Way back when……Interview With The Vampire (1994)

I don’t know how you feel about it, and although Interview With The Vampire is not one of my favorite all time films to watch, I do find it fascinating.  Hard to believe in this era of Vampire Lovers on Television and The Big Screen, you never hear much about this film anymore and it is certainly heads and shoulders way better than any of The Twilight Movies.  I hope to dig into it with an in depth analysis of my own someday, with the usual snarky pictures of course.  I’m debating as to whether I should upgrade my DVD to blue ray.  As for now, here’s a picture of the cast at the premiere including Tom Cruise, Christian Slater, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst.  Hard to believe 18 years have passed.  Photo comes from Imgur:

I have relatives in Cincinnati. They are all a little bit crazy. Probably from watching this guy on the local news.

Charles Durning 1923 - 2012

If you read my reviews of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and Home for the Holidays (1995), I had nothing but praise for Charles Durning.  Durning was one of those supporting actors who could raise a movie up just by the fact that he was in it.  Durning’s dance steps in Whorehouse was the  highlight of that film, and he practically stole the show in Home for the Holidays as the father who was trying to not only cope with the changes in the world around him, but with his dysfunctional family as well.   Even as the villain trying to convince Kermit to become a spokes-frog for his chain of frog leg restaurants, you couldn’t help but love the guy.  And can you really picture anybody else wooing a cross dressing Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and have it not come off as over the top silliness?

It didn’t matter if Durning was in a bad movie or a good one, he always gave his best effort, even when the material he was working with was nothing more than a quickie made for TV feature.  He was a class act and I’ll miss him.

From the Washington Post:

Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in 1982’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

Many critics marveled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film’s show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. Indeed, he had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio.

The year after “Best Little Whorehouse,” Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks’ ”To Be or Not to Be.” He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975’s “Dog Day Afternoon.”

He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald in the TV film “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Here’s a link to a pretty good short Charles Durning story.

Meme of the Day: This is how I felt at about 8:30 this morning.

How about another one?  This is exactly what I wanted to say to people all those times I was stuck working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Jack Klugman 1922 - 2012

I’m going to be honest here.  I saw many episodes of The Odd Couple, the TV series Klugman starred in with Tony Randall based on Neil Simon’s broadway play, but it was never must see television for me.  There’s probably more episodes I didn’t see then those that I did.  And if you asked me about any of them today I’d be hard pressed to give you a synopsis of any of them.  The Odd Couple  is not available for streaming on either Netflix or Amazon, so if I were to revisit the show now, it would mean either buying it outright or renting the discs of all five seasons one by one.  What I have discovered is that watching a series that ran many years by renting the discs is slow going.  Once I get into a series, I like to be able to watch  it at my leisure.  I became a huge fan of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother because only because I was able to do this.  There’s just so many vintage shows I can afford to buy, and with most of them going to burn on demand at premium prices, collecting has become an expensive undertaking.

As for Quincy M.E., it is available for streaming on Netflix and has been in my queue for quite a while now so maybe I’ll make an effort to give it a try. 

But what I do remember about Jack Klugman is that he starred in four episodes of what I consider one of the top ten televison series of all time, The Twilight Zone.  Twilight Zone is one of those classic series that I do own in it’s entirety.  But even if I didn’t own them, I would still remember the Klugman episodes, which showcased how good of an actor he was even in the early sixties.   Each episode he starred in was some of the best of the series, and it’s hard to choose the best among the four.  These are my recommendations for essential Jack Klugman and I don’t think you can go wrong with these. The episodes are as follows:

1.  A Passage for Trumpet (1960) – Available for Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Musician Joey Crown is down on his luck. A recovered alcoholic, he can't find work because no one trusts him. Broke, he hocks his trumpet but then steps in front of truck which knocks him onto the sidewalk. He awakens in a strange world where no one can see him and he presumes he's died. He eventually bumps into someone who can in fact see him, a fellow horn player who tells him that it's still within Joey's power to decide on life or death.

