Back to the Future 2 (1989) and how it envisioned 2015

Sigh! Back in 1989 when I first saw the movie Back to the Future, Part 2, the year 2015 seemed like such a long time off. Now it's here! Sigh!! 

Even though many of the future ideas are meant for laughs, it's still kind of amazing how much the filmmakers got right about what life would be like in 2015; some examples below. (Flying cars and hoverboards are still a way off, though!)

Flat-panel, widescreen televisions

Watching multiple channels simultaneously
Video conferencing

Employers monitoring employees

Playing video games without using controllers

Outdoor video advertising

Drone cameras 

Making a payment using fingerprint 

Fingerprint scanning

Plastic surgery craze

Robotic fueling systems

Point and shoot digital cameras

Face detection cameras

Voice recognition for electronics

Operating computers without push-keys

Wearable computer glasses

Mobile tablets

Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Booth and Lancaster are both fascinating to watch;
they are both affected by the arrival of
their new tenant in different ways.

Burt Lancaster and Shirley Booth play a childless couple whose lives are changed after they rent out a room to a young, energetic college student played by Terry Moore.

Lancaster's character (a recovering alcoholic) sees the new tenant as a daughter-figure and becomes overly protective. When his emotions are stirred by her jock boyfriend (Richard Jaeckel) he thinks about going back to the bottle. For Booth, the young tenant's stay causes her to reflect upon the happiness of her youth.

The loss of her beloved dog Sheba years ago played a major factor in her loneliness.

Booth won the Oscar for Best Actress, and she is wonderful in the part as the simple-minded, long-suffering housewife, not unlike the TV character that Jean Stapleton played on the 1970s series All in the Family (as the Edith Bunker character).

In the beginning of the film, Lancaster attends a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the first time a meeting of AA was depicted in a Hollywood film or mentioned by name  (source: Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Vol. 50, No. 4, 1989).

Also, Lancaster plays a chiropractor in the film; this may be one of the earliest references to the chiropractic profession in a Hollywood film (at least I'm not familiar with any chiropractors in the movies before this).

Directed by Daniel Mann (The Rose Tattoo, BUtterfield 8)

Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) | Diary of A Movie Maniac (wordpress.com)

The Right Stuff (1983)

The new sci-fi / space movie Interstellar has been one of the most talked-about films of the year; but if one stops to consider, there would be no Interstellar without the events depicted in 1983's The Right Stuff,  the true story of the space race and the first American astronauts, IE the "Mercury Seven".

The film spans about 20 years, from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s as we get to see how test pilots such as Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn) and Gus Grissom (Fred Ward) handle their new lives as astronauts.

In his Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin writes, "it is a long movie, but never boring" with "exhilarating moments". My favorite scene is when John Glenn (Ed Harris) first orbits the globe. It's an awesome moment in a great film about real heroes.

I love how each character becomes memorable in his or her own way, even the minor characters such as the military recruiters played by Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer.  Veronica Cartwright  has a small role but is very memorable as one of the test pilots' wives; in one scene she suffers a breakdown when she realizes she wont be able to meet President Kennedy and his wife.   Also excellent are Dennis Quaid, Barbara Hershey, Pamela Reed, Kim Stanley, Kathy Baker, and Sam Shepard as record-setting test pilot Chuck Yeager (1923 - ). Intelligently directed by Philip Kaufman.

The film earned Roger Ebert's and Gene Siskel's pick as the  #1 Film of 1983.

Read Roger Ebert's essay on The Right Stuff in his "Great Movies" series:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-right-stuff-1983

New on Blu Ray: Mr Smith Goes to Washington

TCM Remembers 2014

The video eulogists over at TCM have done it again. And by "it", you know what I  mean.

This year's tribute seems a bit different than past years; I think they peppered in more "random" movie clips than usual.