Far East Cynic

Speaking of movies…..

Flash Gordon is only one of the movies that are on my list of: “Movies I will stop and watch while channel surfing.”

Here are a few more:

Goodfellas ( A must in any many real man’s movie collection).
Absence of Malice ( I like the story).
All three Back to the Future Movies.
The Magnificent Seven ( See Goodfellas).
Just about any of John Wayne’s later movies. ( Hellfighters and Green Berets in particular).
A River Runs Through It
Field of Dreams
About Last Night
Body Heat ( A young Cathleen Turner naked-need I say more).
Wall Street
Gardens of Stone
Last of the Mohicans ( The Daniel Day Lewis version)
Casablanca
Strategic Air Command ( Jimmy Stewart and B-36’s!)
Network
Animal House
Caddyshack
Blues Brothers
Basic Instinct
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Any Dirty Harry movie.
Speaking of Clint Eastwood-Tightrope is on the list too.
Lord’s of Discipline ( a terrible movie, and a smear job on my alma mater, but I can’t stay away from it).
The Paper
FM ( This movie has not been around for a LONG TIME).
Silver Streak

And that’s only a start-no wonder I don’t get anything done. What are your additions to this list?

  1. Skippy,
    I would add:

    They Were Expendable
    Bridges of Toko Ri
    McClintock (John Wayne)
    Big Jake (John Wayne)
    Any of the Sean Connery, Roger Moore 007 movies
    Operation Peticoat
    The Caine Mutiny
    Father Goose
    Stalag 17
    The World of Suzi Wong
    Hawaii 5-0 (not a movie, just the show)

  2. Skippy,
    Army of darkness
    Alien (only the first one)
    Any even-numbered Star Trek Movie
    Kelly’s Heros
    Silverado
    Any Scooby Doo cartoon (not a movie, but still)
    Stripes
    Blade Runner
    Tora Tora Tora
    Any MST3K (A TV show about movies?)
    Enter The Dragon

  3. Kevin,
    MST3K is a great choice. My wife doesn’t get it, but I sure do.

    More on my list:

    Hogan’s Heroes (TV not a movie)
    Apocolypse Now
    Purple Hearts
    Boys in Company C
    Kung Fu Movies (the ones from the 70’s with the bad dubbing)
    Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road movies
    Three Stooges
    Up In Smoke
    Blues Brothers
    Back To School
    Easy Money

    1. Maurice,

      Actually Autofocus was sort of a movie version of Hogan’s Heroes.

      Richard,

      If you are going to have Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)-then you have to have Kiki’s delivery service (Majo no Takubin). Equally as good.

  4. Ran
    The Searchers
    Jaws
    The Green Papaya(slow moving story
    by beautifully filmed)
    Psycho
    Vertigo
    Schindlers List
    Seven Samurai
    Godfather ( 1&2)
    The Wild Bunch
    Lord of the Rings
    Silence of the Lambs
    Crouching Tiger….

  5. Just few more:

    Blazing Saddles
    Young Frankenstein
    History of the World
    Airplane/Airplane 2
    Dracula, Dead and Loving It

  6. Hey guys, way to skew young! Except for Richard’s picks, almost none of the movies came out since 1990. That’s 20 years ago.

  7. In Harm’s Way
    The Bridge Over the River Kwai
    The Sand Pebbles
    The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
    Prince of Darkness
    The Thing (John Carpenter’s version)
    The Wild Bunch
    Patton

  8. please add –

    The Big Lebowski
    Black Hawk Down
    Heartbreak Ridge
    Casino
    Midnight Run
    Papillion (sp)
    Blow
    The Hunt for Red October
    Maltese Falcon
    La Femme Nikita (French version)
    Almost Famous
    Rudy (Only when I am alone – I’m sorry, its not very good, but it always makes me cry)

  9. The Battle of Algiers
    Spirited Away
    Raiders of the Lost Ark
    Major Dundee
    Cross of Iron
    Paths of Glory
    Butch Cassidy
    Silence of the Lambs

  10. Grave of the Fireflies…..
    Perfect Blue
    Japan makes some awesome anime, though
    I am NOT a fan of manga…

  11. Skippy,
    Never heard of Autofocus, I have to do a search for it. A good movie from Japan about WW2 is one called “The Burmese Harp.” About the troops fighting in Burma. Made back in the 50’s it is pretty good.

