rate the last movie you saw

[AndyDursin]

One of the greats!!

http://andyfilm.com/2013/06/13/aisle-se ... -festival/

Leonard Maltin's original review, which I upped to Youtube:

[Paul MacLean]

Shaun The Sheep (8/10)

One of the best films of recent years, and one that is refreshingly devoid of the tacky gimmickry and heavy-handed socio-political "messages" that are typical of Hollywood kids' movies these days. Shaun The Sheep is simply an enjoyable comedy-adventure -- and a remarkably clever one at that, with moments that are suspenseful, hysterically funny and disarmingly touching. Moreover, it manages to to tell a coherent, comprehensible 85-minute narrative without a single line of dialog, thus making it one of the most purely "cinematic" movies of all time.

The reliance on visual storytelling also results in a film which transcends language barriers, and communicates universal commonalities (again in a manner far more effective than the tiresome posturing of current Hollywood children's films). Highly recommended!

[Monterey Jack]

I could have done without the fart jokes, however.

[Paul MacLean]

I could have done without the fart jokes, however.

Those jokes amounted to maybe ten seconds of an 85-minute film? I can deal.

[Monterey Jack]

This is the best recurring visual joke in a movie I've seen all year...

[Eric Paddon]

Special Bulletin (1983)

Countdown To Looking Glass (1984)

Both in the 5 to 6 range at best.

Most of us are familiar with "The Day After" as the ultimate product of the early 80s nuclear war obsession in the entertainment industry generated by their own paranoia over the Reagan defense build-up. In the TV-movie realm this paranoia gave us two "fake newscast" style dramas, the first "Special Bulletin" which depicted a group of fanatical anti-nuclear terrorists threatening to detonate a nuclear weapon in Charleston, SC unless all nuclear detonators in the area are removed in the name of peace. This drama was played as a fake newscast from start to finish requiring NBC to air disclaimers at the bottom of the screen to avoid a "War of the Worlds" style reaction.

A year later, HBO gave us "Countdown To Looking Glass" which shows the superpowers sliding toward nuclear war when things start to get out of hand in the Middle East. Unlike "Special Bulletin" this was not a "pure" fake newscast, as it interspersed the newscast with some behind the scenes stuff going on (the anchorman ruminating and trying to call his wife; the White House reporter getting top secret info leaked to her from her White House aide boyfriend). Unlike "Special Bulletin" though they mixed in two retired journalists in Eric Sevareid and Nancy Dickerson into their "coverage" and also employed a number of real-life figures as "talking head" experts including the then-relatively unknown Congressman Newt Gingrich (offering pretty much the lone counterpoint argument to other figures such as Eugene McCarthy). Curiously the weakest link in the cast is its biggest name, Scott Glenn as a reporter assigned to the USS Nimitz who seldom manages to come off as a journalist and whose presence tends to undermine the authentic tone this goes for.

In the end, time has not been kind to either "Special Bulletin" or "Countdown to Looking Glass" not so much because of their presentation but because they represent a quaint and dated look at an era that is far more out of date than what critics claim is dated about Cold War dramas of the 50s etc. The chief thing being that both films, like "The Day After" were made out of a paranoid belief that the Reagan Administration secretly wanted to fight a nuclear war against the USSR and was willing to go that extra step if necessary. Indeed, in "Countdown" the chief mistakes that cause the crisis to escalate are both revealed as American faults (failing to properly interpret a "conciliatory" Soviet gesture at one point, and an American naval commander using a tactical nuclear weapon in the field on his own authority) and thus we get the undercurrent of how foolish and mad our leaders are. "Special Bulletin" repeats this also in which the terrorists say they are driven toward their principled action because the government (i.e. the Reagan Administration) is convinced a nuclear war can be won.

History shows us this was total nonsense. Ronald Reagan's own private papers, journals and everything about him reveals that from the beginning, he sought not confrontation but a way to actually fulfill this goal of nuclear disarmament through breaking the USSR peacefully. That is the supreme irony. Even though academics, including academic liberals have come to terms with understanding this facet of Reagan's persona, if you look at what pop critics say, they'll still talk about "resurgence of Cold War paranoia in the 80s" and still spout clichés long since disproved by history and the factual record. In short, these movies no longer stand the test of time because they're like reading a speculative novel from 1967 about how the 1968 election might unfold. Interesting as a curio if you're a history buff, but a film with a "timeless" lesson? Hardly.

