From Air Force One to Zulu: for romasuave's A-Z Movie W/O
Jun 07 '05 (Updated Jun 08 '05)
The Bottom Line Almost, but not quite, a can of alphabet soup's worth of watchable movies.
This is my entry for romasuave's related A-Z Movie Write-Off. To see who else has contributed entries or to join in the fun, please go to http://www.epinions.com/content_4364279940
A
Air Force One (1997): While on the surface this is a variation on the Die Hard formula, this Harrison Ford vehicle has a simple premise: After President James Marshall (Ford) assists the Russian President in a bid to remove a ruthless dictator from power in the former Soviet republic of Kazhakstan, Russian ultra-Communist terrorists led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), take over the President’s plane on its way back to the U.S. from Moscow. Marshall, who by happenstance is separated from his family and staff during the takeover, must use his military training (he’s a former Air Force pilot) and his wits to regain control of Air Force One and rescue the hostages before the terrorists achieve their aims.
B
Black Hawk Down (2001): Based on Mark Bowden's non-fiction book, director Ridley Scott's film is a taut and harrowing account of the 18-hour Battle of Mogadishu. On October 3, 1993, less than a year after President Clinton began his first term as President of the United States and almost eight years before Sept. 11, 2001, a small force of U.S. Army Rangers and members of the elite Delta Force were helicoptered into the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia's war-torn capital, in a daring daylight raid to capture two of Somali clan leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid's top lieutenants. The plan was simple -- drop four "chalks" of Rangers to secure a perimeter around the target building (near the Olympic Hotel) while the Delta commandos -- the D-Boys, as the Rangers referred to them -- gathered the prisoners. Then they'd be exfiltrated by a convoy of armed humvees and trucks and whisked back to the U.S. Army base in Mogadishu International Airport. But the mission ran into trouble, and what was supposed to be a quick snatch-and-grab raid became an 18-hour firefight that left 18 American soldiers dead, over 70 wounded, and hundreds of Somali casualties.
C
Casablanca (1942): This classic love story set in French Morrocco in December 1941 not only told the bittersweet tale of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), and Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), but also commented on the tangled politics of the pre-Pearl Harbor era: American neutrality, the oppression of the Third Reich, the fate of thousands of Europeans who hit "the refugee trail," and -- personified by Claude Rains' inimitable portrayal of Louis Renault -- the grey zone that was Vichy France before the Allied landings in North Africa in November of 1942.
D
Die Hard (1988): John McTiernan (Predator) directed Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza's adaptation of a novel by Roderick Thorp's novel about a New York detective who is pitted against a team of well-financed, highly-motivated and heavily armed criminals in a Los Angeles skyscraper. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's an action movie rooted in the traditions of the cliffhanger, but it also traces its origins to other genres as well, including police dramas, buddy pictures (Bruce Willis' John McClane, as brave as he is, would have been toast without Reginald VelJohnson's LAPD Sgt. Al Powell's assistance), and the all-American Western. For 132 heartstopping minutes, Die Hard takes audiences into stairwells, elevator shafts, unfinished office suites and a high-tech vault as McClane faces off against one of filmdom's best-written "bad guys," Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber in an effort to foil the villains' plot and save 30 hostages, including McClane's estranged wife Holly (the wonderful Bonnie Bedelia.)
Also like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Die Hard spawned off a successful franchise that made Bruce Willis an international movie star. It also inspired the genre of "lone hero vs. band of terrorists/highly efficient criminals in confined areas" that peaked in the mid-1990s (Speed, Under Siege) and petered out as audience interest waned and the quality of material declined.
E
Empire of the Sun (1987): One of Steven Spielberg's best - if perhaps unappreciated - movies is Empire of the Sun. Based on J.G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, this film deals with the effects of the war on children.
