Old School for the New School: Airport

Airport (1970)

Notable cast members: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset

Notable Awards: Oscar, Best Supporting Actress, Helen Hayes

“Da da da duh dah….da da da DUH DUH!”

One of the more memorable scores created for the disaster movie genre, it only takes a split-second for Alfred Newman’s score from Airport to announce to the audience that danger and peril are most certainly imminent.

The music is set to an all-star cast composed of Burt Lancaster as the airport director trying to manage crisis during the worst storm in years; Dean Martin as the resident Casanova-pilot of the airport; Jacqueline Bisset as the gorgeous, love-stricken stewardess; Helen Hayes (in an Oscar winning role) as the sweet little old lady who is more wily than she looks; and George Kennedy as the glue that holds the airport together. If Airport isn’t the first movie entered into the disaster genre, then it is most certainly one of the genre’s pioneers. I’ve been, at times, in the unfortunate position of falling victim to the uncanny ability of the Hollywood trailer creators’ ability to turn a senseless, boorish script into something I thought I’d enjoy. I’m talking about such films as James Cameron’s Titanic, Wolfgang Peterson’s Poseidon, and the like. The sad part about these films is that they each cost their studios millions upon millions of dollars to produce something that ultimately leaves the audience dry. On the other hand, you have a movie like Airport that draws that feeling of concern and anxiousness out of the audience without all the explosions and CGI special effects.

The beauty of this film is the conglomeration of all the individual storylines that take place everywhere from the runway to the director’s office and how each of them makes their own contribution to one crazy night on the airfield. It’s been almost 40 years since Airport hit America’s screens and it’s safe to say there haven’t been many films like it since. Please make sure your seat is in the full and upright position and that your tray table is locked and stowed in front of you, and then kick back and enjoy the ride that is Airport!

Best Line: Patroni (Kennedy): “That’s one nice thing about the 707. She can do everything but read.”

Comments : 1 Comment | Category : Old School for the New School | Tags : Airport

Old School for the New School: The Natural

Posted by Matt Rosenberg on October 16, 2009 at 8:42 am

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Traitor video This post is from our friend Kyle Patterson

. Check out his review of The Natural below.

The Natural (1984)

Notable cast members: Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger, Glenn Close, Wilford Brimley

Notable Awards 3 Acts of Murder download : Oscar, Best Supporting Actress, Glenn Close

This is the best sports movie of all time.

What an opening line, right? Ok, maybe I can’t put just one sports movie above all others, but if there was only room for one at the top, The Natural would most certainly be among the last debated to take the title. To this day, this film has always been a reliable supplier of goose bumps at its climax. It’s good defeating evil. It’s resilience winning out in the face of temptation. It’s the inspiring story of Roy Hobbs, baseball phenomenon, overcoming misfortune and ill will to deliver his legacy to baseball.

I’m certainly not the Roy Hobbs of movie critics, but if I was, I would be so unequivocally the best at what I did and my version of a bat, my pencil, would have “Wonderboy” inscribed on its side. In The Natural, Roy (Redford) introduces himself to the audience as just what the title would imply, a natural at his craft. After an unforgettable scene where he throws three fastballs past the fictional representation of The Babe at a train stop, he sets out on his journey to eventually be, using his words, “the best there ever was at the game”. Unfortunately, things take a dramatic turn for the worse after a regretful episode of poor decision making. Over a decade later, for what must have seemed like an eternity to our protagonist, Roy finally gets to feel the big-league dirt beneath his cleats and the lumber between his palms when Pop Fisher, the coach of the New York Knights in a role Wilford Brimley was born to play, gives him his shot. Roy wastes no time capturing the hearts of New Yorkers and instilling that edge into his teammates that takes the team from worst to first. Then it’s time to cue the goose bumps when Roy discovers a new way to create fireworks in the deciding game for the pennant in the film’s climax.