One little bit of amusing trivia about "Special Bulletin". Before the drama begins we see a promo for the fictional "RBS" network including a shot of a promo for a fictional game show on their daytime schedule. The "host" is standing in front of a game board that on closer inspection reveals it to be the "Jeopardy" board from "Airplane II: The Sequel"! (complete with "Lunar Shuttle Disaster" category visible).

[Eric Paddon]

The Winds Of War (1983) 6.5 of 10

-I last watched this in 1986 when I recorded it's encore airing on ABC as preparation for "War And Remembrance" (which I never did see much of). I've had the DVD on my shelf for a decade and only now did I decide to watch it all the way through and I will do likewise with its sequel.

-The miniseries is an impressive mixture of outsized spectacle for TV as it was at the time, which is why it was such a big event. But it can also seem like maddening excess (just as I'm sure it's sequel will seem to me) in which the narrative seems to purposefully slow down too much just to give us longer scenes of a convoy, or a procession or other things that IMO just didn't need to drag out so long. There is also a tendency to stay focused too long on one subplot at the expense of others for a long while time-wise when a little more cutting back and forth between Pug Henry in Moscow to Natalie and Aaron trapped in Italy would have been welcome. I think in today's style of television "Winds" might have worked better as 13 one hour segments than the multi-part two and three hour formula used back then.

-The performances are largely mixed. I think frankly Robert Mitchum manages to hold up well despite the fact he was probably too old for the part then but it's when I have to see him in his romance scenes with Victoria Tennant that this really comes off bad. And I'll be honest I *really* disliked both Tennant's character as well as her performance. I know my attitude will harden further likely when I get to the sequel since I know how the storyline there ultimately comes off. If it weren't for the fact that Tennant subsequently became Mrs. Steve Martin for a time (who ironically I remember doing a special sending up this miniseries when it first aired in 1983), she never would have done anything of note beyond this IMO. The bottom line is that when I watch Tennant's Pamela throwing herself at Mitchum's Henry in the final part in such an overt fashion it comes off as creepy in the extreme.

-And then there's Ali MacGraw, the biggest "what were you *thinking*?" piece of miscasting. If they pushed it too much already with Mitchum, MacGraw was really going over the top with someone too old for the part as written. MacGraw isn't credible as a woman in her late 20s for one minute and on top of that her performance gets progressively worse as the series progresses. I can't wait to see Jane Seymour instead because I can already envision her more easily in this part.

-OTOH, thumbs up for John Houseman. I'll be interested to see how much I miss him when I get to Gielgud in "War".

-I wonder how long a CD set of Bob Cobert's music would run if it were available in full? Probably never going to happen, I admit. I should give the old Varese CD a new listen now.

[DavidBanner]

I watched "Winds of War" when it was first broadcast, as my mother worked for Paramount at the time and it was an event. I clearly remember the title "Paramount Pictures Presents" at the beginning of the airing, which was then quickly removed - something about people at Paramount Pictures not wanting that on a TV movie and not a feature film.

Robert Mitchum's performance as Pug stood out - particularly one bit where he castigates a rude waiter ("his behavior was swinish!"). Today I'd think the movie would stand more as an example of what Jan Michael-Vincent was doing at the peak of his career, before "Airwolf" and his own excesses spiraled him down to oblivion.

I note that for as big as "Winds of War" was, the sequel was much bigger. My father worked on it for over a year, and that wasn't even half the time of the production. "War and Remembrance" nearly ate the network, and that's not an exaggeration.

I also remember the "Special Bulletin" broadcast, which was a big deal at the time. The HBO movie was much smaller potatoes then, since we were long before the time of "The Sopranos" or even "And the Band Played On".