The story is told from the point of British schoolboy Jamie Graham (Christian Bale), a well-read if somewhat spoiled 12-year-old who lives in Shanghai, China, with his well-to-do parents in what was a geographical anomaly: the International Settlement. But Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere on Dec. 8, 1941 (Dec. 7 to those east of the International Dateline) turns Jamie's life upside down, separating him from his mum and dad...tying his destiny with two American con men...and eventually to almost four years in a Japanese internment camp.
The cast includes John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Nigel Havers. Allen Daviau's cinematography, Michael Kahn's flawless editing, and John Williams' moving score contribute to the quality of this film, which was the first American production to be filmed in the People's Republic of China. Regrettably, unlike Spielberg's Indiana Jones series or later war movies, Empire of the Sun was largely ignored by audiences.
F
The Fugitive (1993): Director Andrew Davis' (Under Siege) feature film adaptation of the classic 1960s television series, was one of 1993's biggest hits, thanks to the talents of Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, who earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard.
Ford plays Chicago surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble (the late David Jansen's TV role), whose life is turned upside down when he is falsely accused of murdering his wife Helen (the luminous Sela Ward). Taken to the Area Six police station, he undergoes the standard investigative process but can't convince the skeptical detectived that a one-armed intruder is the killer. Arrrested, convicted and sentenced to death, Kimble is given a sudden and unexpected reprieve when a failed escape attempt causes the prison bus he's aboard to run off the road and land on a railroad track -- and in the path of an oncoming train. Kimble escapes, and a classic chase is on.
G
The Great Escape (1963): James Clavell and W.R. Burnett fictionalized Paul Brickhill's non-fiction book about a daring escape by Allied POWs from a high-security Stalag for producer-director John Sturges' now-classic action-adventure film. Although it starred several American big-name actors of the era (Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Garner, and Steve McQueen) along with a top-notch British cast, no American officers actually escaped in the real-life attempt. The film's producers, to their credit, acknowledge this with a "card" that states that the characters are all composites and that certain events were condensed, but that the details of the escape were accurate.
The film is not only a fine (albeit fictionalized) recreation of an ambitious plan to get over 200 Allied prisoners out of a Luftwaffe prison near the Polish border, but it is a great action-adventure movie that features one of the most exciting -- and most famous -- motorcycle chases in movie history as Steve McQueen makes a hell-for-leather dash to the Swiss border on a Nazi courier's two-wheeled machine
H
The Hunt for Red October (1990): John McTiernan followed up his success with 1988's Die Hard by directing this taut adaptation of Tom Clancy's first Jack Ryan novel about a Soviet sub commander and a select group of officers who commandeer -- subtly -- the Red Navy's newest ballistic missile sub and attempts a westward underwater run to the East Coast of the United States. When the Soviet Navy gives chase, it's up to CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) to figure out what Captain First Rank Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) intends to do before a crisis starts and inadvertently starts World War III.
I
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989): Although 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the second installment of the "Raiders: series, was well-done and had more than its share of exciting action sequences replete with stunts and gags, it was too dark and off-putting for some viewers. (Even producer George Lucas admitted that it became much darker than he'd intended.) The series returned to its Saturday-afternoon-serials spirit in 1989, when Steven Spielberg, Lucas, and series star Harrison Ford joined forces for this more lively chapter that centers on the search for the Holy Grail...and the more interesting father-and-son relationship between Indy and Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery). The screenplay by Jeffrey Boam (based on a story by Lucas and Menno Meyjes) recaptured the sense of fun and tongue-in-cheek wit of Larry Kasdan's Raiders script while adding a bit more depth to Indiana Jones' character.
J
Jaws (1975): Most people would place this film in the Horror category, but although this Peter Benchley-Carl Gottlieb adaptation of Benchley's best-selling beach novel about a white shark terrorizing a coastal tourist town during the summer season is more a man vs. nature adventure film than a true "creature feature" like The Beast, which is about a gargantuan squid that attacks humans off the coast of California. Yes, the Benchley-Gottlieb screenplay has its share of truly scary moments, but when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and veteran sea captain Quint (Robert Shaw) head out to sea aboard the Orca to hunt down the great white shark, director Steven Spielberg takes his characters and the audience on an exciting and heart-stopping pursuit, where the hunters become the hunted and the hero (Brody) must find the courage to overcome the relentless force of nature that is embodied by the great white shark.