The Natural is more than a story about a great baseball player who scraped and clawed to eventually fulfill his destiny. In fact it can be argued that he didn’t fulfill his destiny as he only got to play one season in the major leagues as a right fielder. But, why is that? If there is a lesson this movie attempts to share with its audience, it’s that nothing in life is guaranteed and what you cherish most can be taken away from you at any moment. Furthermore, The Natural reminds us that those whom we love bring out the best in us even in times of diversity and hardship. Keeping these people nearby and close to the heart should be everyone’s M.O.

Best Line: Roy Hobbs: “Pick me out a winner, Bobby.”

Old School for the New School: Amadeus

Posted by Craig Kessler on August 20, 2009 at 2:30 am

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This is from Kyle who writes about the classics hoping to attract a new audience to great movies from the past in our new segment called Old School for New School. You can contact Kyle on Twitter

Amadeus (1984)

Notable cast members: F. Murray Abraham

Tom Hulce

Notable Awards: Oscar, Best Picture (1984)

Oscar, Best Director (Milos Forman)

Oscar, Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham)

Oscar, Nomination, Best Actor (Tom Hulce)

Many of our readers will associate this title with a well-known 1986 single, “Rock Me, Amadeus”

by Australian pop sensation, Falco. Sorry to disappoint, mate. Our title is actually derived from the name of a certain classical composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. If you already knew Wolfgang Mozart’s middle name, it’s highly probable that you have already seen this movie. If you didn’t know his middle name and wouldn’t tag yourself as a classical music lover, then you, my friend, are in for a treat.

Has anyone ever asked you, “What’s your favorite movie of all-time?” -Impossible to answer, right? I wholeheartedly agree it would be extremely difficult for anyone to come up with an answer. I liken it to the difficulty Hugh Hefner would have if you asked him to choose his favorite all-time playmate. That being said, if there was ever a situation where I was forced to answer, the odds on favorite would have to be Amadeus. I guess you could say this movie was a part of my life from the very beginning. While stowed away in my mother’s womb as she was reluctantly being taken to see Amadeus by my father, all it took was the opening scene depicting the depressed, guilt-stricken Salieri (Abraham) putting his remorse on display followed by the sheer power of the first opening credit for all of us to surrender our senses. What followed was 160 minutes of the most powerful filmmaking I can trace back to in my vast personal archive of film. What is ironic about this movie is that its power is being driven by two actors whose combined motion picture careers don’t hold a candle to the enormity of their performances in Amadeus

. This is one of those cases where the movie would have never come close to achieving its potential had any other two actors played the roles of Salieri and Mozart (Hulce).

Similar to the on-screen chemistry put on display by Redford and Newman, Abraham and Hulce deliver in much the same fashion. But the dissimilarity between these two chemistries is the deep, robust hatred that exists between Salieri and Mozart that ultimately becomes the undeniable theme for the film’s duration. It’s unfair to say that this hatred travels on a two-way street, however. Mozart is God’s musical gift to humanity, sent to Earth complete with a music-loving father and the infinite talent that would make him the most famous composer in history. Salieri, on the other hand, is the antithesis to Mozart. He was not God’s musical gift to humanity, he did not have a father that cared for music, and he would not be remembered for his compositions. Salieri curses God for his decision to bestow these gifts upon Mozart, a man who unashamedly squanders them right under his nose. It is this hatred that drives Salieri into unreserved madness, stopping at nothing until he personally observes the destruction of his fellow, unsuspecting composer. For as much as our two composers don’t have in common, what they do share is an unbounded love for music and the obsession with achieving their listeners’ approval. This attribute they share will be the part of themselves that brings them to their greatest triumphs as well as their eventual demises.

Best Line: WOLFGANG: “Oh they’re all so beautiful. Why can’t I have three heads?”

Comments : 5 Comments | Category : Old School for the New School | Tags : Classic

Old School for the New School: The Sting

Posted by Craig Kessler on August 8, 2009 at 2:30 am

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