My Ten Favorite Harrison Ford Movies

For more than a decade, Harrison Ford was second only to John Wayne in my list of favoritest of favorite actors.  Though Hugh Jackman and then Alan Ladd eventually supplanted him in that spot, he's still my #4, and I will not cease to hold him dear, of that I'm certain.

Prompted by Eva ranking all the Harrison Ford movies she's seen over at Coffee, Classics, and Craziness, I hereby present my ten favorite Harrison Ford films.  Some of these, I've seen so often, I've got them memorized.  In fact, the last two are the only ones where I can't quote basically the whole movie right along with the actors.

As always, titles are linked to my reviews where applicable.

1. The Fugitive (1993)

Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) is wrongly convicted of his wife's murder, escapes, and goes hunting for the real killer while U.S. Marshal Sammy Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) hunts for him. My second-favorite movie of all time.

2. Sabrina (1995)

When Sabrina (Julia Ormond) returns from Paris, suddenly dazzling instead of dowdy, her father's employer (Harrison Ford) pretends to woo her to prevent his younger brother (Greg Kinnear) from having a fling with her. A lot sweeter than it sounds, and I much prefer it to the 1954 original because the cast has better chemistry and the whole thing works better.  I wrote a Femnista article about it a few years back, which you can read here.

3. Witness (1985)

Detective John Book (Harrison Ford) goes undercover to protect a little Amish boy who is the only witness to a murder. Taut and sweet at the same time, and one of the very, very few R-rated movies I own.

4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Archaeologist/adventurer Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) tries to keep the Ark of the Covenant away from the Nazis.  One of the finest adventure movies ever made.  I had the deep joy of seeing this on the big screen a few months ago, and it was even more spectacular there than I had hoped.

5. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

What's better than one Dr. Jones?  Two Dr. Joneses!  Indy and his dad (Sean Connery) try to keep the Holy Grail away from the Nazis.  The chemistry between the two of them is as perfect as possible.  This movie makes me laugh so much.

6. Return of the Jedi (1983)

Luke and Leia rescue Han, Luke and Han rescue Leia, Lando and R2-D2 rescue everyone at once... and that's only the first sequence, which happens to be my most favoritest part of all the Star Wars films. In fact, I've seen the first 40 minutes of this more often than any other segment of any Star Wars movies.

7. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

An idealist (Mark Hamill), a princess (Carrie Fisher), a smuggler (Harrison Ford), and an aging hero (Alec Guinness) help the Rebel Alliance take out the Empire's greatest weapon. What can I say about it that hasn't been said a billion times before?  I call it Star Wars in my head, and always have to fumble around to find the title A New Hope because, until the prequels, it was never called that.  At all.  By anyone I ever knew.  It's just Star Wars.  The rest are Other Star Wars movies.

8. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Luke learns the truth about his parentage, Han and Leia try not to fall in love, and the Empire tries to figure out what hit them. I like half of this movie a lot (the Han + Leia parts) and am bored by the other half.

9. 42 (2013)

Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) hires Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) to play baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making him the first black man to play in the all-white baseball league.  It's one of the best biopics I've ever seen, and possibly the best acting I've seen from Harrison Ford.

10. Air Force One (1997)

A terrorist (Gary Oldman) hijacks the presidential airplane midflight, taking the President (Harrison Ford) and his family hostage. The President is not amused.  He spends the rest of the film trying to get the terrorist off his plane while keeping his family safe.  Thrilling heroics abound.  Another of the very, very few R-rated movies I own.

Okay, that's my list.  Have you seen these?  Do you love these?  Do you love other Harrison Ford movies better?  Let's discuss!

"Midway" (2019) -- Initial Thoughts

You need to go see this movie.

I am not even kidding.

I don't care if you never go see movies in the theater, or if you aren't a fan of WWII movies, or if you don't like war movies at all.  Everyone should see this movie.

I'm so not kidding.  This is the best movie I have seen all year.

Yes, better than Avengers: Endgame.  Not even in the same ballpark.

