That dog needs a chill pill.
Pop Culture Ephemera
- Jaws (1975) (Directed by Steven Spielberg): “Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y’know, the thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya.” – Quint. I was able to go back to the theater to see my favorite film this year. I’m impressed with each viewing that Quint’s soliloquy is the best of the past 50 years. I was impressed how it plays in a crowd. It’s still genuinely scary even when you’ve watched it a couple dozen times. This film is a year before Hitchcock’s last film, but the mantle is squarely handed to Spielberg. The camera placement, the dialog, the score, and the scare of what’s offscreen are all reasons I continue to love this film.
The trio of Brody, Quint, and Hooper are an improvement from the book. They have more complicated antagonisms in the book instead of the different motivations to catch the shark in the film. The Moby Dick quality to the second half of the book is still there but less so when the trio are taken into account. The horror movie as buddy picture isn’t lost on me. This is no longer about big city vs. island town of Brody, Hooper, and his wife. The corruption of the mayor is more incompetence and less real-estate manipulation. The streamlined film is also one the best edited films of the decade. This won’t be the last time I watch it this year. My first viewing in the theaters in 1975 is still fresh in my mind. My last viewing at Alamo Drafthouse in 2025 shows it to still be the most fun I have in theaters.
- Wonder Woman – “Judgement from Outer Space: Part 2″ (1977) (S.1 E.10) (ABC): ” I used to have nightmares like this, but I was never lucky enough to have you in them, Princess.” – Major Steve Trevor. After this episode, there are only three more episodes left in the ABC run of the series and the last few set during WWII. The story is the best of Season One. The Earth has been watched by Andros who is a representative of a galactic type of United Nations. The group wants to destroy Earth because of all of their wars, but Andros has a soft spot for humans. It’s an interesting dynamic between Andros and Wonder Woman who both observe humans as an outsider. I liked how Andros didn’t back down from accusing the Americans of being hypocritical when they imprisoned Japanese Americans. The first season relied too much on the same plot of discovering Nazis in Washington DC and stopping them just before they brought some secret back to Germany. This didn’t need to be a two-part episode to tell the story, but it helped allow this second part be more philosophical.
- Gary Wright – “Love Is Alive” (1975) (from The Dream Weaver): “My heart is on fire, my soul is like a wheel that’s turnin'” It is surprising that this song spent more weeks on the charts than his more famous “Dream Weaver.” Gary plays keyboards and the funky Andy Newmark is on drums, and that’s all you get for this amazing song. That break at 20 seconds is one of my favorite moments in music of the decade. Gary’s vocal is ethereal. It’s just a cool song that still gets airplay somewhere in between classic rock and yacht rock. Summer is here and I put this in every Summer Grooves playlist.
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) (Directed by Christopher McQuarrie): “Your mission, should you *choose* to accept it.” I wonder, did you ever choose not to? The end you’ve always feared is coming. And the blood will be on your hands. The fallout of all your good intentions.” – Solomon Lane. The sixth time around is actually the first direct sequel from one entry to the next. The Syndicate has become the Apostles. Or maybe it’s the reverse. There’s a plot, it’s something to do with plutonium and a nuclear warhead. This film leans into the story as interlude between action scenes device much like a Mad Max film. The stunts are wonderful. There’s masks, motorcycles, and sky diving just so you feel at home. The series has turned into the equivalent of the Marvel Superhero film without the capes.
- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023) (Directed by Christopher McQuarrie): “We live and die in the shadows, for those we hold close, and for those we never meet.” – Ethan Hunt. There are diminishing returns to watch this franchise back-to-back-to-back. They are meant to be watched years apart. The seventh entry brings a new foe, the same but different as the old foe. Tom Cruise battled the Syndicate and the Apostles and now he’s up against his most difficult enemy yet. His foe is an AI computer named the Entity. How do you know? Because every character keeps telling the viewer how important this is to saving the world. The stunts are the best in film these days. Tom Cruise made this on a Top Gun: Maverick (2022) hangover, and it informs the way the action scenes are filmed. The plot is simple in a way that allows for the most action and chase scenes, including lots of Tom Cruise running and jumping. This film brings back plot points from previous films which until McQuarrie took over, wasn’t part of what this franchise was about. I think it ruins a bit of what was so fun about the early films in the series. It’s still hard to deny that it’s as fun as action films get these days.
