OVP: The Towering Inferno (1974)

Film: The Towering Inferno (1974)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, OJ Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Jack Collins

Director: John Guillermin

Oscar History: 7 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Supporting Actor-Fred Astaire, Art Direction, Cinematography*, Film Editing*, Score, Song, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Steve McQueen's career hit its financial peak in 1974, when he starred with Paul Newman in today's film The Towering Inferno.  At this point, Newman & McQueen were two of the biggest names in movies, and there were quite a few arguments over who would get top billing in the picture (ultimately it was a draw, with McQueen's name first but Newman's name higher), but after this both would suffer career lulls.  Newman would rebound eventually in the 1980's with films like The Verdict and The Color of Money, the latter winning him his only competitive Oscar, but McQueen would never regain this position.  He'd make an ill-fated Ibsen film in 1978 (one that would basically disappear from public consciousness), and then a pair of pictures in 1980 (Tom Horn and The Hunter), both decent-sized hits that might have hallmarked a comeback, but that wasn't to be.  Just over three months after the release of The Hunter, Steve McQueen would be dead.

(Spoilers Ahead) But before we get into that, let's get into the height of his career, at least commercially.  The Towering Inferno was a landmark movie in terms of its box office in 1974.  In the previous years, films like Airport and The Poseidon Adventure had found a formula for success-put a bunch of famous stars, including at least a few studio system legends that can scoop up a supporting acting Oscar nomination, and place them in an insane disaster situation, one that will have at least a few of them die, but the audience can look on in horror as we wonder who from this insanely-stacked call sheet might be safe.  This film is no less than these, and arguably has the starriest cast  of the bunch, but is much more in the vein of Airport (which I did not enjoy) than The Poseidon Adventure (which I did enjoy, in large part due to Shelley Winters' solid work).  The film has the tallest building in the world on fire, and all of our characters, including architect Newman and firefighter McQueen, fighting to stay alive as more-and-more paths to the ground floor are forfeited.  Along the way, some live (including, surprisingly, conman Fred Astaire), and some die, most shockingly Jennifer Jones, who in a morbid twist would be flung from the top of a giant building in the movie two years before her daughter would commit suicide in exactly the same way.

If only the movie was any good.  Technically, this is impressive-the set design, effects, and especially the stunt work are out-of-this-world, but the film spends no time trying to develop the characters, giving us two-dimensional feats from genuinely talented actors.  It's not like someone like Faye Dunaway or Paul Newman can't add a bit of three-dimensionality to their work, but there's no call for it.  Our star of the month, Steve McQueen, feels almost ancillary to the plot of the picture even as he's supposed to be the hero.  Fred Astaire would receive his only competitive acting Oscar nomination for this movie, and man is it unnecessary-he barely has anything to do, other than shout for a dead Jennifer Jones toward the end of the picture.  It feels weird to live in a world where Fred Astaire (whom I love) never got a competitive acting nomination, but, like...over John Cazale in The Godfather, Part II or John Huston in Chinatown...let's not be ridiculous here.

As I said above, Steve McQueen would disappear from movies after this, having a bit of a nomad period where he just went out into the country in a motor home, in the process turning down parts in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Apocalypse Now that might've dramatically changed his legacy.  But his health by the late 1970's was in terrible shape, and he developed mesothelioma (likely due to asbestos exposure from his time in the Marines).  The National Enquirer, at that point most famous for its ongoing coverage of the death of Elvis Presley rather than the right-wing attack ads that it would become known for to modern supermarket shoppers, broke the story that McQueen was dying shortly before his death (he'd been trying to keep it a secret), and McQueen attempted a number of experimental procedures, including a surgery to remove a tumor from his liver in Mexico, a procedure he couldn't have performed in the United States because no doctor would do it (since it would kill him).  12 hours into the surgery, the American doctors were proven correct, and Steve McQueen died at the age of only 50 from a heart attack.

Next month, we're going to talk about a man who was good friends with McQueen, even if they also had something of a professional rivalry during McQueen's early stardom.  Like McQueen, he also would die young, but unlike McQueen, that death would cement his legacy in a way that would in many ways outlast any films he made in life...and would become the source of near constant conspiracy theory in the decades to come, in ways that would haunt his family for generations.

