understand. He killed people, and after all these years, and living in hiding, he's proud of what he did. He thinks he did something good, and that's a mentality I'll never understand. The bodies of the other terrorists killed at the airport were sent back and given their heroes' welcome. It was surreal to see a mass of people basically crowd surfing coffins. Three men actually were captured, but they were traded later on back to their country. I won't even get into that.

On the flip side of that coin, I was struck by a story the wife of Andre Spitzer told. While at the Olympics, he purposely approached some of the Lebanese athletes and spoke to them. He believed the point of the Olympics was for the world to come together. He made connections in Munich, and these men tore everything apart.

The film was thorough and informative. The editing was a bit strange at times, and the graphic images at the end were staggering and unexpected. Anything graphic earlier in the documentary was blurred, but at the end, they stopped doing that for some reason. Some of the choices to switch back and forth between images of the Olympics and the situation, while I understood the intention, seemed to drag on a bit too long. The only other criticism I had was the music. Some of it matched, but not a lot. These are small issues in the whole experience. I thought overall it was really well put together, and it was a great learning experience. I'm glad I watched this, and I'm looking to learn more in the future. In particular, I plan on looking into the Mossad operation "Wrath of God" where they hunted down two of the three terrorists responsible for the crime but escaped justice.

This is a long review, but there was a lot to say. It really made me think, and it made me angry. Good Film!

3 Dev Adam - 1973

There's something called "Turksploitation" films. They remade or used unauthorized footage of popular films to make low budget movies. I've seen reviews for The Man Who Saved the World, aka Turkish Star Wars, but I had little idea what I was getting into when I pushed play on this one.

Captain America, El Santo (a famous wrestler) and Julia arrive to help the local cops track down the supervillain Spider-Man. In true villain fashion, he starts the movie with the nefarious move of slowly approaching a woman vertically in a hole. He decides her fate, and then she gets a boat propeller to the face. Interesting start.

What follows is a weird and wild ride. We actually watched this a few weeks ago, but I've been sitting on the review, because I really wasn't sure what to say. Spider-Man was so weird. He kept murdering people while they were bathing, and the sex scenes were unnecessary. The end was drawn out, and I don't know how Captain America and Santo were sure Spider-Man was taken care of.

I found it interesting they crammed a wrestler into the Marvel universe. El Santo is a character I've seen before. There's an episode of MST3K called Samson and the Vampire Women. That movie is ridiculous fun, even without the commentary. In all, the real El Santo was in 53 luchador films that had him as a superhero fighting supernatural creatures, evil scientists, criminals, etc. It sounds interesting! Even though only four were ever dubbed into English, I'm still interested for sure. In this movie, it's important to note this is an unlicensed version (pretty sure everyone in this movie is unlicensed!) of El Santo, and he's played by the actor Yavuz Selekman.

This movie was something else. I'm not sure why Spider-Man was all about killing people, especially ones that were bathing. I'm not sure why they chose to show a stripper. And of all the music to take, I'm curious why they chose the music from Thunderball.

I'm a bit torn on this one. It was so crazy, and it had some fun moments. There were also a lot of unnecessary moments. I really liked the addition of the luchador, and I'd like to see more of him. I'm going to remain on the fence. This version of these characters was so weird...

Do something about those eyebrows, Spider-Man!

Chernobyl - 2019

This HBO miniseries has been on my watchlist for a long time. I don't know a lot about Chernobyl, and I'm always willing to learn more.

The series is broken up into 5 episodes. Each episode focuses on different problems, but there are subplots that carry through to the end of the series. Of course, the disaster as a whole is the main focus. What caused it? How are they going to contain it?

Dog lover warning - the fourth episode was so hard to watch. I understand they had to limit the spread of radioactive wildlife, but there was no way they were going to find every pet and kill it. I'm not a cat fan, but I know they are experts at hiding. But the extended story of the liquidators was heartbreaking. I closed my eyes at some points. I just can't watch stuff like that. 

On an accuracy scale, I understand this is a drama. The setting is also a place notorious for covering up the severity of things. If you think I'm exaggerating, understand it was said to be a minor accident for a while, or even better look up the official death count. The thing I love the most about watching shows based on true events is when I can look deeper into what actually happened.

To that end, I found the translated tapes of Valery Legasov, and I plan on reading through those. I also found an interview with one of the divers who opened the valves in the basement. I read through the interview, and it was super interesting. Alexei Ananenko was one of the three divers, and they actually survived their heroic actions!

Chernobyl happened in 1986. I was only 9 years old at the time, so I didn't know a lot of the details. The show really showed me a lot of the human toll that was thrown at the disaster. It's another topic I'm going to be diving into in the future. The show was really well done, and it really made me think. The facts at the end were staggering. Seriously, look up the official death count. It's ridiculous. Good Series!

Captain America II: Death Too Soon - 1979

After being disappointed watching the first installment of this movie duo, I didn't have super high hopes. I did hold out a bit of hope, however, since Christopher Lee was in this. That man had an interesting life, and he was an actor I always enjoy watching.

In this super weird superhero movie, Captain America has to try and stop Christopher Lee from aging everyone. Lee is hiding at a penitentiary as acting warden and has a professor locked away creating a serum that ages people. He sends an angry baby puma to the president to prove that his formula works. In a few hours, the cat has grown, but it's still angry. Anyway, Captain America does some...stuff and saves the day.