It is important to understand that these movies and "The Day After" were not made out of a "paranoid belief that the Reagan Administration secretly wanted to fight a nuclear war against the USSR". We should remember that there is an existing commentary by Nicholas Meyer about the latter movie, as well as a personal memoir of his, and he is very clear about his intentions with the MOW. Eric is correct to note that there were some leftists at places like Pacifica Radio and the Christic Institute in the 80s who believed in such paranoia about Reagan's presidency - but this was not a common idea around the country or in the media. Rather, most people were understandably worried about the aggressive posture that Reagan's people took, seemingly without comprehension of what the consequences would be. There was most certainly a resurgence of Cold War paranoia in the 1980s in the US, not to mention elsewhere in the world - there was a very real concern that the rashness of the US could well trigger a situation that would prove fatal for everyone. This is why there was discussion of notions like Nuclear Winter. Other than late night radio, I don't recall a lot of discussion about Reagan secretly wanting to fight a nuclear war. I do remember discussion about the posture Reagan's administration was taking, regardless of his personal intentions. The attitude was pretty clear - he was telling the USSR to back down first. It shouldn't be surprising that the reaction of much of the world was dismay toward both countries. It's not an accident that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the infamous Doomsday Clock as close to midnight as it had been since 1960 and kept it there until Gorbachev and Reagan made progress in 1987. (This wasn't the record low of 2 mins to midnight from 53-60, but it tied the 1949 low of 3 mins to midnight. And we should remember that we are currently back at 3 mins to midnight due to our current state of affairs re climate change.) These were very real concerns in the 1980s, and it does history no service to dismiss them. "Special Bulletin" is interesting both due to its casting and due to its spray of terrorists, who are not just "principled" but include a robber and someone right out of the Weather Underground. The point of the movie was to present a mock "live newscast" of the worst situation possible, and it succeeded, which is why the show won awards at the time for the director and writer. (The director, Ed Zwick, went on to a very successful career that continues to this day) I'd think the show would be interesting for how dated the presentation of a live news broadcast would be for today's audience, and less about the politics, but that may simply be unavoidable.

There were multiple left-wing portrayals of the consequences of a nuclear confrontation - including "The Day After", "Threads" and "Testament". But there were also right wing portrayals of 1980s geopolitics, including "Red Dawn" and the miniseries "Amerika" (both scored by Basil Poledouris) and we shouldn't forget that.

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, "War And Remembrance" did indeed nearly destroy ABC I'm sure and it also certainly destroyed the concept of the big miniseries for network TV. Given how "Winds" ends on such a cliffhanger note in which the modern viewer might feel frustrated at how it took so long to develop certain plotlines (and even then we never got a decent look at Pug Henry's other two children, save for the last part when finally after doing almost nothing the first six parts, Ben Murphy's Warren Henry starts to get a little more air-time).

most people were understandably worried about the aggressive posture that Reagan's people took, seemingly without comprehension of what the consequences would be. There was most certainly a resurgence of Cold War paranoia in the 1980s in the US, not to mention elsewhere in the world - there was a very real concern that the rashness of the US could well trigger a situation that would prove fatal for everyone. This is why there was discussion of notions like Nuclear Winter. Other than late night radio, I don't recall a lot of discussion about Reagan secretly wanting to fight a nuclear war. I do remember discussion about the posture Reagan's administration was taking, regardless of his personal intentions. The attitude was pretty clear - he was telling the USSR to back down first. It shouldn't be surprising that the reaction of much of the world was dismay toward both countries. It's not an accident that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the infamous Doomsday Clock as close to midnight as it had been since 1960 and kept it there until Gorbachev and Reagan made progress in 1987

I will admit to myself, that mentality in general is what I was thinking of and I think a case can be made that that mindset of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists etc. was in and of itself an expression of paranoia, in which they chose to think first about the idea of "the rashness of the US could well trigger a situation". I think there has long been no shortage of historical analyses that ascribes the notion of a "paranoid style of politics" to such phenomena as anti-communist "hysteria" and it was an even bigger obsession in the early to mid-1960s about the "Radical Right" (which is why we had novels and films like "Seven Days In May" and "Billion Dollar Brain" and a lot of knockoff imitations on TV shows of the day about the crazed "superpatriot" having a dangerous hold on society) and I think there is a case to be made with hindsight about the paranoid impulse that could be found in the other side in that era.

