A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Pros:  Great cast; well-written screenplay; lots of action in third act Cons:  Unflinching look at war's violence, but not as graphic as modern war films The Dirty Dozen (1967) All art, as writer-director Nicholas Meyer ( The Seven Percent Solution, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ) has observed in several of his Star Trek- related audio commentaries for home video, is a reflection of the time in which its conceived.  One can, for instance, look at a painting by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn and one by Pablo Picasso and tell right away that one was done in the 17th Century and that the other was created in the 20th. As such, movies – no matter what genre they may fit in – tend to reflect the social, cultural and political environments of the times in which they are made.  Not only in simple terms of cinematic techniques and casts – a film such as  Casablanca is clearly identified as a 1940s-era film because it’s in black-and-white, it sta...

With less than six months to go before Mark Hamill returns to the big screen as Luke Skywalker in Rian Johnson's "Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi," it's worth noting that the actor has played other roles in films with much lower profiles, including "Corvette Summer" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia." Hamill, now 67, is best known as George Lucas's farmboy-turned-Jedi Knight in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, but his career never reached the same lofty levels as his co-star Harrison Ford's. While Ford became an in-demand leading man as Indiana Jones and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Hamill's best-known film appearance beyond the "Star Wars" saga is probably Private Griff in Sam Fuller's World War II drama "The Big Red One." Written and directed by the crusty Fuller, "The Big Red One" is not a Hollywood-style all-star extravaganza. Other than Hamill, "The Big...

Considering the success of director Robert Aldrich’s 1967 war-action film  The Dirty Dozen , it’s not surprising that MGM/United Artists – the studio which owned the film rights to E.M. Nathanson’s 1965 novel – decided to produce a sequel which would depict the further missions of Maj. Reisman (Lee Marvin), Sgt. Bowren (Richard Jaeckel) and their wily superior officer, Maj. Gen. Worden (Ernest Borgnine).  As anyone who is remotely familiar with how the film industry works, studios are usually owned and operated by very conservative (in the fiscal sense of the word) men and women who tend to focus on how to make movies economically while making huge profits from them. This point of view also means that studio heads and producers tend to prefer “safe bets” rather than take huge cinematic gambles which may hurt the profit line and even sink their studios.  Because sequels and franchises tend to be “safer bets” than truly innovative movies, Hollywood tends to take a property ...