F is For 42

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 20 more times this month.

Film: 42

Director: Brian Helgeland

I grew up loving baseball. I didn't think much of it.  Baseball was always there.  I could watch it on t.v. I could play it with my friends and I could dream about being my favorite players Dick Allen or Hank Aaron. 

These players were black and I was white. At that time I had never met a black person, but that didn't bother me.  My heroes were great baseball players and I wanted to be like them.  That I could do that is  a tribute to Branch Rickey, the general manager who helped integrate baseball and to Jackie Robinson who was the first black player in the modern era of baseball.

Image by Welcome to All ! ツ from Pixabay

Positive Tomato: Well-paced and often riveting, and manages to inspire while remaining true to sport and to the player who changed it and all of the professional sport forever. Bruce DeMara - Toronto Star

Negative Tomato:  42 is a hackneyed, cookie-cutter film that manages to tell us absolutely nothing about a turning point in American history. AP Kryza - Willamette Week

Chadwick Boseman shines as Robinson. He gives us a glimpse of how difficult it is to be the first. 

Harrison Ford transforms himself into Branch Rickey.

Resiliency: When Rickey tells Robinson his plan to have him be the first black player in baseball, they have this exchange...

Robinson: You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back?

Rickey: No. No. I want a player who has the guts not to fight back.

This resiliency to take the verbal abuse, the discrimination, to receive the hate mail and death threats is shown scene after scene.  

Top 100: Regardless of whether it makes my top 100 (I imagine it will) it will always be my top 42.

A to Z Connections: This is the 3rd sports film (Breaking Away and Chariots of Fire) and the second film with Harrison Ford (The Empire Strikes Back). 

Next Time: G is for Gene Noir 

E is For Empire

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other a to z challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 21 more times this month.

Film: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Director: Irvin Kershner

Star Wars Begin Again

   

Old friends are back.

Too back new friends are

Darth Darth Darth Darth Darth Darth Darth Darth Darth

Positive Tomato: The Empire Strikes Back displays the same soaring imagination that made Star Wars a filmmaking classic; most other space movies seem clunky and earthbound in comparison. Bob Thomas - Associated Press 

By Bogaerts, Rob / Anefo - [1] Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANeFo), 1945-1989, Nummer toegang 2.24.01.05 Bestanddeelnummer 931-2164, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27409421

Negative Tomato:  A Stars Wars that has not only lost much of its humor and charm but more important a good deal of its innocence, traveling in the process light years away from the shiny magnitude of its original world  Joy Gould Boyum - Wall Street Journal 

If you look closely you can see the Millenium Falcon avoiding being eaten.

Star Wars Episode 5 is in my opinion the best sequel ever made. How do you follow up on a film that revolutionizes the movie industry?  By continuing to revolutionize.

Resiliency: The empire is very resilient when it comes to replacing admirals. 

Top 100: This movie is definitely in my top 100.  The question for me becomes do I put it before or after te original Star Wars. I think what I did with my original 100 was place them back to back which makes the order less consequential.  I enjoy watching Empir more than I watch New Hope, but as I explained to someone at C2E2 (A midwest Comicon-like event) I would rank Star Wars just a little higher than Empire since Star Wars paved the way for it.  When I make my official top 100 later this year we will see if I have the courage of my convictions.  

Next Time: F is for First 

For more A to Z Challenge click here.

D is For Dave

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

 

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other a to z challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 22 more times this month.

Film: Dave (1993)

Director: Ivan Reittman

Presidential movies were all the rage in the 1990s. (The American President, Air Force One, JFK, Nixon, Absolute Power). In this one,  a presidential body double makes the most of what was supposed to be a temporary job.