  12. Autofocus was the story of Bob Crane. It tells how he got wrapped up in kinky sex and how that led to his undoing as an actor and probably he his murder too. Greg Kinnear plays Bob Crane.

  13. Skippy,

    First off part of your list seems to be typical cruise movies. Monty Python? Goodfellas? Caddyshack, Blues Brothers, Animal House? Nearly all of these I have seen in MWR collections on the 6 deployments that I have been on. That being said I would add the following:

    Time Bandits
    Old Yeller
    20K Under the Leagues
    Treasure Island
    Wing and a Prayer
    Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
    Meet John Doe
    High Noon (Classic Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper)
    Spartan
    Spies Like Us (The Doctor scene, enough said)
    Seven Samuari
    The Thin Man
    The Third Man (I enjoyed more the sewer scene then the cuokoo scene)
    Charlie Brown’s Christmas
    Ice Pirates (total B-grade cheese fest, but good for a weekend afternoon inside due to rain)
    Lifeboat
    N by NW
    Harvey
    The Getaway (the 1960’s one with Mr. Cool himself Steve McQueen)
    The Caine Mutiny
    Away All Boats (Richard Boone
    Double Indemnity
    Red Dawn
    The Breakfast Club
    National Lampoon Vacation series (which nearly all of them remind me some how of traveling with the Navy)

    Yes there are a couple of classic Disney live actions on there. Simply cause they were good movies. Even though I spent most of my time growing up in the 80’s the picken’s there seem few and far between.

  14. Skippy,

    I am not complaining. Just an observation. It always seems to me that the lower brow the movie the quicker it seems to become a cruise/deployment movie. Then the longer and more often it is play. Meanwhile a good movie gets shown once or twice in a blue moon and usually right in the middle of flight ops/sleeping time. Then there are about a dozen plus movies that I have either scene the climax for, the start of, or the drama start; but have no idea how they got to that point or resolved the drama.

  15. Back in the days of 16 mm- we had a pilot who was very devout. That meant when he stood SDO he had a dilemma since your performance as SDO was, in part judged by the quality of the movie you picked. This guy solved the problem by asking his Sailors to recommend good, dirty, movies. He would get one then arrange for someone else to actually roll the movies. ( sometimes he had to pay someone)

    I knew the era of the Ready Room movie had died however when one of our female JO’ s on the Ike cruise had picked the lion king. And female JO’s from other squadrons came to see it. ( In my day going to someone else ‘s ready room was just not done).

  16. Movie Officer what is the movie tonight?
    They shoot horses don’t they, sir
    Any skin?
    No sir.
    CANCEL IT!

    I have heard stories from family friends of some of the interesting (some would say underhanded) events they had pulled to get new movies. Like trading out a well worn copy of the 1943 “Lassie” with some film at the British Army O Club in HK via swapping films in the cans and then walking back out with the cans in the bottoms of golf bag or garment bag. Another event supposedly was cause some fighter puke, knew someone, in Hollywood got a hook up of some good films and they wouldn’t share with the rest of the airwing. So while the ship was in Yokuska during the standard WESTPAC port visit, late one night some enterprising elements of the attack community “borrow” these films and left a box of old school “Astroboy” films all of which where in the original Japanese. Hijinks ensued during the next roll’em

  17. Ronin
    Heat
    Battleground
    Hamburger Hill
    Napoleon Dynamite
    Breaker Morant
    Run Silent, Run Deep
    The Guns of Navarone
    Full Metal Jacket
    Animal House
    Northwest Passage
    12 O’Clock High