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Potential Royale with Cheese movies

I’ve never seen Air Force One

Royale with cheese

My blogger buddy Chuck Miller has created this series about movies called Royale with Cheese. It’s films that EVERYBODY has seen, but he had not until, finally, he did. It’s named after a line from Pulp Fiction, the 1994 movie he watched in 2011.

What reminded me of this was the passing of Wolfgang Petersen. On the CBS morning show, the announcer said that “Everybody is saying, ‘Get off my plane'” as they showed a clip from Air Force One. Well, I wasn’t because I’ve never seen that movie, directed by Petersen.

It’s odd. From 1979, when I was dating a cinephile, to 2003, the year before my daughter was born, I saw LOTS of films. Indeed, I watched every single movie nominated for a major Oscar award (movie, actor, actress, director, and the two screenplays) that came out in 1997 except Ulee’s Gold with Peter Fonda.

So I’m going to make a list of films that came out between 1970, right before I graduated from high school, and 2019, just before the pandemic, that I managed to miss. I won’t pick movies I didn’t/don’t want to see for whatever reason.

Some films

Here are the qualifiers from the Top Lifetime Adjusted Grosses from Box Office Mojo.

Avatar (2009)
Incredibles 2 (2018) – I really liked the first film
The Lion King (2018) – I was curious whether it’d be any good
The Dark Knight (2008) – I have the graphic novel
Wonder Woman (2017) – my wife and daughter saw it, but I was busy
Aquaman (2018) – for a guy who used to work in a comic book store, I’m not faring well with these DC adaptations

Independence Day (1996) – the biggest film of that year
Inception (2010)
The Hangover (2009) – or the sequels
Maleficent (2014)
Shrek Forever After (2010) – but I saw the first two movies

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Ocean’s Eleven (2001) or its sequels, although I did see Ocean’s Eight
Elf (2003) – in honor of James Caan’s passing, I may need to see it this Christmas season
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Lilo and Stitch (2002)
Ready Player One (2018)
Minority Report (2002)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) – although I did see the sequel
On Golden Pond (1981) – Henry and Jane Fonda

So, opinionated people – this means you, Greg Burgas – suggest which ones of these ought I to check out first? And you are not limited to this roster of films or my cinematic timeframe.

Nichelle Nichols; Vin Scully

the voice

Barrier-breaking Nichelle Nichols inspired the naming of her Star Trek character. “When [she] came to audition…, she was carrying the book she was reading. Uhuru is a 1962 novel by Robert Ruark about the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya, and Roddenberry noticing, a 20-minute conversation ensued… [Gene] Roddenberry was inspired to read the novel and decided to name the communications officer after the title.”

Famously, she got work advice from Martin Luther King, Jr. “He told me that Star Trek was one of the only shows that his wife Coretta and he would allow their little children to stay up and watch. I thanked him, and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face, and he said, ‘You can’t do that. Don’t you understand, for the first time, we’re seen as we should be seen? You don’t have a Black role. You have an equal role.'” And, of course, she stayed on the series and for several movies.

It only occurred to me later that one of the reasons my father was drawn to Star Trek was that she was one of the few black people on network television, along with Greg Morris as electronics expert Barney Collier on Mission: Impossible and very few others.

NASA recruiter

People magazine: “Last December, the star made her final convention appearance before her many fans as part of a three-day farewell celebration at L.A. Comic-Con. Nichols was seen waving, blowing kisses, and flashing Star Trek’s famous Vulcan salute to the many fans… She was surrounded by members of her family and longtime friends, including… former astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, who joined NASA as a result of Nichols’ role in recruiting women and minorities into the space program in the 1970s and 1980s [thanks to] her Star Trek fame.”

Her impact is seen in the many tributes: George Takei (Sulu) wrote: “My heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend.”

Also paying homage: Zoe Saldana (Uhura in the 2009 movie) and Celia Rose Gooding (Uhura in the Paramount+ series). Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan on ST: TNG) said, “Nichelle was the first Black person I’d ever seen who made it to the future.” Nichelle Nichols was 89.

Iconic broadcaster

In baseball announcing, Vin Scully was the Greatest Of All Time. The Los Angeles Times touted his “folksy manner and melodic language.”

He covered the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers for 67 years until 2016, from “the 1950s era of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson” to “Clayton Kershaw, Manny Ramirez, and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century.” He also covered golf, tennis, and the NFL. “In 2010, the American Sportscasters Association named him the greatest sportscaster of the 20th century.”

