Biting the Bullitt

Published 17 Mar 2011 01:00

It's been a hard time at the Chronicle towers.

When you check in on Foursquare it reads. "Hi, you're in Hell. Share on Facebook!?"

Sports reporter, Alistair Neil and myself have had to batten down the hatches - I'm not quite sure what that means - and steer the paper away from a black hole of blackness. And death. Probably.

The Captain, Editor Douglas Skelton (Creator of the movie list), has been taken ill. And as much as he was a super fan of his gallbladder it turned on him quicker than a game of spin the bottle…

I imagine he's furiously typing away at a keyboard in the badlands in a place where only dial-up or carrier pigeon is heard. Thanks for that BT!

Mind you, like a bedridden Howard Hughes he's become adept at manning his empire from afar. He better be writing his 12th novel and not frittering away his existence on Facebook.

So like Billy Connolly I'll come back at a tangent to my original point - I've not had a blog up for about a month. And that's the reason why. ^_^

Get well soon Douglas. We miss you more than Quentin Tarantino magpies from old movies.

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@SandyK1LL NY Narcotics Bureau cops Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider uncover a drug smuggling ring with a French Connection. What. The FCUK.

New York. So good they named it twice.

Everyone loves New York. Macaulay Culkin, the Gremlins, @Pinkhayley77 (seriously, follow her on Twitter).

Apparently French drug dealers like it as well. I don't have much to say about the French Connection. Other than I REALLY didn't like it.

I was expecting Dirty Harry shoot outs, Pulp Fiction banter, and Death Proof car chases. The car chase is pretty memorable.

Let me be clear. It's not a bad movie. I simply didn't enjoy it. Not like all the others I've watched, anyway. The whole NINE of them.

It's gritty, realistic and shot like a documentary. I like my movies with a bit of 'Hollywood pazzaz' as Douglas calls it.

French Connection was a just bit too real for me. "With a distinct lack of zombies."

Sorry, I must be channelling Douglas again.

Gene Hackman is very good. And it was almost worth it just to see him dressed as Santa chasing a drug dealer. I can't say enough about the car chase though. So I won't. Much.

I've not seen anything like it. Except for maybe on Top Gear. I didn't know Roy Scheider was allowed to exist before Jaws. I'm pretty sure Spielberg manifested him for that role.

Watching the trailer I think I may have been a bit mean. Then again, trailers have all the good bits, don't they?

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@SandyK1LL Tenacious cop Steve McQueen hunts the kingpin who killed a witness under his protection. A weekend of fast cars and turtlenecks ensues.

San Francisco is rife with crime. First Dirty Harry. Now Bullitt.

The last film I remember seeing with such a stylish intro was Charade. Catch me If You Can is superb as well. Steve McQueen, he's a bit like Clint isn't he? Handsome and unbelievably cool.

A fridge at the top of his stairs and Jacqueline Bisset in his bed, he's living the dream.

Driving the Mustang was just a bonus. I like how the movie just ends with Steve McQueen washing his face. More movies should get all their credits out of the way at the start. It makes the ending more dramatic and final.

With a name like Frank Bullitt he's got to be a cop. It's the rules. (This also applies to Music Teachers, Porn stars, and Firemen).

I'm not a great car person. Before I learned to drive I could describe cars by colour alone. But the noise the Mustang and Dodge make is beautiful.

You know things have taken a turn for the worse when he needs to be driven about by Ms Bisset in that um mini… beetle... the yellow car of shame.

One shocking bit of unintentional linkage between French Connection and Bullitt. Bill Hickman, who drives the Dodge Charger during the chase scene up and down the streets of Frisco netted extra stunt work for the car chase for The French Connection.

The car chase is tremendous. Up and down the hills with the Dodge. It's really original. Like something from a Tarantino movie. Wait a minute…

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The List So Far...

1. White Heat.

2. Sunset Boulevard.

3. Ace In The Hole.

4. His Girl Friday.

5. The Thing From Another World!

6. Casablanca. X

7. Training Day.

8. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

9. Cool Hand Luke.

10. The Big Sleep.

11. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid,

12. The French Connection X

13. The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

14. Rocky.

15. Soylent Green (is people!)

16. Planet of The Apes (1968) X

17. The Great Escape.

18. A Bridge Too Far.

19. Citizen Kane.

20. Lawrence of Arabia.

21. Doctor Zhivago.

22. The Dirty Dozen,

23. Angels With Dirty Faces.

24. Shane.

25. Red River.

26. Executive Decision

27. Dirty Harry. X

28. When Harry Met Sally X

29. Absence of Malice.

30. Outland.

31. The Man Who Would Be King.

32. Flight of the Phoenix.

33. The Departed.

34. JFK.

35. The Paper.

36. Naked Gun.

37. Reign Over Me.

38/39. Miracle of 34th Street. (Original and remake)

40. The Italian Job. (1969)

41. Zulu.

42. The Ipcress File,

43. Maltese Falcon.

44. Where Eagles Dare.

45. The Exorcist.

46. The Omen.

47. Four Weddings and a Funeral. X

48. The Haunting (1962)

49. The Odd Couple. X

50. Blade Runner. X

51/52/53. The Godfather Trilogy.

54. Halloween.

55. Magic.

56. The Lion In Winter.

57. Goodbye Girl.

58. High Plains Drifter

59. Stagecoach.

60. Twelve Angry Men

61. Bullitt X

62. Mystic River

63. The Princess Bride

64. Strangers on a Train.

65. A Shot in the Dark

66 - 100 (Douglas is working on it.)

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This blog appeared in Cumnock Chronicle 12 May 11

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