23.6.06

What do Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman have in common?

That’s easy. Cast either Hackman or Freeman in a movie and you automatically make it lots better.

Last night I got caught up in the 1969 space drama Marooned. It’s not necessarily a horrible film, but it hasn’t aged well and it plods along at a groggy snail’s pace. Things do perk up however, when Hackman’s character, the slightly unhinged astronaut Buzz Lloyd is on screen.


And this morning I spent a few more minutes than I really should have watching Morgan Freeman valiantly attempting to save Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.


I’m very fond of Hackman and Freeman and would probably watch a movie of the two men trapped in an elevator and simply talking for two hours.

My brain is a bit dusty this morning, but some of the other movies that I can think of Freeman and Hackman made a little more tolerable with their presence include, for Hackman; Heist (2001), Enemy of the State (1999), Absolute Power (1997), The Quick and the Dead (1995), No Way Out (1987) –which was a pale remake of Ray Milland’s The Big Clock (1948) and Night Moves (1975)

Some of the films that Morgan Freeman’s presence helped boost up a notch or two include Dreamcatcher (2003), Deep Impact (1998), Chain Reaction (1996), Outbreak (1995) and Brubaker (1980).

And then of course there’s a long list of great movies that these two gents made only greater, but that’s a topic for another day.

Shoot! Now I really want to watch The Big Clock. Maybe I’ll write tot he folks at TCM and see if it’s in their vaults. I’ve never seen it available on home video

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