Cinema Basement

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich I decided to extend John Candy month for a bit as I had some personal issues come up. So just wrapping up some film I wanted to cover. Works for me. Just an excuse to keep talking about a master like Candy.  Steve Martin is Neil Page, a marketing executive who is flying from New York to Chicago for Thanksgiving. While trying to hail a cab he trips over a large trunk and has his taxi stolen by Del Griffith, the immortal John Candy, who ends up being one of Neil's seat mates on the plane. Bad weather in Chicago strands them in Wichita. Determined to make up for ruining Neil's travel plans, Del swears to get Neil home to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving. Hilarity ensues.  I mean come on. Who doesn't love Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? This is Candy's best film and I don't think that's a hot take. Sure some people might vote for Uncle Buck but not me. My vote is for this masterpiece of '80s comedy. It is also John Hughes best fi...

A retrospective by Azzam Abdur-Rahman When Brooks asked me if I had any movie in mind for John Candy month I honestly only had one in mind, Only The Lonely. This film I related too so much but due to my life I just didn't feel comfortable discussing it. It became a weird albatross I was carrying, I hadn't written anything for the blog in a while and I wanted to contribute something but what I honestly couldn't tell you. I worried I would end up on a Lance Bangs-ish review that became less and less a review of the movie and more a musing on the struggles of losing a talented actor/comedian too soon to their own vices. I worried I like many other months wouldn't have a damn thing to say. Then last night after seeing the latest Mission Impossible I returned home to a sea of dog vomit and disappointment. It was literal dog vomit. 2 hours well into 3am I cleaned as my dog and I lay in misery at our lot in life. After commuting a task that was truncated by more vomit and...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Air traffic controller Jack Chester (John Candy) is given paid time off when he nearly causes two airline disasters. He takes his family down to Florida for a vacation. Hijinks ensue because its '80s comedy and Candy ends up challenging a pompous Richard Crenna to a yacht race to close out the summer.  This is a movie that has been forgotten to time in the grand scheme of Candy's career. Even with Carl Reiner directing it does have the same name recognition as some of Candy's other works. But I think it's a solid entry in his filmography. He plays a great everyman who we have no problem rooting for. The slobs versus snobs relationship he has with Crenna works like a charm and he genuinely seems like a good father and husband. Candy was always great at playing both the everyman and the aloof goofball. Sometimes he'll even play both. His character of Jack Chester in this is a good example of that. At times Jack is the goofy comic relief...

 What can you say about John Candy? He was a comic genius who was taken from us too soon. There were a lot of comedic heavyweights of the eighties and nineties but Candy stood above most of them. If there is a Mount Rushmore of comedy I imagine John Candy would be on it. For the month of July we are honoring this comic genius. 

Clint Eastwood stars as Luther Whitney, a jewel thief who works in the Washington DC area. One night while he is stealing from a mansion he is forced to hide in a secret compartment with a two way mirror. From there he observes a sexual rezendevous with the wife of a powerful man and the President of the United States Alan Richmond (Gene Hackman) Suddenly the president gets aggressive and while defending herself the woman is shot to death by two Secret Service agents. Luther manages to get away with a letter opener the woman stabbed the president with. At first Luther plans to flee the country. But when he is disgusted by a statement the president makes, Luther decides to expose the crime. I miss these kind of films. The nineties was a great time for thrillers exactly like this. They are not the flashiest films but they are also not obsessed with big action scenes. It's all plot and character with them. Sure this plot might be a little out there but Eastwood makes it work. He's...

A retrospective by Brooks Rich I'm back from hiatus. Had to regroup and find my creative center. Let's kick the blog back off with a weird romantic drama from 1980 that stars Gary Busy as a dunk tank clown and Robbie Robertson from The Band as his partner at a carnival.  Frankie is a dunk tank clown. Patches sells the balls people throw to dunk Frankie. Donna wants to escape small town life. Together the three of them form an odd love triangle set among the carny life of early '80s America.  Sometimes we feature a film on Forgotten Film Friday that is forgotten for a reason. I get why this film has faded into obscurity. It is a weird little movie with an unsettling tone. Gary Busey is a dunk tank clown and this is not part of the slasher movie boom of the '80s. The sexual politics of this film have not aged that well either. Jodie Foster was around eighteen when she made this movie and although that's not illegal it still has an ew factor.  But there is something ab...