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Fletch (1985)
"Did you decorate this place yourself, or did Mrs. Chief of Police help?"
**Quote Spoilers Ahead** Oh man, what can I say? Chevy Chase has some of the best deadpan oneliner deliveries of his career in this hilarious comedy about the shenanigans of investigative reporter Irwin M. Fletcher, alias "Fletch F. Fletch", "Nugent; Ted Nugent", "Dr. Rosen-rosen, Rosen-penis", "Igor Stravinsky","G. Gordon Liddy" Etc. Etc!!
I love how Chase's character plays off of such character actors as Joe Don Baker, George Wendt, and M. Emmett Walsh. The they are excellent foils for Chevy Chase's very funny and sometimes subtle jokes and insults!
Some highlights of the film are the physical exam scene (Fletch refers to Walsh's character as "Dr. Jellyfinger"!-Priceless!), The country club scene with such lines as " Yes, very good; I'll have the steak sandwich and... a steak Stanwyk." And no one should miss the chase sequence thru the streets of LA in a 'borrowed' Alfa Romeo Spyder! "Just gotta check the fluorocarbon output!","Hey Fred! How's the herpes? Does it hurt?". Which leads up to the improvised speech Fletch gives in tribute to "Fred 'the Dorf' Dorfmann", the father of "Internal Bushings"... "No more alcohol and sedatives in her life." So much is going on here, that repeated viewings are definitely recommended by this reviewer to catch all the asides and little moments to be had in this film! I also split my sides during the autopsy sequence. "Have you ever seen a spleen this large?"-"Not since breakfast."
All in all, lots of action, general hamminess and a very good supporting cast making this one a keeper for anyone's movie collection! Highly recommended for comedy fans and a must see. One of the best examples of this type of humor!
"It's all ball bearings these days!""You and Tommy LaSorda?...I hate Tommy LaSorda!""I feel like a hundred dollars.""Nice garage. Must've cost hundreds.""...I saw the bright red Oldsmobuick of Mr. Arnold T. Pants, Esq. Attorney at Law.""Get me some gauze pads and 30-weight for that fetzer valve... and clean those windows, they have filth and muck on them!""Does this entail me dressing up as 'Little Bo-Peep'?"
Very Quotable... I give it an 8.8/10.
The Final Countdown (1980)
Having served on the Nimitz....
I saw this film before I joined the Navy and again before I served on Nimitz (CVN 68). Kind of a nice feather in my cap experiencing the world's largest 'time machine' in person!
On to the movie... A very interesting premise which should have merited a more detailed analysis! Executed well enough for 1980, but could be remade into one hell of a motion picture today! I'd love to see it.
One thing the story does well is get one thinking about the 'what-if' scenario having the most modern carrier in the today's fleet taking on the Japanese Navy almost 40 years prior... Hmm. What a mismatch that would be in much the same way that **** SPOILER ALERT **** Combat Air Patrol (CAP) Tomcats rendered the 'Zeroes ' splashed handily! But, the very nature of Paradoxes would have rendered intervention potentially destructive to Nimitz and all aboard! (Which would have made profound changes to MY naval career as well.) And that was the dilemma faced; Do we change history because we feel a conscious duty to tilt the war in our favor (At least in the short term.)? Or do we choose to let nature take its course knowing full well the outcome if nothing is done? 4 more years of war and millions of lives? Or win a decisive victory and save all of the agony yet to come at the possible expense of destroying the fabric of space/time... or at the very least causing the U.S. and the Allies to lose in the long run because the U.S. would have delayed entering the war? Thorny, eh? As it turns out, history in this film was changed in a minor way but then again... was it? Possible predestination paradox, meaning events were supposed to happen the way they did.
***SPOILER ALERT*** If the Nimitz had stayed to fight, logistically it would have been possible... for a short time. Without access to spare parts, jet fuel and other means of support, the ship would have been nearly useless. True, this vessel class can steam for over 20 years on a fresh set of plutonium rods, but jets can't fly without fuel or spare parts! And just imagine trying to provision that ship with its crew of 5000 plus with 1940's technology! This ignores what the U.S. Government would have done once they got their hands on Nimitz and her technology back then! The debriefing would never end for those people! And imagine the changes to history then! (Could be a whole other movie!)
All in all, I think it was a great piece of science fiction and a very enjoyable 'what if'... I recommend anyone see it who can! It has its flaws and is dated but the concept is still very valid. The movie's big strength is not so much what is said, but what is not. The important stuff is left to the viewer's imagination, and this is what makes it very entertaining and provocative!
This is the movie that made the USS Nimitz a household word and I am very proud to have served on a piece of science fiction history (no pun intended)! The ship is very distinguished and far more impressive 'in the steel' than she is on film.
I give this film a 7.9/10. Mostly for the powerful premise.
Top Gun (1986)
High Powered Recruitment for Naval Aviation
Without a doubt in my humble opinion, this very energetic and fast-paced film did so much to boost recruitment into the Navy in the late '80's!
I saw it in its initial release in the summer of '86 and had a blast of a time! Driven by an excellent soundtrack (even today) and terrific editing, it was a tight and non-stop thrill ride that kept me engrossed for most of that viewing and is still immensely enjoyable today! I own the DVD with both pan/scan and widescreen versions. Video quality is very good and the audio... well, lets just say in 5.1 it will blow your shorts off... especially the opening credits!! I always make it a point to crank it up!
The technical aspects of the film are of particularly of interest to me. The flight deck scenes and the aerial sequences are particularly fun to watch. It would be hard to deny that watching the (now venerable) Tomcat in all its glory is truly a thing of beauty! At least two aircraft carriers were used to depict USS Enterprise (CVN 65); The big 'E' herself and the Nimitz-class Carl Vinson (CVN 70). You would need a practiced eye to see which was used where in the film but the two ships are quite different if you know what to look for. But, to a casual observer out to just have a great time, the differences are not apparent. The fictional Russian 'MiG-28's' were in fact F-5's which look like nothing I am aware of in the Soviet inventory!! But, considering the time frame that filming occurred it is understandable that the production would not have had the means or the resources to procure bona-fide operational MiGs!!! If you are a military hardware nut or know what you are looking at, some suspension of disbelief is required! It doesn't hurt the film though unless you get hung up on the details.
*Potential Spoiler Alert* The aerial stall incident depicted in the film was based on actual problems with the original F-14 A's which used Pratt and Whitney power plants, prompting a change to the GE F-110's which all but eliminated this deficiency in the A+ and D upgrades. I digress... This was a very dramatic scene which shows how dangerous a 'Punch Out' can be, which it is even under 'ideal' conditions.
Dogfighting is just what the Tomcat is designed for and to do that, you have to get closer than you would with missiles (much closer). The idea as was stated in the movie is to increase your 'kill ratio'. The bit of history concerning Vietnam was accurate. So I have no heartburn with seeing the aircraft so close. It can and does happen.
My advice: See it and have a great experience doing so! 8.5/10