Decades | three rows back

Decades Blogathon – We Have Our Line Up!

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Three Rows Back

Hello! Well it pleases both Tom and I greatly to announce the official line-up of the 2016 Decades Blogathon, and so quickly. Thank you for responding so quickly and we are both looking forward to jumping in here and reading what you all have to say about your chosen movies. Once again this year we have an impressively eclectic selection of titles, and that’s just the way we like it.

So here’s how things are going to play out. Once again, there will be one review posted each day either on this site or on Digital Shortbread, and whichever site it doesn’t go up on first, it will be re-blogged there on that day.

Posts are ordered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Which means our esteemed blogging machine Rob from Movie Rob kicks things off in style with his review of Top Gun (1986), will I will conclude things with my thoughts on Taxi Driver (1976). Tom, meanwhile, will be offering his top draw thoughts on Spike Lee’s Inside Man (2006).

We have decided that Monday, 16 May will be the first day of posting. Please have entries in latest by Friday the 13th to give us time to sort through the reviews and get them formatted and set-up for presentation.

Because the spots filled so quickly this year, we’re anticipating a few late requests. Though we won’t be able to expand the pool to more than 20, last year we had one or two people duck out of the race at the last second, so if you find yourself on the outside looking in, you might just have a chance to get in if you let us know soon. If someone does drop out, those spots will be yours (again, on a first-come, first-serve basis). Thanks for your interest everyone and we look forward to getting this thing rolling on the 16th.

Here are the entries in order of planned publication:

Movie Rob — Top Gun (1986)
Keith & the Movies — Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
It Rains… You Get Wet — The Outlaw Josey Whales (1976)
Cindy Bruchman — Notorious (1946)
Ramblings Of A Cinephile — The Battle of Algiers (1966)
The Last Picture Blog — Andrei Rublev (1966)
Fast Film Reviews — The Ten Commandments (1956)
Flick Chicks — The Fountain (2006)
Drew’s Movie Reviews — Grandma’s Boy (2006)
Sporadic Chronicles Of A Beginner Blogger — Scream (1996)
Defiant Success — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
The Cinematic Frontier — Labyrinth (1976)
Movie Man Jackson — She’s Gotta Have It (1986)
Nola Film Vibes — Stand By Me (1986)
Flixchatter — Casino Royale (2006)
Carly Hearts Movies — Trainspotting (1996)
Epileptic Moondancer — The Tenant (1976)
Marked Movies — A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Digital Shortbread — Inside Man (2006)
Three Rows Back — Taxi Driver (1976)

Casting Call: Bloggers Wanted For The Decades Blogathon (2016)

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Three Rows Back

Greetings everyone! Guess what time of year it is? That’s right! Christmas 2.0! Or, better known as the time of year where Tom and I start inviting our esteemed bloggers from around the world to participate once again in the Decades Blogathon, a 10(ish) day event in which we take a look at films from different decades.

Last year was the inaugural event and it went off without a hitch and was a lot of fun. So much so, we just had to do it again. For those who sent their wonderful entries last year, you already know the drill. But to get newcomers on board, it’s going to go a little something like this:

Pick a film from any decade with the year ending in ‘6’ (given that it’s now 2016), and there’s no restrictions here – We’re not snobs… not really, anyway; we’ll gladly accept anything from 1906 all the way up to releases that have come out so far this year). Just remember the year must end in a ‘6.’
The postings will go up on a first-come, first-serve basis – We’ll put up the entries that come in first and there will be one posted every day on this site and Digital Shortbread, with each entry having a corresponding re-blog on the other site.
The Decades Blogathon will be capped this year at 20 posts – As much as we would love to take 50 or 100 entries, that’d be a daunting task to take on so we are going to limit the entries to 20. We kindly ask participants to only send one piece in so we can maximise the number of contributors (Tom and I will also be included in that count. Our reviews will come at the end.)
If you want to become involved, send an email to either myself (threerowsback@gmail.com) or Mark (tomlittle2011@gmail.com) with your suggestion – If no one else has already claimed that movie we’ll give you the green light and you can fire those entries right back to those same email addresses (or you can send them normally, that’d be preferable).
Like last year, we’re aiming for mid-May to start posting entries – Please have your reviews/posts in by Thursday 12 May and no later than Friday 13th. That gives us time to go over the posts and construct the posting schedule. If you need any extra time to enter, just send either Tom or myself an email and we’ll get you in any way we can!

ONE LAST THING: As to the availability of the titles, I will be talkin’ to you about Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver, while Tom will be covering the 2006 Spike Lee joint Inside Man. Those are the only titles that are already claimed. Be sure to let us know if you’d like to talk about something and we’ll get this thing rolling! Thanks everyone!