2.  A Game of Pool  (1961) – Available for Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Jesse Cardiff is a frustrated pool player. He's very good at his game but his frustration comes from the fact that no matter how well he plays or how often he wins, onlookers always conclude that he's not as good as the late, great James Howard "Fats" Brown. He says he would give anything to have had the chance to play Fats and his wish comes true when the man himself suddenly appears. They agree to a game but Fats warns his eager opponent that winning has its consequences as well.

3.  Death Ship (1963) – Not available for Streaming on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

The Space Cruiser E-89 is on a mission to investigate new worlds and determine if they are suitable for colonization by Earth. The mission of the three man crew, composed of Captain Paul Ross, Lt. Ted Mason and Lt. Mike Carter, has been routine. But while investigating an apparently uninhabited world, Mason spots a metallic gleam in the landscape and conjectures that this might be a sign of alien life. The Cruiser prepares to land next to the mysterious object.  After landing, the men are astonished to find the wreckage of a ship exactly like their own.  This episode is part of Season Four.  None of the episodes from this season are available for streaming.

4.  In Praise of Pip (1963) – Available for Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

In the early 1960's, small-time bookie Max Phillips (Jack Klugman) hates his life. His only pride is his son, Pip, then serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in Vietnam. When a young bettor uses company funds to bet with Max, then loses everything, Max returns his money, angering Max's bosses.

These are my recommendations for essential Jack Klugman and I don’t think you can go wrong with these.  You can read the TV Guide obituary here or watch the embedded video.

 

Meme of the Day - Playing Madden Football

7 Worst Product Flops of 2012 as told by Huffington Post

Yes boys and girls and mommies and dads.  It’s that time of year when every web site and magazine has a best and worst list for just about every category imaginable.  Huffington Post has come up with it’s list of biggest flops of the past twelve months.

They are:

1.  Apple Maps
2.  Dodge Dart
3.  John Carter
4.  Sony Tablet
5.  Nokia Lumina 900
6.  Pan Am
7.  Ultrabook
8.  Playstation Vita

Now, I may disagree with at least one of these.  John Carter’s ranking comes from the fact that some people still of are the mindset that North American Gross is the only thing that counts.  In fact, according to Box Office Mojo, while Carter only made $73,000,000 domestically, it made over $209,700,000 in foreign theaters for a total of over $282 million dollars on a $250 million dollar budget.  That doesn’t even include movie tie ins.  DVD/Blu-ray sales, digital sales, pay per view or anything else.  Granted, the film may have been a flop and may never turn a profit but this idea of it being the biggest flop of all time falls into the Waterworld category, a film that fell into that mythical chamber of money making disasters when it in fact, turned a profit.  Blame Disney who took a $200 million dollar write of for letting production and marketing costs spiral out of control.  Then again, for the studio that showered George Lucas with $4 billion dollars for Lucasfilms, this is all chump change.

My son was one of those who bought a Playstation Vita.  He sent it back.  And with two products on this list is it any wonder that Sony is losing money hands over fists?

I didn’t even know that Chrysler had reassembled the Dodge Dart.  I owned one once – back in the 70’s. 

I intended to check in on Pan Am but the show was gone before I ever got around to it.  That happens to me a lot.  Is it on Netflix or Amazon Prime?   (Neither.  As it turns out the series won’t be released on DVD until the middle of January but you can preorder it.  You can put it in your saved queue on Netflix but that doesn’t mean anything as it’s never a guarantee they’ll stock it.  Especially these days.)

As for the Nokia Lumina, I upgraded my phone this year.  I went with the Galaxy SIII, the larger screen winning me over because when you get to be my age, the eyesight is the first thing to go.   I previously had the Apple 3GS and was conflicted about it.  I hate Apple, and I hate Apple fanboys even more.  And the Google maps app. on the Galaxy works great and the GPS locator has saved me a couple of times already.

Maybe I can come up with some kind of a list of my own over the next week or so.  We’ll see.

They’ll Be Back: Cast signs on the dotted line. How I Met Your Mother Goes for Season Nine

If it weren’t for Netflix, I never would have watched a single episode of How I Met Your Mother.  But since Netflix gives you the opportunity to watch past seasons in their entirety, I decided to give it a try and was hooked instantly.  In no time my girlfriend and I had gone through six entire seasons, and then caught up with Season Seven by purchasing it on Amazon Digital.  Since then, Season Seven has been added to Netflix.  We’ve been watching Season Eight episodes as they air. 

