Two Geeks and a GIT Classic Movie Reviews

The holiday shopping season has begun, so it's only fitting that we turn to War films for this pairing. Our first film is a true classic, and an absolutely favorite of one of the trio, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" from 1957! Directed by David Lean and starring Sir Alec Guinness (back before he was a "Sir"), William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Geoffrey Horne, and Andre Morell, the film follows a group of British POWs who have been sent to a work camp during World War II. The group is led by the upright Colonel Nicholson (Guinness) who demands of the camp's leader, Colonel Saito (Hayakawa) a strict observation of the Geneva Convention. Thus begins a war of wills between the two men. Meanwhile, American POW Shears (Holden) is thought dead after an escape attempt, but actually manages to get back to a British colony, and is persuaded to join a commando team bent on bringing down the bridge Nicholson and his men are building for Saito. A fantastic film, winning seven Academy Awards, and featuring a tune that will forever be stuck in your head, especially after you find out what the words to it were!

The second film in our end-of-year holiday films is a modern classic, starring two of the funniest comedians ever to grace a screen, paired with one of the most beautiful women in film history! Directed by Donald Petrie, this is the story of John Gustafson (Jack Lemmon), a widower with IRS woes, who lives next to his best frenemy in the world, Max Goldman (Walter Matthau) in a small town in Minnesota. Both men have known each other for fifty years, and have a comfortable, if antagonistic, relationship. Johns daughter, Melanie (Daryl Hannah) is having marriage problems, while Max's son Jacob (Kevin Pollak) is running for Mayor. Their friend Chuck (Ossie Davis) runs the local bait shop where John and Max pick up their ice-fishing supplies every day. And John delivers beer to his father, "Grandpa Gustafson" (Burgess Meredith at his funniest) at his ice shanty every day. It's a comfortable, if predictable life, until Ariel Truax (Ann-Margret) moves in across the street from John and Max, and throws both of their lives into a competitive chaos. Funny, sad, moving, and hopeful, this film delivers a solid hour and forty-three minutes of entertainment. And the trio discuss what two war films they're marching out for the next pairing!

Our pairing of end-of-year holiday films begins with a film about getting home for Thanksgiving. Directed by legendary film-maker John Hughes, this movie tells the story of marketing executive Neal Page (Steve Martin), who is just trying to get from New York to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving with his family when a winter storm throws a wrench in his plans. Add to that the excruciatingly-annoying interference by one Del Griffith (John Candy), a shower curtain ring salesman, and that fact that their paths seem inextricably crossed over the next 48 hours, and you have a recipe for a comically-uncomfortable buddy travel picture. With cameos from Michael McKean, Kevin Bacon, Dylan Baker, and Edie McClurg, this film is a one hour and 33 minute explanation of just how wrong things can go when you simply try to catch a flight home!

Finishing up our look at animation aimed at adults, we turn to proof that something can be moved from television (well, cable television) to the big screen and the result is something truly unique and well worth watching! From the demented minds of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 1999's "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" shows exactly what the duo would turn in every week were it not for the programming limits of basic cable. And to top it all off, it's a musical, with songs in the style of so many classic movie and stage musicals, it even had a song nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, "Blame Canada!" This is a great middle-finger to the MPAA, done with all the snark and style those familiar with "South Park" have come to expect, and then some! Plus, the trio reveal which two "Thanksgiving-adjacent" films make up their next pairing!

We're turning to the realm of animated films aimed at adults for this pairing, and starting with the poster-child for such offerings. With nearly as many directors and writers as cast members, 1981's classic "Heavy Metal" turns in a sci-fi/fantasy/horror anthology with something for everyone! The film has voice-work from some notable actors including John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, John Vernon, and Harold Ramis. The variety and complexity of each segment's animation (there are eight!) provide for an amazing visual palette, but it's musically that this film really shines! With a score by Elmer Bernstein and a soundtrack featuring the likes of Sammy Hagar, Devo, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Don Felder, Nazareth, Donald Fagan, Journey, Grand Funk Railroad, Cheap Trick, Stevie Nicks, Black Sabbath, and more, the film completely lives up to its name in both content and tone!

Part two of Halloween pairing is the rare television-to-film adaptation that does the original material justice! We're talking, of course, about the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed masterpiece that is 1991's "The Addams Family!" Starring Angelica Houston as Morticia, Raul Julia as Gomez, Carel Struycken as Lurch, Judith Malina as Granny, Jimmy Workman as Pugsley, Christopher Hart as Thing, and Christina Ricci in her break-out role as Wednesday, the film follows Gomez's search for his long-missing brother Fester (Christopher Lloyd), and the trio of hapless normals who are part of their orbit, two of whom are trying to scam Gomez out of his riches! This film is the perfect combination of romance, goth, and humor, and creates a world we'd all like to live in, especially if we could be neighbors with the Addams... as long as we were at least two houses away that is. And the trio reveal which two quality representatives of adult animation they're choosing for the next pairing!

