Chevy Chase made his screen debut in 1978 in the huge box office hit FOUL PLAY. Chase plays Tony Carlson, a San Francisco detective drawn to beautiful blonde librarian Gloria Mundy, played in all her seventies glory by Goldie Hawn. Gloria is in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets drawn into an elaborate plot to assassinate the Pope at a command performance of "The Mikado". When Gloria complains that both a dwarf and an Albino are trying to kill her, she sounds crazy, but there IS quite a gallery of characters either chasing her or drawn into her attempts to escape. Dudley Moore offers a hilarious turn as a randy single crossing Gloria's path more than once, Burgess Meredith is plenty of fun as Gloria's neighbor and even Billy Barty joins the party as the aforementioned dwarf. Chase and Hawn are really charming together and while Chevy would grow more comfortable with the camera in later efforts, he was rarely this likeable, playing both the comic foil and a competent if clumsy lawman. Hawn is at her best, just as adept with a quiet line delivery as she is at physical comedy throughout. Colin Higgins owned the 70's screen as a writer (Harold and Maude, Silver Streak) and followed his directorial debut here with "Nine to Five". It's a lot of fun from beginning to end, with the last twenty minutes capping off the fun with one long chase/action sequence as Tony and Gloria try to get to the Opera in time to stop the assassination attempt. The Asian tourists in the back seat may no longer be PC, but they are still damn funny ("Kojak! Bang, Bang!). Chase and Hawn are great together, turning this Foul Play into action filled fun that's still fresh over 35 years later. A seventies classic and an A.

From the minds of Christopher Guest and his fantastic improvising troupe of regulars that brought you "Best In Show" and "A Mighty Wind" comes "For Your Consideration", a hilarious look at the film industry. While filming a small, independent film called "Home for Purim", the three main actors find themselves in the middle of Oscar buzz around their performances. As their heads swell and the production goes from unknown indie to much talked about hot property, this perceptive comedy skewers everyone involved, from the writers and director to entertainment shows. Guest is hilarious director Jay Berman, encouraging constant improvisation, much to the horror of the film's writers. Catherine O'Hara is excellent as our lead actress Marilyn Hack, whose last name describes her talent level. As Marilyn suddenly becomes a hot property according to the daily gossip and Variety, the changes in her are hilarious. Harry Shearer is Victor Alan Miller, better known for his hot dog commercials than his film roles. Eugene Levy is his agent Morley, the worst agent in town on a very hot streak. Mix in Parker Posey, Ed Begley Jr and the always reliable Fred Willard as the most passive aggressive entertainment reporter in TV history and get ready to laugh. Perhaps not as consistently funny as some of the ensembles other films, maybe because the film industry seems so ripe for the ribbing, FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION is a fun and touching 90 minutes that will make you smile; it gets a B.

In 1976, John Wayne finished his film career on a high with the thoughtful, well-written western THE SHOOTIST. It’s easy for some to dismiss Wayne as a cowboy action star, but he often showed he was a hell of an actor and he surrounded himself with a cavalcade of great actors for his last time out. Wayne stars at JB Books, a gunfighter newly out of jail on a trumped-up charge and facing the end of his life. That end has been clarified for Books, who opens the film visiting old friend Dr. Hostetler (Jimmy Stewart) for a second opinion. It’s confirmed that he has cancer and a few weeks to a couple months to live. The quiet scenes of Stewart and Wayne discussing the diagnosis feature two legends conveying as much in silence as the do with dialogue. Books decides to live out his final days in a quiet fashion, grabbing a room at the boarding house of widow Bond Rogers, well played by Lauren Bacall. Bond’s son Gillom is played by Ron Howard in a surprising performance a long way from Opie. It’s a strictly dramatic role for Howard and he’s very good, in awe of the legendary gunfighter while anxious to prove himself. Richard Boone (Big Jake) is Sweeney, the arrogant land baron that framed Books, Hugh O’Brian is terrific as a younger gunfighter/card shark anxious to take down JB for the sheer fame of it and Harry Morgan is hilarious as Marshall Thibido, the lawman in town who can’t wait until somebody shoots Books so he can make the most of the event. John Carradine is perfectly cast as the town undertaker, a role he was born to play. Knowing it was his last film, Wayne handpicked Bacall, Stewart, Boone and Carradine for the cast. Director Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, Escape from Alcatraz, The Beguiled) is a sure hand, creating a modern, darker take on a classic Western that foreshadows Eastwood’s “Unforgiven”, which would arrive in theatres almost twenty years later. At the time of filming, Wayne had lost a lung to cancer but was in remission, surely facts that informed his strong performance. The film has plenty to say about a man looking for peace after a violent life, but it’s clear neither Books nor Wayne have lost any of their mojo during the film’s suspenseful climax. Siegel stages a classic western showdown as explosive as any film in Wayne’s filmography. At the time of its release, the film performed poorly at the box office, but in the decades since, it sits as one of the best final films of any major star. As Henry Fonda did with “On Golden Pond” five years later, Wayne found a near perfect vehicle to say goodbye. The final moments are especially poignant knowing this was Wayne’s farewell film. Deliberately paced and a tale well told, THE SHOOTIST is a great final push through the swinging saloon doors for The Duke, earning an A.