Midway is up there with The Longest Day (1962) as one of the very best war films I have ever seen.  Likely one of the best ever made.  It is staggeringly good.

And you know one of the things I loved most about it?

It had no big, modern agenda.

Think about that a minute.  No agenda.  No trying to shoehorn modern sensibilities and prejudices and ways of thinking into the presentation of a historical event.

It presents us with heroes, yes, but real-life heroes with failings and falterings.  They make mistakes.  They do nearly miraculous things.  They do dumb things.  They're human.

And it does not demonize their enemies.  The Japanese soldiers are shown to be equally courageous and equally intelligent.  The closest to demonization it ever comes is showing that the Japanese military were targeting Chinese civilians.  It lets you make up your own mind about that, it doesn't dance around waving fingers.

I cannot praise this movie highly enough.  It has only one flaw, which isn't so much a flaw as something I wish it didn't have.  One f-word.  But it's used in exactly the way, exactly the moment that such a word is, to be honest, kinda called for.  (There's some other cussing too, but the level that you'd find in a 1960s war movie.) (EDIT: Okay, it does have quite a bit of cussing.  I counted 49 cuss words, my second viewing.  So more on par with a 1970s war movie.  But it... is not gross and nasty cussing, just military dudes speaking their vernacular, if that makes sense.  I didn't realize how much there was because it just didn't bother me.)

Anyway.  The acting, the filming, the pacing, the music, the costumes, the writing -- everything was staggeringly wonderful.

Go see it for yourself.  I almost never say "everyone should see this movie" because most movies, not everyone needs to see.  Personal tastes and interests make that nonsensical, really.  But this movie?  You need to see it.

(I have SO many other things I want to say about Midway, like how wonderful Luke Evans and Patrick Wilson are, how it's the best acting I've ever seen out of Woody Harrelson, and so much more.  But I'm going to hold onto all of that until I've seen it a second time so I can give it a proper review.)

(GO SEE THIS MOVIE!)

"Harriet" (2019) -- Initial Thoughts

Biopics are always tricky to balance.  You've got to remain fairly faithful to a the real events of the person's life, because if they're famous enough to have a movie made about them, they're famous enough that a LOT of people know a LOT about them.  They will be quick to point out your errors if you deviate too far from fact, or if you spin a story to suit an agenda that the person in question was not a part of.

But you also have to make the story of a real person's life interesting.  And real life has a lot of boring parts.  Even the real life of a famous, courageous, heroic person.  You need to tell a cohesive story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and some central message or point to your story.  Real life often lacks cohesion, messages, and points.  But a biopic is not a documentary -- it promises good storytelling, not a recitation of facts.  So you need to find a way to portray a person's life within the framework of a story.

Also, you need to be telling the audience something new, something that makes your movie worth seeing for those who are familiar with the story of your subject's life.

So much to balance.  So tricky.

So few biopics manage to balance all of that successfully.

I went to see Harriet (2019) this weekend.  Now, most of what I know about Harriet Tubman, I learned by reading my copy of Freedom Train (by Dorothy Sterling) over and over as a child.  I'm going to remedy that shortly -- I've put several books about her on hold at the library, but none of them are in yet.

Anyway.  I re-read Freedom Train today so I could refresh my memory as to the actual facts of Harriet Tubman's life.  It's a biography for kids, told like a story, but I trust it more than I do a movie, to be honest.  I'll review it on my book blog soon, on its own.  But if you're looking for a quick way to introduce yourself or a kid to Harriet Tubman's life, it's an excellent resource.

Okay, so the basic facts as presented by the movie were correct.  Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Maryland, escaped as a young woman, then became a conductor on the Underground Railroad and went back into the slave states to bring out her siblings and parents, plus many more.

But you know movie makers.  They love to spice things up.  I don't mean that in a sexual way, in this case, but in a "let's add something weird to make this movie more interesting."  As if the story of this brave, stubborn, intelligent woman wasn't actually interesting enough.  They took the fact that Harriet Tubman suffered a head injury that made her randomly fall asleep and they twisted that, giving her visions from God that aided and guided her.  They made her seem like a mystical, possibly delusional woman, and other characters dismiss her as crazy or brain-damaged or imagining things.