But I’m not sure how I feel about a ninth season.  How long can you drag this out?  If we meet the mother of Ted’s children at the end of this season, it could possibly open a whole new ball of wax for the final season.  If we don’t, then it could end up an exercise in tedium.  However, I am anxiously waiting to find out what disaster takes place at Barney’s and Robin’s wedding.  If you’ve never watched the show, and unless you catch it on Netflix, you won’t care either way.

From Hollywood Reporter:

How I Met Your Mother, currently in its eighth season on CBS, is nearing a deal for a ninth and most likely final run to air during the 2013-14 season. News of a pickup was announced with a Saturday tweet from the series' production account, but The Hollywood Reporter has since learned that the green light most likely won't come until after the Christmas holiday weekend. Representatives from the network and 20th Century Fox Television declined to comment.

This comes after months of co-creators and co-showrunners Craig Thomas and Carter Bays saying that they were approaching the series' natural end.

Meme of the Day from Reddit

This blog has 12,976,432 views. Actually, no it doesn’t but then a lot of those Youtube numbers are as phony as hell. But nobody’s going to take down my phony number until they pry it from my cold dead hand.

The Daily Dot has the story:

Google slashed the cumulative view counts on YouTube channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, and RCA Records by more than 2 billion views Tuesday, a drastic winter cleanup that may be aimed at shutting down black hat view count-building techniques employed by a community of rogue view count manipulators on the video-sharing site.

Universal's channel is the one that took the biggest hit. According to figures compiled by the YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, the record company's YouTube channel lost more than 1 billion views from its preexisting tally of 7 billion views Tuesday.

Inflating view numbers or ratings is nothing new.  I actually did find a way to hack a site’s rating system once.  It was a matter of survival.  Something I was writing was getting a lot of attention and very favorable ratings.  I actually found some of my stories at the top of the heap a few times, something not easily achieved when there were about  300,000 other stories being told. 

Then for no reason the ratings on those stories began dropping like turkeys being thrown out of a helicopter in a Thanksgiving Day Promotion.  Mathematically, there was no way that the ratings could drop as fast as they were which was literally in a matter of minutes. 

It always troubled me that the same authors on this particular site were always very highly rated although much of their stuff was pure crapola.  So I worked on figuring out how it was being done. 

I actually watched the ratings of some of my output drop several points in just seconds of real time.  After having discovered the secret forumla, I  would raise the ratings right back up.  Not just of my stuff either.  I did it for other writers I knew were being given the shaft as well.

I knew who was doing it.  I even wrote some mods of the site to let them know it was being done and how it was being done especially since many users had long suspected something was dead fish rotten.  This particular company had always denied  that ratings manipulation was taking place.  Did they fix the problem?  Not really, so I left and took my wares elsewhere.  But not until after I raised the rating of one of my stories to over six points.  That got some attention.  Why?  Because the highest possible rating was only supposed to be 5 points and if everything were on the up and up, that could not have happened.  After that, they finally changed the system, but I didn’t hang around.  Nor was I ever acknowledged for spilling the beans.  Not so much as even a kiss my ass from them, or a kiss your ass, or kiss anybody’s ass..  

Want to know the complete story and what company it was?  It’s really quite a bit more involved and only worthwhile to tell if enough people ask.  So maybe someday.

Clyde’s Movie Palace: The Towering Inferno (1974)

 

Directed
by
John Guillerman
(Action Sequences by Irwin Allen)
Written
by
Sterling Siliphant
Based on the novels
The Tower
by
Richard Martin Stern
and
The Glass Inferno
by
Thomas N. Scortia
Frank M. Robinson
Original Music
by
John Williams
Cinematography
by
Fred J. Koenekamp

I have pretty much decided that  any review I would post next, as health permitted, would be of a film romantic in nature.  Nobody on the planet is as much a promoter of that crazy little thing called love as I am.  Look at the evidence:  I’ve been married three times and have been in numerous other permanent relationships ranging from six months to ten years.  What better credentials are there than experience?