I think I probably sat down to watch 47 METERS DOWN because who doesn't like a good shark movie to wrap up a summer? and Mandy Moore is so good on "This Is Us". I couldn't resist. Well, Mandy is pretty good here too with what she's given to do, which is always predictable, but well played. She is Lisa, whose marriage is in trouble and she's anxious to prove to her newly estranged spouse that she's not boring. So of course the first thing that comes to mind is diving in a shark cage on a rickety looking boat in Mexico. Sure, that makes sense! Her sister Kate is along for the dive and is played by Claire Holt, who apparently stars in some TV shows that I'm way too old to care about. Anyway, faster than you can say "Hey isn't that Matthew Modine as the ship captain!?" the cage chain breaks and our divers are trapped with limited air 47 meters down on the bottom of the sea. There are no real surprises here. The photography is good, there are a couple decent jump scares and virtually nothing that will strike you as overly inventive. It's shark movie 101. The CGI sharks look so damn good, you just wish they had a better movie to swim through! Meh. 47 METERS never quite floats, we'll give it a C.

Spanning 50 years, 1991's FOR THE BOYS was one of the most ambitious films of Bette Midler's career. One of the first female producers at the time and wrestling a huge early nineties $40 million budget, Midler won a Golden Globe and was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role, but was devastated when the film flopped in theatres. Midler stars as 40's lounge singer Dixie Leonard. She gains stardom when she's handpicked to join superstar wartime entertainer Eddie Sparks on his US tour. Sparks (think Bob Hope in the guise of James Caan) is a callous, egotistical nightmare off the stage, but after a very rough start, he and Dixie bond. The film follows them across numerous wars, marriages and endless personal battles. While not a musical, it also gives Midler numerous chances to perform on stage and those are the moments where the film hits its stride. Tamara and I saw Bette Midler live in the 90's and were struck by how hilarious she was, with her show balancing to half comedy and half singing. Raucous, dirty and funny, Midler owned the stage. She does the same here in those moments, but the rest of the movie pales in comparison. Caan is okay, but never very likable in the role. George Segal (A Touch of Class) fares much better as Dixie's uncle and comedy writer for Sparks. Writer Marshall Brickman (Annie Hall, Manhattan) delivers some great one liners, but the framing device that he uses is clunky, with a 90 year old Dixie getting ready to go to an Award show and telling her and Eddie's life story to a young man who has arrived to pick her up. The old age makeup is pretty convincing too, but Midler and Caan look about 105, not 90 when they finally meet up in the film's final moments. Caan has said in many interviews since that working with Midler was "a complete nightmare". In reality, he feels odd in the role and you wonder what the film would have felt like with song and dance man George Segal in the role of Eddie. Caan's okay, but no one will every accuse him of being a singer. Ambitious but flawed, FOR THE BOYS shines whenever Midler's on screen and not in that old lady make up. Her first stage appearance in London during Eddie's show for the troops is terrific. Alas, the movie that surrounds it only gets a C.