This was probably more ridiculous than the first one, but much more tolerable to watch. The bigger questions came out in this one for sure. Why did the professor have an exploding lock on his door and no one cared? Why did he have to make an aging serum to create an antiaging serum? Why did Captain America break onto the dock in the middle of the day and beat up all the dock workers? Were they all working for Miguel (Christopher Lee)? Why did Captain America purposely Peter Pan off the dam (The Fugitive reference for the young ones) and splat his motorcycle at the bottom? And how did he get the bike back? WHO came up with the idea to attach a glider to the motorcycle and film it for 5 minutes straight?! 

The end was straight up brutal and hilarious, and I have no words for it. The whole movie was strange, but I enjoyed it enough to watch it again for laughs. I'm still wondering where Steve got the cat and where it went. The whole "line up outside the vet without any pets" plan was totally not suspicious, and I found it hilarious they had minions outside town who just sat there all day and logged who traveled over the bridge. Jeep posse! I'm giving it a Fun Movie! review, but it's not good, and it's definitely not for everyone. One final question: Why didn't anyone question the ethics of testing the antidote on the twins? 

Contagion - 2011

I was browsing through my recorded movies to find something to watch this morning, and this was the one I picked. There are lots of big names and recognizable faces in this movie, and I hadn't seen it before.

It's really easy to sum up the plot of this movie. I'm calling it Covid: The Movie. Brief explanation if that isn't enough for you is a woman flies home from China. She's sick and dies. People around the world start to die, and it's important for the CDC and WHO to find out where it came from and how to stop it. The story is told from numerous viewpoints and from places all over the world.

The movie was a little heavy on the looting/crime aspect, but everything else seemed fairly accurate. Food supply woes, stocking up on water and hand sanitizer, and the movie even has the conspiracy guy who thinks he cured himself with a homeopathic remedy. The one guy commented his wife made him undress in the garage and sanitized everything, and that reminded me of when first responders and hospital workers would talk of when they'd go home after work during the pandemic.

They really crammed a lot into this movie. No scene was wasted since we were following so many characters on a global scale. I liked the camera work a lot. Especially at the beginning when they were keeping a shot on something a sick person touched. You knew what it meant, and it was ominous, and it's always been something that bothers me.

The other part I really liked was the end. I'm not going to spoil what it was, because it was just really clever. The taped version I had was 2 1/2 hours, but it flew (and I skipped commercials). I loved that they took the time to focus on some of the science involved in the identification of the virus and creation of a vaccine. I found that really interesting. The conspiracy nut was a little annoying, but I'd totally watch this again. Good Movie!

Captain America - 1979

I really love the old classics. What's been especially fun for me has been digging up old Marvel attempts and seeing how different they are from the CGI present. I watched the serial (1944) and had a lot of fun with it. 

This particular version was...something. It was not what I was expecting at all. Steve is coming back in 1979, so there's no Nazi fighting, and the man isn't really very patriotic either. He's more of a reluctant, whiny man-child. He's also a bit dense.

I'm guessing they were trying to meet their screen time limit for the pilot, because they showed looong scenes of driving. Sometimes Steve was in a van, sometimes he was on a motorcycle, and at the end he was puttering around in a helicopter.

Big shoutout to the helicopter pilot, though. He flew pretty low a couple times, and I was impressed. The end was the weirdest thing I've ever seen in a superhero movie. They track the villain (who is reading a book while sitting next to a neutron bomb) with a helicopter (again, for an extended period of time) and then Steve almost kills him with exhaust. I'm not sure why the villain decided to stand right next to the vent where the crap was coming in, but whatever. Watching Captain America sitting next to the prone form of the villain while his doctor friend was saving the man was so weird.

Overall, this thing was so strange. Steve had a soothing voice and no emotions. He also doesn't accept being Captain America until almost the end of the movie. My daughter fell asleep, and she's the one who usually is all in on the nonsense. I have no idea how they had another movie after this one, but it has Christopher Lee, so it can't be worse than this one. It just can't...

Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022) & Three Wiser Men and a Boy (2024)

I'm going to lump these into the same review since we watched them fairly close together. We played bingo with them, but we didn't have a lot of hope when we knew what they were about. That particular theory was correct.

In the first movie, you have three brothers who have to team up to take care of a baby. The poor little mite was left of at the firehouse with one of the brother's names on it, and they just decide to take care of it since the mother says she'll be back for him. The men learn about each other and become closer as a family.

In the second movie, it's five years later. The firefighter has married the mother and is now father to the boy. The other two are all-in on the uncle job and still working on their lives. All three of them are dealing with real life issues, and now they also have to deal with Mom's new boyfriend.

Both these movies were more tolerable than the others we've watched recently. I honestly enjoyed the first one, and we all had a few laughs with it. The second one wasn't bad, but I didn't like it as much as the first one. The overly perfect pastor-man was a bit much to deal with - for the brothers and me. Neither movie gave us a bingo, but we didn't care. Actual good movies for sure!

 

Hardware Wars - 1978

This was found by my daughter's boyfriend. It sounded epic, so I found it online, and we all sat down to watch it together. And oh my goodness!

If you couldn't tell by the title, this is a Star Wars spoof. It was made for $8,000, and it's freaking amazing. All the references and puns are going to go right over your head if you've never seen Star Wars, but if you're a fan, you may enjoy this. If you take everything seriously, you'll think it's a travesty. BUT! We loved it. 

My only complaint is the length. Twelve minutes was just not long enough for this masterpiece. But also, I understand why it was that long. If there was one thing I learned from the film, it was that Ernie Fosselius is a genius. His name was listed under everything on this project, and I applaud him for this effort. I don't know how I've never heard of this before, because it's one of the best things I've seen in a long time! It's on YouTube, so give it a watch if you have a couple minutes. Good/Fun Film!