I’m sure that there are already a few of you out there scratching your head trying to figure out what is so romantic about The Towering Inferno. The answer is: practically everything.  Think of it as The Love Boat, Love American Style, or even the movie Valentine’s Day which was released just two years ago.  The  only difference is that all of  the heartache and heart throbbing takes place in and around an imaginary 138 story high rise in San Francisco on the very same date that Producer/Director Irwin Allen decided to torch the building.

For starters, we have architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) who designed The Glass Tower and is having an affair with Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway).  The first thing Doug and Susan do upon his return from Bumfuck-wherever-he-was for two years is to ignite their own campfire by frictioning two bodies together. 

Doug would like for Susan to come to the wilderness jungle and “do good things” with him which means getting married and raising a passel full of mealy mouthed little brats.   That might be why he packed  “$140 worth of vulgar underwear” in his suitcase. Unfortunately for Doug, Susan has been offered the position of Managing Editor of the magazine for which she works.  This is what Doug refers to as the two of them “having a situation.”  I would have thought the fact that he went missing for two years would have been a situation as well, but who am I to comment on fictional agreements between two fictional adults in a fictional romantic disaster film.

Susan:  See Doug, I want the kind of life you’re talking about, I want that.  And I want a place where our kids can run around, grow, and be free.
Doug:  But?
Susan:  I want this job, I’ve wanted it for five years.  I’ve worked for it for five years.  Now suddenly it’s there.  You see, I have ideas, Doug. I can do something with it, something that hasn’t been done before.  I guess I want both and I can’t have both, can I?
Doug:   I don’t know.

Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the snappy dialog rather quickly.

Con artist Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) is getting ready to con rich old widow Lisolette (Jennifer Jones) by selling her some phony stock.  He has a date with her in the party in the penthouse that evening celebrating the opening of The Glass Tower, which is where he intends to woo her and then screw her over.  What Harlee doesn’t know but what we find out  later is that Lisolette is already on to his scheme.  But she doesn’t care, which means despite her wealth, she’s probably hit a pretty long dry spell.  We know that love will burn brightly between these two canaries eventually.  Hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) works for Jim Duncan (William Holden) and is married to Duncan’s daughter Patty (Susan Blakely).  The romantic fires between these two may have burned hot  and intense at one time, but their passion has fizzled out  like a wasted sparkler on July 5th and the chances of them ever rekindling that flaming spark are now non existent.  But since Roger only married Patty to further his own career by using his father-in-law’s money and influence, she’ll probably end up being better off. 

Patty:  Roger,  if you’ve done anything to Daddy’s building, God help you.
Roger:  Maybe I don’t need God’s help anymore, or your old man’s.  Not anymore.   So don’t expect me to shake every time Daddy barks, even if that’s what you want me to do.  
Patty: All I want is the man I thought I married.  But I guess we’re running out of reasons to stay married, aren’t we?
Roger:  It’s getting late, we mustn’t miss the party.

We certainly know what Roger’s priorities are and that makes wife Patty pretty much expendable.  It’s a damn good thing Irwin Allen didn’t pair her up with O.J. Simpson for this movie or Patty may never had made it to the credits with her head attached.  He has his own way of dispensing with his betrothed that is pretty nasty. 

Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) works for Jim Duncan as well.  I’m not sure what his job is but I suspect it involves a lot of ass kissing.  At one point he shows up with the biggest pair of scissors I’ve ever seen for a ribbon cutting ceremony.  I don’t know what happened to those scissor when the film was over, but Marcia Clark and Chris Darden never did come up with O.J.’s murder weapon. Hmmm…… 

Dan also is hot to trot for his secretary Lorrie (Susan Flannery).  They are having a very illicit affair.  I know this to be true because the screenwriter Sterling Silliphant makes it perfectly clear that Dan has to keep Lorrie’s flagpole riding top secret, although it is never explained why.  So after a long hard day’s work Dan shuts the phones off and they retire to the back of his office for some well earned boinking right about the time that one tiny spark ignites a night of blazing suspense.  What could possibly go wrong for this loving couple?

 

Mayor Ramsay (Jack Collins) shows up with his gorgeous wife Paula (Sheila Allen).  Although they are a couple of long married old farts, we know they are still deeply in love  because they tell us  just before the wife takes a fun filled ride in the scenic elevator.   She has hair to kill for.

