My Top 111 of all time – # 104
Some films scream for a remake. Others do not. I’ve always wondered about the mindset of Hollywood folk who think remakes are a good idea and how they choose them. Like what was in Gus VanSant’s mind to do a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho? He should have just colorized the original. And in a previous entry you may have read my utter disdain for Keanu (Dude!) Reeves and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Sometimes they pick a foreign film that a lot of moviegoers don’t know. That’s how Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven. That is how Infernal Affairs became The Departed. And how Madonna hopefully ended her film career by remaking Swept Away.
The Horror, The Horror........
There are ones that work like Ocean’s 11, and The Thing with Kurt Russell.
And some that didn’t : Rollerball (Blasphemy! -Let us never speak of this again), House Of Wax (But then again Paris Hilton died in it-how bad could it be?), and Poseidon with Kurt Russell (Not everything Jack Burton does is gold in my eyes.)
Paris finds out Linsay Lohan is on the cover of People magazine instead of her
Now I should get to the matter at hand # 104, a film I’m praying won’t get remade because I think it’s fine as it is- The Final Countdown.
This film is a combination Twilight Zone episode and Navy recruiting video. Imagine what would happen if a modern day aircraft carrier suddenly wound up smack dab in-between the Japanese fleet and Pearl Harbor Hawaii on Dec 6th 1941
Kirk Douglas and his famous cleft chin star as the captain along with Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katherine Ross, and Ron (Superfly) O’Neal. Charles Durning chews up every bit of screen time that he can as a 1940’s U.S. Senator who finds himself on the Carrier wondering who the hell paid for it and how come he didn’t know about it.
Captain Spartacus at your service
All is forgiven for Superfly TNT
The plot is somewhat predictable although when I first saw it back in the day, I admit I did not see the twist coming at the end. Being a bit wiser and sharper I’d like to think I would today. For those of you who have not seen it, I will not spoil it by discussing whether or not The USS Nimitz and crew attack the Japanese fleet and change history. No instead I will bore you with one of my favorite geeky parts of this : The end credits.
This is a wonderfully photographed sequence and I as look at it, wonder why I did not run out and join the Navy after first seeing it. (Oh that’s right I was a lazy chickenshit.) Shots of planes in flight, streaking through the clouds. The crew furtively preparing to launch a plane into the air. Ah , the life I never led. Anyway, when I had a band of Puerto Rican Barbarians living above me (long story) I would occasionally tilt my speakers up and crank up the volume on my home theater to shut them up. The end credits from Final Countdown always worked.
Rodneyrants 