Unexpectedly well done and filled with great action and a hell of a story line, THE FOREIGNER is pure, highly polished thriller fun. Jackie Chan is unexpectedly strong in a dramatic role as Quan, a British citizen and single father, nervous about his only daughter getting ready for a big dance. He's the definition of a helicopter Dad as he drops her off at a London dress shop. When a terrorist bomb explodes moments later and his daughter dies, Quan's sole focus becomes finding the men that killed her. Pierce Brosnan is terrific as Liam Hennessey, an Irish government official who's worked the past several decades to maintain the peace in the UK. When Hennessey's distant past seems to tie to people involved in the bombing. Quan begins a clever and quickly escalating cat & mouse game of retaliation, adding more and more pressure on Hennessey to reveal the people's identities that he worked with many years before. Director Martin Campbell is a OO7 favorite, having helmed both "Goldeneye" and "Casino Royale", along with "The Legend of Zorro". He knows action and proves it here, ramping up the attacks and the drama as Quan's and Hennessey's pasts emerge, proving that they are both formidable men committed to their cause. Charlie Murphy is very good as a female terrorist hell bent on her cause, Orla Brady (Fringe) is surprising as Brosnan's wife and newcomer Rory Fleck Byrne is very good as Hennessey's special forces nephew, a last resort option brought in to track Quan. Chan is not a young man, but he still performs all his own stunts and fight scenes and they are incredible. As he mops the floor with many men decades younger, the bad guys are as stunned as I was. Chan can still kick some serious movie hero ass and this is the first movie that I've seen him perform in a purely dramatic role. He's surprisingly good. With a solid story and political chess game behind all the action, THE FOREIGNER is a world class thriller that surprised me in its depth of character, its strong supporting cast and story. If you love action movies, get THE FOREIGNER today. It gets an unexpected B+.

Watching Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 classic FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT last week, its startling to realize that this film hit theatres nearly 80 years ago! We meet NYC reporter Johnny Jones (the dashing Joel McCrea) in a rut in Manhattan, turning in his latest predictable story. He's not controversial, a little bored and phoning it in. His editor assigns him to travel to Europe to cover a Peace Conference, just as World War II is about to breakout. It's a brilliant assignment, as Jones brings no political agenda to his viewpoint. Jones is barely off the plane before he witnesses the assassination of Van Meer, one of the two people instrumental to an impending peace treaty. Hitchcock stages the murder in his own classic style, with a mob of umbrellas parting way for the murderer and Jones in pursuit, shot from above in a driving rainstorm. It's pure Hitch. Jones meets Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall) and his outspoken daughter Carol (Laraine Day) and is pulled into the politics and fractured sides of a Europe teetering on Hitler's domination. Jones dives into intrigue, discovering a secret plot and learning that the real Van Meer may actually be alive, with secrets in his head to the peace treaty. Scott FFoliott is Jones ally (right?) and perfectly played by George Sanders (Rebecca, All About Eve) and Albert Bassermann brings unexpected power to his role as Van Meer. Hitchcock stages some of his all-time best suspense and action scenes, including a mid-air attack on a passenger plane with all our key players involved, a plunge into the ocean and battle to escape the sinking airliner. A long sequence in a desolate windmill loaded with bad guys builds suspense for nearly a half hour. The film has plenty of laughs too, especially in a Blake Edwards worthy scene at a hotel in which hit men are trying to kill Jones. He ends up climbing around the outside of the building in his bathrobe and dropping in on Carol's room, devising a hilarious plan to get back into his room that will involve half the hotel staff. McCrea, Day and Sanders are pure class, with an easy, enjoyable rapport. Hitchcock delivers a powerful message too, mixing patriotism into a plea for America to get involved in the European conflict. When the film was released in 1940, all of Europe was in the middle of Hitler's takeover and the US remained on the sidelines. By the film's final five minutes, it must have been hard for American audiences to resist the plea for our help. Of course, Pearl Harbor the year after the film landed would pull America into the conflict. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is a Hitchcock classic, loaded with suspense, humor and action. 80 years on, it remains one of his best films and gets an A.