Happy Halloween! For this year's Halloween pairing, we're taking a look at the lighter side of the holiday, and reviewing two classic horror comedies. The first is THE classic horror comedy, and the film that signaled the end of the first horror cycle in American film, 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," directed by Charles Barton! Viewed primarily as a stand-alone film (and not a continuation of Universal's horror series'), this film finds Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Gray (Lou Costello) working as baggage claim agents at the local station. They receive a strange call from someone asking them not to deliver two packages, but then the actual owner turns up and demands they do so. As it turns out, the two large crates contain a coffin holding Count Dracula (Bela Legosi, in only his 2nd turn as the famous vampire) and the other holds the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange). And it turns out that the person who called to warn them was none other than Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), the Wolf-Man! Add in a couple beautiful women and you have a romp that's strangely still quite scary in its third act, and a monster-mash to beat all others!

From a castle somewhere in Ohio to the Paris of the mid-1930s we go for the second film in our "tranvestite musicals" pairing, courtesy of master director Blake Edwards! This time, it's a starving former opera singer, Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) who, thanks to a chance meeting with cabaret performer Carole 'Toddy' Todd (Robert Preston), winds up as a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be woman, as they embark on a musical con to become rich and famous, and Victoria becomes Count Victor Grazinsky, Polish aristocrat, and Europe's greatest female impersonator! And it would have worked, were it not for the arrival of King Marchand (James Garner), his moll/girlfriend Norma Cassidy (Lesley Ann Warren) and his bodyguard 'Squash' Bernstein (Alex Karras) to witness Victor's debut. After King is smitten with Victoria, he refuses to admit that "he" is really not a "she" and embarkes on a mission to get the girl (after he proves she IS a girl). It's am amazing romp and a true tour de force for both Andrews and Preston! And then, the trio reveal why they're going with horror comedies for this Halloween's pairing, and which two films made the list!

This week we review a cult film. Okay, we review THE cult film. Our pairing is "transvestite musicals" and we're starting with the grand marshal of them all, the theatrical play-turned-movie-turned-Broadway smash, the midnight movie to end all midnight movies! That's right, it's time to get your toast and your Scott toilet paper ready, we're looking at 1975's flop-turned-cult-classic, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show!" And, although it's now meant to be accompanied by a veritable ton of audience participation, the trio are looking at it solely as a stand-alone film! Created by Richard O'Brien (who also plays "Riff Raff" in the film), and directed by Jim Sharman, the film stars Tim Curry (in his first cinematic role) as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a mad scientist (and also a lyrically-proclaimed transvestite) who, with his assistants Riff Raff and Magenta (Patricia Quinn), and groupie Columbia (Nell Campbell), is throwing a party to celebrate his Frankenstein-esque animation of his "monster," a hunk known only as Rocky (Peter Hinwood). But the surprise appearance of conservative couple Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and his fiance Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), and later Brad's mentor Dr. Everett V. Scott (Jonathan Adams) throw a wrench in his plans, which are further interrupted by the narrator and criminologist (Charles Gray) and the doctor's previous attempt, known only as Eddie (Meatloaf). This is a one-of-a-kind experience, and the fact that it's STILL being show in midnight theatres around the world is a testament to its creativity and the lasting power of its ultimate message!

Part two of our pairing of films about satanic children covers birth through age five in 1976's horror classic "The Omen!" Written by David Seltzer and directed by the late, great Richard Donner, this is the story of newly-minted American Ambassador to England Robert Thorn (the incredible Gregory Peck) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick). The film begins with Katherine's newly-born baby dying and a priest convincing Robert to accept another child, born at the same time, in its place. He accepts, keeps the truth from his wife, and they name the child Damien (Harvey Stephens). At first, all is idyllic but, as the child grows, strange things begin to happen. At Damien's birthday party, his nanny commits suicide in a very vivid and public way after the appearance of a demonic hound. This is followed by the appearance of Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw),a new nanny neither parent hired, the arrival of Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton of "Dr. Who" fame), a fanatical priest who tries to warn Robert about the truth of his son, and a phone call from photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) who has photographic evidence of something being not-quite-right. After meeting with monastic priest Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern), Robert realizes he must take action. But will he be able to? Will it work? And finally, the geeks and g.i.t. reveal which two totally fabulous musicals make up their next pairing!