Le Mans (1971)

Film: Le Mans (1971)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Siegfried Rauch, Elga Andersen

Director: Lee H. Katzin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

There are a long history of actors who largely got bored with being movie stars, and spent huge swaths of their careers basically just doing movie stardom as a side hustle.  Marlon Brando, Jean Seberg, Jane Fonda, & Sean Penn all clearly wished they could be full-time activists, rather than movie stars themselves.  Orson Welles spent his peak stardom years running across the country doing magic shows with Rita Hayworth & Marlene Dietrich.  Hedy Lamarr may have had the oddest side hustle, essentially inventing GPS.  For Steve McQueen, the coolest of movie stars, that side hustle was race-car driving, the coolest of sports.  McQueen frequently competed in car & motorcycle racing tournaments, and would incorporate his love of stunt driving into his films like Bullitt and The Great Escape.  No film, though, encapsulated his love of it quite like Le Mans, an expensive fictionalization of the famed French endurance car race that has been fictionalized in recent films like Ford v. Ferrari and Gran Turismo.

(Spoilers Ahead) Le Mans is a weird film to summarize, in part because it's not really a movie with a traditional narrative.  The film is about Michael Delaney (McQueen), who is about to race the 24 hours of Le Mans when he sees the widow Lisa (Andersen) of a driver that died in the previous year's tournament, and has flashbacks to the crash of his former competitor, whose death Lisa holds him responsible for.  This is one of several storylines that are told in an almost cross-plot anthology-style bit of storytelling, with everyone underlining the intoxicating nature of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and how it is seen as one of the pinnacles of athletics, and how important it is for their sponsor (Porsche) to get a 1-2 finish that will make the company look like the fastest car in the world.

The movie is weird, though, because for long stretches of it nothing happens.  This is, I'm going to be honest, also my reaction to car-racing in general (I am not the audience for this picture), but I was struck throughout it that it was meant to be melancholy and almost Malick-esque before Malick was even a thing.  We get extended sequences with wordless dialogue, and not just looking at cars passing each other on a track...it's also random stares between Andersen & McQueen, which might be cribbed from a French New Wave picture if you're being generous, but in reality feels more so like they didn't know how to put a story in here, and the whole goal of the film is to watch Steve McQueen sexily driving around cars the average audience member couldn't even buy if they sold their house.

That being said, on a technical level this film works really well.  The editing, sound work, cinematography, and especially the stunt driving are top notch.  When you have the film in the throes of competition, especially toward the end, it really draws you in and you can almost get why people will literally watch a car drive for 24 hours on their television each year.  But those documentary-style touches (including footage from actual Le Mans races), are more interesting in a technical capacity, and only hold your attention for so long.

OVP: The Reivers (1969)

Film: The Reivers (1969)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Sharon Farrell, Mitch Vogel, Rupert Crosse, Juano Hernandez, Burgess Meredith

Director: Mark Rydell

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Rupert Crosse, Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Steve McQueen, fitting of a man synonymous with both a sex symbol persona and a cool guy elusiveness, had both a lot of romantic conquests in his life as well as not a lot of press about them, save for his marriage to 1970's superstar actress Ali MacGraw, whom he costarred with in 1972's The Getaway (which I'd already seen, hence why it's not the movie today) and which spanned most of MacGraw's time as a major box office draw post-Love Story.  McQueen, though, would marry three times, including model Barbara Minty very late in his life (they were married less than a year before his death), and would have affairs with Mamie van Doren & Lauren Hutton.  But fitting a man whose onscreen personas rarely are ones that a "woman can tame," none of these relationships really defined his career in the way that Joanne Woodward's relationship with his peer Paul Newman would (or Warren Beatty's legendary bed-hopping would until he married Annette Bening).  