It's getting pretty late in the year, and its safe to say that the best time at the movies I've had in 2019 is FORD V FERRARI. Brilliantly and entertainingly told, you dont need to be a fan of racing, fast cars or history to enjoy this incredible true story. Matt Damon is great as Carroll Shelby, an American car designer with a niche clientele and a revered past as the only American driver to win Le Mans. When Henry Ford II (playwright/actor Terry Letts in a Best Supporting Actor worthy performance) gets fed up with his non-competitive race team and needs something bold to wipe out the disastrous taste of recent failed car launches, he hires Shelby to create a quintessential US race car. Shelby goes directly to the best driver/mechanic/designer he knows, Ken Miles. Miles is the ultimate non-conformist, non-corporate player, driven by his own compass and brash in his opinions. Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, Vice) is fantastic as Miles. He recreates Miles and his opinionated, driven personality in such detail that you feel like you know the man and his family by the end of the fast moving, 152 minute film. Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead, Baby Driver) serves up a complicated and genial Lee Iacocca, Catriona Balfe (Outlander) is Bale's match as his wife Mollie and Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) is amazing as Miles son, Peter. He brings such complexity to his performance as a son with unyielding admiration for his father that he reminded me of Bale's own debut as a child actor in Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" back in 1987. The scenes of Miles with his son are some of the best in the film. But the ones that you'll remember most are the racing scenes. They're fantastic. I have no idea how many were staged, how many are CGI, but they are seamless and thrilling. I don't remember the last time I found myself leaning forward in my seat with tension, so drawn into the excitement that I was ready to jump out of my seat. Maybe "Creed" in the final fight scene? But FORD V FERRARI stages three or four of these scenes, so well edited and shot that you're practically driving. All the action doesn't take place on the track. Watching Shelby and Miles navigate the treacherous roads of corporate investment, attempted buyouts and business politics is almost as thrilling as the high speed curves on the track. Bale should get a Best Actor nomination as Miles, as should Damon for doing once again what he does so well. They are both flawless. Josh Lucas (Yellowstone) is the Ford executive we'll ALL leave hating and Remo Girone (Live By Night) oozes authenticity as Enzo Ferrari. Director James Mangold (Logan, Walk The Line) delivers on every front, it's maybe his best film and I think 'Walk the Line" is one of the best bio pics of the last 20 years. Jez & John Henry Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow, Spectre) deliver a great screenplay that mines a LOT of laughter out of these characters as well. Shelby's texas wit and Miles dry English humor spar perfectly to create many laugh out loud moments. The sixties production design and sound effects team are likely also up for Oscar nominations, the movie looks AND sounds great. FORD V FERRARI is one of my favorite films of the year and hands down, the most pure fun I've had in a theatre all year. See this on the biggest screen with the best sound you can find. It's a completely satisfying thrill ride that gets an A+.

FORCE MAJEURE tells the story of a family of four on a week-long skiing vacation at a beautiful mountaintop resort. Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) is a workaholic Dad, suffering separation anxiety from his phone as the week begins. His wife Ebba (Lisa Kongsli) makes several telling comments to others as their vacation begins that subtly let Tomas know she is very anxious for some family time. Tomas and Ebba, their son and daughter and a patio full of tourists are enjoying an idyllic lunch in a beautiful setting when an avalanche begins. What starts as a spectacular event becomes terrifying as it grows and grows and approaches the patio. As Ebba huddles her children around her to protect them, Tomas runs inside to save his own life, abandoning his family to fend for himself. When the snow fog clears and everyone is all right, the repercussions of this moment of truth echo for the rest of the week. The film is an interesting exploration of our true inner nature. Are we heroes? Are we truly just self preservationists at that moment? In a traditional relationship, does the husband fail if he shows a momentary weakness in his expected role as protector? Can he recover from that lapse? The characters, their relatives and friends explore many questions about who we really are at a primal level and the difficulties of facing who you are versus the person you hope or claim to be. The actors are all very good and while its billed as a smart comedy, I found very few laughs in it. That's not a bad thing as the drama certainly was interesting enough to carry me, but I walked away thinking that folks in Sweden must have a much darker image of comedy than we do in America. FORCE MAJEURE translates to "superior force" or "chance occurrence" both of which are in play in the life of the family. An interesting take on male/female, single/married, hero/observer roles in life, we'll give FORCE a thoughtful B. IN SWEDISH with English subtitles.