Sadly, the movie's finer qualities have been overshadowed by a fixation on the box office gross (it became the first "blockbuster" of the modern era, earning over $100,000,000 in its first run) and by the three sequels (none of which were directed by or otherwise connected to Spielberg) a money-hungry MCA-Universal put out over the next decade.
K
Kelly's Heroes (1970): Directed by Brian G. Hutton and starring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Carroll O'Connor, and Don Rickles, this offbeat flick is a combination of World War II action and semi-comedic bank heist involving Lt. Kelly (Eastwood) and an oddly-met group of soldiers -- including the hippie-ish tanker "Oddball" (Sutherland) -- on a non-authorized mission to grab a stash of gold from a bank behind German lines.
L
The Longest Day (1962): Darryl F. Zanuck's ambitious and expensive recreation of the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy, is one of the best -- if somewhat flawed -- war films ever made. Boasting an all-star cast of 41 "A-List" (for 1962, that is) actors from four countries and filmed in various locations around France (Corsica doubling for most of the five invasion beaches on northern France) and made with the assistance of NATO's armed forces, The Longest Day was, for 31 years, the most expensive movie ever shot in black and white. Based on Cornelius Ryan's 1959 non-fiction best-selling book of the same name, It's the only major movie that convey the scope and drama of the D-Day landings from a multinational viewpoint.
M
Minority Report (2002) Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, and Max Von Sidow, is a surprisingly engrossing science fiction/mystery/action film set in a future not very far away. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (whose works have inspired such sci fi noir films as Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall), Minority Report is one of those rare action movies that engages the mind while giving the audience an exciting "race the clock" chase in a futuristic Washington, D.C.
N
The Naked Prey (1966): Cornel Wilde starred, wrote, and directed this tour de force about a European explorer who, along with a comrade, crosses paths with a hostile African tribe. Captured and witness to his friend's murder, the explorer escapes into the jungle, where he must not only evade the persistent tribesmen in this variation on the classic story "The Most Dangerous Game," but he also learns to use his wits and physical stamina to "outrun, outwit, and outlast" everything nature and man throws in his path.
O
Of Mice and Men (1939): Okay, so I had to watch this film for my 11th grade English class when we were reading John Steinbeck's tragic tale of the big but mentally disabled Lenny (Lon Chaney, Jr) and the smaller but sharper George (Burgess Meredith) and their fateful last gig as ranch hands in 1930s California. Directed by Lewis Milestone, it's somewhat dated and a bit overdone, but it still conveys the spirit of Steinbeck's novel fairly well.
P
Platoon (1986): In the 29 years since the end of the Vietnam War, Hollywood has produced a number of films about that "lost crusade," ranging from the grand yet surreal vision of Apocalypse Now to the very commercial and silly Missing in Action series and Rambo: First Blood Part II.
In late 1986, just in time to qualify for that year's Academy Awards nomination deadline, writer-director Oliver Stone (JFK, Any Given Sunday, Alexander) took audiences into the frightening spectacle of jungle warfare in Platoon.
This film, based on Stone's combat experience in Vietnam circa 1967, is the story of 19-year-old Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), an upper-middle class type, who has joined the Army and volunteered for combat duty in Southeast Asia.
The platoon's other members are fascinating characters to observe, particularly the tough (and perhaps psychopathic) Sgt. Bob Barnes (Tom Berenger, Someone to Watch Over Me), a hideously scarred combat veteran who has been wounded seven times.
His antithesis, Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe, Spider-Man, Clear and Present Danger) is a disillusioned hash-pipe smoking "soldier's soldier" type whose main concern is the survival and well-being of the platoon.
