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Home Theatre: President's Day Edition
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Hello! And welcome to the best place to come to for Home Video and DVD viewing tips: Silly Thinking's "Home Theatre"!
And here's your host Jim Farris.
JF: Thank you Jim and welcome to our President's Day edition of Home Theatre.
Today we have threee Presidential movies for you so lets get started...
1) "North By Northwest" (Warner Home Video) this Hitchcock classic marks the beggining of the end of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when they decided to annually make a big budget blockbuster to bolster sagging ticket sales. It worked well here. Hitchcock's film was an expensive package to make and it was the one and only time MGM made a film in Paramount's big screen process VistaVision. But later on, after "Ben-Hur", pictures like "King Of Kings", "Shoes OF THe Fisherman", and "Ryan's Daughter" broke the bank.
This classic has Cary Grant running from a crime he did'nt commit and ending up on Mt. Rushmore climbing over the faces of Washington and Lincoln (the only film they appear in together.)
"North By Northwest" is great entertainment and prime Hitchcock (nestled between "Vertigo" and "Psycho")the DVD is packed with juicy extras.
2. "Escape From New York" (MGM- UA) stars Kurt Russell as Snake Pliskin in a career defining role. Pliskin is a tough guy in leather who talks like "Dirty Harry" dresses like "Mad Max" and shoots like only Pliskin can kill.
The President (Donald Pleasance "The Great Escape" and "Halloween") has crashed into the World Trade Center and is bieng held hostage by the prisoners who run the future prison that is New York in this action classic of the late 70's. Snake is called into save him.
Directed by John Carpenter, the movie has just the right amount of suspense and dark shadows to counter the cheap sets and effects that fit it to a tee.
Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Adrienne Barbeau, and Lee Van Cleef co-star.
There are two DVD packages available; one bare bones they other a two disc set chock full of extra features.
"The Manchurian Candidate" (MGM-UA) This political thriller- dark comedy is a classic of it's type (in fact there is no other film quite like this so it's the only classic of it's type!)
Frank Sinatra stars as a Korean war vet troubled by nightmares that scare him out of his ring a ding ding head.
It seems Sinatra and his men were brainwashed during the war by the evil Commies and one of these men is the son of the most evil mother ever essayed on screen (Angela Lansbury)whose second husband is a dumb dumb Reagan like version of Joe McCarthy who is running for Vice President.
Laurence Harvey is terrific as Raymond Shaw who has been programmed to kill.
The George Axelrod screenplay is brilliantly brought to the screen by John Frankenhiemer.
The DVD includes a documentary on how this picture ever made it to the screen and what happened to it after President Kennedy was assinated in 1963.
There you go Happy President's Day. Back to you Jim.
JF: Thanks Jim Why would anyone want to be President?
Well join us tommorow and find out when we see how the surviving Democrats do in another gruelling primary day that will hopefully lead to another President (and who knows) maybe more Presidential movies.
Jim Farris Presents Silly Thinking with President Douglas Lain. It really is all in the White House.
And here's your host Jim Farris.
JF: Thank you Jim and welcome to our President's Day edition of Home Theatre.
Today we have threee Presidential movies for you so lets get started...
1) "North By Northwest" (Warner Home Video) this Hitchcock classic marks the beggining of the end of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when they decided to annually make a big budget blockbuster to bolster sagging ticket sales. It worked well here. Hitchcock's film was an expensive package to make and it was the one and only time MGM made a film in Paramount's big screen process VistaVision. But later on, after "Ben-Hur", pictures like "King Of Kings", "Shoes OF THe Fisherman", and "Ryan's Daughter" broke the bank.
This classic has Cary Grant running from a crime he did'nt commit and ending up on Mt. Rushmore climbing over the faces of Washington and Lincoln (the only film they appear in together.)
"North By Northwest" is great entertainment and prime Hitchcock (nestled between "Vertigo" and "Psycho")the DVD is packed with juicy extras.
2. "Escape From New York" (MGM- UA) stars Kurt Russell as Snake Pliskin in a career defining role. Pliskin is a tough guy in leather who talks like "Dirty Harry" dresses like "Mad Max" and shoots like only Pliskin can kill.
The President (Donald Pleasance "The Great Escape" and "Halloween") has crashed into the World Trade Center and is bieng held hostage by the prisoners who run the future prison that is New York in this action classic of the late 70's. Snake is called into save him.
Directed by John Carpenter, the movie has just the right amount of suspense and dark shadows to counter the cheap sets and effects that fit it to a tee.
Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Adrienne Barbeau, and Lee Van Cleef co-star.
There are two DVD packages available; one bare bones they other a two disc set chock full of extra features.
"The Manchurian Candidate" (MGM-UA) This political thriller- dark comedy is a classic of it's type (in fact there is no other film quite like this so it's the only classic of it's type!)
Frank Sinatra stars as a Korean war vet troubled by nightmares that scare him out of his ring a ding ding head.
It seems Sinatra and his men were brainwashed during the war by the evil Commies and one of these men is the son of the most evil mother ever essayed on screen (Angela Lansbury)whose second husband is a dumb dumb Reagan like version of Joe McCarthy who is running for Vice President.
Laurence Harvey is terrific as Raymond Shaw who has been programmed to kill.
The George Axelrod screenplay is brilliantly brought to the screen by John Frankenhiemer.
The DVD includes a documentary on how this picture ever made it to the screen and what happened to it after President Kennedy was assinated in 1963.
There you go Happy President's Day. Back to you Jim.
JF: Thanks Jim Why would anyone want to be President?
Well join us tommorow and find out when we see how the surviving Democrats do in another gruelling primary day that will hopefully lead to another President (and who knows) maybe more Presidential movies.
Jim Farris Presents Silly Thinking with President Douglas Lain. It really is all in the White House.
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