HOW IS THIS BETTER than the truth, that Harriet Tubman was a woman of indomitable courage and solid faith in God?  I think they were trying to make her seem "special" and "gifted," but to me, it does the opposite.  It makes it look like it's God, not Harriet Tubman, who's leading people to freedom.  They robbed her of her dignity and free will and turned her into a sort of sideshow curiosity.  In my opinion.  I was not a fan of this choice.

[EDIT: According to the book She Came to Slay by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Harriet Tubman did say she experienced visions when she was unconscious, which she believed came from God and often served as warnings about bad things about to happen.  So there is some basis in her life story for how they portray this in the film.  However, that book didn't say she ever invited the visions the way they show in the film, and they used these visions FAR too often as a sort of Deus ex machina to suddenly avert disasters, so I still say it's weak storytelling/writing.]

Now, the film on a whole is really good.  There are some amazing chase scenes, there's overall a lot of excellent acting, the music is great, and the pacing was very good indeed.  Cynthia Erivo portrays Harriet as fierce and yet frightened, and I was fully invested in her portrayal, with the exception of the mystical visions from God, which I blame the screenwriters and so on for, not her.

Is this movie family friendly?  Wellllllllllllllllll... there's no nudity, and most violence is implied... but there's some pretty bad language (including the F-word), there are a lot of very tense chase scenes, some discussion of white masters having slave children who look like them, mention of young girls being raped, talk of spending money on whores, and several instances of seeing people's scars from whipping, burning, or other violence.  So I'd say it's not for children or younger teens.

Announcing the Beyond Star Trek Blogathon

Quiggy (of The Midnite Drive-In) and I are co-hosting another blogathon!  The Beyond Star Trek Blogathon will focus on actors and actresses from all the Star Trek shows, but in their non-Trek roles.

In other words, any actor or actress with a regular role in any Star Trek show from The Original Series to Discovery is fair game for this, BUT you can't write about their role on Star Trek.  You have to write about something else that they acted in.

We ask that you restrict yourself to actors and actresses who had recurring roles playing the same character on a Star Trek show, not one-time guest stars.  So Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yoeman Janice Rand in 8 episodes of season one of The Original Series, would be an acceptable choice; Roger C. Carmel, who played Harry Mudd in two episodes of TOS, would be also.  But Kirsten Dunst, who appeared in only one episode of The Next Generation, is not.

Alternatively, you can write about someone behind the cameras, such as a director or writer, but again, they need to have contributed in a real way to the shows, not worked incidentally on one in some tangential way.

If you're not sure if the person you want to write about is fair game or not, just ask either myself or Quiggy!

We're asking that there be no duplicate reviews of movies/shows.  So if you want to write about Patrick Stewart as Professor X, for instance, and someone else has already signed up to review X-Men: Days of Future Past, you can review a different X-Men movie instead, but not that specific one.  Or if one person does an overview of all the X-Men movies as a whole, someone else can review one particular film.

This blogathon will run from Friday, January 10, through Sunday, January 12, 2020.  Grab one of these buttons to display on your blog and help spread the word!

You can sign up either on this post or on Quiggy's post at The Midnite Drive-In.  Please give us the name of the actor or actress you want to write about AND the name of the movie or show they were in that you'll be focusing on, and the address of your blog.

The Roster

+ The Midnite Drive-In -- Leonard Nimoy in Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) AND Deforest Kelly in Fear in the Night (1947)

+ Hamlette's Soliloquy -- William Shatner in The Big Valley episode "A Time to Kill" (1966)
+ Coffee, Classics, and Craziness -- Leonard Nimoy in season 4 of Mission: Impossible (1969-70)
+ Angelman's Place -- Leonard Nimoy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
+ Caftan Woman -- DeForest Kelley on Zane Grey Theater
+ Wide Screen World -- Robert Beltran in Eating Raoul (1982)
+ Movies Meet Their Match -- William Shatner in Miss Congeniality (2000)
+ I'm Charles Baker Harris (And I Can Read) -- LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow (1983-2015)
+ Along the Brandywine -- William Shatner in Little Women (1978)
+ Diary of a Movie Maniac -- James Doohan in Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971)

+ YOU!