Decades Blogathon – Back To The Future (1985)

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Three Rows Back

So here we are; the final day of what has been being a fantastic Decades Blogathon. Thank you to everyone who took the time to help make this such a great event, but thanks most of all to the one and only Tom from Digital Shortbread. Tom has been the perfect blogathon compatriot and I hope to be able to run another one with him again soon. The Decades Blogathon focuses on movies that were released in the fifth year of the decade and this one is written by yours truly. Thanks again and see you next time!

For a film in which time plays such a central theme, there’s something magically timeless to Robert Zemeckis’ almost perfect summer blockbuster.

Great movies have the power to transcend the movie theatres in which they were projected and instead become a cultural anchor that can help to define not only a time and place but, in the most influential cases, also do their bit to shape our lives.

Back To The Future was one such cinematic touchstone for me. I vividly recall exactly when and where I was when I first watched it on the big screen as an impressionable 10-year-old and remember exiting the cinema thinking it was the best film I had ever seen.

That it remains an all-time classic and still on my shortlist of favourite movies is a testament to the immortality of a film whose sequel is partly set only a few months from now (a scary thought I know).

Back To The Future offers something new with each viewing; whether it be the fact Twin Pines Mall where Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) meets Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) at the start of the film changes to Lone Pine Mall as a result of Marty having run over one of Old Man Peabody’s pines back when he first finds himself back in 1955; or on this latest occasion noticing the figure of Harold Lloyd hanging off the minute hand of one of the many clocks in Doc’s lab (a reference to Lloyd’s 1923 movie Safety Last!) in the opening credits – a stunt mirrored by Lloyd (Christopher) during the final nail-biting Clock Tower set-piece.

Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale envisioned the idea of ‘what would it be like to meet your parents at the same age youare?’, from which they penned a screenplay that would’ve given Freud plenty to chew on.

Skateboarding teen Marty is summoned by his good friend Doc to bear witness to the birth of time travel, but finds himself whisked back to 1955 courtesy of the mad professor’s DeLorean (Zemeckis originally thought his time machine would be a fridge). After inadvertently interfering in the course of events that brought his mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) and father George (Crispin Glover) together, Marty must rewrite history, avoid school bully Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) and find a way to get back to 1985 with the help of a younger Doc.

Whilst hardly original (Mark Twain’s novel A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court had covered similar ground almost 100 years earlier), having an ’80s high school kid travel back to the 1950s was nevertheless a stroke of genius on the part of Zemeckis and Gale, as the fish-out-of-water premise allowed both Marty – and us – to observe a time when teenagers were finally finding their voice; a voice that 30 years later was starting to dominate the box office with the likes of Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982) and Sixteen Candles (1984).

The film’s production design remains astonishing. Hill Valley feels like a living, breathing town and the small changes between 1955 and 1985 are fun to spot, in particular the fact the porno theatre showing Orgy American Style in 1985 was a movie house screening a Ronald Reagan movie 30 years earlier.

There are plenty of other lovely touches, including when Marty inadvertently invents rock’n’roll while playing Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance in front of a dumbstruck Marvin Berry, who immediately phones his cousin to update him on “the new sound [he’s] been looking for”.

Fox inhabits the role so completely, you simply cannot imagine another actor in the role, although that’s what very nearly happened when Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty. It’s fascinating to imagine a parallel universe in which Stoltz rather than Fox got to wear the “life-preserver” – maybe such a thing could have existed in the alternate 2015 as seen in Back To The Future II (1990).

Whilst Back To The Future is sublime, it’s not perfect as there are a few moments that leave you scratching your head, most notably how come Marty’s parents don’t freak out when they come to realise their son looks and sounds exactly like the guy who helped get them together back in 1955? That one’s always bugged me.

One of the all-time great summer blockbusters, Back To The Future will remain just as joyously entertaining 30 years from now. Great Scott!

Decades Blogathon – Jaws (1975)

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Three Rows Back

It’s the penultimate day of the Decades Blogathon, hosted by myself and the immense Tom from Digital Shortbread. The blogathon focuses on movies that were released in the fifth year of the decade. Tom and I are running different entries each day; and this one comes from the man, the legend that is Eric from The IPC. For those who don’t know, Eric’s site is a true one-off, full of his ribald opinions on the world of film.

My dad took me to see this in the theater back when I was a kid and it scared so much shit out of me that I was afraid to take a bath for a month. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve taken a bath ever since. But, thinking about this… for this blogathon that ends in “5”…. my mom didn’t marry my dad until I was seven so that would have put me seeing this in 1978.

The sperm donor that helped make me was an Easy Riding hippie that split on me and My Creator when I was three so the math doesn’t add up, but when I agreed to join this blogathon I understood there would be no math. Now that I think about it (I’ve had some cocktails) I think the theater we saw this in was one of those “two theater” jobs inside of a small shopping mall that showed new releases after market. Yes – I think that’s it and that makes sense! BOOM! I rule.

