Romancing the Stone

Today marks the 67th Birthday of Kathleen Turner, she’s not only one of my favorite all time actresses and a lady of immense talent but during my hey day back in the good old 80s she really did own the words SCREEN BEAUTY with sizzling turns in the likes of Body Heat, Crimes of Passion, The Man with Two Brains and of course Romancing the Stone and it’s sequel The Jewel of the Nile : but Kathleen is no one trick pony, she’s a superb theatre actress with two TONY nominations for her performances in Broadway roles as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and PLEASE people we need to talk more about Kathleen’s imense comedy work she’s incredibly FUNNY, check out The War of the Roses, Serial Mom, Prizzi’s Honor and Switching Channels and wasn’t it BLISS watching her reunite with Michael Douglas recently in the third and final series of the The Kominsky Method : Kathleen is someone who’s brought so much happiness to my movie loving bubble and yes I know she’s a tad older now but I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for the movie gods to sanction a third Jack & Joan outing and of course bringing Ralph back would be the icing… but until then… Happy Birthday Kathleen 🙂

Number 11 of My Top 31 Horror Movies : An unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters : the movie starts on a beach, a group of kids sat around a burning fire as an old fishing captain tells the story about a shipwrecked clipper boat named the Elizabeth Dane….. : after the success of his 1978 horror Halloween, and turning his back on filming a more lucrative sequel filmmaker John Carpenter turned to a story he had written after finding inspiration from a 50s movie The Trollenberg Terror and also by visiting the infamous and some say mystical Stonehenge : THE FOG is both riverting and utterly hair-raising and unlike many of it’s contemporaries it’s not violent or gory yet there’s something quite unsettling lurking deep down in the belly of this 80’s ghost story : from the chilling synth score that accompanies the whiteness of the fog drifting up the coast and into Antonio Bay sweeping across the horizon into churches, underneath doorways, shrouding everything that it comes into contact with, in a death cosuming way to it’s terrific cast that includes Jamie Lee’s drifter, Tom Atkins townie, the wonderful Hal Holbrook as Father Malone and the gorgeous Adrienne Barbeau as DJ Stevie Wayne who broadcasts a local radio show from the lighthouse on the coast (filmed at Point Reyes) : there’s many ingredients to a great movie but for me apart from it’s director the person responsible in how the film looks & feels to the viewer is the DP and they don’t come more impressive than Dean Cundey, I mean talk about LEGEND, from Halloween, The Thing, Escape from New York to Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future and Jurassic Park here’s a guy who has managed to capture moment on film like no other and with John Carpenter’s The Fog Cundey creates this ghostly, chilling atmosphere one of dread and unpleasantness that resonates from the very start of the movie to it’s finish : If you’ve never seen John Carpenter’s THE FOG then your missing a trick, it’s the perfect antidote for those dark & rainy nights when a good old fashioned horror is required, a scary movie that will engulf, unnerve and creep you down to your bones ★★★★★

With films in the Mid 80s through to the 90s such as Romancing the Stone, The Back to the Future Trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump and Contact filmmaker Robert Zemeckis was pretty untouchable, a master visionary with the Midas touch, a director who defined those times with exciting, bold film-making, great storytelling and colorful characters that we all love so well….

His latest ALLIED a WWII movie that’s more keeping with Casablanca rather than the violent brutal Tarantino pic Inglorious Basterds is an absolute treat – Zemeckis delivers on every detail, from the character’s costumes down to the general atmosphere of the times, whether it be the sand dune Nazi occupied Casablanca to the devastation of war torn London, as a filmmaker he keeps his sets simple yet pleasing on the eye making each scenario in the movie more believable – along for the ride are two accomplished actors Brad Pitt who plays intelligence officer Max Vatan and Marion Cotillard a French Resistance fighter named Marianne Beausejour, both finding themselves in Morocco paired up with one assignment to kill a German Ambassador who is stationed there and that’s where the fun and games really start – Brad Pitt is terrific, he absorbs his character that goes from a confident spy to slightly unhinged and carrying self doubt as the story slowly unfolds, the is the Pitt of old he’s in fine form, not only bringing the best out of himself but managing as he always seems to do by getting the best out of his co-star and in Allied Marion Cotillard is the perfect foil, she’s the glue that binds the movie together, there’s something exciting about a movie star on top of their game and this French actress is certainly that, she carries the elegance of an 1940’s movie siren, dazzling the screen with a comfortable ease, her acting in the film’s finale is both haunting and powerful and throughout the film she gives a performance that’s worth the ticket fee in itself – Overall: Robert Zemeckis Allied is an attention-driven, old school romantic thriller with plenty of twists and turns, some gorgeous photography and a dark finale that in my opinion was required and executed superbly – let’s hope it’s not too long before we see the brilliance that is Robert Zemeckis behind the camera once more….