Best of the Rest
- I don’t know if Olivia Newton-John ever heard the original version of “Love Is Alive”. That classic tune somehow got amped up to be a country disco tune. If that was or is a thing, I don’t know. The live versions from this 1976 era are slightly better because they maintain that drum cadence. I love Olivia’s voice but this wasn’t the match that I wanted. She’s yelling just to keep up with the beat.
- Entertainment Weekly (3/28/97): “Best Commercials of All-Time” #18: Marlboro “Foggy Morning” (1967): “Come to where the flavor is.” It’s not easy to find old cigarette ads any longer. For years, they floated around on compilations of commercials and traded on tapes. Marlboro wasn’t always the juggernaut it is today. It was previously marketed as a woman’s cigarette. These ads in the mid to late ’60s changed all of that with an Old West theme that appealed to the macho ideals of smoking.
- AppleTV+ is releasing Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical on July 18th. That alone is great news. We have gone 35 years without a Peanuts musical. The second best news is that Ben Folds is coming out of retirement to write the music for the Special. I like Ben’s music and I can’t imagine a better artist to capture the spirit of the old Peanuts films.
Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback
- On the Sunday Morning Tuneage from 6/4/2007 to 7/12/2009, I ranked my 100 Favorite Films of All-Time. I did one per week with the arbitrary rule that they had to air on television that upcoming week. It ended up being a pretty representative list in retrospect. A few were ranked out of order, but I stick with that list for that point in my life. The 2009 stats check out.
6 – Alfred Hitchcock films.
5 – Steven Spielberg films.
4 – Stanley Kubrick films.
4 – Billy Wilder films.
I’m going to attempt the impossible over the next 20 weeks. I’m going to use that old list as a template and rank five films a week, without planning it all out ahead of time. Remember, these are “favorite” and not necessarily “best” movies. Enjoy critiquing me along the way.
2025 Running Stats (#1-100)- 5 – Directed by Steven Spielberg
- 4 – Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
- 4 – Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
- 3 – Directed by Terry Gilliam
- 3 – Directed by Sergio Leone
- 3 – Directed by Rob Reiner
- 3 – Directed by Quentin Tarantino
- 3 – Directed by David Yates
- 2 – Directed by James Cameron
- 2 – Directed by Charlie Chaplin
- 2 – Directed by Coen Bros.
- 2 – Directed by Brian De Palma
- 2 – Directed by William Friedkin
- 2 – Directed by John Hughes
- 2 – Directed by Terry Jones
- 2 – Directed by Stanley Kubrick
- 2 – Directed by Kevin Smith
- 2 – Directed by Billy Wilder
- 1 – 1900’s
- 2 – 1920’s
- 2 – 1930’s
- 4 – 1940’s
- 8 – 1950’s
- 10 – 1960’s
- 23 – 1970’s
- 17 – 1980’s
- 19 – 1990’s
- 9 – 2000’s
- 4 – 2010’s
- 1 – 2020’s
- FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL-TIME (2009)
- 5. The Godfather (1972)
- 4. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- 3. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- 2. Blade Runner (1982)
- 1. Jaws (1975)
- FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL-TIME (2025)
- 5. Rear Window (1954) (Directed by Alfred Hitchcock): My favorite Hitchcock film is a pretty fluid moniker. It’s here because I enjoy watching it as much as any of his films. The most important thing to me is how it affected me as a young college student. It expanded my idea of how a film could tell a story in a very condensed manner. As a bonus, this film is now showing on Netflix.
- 4. Seven Samurai (1954) (Directed by Akira Kurosawa): In the Top Twenty, no film has continued to move up the list as fast as this one upon additional viewings. The influence on Western cinema is undeniable and at least five other films on this list owe heavily to this film.