(Spoilers Ahead) I bring this up because the movie we're watching today is something of an outlier in McQueen's career.  The Reivers, based on a work by William Faulkner, is a tale of the South (like all of Faulkner's stories), but one with very little complicated plot and were it not for the presence of McQueen (then a massive star in a way the studio couldn't afford) and the presence of a bordello, there are moments in this that have the vibes of a Disney film, with an unlikely parental guardian in Boon (McQueen) looking after young Ned (Vogel), taking him on an adventure through the countryside along with their friend Ned (Crosse) in a bright yellow 1904 Winton Flyer.  The film itself has multiple chapters, but not a lot of common thread, and is told through a rose-colored nostalgic narration by Burgess Meredith, who plays a grown Ned through voiceover.

McQueen's part here is really uninteresting.  He's not doing anything special-this doesn't have the direness of Cincinnati Kid or the sophistication of Thomas Crown, and doesn't have the gravitas of a western (which McQueen would make three of during his run as a leading man, most notably The Magnificent Seven which we covered for a past season of this series with Yul Brynner).  His Boon is a cad, a likable one, but one who treats his prostitute girlfriend Corrie (Farrell) like garbage, even though he does end up marrying her in the end.  There's nothing really here-it's just blank space, and like I said, were it not for the heavy subject matter, lends itself to the two-dimensional drift of a live-action Disney movie at this time.

The film is notable for its two Oscar nominations, which is a big reason why I picked this one.  Rupert Crosse would become the first Black man to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for this film (Sidney Poitier at this point had gotten two nominations in the lead category, but no Black person had somehow gotten into Supporting Actor).  His performance is just fine though-he in many ways has a scene-stealing role, but his performance doesn't have enough presence to really steal the scenes away from McQueen even on easy mode, and he likely got the nomination based on a late scene in the movie where he faces off against a racist Southerner.  Crosse would die relatively soon after this nomination from lung cancer, and really this is his only notable role.

The other nomination is from John Williams for Best Score.  Williams' work here is really fun (in many ways it feels like it's paying homage to Aaron Copland, which is not something you would oftentimes say about Williams, and proof of his versatility as a composer).  Williams was still in his Oscar infancy here, getting only his second nomination, and he had yet to win (that wouldn't happen for two more years), but it's also fun to think about the pre-Spielberg years given between this and his even better work in The Cowboys, he was doing a lot more playful stuff onscreen.  He correctly lost to Butch Cassidy, but it's fun to finally see one of his earliest nominations.

Denise Powell and the Quest for 100 House Democratic Women

Denise Powell (D-NE)

This past week, in something of an upset, political consultant and Democratic activist Denise Powell pulled off a win over State Sen. John Cavanugh in the race for Nebraska's 2nd congressional district.  Powell, who was running mildly to Cavanaugh's right in the primary, was able to run a rather savvy campaign (on honestly a night where smart politics was winning in the Cornhusker State (the state also managed to get a clear one-on-one race for Dan Osborn's independent Senate bid) focusing on Cavanaugh's ability to stop redistricting in the state legislature (we'll get to a redistricting article shortly, but I haven't had the time to manage it).

Powell's win also puts her in a good position to be elected to Congress this fall.  Given the strong blue wave built off of a sluggish economy & unpopular war, an open-seat district that went for Kamala Harris by 4-points is going to be a sincere challenge for the Republicans to maintain.  Her win, taking the seat of Rep. Don Bacon also helps the math on not just a House majority, but also an historic benchmark that the party could well reach this fall, and something I wanted to talk about: getting 100 Democratic women into the US House.

For those who don't know, at one point (until the 1970's), the number of women in both House caucuses were roughly equal.  Democrats tended to have slightly more overall, but generally it was close to 50/50.  While the 1970's provided a sugar high (in large part due to the Democrats' support for the ERA), it wasn't until the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings that the share of women in the House was always favored to the Democrats.  Since the start of the Clinton administration, the only times that the share has dipped below 65% were in the wake of the deeply red years of 1994 and 2004.  After the 2018 midterms, a reaction in many ways to the Women's March and the Trump administration, at least 70% of the House women have been Democrats every Congress.

