The Hunt for Red October Film Review
“Conn, aye. All right, Ryan, we just unzipped our fly. Mr. Thompson! Open the outer doors, firing point procedures. Now if that bastard so much as twitches, I’m going to blow him straight to Mars.”
I once wrote the following, and it still applies: “Here we go, again. It is another September 30th. It seems that ever since I became a parent, approaching 14 16 years, now (that’s 98 112 in dog years), I’ve become acutely aware of this date. Today is the eve of what I like to refer as The Slide. That is, the cosmic phenomenon of the beginning of the end for whatever year you or I happen to be living through. You know the one where the space/time continuum accelerates to the point that the year is suddenly over. And, all of those things that happen between now and the end of the Rose Parade are just a blur. A fleeting memory. October 1st… January 2nd.” So I say once again, I’m too old for this…
With that in mind, it is time once more for the blogger otherwise known as the Scientist Gone Wordy and I to add another of our duo posts in the series we started in the technological dark ages that was 2010. For this one, we re-enter the adrenaline rush realm, this time with a distinct tinge of geekdom, as we examine the novel/film pairing of a noteworthy and groundbreaking techno-thriller. As usual, the wordy one will look at the text of a well-known novel later adapted to film, which I will review. In this case, she’ll be looking at a page-turner from the recognizable span of time that was the Decade of Excess, The Hunt for Red October. The 1984 source novel by Tom Clancy also served the film adaptation of the same name later in 1990. Rachel’s book review can be found here:
The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
A brief synopsis of the film: As the Cold War goes through what will be its last chilly vestiges in the 80s, a Typhoon-class Soviet submarine sets on its maiden voyage into the Atlantic. Onboard is the accomplished Captain Marko Ramius and a super-secret propulsion system that makes the missile boat, Red October, silent and invisible to its U.S./NATO adversaries. Unknown to the Russian Navy, however, is the fact that Ramius is planning on defecting to the United States, and bringing the Red October with him. Also jetting across the same ocean is historian Jack Ryan, currently an analyst for the CIA. He brings British intelligence and questions to Washington concerning the new Soviet boat. Ryan, having worked up the bio on Ramius, will be the only one who can put together what is really going on once the Soviet military hierarchy learns of the defection and sets out to hunt down and kill their new submarine. The larger potential threat all this poses, to both sides, is the crux of the story.
[spoiler warning: some key elements of the film could be revealed in this review]
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My 100 Best Loved From 1964 – 1976
Whether you are a fan of George Clooney or not, he does come up with some interesting things to say about film from time-to-time. Case in point, his recent interview with Parade magazine (and summarized and highlighted by Slash Film) that lists his 100 most loved films from a specific 13-year, mid-decades span. Why that particular period, you’d ask? His answer really spoke to those (including me) who lived through that distinct period:
“There were great filmmakers—Mike Nichols, Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese—you go down the list of these insanely talented filmmakers all working at the top of their game and kind of competing with each other. Pakula, Sidney Lumet—I mean, you can just keep going down the list of these guys. And they were all doing really interesting films… That era [1964 to 1976] was a reflection of the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the sexual revolution, the drug counterculture. All those things were exploding at the same time. And these films were reflections of it. Movies are really good when they do that. They give us a sense of what was going on in our psyche.”
How very true. And the films he selected surely display just that. So much so, I decided to come up with a collection of my own for the same period — many seen by me during or within that era at a theatre or on a TV set for the first time. No doubt, some of mine will be considered great and others not. Still, these are the films I love because they came out of that unmistakable period of upheaval and reflection, one that I literally grew up in. For better or for worst, these were the movies that fixed the criteria for me. They set the tone and shaped this movie-goer to the extent they’d affect my choices in cinema even way down the line. Each can put my mind right back to that specific time anytime I re-watch them.
Since my wife thinks I’m analytical by nature (sometimes painfully so), I looked to breakdown and categorize the list I came up with (anal… I know). Besides, I was curious myself about what I’d chosen. So before I reveal my list, here are those results [if you're interested, the graphs were created using the Kids Zone site, Create a Graph page]:
I invite anyone interested to join in on this exercise. For this period, or another span you consider appropriate. By the way, I made no distinction between theatrical and TV movies in this endeavor (the latter I marked in gray). Drumroll, please (and in no particular order):
Like this:
TMT: On Was The Hunt
This is the next entry in a Theatre… a Movie… and a Time series that was begun here. Since Rachel and I have reviews loading in the tubes for another of our parallel posts this week, I thought this memory dump should precede all that and plow the road. You’ll note, only the widest of images is fitting for this combination of theatre and movie. Close all watertight doors before diving in, though. 
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March 2, 1990: there was one time when a book of fiction made its way into my work and movie-going life. Tom Clancy’s first published novel, The Hunt for Red October, was that novel. Among the IT department cohorts that began filling the spaces around me at the job in the mid-to-late 80s, this was the techno-thriller paperback that made it across most of the analysts and support staff desks nearby. Mine, too.