Kevin Dillon (Matt's younger brother), Forrest Whittaker, Mark Wolfe, Francesco Quinn, and Richard Edson also give outstanding performances as Sheen's fellow "grunts."
Q
n/a
R
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): During a 1977 vacation in Hawaii, Star Wars creator George Lucas asked his friend Steven Spielberg what his post-Close Encounters of the Third Kind project was going to be. "I've always wanted to do a James Bond film," Spielberg replied. Lucas smiled and said, "I've got something better," then went on to describe archaeologist/adventurer Indiana Smith's raid on the Lost Ark of the Covenant. It was an homage to the old Republic serials of the Thirties and Forties, replete with loyal sidekick, feisty love interest, dastardly Nazis, a slimy rival, and 7,000 snakes. With a change of moniker to "Indiana Jones" and the casting of Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark gave audiences a new hero and began a legendary film franchise which has been most imitated but never surpassed.
S
Summer of '42 (1971): This sentimental memoir by writer Herman Raucher and director Robert Mulligan is on the surface a better than average coming-of-age movie about 15-year-old Hermie and his friends Oscy and Benjie, their adolescent exploits on Packett Island, and especially Hermie's desperate love for the beautiful, older, and very married Dorothy. But its setting -- the American home front during that first post-Pearl Harbor summer of 1942 -- and the way Hermie's fondest dream does come true give the viewer a haunting glimpse at the effects of the conflict being waged overseas.
T
The Terminator (1984. James Cameron's first bona fide hit, this fast-paced, smartly written tale of a relentless, unstoppable, and deadly robot sent back to 1984 to kill a young waitress destined to be the mother of humanity's warrior-savior revived the action movie genre and provided Arnold Schwarzenegger with not only an iconic movie role but a chance to prove that he had an actor's mind as well as a bodybuilder's physique.
U
U-571 (2000): Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) directed this entertaining if totally fictitious account of a captured German U-boat under the command of U.S. Navy officers (Matthew McConnaughey and Jon Bon Jovi) during the early days of World War II.
V
Victory at Sea (1952): Technically not a theatrical release but a 26-part NBC-TV series, this is a documentary about the United States Navy during World War II. Narrated by Leonard Graves and featuring a symphonic score by Richard Rodgers, Victory at Sea features combat footage (sometimes supplemented by spliced studio photography) shot in all the combat theaters.
W
When Harry Met Sally.... (1989) When Sally Albright (Meg Ryan, in her first leading role) agrees to drive with her best friend's boyfriend Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) from Chicago to New York City, they get into a debate about whether men and women can be friends without getting sexually involved. Sally, a bubbly, optimistic journalist-to-be, believes they can. Harry, a neurotic and sometimes morbid kind of guy, says no. Men and women can't be friends without sex getting in the way. They banter. They argue. They drive each other nuts, in short, until they get to New York and go their separate ways. Eventually, as they cross paths and go through a chain of relationship woes -- Harry gets married, then divorced, Sally cohabitates with a guy then she gets dumped -- they become close friends, have sex, split up, then realize that, after 12 years, they are made for each other.
X
n/a
Y
Yellow Submarine (1968): This psychedelic animated film featured sound-alike actors that closely resembled the Fab Four's distinctive voices, a loopy plot involving an attempt to save Pepperland from the Blue Meanies, and plenty of Beatles songs, including Nowhere Man, Eleanor Rigby, and, of course, Yellow Submarine
Z
Zulu (1964): Zulu is a fact-based account of the Battle of Rorke's Rift (Jan. 22-23, 1879), in which 150 British infantrymen, Royal Engineers, and a handful of Boer militiamen successfully defended a small outpost against 4,000 Zulu warriors, a set-in-South Africa version of the Alamo, albeit with a happier ending for the British and South African survivors of the engagement. Starring Stanley Baker (who was also one of the producers, along with Joseph E. Levine of A Bridge Too Far fame), Jack Hawkins, James Booth, Ulla Jacobson and introducing Michael Caine, Zulu is one of the best historical films I've seen.
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