Déjà vu Dalliance

Hopefully this will be the last week for quite some time that I will have to start with the announcement of another actor’s death. Tom Laughlin, the co-writer, director and star of the four Billy Jack movies, passed away at the age of 82 last month. Though Billy Jack, the second film in the series, cannot be considered a ‘good’ movie by any means, it is still a B-movie cult classic that has some solid entertainment value.

Some of you may recall a movie being released back in 2004 called Cellular starring Kim Basinger. The phone-based action crime thriller is a highly entertaining movie that demonstrates how quickly things have changed over a ten year period. Firstly, the cell phones in the film are much less sophisticated compared to today’s technology. But more interestingly, the motion picture also stars a young Chris Evans – who shortly thereafter landed the role of Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four franchise and later the part of Captain America in the Marvel films. We also see a small glimpse of the relatively unknown Jessica Biel, who is now quite famous. Likewise, it was a watershed moment for Jason Statham, as it was one of his first roles in an American film. Add in appearances from William H. Macy, who is receiving rave reviews for his role in the televison show Shameless, and character actor Noah Emmerich (The Truman Show, tv show The Americans), and you have a pretty impressive cast by today’s standards.

We are now less than one week away from the Academy Awards and I thought it would be a good time to visit one of the biggest Oscar winning movies of the 1970's – the classic 1975 motion picture One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – which took home five of the biggest prizes; namely, Best Picture (a young Michael Douglas won for producing the movie), Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.