The deaf widow, Mrs. Albright  lives on the 87th Floor with her two brats Angela (Carlena Gower) and Bobby Brady Phillip (Mike Lookinland).  Philip loves music and wears his headphones practically all the time.  His love of melodies is really just one of those annoying things that enables  him and sis Angela to figure heavily into the plot further down the road. 

  

Bartender Carlos (Gregory Sierra) loves his cases of 1929 Chianti.   And Senator Parker (Robert Vaughn) loves the Chianti as well, and may love somebody else but whoever it is, they weren’t invited to the party.  But by now, you get the idea.

Then there’s the aforementioned Jim Duncan.  He too has a lot of love. Not necessarily for his daughter, Patty, but for his pride and joy, The Glass Tower, the tallest building in the world and part of what Doug Roberts refers to as Duncan’s Edifice Complex.  The Glass Tower is an urban renewal project and is a government subsidized building where rich people can enjoy the finer things in life that the rest of us slobs could never afford but always seem to be footing the bill for.  You know, Republican Corporate Welfare.  I guess even back in the 70’s it was the American way:  Feed the wealthy, cut the feet out from under the middle class and the poor.

Jim loves his 130 story billion dollar building so much, he wants to build more of them all over the country.  But to obtain that goal, he needs the Senator to help him latch on to some more Government handouts.  He doesn’t give the Senator a case of ‘29 Chianti out of the goodness of his heart, you know.

While head architect Doug Roberts was running around in some jungle pretending to be Tarzan, Jim’s Tower began to experience costs over runs.  So when his favorite son-in-law, Roger, tells him that he can shave a few million off the budget, he doesn’t really question why or how.   So when the whole thing decides to go up like a Roman Candle  on the 4th of July because of faulty shoddy wiring below the specs Doug had insisted on, Jim can also plead ignorance while kicking Roger in the ass.  Besides, Roger is pretty much a shitty son-in-law anyway.

And up in smoke it goes.  We’re not talking about an old Cheech and Chong movie here.  When that one not so tiny sparks ignites a pile of  rags in a store room on the 81st floor, and when some dip shit comes along and opens the door to see if perhaps it is Cheech and Chong lighting one up, all hell breaks lose.  It’s time to call the fire department and fire fighter in chief Chief Mike O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen), who was probably pretty damn glad he was able to avoid all the banal dialogue and silly plot manipulations which occupy the first thirty seven minutes.  All O’Hallorhan has to do is show up, fight the fire, and rescue people. But by the time the movie is over and he has practically gone through hell in a gasoline rain coat, he’ll undoubtedly be wishing he had been a bit player reciting some of the more dreary lines in the script, just as long as he wasn’t playing Dan Bigelow or Will Giddings (Norman Burton.)

Having struck box office gold two years earlier with The Poseidon Adventure, Irwin Allen,  aided by the combined financing of Fox and Warner Bros., decided to do himself one better with The Towering Inferno. No expense was spared, as evidenced by Allen securing the services of two of the top box office draws available in Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.

And let’s face it, the supporting cast of William Holden, Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, Robert Vaughn, and Richard Chamberlain isn’t too shabby either.  Add a lot of fire, a lot of smoke, a lot of flaming, charred, burned up humans, some of them falling 100 stories or more to their death, and you have the makings of a box office bonanza. It's amazing that the budget was held down to a mere $14 million dollars even in 1974 dollars.  The film grossed $116 million dollars which was quite a princely sum in those days.  Not to mention that the film still does well on DVD and is now on blu-ray where you see every little blister on burning bodies bubble up and spew pus all over the place.  Okay, well maybe not that graphic.

Despite the abundance of headlining actors in The Towering Inferno, the true star of the film is the disaster itself, just as it is in any of these concoctions. Allen directed the action sequences with John Guillerman handling the rest of the thankless chores. Once we get past the initial plot set ups that enable us to get to know the characters well enough to know who to root for, who we wish to become a crispy critter, who we wish weren’t here at all, and who to feel really really bad about when they become a flaming diving fireball dropping out of the sky, the action and suspense only lets up for brief intervals so all these high priced superstars can get some screen time.  There’s nothing more mesmerizing than watching a flaming body fall a hundred floors or more to the ground.

