Superman Lives, Starring Nicolas Cage

This is a movie that never got made. But can you imagine if it did? It would have been incredible. And different!

Cage doesn't really fit my idea of Superman. Some people (or many) felt he didn't fit the general idea of Ghost Rider, either. But that movie turned out O.K. However, Superman (I believe) is a much bigger star than GR.

I can imagine they would have changed his hair and outfit, and taught him how to move like Superman. So he probably would have done a good job.

I wonder if they had ever made the film, what plot they would have used. I wonder if the special effects would have been good? I'll bet by the day's standards, the film would have been amazing.

Or would it simply have been a 1996 equivalent of "Superman Returns?"

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Breaking In (1989)

Starring Burt Reynolds and Casey Siemaszko as a veteran safecracker and his new student. It looks like the movie is going to be an '80s money-centric adventure film, where Reynolds and CS pull off some amazing heist, find a couple of nice ladies, and retire to a beach somewhere.

Instead, CS gets caught, takes the blame for all the jobs Burt's ever done, becomes a celebrity in jail, and has Burt use his stolen money to pay fellow prisoners to protect him.

It was only after watching the film and being disappointed by the ending (where CS is still in jail) that I guessed they were going for a dual meaning with the title. "Breaking In" probably not only refers to stealing, but also to CS becoming friends with Reynolds, who at one point said he didn't need anyone.

If the movie was going for a "I have no friends / I'll be your friend" dynamic, it could've fooled me. I just thought the vet was going to teach the new guy enough so they'd both get rich and could retire. But there was no resolution in that regard, so I felt the film was a disappointment.

However, if you can tolerate limbo endings, you might enjoy the movie. I liked the prospect of instant riches. Sure, they were going about it in an immoral way, but there's an adventure element with safecracking that seemed somewhat appealing. And what I really wanted to see was them be able to enjoy the money with no one getting hurt. So my expecting that made the film exciting for me. I kept thinking, "Soon they'll hit the jackpot!"

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The Explorers

This is a pretty neat film. A young Ethan Hawke teams with a young River Phoenix and another kid and they all build a spaceship. Using alien technology communicated through dreams, they engineer an energy orb that can protect the ship and take it anywhere. It's so efficient it can run on an old battery from the 1980's.

They travel around the earth, then go into space, and meet aliens! It's wild. And young Hawke meets a girl.

It's family friendly, and great if you love sci-fi. Nine thumbs up!

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The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

This was on AMC today, and I got sucked in. It's so good! I think Gene Hackman did a fantastic job portraying a guy using his intelligence, common sense, and reason to solve puzzle after puzzle and guide as many people as he can to safety.

It was very interesting to watch him try to convince the main group to go with him. I thought of him as Lex Luthor in "Superman," when he was the greatest criminal genius on earth. He seemed as intelligent in "Poseidon." And yet not a lot of people would listen to him. He wasn't a professional ship man, so most people took the word of the loud guy that did have a job on the ship. Hackman would yell his smart points, and the guy would yell back that he was wrong. Then Hackman moved up toward the bottom of the inverted ship, and all of a sudden the masses and the ship guy had to deal with a flood and chaos. They didn't make it.

That's always an intense dynamic, when someone smart wants to lead the way to safety and salvation, and the rest of the people don't want to believe. It happened in "The Day After Tomorrow," when Jake Gyllenhaal told the people in his building not to try to survive outside and travel. He'd just gotten advice from the most knowledgeable person on earth regarding the disaster everyone was experiencing, and few people would listen. Too bad.

I don't think the seventies version of "The Poseidon Adventure" is bad at all. In fact, I think it's fantastic! It seems almost timeless. I enjoyed it.

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The Three Amigos

What a great film. It's so terrific, there are two ways to interpret it!

First, it could be viewed as a parody film, goofing with the idea of a Western. But because it was so successful, it could also be viewed as a film to be parodied!

I really enjoy this movie, and I think it has timeless appeal. For all we know, there's a village out there with the same problems as in the film, and similar shenanigans might be ready to occur!

I like the actors in the film, especially the main 3: Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. I like the song they sing where they hold that one note way longer than normal! And that funny move they do where they turn their heads and appear to cough.

I used to think it would be funny if the names were Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Short Steve. But I guess to be fair to Chevy, that could not be.

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Back To The Future

I've always loved this film, and there are so many interesting things to think about.

One thing I was shocked to learn was that Eric Stoltz was cast as Marty, and a bunch of scenes were shot with him. He thought the movie was a tragedy, because Marty at the end remembers an alternate life that no one else can sympathize with. Stoltz's views didn't agree with Spielberg's. Enter Michael J. Fox.

Originally, the script called for a nuclear detonation as the Time Machine's power source. That would have been so cool! Can you imagine Marty driving through a test range into a nuclear blast?

There's a theory dealing with the part at the end of the movie where Marty sees Doc get shot, then goes back in time, then returns and sees it happen again. Some people think that the Marty that returns watches the other Marty leave, taking the full case of Plutonium with him. When this other Marty gets to 1955, he fuels up and returns to 1985, without doing any of the stuff we saw in the movie. The 1985 he returns to is the original, where his mother's a drunk, his father's still lame, and Doc is dead.

But at least our Marty set things right!

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Last Action Hero

So of course, I've got to mention "Last Action Hero," as this blog is named after a prop that seemed to become a character in the film.

Recently on an episode of "Married With Children," which I don't seek out to watch but occasionally pay attention when I notice it's on, there was a random character who mentioned LAH. He said something to the effect of, "So please, don't give up on 'Last Action Hero' yet. It still hasn't been released in Albania, or Zimbabwe!"

I remember hearing that same idea when it came out, that it wasn't doing so well. I myself didn't really like it, because I thought it diminished the weight and reputation of Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his action roles. But since then, I believe the film's become a cult classic.

Another reason I didn't like it was how some of the humor was dark. I just took it at face value, saw the dark, but not the humor. I thought New York was just like it was depicted in the film, a place where you could get killed by shoe-hungry teens, and nobody would care. Thankfully that's not the case. And nowadays, I can tolerate (and sometimes enjoy) snippets of black humor. So the film has grown on me, just as I imagine it has on many others.

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