- 3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) (Directed by Sergio Leone): I don’t think it’s fair to label this as the third of the Dollars Trilogy. There is so much going on with the camerawork, the acting, the story, and the score that it’s not fair to the previous two. I could go on for days about my love for this film.
- 2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) (Directed by Frank Darabont): The best King novella turned into the best King adaptation with (arguably) the best King director at the helm. Neither lead actor were what I imagined when I read the novella and now I can’t imagine anyone else. The lesson is that there isn’t a need to vary from the source material to make a good film.
- 1. Jaws (1975) (Directed by Steven Spielberg): I’ve talked about it earlier. It has been a consistent pleasure in my life. There isn’t a movie that better defines “comfort film” in my life.
That’s the list as of June 2025. I may have already mentally adjusted the other end of the list as I finished it. Maybe too many from the Harry Potter franchise and not enough John Ford films. The decade breakdown is about correct, but I’m sure I’m leaving off more 1950s and 1960s films in favor of trying to include a few more current offerings. Maybe I’ll redo the list in another year or two with what I consider the Best Films and not just my Favorite Films. Thanks for playing along.
1975 in Review
- June – Justice League of America #119 (DC Comics): Cover by Dick Giordano. Art by Dick Dillin. Written by Elliot Maggin. “If we’re to go down, we’ll do it with a roar and not a whimper!” The Adaptoids have been defeating the JLA heroes one by one over the past issues. Hawkman and Hawkgirl return to Earth (not pictured) to save the day.
- June 10 – Pele signed with the New York Cosmos of the NASL. He is set to make $4.7 million over the next three seasons. At the time, it makes him the highest paid professional athlete in the world.
- June 2 – Billy Martin was fired by the Detroit Tigers late in the 1973 season. He was hired by the Texas Rangers and turned them into a winner for the 1974 season. It was short lived into the 1975 season when he butted heads with management, was fired, and immediately hired by the Yankees. The story goes that on June 20, during a doubleheader with the Boston Red Sox, Martin called up to the Press Box and demanded that “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” by John Denver be played during the Seventh Inning Stretch (a suggestion he had been rebuffed on months before). The song was played and Martin was fired 24 hours later.
What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?
Rice Krispies Treats: Ice Cream Sandwiches
Look at that picture. I don’t know if I did this one justice. It might be the best packaging picture to actual product in decades. It’s odd and a little scary that the rice krispie treats are soft even when frozen. They taste great. The issue is the generic vanilla ice cream that’s somewhere between soft serve and convenience-store-brand vanilla. Make your own rice krispie treats and get a pint of your favorite ice cream and you might have a more pleasant evening.
Lay’s Valetina & Lime
Valentina hot sauce is a slightly sweet sauce that’s similar to Tapatio. There has been a cultural tradition of pouring some hot sauce into a bag of chips with a lime and shaking it up. This takes those messy steps away and gives a pretty solid hot-sauce chip with a lime aftertaste. The shame is that this will finish a distant third in the “Do Us a Flavor” voting. These are really great to eat one chip at a time, which I understand goes against the way most people eat chips. The flavors are layered enough to be really enjoyable to eat slowly. Watch a good movie with a bag of these because they’ll be gone by the end of the month.
Mountain Dew: Mango Rush
This might be a Little Caesars exclusive because they realized that Mango and Sweet Heat aren’t a great combination. Not that mango salsa isn’t really good. The problem is that mango is the type of flavor that dulls the heat. Mountain Dew had an actual Mango Heat in their Game Fuel line in 2016. It had some actual heat to it. This is more mango in taste with a heat that’s dialed down almost to zero. If you want a mango, lemon-lime soda with your pizza, stop by this summer. If not, pass until the next attempt.
“There’s a mirror movin’ inside my mind, reflecting the love that you shine on me
Hold on now to that feelin’, let it flow, let it grow yeah, yeah” – Gary Wright