Allen also does well at piling on and keeps you on edge for long periods of time, with such things as a long climb up a flaming exploding stairwell and a long decent down a scenic elevator that will have you wringing your hands. The fire sequences are all well staged as you can almost feel the flames leaping through the screen and smell the smoke circling around the room.

Just like most disaster films with the good, there is generally some bad and Inferno is no exception. Some of the dialog in this film is truly horrendous.

Duncan: How bad is it?
Halloran: It's a fire. All fires are bad

Doug Roberts: I'm not a cheeseburger.
Susan: No, you're way better, all protein, no bread, now all I need to take with you is eight glasses of water.

James Duncan: Find me the architect that designed you, and who needs Doug Roberts?
Susan: I do.

James Duncan (after his building has killed almost 200 people): You know there's... nothing that any of us can do to bring back the dead.

The silliest moments were reserved for Dan and Lorrie.

Dan:  You know what astonishes me?
Lorrie:  What?
Dan:  You make love with a girl…
Lorrie:  Mmm..hmm
Dan:  And afterwards there’s no visible evidence, nothing to mark the event.  I mean look at you.  You look like you could be going to church.

Uh, maybe Dan ought to be conversing with the maid that has to clean his dirty sheets.  I’m sure she’s seen more commemoration over the years than she’d care to remember.  A few seconds later:

Lorrie:  Did you leave a cigarette burning.
Dan:  That’s not a cigarette.

At which point Dan opens the door to the outer office just long enough to find out two things:

1.  Lorrie’s sense of smell is practically non existent.
2.  Somebody decided to build a bonfire and there isn’t any ribs, chicken, steak, hamburgers, hot dogs, or even marshmallows in his portable fridge.

The best of the performances is turned in by Steve McQueen. As Chief Michael O'Hallorhan who is called to put the fire out, he seems to relish has role as Fire Fighter in Chief.  In fact, Allen initially wanted him to play the part of the architect, but McQueen knowing what suit would fit him well,  and that the part of a glorified high rise doodler was for that other guy by the name of Newman, makes the most of the opportunity.

Paul Newman on the other hand is a mixed bag. When he's playing his scenes with McQueen, he’s okay. At other times he seems a bit stiff and uncomfortable.  Then again, maybe it was resentment.  By contract, both Newman and McQueen were to have equal number of lines in the script.  By the time some dildo brain opens that utility closet door to actually get the real  movie started, Newman has already used up about half of his. 

Much of that was wasted on a lot of pointless dialogue with the very wooden Faye Dunaway who was undoubtedly signed solely for name recognition, and whose character could have been written out completely and not be missed.  Her presence is mostly pointless filler.  And the story goes that Faye Dunaway was extremely difficult to work with, so much so that she had to be threatened by William Holden to get the job done. But hanging out at the top of a high rise doing particularly nothing has to be a bit of a comedown for an academy award nominated actress.  But she would bounce back and win the golden statue for Network, then go on to do real cinematic masterpieces like Mommie Dearest and Supergirl.

 

Fred Astaire as con artist Harlee Claiborne out to bilk Lisolette Mueller fares a bit better. At least both he and Jones are given real things to do, and in the case of Jones, she plays a very unlikely heroine.  This was in fact, Jennifer Jones last motion picture gig and it’s nice to see her go out in a blaze of glory. 

Wagner as Dan Bigelow is a charmer but we just can't buy into his relationship with Lorrie no matter how hard we try.  But like some others, they are only here to be kindling for the weenie roast and nothing else. 

 

Susan Blakely as Patty Simmons, Holden's spoiled daughter and the wife of Roger (Richard Chamberlain) has nothing much to do except chastise her husband for causing Daddy a big headache, and whine about her failing marriage. Chamberlain, on the other hand, seems to like playing the role of the villain and he does it smarmily well.

I guess I have to mention O.J. Simpson aka Nevada Inmate 02648927, as much as I hate doing so.  The less said, the better.  The best thing I can say is that he disappears from the movie at the 1 hour and 13 minute mark holding a cat and doesn’t show up again until the 2 hour and 37 minute mark still holding his pussy. I always hope they’ll re-edit the movie with the murderous bastard showing back up as a char-broiled corpse or flying out of a top floor window.  No such luck.  One can only dream.

