Blown Away (1994)

Thriller. 

Ex-IRA soldier and expert bomb-maker Ryan Gaerity (Tommy Lee Jones) escapes from prison in Northern Ireland. He travels to Boston to seek revenge on his former colleague Lieutenant James “Jimmy” Dove (Jeff Bridges), who is now a hero in the bomb-disposal unit. But Dove is also ex-IRA and the secrets of his past threaten to destroy both his career and his marriage. 

Directed by Stephen Hopkins, this is a fairly average thriller with some exciting moments. Every time Jimmy has to defuse a bomb that’s about to go off, the tension increases considerably. Bridges has a certain charm, as does Forest Whitaker as Officer Anthony Franklin. But Dove’s wife Kate (Suzy Amis) and uncle Max (Lloyd Bridges) are less well drawn as characters and threaten to tip it into B-movie territory.

Airplane! (1980)

Spoof disaster film that’s extremely funny. As with others in this series (see also The Naked Gun), no joke is considered too silly or too childish to be worth making. And there are a lot of them, too – a relentless sequence of gags – so I was laughing almost continuously.

The “plot” is almost irrelevant (mostly it’s just an excuse for the jokes), but it details how veteran fighter pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) and his air-hostess girlfriend Elaine (Julie Hagerty) have to safely land a plane after the crew and passengers suffer food poisoning on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. To complicate matters, Striker is “troubled” by his war experiences, and has a “drink problem” (he can’t locate his mouth when he raises his glass). Plus, Elaine has just broken up with him and he’s trying to win her back.

Leslie Nielsen is easy to love as the hopeless Dr. Rumack. In fact, the entire cast is superb. There is so much rich comic detail that you could watch it again and again.