All of this is to say that while at the start of this Congress there were only 30 Republican women (just under 14% of the caucus), over 44% of the House Democrats were women, a grand total of 97, just three shy of 100.  In that time, two women (Mikie Sherrill & Sheila Cherifilus-McCormick) have resigned while two women (Analilia Mejia & Adelita Grijalva) have since been elected.  Though there are a handful of openings, I find it unlikely the stars will align enough to ensure that the Democrats get to 100 before November.  After November, though, it's a different game, which we'll check out today by breaking out into four different categories.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL)

1. Vulnerable Democratic Incumbent Women

It's worth noting that, in a normal year, we'd largely be sticking to no women in this category for Democrats.  Trump is wildly unpopular, and honestly with the 2024 maps, any Democrat that won probably also wins the general election.  This includes people like Nellie Pou, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Laura Gillen, & Susie Lee, who saw Trump perform well in their districts in 2024.

But there was a lot of mid-decade redistricting, honestly to the point where I struggle to keep up, and that has left a handful of women in the lurch.  With the new lines, it seems probable that both Kathy Castor & Marcy Kaptur will be in the toughest races they've faced in a while, and both would be extremely vulnerable for reelection.  Julie Johnson is sure to win her seat if she wins her primary, which is no guarantee against former Rep. Colin Allred (Jasmine Crockett won this seat in her Senate primary even as she lost the state).  The Florida redraw that endangered Kathy Castor might also cost either Lois Frankel or Debbie Wasserman Schultz their seats, though the musical chairs here makes me think that they're both probably going to stay on, and the vulnerable Democrats are going to be Castor, Darren Soto, and Cherifilus-McCormick's seat going to Wasserman Schultz.  There's still a real possibility that they redraw Alabama to the point where Shomari Figures & Terri Sewell are in a member vs. member race...but I would assume Sewell's long history in the state would deliver it for her.

There will likely be at least a couple of vulnerable incumbents to primaries (Frederica Wilson, should she run, would be toward the top of the list given her age & health), so let's assume from this bucket that the Democrats lose four seats from their 97 (for example Castor, Kaptur, Cherifilus-McCormick, & Johnson) and that they'll need a net gain of 7 in our next three to hit 100.

State Rep. Jacqui Irwin (D-CA)

2. Open Seat Democrats

There are currently 21 retiring incumbent members of the 215 Democratic House caucus members (not counting delegates); there is also the seats of David Scott & Eric Swalwell, bringing this total to 23 given Scott has passed away and Swalwell has resigned.  Of those leaving office, nine are women, so this would bring us down to 84 House members.  But of course, at least some of the 23 seats will be filled by women.

We know, for example, that of the 5 open seats in Illinois (all safely blue) 3/5 of them have nominated a Democratic woman, for a net gain of one.  In the remaining 18 seats, only two (CA-14 & CA-26) seem like very clear paths for women to win.  There are 6 seats where Democratic women have a path (sometimes a good one) with a quality candidate already running for the office (CA-11, MN-2, NH-1, NJ-12, NY-7, & GA-13).  But even if we assume that women take 6 of these 8 seats, that would still leave the Democratic women down three here, bringing them down to 90 as currently none of the other remaining seats that are open are likely to go to Democratic women, as either there's a clear Democratic man who is the frontrunner (or in some cases, already the nominee) for the seat, or these are seats that were impacted by redistricting where a Democratic man will be replaced by a Republican.  So essentially to make this happen, Democratic women will need to net at least ten pickups to have a shot at 100.

LA County Chair Hilda Solis (D-CA)

3. Flip Opportunities (Redistricting)

Unless the Democrats are able to pull off a miracle in Virginia, let's assume the only state where Democrats have a clear shot at picking up due to mid-decade redistricting are in California (specifically the 1st, 6th, 41st, & 48th districts) and Utah's 1st district, all currently held by Republican men and all widely expected to be held by Democrats in January.