After having the number one hit single “Morning After” come out of his previous hit film, The Poseidon Adventure, gives it another go here and tries to one up himself.  It was Maureen McGovern who made the previous tune a humongous hit, although she didn’t perform the song in the movie.  This time, Allen shoots her up to the Penthouse of The Glass Tower to personally perform a little ditty called “We May Never Love Like This Again.”  Lightning in a bottle did not strike twice as The Towering Inferno song only made it up to number 83 on the Billboard 100.  Whether McGovern made it down or was burnt to a crisp is left to the imagination depending on how you feel about her or the song.  As for the rest of the score it was penned by the Great John Williams, and as with any Williams score fits the film well but except for the title sequence, it isn’t particularly memorable.

 

No matter. The Towering Inferno will still entertain you for the most part. At 165 minutes, you'll only be looking at your watch in the first half hour or so as you wait for that one tiny spark to ignite a spellbinding night of suspense. Irwin Allen pulled it all together to put quite a spectacle on the screen, making the most of the fact that he had the use of two novels, The Tower" by Richard Martin Stern, and "The Glass Inferno" by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, two major studios, two film superstars, and an astronomical (at that time) budget.  It is easily the best disaster film to come out of the silly seventies, despite some of the slow moving business early in the film before things get lit up. 

Unfortunately after having reached this pinnacle of success, Allen would not even come close to reaching it again and with each subsequent film his productions went from being somewhat bad to being truly mediocre. Considering how much I really liked this film, it's a shame.  But if you are the best of a genre of a whole decade known as much for it’s silliness as anything else, I have no choice but to give you my grade and in this case it’s a B+. 

Random Thoughts: No nomination for Harry Potter? Really Hollywood?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear.  I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, although at least two of my sons are not to mention various other family members.  But I have seen all of the Harry films, found some of them just so so, others pretty good, and still others a total bore (Deathly Hallows Part One).  Yet, I found Deathly Hallows Part Two to easily be the best of the bunch, a damn good film, and a really terrific sendoff for the series.

It would seem that most people are in agreement with me as the film garnered a 96 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes making it one of the most well received films of the year.

Yet, even though there were nine best film nominees this year, the Hollywood elite decided Harry and the gang didn't deserve so much as a nomination.  Frankly, accomplishing what this series did, how many tickets the series sold, and how many people were employed on the films, you would have thought they'd be a little more grateful than that. 

But instead we get the usual oddball conglomerate of Best Picture Nominees,  a list that as usual has no real rhyme or reason for it’s existence.  It’s not like I’m saying HP & The Gang should win the award, but to not even nominate it is more than just an oversight.  It’s just another example of Hollywood elite snobbery that does nothing more than turn the general public off.

Oh sure, we get something like The Tree of Life as a nominee so all the elitists of film land can prove to us once again that the ones who buy most of the tickets don't know art when they see it, or squat about films in general.  Sure I do.  If it bores your ass off, and doesn't make a lick of sense, it's art.  And the consensus of opinion of the average moviegoer and even some critics  is that The Tree of Life is a crushing bore.  I guess that means we’re all just low brow dim wits who don’t know artsy fartsy when we see artsy fartsy.  And even Sean Penn doesn’t think the film was that great and he starred in the damn thing.  And if you can’t please Sean Penn with artsy fartsy, then we know you’re just blowing smoke up our ass.

Then there's the case of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close which scored a paltry 48 per cent on the Rotten Meter.  But it's this year's 9/11 movie and I guess there's something in the rules that says if it's a 9/11 movie, it gets a guaranteed nomination.  It’s the only explanation I and even most critics can come up with as to explaining it’s listing in the Best Picture category.  

I could also make the case that Potter was at least as good as The Help (76 per cent), or is certainly equal to Woody Allen's latest self-indulgent shlubfest, Midnight in Paris.  And of course, let's not forget this year's big gimmick film, The Artist, which somehow won a best screenplay nomination despite the fact that there's not one word of dialogue spoken in the whole damn thing.  The next time someone tells me Titanic didn't deserve a best picture because of the clunky dialog in Cameron's script, I think I'll tell them to shove a copy of The Artist screenplay up their ass. 

