Kevin’s Movie and Entertainment Reviews

The tradition in the Inscoe household we order (or make) pizza on Christmas Eve and watch movies. My favorite Christmas Eve movies are listed here on IMDB. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050086/

As I noticed Flix’s western channel had this in their line up last week and being as a remake is being released this week I decided to DVR the 1957 version. I am glad I did. This was the first time I have see Glenn Ford A) as a “bad guy” and B) in such a good character role. 3:10 to Yuma is a study in characters and wills as so many good westerns are but what sets this one apart is Ford’s ability to be both reviled and revered as the same time. This was some of Glenn’s finest acting. Van Heflin pulled an excellent job as well. I can’t remember what I have seen him in before but I will look for more movies with him in a lead role. The basic premise of the story is bad guys (who don’t even bother wearing masks by the way) rob a stage coach with a very rich banker type coming in to town. These guys are so brazen and are so sure they won’t get caught they leave the banker alive and proceed to the local saloon to celebrate. Well unfortunately for them our local hero Van Heflin happens to be herding his cows with his sons at that same moment just in time to witness Ford’s character shoot the stage drivers in cold blood. Long story short everyone in town except the town fool and Van Heflin are afraid to see justice carried out. Being as there is only one lawman and some of the gang got away someone has to escort this killer sent to the nearest Federal magistrate in Yuma. And that is where we have our story. The character bounce from Ven Heflin and Glenn Ford is masterful. Glen plays one of these over confident but brilliant criminals who just don’t care but at the same time could talk you into anything. Highly recommend to see if if you can. Give it 3.8 handcuffs.

I was looking at TV Guide last night (yeah I know but it was a free offer ‘k). The fall line up looks somewhat interesting. Lot’s of geek, chicks and sci-fi (I guess).

First we have a re-make of the Bionic Woman. Then we have Chuck which appears to be a lame cross between the IT Crowd and The Office. Next up is Journeyman which looks like Quantum Leap to me but without Scott or Dean sooo I think we know where that’s headed. Not to be outdone CBS has pulled one out of their back pocket called Moonlight. It’s a vampire hunter story. Seen that before any where? This year? Yeah I thought so. Ok not to miss the gravy train Fox has come up with New Amsterdam. Uhh can you say Highlander? I knew you could. It’s not all bad at Fox however as they have come up with something new .. well OK.. Sarah Connor Chronicles basically this is a series around this dialog between John Connor and his friend at the ATM machine concerning his mothers antics up till she gets busted. Yeah, can’t wait… but hey maybe we will get to see Enrique again and his “gold fillings” in his teeth. And finally two, count ‘em two shows that are obviously attempting to capitalize on Dead Like Me: ABC’s Pushing Daisies and The CW’s Reaper which actually looks like it may be the funniest of the bunch. But thank goodness House will be back with season 4. I can hardly wait.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051994/

Being the 95th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic I had DVR’ed this when it made play on the AMC channel back in mid-April. I had finally gotten around to watching it this week. It was quite good and deserving of the 8 stars IMDB users rate it. A much more (seemingly) accurate accounting of the sinking than I believe James Cameron’s 1997 movie was. particularly interesting to us ham radio geeks was the attention given to the radio rooms of the various ships involved. Much detail was given to this including the big “MGY” callsign on the wall right down to the Marconi keys the radio operators used that fateful night. ” The band played on, engineers fought to maintain power and the captain remained at his post as the Titanic went down on the night of April 14, 1912.” as a news article put it was all portrayed to the bitter end. Particularly poignant was watching Captain Edward John Smith go down with the ship in the wheelhouse alone and the Master ship’s architect Thomas Andrews sitting in his stateroom where just hours before he had been pouring over the ships blueprints because he was annoyed by something his last act taking out his pocket watch and noting his accuracy in predicting the sinking in “2 hours 20 minutes at most”. Highly recommend viewing. 3.8 stars.

.. and look at it as Fantasy instead. This is the problem. I have had this discussion many times with different geeks and most hard core scifi geeks I know view sci-fi as futuristic but Star Wars appeal is that good triumphs over evil which generally annoys scifi types because it’s all so neat. scifi is anything but neat or happy endings. Just because a story happens in space and it happens in the future don’t make it “scifi” in the classical sense. Anyhoo that’s how I see it. I see Stars Wars the same way I see Westerns of old. Now go read g.r.r.m.’s blog entry on the subject.

Posted this account on The Morning Report.