With the announcement the book was being adapted to film later in the decade, a bunch of us tech-heads lit up on the news. And when the release date crept closer, about ten of us computer geeks set about planning and pre-ordering tickets for the film’s opening day. We thought we might as well make it memorable.
Since few movie palaces in the Los Angeles area are as unique than the famed Cinerama Dome Theatre, why not do this there? So, on this date I and couple of others got there early to hold places in line for the rest driving up just for a chance at good seats inside the iconic geodesic dome. Landing almost center row, and half way back of that enormous curved screen, we (and the movie) made this moment all the way awesome.
The entire TMT series can be found here.
Friday Song: A Real Hero
This one has been in my head ever since I took in Nicolas Winding Rehn’s Drive last Saturday night. It’s curious what music sticks in your head from the movies that fuse with you. Especially if the film really affects you, like this one did me. In particular, the finale touched me like few have with its impact. The track in question reflected back to others that did similar. Jeremy Richey noted the same in his excellent review of the film.
So I offer up for this Friday something musical and cinematic. It’s a song that is on par with some of the startling and poignant of them. For unique and culminating instrumentals, I’d certainly rank the ones performed by Tangerine Dream for 1978′s Sorcerer (Betrayal) and Thief (Confrontation) from ’81 high up. Furthermore, Moby’s God Moving over the Face of the Waters from Heat (1995), and Gladiator’s haunting Now We Are Free from 2000 by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard surely belong among the rarefied.
This, I firmly believe, is what my friend and author John Kenneth Muir refers to as a “momentary conjunction of subject matter, theme, song and film technique…“. It simply “… represents what is for me a perfect movie moment, one of those inexplicable but wholly magical grace notes that always gives you goosebumps and leaves you on an emotional high.” Precisely.
Taken from the original soundtrack by the composer Cliff Martinez for the motion picture Drive, A Real Hero was written, composed and produced by College and Electric Youth. If you’ve seen this film and its last act, you know exactly what I mean by all this — and understand why the number of plays for the tune keeps going up. I hope you enjoy “a real human being and a real hero“. ♫
TMT: There Are No Clean Getaways
This is the next entry in a Theatre… a Movie… and a Time series that was begun here. Looking back at what I started with this succession of memory dumps, I realized the remembrances shouldn’t be limited to the distant past. However, the film watching experience still had to be memorable. This need was solved by two recent, connected instances: what happened last weekend and coming across two reviews by blogging colleagues. Jeremy Richey’s remarkable post on the movie at hand really connected:
The Loneliness of the Short Distance Driver: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011)
“Every time I go to the movies I hope and pray that I will come across a new film that moves me as much as my favorites from the seventies and early eighties. With each passing year it seems like I find fewer and fewer modern works that spark that special flame in me but when I do I am both exhilarated and grateful.”
Chase Park Cinema (St. Louis, Missouri):
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September 17, 2011: being at the Gateway of the West for the recent Bouchercon 2011 made for an unforgettable experience (as I covered here). Yet, it coincided with the début of a film I’d been dying to see. Having streamed Nicolas Winding Refn’s one-of-kind Valhalla Rising earlier this year, and hearing about the Tom Hardy star-making film Bronson, this director got on to my radar. Plus, when I caught the trailer for his Drive film, it made catching this particular film an imperative. Besides, various reviews kept praising it enthusiastically (Darren’s excellent review). Finally, I’d briefly discussed it with my good friend Pop Culture Nerd and author Peter Spiegelman at the mystery writer’s convention I specifically came in town to attend. Both praised the movie passionately. They weren’t wrong to do so.
After the completion of the con’s third day, I caught a cab that evening over to the nearby Chase Park neighborhood. The central west end area of St. Louis is upscale and the set of cinemas is actually part of the lobby of the independently owned Chase Park Plaza Hotel. It was formerly known as Chase Park Plaza Theatre. What was unique to the small stadium hall where I screened the film was that it incorporated what looked like an Hammond Organ. And, one of the theatre staff actually played it until show time — see second image above (taken with my phone). The fact I was alone for this was familiar comfort.
Sitting there, between a protagonist written fittingly to the anti-heroes of 70s film, an L.A. photographed in ways that reminded me of Heat (1995) and The Driver (1978), and a soundtrack more than worthy of any Michael Mann film set in Los Angeles (Heat, Collateral, 2004) or Chicago (Thief, 1981), it all seemed pretty damn appropriate. I was back home. Jeremy really nailed it for me with his close to the review:
“Drive has had its critics (including my friend Tony Dayoub over Cinema Viewfinder) but it moved me like no other film has in a very long time. It even provoked a physical response as I left the theater shaking and I have barely slept since I saw it, as images of Gosling’s haunted stare keep replaying in my head. Drive left me feeling shook-up, dazed and, like my favorite films, if left me feeling like I had been granted a glimpse into part of myself that I didn’t know (or had forgotten) about.”
Same here, my friend.
The entire TMT series can be found here.
