THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957)

"We carve an idol out of our fear and call it God."

Back in the day, a knight (Max von Sydow) returns from his stint in the Crusades to find his homeland ravaged by the Plague. Already disillusioned by his experiences during the Crusades; he now begins to doubt the existence of God. One morning while getting ready to ride his horse, he looks over and Death is stand there. Looking at him. They talk and the knight challenges Death to a game of chess, believing that the game will buy him time to live longer in this smelly shithole existence we call Life. Death agrees. The game isn’t shown and the film isn’t just these two chatting while they play. No, instead the knight is still on his journey home and the film goes along for the ride as he encounters different people and events.

I love arthouse cinema and while I do watch quite a bit of it, I don’t review it often simply because I’m too dumb to properly express my feelings about it. That said, while I’m sure that I’ve missed various themes and details, I still find THE SEVENTH SEAL to be a great movie. Even all these decades after its original release. At times the pace is slow, but I’m not sure if that’s really true or just a symptom of my stupidity.

Whatever, fuck it. Slow or not, THE SEVENTH SEAL is still mandatory viewing for anybody serious about movies and especially world cinema.   Recommended.

THE CONCORDE... AIRPORT '79 (1979)

I'd never seen an AIRPORT movie before starting these series a few days ago.  I knew the first few films were wildly successful and kick-started the whole disaster boom of the 70's, so I was kinda curious as to why they only made four films and just didn't continue the series indefinitely since it looks to be an endless goldmine.  I still think the AIRPORT series could have gone on, but after seeing Part 4 I can understand why they ended it when they did.  First off, the star power is completely gone, but even more importantly (and maybe why there wasn't any star power to begin with) is the story is complete rubbish.

You got a Concorde flying from Washington D. C. to Moscow.  On board is the reporter girlfriend of a aerospace big shot.  She has evidence that's he's been illegally selling arms to enemies of the US.  So naturally the only thing he can do is launch a high tech missile at the airplane, but oh, that's just the beginning because he also has a fighter jet attack the plane and then has a maintenance guy sabotage one of the doors to open in mid flight!!!  I can't get much further into the story without giving it all away, but, trust me, it's just fucking insane the shit that goes on in this movie.  Even worse is it's all very badly written, yet somehow screenwriter Eric Roth went on to write the adapted script for FORREST GUMP!  So let that be a lesson to you: my Mama always said you've got to put the past behind you before you can move on.  

The only reason I can think of to watch this long-winded disaster is to laugh at it.  The story is junk, the special effects are horrible and the acting is garbage.  Skip it.  And that's all I have to say about that.

Part 1 - Airport - (1970)
Part 2 - Airport 1975 (1974)
Part 3 - Airport '77 (1977)