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borisratnik
Reviews
Christine (1983)
They butchered another Stephen King book . . .
Even though they hacked the book to pieces (like Hollywood always does,) the movie was still a lot of fun! I loved watching all of Arnie's dirt-bag enemies get it, one by one. And when Christine had Moochie Welch cornered in the alley and the butterball pulled a switchblade and sniffled and blubbered "you're a dead man now!," I just fell out on the floor! I laughed so hard I almost pooped. I mean, here's this 3,600-lb. demon-possessed metal killing-machine, and he's making threats! Useless machismo at its finest.
Anyway, they used (I think) six different cars in the movie to cover all the wrecks, and the regenerating car was made of plastic. Way cool special effects for the time. They still look great, even now.
I have issue with one thing, though: near the end when Arnie wrecks Christine into that metal beam and he comes flying out through the windshield, what the heck were they thinking of by using flat "candy-glass"? Car glass is either safety glass or laminated safety glass. (It was invented in 1928!) One other blooper: in one of the many scenes where they showed Christine's speedometer, one of them was scaled to 150 MPH. All the other shots showed a limit of 120. Oops. They slipped a shot of one of the police special cars in.
There was a British fan who wrote in recently (Audril-4? Did I get that right?) who said that Roland Le Bay was a Vietnam veteran. Nope. In the book, he joined the Army in 1921 (I think) and got out in the 1950s as an old man. He was a veteran of World War II and of the Korean war, but not Vietnam.
Still, I really liked it and it was fun! I have it on tape and I watch it every now and then.
Boris Ratnik
Call to Glory: Call to Glory (1984)
A really fun and cool movie!
I really enjoyed this movie, and especially the old cars, and the music!! These period movies are always a lot of fun. But I enjoy spotting bloopers in films. No matter how hard those continuity assistant directors try they always miss something.
In the opening scene as the camera swings down to show the Air Force base neighborhood where the Sarnac family lives, there is a park, a street corner and a YIELD sign. The sign is the blooper. It has red trim, red letters and a white background. BUZZZZZZ!!! This design of YIELD sign was introduced in 1971, and this movie is set in 1962, when these signs still had black trim and letters on a yellow background.
Still, I don't mean to criticize. Every movie has at least one blooper. The plane sequences were really cool, and I just love all the '50s and early '60s cars. And Cindy Pickett! What a babe! I was really happy to see her come back in St. Elsewhere! This film is definitely worth buying, even in VHS. Enjoy!
Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
You might see my car in it . . .
I think I've been in the movies.
The freeway scenes were filmed in Orlando, on the East-West Expressway (today known as SR 408.) I worked evenings for a bus company on Division St. (about 20 blocks south of downtown) and one summer night in 1980 I got off work about 1 a.m. and took the East-West Expressway home to Goldenrod (on the east side of town.) Back then, the toll was only 25 cents (man!) and it shaved half an hour off your driving time, so I went up Orange Ave., hung a right on Anderson St. and burned rubber up the entrance ramp. There was some guy standing there with a flashlight and he almost jumped out in front of me to get me to stop, but I swung around him and floored it! I thought "who the H*** is that?" as I swung up onto the Expressway at 65 MPH.
Suddenly I realized something funny was going on... the traffic was bunched together in one giant wolf-pack, and the whole pack was only going about 45. Thinking nothing of it, I just started weaving from lane to lane through the pack, still going at least 65, until I popped out the front and left 'em all in the dust.
It was only later that I found out that the cops had closed the expressway for about 2 hours that night so that they could film a scene in Honky Tonk Freeway! (Everybody was driving 45, but the film was sped up later to make it look like 65 or 70.) I busted right into the middle of their scene, and maybe I messed it up! Maybe they had to re-shoot that scene! To the director, I can only say: sorry!
So, if you see a brand-new pastel-blue 1980 Chevrolet Citation notchback coupe in that scene really hauling butt, it was me!
Summer of My German Soldier (1978)
Found a blooper
I did not read the original book, so I can't say if the movie stuck to it or not, but I'm always looking for continuity bloopers in films. Every movie has at least one, and it's fun to look for them.
Here's a blooper for you: when Anton decides not to escape on the freight train and he is surprised by Patty, there is a scene where they stand facing each other while the train passes by in the background. Just for a moment, on one of the freight cars, a plaque, about 1 foot by 2 feet, is visible. On it is a series of colored horizontal lines of varying lengths. This plaque is actually a laser-readable bar code, which contains the serial number of the freight car, its dimensions and capacities, and the name of the railroad it belongs to. A laser would read each plaque as the train rolled past a freight-yard checkpoint.
These plaques were invented by IBM in the late 'sixties and were introduced in 1970. They are the ancestors of the Universal Product Code, the bar codes we all know and love today, introduced in 1974.
But, this movie is set in 1943 or 1944. Oops!