Things I Don't Do

A few days ago, I read an article called "Every Woman Has an 'I Don't' List. And it's Time We Shared Them."  A friend linked to it on Facebook, and I read it because I was having one of those days where I couldn't seem to get anything done, and I was bummed about that.

I have a fiery drive to Get Things Done.  You already know how much I love to-do lists.  Not only do I make seasonal to-do lists and share them here, I often have daily and weekly to-do lists that I'm working on.  In fact, I started using a bullet journal about a year go, just to keep my lists organized.

(This is my bullet journal.  I'm still using it.  It's still helping.)

The truth is, I am a very busy person.  I thrive on being busy.  I homeschool my 3 kids, I help run our homeschool co-op, I blog, I write regularly for both Femnista and the Prairie Times, I write novels and self-publish them... and I read about a book a week.  Oh, and I started a book club at church, I'm involved with Sunday school and VBS and the church choir.  I'm an active bookstagrammer.  I have a flower garden.  I usually have at least one crocheting or sewing project going.  And I watch at least one movie a week.  Writing all that up right now made me kinda tired, to be honest!  Wow.  I'm very busy.

The point of this post is not to praise myself for how much I accomplish, or how good I am at balancing things.  The point of this post is to answer that question that I get a lot, when people find out how busy I am.

HOW DO YOU DO ALL THAT?!?!?

The answer -- the very truthful, not necessarily flattering answer -- is that I do all that by NOT doing a ton of other things.  So, inspired by that article, here is my I Don't List.

+ I don't dust more than three or four times a year.
+ I don't sweep the kitchen more than once every week or two.
+ I don't mop.  (My husband does.)
+ I don't sweep the dining room.  (My daughter does.)
+ I don't do most of the laundry.  (My son does.)
+ I don't wake up at night to feed any babies.  (Anymore.)
+ I don't change diapers.  (Anymore.)
+ I don't breastfeed.  (Anymore.  Wow, babies take a lot of time and work, y'all.)
+ I don't get TV on my TV.  I watch DVDs, VHS tapes (so old-fashioned), and stuff on Amazon Prime Instant Video.  (If I'm watching a TV show or movie, it is very intentional.  It is not a way to kill time or have background noise or whatever.  Watching a show or a movie is an active pursuit for me, an activity, not a pastime.)
+ I don't clean my bathrooms every week.  (I have 4 bathrooms.  I rotate them, so they each get cleaned about every-other-week, but more often if they get gross, obviously.)
+ I don't scrub my shower regularly.  (I have a friend who scrubs her shower every week.  No thanks.  I don't have time.)
+ I don't make every meal from scratch.  (I love to cook.  I do cook supper from scratch several times a week, but lunches are usually pb&j or something from a box or can, plus fresh fruit or veggies.)
+ I don't bake my own bread.  (Very often.  Sometimes, but it's a treat.)
+ I don't grind my own grain.  (Stop rolling your eyes!  I know people who do.)
+ I don't make my own yogurt.  Or cheese.  (Those sound nifty, though!)
+ I don't sew my kids' clothes.  (My grandma sewed all my mom's clothes until my mom was a teen.  Dude.  Wow.)(I do sew the occasional thing, but it's a fun activity for me that turns into something useful, like a blanket or a dress or a skirt.  Or doll clothes...)
+ I don't have my kids in umpteen sports and activities and programs.  (They do swimming lessons in the fall/winter/spring once a week, all at the same time.  We go to our homeschool co-op twice a month.  We go to church and Sunday school every Sunday.  That's it.)
+ I don't always fold laundry as soon as it's dry.  (Sometimes my kids have to dig through baskets to find clothes.  But hey, they're clean.)
+ I don't fold any of the clean towels or washcloths.  (My other daughter does.)
+ I don't keep track of fashion trends.  At all.  (Most days I wear jeans and a t-shirt.  On Sundays, I wear nice shirts and skirts or dresses, but they're what are comfy and please me, not what are cool or trendy.  I have no idea what's fashionable.)
+ I don't wear makeup.
+ I don't read all my favorite blogs every day anymore.  (This makes me SO SAD.  I want to find a way to work reading blogs back into my daily schedule.  Trying to make that happen.  Cuz I miss reading my friends' blogs, but right now, it just doesn't happen.)
+ I don't read my Facebook feed much.  (I use FB mostly as a bulletin board and to instant-message friends.  I might scroll a little while waiting for someone to reply, but that's very occasional.)
+ I don't do Twitter.  (I have an account, but I never use it.)
+ I don't have an Etsy shop.  (Anymore.  I did for years, but life happened.)
+ I'm not pursuing a higher education degree.  (My BA is just fine, thanks.)
+ I don't shower every day.  (Twice a week is fine, unless I've been working outside or whatever.)
+ I don't exercise every day.  I don't even exercise three times a week.  I try to, but reality is once or twice most weeks.  (But this is much better than back when I never exercised at all!)
+ I don't have a job outside the home.

