Movie sign!

First off: looks as if I didn’t get sick after all, so Joe and Larry are off the hook for the whole Mystery Plague thing. That’s a relief. I didn’t look forward to texting them to get used to the idea of wearing their lungs on the outside or anything.

Possible preparation for a future near you.

Now that’s out of the way, what with one thing and another, I neglected to blog about the Milán/Miller Film Festival, Saturday night at the house of John and Gail Miller. Basically, John and I pick a theme, and then he, with some input from me, selects a couple movies to watch. Gail serves as ever-excellent hostess (i.e., does all the real work.) We’ve had festivals on Giant Monster, Alien Invasion, and sundry Asian themes.

Saturday night’s theme was a Robert Tessier Double Feature, featuring a pair of gritty 1970s action flicks. Tessier was an ex-paratrooper turned character actor who played the shaven-headed tough guy in a lot of flicks. He excelled in looking just mean as hell.

This guy.

He was an Algonquin Indian; Saturday I remarked that I could just see him in a Mohawk and buckskin leggings, wielding a tomahawk in some Pennsylvania forest in 1763. Except you really wouldn’t want to see him there. He’s long been kind of a favorite of both John’s and mine.

Also in attendance were Steve “S.M.” Stirling, his wife Jan, Scott Denning and Patricia Rogers (who’s possibly the most widely-beloved person I know.) Pat and Scott brought tasty hummus dips and ice cream. Steve had created another of his astonishing salads (which introduced me to the delights of garlic-stuffed olives.) Gail cooked up a couple of pizzas from Papa Murphy’s. I brought salsa and chips from Mis Amigos, which seems grossly inadequate, somehow, but was what John and Gail requested. It was all great.

Movies – oh, yes, them. Top of the bill was Walter Hill‘s directorial debut, Hard Times, starring Charles Bronson, who at 54 (!) was no softy, as a bare-knuckle fighter; and James Coburn, charismatic as ever as the gambler who promotes him through a series of street fights. Guess who Big Chuck winds up facing?

Guess who wins, too. It was not Bob Tessier’s lot to win many of those climactic cinematic battles. If you wonder why he seldom played the lead, pop another squint at the picture up there. (Reportedly, he was an extremely nice guy in real life. He could afford to be.)

Second feature was The Longest Yard – the 1974 Burt Reynolds original, not the remake.

I have to admit I’m not as enthusiastic about either movie as John is. Hard Times I find pretty good, Longest Yard not bad. Both worthy of a watch, and made for an excellent evening.

Of course it’s hard to go wrong with company like that. Not a dud in that string of firecrackers.

(Hit the picture of Charles Bronson or the title links to buy the movies mentioned through Amazon. Thanks for supporting this site!)

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