Rating: 
Summary: Infernal lines
Review: There comes a time in many a great actor's career when he's got to deliver a bum line in a big budget crowd pleaser. He's read the script. He knows what's coming. Like the bomb, it's forever hanging over him. One day, very, VERY soon he knows it must be delivered. How's he going to do it and not come across as a complete and utter dweeb? He can gabble through them and hope nobody notices (they WILL!) Or he can tackle them full on. The moment of maximum danger arrives. Tension at this excrutiating and frightening predicament is rising to fever pitch. They are in the lift. Captain O'halloran turns to the doomed actor. "You guys just keep building 'em higher and higher...." Paul Newman sighs, then looks straight at his feet as if avoiding the gaze of the public and also to put as much distance between himself and the line as possible. Can he do it? I think he's going to faint. Suddenly, he comes up for air by swinging his head in a dramatic KO right at McQueen. "Hey, are you here to take ME on or the fire?" Catharsis. Release. Bank cheque. Three weeks rest in Bermuda. McQueen stares at him with a 'there but for the grace of God' expression. He knows he has been given a very good scene later on where he is told just what he is expected to do to put out the fire. But tomorrow....?Bigelow is trapped in a small room with his secretary surrounded by a wall of flames. "Nobody knows we're up here" he solemnly confesses to her. Hang on a minute, you told Jim Duncan you were going up to the promenade room. I think you're over-reacting, old chap.
Rating: 
Summary: It didn¿t exactly fan my flames of enthusiasm.
Review: Based on the books 'The Tower" (by Richard Martin Stern) and "The Glass Inferno" (by Thomas N. Scortia & Frank M. Robinson), this suspense movie about a raging fire in a San Francisco skyscraper is regarded by many as a classic disaster film. The owner's son-in-law has taken a few shortcuts with the building code, and the building bursts into flames just as a party of VIPs celebrates a gala opening of the building on the top floor. We see the interplay of characters that ensues: the owner and the architect engaged in histrionics, and the fire chief and crew engaged in heroics. Interwoven are layers of individual stories of personal tragedy and triumph. And there's a fair share of extra-marital affairs going on too, although some of the adulterers pay the consequences for their trysts by going up in smoke, and the heat is provided by the fire not by steamy nude scenes. As you would expect from an older movie, there's lots of 70s décor and hair, and the men are depicted as heroes out to rescue hapless and helpless women. The star-studded cast included Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, William Holden and even O.J. Simpson. In the end, it's not an outstanding effort for a suspense movie, although it did win Academy awards for Best Song, Editing & Cinematography. There are lots of special effects with fire, but some become tiresome as they are repeated again and again. And the way in which the fire was put out in the end was ridiculously unbelievable. But meanwhile, you do get a small sense of what it's like to fight a fire, with John Williams' accompanying music evoking good suspense. There are some memorable lines about fires: "Is it bad? It's a fire, all fires are bad." "It's your building, but it's our fire." There have been better disaster movies, but also far worse ones. If nothing else this movie serves as good argument for construction workers to stick to building standards and code. It may not be deep, but it's still pretty good fun.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic and a Masterpiece.
Review: And that is all I have to say.
Rating: 
Summary: by Marilyn Monroe-horrible!!
Review: when your 8 years old, and they have the movie at the walk-in FOX theatre, and it's in Dolby like EARTHQUAKE was, it is a great and scary movie, you've got your flicks and your popcorn and your orange coke, but when your 37, and the trade center towers have just blown up, it becomes a really stupid movie. Steve Mcqueen! Please!! ..., if this movie had more flames, and more fire scenes, it would be great, ...
Rating:
Summary: GREAT DRAMA..
Review: I loved this movie, first time I saw it , I was a kid.I was afraid to go in a high rise..I still am, but the movie is exallent.
Rating:
Summary: TOWERS ABOVE THE REST!
Review: Introspective funnyman Woody Allen as big-time action movie director??!! Scoff if u will, but THE TOWERING INFERNO remains one of Hollywood's biggest and most popular entertainments. Stellar cast includes Steve McQueen (Bullitt, The Getaway), Robert Vaughn (Superman III), and O.J. Simpson (The Naked Gun 2 & 1/2 - The Smell of Fear).
Rating: 
Summary: Poseidon Adventure - 135 Floors High
Review: It had three times the budget of "The Poseidon Adventure", yet it's less than half as effective. Towering Inferno proved once again that more money, more stars, and more hype don't always account for much when it comes to good filmmaking. Irwin Allen tried a little too hard here to duplicate the extraordinary, and well deserved success and praise he had with Poseidon. Unfortunately the result is an overblown, often boring, big-budget mess. **SPOILER AHEAD** The dumbest part, and most shameless Poseidon rip-off comes near the end of the movie with the whole idea of "lets destroy another beautiful room (hosting a gala event) with as much fire, water, and death as possible." It's The Poseidon Adventure all over again, just 135 floors high this time. I mean really, how was Irwin Allen ever going to incorporate all those wonderful flooding rooms and corridors of the S.S. Poseidon into a ridiculously tall skyscraper (which we are expected to believe would have been built on top of the San Andreas Fault)? By blowing up huge zillion gallon capacity water tanks on the roof, and the three floors just below of course! The movie is dedicated to "the firefighters of the world" and was intended to pay homage to their heroic efforts. Unfortunately the film succeeds in doing just the opposite--continually exhibiting just how bumbling, helpless and ineffective they are in a situation like this. The real action sequences are few and far between, and many of them are so long and drawn out that they hardly induce heart-pounding excitement or suspense. Most notably a scene in which Bobby Brady and others try to climb down a mangled staircase for what seems like hours. Towering Inferno is not completely awful, but it certainly can't hold a candle (no pun intended) to the true ruler of the disaster genre, "The Poseidon Adventure".
