Warren-Watched-A-Movie

The Wild Bunch is not necessarily my cup of tea, but it was entertaining. This is a Revisionist Western and the characters in those are all terrible people and the goal is to subvert the tropes of the traditional Western. I prefer my Westerns to be more like cinematic comfort food. Maybe subverting tropes is why Westerns are not as popular as they once were. People like and find comfort in tropes. Subvert them too often and they no longer wish to view that genre. Anyway...

I have seen some Sam Peckinpah work such as the original Straw Dogs and The Getaway and this follows the character mold of those films. There are no decent people here really. They are all varying shades of terrible.

The acting is fine but then again these were all fine actors. In the gang of old timers we have William Holden as Pike Bishop who leads the aging gang. Ernest Borgnine is his righthand man Dutch Engstrom. Brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch are played by Warren Oates and Ben Johnson respectively. Angel is played by Jaime Sánchez. Old timer Freddie Sykes is played by Edmond O'Brien.

Robert Ryan is Deke Thornton who was at one point Pike's partner before Deke got arrested. Now, to stay out of jail, Deke has agreed to track his old gang for the railroad and bring them to justice. Deke probably would rather be with his old gang as the posse he currently has is clearly not of the caliber of his previous partners.

There is a lot of double-dealing and backstabbing in The Wild Bunch. I understand they are all terrible people but there is a certain level of backstabbing and double-dealing that makes functioning as a criminal highly improbable and that occurs often in the story. There is no way an outlaw from any era could be successful in that environment.

The action scenes are well helmed and over the top with tons of blood squibs. There must have been 15 to 20 gallons of fake blood used every time bullets started to fly. The final fight, one of the best in film, is insane and spattered with gratuitous amounts of red.

Just about everybody in this film dies by the end. Only two characters make it all the way to the final moments. The film certainly has its moments. I do not think I could have watched until the end if it did not have some good acting and some good moments in the story.

One of the themes in this film is change. Specifically the ending of one way of life and the beginning of another. Pike early on notes that they need to think beyond their guns because they are getting too old and their world is all but ended.

Another theme is betrayal. In the opening robbery they left T. C. (L. Q. Jones) behind as they made their escape, and it haunts them to one extent or another for the rest of the film. There are points where it seems like they are trying to make amends for that betrayal.

The Wild Bunch is certainly not my favorite film ever. If you are into Revisionist Westerns, then this is a must see but if you like the older style of Western then you can probably skip this one.

This is the first Star Trek spinoff series and was created as a response to the original series proving popular in syndication. I have heard it said at one point the original series was on some channel somewhere on the planet every hour of the day. Speaking from my local TV experience I could believe that. It was not impossible to have a Trek block at some point in the day just by changing the channel.

Star Trek: The Animated Series (originally airing as Star Trek and as The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek) however did not enjoy that level broadcast time. It was known but the first time I recall actually seeing this was when it was part of a Saturday morning animation block on Sci Fi (now Syfy). Those were the days on that channel.

You could call this show the fourth season of the original Star Trek. The episodes are extremely stripped down versions of what you would get from the original series. The pace is rapid and lacks some of the extra one might get from an hour-long episode that would slow things down. Not that I am calling that a bad thing here. The episodes are much deeper than what you might find on Saturday morning cartoons of the time despite their condensed structure. For example "The Counter-Clock Incident" is about a person not being useless in old age.

But it also has many of the hallmarks that made, in my opinion, the action-oriented cartoons from that time until the late 80s or so much better than what they pinch out today. The action is fast. The stories are to the point. The dialogue wastes nothing. And at no point were you talked down to as a viewer.

The animation was done by Filmation who used the cheaper style of animation of Saturday morning of the time. They were behind such shows as Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and its successive iterations, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon, Blackstar, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and its spinoff She-Ra: Princess of Power, and Bravestarr (their last production) just to name a smidgen of what they created. If you grew up in a certain era and watched Saturday morning cartoons with a bowl of high sugar cereal, then you saw something they did. This show was in good hands from the start.

The series often refers to original series episodes in some manner. Admittedly there was much less canonical Trek back then, but the show sparingly connected with its predecessor which is a wise move for any spinoff. You cannot rely too heavily on what came before but rather need to stand on your own two feet. David Gerrold wrote "More Tribbles, More Troubles" as a sequel to his original series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles." "Yesteryear" is an episode which features The Guardian of Forever from the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever." Harry Mudd returns and engages in another scheme in "Mudd's Passion."

