Category Archives: Movies

Movies

Andrew Stanton

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A Bug’s Life: Ants are tormented by grasshoppers, and one particular ant is tormented by the other ants. A bit similar to Antz, released the same year, and I like both equally for different reasons. You can tell Pixar was still getting their feet wet with plot and humor, but the visuals are pretty fantastic.

Grade: B-

Finding Nemo: See Lee Unkrich

Grade: B

WALL-E: A delightful tale about a robot designed to pick up and organize trash on Earth while the humans colonize elsewhere. The first 22 minutes have no dialogue, and the next 18 don’t have much either as we watch WALL-E cope with his situation. We learn about him, his struggles, his goals, and his personality without any words being said. It’s a huge testament to the writers and animators and  what we get is one of the best first halves of any movie ever. The last half focuses more on the humans that left Earth and their plight is a little less original from a storytelling perspective. Still, an amazing accomplishment from a company that has no shortage of them.

Grade: A+

Other Andrew Stanton Movies You May Have Seen

John Carter

Movies

Lee Unkrich

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Unkrich co-directed his first three movies with Pixar but he had full reins over Toy Story 3. I don’t know how to gauge the strengths of a director of animated movies, especially when there’s multiple directors. But Toy Story 3 is a masterpiece, so my official opinion is that this guy knows his stuff.

Monsters, Inc.: We learn that monsters scare children to supply the power to their city. We follow a couple of those monsters who struggle with the fact that kids these days just don’t scare as easily as they used to. Home run premise sputters at times with obvious plot points and obvious jokes but it’s charming all the way.

Grade: C+

Finding Nemo: A clownfish becomes separated from his father and they spend a good deal of time trying to find each other. Visually stunning and thoroughly endearing. Seems more geared towards children than other Pixar movies, but it’s definitely still geared for adults.

Grade: B

Toy Story 2: A significantly more engaging story than the first movie, this one focuses even more on the toys. Woody gets kidnapped by a toy collector who learns he’s worth quite a bit. Barbie’s introduction is way better than I would have thought it would be. Rex is absolutely hilarious.

Grade: A-

Toy Story 3: Easily my favorite final movie of a trilogy. An epic story focusing on Andy’s toys being dropped off for retirement at a daycare center and the horrors they find there. I think I had a smile plastered across my face the entire movie and I cried at least once. Funny, beautiful, touching. A perfect end to the series.

Grade: A

 

 

Movies

Richard Donner

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Superman: Saw this several times a kid but never as an adult. I do remember liking Hackman’s Lex Luthor and some of the story.

Grade: N/A

The Goonies: Some nerdy kids find a pirate treasure map and try to save the neighborhood from a crime family by getting the treasure. Written by Spielberg and Columbus. I remember kind of liking it as a kid. I saw about 75% of it a few months ago, and was pretty lukewarm about it.

Grade: N/A

Lethal Weapon 3: See below.

Grade: C

Lethal Weapon 2: See below.

Grade: B

Lethal Weapon: Danny Glover is the veteran cop, Mel Gibson is the suicidal young cop. Both hate working together, but because this is a movie, they get paired together for a lot of funny one-liners until they catch some drug smugglers. All three movies are ridiculous and fun, though the third one lacks a bit of the spark.

Grade: B

Maverick: Based on the television show, Maverick (Mel Gibson) finds himself weaseling his way out of many sticky situations while hoping to join a huge poker tournament for a big pay day. He gets competition along the way from a thief (Jodie Foster) and a marshal (James Garner, the original Maverick). The movie goes on a bit too long (just over two hours) but I love every minute of it. Donner really knows how to get comedy out of Gibson, and Foster is fantastic. It’s not particularly laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s consistently charming and amusing from beginning to end. The climactic poker tournament is a blast and features many cameos from famous country singers. It also has a great country-music soundtrack with nearly all original music that fits the movie’s theme.

Grade: A+

Other Richard Donner Movies You May Have Seen

Lethal Weapon 4
The Omen
Conspiracy Theory
Superman II
Assassins
Timeline
Scrooged
Ladyhawke

Movies

Tim Burton

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Burton is one of those directors who just seems better at his job than he really is. He’s always been able to create stunning and imaginative worlds, and he’s able to get good performances out of his actors. But his scripts (he has written about half of his movies) tend to lack subtlety. Also, it’s hard to find a movie of his that doesn’t star Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, or Johnny Depp (especially Depp). I like Depp just as much as anyone, but I wonder if using him for nearly every major movie of his has limited their potential.

Mars Attacks!: Man, this could have been so good. Lampooning alien invasion flicks with a monster cast (Nicholson, Close, Bening, Fox, Devito, Brosnan, Portman) should have made this a slam dunk, but there’s not much here that’s actually funny. Amusing at times, and maddeningly flat most of the time, coming off too much like the films it’s supposed to be lampooning.