Two years ago the gimmick film was The Hurt Locker, the gimmick being that it had a woman director and the ladies had yet to win one despite the fact that they have directed way more deserving films than this one note Johnny.  It’s already been forgotten by most people, and a high percentage of those forgot about it before the credits finished rolling.  Then there was Slumdog Millionaire the previous film, which was entertaining enough, but was totally ridiculous in it's premise of learning everything you need to know to win Who Wants to be A Millionaire in the slums and that you can get all hot and bothered over a girl at a very young age and stalk her until you are well in your teens.  Hadn’t Anakin Skywalker covered that eternal love stuff territory once before?  Use the force Jamal!  .And they consider Harry Potter movies fantasy? 

Don't even get me started on the ridiculous win of Crash over Brokeback Mountain, which proved despite it's supposedly liberal leanings, Homophobia still wins out in good old Hollywood.  And yes, this year’s racism is a very bad thing movie is The Help, a theme which also seems to be a big boost for squeezing your film into the Best picture category.  But like I said, just don’t make a movie about gays or lesbians because then your goose is cooked before it even gets basted.  Just ask Ang Lee.  Hollywood has to keep the right wing nutcases happy somehow.   

Let’s be real.  The Oscars are not really much of an indicator of anything anymore.   At least not for me and a whole lot of other people.  Once upon a time I did think it was a big deal, but not any more.  

When they finally got around to acknowledging the Lord of the Rings Trilogy,  the Oscar TV ratings went up just as they did during Titanic’s big year.  Since then, as one film after another joins in the race to be the film the general public cares least about, the ratings have once again begun to slide.  It only took about one year for the viewing audience to figure out that nominating ten films was simply another dog and pony sleight of hand trick, and I'm sure we'll once again be able to pretty much guess the Best Picture Winner before the end of February (The Artist, what a shock!).  And before long, even The Miss America pageant will be more relevant then this yearly self congratulatory “let’s drool all over one another” crappy crap  fest.  

And that thing they used to call an Oscar bounce where winning Best Picture added gazillions to a film’s gross?  It appears that has pretty much passed into the annals of history as well.  Just ask the producers of Hurt Locker about that piece of fiction.

I should point out some other snubs as well although I really don’t want to spend too much time on this nonsense.  Look at the animation feature category.  What’s up with the two obscure films nobody’s ever heard of and that nobody is never really going to give a damn about?  Chiquita Bananas and the Lovely Rita Meter Maid?  Top Cat Does Paris?  What the hell is that crap?   They’re the Herman Cain and Michelle Bachman of the Academy awards.  Nobody cared when they came out and no number of nominations is going to get most viewers to give a rat’s ass .  Hell, the DVD’s and Blu-rays weren’t even released in this country.  Left out of the animation category were Cars 2, Spielberg’s Adventures of TinTin, Rio, or even Winnie The Pooh which had a whopping 91 percent on the Tomato meter.   

People are so excited in regards to TC does Paris that the IMDB message board is just brimming with excitement over it.  There are exactly three posts.  The enthusiasm is just overwhelming.  And according to this damn thing, the movie came out in 2010.  I thought these films were supposed to be released in 2011?

Then there’s the fact that only two songs were nominated (two songs?  really?) because they have a real quirky half assed nominating system for best song.  Look at the bright side.  At least you won’t have to watch all five of them being performed with some overdone overblown stage productions.   The two songs that did get nominated aren’t exactly going to be getting heavy rotation in anybody’s house anytime soon.  I love and adore The Muppets, but that song Man or Muppet will never be another Rainbow Connection. 

I could go on and on, but the fact is that like most people these days I just don't care enough, and I don't even make it a point to watch the thing which is a far cry from way back when I live blogged the event.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll do that this year for the purpose of poking a little fun.  Oh wait, I forgot.  I’m having an operation on the sixth of February so I doubt I’ll be up for that.  Maybe next year we’ll do it when Hollywood’s Elite shits on the ticket buyers once again.