Utah will be a man (the only prominent Democratic woman in the race recently dropped out), but California will likely have a Democratic woman elected to the 41st (or the trickle down of this being that Linda Sanchez wins here and then Hilda Solis wins in the 38th...either way a net gain with Solis), and they have a solid option in the 6th & 48th, with the 1st probably headed to a Democratic man even if there is a Democratic woman in the race.  So let's assume here they get 2 more Democratic women, and we get back to 8 seats that need to be picked up in traditional Tossup seats.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA)

4. Flip Opportunities (Pickups)

There are currently 20 seats held by Republicans that are considered Tossup/Lean D/Lean R by Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball.  In order for the Democratic women's caucus to hit 100 seats, they would need not just Dems to win in 8 of these seats, but they'd need to win with women.  That's a tall order, but not an impossible one.  Ten of these seats (AZ-6, IA-1, IA-3, NE-2, NJ-7, PA-8, PA-10, VA-1, VA-2, & WI-3) the Democratic woman is very clearly the frontrunner, and in six more (AZ-1, CA-22, CO-8, MI-7, MI-10, & NY-17) the Democrats have a prominent woman running.

Getting better news for Democrats, of the 6 seats that are considered Lean R (as opposed to Lean D/Tossup, much easier gets), only three (VA-1, PA-8 and NY-17) are ones where a woman isn't the clear or possible frontrunner (all of the others are men), and honestly I think that the Democrats are closer to Tossup for those seats than they are Lean R, especially NY-17.  If we assume a decent environment, one where, say 65% of these seats (or roughly 13/20 of these seats go to the Democrats), it's probable that we're looking at about 9 or so Democratic women flipping seats here...just enough to get them over the threshold.  As of today, unless redistricting throws further wrenches into the race (or the Democrats under-perform), I would wager that there will be 100 Democratic women in the US House come January.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (and Two Never-Ending Online Debates)

(This contains spoilers of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, so proceed with caution)

This past week, I saw for the very first time Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which is touring and was playing in Minneapolis, part of what will be a month-long tribute to the Boy Wizard in my house (including another concert, and a rewatch of all of the Fantastic Beast & Harry Potter films that I'll be chronicling with reviews, in some cases first logged reviews, on Letterboxd).  In the decade since this play first went to Broadway, this has been a top priority for me, to the point that it was the only Harry Potter-related thing I've never read or seen.  In all likelihood, given Fantastic Beasts reception compared to the original run of movies and JK Rowling's fall-from-grace, it may well be the last original Harry Potter idea we may ever get, as the next few years it seems certain that HBO's new remake will be the #1 priority for the Wizarding World.

Before we get to the two reasons that I am actually writing this article, I want to share my thoughts on the play itself, which I really enjoyed.  I am the biggest of Harry Potter fans.  In real life, I am linked first to movies & politics, and of course the Oscars, but probably name-checked as much is Harry Potter, which pretty much everyone associated with me knows I love (and if you've been to my house, you'll also understand this because there's Harry Potter stuff in virtually every corner).  My dad, who went with me, I could see smirking as he saw his 41-year-old son grin from ear-to-ear as they played the opening music and saw Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and a host of other familiar characters on the stage (no matter how old you get, your parents always see you as a little boy in their hearts).  The show itself reads, frequently, as fan service (occasionally even fan fiction), and therefore it's not quite to the caliber of the original books.  It offers little in terms of sacrifice of main characters (we are spared the pain of seeing any of the main characters from the original series die in the end).  But it's also fun and has moments of solid magic (I loved the stuff in the alternative timeline, and the set design in this is maybe the best I've ever seen give-or-take Matilda in a stage show), and in Rowling's distinctive fashion (she is, for all of the criticism of her, someone who is good at showing the sacrifices & truths of growing up), she gives us a real parable about a young boy who is coming to terms with his own sexuality.  In a shock that is proof that I didn't have this play ruined for me through the years, Harry Potter & Draco Malfoy's sons are pretty explicitly shown to be romantic partners by the end of the play, something that might in part explain why this hasn't been made into a Warner Brothers big-screen movie given the billion-dollar implications.