Grade: D

Batman Returns: Been a long time since I’ve seen this, but I remember feeling quite underwhelmed by Devito’s Penguin and Pfeiffer’s CatWoman.

Grade: D+

Batman: It’s impossible to compare this to Christopher Nolan’s movies as they shoot for completely different styles. While Nolan’s movies go for the more modern “realistic” superhero, Burton was obviously going for a comic book feel. He does this mostly well. Nicholson’s Joker is really good. Keaton is solid as well. Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of comic books so that likely affected my enjoyment.

Grade: C+

Beetle Juice: Ghosts hire an exorcist to rid their home of the new alive tenants. Not terribly funny these days, but I still enjoy watching it thanks to the imaginative world Burton creates and a very enthusiastic performance by Keaton. Alec Baldwin is good as usual and Geena Davis and Winona Ryder hold their own.

Grade: B-

Edward Scissorhands: An isolated scientist creates Edward (Johnny Depp) and gives him scissors for hands until he can finish the real hands. Unfortunately, he dies before he can do so, and the naive Edward rolls into town. His brief celebrity ends quickly as the prejudiced town members turn against him. Great performance by Depp, but like Pleasantville, it’s easy to choke on all the allegory being shoved down one’s throat.

Grade: B+

Other Tim Burton Movies You May Have Seen

Big Fish
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Alice in Wonderland
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sleepy Hollow
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Dark Shadows
Ed Wood
Frankenweenie
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

Movies

Terry Gilliam

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Monty Python gang member Gilliam has had a pretty successful career doing pretty much everything. Not a lot of humor outside of Python; his dramatic movies have been better received.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: A fantasy m0vie about some guy. I’ve never been a fan of Gilliam’s fantasy worlds (I fell asleep watching Time Bandits) and this is no exception. Interesting casting with Jonathan Pryce, Sting, and Oliver Reed to name a few, but I was never intrigued.

Grade: D

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Not my favorite Python movie, but it easily has the most iconic scenes and quotable one-liners. Uneven in pacing and continuity, but the good scenes are really funny. A good introduction to British humor.

Grade: B+

12 Monkeys: Bruce Willis, a prisoner, must travel back in time to the 90’s to find the cause of a virus that kills five billion people. Trippy time-travel stuff, solid plot, and excellent performances. One of the best of Willis’s career, and probably my favorite performance by Brad Pitt (a mental health patient) as well. Gilliam’s apocalyptic future is visually interesting.

Grade: A

Other Terry Gilliam Movies You May Have Seen

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Brazil
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Brothers Grimm
The Meaning of Life
The Fisher King
Time Bandits

Movies

Amy Heckerling

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I think Heckerling is the only female director where I’ve seen at least three movies from. That’s kind of sad.

Look Who’s Talking: I pretty much hate talking babies, but Bruce Willis’s baby narration might be the least hate-able I’ve come across. John Travolta and Kirstie Alley have just enough chemistry together to keep this from being completely worthless.

Grade: D

A Night at the Roxbury: What’s up? Someone thought it was a good idea to take SNL’s Roxbury guys and give them 80 minutes. Not as awful as I expected, but it still remains a mostly one-joke premise so much of the movie drags. Will Ferrell, as usual, gives an enthusiastic performance which helps save things a bit.

Grade: D+

Clueless: Alicia Silverstone is the most popular girl and does all sorts of popular things and tries to help clueless people emulate her, until she realizes she needs a more spiritual makeover. Yeah, as if! Inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma. Alicia plays her role well and for the most part the performances are good, but the script seems dated, or at least underwhelming. When I see it I just think I’d rather be watching Mean Girls.

Grade: D+

Other Amy Heckerling Moves You May Have Seen

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Look Who’s Talking Too
European Vacation
Loser
I Could Never Be Your Woman
Johnny Dangerously

Movies

Roger Spottiswoode

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I wonder what in Spottiswoode’s career tempted someone to give him a Bond movie. He once said this:

The movies I want to make are not people’s priority. Nobody would touch them. They cost a lot of money, and studios no longer finance development, so if I didn’t pay for them myself they wouldn’t happen.

Looking at his ratings on IMDb, it doesn’t look like the movies he makes are anyone’s priority.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot: Man, what a piece of shit. I was twelve years old and found this (and Stallone and Getty) obvious and stupid. The movie literally has one joke and it’s in the title. I laughed when I saw the preview. That was the last time. In my life. It’s that bad.

Grade: F

Shoot To Kill: A plot-twisty thriller that really does nothing for me, partly because I don’t particularly care for Tom Berenger or Kirstie Alley, but mostly because I don’t feel the thrills. Even Sidney Poitier seems to be a bit listless.

