I was 11 and I was a good listener.

My mom used to talk about movies with my “adopted aunt” Jo Lynn and I’d drop some eaves (thank you Samwise for one of my favorite phrases).

I should mention, my family was a huge Kevin Costner fan…

Okay…my mom was a huge Kevin Costner fan so my family was a huge Kevin Costner fan, right?

So there was a period of time where all we rented was another Costner movie after another Kevin Costner movie…not complaining. This was when they were good.

Yes. There was a period of time when that happened. It’s called the late 80s circa early 90s…then he made “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (as if we didn’t know that green hooded asshole was the “prince of thieves”)

Colons don’t belong in movie titles.  They belong in three places:

1. Before a list (See the irony here?)
2. Between the hour and the minutes, and
3. Between our cecum and our rectum (toilet joke, you’re welcome!)

…

Where the hell am I?

Oh, yeah…so I overheard my mom talking to my aunt about this movie and she went on and on and on about how, “wonderful” it was and, “what a great story,” and how it “forced her to pay attention,” and that she was glad that she did pay attention.

I was intrigued.

So I asked my mom later about it.

“What was that movie you were talking about?”

Mom: “Huh?”

“With Jo Lynn.  You said it was a great movie.”

*Looked at me like she might need me to get tested for a mental illness.*

I sighed and rolled my eyes.  I didn’t want to say it but, “It had Kevin Costner in it.”

Mom: “OH!  It’s called No Way Out…you can’t watch it.”

Typical.

I expected this reaction (I was used to it) so I had to keep it cool and work on her.

This was the first movie that mom REALLY caved on.  By the end of that day with my nagging, she made it happen and we watched it that weekend. I secretly think she really wanted to watch it again with me and get my opinion.  If you think about it, she got to watch a great movie again, and she got see my reaction to a very intelligent twister of a movie. Sometimes watching a movie with your kids for the first time and hoping that they’ll share in your joy and reaction is better than your first viewing.

I think that happened with mom on this one.

I sincerely remember having my first “WHAAAAAAAAAT” moment by the end of that tense movie.

I learned about “plot.” How important it really is and how interesting “plot” can be.

I think I watched it three times that year.

I also learned a little more about the female anatomy (thank you younger Sean Young)…the first time I watched it with mom those scenes were fastforwarded.  In a weird way the fastforwarding made the sex scenes more awkward to watch with your mother if you can imagine that.  It makes it look way more painful than anything and sometimes you cut off the beginning of a crucial scene and you had to rewind and then you were in the middle of the sex scene again and you had to fastforward and mom got stressed out and pushed the buttons harder than she needed to….

It amused me.

“No Way Out” is another one of those movies that I don’t want to mention regarding the story because that would be taking away a very good moment for you if you have never heard of it or seen it.

Go watch it.  It’ll deliver.

Oh, except the very cheesy 80s electric piano score…try and block that out.

Other than that distraction, #Great movie!

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Whoever coined the phrase, you always remember your first(s), was not lying.

My first kiss–Beth Eddington.  I was six.  We obviously didn’t know what we were doing and we closed our eyes too soon and bonked each other with our noses.  Our lips touched.  Hers were wet, mine were dry…

…

…that was about it.  I ran away, blushing. She smiled and watched me act like my hair was on fire.

I remember the first time I scored a goal playing soccer.  It was my third year playing.  We had a pretty decent team and a great coach.  I was in the box, there was a square pass made to me and I kicked it as hard as I could at the net, past the goalie.  I was pretty close, it wasn’t very fair.  After I got my first one, they just started flooding in and I can’t remember any of the rest.

Just like after your first goal when there are many more goals to quickly follow, such was the case with the first Cary Grant movie that I ever watched.  I had to watch many more.

I’ve discussed a lot of the bonding that I’d done with my dad and movies on this blog.  Time to share about my mom too.  We absolutely loved Cary Grant, and “Father Goose” was a pure joy to watch.  When Cary Grant passed, one of the networks (I can’t remember which one) ran a late evening marathon over the weekend of a lot of Grant’s pictures.  We discovered the marathon right before “Father Goose” started and my mom grabbed a tape and we started recording.  Standard practice at this point.

We took turns “pausing out” the commercials.

As I was looking for quotes, there were so many well crafted moments, that it was hard to pick just one.  It was a movie that had such well written dialogue delivered by so many talented people, that it is truly an underrated Grant gem.  My mom and I weren’t the only ones that thought so. Peter Stone, Frank Tarloff, and S.H. Barnett won the Oscar for Best Writing, Story, and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 1965.  The Oscars and I rarely agree…an exception I’m glad to concede.