Of course, the other is that Rowling herself has basically torched her reputation (making stars like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, & Rupert Grint, were they even open to returning to the roles for likely 8-figure paydays, far more apprehensive).  It's not new news to talk about this, and indeed if you look back through the years on this blog you'll find I've weighed in a few times on the author who I grew up hero-worshiping in my twenties only to be disgusted by her in my thirties.  Cancel culture, in my opinion, has somehow not gone far enough and has perhaps in other ways gone too far.  Case in point for the latter-at a Netflix roast for Kevin Hart this weekend, Chelsea Handler made a crack about the Riyadh Comedy Festival, in the oppressive regime of Saudi Arabia where there is a long history of censorship and human rights violations...a comedy at which roast dais members Pete Davidson, Jeff Ross, & Kevin Hart all performed.  But in turn they're all still working (i.e. they're getting checks for appearing at this roast), with Hart starring in a $100M franchise entry in the Jumanji series later this year, likely making a fortune in the process.

This is, in part, because it's next-to-impossible to keep track of all of the things that people are expected to boycott or protest online.  Go on the social media of virtually any celebrity online and you will find a series of gloating and angry complaining underneath their posts.  Never mind that these platforms we're all using are owned by men with actual power who are actually destroying the planet (like Elon Musk & Mark Zuckerberg), so even using these platforms is tantamount to endorsing cruelty.  It's exhausting, and makes boycotts of entertainers impossible all-things-considered.  This is why Scream VII, despite many calls to boycott, ended up being a huge box office success, and why it appears likely that the Harry Potter TV series will be a blockbuster its first season (and perhaps its whole run)-people cannot be at 11 all the time, and if that's the expectation from online culture...you're going to find people tapping out and choosing not to protest anything.  This isn't necessarily me trying to have my cake-and-eat-it-too (I'm not endorsing complacency), but I will admit that the expectations of being a social progressive online feel, to a degree I have not experienced before, unrealistic.  I do not have the money, time, or knowledge to be able to successfully boycott every person & company whose opinions I disagree.  This doesn't mean that I won't continue to stay away from certain entertainers or places (I have never been to a Chic-Fil-A, and in a year I have devoted to action stars each week, you'll note that Mel Gibson is not one of the stars I'm going to focus on despite him being a staple of the genre and admittedly an actor whose career would be fascinating to profile), but it does mean that I am struggling to keep up with what increasingly inconsistent voices on the internet want from me.

This is in particular a situation that has come up repeatedly, and relates to Harry Potter in a different way-whether it is appropriate for an adult to be entertained by it at all.  Go on your social media, and you'll find that people are perpetually talking about the concept of Disney Adults, very much a cousin of the Harry Potter Adult.  These are people who regularly go to Disney parks, spend a significant amount on merchandise & travel expenses, and in some cases more than they have.  The latest round of this was brought on by a New Yorker article about people going into dramatic debt over the Disney trips.

I will say-you should not go into serious debt trying to live a Disney adult lifestyle, period, end of story.  I talked recently about 401k withdrawal penalties (and my support of them), and will own that I think people should be more respectful of their personal finances.  But I also think that, if you can afford it, you should do trips to places like Disney & Universal, even as an adult with no children, for a number of reasons.

For starters, these parks are fun, and not really wholly meant for children (even Walt Disney said that).  The detail, character work, and even some of the rides are created in a way to inspire magic for all ages, and honestly are way more in-depth than a child is really going to appreciate.  To pretend otherwise is to ignore that things like musical theater, Las Vegas & Atlantic City, cruise lines, and all sporting events that are things that are very much about play and make-believe, yet for some reason they are not considered to be "age inappropriate" for adults and (save for the gambling) are things generally enjoyed by children.  Additionally, given the disproportionately large amount of money that these major theme parks make as a result of childless adults visiting their parks, they basically couldn't stay in business were it not for these clients (there's a reason that they are creating things like food festivals at Epcot...to keep them coming back).  And these Disney adults are not the reason that these parks are going up in exorbitant costs-that's on larger nationwide financial policy, and also that it should cost more to take a family of four to a park than it does a single person or a couple (also, let's be honest here-the cost per person for a family of four going to a Disney park is WAY less than it is for a single or coupled group).  It's not single people's fault you can't afford this-that's on you (and, admittedly, Republican lawmakers who have made life considerably more expensive in the Trump era).

