Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Lightfoot is Jeff Bridges, a carefree happy-go-lucky small-time thief. Thunderbolt is Clint Eastwood, so called because he once used a 20mm cannon to break into a vault at an armory. They hook up and become buddies in the usual reluctant way, at least on Clint’s part. They encounter two of Clint’s former partners in the big robbery, who think they have been ripped off. They weren’t, but ... Read more »

Thunder Afloat

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Boston Blackie movie. I bring this up not because this is one, but because it co-stars Chester Morris, who went on to star in fourteen of them. Maybe I should take a look at one sometime. Actually, I’ve never actually seen a whole Charlie Chan movie, either.

The main star here is the great Wallace Beery, the beefy, truculent working man with ... Read more »

The Three Penny Opera

I have seen this play performed on stage, and this very early sound movie by G.W. Pabst ain’t it. In fact, it’s pretty tedious and completely unconvincing. Pabst pretty much ruined it. The music isn’t performed well, and the characters are outrageously overplayed, even for 1931. And there is something very comical about these Teutonic folks pretending to be Londoners. The only pleasure is ... Read more »

Three Kings

They didn’t make all that many movies about the First Iraq War, the first one I can recall that had a sexy nickname: Operation Desert Storm. I guess it was over before the screenwriters could really tackle it. This is a damn good one. It starts out like an updated version of one of those wacky post-WWII service comedies crossed with Kelly’s Heroes, where the crew ... Read more »

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

This is the second time Tommy Lee Jones has made a long, difficult journey with a dead body to honor someone’s wish. Years ago it was Augustus McCrae; this time it’s this guy whose name I can’t pronounce. And take it from me, Tommy, that was your only mistake as a director, but it was a big one. Never use something hard to pronounce in a title. People won’t talk ... Read more »

Three Ages

The schtick is that Buster Keaton plays out the same story of frustrated love in three eras: The Stone Age (where there are dinosaurs; holy shit! Sarah Palin was right!), The Roman Empire, and the Modern Era. It’s fun to see how the same story works out in different ways, but it’s not really one of Buster’s best.

SOUR NOTE: There have been several Keaton ... Read more »

Thunder Birds

Gene Tierney was one of the most beautiful women to work in Hollywood. Here she is in glorious super-saturated Technicolor, with lips as red as moist cherries, very dark brown hair, and pale blue eyes.

Oh, yeah, there’s some airplanes in it, too. The star is the Boeing-Stearman Model 75.or PT-17 trainer. It’s a biplane. After the war there were thousands of them available as ... Read more »

A Thousand Clowns

I think this one has been around long enough now to qualify as a classic. I loved it when it was new, and I love it now. Murray (Jason Robards) is a pain in the ass, but I like him. In fact, pretty much everybody likes him, because he is amiable, he’s funny, he enjoys life, and he does exactly what he wants to do, when he wants to do it. They like him in spite of ... Read more »

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes

I loved this movie from the fist time I saw it, in Detroit where I was working during the summer after high school graduation. Right from the jaunty little tune at the beginning, and the old footage of insane would-be airmen coming to grief in amusing ways, and the fantastic artwork of Ronald Searle, which I hadn’t seen before, it had me. The plot is negligible and some of the running ... Read more »

This So-Called Disaster: Sam Shepard Directs the Late Henry Moss

I love the theater, and movies about backstage at the theater. This is a real backstage movie, in that it follows the rehearsals and re-writes of a play by Shepard called The Late Henry Moss. The cast includes Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson, Cheech Marin, and James Gammon. The play is autobiographical, in a metaphoric way, and concerns Shepard’s relationship with his alcoholic ... Read more »