Rating:
Summary: Great movie
Review: What can I say? It was a great movie with good actors
Rating:
Summary: Hot In There
Review: As any cinephile knows, the disaster film genre was hugely popular commercially during the 1970s. For whatever reason, people paid good money to see a cast of all-stars fight and claw their way out of a cataclysm, be it man-made or natural. If there is one film from this now-reviled genre that could be called a masterpiece, it would almost certainly have to be THE TOWERING INFERNO, a huge disaster epic from the genre's equivalent of Hitchcock, producer Irwin Allen. This very long (at 165 minutes) but often terrifying suspense thriller is based on two novels--"The Tower" by Richard Martin Stern; and "The Glass Inferno" by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. It involves a 138-story building in San Francisco called the Glass Tower. With that many floors, it ranks as the tallest skyscraper on the planet. And on this night, it is about to be dedicated as another monument to American ingenuity. But there is a problem. Apparently, the cheapskate son-in-law (Richard Chamberlain) of the building's owner (William Holden) has put in electrical wiring that, while it might be up to all city codes, is insufficient for this particular building. And on the 81st floor, in a storage room, one power box has blown, starting a fire to some janitorial products. Even as the big dedication party goes on in the Promenade Room at the top, the fire has totally engulfed the storage room. Once the door to that room is accidentally opened, all hell breaks loose. The entire San Francisco Fire Department, led by Steve McQueen, arrives on scene to try and contain the fire, but all their best efforts fail; and soon, this greater-alarm blaze becomes a frightening high-rise holocaust, with much of the all-star cast trapped at the top with no way down. They must then resort to some very drastict measures in order to quench the fire out. Though it has many sub-plots and the requisite love triangles of any other disaster film, THE TOWERING INFERNO also features surprisingly low-key performances from the principal players, keeping the typical soap operatics of the genre down to an extent. The cast includes, among others, Faye Dunaway, Susan Blakely, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson (he rescues a cat, and surprisingly doesn't kill anyone), and Fred Astaire. John Guillermin, whose previous credits included SKYJACKED and THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN, does a fine job at directing; and the special effects work of L.B. Abbott, A.D. Flowers, and Frank Van De Veer still stand as being some of the most harrowing of their type. Winner of three Oscars (Song, Editing, Cinematography), and featuring a fairly business-like screenplay from Stirling Silliphant (who won a 1967 Screenplay Oscar for IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT), THE TOWERING INFERNO almost certainly ranks as the best film of its often unfairly dismissed type, as well as one of the most frighteningly realistic films ever made.
Rating:
Summary: Barbequed Ham
Review: I wanted to see this movie soooo bad when it came out and my parents wouldn't let me. They thought it was too intense for a young kid. Well, thanks to the magic of DVD, I can enjoy it in all its "soooo bad it's good" glory. Architect Paul Newman and owner William Holden have just completed their crowning acheivement; the 138 story Glass Tower. Unbeknownst to them, baddy builder Richard Chamberlain skimped on the building specs. He wired the building with tinsel or something; as soon as someone plugs in a hair dryer, the fuses go pop (why do the put the fuse boxes in the room used to store the oily rags and paint cans? Why do they need oily rags and paint cans on the 86th floor? Is there an oily rag and paint can room on every floor, or do people have to share?) and the all-star barbeque begins. If there are a million stories in the naked city, there must be, oh, about 138 stories in this movie. Fred Astaire is trying to defraud widow Jennifer Jones (who wears an awful muumuu and a hairdo that makes her look like a brunette St. Bernard) who babysits the kids of the conveniently-deaf neighbor (who must also have had damage to her nose; I can understand she doesn't hear the fire alarm, but can't she smell smoke?), Susan Flannery is the secretary having an affair with boss Robert Wagner (note to self- never shut off the phones!). O.J. Simpson saves a cat. (I am not touching THAT one) I could get carpal tunnel syndrome trying to type it all. Faye Dunaway is in love with Paul Newman (well, can you blame her?), and grumpy, humpy Steve McQueen comes to save the day. All the padding doesn't take away from the fun. The movie has some moments that I am glad my parents did not let their pre-teen kid see: some of the fiery deaths are surprisingly graphic. But the cheese factor is high: in the great opening helicopter shot, the building visibly wobbles (maybe a nod to Earthquake?), the sets are decorated in what can only be called Frank Lloyd Wrong, the scenic elevator/ helicopter scene has to be seen to be believed (and even then you won't). I recommend this with "Die Hard" as a great acrophobia doube feature!
|
