Movies

Chris Columbus

5 Comments

Columbus just seems to me like a completely nondescript director, as far as that’s possible. His movies are generally easily digestable and the actors always seem to be having a good time, but there’s nothing about the direction that is all that innovative or special. The only trademark I can see is that he likes to go for some genuine but easy tearjerker moments in otherwise light movies.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch: I really disliked this when I was ten years old, and I haven’t seen it since. However, I like the first movie and I’ve heard good things about this one, so I’ll have to give it another shot someday.

Grade: N/A

Home Alone: Holy crap was this movie popular. I liked it fine enough as a kid, and it’s fairly inoffensive as an adult. But Macaulay Culkin is precocious and obnoxious, so it’s hard to root for him against the cartoonish villians (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). In fact, the whole move is cartoonish, and not all that funny.

Grade: D

Adventures in Babysitting: I think it’s awesome that Vincent D’Onofrio played in this movie the same year as his role in Full Metal Jacket. I would probably need something lighthearted too after that movie. Anyway, Elizabeth Shue agrees to babysit three kids before taking them all in her car to go to Chicago and (surprise!) wacky hijinx ensue. One of the first movies I ever watched twice in the same day. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, but I have enough fond memories of it that I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy it if I watched it today. I may just keep my fond memories, though.

Grade: C-

Gremlins: After a boy gets a cute furry bat for Christmas, he fucks everything up by spilling water on it and feeding it “after midnight,” whatever that means. It produces many gremlins, which terrorize the town, kill a few side characters, and do some hilarious shit like get blown up in microwaves. Creepy at times, hilarious at times, and a bit slow at times. The actors appear to be having fun.

Grade: B

Rent: I wonder if Columbus took this movie because he worked with Anthony Rapp in Adventures in Babysitting? Tenuous connection, I know, but it’s not like Rapp has done a lot of other stuff other than Broadway. Either way, this is a solid but not spectacular translation of the Tony-winning play about a bunch of whiny artsy types whining about having AIDS, getting fired for insubordination, and by gosh, actually having to pay rent to live somewhere. I have a feeling in forty years that almost nobody will care about this play, as it doesn’t translate all that well outside of the 90’s. Other than the character of Angel, pretty much nobody in this play is sympathetic unless you’re a bleeding-heart communist. Still, there’s some fun music and Columbus was able to get most of the good songs into the movie while actually making it look like a movie (for the most part) rather than a play. Most of the actors who didn’t look ridiculously old yet reprised their roles, including Jesse L. Martin, who is fantastic as Tom Collins. Rosario Dawson (a newcomer) also shines as Mimi.

Grade: B

Mrs. Doubtfire: I honestly don’t know what to do with this movie, as it’s yet another Robin Williams vehicle I was crazy about when I was 12 and I like less and less over the years. The plot is insultingly contrived, as for some reason his ex-wife (Sally Field) is so bitter about Williams just being an okay husband that she convinces the court to make sure his visits with his kids are supervised by a bitch, despite the fact he obviously loves his kids and other than being a mild risk-taker, has never endangered them. Then, rather than get a better lawyer, he decides to cross-dress so he can be his kids nanny, which is scarier than anything he did while he was being a supposed bad father. Cue tired old cross-dressing jokes that stopped being funny sometime in the 80’s (or for me, 1994).  Still, I have a soft spot for this as the performances are good (Williams is actually restrained…for him) and it is pretty endearing, despite the ridiculousness of it all. The kids are adorable, especially Mara Wilson, and you really believe they’re family. I also love Robert Prosky, who plays Williams’ boss. I also appreciate the fact that Field’s new boyfriend, Pierce Brosnan, just plays a regular, nice guy and not some arrogant jerk for Williams to play off of.

Grade: B+

Other Chris Columbus Movies You May Have Seen

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Bicentennial Man
Stepmom
Nine Months
I Love You, Beth Cooper
Only the Lonely

Movies

Andy & Lana Wachowski

19 Comments

Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski have only done six movies, but boy their first two were so special one thought they’d be a legendary super-director team.  I don’t know if The Matrix sequels derailed them or they just ran out of ideas (they also write their movies). Or maybe they ran out of Joe Pantoliano. Either way, they are highly skilled at directing fight scenes and are pretty good at understanding suspense. But as far as getting the most out of their actors they’re only average and their writing appears to be hit and miss, perhaps too ambitious as of late.

