I thought I’d have a new “Friday Fundamentals in Film” post ready for today but time and circumstances worked against me. The next one in the series is imminent, however. I did, however, recently see a movie that will never make it to the FIF list, but I’ll describe it here as a warning and [...]
I had a coach and gym teacher back in junior high school that used to call us guys a bunch of “Yo-yos”. We knew that wasn’t a good thing, but it also seemed like kind of a silly insult. Now that I’m about the age he was, and have deliberately subjected myself to the company [...]
I’m trying to get up to speed again on this weekly film series after my trip. I had ordered a couple of movies from Netflix based on recommendations from some of you and I watched these but they weren’t right for the series. They were a couple of WWII movies, The Longest Day and A [...]
The boys and their dads reconvened for the second movie, drawn by the smell of the large pan of fried chicken I’d set out and my promise that this week’s movie would have a higher body count than the first movie we watched, High Noon. As we ate, however, I went back to the first [...]
The thing about the latter 1970s is that so much of the weirdness then can be easily attributed to drugs. Well, drugs and Jimmy Carter. Now when I look back on those times I often get the feeling that I’m revisiting an alternative universe. Lately I’ve been inclined to write these perceptions off as a [...]
Courage and integrity aren’t always demonstrated in the heat of battle or proved by some dramatic, attention-getting act. Often the best examples are those of quiet resolution by people who wouldn’t even grasp what all the fuss is about when their actions are honored. An excellent example is the 1962 classic film To Kill a [...]
I’ve restarted this series with a new group of boys and we’ll mainly be following the original course outline since those movies were arranged in a certain order with a purpose in mind. The difference this time is that I have more movies to choose from and less of a time constraint — and I’ve [...]
“From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It wasn’t a miracle. We just decided to go.” Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) spoke those words early on in Apollo 13, setting a tone of both hubris and awesome pluck and ingenuity. This is an inspiring movie and quite unlike [...]
This week’s movie might be controversial for some since it looks at the events leading up to the Protestant Reformation by dramatizing the life of Martin Luther. Though I’m not Lutheran or Catholic the interpretation I got from Luther is that it was about a man trying to save his faith, not start a new [...]
I can’t believe I missed the opportunity last Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, to feature John Ford’s The Quiet Man, a classic Irish tale and my favorite John Wayne film. Oh well, like the train to Castletown, better late than never. This is a delightful and beautifully photographed movie with great performances by Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, [...]