#thebestrememberer

Anyway, so I saw this back then and haven’t ever really watched this since. Not that I was still scared that I would shit myself but just never felt the need. Seen it – big shark, gotcha. Then, the lads announced this run and I wanted in and looked at some things from ’75 and thought – what a good time to look at this movie again. I’ve never seen any of the sequels and I’ve always liked Roy Scheider so – let’s do this thing! And I don’t mean Tom! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I watched this earlier today and…

I LOVED IT! What a good movie! I mean – I lived in Southern California so I’ve been to that ride at Universal Studios and seen the shark robot a dozen times, but this movie was fantastic. I guess, now that I’m older I can appreciate thing like: Direction, Acting, Effects and what I like to call The Incidentals. I’m sure ALL of the people reading this piece know about this movie – a big shark is eating people and people are trying to kill the shark before it eats more people. And that’s what it is but…

I thought this movie was going pretty OK until they went full in with Robert Shaw. What a character! What an actor! Screw that little part at the community meeting at the local Ju-Co. This guy’s a stud! What a deal! Here’s an example of what I call The Incidentals:

Brody and Hooper are working with Shaw, agreeing to his ridiculous demands. “Yes. Yes. Yes. You can have your caviar.” Brody agrees.

“‘ave some of thees whisky,” Shaw says, centered in the middle of the “rule of three” shot setting. “I made it myself and I quite leek it.”

To the left, Brody; to the right, Hooper.

*Center shot: Shaw slugs his shot.

*Pan Right: Brody sips his, to the disappointment of Shaw who goes about his way, gathering rope.

While Shaw is upstairs in the loft, gathering his shit, Brody spits out his alcohol and talks to him about something or other. Out of curiosity, Hooper reaches for the shot glass. Absently, Brody allows him to take it and barely says “Don’t drink that” and starts talking to Shaw again. Hooper takes the shot, drinks it and does a shudder. Right then, while he’s talking to Shaw he glances at the grimacing Hopper, does a little point with his finger, smiles and does a little eyebrow raise before going back to Shaw.

Was that in the script or was that something that just happened while they were filming? That was epic!

Anyway – this movie was fantastic! I loved it! I could probably have done without the scar comparing and what’s basically a musical number but other than that, excellente!

4 Cold, Dead Eyes out of 5

P.S. How in the world is this rated PG (in the U.S.)??? There was a fully naked woman, lots of blood and gore and people were smoking inside buildings!

Decades Blogathon – Casino (1995)

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Three Rows Back

As hard as it may be to believe we are entering the home stretch of the Decades Blogathon, hosted by myself and the indubitable Tom from Digital Shortbread! The blogathon focuses on movies that were released in the fifth year of the decade. Tom and I are running different entries each day; and this one comes from Fernando at Committed To Celluloid. Fernando’s site is one of my favourites out there in the blogosphere, so do yourself a favour and take a visit!

It seems so strange that Casino came out only 20 years ago. Martin Scorsese’s 1995 offering seems much older, and yes, I mean it as a compliment.

Arguably one of ole Marty’s best (or my favorite, anyway), Casino, not just because it’s set in that era, truly feels, looks and carries itself like a film of the seventies.

Riveting, stylish and peppered with bursts of extreme violence – something of a trademark for the director – I have an inkling Goodfellas’ better not-quite-a-sequel wouldn’t feel like the awkward stranger in the decade of timeless classics like Dog Day Afternoon, Chinatown and The Godfather Parts I and II.

High praise? It may be, but it’s not every day that a talky three-hour movie where not a lot goes on happens to breeze by and be totally absorbing, much less upon a second viewing.

The jazzy soundtrack is one tiny, yet pivotal part in the film’s success, which can mainly be attributed to two things: the superb script by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi, filled with vibrant dialogue and just the right amount of humour, and the presence of Joe Pesci in a meaty role that called for the Oscar-winner’s brilliant performance.

Pesci’s Nicky throws around f-bombs like nobody’s business (for a while, the film held the record for most uses of the curse, with 435, or 2.4 times per minute on average) and is, at the same time, Casino’s main source of comic relief and its most frightening character. Who knew tiny could be so intimidating?

Despite being overshadowed by Pesci’s flashier performance, Robert De Niro (of course) and Sharon Stone are solid, and they look great in their lavish costumes too. Stone, in particular, looks breathtakingly beautiful during the first hour of the film, before her Ginger loses herself to drugs and booze. Sharon is a sparkly vision in her first scene, which is also Scorsese’s favorite.

Sitting comfortably at #140 in the IMDb Top 250 (at the time of this review), Casino may not be as loved as other Scorsese gems, but it’s a fantastic film that demonstrates why Marty is one of the best directors still in the business.

@FernandoRafael
facebook.com/committedtocelluloid

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