Tag Archives: Melinda Dillon

May 29, 2020 · 1:07 pm

The Set of 400: #69 – My Favorite Half-Faced Sunburn

Today! Because I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I’ve been seeing this shape –

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Directed by Steven Spielberg (x8)

Starring Richard Dreyfuss (x2), Melinda Dillon (x4), Teri Garr (x2), Bob Balaban (x3), Francois Truffaut (x2), Roberts Blossom (x3), Cary Guffey, J. Patrick McNamara, Warren J. Kemmerling, Philip Dodds, Lance Henriksen (x3), George DiCenzo

This movie was way too boring for us as kids. Like, I knew it existed, and from seeing the tape cover at the video store I knew there were aliens in it eventually, but whenever I caught a few minutes on TV it was always Richard Dreyfuss doing crazy shit in his house and a bunch of lab coat types in foreign crowds with loud music and singing and none of it made any sense. I don’t know for sure when I finally sat and watched the whole thing, but I want to say it was at least high school or later. Having grown up on alien adventure flicks, nothing about Close Encounters interested me for a long, long time.

Roy was just a little too looney tunes for us kids

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Tagged as Bob Balaban, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Favorite Movies Ever, Francois Truffaut, Lance Henriksen, Melinda Dillon, Richard Dreyfuss, Roberts Blossom, Steven Spielberg, Teri Garr

November 11, 2019 · 2:09 pm

The Set of 400: #213 – My Favorite Hockey Rink Striptease

Today! Because they brought their fucking toys with them!

Slap Shot (1977)

Directed by George Roy Hill

Starring Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Strother Martin, Allan F. Nicholls (x2), M. Emmet Walsh (x3), Melinda Dillon (x3), Swoosie Kurtz (x2), Paul Dooley (x3), Jennifer Warren, Jerry Houser, Ned Dowd, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson, David Hanson, Yvon Barrette, Andrew Duncan

It’s not much of a controversial stretch to declare Slap Shot as the best hockey movie ever made. That’s not a terribly deep well to draw from. But how about one of the best team sports films of all time? Oh ho, now we’re getting somewhere! Team sports are tough to pull off in a dramatic film – so many characters, hard to focus on individual achievements. But sure, there’s some – Hoosiers, Miracle, The Natural. Sport comedies, however, are way better in a team setting. And coming on the heels of 1976’s Bad News Bears, they rolled out this hard R rated, violent, vulgar hockey flick that became the blueprint for everything from Major League to North Dallas Forty to Dodgeball to Kathy Ireland kicking field goals in Necessary Roughness.

It’s not a perfect film, but it was a deeply 1991 film

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Tagged as Allan F. Nicholls, Favorite Movies Ever, George Roy Hill, M. Emmet Walsh, Melinda Dillon, Michael Ontkean, Paul Dooley, Paul Newman, Slap Shot, Strother Martin

November 5, 2019 · 2:21 pm

The Set of 400: #217 – My Favorite Adult Braces

Today! Because it’s not going to stop/’Til you wise up –

Magnolia (1999)

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (x4)

Starring Tom Cruise (x3), Philip Seymour Hoffman (x4), Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly (x4), William H. Macy, Jason Robards (x2), Melora Walters, Ricky Jay, Alfred Molina (x3), Felicity Huffman, Melinda Dillon (x2), Luis Guzman (x3), Philip Baker Hall (x3), Thomas Jane (x2), Michael Murphy (x3), Henry Gibson (x3), Neil Flynn (x2), Patton Oswalt, Jim Meskimen (x2), Jeremy Blackman, Michael Bowen, Cleo King, Clark Gregg (x3)

Like many people, my initial reaction to Magnolia was that I had a problem with the ending. For everything else going on in this movie – and there is a ton going on here – the natural takeaway, as it is the climax of the movie, is “What the hell is all this with the frogs now?” But, come on, how else was it going to end? Isn’t it obvious that the solution to all the crazy pent up drama is for the sky to open up and drench the city in biblically apocalyptic frogs? No?

I mean, this kid seemed to dig it

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Tagged as Alfred Molina, Favorite Movies Ever, Felicity Huffman, Henry Gibson, Jason Robards, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Luis Guzman, Magnolia, Melinda Dillon, Melora Walters, Michael Murphy, Patton Oswalt, Paul Thomas Anderson, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, Thomas Jane, Tom Cruise, William H. Macy

October 14, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #233 – My Favorite Lifebuoy Soap Advertisement

Today! Because you’ll shoot your eye out, kid –

A Christmas Story (1983)

Directed by Bob Clark

Starring Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Ian Petrella, Zack Ward, Yano Anaya, Tedde Moore, Jean Shepherd, Jeff Gillen

There’s a pretty distinct difference between watching a movie a lot and seeing a movie a lot. Sure, now they only seem to marathon the hell out of this thing right at Christmas, but like most everyone I know, this thing played constantly at my house the entire Christmas season for every year of my young life. Can anyone really ballpark how many times they’ve seen A Christmas Story? It might be a stretch, but I’d guess over the last three and a half decades this might be the most seen movie in America, short of maybe Star Wars and…I don’t know, Titanic? Even then!

And so I didn’t particularly love this movie, for a long long time. It’s hard to have any perspective on it, because you know every inch of A Christmas Story. You don’t even think about it in attempts to evaluate it. And for people who grew up with it, it feels like a remarkably old movie, mainly due to its exacting attention to period detail (except for its somewhat-ambiguous time setting – sometime before WWII but after The Wizard of Oz, sort of?) and its pervasive omnipresence during the holidays in the ’80s and ’90s. Come on, it’s everyone’s parents’ favorite Christmas movie, right? Just about?