Now.  Are any of the things I don't do bad things?  No!  They're all good.  And some of them, I should do more, or would like to do more.  I need to get back to exercising 3 times a week.  (I did for several months earlier this year, but life happened.)  I want to get back to reading blogs regularly.  (I did for years and years, but life happened.)

But that's how I do what I do.  By not doing many, many other things.  Because nobody can do everything, right?  Right.

So please, if you ever look at my "let's see what I checked off my to-do list for this season" posts and say, "Ugh, why can't I do all those things too?  What am I doing wrong?" I want you to know that the answer is nothing. You are doing nothing wrong.  You are probably just doing things that I don't do, and things that I do are on YOUR "I Don't" list.  And that's totally fine.  As Major Tony Nelson said in one of my favorite episodes of I Dream of Jeannie, "I'm me and you're you, and that's what makes the world go 'round."  He was a pretty smart guy, being an astronaut and all, so I think it's good to remember those wise words of his.

Or don't, if remembering random, obscure lines from movies and shows and books is on your I Don't list ;-)

(See?  Astronaut.)

TWO New Interviews!

Amanda Tera at With a Joyful Noise is doing a whole series on retellings, and today she featured my book Dancing and Doughnuts, plus a little interview with me.  You can read it here.  It focuses more on my retellings as a whole, not any specific book/story I've written so far.

Meanwhile, Stanley Wheeler is also interviewing indie authors on his blog lately, and he recently interviewed me too!  Wow.  I feel weirdly interesting now, with all these people asking me questions.  Anyway, you can read that interview here.  I talk a lot about the Exoduster migration in that one, and the interview revolves mostly around One Bad Apple, the Snow White retelling I'm laboring over.

My FREE new short story, "Gruff"

I took a little break from working on my Snow White western, One Bad Apple, and wrote a quick short story to celebrate the beautiful autumn we're enjoying right now.

Like my last two short stories, this one continues the adventures of characters from my Once Upon a Western series of fairy tale retellings.  Only instead of following a main character, it focuses on one of the side characters from Cloaked.

Three Billy Goats Gruff... reimagined. 

Deputy Christopher Small is running out of time. He doesn't want to disappoint his little brothers by neglecting to play the annual autumn prank they're anticipating, but he needs to get himself all slicked up for dinner. Why? His parents have invited Miss Mary Rose O'Brien, the girl he's sweet on. Will he have time to do both?

Find out in this new short story that follows both the book Cloaked and the short story "Blizzard at Three Bears Lake," all part of Rachel Kovaciny's Once Upon a Western series of fairy tale retellings.

+Get a FREE Kindle copy from Amazon
+Get a FREE Nook copy from Barnes and Noble
+Get a FREE e-book copy from Kobo

Add it to your to-read shelf on Goodreads here.

I hope you enjoy it!