The movie “Going in Style” is a remake of the 1979 movie of the same title, that started George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg. The idea behind this story is essentially the same, 3 men in their 70’s and 80’s who have nothing to lose, decide to rob a bank because all 3 are broke due to a major injustice. In the case of this new version, the major injustice is very understandable. One of the 3 men, played by Micheal Caine was tricked into getting a mortgage that ballooned into payments that tripled after a year. On top of this, all 3 men are retired factory workers and now because of cost cutting and typical screwing over workers, they have lost out on their pensions that it took them 30 years of hard work to earn. Now all of them are broke and after Caine’s character witnesses a robbery, he decides to rob the very bank that tripled his mortgage payments and is now threatening to foreclose on his house. I found all of this believable and understandable, considering the kind of anger these 3 men and so many other Americans must feel when they are screwed out of their pensions or laid off because their job has moved overseas. Caine’s friends are played well by veteran actors Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin and they both provide some comic relief and believability to the story. On to of all their other problems, Freeman’s character is on dialysis and needs a Kidney transplant, which adds some perhaps unnecessary drama to the plot.

I thought that the story was entertaining enough, believable and considering the bank and the company involved that screwed over these 3 men almost justifiable.

The negative part of all this is that as you watch this 100 minute or so movie you slowly realize that most of the story you have seen many times before, so before long this film is over it can seem to be boring and average.  Ann Margaret also makes an appearance in this movie along with Matt Dillon, who I have not seen in a movie in a long time.

I give this movie only a mild recommendation, mainly because of the 3 great actors involved.

Once a month or so, back in the mid-70’s the announcement that Don Rickles was going to be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on Friday night was everything to me because you just knew it was going to be another great event of the best comedy there ever was. Carson was the perfect straight man to Rickles who could just make a face, make a noise or do one of the many jokes about his wife or any number of different people that we heard before. Regardless this always worked because with Rickles, because it was all about his face and his impeccable comedic rhythm and timing.

Rickles was 90 years old when he passed away today and he will be very sorely missed by everyone who loves comedy. Without Don Rickles, there would never have been the Dean Martin Roast shows in the 70’s or all the roast shows that followed. Don Rickles was the all-time greatest roast master and one of the greatest comedians of all time.

There are many messages that I remember the first time I saw “Dances with Wolves” that was released in 1990. The most thing I remember was that Dances with Wolves could be one of the best anti-war movies ever made. The story is about a soldier during the Civil war who deserts his unit after being wounded and almost losing his leg. After leaving his unit and living alone in the wilderness, he eventually befriends a local tribe of Indians and over a long period of time, he becomes part of their tribe and eventually part of their family. For me, the best message from this movie was that once you strip away the insanity of war, and being a soldier in an army with the singular goal of killing the enemy, what remains is humanity and how human beings relate to each other as people.

Dances with Wolves was a great movie for many reasons and won for best picture and also won 6 other Oscars, including best Director for Kevin Costner. Most of the movie was filmed on location in South Dakota, mainly on private ranches near Pierre and Rapid City, with a few scenes filmed in Wyoming. Specific locations included the Badlands National Park, the Black Hills, the Sage Creek Wilderness Area, and the Belle Fourche River area. The bison hunt scenes were filmed at the Triple U Buffalo Ranch outside Fort Pierre, South Dakota, as were the Fort Sedgewick scenes, the set being constructed on the property. What I remember the most about this movie are the incredible vistas and cinematography of the midwestern parts of the United States. The story was so well told and compelling that I didn’t even realize that it was almost 3 hours long and in fact, the full version of this film is 4 hours long.

Dances with Wolves is another great example in movie history of a one hit wonder. As with the movies Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment, everybody involved with these great productions all hit a high note in their career and never made a movie even close to this good ever again. Kevin Costner won for best director and this film won for best picture and from there, he went on to make Waterworld and some other very average movies, proving once again that the movie industry is as tough as any profession there is. The movie viewing audience is fickle and creating a great screenplay like Dancing with Wolves should be considered nothing less than a miracle.

It has been almost 30 years since Dancing with Wolves has been released and for all who are reading this movie blog and have not seen this great film, it gets my highest recommendation.