Movies with Impact

A Personal Note from Robin

Every once in a while in your life, you watch a movie or hear a song that has definite, deep impact upon your life. They provide a strong enough emotion that when you have quiet time in the middle of the night or on a Sunday afternoon, you search YouTube or Netflix for the title just so you can watch or hear it again.

For me, there are very few of these movies and songs, but I keep them on my taskbar so I can see them when I wish. A few of them (I hate to say it) I have seen multiple times.

I am sure that you have a list of your own and when you have "that moment" you search them out again.

Movies with Impact (in Alphabetical Order)
	"Mr. Holland's Opus" ' is a 1995 American drama film directed by Stephen Herek, produced by Ted Field, Robert W. Cort, and Michael Nolin, and written by Patrick Sheane Duncan. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss in the title role of Glenn Holland, a dedicated high-school music teacher who attempts to compose his own music while struggling to balance his job and life with his wife and profoundly deaf son. The central theme of the movie is that too many times, our personal goals and ambitions are lost or overwhelmed by "our job, family, and life".
	"Here Comes the Navy" has James Cagney joining the Navy in the 1930's. He gets stationed at Naval Training Center in San Diego. I was stationed there in 1961. It was interesting to see the base as it was. When Cagney completes boot camp, he is transferred to USS Arizona as it was in 1934. I visited Arizona Memorial on Ford's Island, Pearl Harbor, in 1960. (For those of you who do not believe in ghosts, I would suggest you visit the Arizona Memorial. 1777 men lost their lives during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and every one of their souls are still there.} Cagney requests a transfer to Naval Air. As luck would have it, he is stationed aboard the Macon based at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, California. (That was the year before the Macon went down in Monterey Bay.} Seeing Macon leaving Hanger One and flying over the Bay Area in 1934 was a true sight to behold. Yes - the plot was contrived, the acting was "1934-ish," and the photography was early Warner Bros - but that being said, as a Navy vet, seeing Naval battleships ships in action and watching Macon in flight, this movie produced a lot of emotion in me.
	Ice Station Zebra is a 1968 Metrocolor Cold War era suspense and espionage film directed by John Sturges and starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine, and Jim Brown. The screenplay is by Alistair MacLean, Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink, and W. R. Burnett, loosely based on MacLean's 1963 novel, Ice Station Zebra. Both have parallels to real-life events that took place in 1959. I grew up during the Cold War and joined the Navy in 1957, shortly after the Soviet Union launched "Sputnik." This film reminded me that the Russians are "coming to get us."
	The Last Movie Star is a 2017 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Adam Rifkin. The film stars Burt Reynolds, Ariel Winter, Clark Duke, Ellar Coltrane and Chevy Chase. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2017. It was released through DirecTV Cinema on February 22, 2018, before being released in a limited release and through video on demand on March 30, 2018, by A24. This is one of Burt Reynolds' latter film appearances before his death in September 2018. This film is a warning to all of us that as we climb to greatness, e need to be careful we do not become bitter in later life
	Killer Elite is another Cold War spy-vs- spy action-thriller film starting James Caan and Robert Duvall as a pair of elite mercenaries who become bitter rivals and are caught on opposite sides of a proxy war over a foreign dignitary in the streets of San Francisco. Fairly early on in the movie, Duvalls character {Hansen) shoots to disable but not kill Caan's character (Locken). We watch as Locken is driven to go through months of surgery and therapy to regain his former life. The film was shot in March and April 1974 in San Francisco, with additional filming on location in Los Angeles. Locations included the San Francisco Yacht Club, Pier 70, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin Headlands, San Francisco International Airport, Chinatown, Portsmouth Square, and the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet. The building that explodes in the film's opening was an abandoned fire department station located on the Embarcadero. It was to be demolished by the city for the Embarcadero Center redevelopment project, and Peckinpah changed the film's shooting schedule to take advantage of the event. Shots of the explosion were filmed from the Hyatt-Regency hotel across the street. Moral: Bad things sometimes happen to good people
	Master and Commander introduces us to John "Jack" Aubrey, is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his rise from lieutenant to rear admiral in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The twenty (and one incomplete draft)-book series encompasses Aubrey's adventures and various commands along his course to flying a rear admiral's flag. Most of his naval battles and adventures are drawn from actual Royal Navy history. Several of his exploits and reverses, most notably those in the plots of Master and Commander, The Reverse of the Medal and Blue at the Mizzen, are directly based on the chequered career of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald. With a stirring musical score, I can sit and listen to the soundtrack alone.
	In the movie Midway, decisions are made on what certain letters mean, and whether enemy carriers are where they are supposed to be. If viewers give it the appropriate attention, they will see that this movie plays like a giant chess match. The outcome is determined by gutsy moves and bad decisions, sometimes indecision. The film shows how history makes Heroes of ordinary men. The movie is good but far from great. I love how the filmmakers remained true to the events. But the special effects looked cheap and the use of actual combat footage feels inappropriate and even exploitive. Nevertheless, I think it's a good film not to be missed by Military History buffs.
	Men of Honor stars Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr. This film is inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, the first African American master diver in the United States Navy. Carl Brashear left his native Kentucky and the life of a sharecropper in 1948 by joining the United States Navy. As a crew member of the salvage ship USS Hoist, where he is assigned to the galley, he is inspired by the bravery of one of the divers, Master Chief Petty Officer Leslie William "Billy" Sunday. He is determined to overcome racism and become the first black American Navy diver, even proclaiming that he will become a master diver. He eventually is selected to attend Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne, New Jersey, where he arrives as a boatswain's mate second class. He finds that Master Chief Sunday is the leading chief petty officer and head instructor, who is under orders from the school's eccentric, bigoted commanding officer to ensure that Brashear fails. Moral: Persistence will overcome almost any obstacle
	Music Within is a 2007 American biographical period drama film starring Ron Livingston, Melissa George, Michael Sheen, Rebecca De Mornay, and Marion Ross. It follows the life of Richard Pimentel (Livingston), a respected public speaker whose hearing disability attained in the Vietnam War drove him to become an activist for the Americans with Disabilities Act.
	On the Beach is a 1959 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film from United Artists starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins. Produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, it is based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel On the Beach depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no one is assigned blame for starting the war, which attributes global annihilation to fear compounded by accident or misjudgment.
	At The Presidio Army base in San Francisco, US Military Police soldier Patti Jean Lynch is shot dead while investigating a break-in. Two San Francisco Police Department officers are killed in the getaway. Jay Austin, an SFPD Detective and an ex-Military Police soldier are dispatched to investigate. He clashes with Lieutenant Colonel Alan Caldwell, the base provost marshal. The movie shows how "military honor" is so important in life.
	Victory at Sea was a documentary television series about Naval warfare in general during World War II, and naval warfare in particular, as well as the use of industry in warfare. It was originally broadcast by NBC in the United States in 1952–1953. The music and history of this series were definitely a strong influence in my formative years. I can remember watching this series with my family on television in the early fifties. I have the entire series on disc and still watch the on Sunday afternnons.