For those of us born in the sixties, the Apollo moon missions were a HUGE event, with every American glued to their TVs for every stage of the flight. After viewing all six MILLION feet of film shot by Nasa during all the Apollo missions, documentarian Al Reinert assembled the best moments into an amazing 90 minute film, FOR ALL MANKIND. Beginning with crystal clear news footage of JFK's 1962 speech saying that Americans would land on the moon in the decade ahead, the film captures the astronaut's prep, launch, flight to the moon, landing and return. Looking back, it's AMAZING that this was accomplished with the computers and technology of the time. The only voices that you hear in the entire film are the astronauts and Mission Control members themselves during the events and some narration of what they were feeling at the time. Much of the film speaks for itself, with the restored footage accompanied by a quietly haunting music score by Brian Eno. This really brings back great memories of my entire school in the auditorium huddled around TVs and waiting for the splashdown, those first steps on the moon and the courage of the men who made the journey. It's a powerful piece of our history and captures a time when the entire world could be enraptured by our accomplishments. For All Mankind is a terrific documentary and launches with an A.

The second of Clint Eastwood's legendary Spaghetti Westerns, 1965's FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE is an action packed traditional western, shot like an art film by director Sergio Leone. The opening scene is a dusty version of David Lean's opening desert shot in "Lawrence of Arabia" that would be cleverly sent up by Quentin Tarantino decades later in "The Hateful Eight". A lone man rides toward camera, tiny at first, then growing into frame for more than a minute before Leone springs action on you. Then he wraps you in Ennio Morricone's classic, crazy score and gallops into two plus hours of fun. Clint Eastwood is the Man With No Name again, but thanks to a legal dispute between Leone and the producers of "A Fistful of Dollars" he's not the same character (wink wink) this time he's Monco, a lethal bounty hunter of few words but lots of squints. He meets up with the terrific Lee Van Cleef as Col. Douglas Mortimer, the best shot in the army and now a competitive bounty hunter. The man really knows how to get off a train in style. They pair up to go after El Indio, very well played by Gian Maria Volonte, whose got screen presence to spare as the leader of a lethal gang of bank robbers. The plot is clever, with crosses and double crosses, infiltrations of gangs, enough flying bullets and mano a mano confrontations to satisfy any action fan. The scene with Eastwood and Van Cleef squaring off at night shooting the hats off each other's heads is a classic and perfectly shot in the middle of the street by Leone. NO ONE does standoffs between the good guys and the bad guys like Leone & Morricone. They go on forever and you dont want them to end. Watching this film for the first time in many years, it was amazing to see where filmmakers like Lawrence Kasdan gained inspiration for "Silverado" and Costner for his showdowns in "Wyatt Earp" an underrated modern western. Eastwood is hilarious and a complete bad ass and Van Cleef matches him from the first scene to the last. The bank robbery sequence probably stands as the best of its kind in the 60's, alongside "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid". Fast & fun, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE delivers timeless gold and gets an A-. Eastwood, Leone and Van Cleef followed it up a year later with "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".

As a follow up to his low budget 1978 box office smash "Halloween", Writer/Director John Carpenter and his co-writer Debra Hill unleashed THE FOG in 1980. Kicking off with a terrific beach side ghost story from the legendary John Houseman, our story focuses on the residents of Antonio Bay, who are about to face the 100 year anniversary of some very nasty spirits. Coming back for their revenge against the relatives of the townsfolk who wronged them in 1880, our waterlogged specters wield some very nasty meat hooks and a very bad attitude. Adrienne Barbeau (Carnivale) stars as a local graveyard shift disc jockey that turns her jazz station into the Emergency Broadcast System for our haunt filled weather system. Jamie Lee Curtis is back as a hitchhiker in the wrong town on the wrong night and her real-life Mom Janet Leigh (Psycho) stars as a local politician in their only film together. John Carpenter knows how to create a lot of fun tension and scares with a low budget and some good actors and Hal Holbrook helps him out as a nervous priest with some guilty fore-bearers. Look for plenty of great jump scares as victims tumble out of hidden places and the slow but determined leper ghosts emerge out of the swirling mist. When test audiences didnt think it was scary enough, Carpenter shot an additional scene with the ghosts killing the crew of a fishing trawler out in the bay. It IS the scariest scene in the film and the gross out moment that includes it still makes me wince after all these years. Carpenter's music is terrific, the last forty minutes builds plenty of fun suspense and THE FOG lingers as an early 80's horror classic. Remade 25 years later with the same name but decidedly lesser results. Stick with the original! It gets a bloody great B+.