Showtime 4:20

By Pink Rabbit

Written reviews of an eclectic pick of movies, some controversial. Reviews include tongue-in-cheek "recommendations" for the 420 movie buff advising whether to light up or save the stash. No spoilers in these reviews, which include little-known interesting tidbits. While the movies are on the older side, watching them on an HD TV can provide a whole new experience. Most flicks can be borrowed for free from the public library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stacy Lynne
• Release date: Jul 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463345313

Book preview

SHOWTIME 4:20

By Pink Rabbit

Cover Design by Laura Shinn Designs

Copyright 2018 by Pink Rabbit

Published by Stacy Lynne at Smashwords

Formatted by Stacy Lynne at Smashwords

ISBN: 9780463345313

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading Showtime 4:20. This ebook remains the copyrighted property of Pink Rabbit and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoy this book, encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

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Table of Contents

The Aviator

Big Eyes

Boys Town and Men of Boys Town **DVD Double Feature**

Catch Me If You Can

Changeling

Chicago

Doctor Zhivago

Gold Diggers of 1933

Love Potion #9

The Motorcycle Diaries

Paper Moon

Pleasantville

Premonition

Pretty Baby

Red Army

She-Devil

The Shrimp on the Barbie

Sideways

The Terminal

The Truman Show

The Vagina Monologues

The Walk

The Way Way Back

Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

The Wolf of Wall Street

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The Aviator (2004); 2 hours, 50 minutes

Director: Martin Scorsese

Recommendation: No need to light up. This spellbinding movie features outstanding casting, camera angles, and editing. It won 34 awards.

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Howard Hughes was a record-setting aviator of perfectionism, determination, technical brilliance and business savvy beyond his years. When he lost first one parent, then the other, he became the wealthy heir of most of Hughes Tools. He was still in his late teens. Similar circumstances have turned many into rich, spoiled, alcoholic brats, but Howard Hughes had ambition and his preferred drink was milk. Nevertheless, his life was one of alternating triumphs and tragedies. He was afflicted with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, though during Howard’s life, OCD did not yet have a name. Hughes was also a film director.

In the tell-tale opening scene of The Aviator, nine-year-old Howard Hughes (Jacob Davich) is standing in a tub of hot water. His mother (Amy Sloan) comes in, takes a bar of soap out of a soap tin and begins washing Howard as she slowly spells Q-U-A-R, A-N-T, I-N-E.

Howard says quarantine, spells the word back to his mother, and says the word again. His mother asks him if he knows the cholera. Yes, Mother. He has seen the signs on the houses where the coloreds live. He also knows the typhus, and he knows what the cholera and typhus can do to him.

Howard’s mother cradles Howard’s face with both her hands as she looks Howard in the eyes and says to him, You are not safe. This lesson manifests in Howard’s adult life repeatedly.

Aside from its poignant opening scene, The Aviator focuses on the chunk of Hughes’s life encompassing the late-1920s through the mid-1940s, beginning with the making of his movie Hell’s Angels and including his acquisition of TWA airlines, his fight for balanced mental health, and the impact his mental health had on people close to him. The viewer is introduced to Howard’s mindset and the beautiful women Howard wooed, such as Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardener (Kate Beckinsale). Hughes’s love for (and contributions to) the aviation industry, along with his ability to make major decisions even while staring death in the face and his ability to stand his ground, are highlighted.

It is the oh-so-capable Leonardo DiCaprio who portrays the adult Howard Hughes. DiCaprio brings Hughes’s afflictions to life so convincingly that the viewer can sympathize with Hughes, cringe for him during his onsets of mental illness, cheer for him during his triumphs, and imagine the frustration the people in Howard’s life (especially Noah Dietrich) must have felt when dealing with Howard’s eccentricities and bouts of OCD. (In preparation for his role, DiCaprio shadowed a man with OCD in order to be able to give the role authenticity.)

Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly) was hired by Howard as Howard’s right-hand man. It was Noah’s job to make money when there was not enough for what Hughes wanted. The viewer can sense the impact Howard’s middle-of-the-night phone calls must have had on Dietrich’s life, marriage, and (I would think) nervous system.

One of the most powerful vignettes in The Aviator is the legal battle Howard Hughes fought after Maine SenatorRalph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda) filed a lawsuit against Hughes on charges of war profiteering: Howard had secured contracts with the military to create a spy plane (the XF-11) and a flying boat (the Hercules) that would transport troops AND equipment (tanks and everything) in one flight. Because the war ended before the Hercules was completed and the XF-11 crashed during its test flight, neither plane was used during the war.

Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), the founder of Pan Am Airways, rightly considered TWA to be Pan Am’s worst nightmare. Pan Am had been in the process of finishing the Community Airline Bill, which would have given Pan Am exclusivity on international air travel. Trippe was in cahoots with Senator Brewster. Together they tried to break Hughes and wrest TWA from him. After Hughes recovered from his crash injuries, Senator Brewster privately tried to make a deal with Hughes. Brewster offered to drop the war profiteering charges in exchange for the sale of TWA to Trippe. Hughes did not accept the offer.

When Hughes suffered a severe mental breakdown, he locked himself in a movie screening room for months, living on milk and urinating in the empty milk bottles. Senator Brewster and Juan Trippe were certain that Hughes would not emerge for the Senate hearing--in fact, they were counting on it. Hughes was summoned for the hearing.

Howard Hughes’s life was triumphant, tragic, and fascinating all at the same time. Though The Aviator was almost three hours long, it never dragged. It left me wanting to know more about Howard Hughes.

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Big Eyes (2014); 1 hour, 45 minutes

Director: Tim Burton

Recommendation: Light it if you've got it because without it you might find the movie to be too mundane.

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I saw Big Eyes on the big screen. It's about painter Margaret Keane, who claims to be the true painter of waif-like children who all had big, soulful eyes. The big eyes were the trademark of the paintings. Trouble is,