Bullitt (1968) and The Peanuts Movie (2015)

I really enjoyed Bullitt, with Steve McQueen playing the title role, who is cool and slick. 

I like the way the blogger at Just Hit Play describes the movie:

It is a smart, stylish cop drama/thriller that gets better with each viewing. For starters, it was filmed in San Francisco, setting the stage for Dirty Harry, McQ and a whole cop genre to move into the city. It is an ideal backdrop for the story; a polished, good-looking city that is nonetheless hiding secrets. The score from Lalo Schifrin is a good mix of quiet, soothing jazz and faster-paced, more traditional yet still exciting musical cues. The style in an almost documentary-like fashion reflects some of the French crime thrillers that I’ve really come to appreciate, giving ‘Bullitt’ a different edge more than just the same old, same old cops and robbers story.

• Full  blog post about Bullitt from Just Hit Play here 

What was really interesting is that in one scene, a hospital is shown, and a Peanuts calendar is on the wall. It was really interesting to see that Snoopy and the Peanuts comics were already a cultural landmark back in 1968.

Incidentally, I also did see  The Peanuts Movie (2015), a brand-new computer animated iteration, and I really liked it; it wasn't bad. It wasn't the best movie ever but it captured the feeling of the original television and film characters. It's really a different kind of animation than the South Park or Family Guy series.

Jesus (2000, Made for Television)

I remember watching this in 2000. It seemed to be an honest effort to produce a new dramatization of the life of Christ for a new generation. I remember the 1970s TV version very well.

This version features a number of award winning actors such as Debra Messing, Jacqueline Bisset, and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

Jeremy Sisto portrays Jesus. Gary Oldman portrays Pontius Pilate.

While I didn't enjoy it as much as the 1970s version, I did like it. My favorite part was the temptation scene with Satan, played by Jeroen Krabbé.

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Frank Sinatra in The Detective (1968)

I first watched this in 2005, curious to see Frank Sinatra play a detective in one of the very first R-rated movies (in the United States, "R" means - "Restricted to persons 18 years of age and over).

Frank plays a detective in this crime drama, but the tone of the movie feels like it's made for television. The French Connection had not yet come out.

Frank investigates a case where a homosexual is killed. He first inspects a room with a corpse...and takes notes of what he finds: "Male Caucasian. Lying nude on floor....Penis cut off...side of skull smashed in...cuts on face and chest...fingers shredded...semen stains on the sheets".  It's unusual to hear Frank Sinatra recite those lines.

In small roles are Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Duvall, Jack Klugman and Al Freeman Jr. ("Malcolm X").

There's some softer moments with his love interest, played by Lee Remick, but I wasn't convinced they were really interested in each other.

Duvall plays a tough cop who goes to a gay hangout to find a suspect, and then beats one of the suspects. Sinatra then calls him a miserable son-of-a-b-----.

There are strange moments like that throughout this film, which is otherwise unmemorable, and doesn't portray the gay community very positively. I was reminded of 1992 when there was alot of protest over similar crime films with gay suspects such as Basic Instinct and Silence of the Lambs.

This is probably a film that may be best enjoyed by fans of Frank Sinatra.

From 20th Century Fox films.

Airport (1970) and its crappy sequels (though the original wasn't so great, either)

Airplane from 1970 the first in a line of popular "disaster films" from the 70s, but was not seen as such upon first release.

The movie was based on a novel, and was treated as a serious  drama-thriller at the time, with distinguished actors such as Helen Hayes and Maureen Stapleton as ill-fated passengers.

The film itself was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. (Ms Hayes won Best Supporting Actress as an elderly, clever stowaway). Dean Martin was miscast as the plane's pilot, but he's fairly tame in his performance, thankfully. (No drinking). The movie gets interesting when a lunatic (Van Heflin) threatens to blow up the plane with a bomb he brings aboard. This was parodied in the movie "Airplane 2: The Sequel" (1982). 

The movie is sappy and long, and is probably best watched having a certain context and frame of reference.



The next movie in the series was the less-than-creatively titled Airport 1975, featuring another all star fest, and trying to bank on the popularity of the recent disaster films "Earthquake" and "Towering Inferno".

This time Charlton Heston is the man to save the day. Helen Reddy plays a singing nun and Linda Blair is a child in need of an organ transplant. These characters were later lampooned in 1980's Airplane! Gloria Swanson also appears, in her last film.

The blog Cult Movie Reviews recently posted a synopsis of this terrible film. I'm so thankful another blogger watched the movie and has written about it...so I don't have to.





 
These next films are so awful, despite having some huge names in the cast. It's amazing to me why these films were made - were the filmmakers sadistic?  The first Airport movie was a success, followed by Airport 1975, but they probably should have stopped there.

In Airport '77 (funny how the "19" in "1977" was cut from the title), Jack Lemmon saves the day, and stopping by for cameos are Jimmy Stewart and Olivia DeHavilland.

Did they need the money?

Fortunately, Jimmy is only in one or two scenes. Probably the lowest point in his filmography.

Finally, we have The Concorde: Airport 79 a disaster (pun intended) starring Robert Wagner.