Scully was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982; here’s a Scully bobblehead. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016.

The Los Angeles Times declared: “For legions of Dodgers fans, Vin Scully was the voice of their beloved baseball team. But for many Angelenos, the ginger-haired broadcaster was more like a family member: a grandfather, a tío, someone they welcomed into their homes on game day.

“Heartbroken fans mourning Scully’s passing… at age 94 say it felt like a death in the family.

“‘It almost felt like I lost my father again,’ said Desiree Jackson, who took the bus from skid row to Dodger Stadium to lay flowers and pray at the makeshift memorial that sprang up there overnight. ‘I fell in love with sports because of my dad, and my brother, and Vin.'”

Here is Mark Evanier on his father’s love of the Dodgers and Scully. An emotional Ken Levine wrote: “No one besides my father has had as much impact on my life as Vin Scully,” and was thrilled to have worked with him.

Movies: Elvis; Mr. Malcolm’s List

jilted

After seeing the new movie Elvis – and knowing the limitations of the biopic genre – I wish my father were still around so that we could debate the merits, but not the film per se. It was more that he hated Elvis for his cultural appropriation. I believe that the film showed that the kid from Tupelo, MS (the young Australian actor Chaydon Jay) came by his love of black music honestly. (Unlike, say, Pat Boone covering Little Richard’s Tutti Fruiti.)

When my wife and I saw the previews a few months ago, featuring the somewhat older Elvis (the magnetic Austin Butler), my wife asked, “Was Elvis REALLY that sexy?” I SHOULD have said, “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong!” which is (sort of) the title of one of his greatest hits albums. Instead, I just said, “Yes, yes, he was.” Her query comes from only being familiar with the “fat Elvis” stuck in Vegas.

I liked it a lot. Sean P. Means of The Movie Cricket wrote, “It’s big, bold, and brassy. It’s not perfect, and at 2 hours and 39 minutes still doesn’t deliver everything you’d expect in a telling of Elvis’s life story. But it’s always holding your attention.” Yeah, that’s about right.

Who is that?

It’s always nice to see the bits one’s aware of, such as Elvis singing to an actual hound dog on Steve Allen’s show. I don’t know exactly what his relationship with some of the black stars of the era was, but it was fun to try to identify them. I didn’t recognize B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) or Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup (Gary Clark Jr.). Still, Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Yola), Big Mama Thornton (Shonka Dukureh), and especially Little Richard (Alton Mason) were obvious to me. Sadly, Shonka Dukureh died recently.

The one aspect I’m still puzzling about is Tom Hanks’ accent as Colonel Tom Parker. It’s…weird. Parker biographer Alanna Nash says that’s not what he sounded like, which frankly doesn’t bother me. Nash said, “He didn’t have an impediment — he was just trying to wrap a Dutch tongue around the English language, Southern-style… But [director Baz Luhrmann] wanted to make him seem more ‘other.’ Or as Baz told me in an interview, ‘I thought it was very important that Tom presents the audience with a strangeness, a sort of ‘What is going on with this guy?'”

But “Nash did say that there are some things Baz Luhrmann got right with Elvis. This includes the suggestion that Parker did all he could to prevent Presley from fulfilling his dream of embarking on a European tour. It was unfortunate for Presley, as the reason had nothing to do with the singer but with Parker’s lack of a passport.”

I suspect Austin Butler will get an Academy Award nomination for playing Elvis. His energy and charisma, and talent are tremendous. All in all, I recommend the movie.

Very Jane Austen-y

“A young woman courts a mysterious wealthy suitor in 19th century England.” That’s the premise of the newish movie Mr. Malcolm’s List. Do you want more? “When she fails to meet an item on his list of requirements for a bride, Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) is jilted by London’s most eligible bachelor, Mr. Malcolm (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù). Feeling humiliated and determined to exact revenge, she convinces her friend Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto) to play the role of his ideal match. Soon, Mr. Malcolm wonders whether he’s found the perfect woman…or the perfect hoax.”

My wife loves this stuff and was very fond of the film. I thought it was fine, and the diverse cast was entertaining.

We saw both films at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany in July 2022.

Producer Norman Lear turns 100

People For The American Way

Plugging his 2017 documentary film, “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” Carl Reiner had his old friends Norman Lear and Dick Van Dyke come over to be interviewed by CBS Sunday Morning’s Tracy Smith. “They constitute a team of GOLDEN BOYS — older, yes, but no less amusing.”

