Airport '79

AIRPORT '79 is crap.

They couldn’t figure out what kind of airplane disaster movie they wanted to make, so they basically made two airplane disaster movies linked by a story out of a spy thriller.  The first one was “concorde must outmaneuver military aircraft to survive,” and the second was “concorde must crash land in the Alps.”  And they didn’t even think to include any cannibalism in that second one.

George Kennedy’s Mr. Patroni, the ace mechanic from the first film, airline exec from the second, and stander around from the third, is now a salty pilot with thousands of hours in every airplane ever made.  He shares the cockpit with Alain Delon, master of the poker face, and David Warner, who had much more fun in TRON.  A variety of B-listers, each with their own little story, ride in the back.  There’s much screaming and throwing about of paper, but little actual excitement.

In fact, I just didn’t care about anything that happened onscreen during AIRPORT ’79.  When it comes to this franchise, go for the first and third installments.  Numbers two and four aren’t worth your time.

Cries and Whispers

CRIES AND WHISPERS horrifies me.

Set in a home dominated by hellish reds of fire and blood, CRIES AND WHISPERS brings us into the lives of three sisters and a maid. One of the sisters, who may love the maid, lies on her deathbed. The other two have come to join the deathwatch, but they lack the compassion or the empathy or the basic human kindness to do more than go through the motions.

Much of creator Ingmar Bergman’s work deals with the existential horror of life without faith. In a post-faith world, to what bulwark can we cling? The four women of CRIES AND WHISPERS walk different paths, two destructive and two constructive. One chooses bitterness and despair. Another embodies narcissism. A third, kindness. And the last, perhaps the luckiest, never joined the antichristian revolt of Europe’s learned class.

We learn that kindness presents the only alternative to the post-faith world’s existential crisis. The cries of despair and the whispers of hate carry so much power that only faith and kindness, or perhaps simply kindness, can provide shelter. They can’t stop the selfish from acting selfishly, the cruel from behaving cruelly. But perhaps they can give some peace when the time comes to lay one’s head on one’s pillow.

But this is not a film in which everyone learns a handy lesson. The world of CRIES AND WHISPERS horrifies because it has us bear witness to the alternatives to kindness. It dramatizes the power of unkindness and the toll it demands upon those who exercise it and those upon whom it is exercised. And it leads to damnation, for one needn’t wait for death to be damned. We can bring it on ourselves and experience it today, tomorrow, and ‘til the day we die. CRIES AND WHISPERS shows us a great deal of horror in the days of its narrative, but it greatest horror lies in the knowledge that these people will go on living as they do to the end of their days.

Airport '77

The creators of AIRPORT ’77 must have realized what a failure AIRPORT ’75 had been, so they went in a different direction.  Instead of making an airborne disaster movie that tried to recreate how the various part of the Air Safety System work together in a crisis, they made a submarine rescue movie.

You read that right: a submarine rescue movie entitled AIRPORT ’77.  They put the airplane about forty feet underwater, see.  Once it’s there, engineers can look at the bulkheads and exclaim how they’ll buckle under just a little more pressure.  Crewmen can listen for the sounds of ships passing overhead.  A guy can volunteer for a deadly mission that may save the ship but will almost certainly drown him.  You know – submarine movie stuff.

Surprisingly, it works.  Jack Lemmon makes the transition from 747 pilot to submarine commander, as the situation requires, quite admirably.  Christopher Lee, as the volunteer, reminds us why we love him even though he was in the Prequels.  And Darren McGavin makes one hell of an engineer.

I’m not in the submarine rescue business, but I appreciated how the film depicted the use of Navy and Coast Guard search and rescue assets with (what I perceived as) remarkable accuracy.  Rescue swimmers did things like letting the sling touch the water before reaching for the cable.  Divers dressed and acted like divers.  Heck, there was even plenty of egregious hot helo action, to boot.

After AIRPORT ’75, I was ready for the worst.  ’77, however, redeems the franchise.  I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I actually look forward to AIRPORT ’79.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

What a sad, pitiless, heartbreaking film.

Warren Beatty is McCabe, an entrepreneur who comes to a Cascade mining town and sets up shop running the world’s second-oldest business. Julie Christie is Mrs. Miller, a lifetime whore and a natural businesswoman. Together, they make a go of things. That is, until real businessmen come to town.

Robert Altman directed this film, giving it a textured, living feel of conversations half-heard, buildings half-completed, and people with lives of their own. The great Leonard Cohen provided the music, a folk-influenced group of songs that speak of loss and longing and the sad, sad hope for a better day.

I admit that I never really got Warren Beatty before this picture. He’s funny in HEAVEN CAN WAIT, but even there Jack McCorkle outclasses him. In MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, Beatty incandesces with hope and hustle and an innocently amoral belief in the sanctity of business and the assurances of older, supposedly wiser men. I believed in his character from the moment I saw him, and felt for his character on every step of his seemingly inexorable journey.

Julie Christie, however, I got the first time I saw her in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. She’s smart, tough, and vulnerable, all at once. I believed in her past and her present, and I felt for her, as well.

Many other characters live in the world of this film, and Altman is the kind of director who gives them lives beyond the edges of the frame. Perhaps this is the film’s greatest accomplishment: I never felt that I was watching actors come on, hit their marks, and say their lines. I felt that I was something of a recording angel, swirling around and about these real people as they made their decisions and tried to find their respective places. This may be the film’s greatest accomplishment: the creation of an entire world in a snowy mountain town, and the conjuration of spirits to live in them.