That said, and to close, I will say that Disney adults, I don't totally have your back even if I'm basically at this point counted among you (I have planned two trips to Disney/Universal locals over the past year, and will have two more if my finances hold in the next two years, albeit in four different cities for each of them).  You should have trips that see things other than Disney.  You should read/watch movies other than Disney and Harry Potter.  Occasionally, you need to challenge yourself by going to more traditionally adult spots like art museums, plays, R-rated movies, and even pick up a book written by someone like Dickens or Austen or Dostoevsky.  The play and "adulthood is hard, let's be a kid again" vibe of Disney and Harry Potter only work if you do, in fact, try to expand your mind in adulthood into things that are intended exclusively for you, not just in part.

OVP: The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Film: The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, Jack Weston

Director: Norman Jewison

Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Original Song-"The Windmills of Your Mind," Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Coming off of the success of The Cincinnati Kid, for the rest of the 1960's, you'd be hard-pressed to find a film actor who was more consistently bankable and electric than Steve McQueen.  In 1966, he won his first (and only) Academy Award nomination for The Sand Pebbles, a commercial triumph which got 8 nominations in total (McQueen would lose to Paul Scofield for A Man for All Seasons).  But it was in 1968 that he arguably hit his peak.  The most famous film of his career came out that year, the action flick Bullitt, which would be considered by many to be the greatest action film ever made (I liked it, but am not going to be quite that superfluous).  But I'd already seen that film, and with the Saturdays with the Stars, we stick entirely with movies I haven't seen of these actors, so we're going to focus on the other Oscar-winning film that McQueen made in 1968, a movie that was more polarizing with critics but nonetheless continued his trend of printing money: The Thomas Crown Affair.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is odd, and I'm going to start that right out because the plot is a bit thin.  It essentially follows Thomas Crown (McQueen), a bored millionaire who recruits a bunch of men (who know neither him nor their conspirators) to rob a bank, which they do successfully (and somewhat amusingly) in the film's opening moments.  It then shifts gears, with us meeting Vicki Anderson (Dunaway), a breathtaking blonde who is also clever, and who quickly figures out that Crown surely robbed the bank.  But there's a problem-there's no evidence other than common sense (and intuition), and both Crown & Vicki are mad horny for each other.  So Vicki is torn into a game of cat-and-mouse, with her seemingly closing in on him...all the while not realizing that she's getting played.  The film ends with Crown attempting another robbery, one that works perfectly and that he's confessed to Vicki already, implying to her that she loves him too much to stop him.  When she does, by showing up in the cemetery, she realizes that he did not, in fact, trust her, giving her the money from the second bank robbery for sport (along with his spectacular navy blue Rolls Royce), while he jets off to anonymity with the money from the first robbery.

Like I said, the plot doesn't resonate in a big way.  As I explained it above, it's quite straightforward, but doesn't read that way when you're watching the movie.  This is in part because it's severely underwritten-we don't get a lot of sense of who these characters are out of context with each other.  McQueen's Crown is essentially a thrill-seeker, a playboy, but we don't get much more.  Meanwhile, the only thing we learn about Dunaway's Vicki is that she doesn't play by the rules, which of course means that to all of the men around her, she's portrayed as a bitch (even though most of her best traits are lauded in Crown).  It's frustrating, and it feels stretched, like we're trying to make an excuse for this movie to exist.

But you see a 4-star review for a reason, and that's because it looks incredible.  The cars, the beaches, the costumes, the grand camerawork, it's all sublime.  There is a scene where Dunaway & McQueen, both just impossibly sexy, play the randiest game of chess you can ever imagine, us darting from his icy blue eyes to her pillow lips, each of them thumbing the pieces as if they're taking off each other's clothes.  Combined with a grand score, and the classic "Windmills of Your Mind" (one of the best movie songs of all time), it all adds up to film being a visual medium: who cares if none of it makes all that much sense when you are just looking for a cigarette to light afterward.