 

 Dave (Official Traier)

 

Positive Tomato:  A genial, expertly played political comedy proves that the spirit of Mr. Smith still lives.  Richard Schickel - Time Magazine

Negative Tomato: As Kline begins to take his presidential duties seriously, the comedy seeps out, a listless civic-mindedness drifts in like the fog off the Potomac. Leah Rozen - People Magazine

If you've never seen this film. the 30th anniversary is a good time to jump on board.  This may be Kevin Klines best film and with a resume filled with hits gems like Cry Freedom and Silverado that is certainly saying something.  Charles Grodin is in only a few scenes but does a great job of showing the uniqueness of a guy like Dave.

Resiliency: The balancing the budget subplot of Dave is a great snapshot in Resiliency.

In the film, Dave visits a homeless shelter with the President's wife.  When the homeless shelters are stripped of funding, Dave is told by the President's draconian chief of staff (played ever so malevolently by Frank Langella) that he can keep the shelters by adding 650 million dollars to the budget.

In the next few scenes, Dave attempts to do just that and even brings his accountant, the aforementioned Grodin, to help him with the gargantuan task. 

To watch this scene and read more about its resiliency factor click here.

Top 100: One of my criteria for top 100 films lies in its rewatchability. I remember enjoying this movie increasingly upon every viewing.  For that reason alone, I cannot imagine a Top 100 film list of mine with Dave, not on it.

For more D in the A to Z Challenge, click here.

Next Time: E Equals Evil Empire

Hall & Oates Chariots of Fire Parody SCTV

Earlier Today I posted my C film for this month A to Z challenge.  This clip from SCTV always makes me laugh.       I hope you enjoy it.  

C is For Chariots of Fire

A to Z Challenge 2023

    A Month At The Movies

 

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other a to z challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 23 more times this month. 

Film: Chariots of Fire (1981)

Director: Hugh Hudson

 

Photo by David J. Stang, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I found out recently that the Chariots of Fire orchid is a hybrid.  The film Chariots of Fire is a hybrid of sorts as well.  Part biography, part sports movie.  It is also not one but two bio-pics grown together.  Eric Liddle and Harold Abrahams.  They may be competitors under the same flag in the Olympics, but I do not feel they needed to compete for screen time.  Each character's story was given enough time to blossom. 

Liddle is a man called by God whose Olympic ambitions and his dedication to God's plans are sometimes running in opposition. Abrahams is the son of a Lithuanian Jew who runs to overcome the prejudice of post-WWI Britain.  

Positive Tomato: This is a beautiful, unhurried film that unfolds a vision of the past that reminds us there once existed a time of innocence and tradition.  Dann Gire - Daily Herald

Negative Tomato: Cross and Charleson are capable leads, which makes the screenwriter's refusal to focus their characters all the more aggravating. Michael Maza - Arizona Republic

Resiliency: There are many excellent moments of resiliency in this film.  I have decided to show you one and tell you about another.

The first one takes place in the movie at a meet where Harold Abrahams sees Eric Little run for the first time.

  

 

The second resiliency moment I'd like to document happens in the aftermath of a race where Little has just beaten Abrahams.  

After the race, Abrahams is disappointed and is sitting in the stands unable to be consoled by his girlfriend.  He finally says to her, If I can't win, I won't race.  She replies back, If you won't race, you can't win.  

I love the symmetry of that moment and how it ties into what Abrahams witnessed Little do in the previous scene. He got up and finished the race.  

Top 100:  Chariots of Fire is one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time. In 2011 when I posted my top 10 here it was in 5th place.  In 2017 when I made my top 100 list it had moved past Casablanca into 4th place.  When I finish revising the list later this year (hopefully) It should still be 4th or 5th.  

A to Z Connections: This is the second sports movie on the list so far.  The first one of course was yesterday's Breaking Away.  The star of Breaking Away, Dennis Christopher portrays an American Olympic runner in Chariots of Fire. 

Picture and Quote:

I believe God made me for a purpose, for China,but he

                                        also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.

For more of the letter C in the A to Z challenge, click here.

I will be posting a special A to Z Chariots of Fire theme Easter Egg a little bit later in the day.

Next Time: D is for Doppelganger