Being that this was my first experience with Cary Grant, a decade later I found out that he was an Englishman (in real life that is) and was dumbfounded.  In this and many of the other roles he portrayed in American films…he was an American. He would always, in some way be, the unshaven, un-bathed, crusty old American drunkard, Walter Eckland, who ends up being responsible for the lives of a school teacher and her female students on an isolated island during World War II.

I’ve raved about Grant, Leslie Caron as, “Catherine Louise Marie Ernestine Freneau,” was given a role of a lifetime and did beyond her very best with it.  The Chemistry that Grant and Caron were able to share in this picture goes right alongside Redford and Newman in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” as one of the greatest pairings on film–in my book any way.

It would be a shame not to mention the great Trevor Howard as Commander Frank Houghton.  He plays the “friend” responsible for conning Walter into taking a job reporting enemy war craft that he spots while remaining on an isolated island after an unfortunate “accident” with Walter’s boat and the Commander’s ship.  The majority of the dialogue shared between Walter and Houghton is over the radio; cut and edited to perfection by Ted J. Kent.

The comedic timing portrayed between Grant and Caron on the island and with Howard over the radio was not only entertaining, I haven’t seen this type of scenario performed better in movies that share the same ploy.  The closest is probably the scene in “Roxanne,” when C. D. is trying to help Chris woo Roxanne in person while Chris wears a listening device under an Elmer Fudd cap.  Again, that is one scene.  Grant, Caron, and Howard did it similarly throughout multiple scenes of an entire motion picture.

I know that I have not talked about the scenes in detail.  Again, I do that because I do not want to spoil the comedy that you will find viewing this film fresh for the first time.

Enjoy.

PS–I have decided that Cary Grant’s career has earned a Multi-Movie post as well.  Keep your eyes open for that one.  It’s gonna be big and you won’t want to miss those titles.

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I watched a lot of television with my dad in the evenings after I had finished school and he had come home from work.  We used to watch “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The A-Team,” and “Airwolf.”  The show we never missed: “Star Trek” (the original series) and then “Star Trek: The Next Generation” once it hit the air in 1987.  I learned very early on not to talk until the commercials came on.  I used to inundate my dad with queries in between scenes because there was a lot about the story that I was too young to understand.  During commercials, he was glad to explain things to me.  He had a way with words that kept it simple, without a lot of unnecessary conversation.  My dad was not a man that liked to hear himself talk.  He was a great storyteller because of that.  He had a natural use of metaphor about him and could get his point across, quickly with great visual style.

I cannot forget the first time my dad and I sat and watched “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”  There are scenes in this film that can never be “unseen” for me as long as I live.

I have found over the years that Hollywood has done an amazing job with the “even” numbered Star Trek films.  No one ever talks about “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”  I don’t think that I have seen it to this day.  EVERYONE talks about “The Wrath of Khan.”

The writers got very smart and pulled from the television series to start this tale.  Long ago, Kirk left a gang of genetically superior warriors from the 20th century abandoned on a believed to be survivable planet with no technology.  We later find that the planet was uninhabitable and almost killed the genetically superior warriors lead by none other than Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island.

We get to this path quickly and once Khan enters the scene, the movie takes off from one moment of suspense to the next.

I want to go on record saying that I have and will always love the main cast actors for each and every role on both the series and the feature films.  Everyone of them owns their characters and I can’t imagine any other actors playing their roles (that’s not to say I dislike the new cast at all, those are altogether different films in my opinion, and I enjoy that set too).

This film features intense moments, intriguing monologues throughout from both Kirk and Khan, and my favorite chess match on film between the protagonist(s) and Khan (eat your heart out Moriarty and Holmes).

The two unforgettable scenes that I have eluded to will not be written about here.  I would not want to take seeing those for the first time from anyone.  I will say this.  They are visually stunning, horrifying, heartbreaking, and well wrought.

My dad and I ended up watching this film together many times.  It became one of our staples: Jaws, Blues Brothers, Fright Night, others yet to be mentioned….

I will remember this film for the compelling suspense, action, acting, drama, etc. but I like to remember how much enjoyment my father and I had together bonding over scenes after our first viewing.  It was like we were at a concert with our favorite band and they started playing our favorite song right before we saw each of our favorite scenes.  Then we would make a small comment on how they made us feel.  Remembering those moments with him are truly enjoyable and I hope that I can never forget them.  I haven’t so far.

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