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Film: The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn

Director: Norman Jewison

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Steve McQueen is a weird star persona today.  In his era, McQueen was a big name, one of the biggest in movies, but because of a combination of factors (movies that aren't entirely in the modern zeitgeist, as well as his estate limiting his visage in merchandise after death), he's not remembered in the same way as other stars of his era.  James Dean died younger, Elvis Presley was more ubiquitous, Robert Redford & Paul Newman lived longer and were therefore able to make movies with men like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, & Chris Evans (i.e. the next generations of action heroes).  McQueen is remembered today by pop culture for Bullitt, being really cool, and dying young.  But he made a comparable amount of hits to Redford & Newman, and certainly more than Dean or Presley and he started it earlier in his career.  While he spent most of the 1950's doing television, theater, and B-movies (like The Blob), a chance skirmish in the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra essentially fired Sammy Davis, Jr. from working on Never So Few after they had a fight) gave McQueen the chance to really prove his worth, nearly stealing the picture from Sinatra.  The following few years included some massive hits, all led by McQueen, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Carpetbaggers, a now-forgotten sudser that was the #4 film of 1964, behind certified icons of the year Mary Poppins, Goldfinger, & My Fair Lady.  All of this is to say that by 1965, when McQueen was leading an all-star cast of Old & New Hollywood figures, he was already one of the definitive actors of the decade.

(Spoilers Ahead) Despite its name evoking a gangster picture, The Cincinnati Kid is not an actual action film (we'll get into a few of those to match our monthly theme with McQueen in the coming weeks).  The film is about The Kid (McQueen), a dynamite poker player who is tired of playing big games around New Orleans, and wants to move up in the ranks, potentially even moving to Miami, but knows he needs to beat Lancey (Robinson), the greatest poker player in the city, first.  The film's first half really focuses on the lead up to this, with Lancey clearly threatened by the Kid potentially coming for his throne, while the Kid's relationship with his best friend Shooter (Malden) and his girlfriend Christian (Weld) are thrown asunder, particularly as Shooter is blackmailed by local mobster Slade (Torn) into trying to fix the match for the Kid.  The film's most famous scenes are in the back half of the movie, when we see an aggressive, long-stakes game of poker between the Kid & Lancey, along with a host of other characters, most colorfully Joan Blondell as a boozy gambling diva named Lady Fingers.  The movie ends with Lancey once again beating the Kid, proving that youth and his cool demeanor are not enough to dethrone the champ.

The film's ending is maybe the most interesting part of the picture.  The entire high-stakes game is really something, and genuinely (and surprisingly, for a sports film) thrilling to see who might win.  It's pretty clear that so many of the side characters, especially Slade & Shooter's lusty wife Melba (Ann-Margret) want the Kid to win, which in movie language means that he won't, but the idea of the villainous older guy needing to make way for a new generation is also a trope of this genre that is ignored.  The ending also differs depending on the cut you see.  The one I saw was not what director Norman Jewison wanted.  He wanted a much more dour ending, with the Kid losing a game of penny-pitching against a kid who has been trying to beat him all film, ending with another shocking defeat for our leading man.  Instead, we get a more conventional ending with McQueen & Weld embracing, her forgiving him for having slept with Ann-Margret a few minutes earlier.

The movie's script needs tightening in this regard, but I get why this became storied in the world of poker, as it glamorizes the skill needed to make it in the world of poker, and the badass nature of it.  Most of the young cast is really hot, sexy cool spilling out from every corner of the film, including the end credits with a sleek, jazzy song by Ray Charles.  This might not shock people reading this about, say, McQueen or Ann-Margret or Tuesday Weld, but modern audiences will shocked to be reminded that Rip Torn at one point was a total Chad.  I can't quite put my finger on what might improve this film (one wonders if Karl Malden was miscast...you could see this part being played better by, say, Gene Hackman a couple of years later, and I say this as someone who generally likes Karl Malden), but most of it's great, including Robinson in one of his last roles, and Blondell totally stealing the picture.  As for McQueen-he plays this placid, unflappable, introverted character so well it makes sense it would become his go to for much of his career.