As directorial debuts go, Michael Cimino’s 1974 film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot makes for a weird and wild first film that’s chock full of quirky characters, absurd situations and plenty of action. It’s also one of Clint Eastwood’s best performances of that decade as Thunderbolt, but Jeff Bridges steals the film with his offbeat Lightfoot, a happy-go lucky misfit who’d teamed up with Eastwood after he inadvertently saves his bacon from an assassin. The film is part drama, part comedy, part action and all Cimino rolling the dice, letting his cast have their way with his script and whipping out a wild ride that’s still a pretty memorable movie. Just the absurdity of Thunderbolt pulling off a bank job using a wheeled 20mm cannon is reason enough to see this, but toss in Bridges in drag at one point plus a crazy guy in a car with a raccoon and trunk full of rabbits, shake well and watch what happens…
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Random Film of the Week(end), Too: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
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No, it’s NOT my autobiography (ha ha), but the classic 1972 horror anthology (one of six released by Amicus Productions) with the poster I hated seeing in the subway as a kid. Hey, when you’re something under four feet tall or whatever, a HUGE ass skull with an eyeball following you around makes quite a memorably negative impression. Anyway, 
After Star Wars was released and hit it huge at the box office, nearly every sci-fi film made afterward during the next decade plus was immediately (and unfortunately) compared to it. This bit of mental short-handing by critics, fans and other detractors with short attention spans may have been correct about most of these films’ characters, visual effects and overall designs being influenced by the art direction and effects found in George Lucas’ movie, but in terms of story, well… that’s where some needed their heads handed to them. That easily digestible tale of mystic good versus mystic evil in an epic fantasy/space opera lite setting was cut from the cloth of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials, assorted WWII movies (The Dam Busters, 633 Squadron and others) and most importantly, a great “little” film by Akira Kurosawa called Hidden Fortress (which SHOULD be a RFoTW, but I haven’t gotten around to seeing it again).
I remember about ten or so years back attending a dinner party where I walked into a conversation about violence in video games affecting society in a few negative ways. Asking around, I found that no one in the group had any actual current video game experience (this was before mobile and tablet gaming became the nickel and dime juggernaut it is now), so it was interesting watching the debate flop and flail around like a fresh fish that’s landed in a boat with the hook still in its mouth. I also remember shutting the conversation down entirely by asking if anyone in the vicinity was a contact spots fan and reminded them that more REAL people have been injured and died from participating (and spectating) in all sports than from playing video games, PERIOD.
Sure, that title may make it sound a little too much like some overly pompous religious themed film, but director Preston Sturges’ great, outrageous 1944 comedy is still one of the more hilariously subversive Hollywood movies of that era when the Hays Code was clamping down hard on movies and forcing directors to come up with all sorts of means to get around some pretty stupid and strict rules. For some reason, those censors must have been asleep at the wheel as The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is still one of the funniest movies ever made, period. If your eyebrow is hovering above your head like a skeptical cartoon character, go rent or yank out from your movie collection Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up and watch this afterward. I bet you’re laughing harder at the older film, so pony up five cents now and mail it my way after you lose that bet…
If you stripped away the comedic elements and rewrote a few scenes, Woody Allen’s classic 1973 film 
Depending on how far back your cinema memories go, 1955’s 
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 