The majority of the original cast returns to voice their respective TOS characters. Walter Koenig is the only series actor that did not return but technically he was not original cast having joined the series in Season Two. He did write "The Infinite Vulcan" which referenced the Eugenics War. Still it would have been nice to see him return as Chekov just once.

The show itself was considered canonical until Gene Roddenberry decided it was not though over the years bits and pieces of material that were used in the show have made their way into Star Trek canon again. A holodeck was first used in the show along with the "T" standing for "Tiberius" in Captain Kirk's name. Robert April was also named as the first captain of the USS Enterprise here and that was a bit of information used in Star Trek: Discovery. There are others but those are the ones that jump out.

I've heard it been said that Star Trek: Lower Decks is a way to introduce children to Star Trek. If you're going to introduce someone to something like Star Trek through animation, make it like Star Trek. Make it thoughtful. Make it like this. This is not silly or goofy (at least in the context of the day) but something more serious.

Star Trek: The Animated Series was a fun and interesting take on the Star Trek concept of the time. It perfectly re-captured the spirit and essence of the original series in Saturday morning form. If you have a chance to watch this, you should.

The Hunt for Red October is one of the better Cold War thrillers out there. Calling it a classic is not out of bounds. One of the great strengths here is that the story doesn't fall into cliché or caricature and keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. And you are genuinely invested in the characters in the film. Each one gets an arc and their fate matters to the viewer. From the crew of the Red October to Jack Ryan, they all matter and are well defined in the film.

I'm pretty sure this was my first contact with Alec Baldwin. Maybe even the Baldwin clan to be honest and considering their number that is quite impressive. There are way too many of them out there. I had not seen Beetlejuice prior to this and would never have watched Knots Landing because, well, I have standards.

Baldwin plays Jack Ryan who is a CIA intelligence analyst, author, and Professor of Naval History at the United States Naval Academy. He is called in when the existence of a new type of sub in the form of the Red October is uncovered. The vessel and its revolutionary drive are seen as a significant military threat. On a side note, at the very beginning you'll notice that Ryan's wife is played by Gates McFadden who became famous for playing Dr. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Just a fun fact for me.

Sean Connery stars as Captain Marko Ramius who along with some of his handpicked senior staff plans on using the titular vessel to defect to the US. They all have their own reasons, but Ramius's executive officer Captain Vasily Borodin (Sam Neill) is probably the most touching. He simply wants an American wife and a truck and to be able to drive around wherever he pleases. His fate in the film is the one that hits the hardest.

Tim Curry is known for dare I say being a little hammy as well as scene chewing in his acting, but here he is surprisingly muted as ship's medical officer Dr. Petrov. This was an amazing performance on his part. I'm not dissing anything he has done before or since but this was genuine acting and not just being trademark Tim Curry.

In other cast members we have the great Scott Glenn as Commander Bart Mancuso who is the commanding officer of USS Dallas, the legendary James Earl Jones shows up as Vice Admiral James Greer who is the Deputy Director of the CIA, Richard Jordan is National Security Advisor Jeffrey Pelt, Stellan Skarsgård is Captain Tupolev, and Fred Thompson is Rear Admiral Joshua Painter. Not bad.

There are no bad or mediocre performances to be found. But more importantly it does not feel as if any one performer is trying to steal or hog the screen. They all have an equal presence while on camera and that includes the legendary James Earl Jones. The man can steal a scene with his voice alone but not here.

While there are scenes of action in this movie the story is very much based around the characters and not action spectacle. It's a thinking person's film. It is tense with the characters surviving using their minds rather than guns blazing. While an explosion does solve their problems, it is not a reflexive solution to each issue they face in the story.

There are differences between the book and film, but John McTiernan turned in a great version of the Tom Clancy novel. Speaking of John McTiernan what happened to him? He turned in some really great films and then his life just fell apart. He should have been a legendary director still working today. What a loss. He made Predator, Die Hard, and this for crying out loud and this! They are all amazing works. The man had skill.

And I can't skip talking about the legendary Basil Poledouris. The man was behind so many classic film scores. Both of the original Conan films, RoboCop, and he also worked on this. The man was a genius and shows what you can get when a good composer writes music that is performed by an orchestra and not crafted on a keyboard.

The Hunt for Red October is a classic thriller. It's well acted and well scripted with great direction. It is most definitely a must see!