I will agree that "Special Bulletin" on a technical level did its job fine in selling the believability of the "fake newscast" (more so for its stuff from the scene than when they would show government talking heads).

[DavidBanner]

I had the impression that Winds of War was set up to mostly spotlight the leads - particularly Mitchum, Vincent and Macgraw. War and Remembrance on the other hand literally tried to adapt the whole wedding cake of the novel. I have a copy of the script for it - it's mostly verbatim text from the book!

For me at this time, where Special Bulletin works best is when we're dealing with Ed Flanders and Kathryn Walker trying to reach their reporters in the field. Where all of these movies really show their age is when they have to get down to showing the big bang. The blasts in both Special Bulletin and The Day After frankly date both shows to a surprising extent. It all looks like exactly what it is - cheap FX intended to look shocking. Back in 1983, the shots really were shocking. Looking at them today, they have far less teeth. And there's certainly a dated feel to all of these shows.

My personal favorite of all the "nuclear" movies at the time was "Testament" - because it really didn't try to show anything directly. It simply played out what happens on a personal and community level. The filmmakers were certainly quite left wing, but the story being told was more about what happens to a single family in a single community without getting into the politics of why this has happened.

The funny thing is that when we look at the current state of television, the best materials are coming from non-network sources. All the way up into the 90s, the best TV series, movies, miniseries, etc were really on the three major networks. HBO or Showtime might air a series or MOW from time to time but they were always very cheap affairs ("1st and Ten", "Faerie Tale Theater", etc) Nowadays, the most interesting material is coming from various cable and internet outlets. There's frankly very little on the major networks these days that merits my attention. OTOH there's also frankly very little on movie screens these days that merits my attention either.

[Eric Paddon]

Certainly not surprising it was verbatim from the novel since Wouk was doing the teleplay!

Later tonight I'm going to give another "fake newscast" drama a look in "Without Warning" from 1995 even though I already know pretty much from previous viewings what I'll be likely to say. Certainly when attempting visual F/X that is going to be the thing that dates them most, and its no surprise that the reason why for me the 1968 WKBW-Buffalo version of "War Of The Worlds" still holds up as the best fake newscast drama I've ever heard period is that after 45 years it still sounds *exactly* how a radio news team would cover such a story (they used only their actual personnel and told them to ad lib off an outline rather than follow a script).

I will add that I like "On The Beach" because that too is for me ultimately a story about the people reacting to a concept and being drawn into their story and not about the politics. In fact, Kramer dispensed entirely with Nevil Shute's explanation of how the war happened and replaced it with Astaire's scene of "explanation" that just boiled it down to something he didn't know and it didn't really matter, it just happened and he could only speculate a little.

[Paul MacLean]

Interestingly, after the original broadcast of The Day After, the network hosted a panel of luminaries -- including William F. Buckley, Dr. Carl Sagan and Henry Kissinger -- to discuss the implications of the production...

[AndyDursin]

The most telling aspect of all of those early 80s anti-nuke productions -- they've all been dead and buried for years in terms of remaining "significant", and none of them have endured.

[Eric Paddon]

And it's also the reason why "2010" is a forgotten movie.

"Dr. Strangelove" I will admit has an agenda I don't believe in, but I at least understand its staying power because of the brilliant work of a great cast and some effective satire.

Getting back to "Winds of War" I'm going through the bonus material on the DVD, and Barbara Steele, former actress and associate producer of the project claims responsibility for the Ali MacGraw casting, even though Curtis's first instinct was she was too old, but she eventually won him over. The arguments I hear for her do not impress me.

Amazingly they never explain the casting of Mitchum.

[AndyDursin]

2010 is definitely dated for that reason I agree though I still think its an entertaining film on its own terms. It still merits a new release here and there as a catalog title which is more than can be said for the likes of The Day After. What's sad though is if Hyams hadnt overindulged in the politics of the mid 80s the movie wouldn't have been stamped as a product of its time so much. Technically and otherwise it holds up.