Grade: F

Turner & Hooch: Tom Hanks is a detective who must adopt a Saint Bernard to help find a murderer. Cue lots of saliva and bad dog jokes. Some genuine sentiment at the end, but everything’s a bit too obvious.

Grade: C-

Other Roger Spottiswoode Movie You May Have Seen

Tomorrow Never Dies
The 6th Day
Air America
The Children of Huang Shi

Movies

John G. Avildsen

2 Comments

Avildsen sure likes underdog stories. I wonder how much of that comes from his own life. I see nothing special in his direction or his ability to make his scripts better. I have to admit I haven’t yet seen the original Rocky movie, which is more or less the inspiration for every underdog movie ever. So you have to give him credit for that.

Rocky V: The late Tommy Morrison, who was then an undefeated heavyweight boxer, was cast as Rocky’s protege. Rocky’s down on his luck, poor again somehow, and then this Tommy guy betrays him. The movie’s climax doesn’t take place in the ring this time; Rocky and Tommy duke it out in the street like a good ol’ parking lot bar fight. Shoots for drama, fails miserably.

Grade: F

The Karate Kid: Part III: Ralph Macchio, now 75 years old but still pretending to play teenager Daniel, goes through some hormonal stuff (probably because every girl who falls for him breaks up with him before the next movie) and defies Mr. Miyagi and trains for the next All-Valley karate tournament with the world’s most obvious douchebag. And–complete and utter surprise–the douchebag is friends with Martin Kove, the bad guy from the first movie. Also shockingly, Daniel eventually comes to back to Miyagi, who forgives him. And for the biggest twist yet, Daniel defeats a much more skilled opponent to win the tournament. Also, there’s some bonsai trees. Daniel was the plucky underdog kid from the wrong side of the tracks in the first movie. Here, he’s just a tool. Shameful script and lifeless direction.

Grade: F

8 Seconds: Sort of true story about Lane Frost, a professional bull-rider who was killed by a bull after a successful ride at the age of 26. A bit emotionally manipulative, but it was watchable considering I have no interest in the real thing. Pretty good soundtrack if you like country.

Grade: D

The Karate Kid: Part II: Not-bad sequel to quirky, feel-good original. Daniel goes to Okinawa because Miyagi is the father he never had and he has to follow him everywhere. Despite Daniel further overcoming bullies who hate him for no reason, the movie is more about Miyagi, who grieves his father’s death and must confront an old friend who wants him dead. Pat Morita is excellent again, and there are some cool individual scenes like the ice-breaking contest. It could have been a great dramatic movie, but there’s too many contrivances and obvious plot points. Despite this, I still enjoy it today.

Grade: B-

The Karate Kid: Daniel Larusso’s mom moves him out to Raceda where he quickly becomes the enemy of every bully in school because he exists, and then makes it worse by antagonizing his bullies. Enter Mr. Miyagi, a local handyman and gardener who tricks Daniel into doing his chores and magically teaches him karate at the same time. The entire plot is preposterous and the movie is a bit slow at times, but it’s great fun and the tournament Daniel redeems himself at is energetic and well-choreographed. The movie itself inspired tons of kids (including myself) to take karate lessons and do the crane kick countless times despite it being a worthless attack.

Grade: B+

Other John G. Avildsen Movies You May Have Seen

Rocky
Lean on Me
The Power of One
Desert Heat
Neighbors
Save the Tiger

Movies

Brian de Palma

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A very well-known director, Brian de Palma’s career seems to be a bit underwhelming. While I’ve only seen three of his movies, looking at the ones below and reviews by those of people I trust, they all seem to have more potential than he gets out of them.

Mission to Mars: A crew goes to Mars on a rescue mission and find something fantastic when they get there. This is such a frustrating movie, since the acting is top-notch. Don Cheadle and Gary Sinise are excellent and Tim Robbins pulls his weight as well. But this might be the most boring space movie ever.

Grade: F

The Black Dahlia: Another story around Elizabeth Short, the wannabe Hollywood actress who was brutally murdered in 1947, her case never solved. Another mess of a story, but it’s engaging until the ending. Shot well.

Grade: C-

The Untouchables: One of my favorite computer games, The Black Dahlia, combines the mysteries of Elizabeth Short and the Cleveland torso murders, investigated by Eliot Ness. Fun coincidence that De Palma has directed movies about Short and Ness. Written by David Mamet, an engaging movie that is a little too long and unfortunately has Kevin Costner in the lead as Ness. Sean Connery is good as Jim Malone, and I like Andy Garcia, but Robert De Niro is only okay as Al Capone. Good, with some tense moments, but could have been a lot better.

Grade: B-

Others Brian de Palma Movies You May Have Seen

Scarface
Mission: Impossible
Carlito’s Way
Carrie
Snake Eyes
Casualties of War
Femme Fatale
Bonfire of the Vanities