Yes, it took our second pass through the alphabet to include John Frankenheimer's 52 Pick-Up in our 52 Pick-Up series. While I had the film on DVD when we started, I had decided that I wanted to upgrade to the Arrow Blu Ray if we were going to watch it on the big screen. So here we are.  Based on the Elmore Leonard novel, the film stars Roy Scheider as Harry, a man being blackmailed over an affair he had with a young stripper (Kelly Preston). Rather than pay up, he decides to come clean and tell his wife (Ann-Margret). The trio of blackmailers retaliate by showing Harry a video of his mistress being murdered with a gun stolen from his house. Harry then works to identify the three men and sets out to pit them against one another.  Scheider, who was in his mid-50s when the film was made, comes across as old and tired, which actually works for the character. And while I will always consider 1962-1966 the golden age of her film career, Ann-Margret looks fantastic at 45, and ...

Vonna and I recently enjoyed listening to the audiobook of Ron and Clint Howard's memoir, The Boys . In it, we learned how Ron Howard came to direct his first feature for Roger Corman, Grand Theft Auto . Once we started the second half of our 52 Pick-Up series, I had already decided that would be our 'G' film. When I realized it was paired on disc with the film Ron Howard starred in for Corman after his role in George Lucas' American Graffiti , Vonna suggested that it would be appropriate that Eat My Dust! be our 'E' film. Now,  Eat My Dust! is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. But from the opening POV shots of a car racing down country roads, it's clear that this is a love-letter to driving. It plays like any number of outlandish movies full of crazy car stunts and crashes. Which I imagine was the target demographic. The threadbare plot has Hoover (Ron Howard), the son of the sheriff (Warren J. Kemmerling - guest star in countless TV show...

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to get around to watching  The Devil's Own . Harrison Ford rarely disappoints. But here we are, finally catching up on this one 25 years after its original release. Pitt plays an IRA member who travels to New York to covertly close a deal on some Stinger missiles to bring back home to help fight the good fight. Ford plays Tom O'Meara — an Irish New York cop who, as a favor to a friend 'sponsoring' Pitt's Rory (aka Frankie), opens up his home to the young Irishman. Things go awry, and when Tom ultimately finds out about Rory's true identity, he decides he's the only one who can bring Frankie in alive. The Devil's Own  was the final film directed by Alan Pakula. He and Ford had worked together previously on Presumed Innocent (based on the Scott Turow novel); another good film — Ford's haircut notwithstanding. This one has a great supporting cast, including Rubén Blades as Tom's partner, Treat Williams...

It had been quite some time since I had watched Michael Mann's Collateral , and as I have developed a greater appreciation for Tom Cruise in recent years, I felt it was an ideal selection for showcasing on the Slaughtered Lamb screen. While I had a clear memory of Tom Cruise's hitman Vincent and Jamie Foxx's cab-driver Max, I hadn't realized how many other now recognizable faces populate the film! Right off the bat, I was shocked to see Jason Statham(!) in a bit part (credited as 'Airport Man') handing off Vincent's reference materials when he arrives at LAX. I had to check out his IMDB page afterwards to confirm that he took this bit part after he had already made the transition from Guy Ritchie films to higher-profile films like The Transporter and The Italian Job . Vonna thought the leading lady (and object of Max's affection) looked a lot like Jada Pinkett Smith, and I had to confirm that it actually was. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Mark...

I had never seen Breakdown  before, but I'm a big Kurt Russell fan, and it seemed to bear more than a passing resemblance to Richard Matheson's 1953 short story "Dying Room Only" (which he adapted into a TV movie of the same name in 1973), so I thought it was a good candidate from screening in The Slaughtered Lamb. Jeff Taylor (Russell) and his wife Amy (Kathleen Quinlan) are driving cross country for a new start in San Diego when their new Jeep breaks down in the middle of the desert. A passing trucker offers to drive them to a nearby diner so they can call a tow truck, but Jeff isn't comfortable leaving their new car with all their belongings unattended. He opts to stay behind while Kathleen goes with the trucker. While waiting, he realizes the problem was due to some loose wires, and is able to start the car. He drives to the diner, but there's no sign of Amy. He then drives towards the next town, and spots the truck that Amy left in. He forces the driver t...

I decided that the alphabetical order approach served us well in the first half of this series, so we'll keep that up for the next six months as well! Kicking things off is Frank Marshall's directorial debut, Arachnophobia . I'm a sucker for spider movies — the 70s was a golden era for nature run amok (favorites include Kingdom of the Spiders and Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo ), and I hadn't seen this one in decades. I assumed Vonna and I had seen it together, but she had no recollection of it (and unlike me, she retains the tiniest of details once she's seen a film).  Jeff Daniels moves his family to a small town in California to be the local doctor, only to be surprised when the old-timer he was planning to replace decides he's not ready to retire. Timed with their arrival is the body of a photographer who was bitten by a huge, extremely venomous spider in Venezuela, and unbeknownst to anyone, the spider traveled with him. It sets up shop in Daniel's barn,...

  Zorro, The Gay Blade , was released the month after Raiders of the Lost Ark  in 1981, though I can't recall if I first saw it theatrically. I was already familiar with George Hamilton from the Dracula spoof Love At First Bite , which preceded this film. And I was quite surprised to discover that his next theatrical role wasn't until The Godfather Part III in 1990! Hamilton does a fine job in the dual roles of Don Diego Vega and his flamboyant brother Ramon (aka Bunny Wigglesworth) — sons of the recently departed Zorro. And a shout out to James Booth, as the eyepatch-wearing Velasquez, who would later play Ernie Niles in Twin Peaks .  After the original Zorro's offscreen death, he bequeaths his legacy to his sons; first Diego, and when he injures himself, Ramon takes over — more flamboyantly, as you would expect. Don Diego's Esteban makes it his goal to track down Zorro, and one of my favorite scenes is a classic masked ball where attendees all come dressed as Zorro, b...