AIRPORT 1975 (1974)

Considering the success of the original AIRPORT film, I'm kinda surprised that it took them 4 years to make a sequel, but they did and it's...alright.  The star studded cast makes things enjoyable to look at, but the character development is badly written and many of the stars (Loy especially) are wasted in weak roles.

Instead of a bomber blowing a hole in the airplane shitter, the pilot of a small aircraft (Dana Andrews) has a heart attack and smashes into the cockpit of the 747 creating a large gash and fucking the flight crew all to Hell.  Now it's up to Karen Black to fly the plane until superstud Charlton Heston can be lowered in on a wire to save the day.  Along the way there's all kinds of drama including a sick Linda Blair needing a new kidney, Large Marge smuggling a dog onto the plane, Erik Estrada wanting to bang the new stewardess, crazy 70's fashions, screaming, a couple of drunks getting rowdy, a purple sofa, Sid Caesar trying to get up in Myrna Loy's guts, a nun playing a guitar, Epicurean Sexual Delights, George Kennedy yelling a lot and so on.

Worth a watch, but really not that memorable.  I really missed Burt Lancaster.  They had Swanson playing herself, so I'm kinda surprised that they didn't have Loy also play herself and have them seated together talking nonstop about the Golden Days of Hollywood.  That would have been awesome!!!!  Hell, the airplane could have never left the runaway and it would have been the greatest movie ever!  Also, why in the Hell did the filmmakers have Charlton Heston and his PLANET OF THE APES co-star Linda Harrison in the same film, but not have them in a scene together?  What a ball drop.  Hell, they should have had her in Karen Black's role.

Part 1 - Airport (1970)
Part 3 - Airport '77 (1977)
Part 4 - Concorde...Airport '79 (1979)

If my Classic Hollywood memory serves me correctly both Grace Moore and Carole Lombard died in plane crashes.  Weird.

GRAY LADY DOWN (1978)

Somebody could write a book about all of the movies Charlton Heston made in the 1970's. Seventeen wildly varying movies, everything from a PLANET OF THE APES sequel to THE OMEGA MAN and SOYLENT GREEN, a western, some historical actioners and a number of disaster movies including this submarine crew in peril flick GRAY LADY DOWN. The film opens with longtime sub captain Heston bringing his ship into port for the last time. Normally you would stay underwater until you got there, but Heston is happy and tells 'em to go topside. Almost immediately they're hit by a gigantic freighter. With a breached hull, the sub sinks down, down, down 1450 feet and comes to rest on the edge of huge drop off. With only a limited amount of air and supplies, the crew needs to be rescued as quickly as possible, but during the wreck some heavy rocks landed on the exit door, so that means the Navy has to use an experimental mini sub (piloted by David Carradine) to clear the way for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle.

For a single viewing, GRAY LADY DOWN is a good movie. The special effects are dated, but not distractingly so, the pace is quick enough and the story is pretty good. If you watch it you'll be entertained, if you don't watch it you're really not missing anything. Personally I prefer my 1970's disaster flicks to be bigger and have normal people in danger. Something like EARTHQUAKE or THE TOWERING INFERNO.

Mildly recommended.

ARMAGEDDON (1998)

A massive asteroid, named Dottie, is headed directly for Earth and our only hope is that two super Space Shuttles can take a group of oil drilling badasses up into space, slingshot them around the moon and land on Dottie's ass so they can give her a nuclear enema that'll blow that bitch out of the sky. Yasujiro Ozu it's not.

Nope, it's Michael Bay. So check your brain at the door and get ready for some cheesy, goofy bullshit filled with helicopters flying in front of sunsets, explosions, slow motion overdose, frantic editing, rugged saintly-like tough guys, product placement, camera spin, Aerosmith power ballad overdose and some of the worse dialogue ever written. "Miss Stamper? Colonel Willie Sharp, United States Air Force, ma'am. Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met." Ooowwwch! That line just gave me instant terminal butt cancer. Better go watch DEADLY PREY.

For a 90's disaster movie, ARMAGEDDON is about as big and dumb as it gets.  It's awesome! The disaster is "a global killer", the characters are bigger than life and the director has no shame. One of the biggest guilty pleasure movies of the 90's.

Little known (untrue) fact: In the unproduced ARMAGEDDON 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, literally 1 second after everybody finished hugging each other that the end of the first film, everybody on Earth immediately went back to hating the living fuck out of each other for totally unimportant reasons like skin colour, money, genitals and imaginary creators.