It's Back! TJL's DVD Critic's Corner - 6/28/05

[TJL]

Good afternoon, this is your reviewer speaking.

Today’s cinematic opus "Flight Of The Phoenix" features sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground. We’ve got dashing pilots, spunky heroines and more turbulence than that time last Thanksgiving when your Uncle George finally came out of the closet causing Grammy to drop the green bean casserole on the cat. Poor Mittens…he was never the same after that.

But before we buckle up, let’s review some important safety tips:

In the event your computer careens wildly into the ocean, this review can be used as a flotation device. Just maximize the window and sail merrily to the safety!
If you experience a loss in cabin pressure while reading this review, you probably didn’t understand that last obscure joke that only the author thinks is funny. That’s perfectly normal. Happens all the time.
And finally, never get into a plane. Any plane. They always crash. Planes are the most dangerous mode of transportation in the movies. Ever see Con Air? Cast Away? U.S. Marshalls? La Bamba? I rest my case.
In “Flight Of The Phoenix,” Dennis Quaid plays maverick pilot Jack Town, a man’s man who grabs life by the shorties and goes for the gusto. A guy who chews nails and craps thumbtacks. A man voted least likely to get a pedicure. Not a fancy lad.
Handsome Jack’s plane is a Fairchild C-119, a circa 1950’s propeller driven plane that looks like a silver Winnebago and flies like one. Jack and his wisecracking co-pilot (which is standard equipment on the Fairchild C-119, along with A/C and lots of cupholders) are hired to fly a crew of modern film’s most overused stereotypes (the angry white guy, the angry black guy, the scared guy who will probably die first, the token spunky gal, and the stuffy Brit who is a nice guy when you get to know him) out of the Mongolian desert to somewhere more hospitable, like Death Valley or maybe Newark in the summer.
Scruffy Jack decides the best flight plan involves piloting his winged deathtrap right through the biggest sandstorm ever dreamed up by a Hollywood FX company, and before the passengers break out the snacks and talk about how great it is not to be dead, the plane crashes.
Trapped in a perilous dustbowl with little food, water and a pack of Mongolian marauders who can’t wait to start merauding, Jack and his charges (who are really forgiving about his nearly killing them in an air disaster) decide to listen to fellow survivor Giovanni Ribisi – who is taking a break from playing the weird jittery dumb guy and instead plays a weird jittery smart guy - and rebuild the plane, because nothing staves off starving to death in the hot sun like intense physical labor. So before you can say, “hey kids, let’s put on a show,” handsomely scruffy Jack and the gang slap together an even crappier plane from the wreckage and fly off into the closing credits because they are way more resourceful than you.
Let’s face it, you and your friends couldn’t organize a simple get-together for dinner without a weeks worth of e-mails and phone calls only to wind up waiting for your jackass friend Steve and his girlfriend for over an hour because the restaurant won’t seat incomplete parties and for some reason Steve had to go all the way out to his girlfriend’s place in Park Slope to pick her up because she doesn’t like to take the subway and he’s freaking whipped!
Jack Town as played by the affably scruffy Dennis Quaid, is far from whipped.
Sure, his flying skills need work, particularly the whole up/down try not to shear off a wing if you can area, but if I ever need an easygoing lug to cuss at the women folk and kick sand in the face of the Federal Aviation Administration, Dennis Quaid’s the man!

Have a nice flight!

[Janice]

Good going TJL! I actually saw this movie and you're spot on.

[TJL]

I think I'll have a Dennis Quaid movie marathon this weekend.

[Cactus Jack]