“The culture has age all wrong,” Lear said. “The culture sells age as utterly going down. Well, it’s the expression, ‘Going downhill.’ And he woke up this morning to come here feeling great. I woke up this morning, I couldn’t wait to get here to see these guys! It’s not ‘downhill!'”

Reiner died in June 2020, but Lear and Van Dyke are still going strong.

TV legend

I watched much of the output of producer Norman Lear. Here’s a paragraph from his IMDB page. “Born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Lear flew 52 combat missions over Europe in World War II before beginning his television career. His classic shows of the 1970s and ’80s – All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, among others – collectively reached as many as 120 million viewers per week and are said to have transformed the American cultural landscape, bringing the social and political issues of the day into American living rooms for the first time.”

Yes, I saw all of those, both iterations of One Day At A Time, and more obscure shows such as Hot L Baltimore (1975). Possibly my favorite of his lesser-known programs is The Powers That Be: “The exploits of a clueless American senator and the eccentric, morally corrupt people who are closest to him.” It was the launching pad for several well-known performers.

Even before All In The Family, I saw the movie The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968), produced by Lear.

He has a trove of awards, including five Emmys. But also the National Medal of Arts (1999), the GLAAD Media Award (2014), a Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award (2017), and the Kennedy Center Honors (2017).

PAW

“With the rise of the radical religious right, Lear put his career on hold in 1980 to found People For the American Way, the nonprofit organization that remains a relevant and effective force defending all aspects of the First Amendment.”

Indeed, it’s from his organization that I get messages from Norman on a regular basis.

From December 2021: “Progress can feel painfully slow on issues we care about. And sometimes we even see hard-won progress being rolled back. On my 99th birthday, the Washington Post ran an op-ed that I wrote expressing my bewilderment that some politicians are still trying to make it harder for people to vote.

“I’m hoping that by my 100th birthday we will have renewed a strong federal commitment to voting rights. “

From Memorial Day weekend 2022: “When I joined with Rep. Barbara Jordan and others to create People For the American Way, we felt it was important to give people a way to join with others in asserting that this country belongs to all of us. No one is more American on account of their religion or skin color – or where they were born or who they love.

“Some days the bad news feels overwhelming. The violence and contempt and dishonesty can be so dispiriting. Those are the days we need each other the most. Those are the days I remind myself to be grateful that there are so many of us who have made a commitment to making a difference.”

Then a pitch to donate to People For The American Way. Happy birthday, Norman Lear.

Director Eric Laneuville turns 70

L.A. Law, Lost, NYPD Blue, Dream On

One of my favorite television programs was the MTM program St. Elsewhere (NBC, 1982-1988). And one of my favorite characters was Luther Hawkins, played by Eric Laneuville, who appeared in 128 of 137 episodes. Initially, Luther was a hospital orderly, but he became a certified paramedic and eventually a student physician assistant.

Eric was born in New Orleans, LA. His first prominent acting roles were in the science-fiction film The Omega Man (1971) with Charlton Heston and on the TV program Room 222 (1970-1974). But he has had but two acting credits since 1996, and none since 2014.

That’s because he’s in demand as a director. He started this path by directing 20 episodes of St. Elsewhere, starting in 1984. He has also helmed multiple episodes of Midnight Caller; Doogie Howser, M.D.; Everybody Hates Chris; Girlfriends; Ghost Whisper; CSI: NY; The Mentalist; Grimm; NCIS: Los Angeles; Blue Bloods; Chicago Fire; and the current iteration of The Equalizer.

(St. Elsewhere was up against the earlier version of The Equalizer on CBS on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. for three seasons. I’d watch St. Elsewhere but catch The Equalizer in reruns.)

Eric was nominated for Emmys (Dream On, I’ll Fly Away, the Directors Guild of America awards (Lost, NYPD Blue), and both (L.A. Law).

I’ll Fly Away

In 1992, Eric won both an Emmy and a Director’s Guild Award for the All God’s Children episode of I’ll Fly Away. I LOVED that program, which ran from 1991 to 1993 on NBC, plus a TV movie on PBS.

“Forrest Bedford [a pre-Law and Order Sam Waterston] is a Southern lawyer in the late 1950s, generally content with his privileged life. But the winds of change are blowing, and he becomes increasingly involved with civil rights cases. Meanwhile, Lilly Harper [Regina Taylor], who cares for his children, is on her own journey of political and personal awareness.” The kids were played by Jeremy London as Nathan, Ashlee Levitch as Francie, and John Aaron Bennett as John Morgan

Here’s the All God’s Children episode of I’ll Fly Away.