During the last couple of weeks of May, during the height of the Himalayan climbing season, Mt. Everest (29,029 or maybe 29,035 ft.) was climbed by it’s oldest mountaineer ever, 80-year-old Yiuchiro Miura. Without a walker. He said he was a little tired when he made it back to base camp. Really? By the time … Read more
In February 1967, a first season episode of Star Trek entitled Space Seed premiered. It featured the regular crew of the Enterprise and a great appearance by Ricardo Montalban in the villainous role of Khan Noonien Singh. In 1982, Paramount released Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. RM was back and more villainous than … Read more
TGE was the sensation of the 1963 film season. The running time, at close to three hours, meant it was released as an epic, similar to Ben Hur and other films with a length demanding an intermission. Smoke breaks weren’t necessary, since everyone was smoking in the theater. While already big stars, it brought super-stardom … Read more
Before Stan Lee and Marvel Comics, the title Iron Man was designated a guy who worked in a laundromat. Now it is a movie series earning a billion dollars, film and chance for Stan Lee to continue his cameo appearances in the biggest movies ever. After the opening weekend bonanza, I have no doubt that … Read more
This film is about a wedding. Not just any wedding but a big wedding. Really big. It has a big cast. A really big cast. The movie is so big that the multiplex where I viewed it had the audience watch the left half of the film in one theater, then move next door to … Read more
When Bill O’Reilly announces his retirement in 2118 to pursue his main hobby, fishing, he will be replaced by a more aggressive talk show host, Bill O’Blivion. This, of course, is science fiction. Bill O’Reilly does not plan to retire before 2132. Go Fish. Between now and 2132 you can still watch Bill and, if … Read more
Scary MoVie (a.k.a. Scary Movie 5) starts out with a scene featuring Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan playing themselves. The scene involves sex and acrobatics. Filming had to be kept short so LL could make it back to rehab before her monitoring device went off. But, no matter how short the scene was, it was … Read more
In September 2012, the Cinerama 3 Screen process celebrated its 60th anniversary. One of the three theaters still able to project full three strip/projector films is in Hollywood. We attended the screening of This is Cinerama and reported the results of the restoration. We also reviewed the Smile Box/Curtain Opening introduction and the Blu-ray release … Read more
GIJR is a sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra from 2009. In the 2009 film the crew traveled from the Arctic to Japan and other places to add authenticity. Like Olympus Has Fallen (reviewed last week), GIJR decided to skip the authenticity and shoot the entire film in Louisiana and computer-generate in anything … Read more
Olympus Has Fallen is the story of a terrorist raid that takes over the White House and perpetrates incredible violence to all there-in, as well as to a lot of the Washington, D.C. area. While there are obvious establishing shots of our Capitol, the film was made mainly in Bossier, Louisiana. (What has this got … Read more