The Matrix Reloaded: Not-needed sequel failed in part because it ruined the mystique of the original, over-explaining everything. Some decent action scenes, but man I felt nothing while watching this. So much so that I haven’t bothered to watch the final movie.

Grade: D-

Bound: A genuinely tense thriller that relies heavily on situational tension rather than manufactured scares, An ex-con (Gina Gershon) teams up with her new lover (Jennifer Tilly) to swindle millions from the mob while framing Tilly’s boyfriend, Joe Pantoliano. Very tight script with slick direction. Tilly and Gershon have good chemistry, and Pantoliano is outstanding. And just so my wife knows, I don’t like Bound just because of the lesbian scene.

Grade: B

The Matrix: I had high expectations when I saw this in the theater and they were met tenfold. I was blown away by the special effects, possibly the only time that’s ever happened. The fight scenes are some of my favorite ever. But more than that, I found the pacing of the movie to be brilliant, with very effective doses of tension. Hugo Weaving plays the cold-as-ice lead agent perfectly, and the rest of the cast is capable, especially Pantoliano and Carrie Ann-Moss. Keanu Reeves doesn’t get in the way, which is the best he can probably do. The plot (is our reality the real reality?) is not terribly original, and sometimes the philosophizing and Jesus references gets to be a bit much, but the story is revealed layer by layer, with the viewer never knowing more than the main protagonist. Repeated viewings weakens the movie only slightly.

Grade: A

Other Wachowski Movies You May Have Seen

Matrix Revolutions
Speed Racer
Cloud Atlas

Movies

Michael Ritchie

2 Comments

The Candidate: I haven’t watched this since high school, but I remember being thoroughly bored as even my younger self was able to see every twist and turns long before it came. Robert Redford stars as a candidate for U.S. senate who has no shot at winning so he challenges the establishment at every turn. I prefer my satire a bit more subtle.

Grade: C-

Diggstown: James Woods is a con-man who bets another con-man that he can find a boxer who can knockout ten of Diggstown’s best boxers within the span of 24 hours. That boxer is Louis Gossett Jr. The two have great chemistry together, and the jokes that are there are pretty funny. Unfortunately, it goes for some dramatic moments that don’t really work. Oliver Platt is fun.

Grade: B-

The Bad News Bears: Known for Walter Matthau being a drunk Little League coach and a bunch of kids who curse a lot, The Bad News Bears goes far beyond this with its brute honesty and real humor, rarely going for the cliche or contrived moment. Tatum O’Neal is pretty good as the team’s star pitcher, and the rest of the kids feel real, even if they’re not fleshed out as much as one would hope.  The atmosphere is fantastic; I’m taken back to the 70’s every time I see it. One of my favorite movie scenes ever takes place in the final game against the Yankees, when that team’s pitcher, son of the coach, disobeys an order and tries to bean Engelberg. The scene highlights Vic Morrow, who plays the scary Little League parent to a tee without becoming a caricature. Ritchie really pulls every ounce of emotion out of this scene by saying very little. And then you have the ending, which is also the best of any kids sports movie.

Grade: A+ (I got a Harley-Davidson. Does that turn you on? Harley-Davidson?)

Other Michael Ritchie Films You May Have Seen

The Golden Child
Fletch
Fletch Lives
Wildcats
Cops and Robbersons
The Scout
A Simple Wish
The Couch Trip
Student Bodies
The Survivors

Movies

Stanley Kubrick

4 Comments

Kubrick’s career spanned many decades, averaging about two to three movies per decade. He started off slow, then starting with Paths of Glory, pretty much everything he did turned to gold. His camera work is usually stunning. Four of the five movies below I’ve seen only once, and I have sharp visual memories of all of them, even the parts I don’t particularly care for. Apparently he was a bear to work with, as he obsessed over the smallest details and required an insane number of takes for most shots. However, it seems most of his actors held a deep respect for him.

2001: A Space Odyssey: There are certainly timeless aspects of this film. The chilling relationship between Dave and HAL holds up very well today. The special effects are still pretty good and unlike most movies that take place in space, it was pretty scientifically accurate (e.g. there is no sound in space). However, the grand philosophical theme of the movie did nothing for me. “The Dawn of Man” part that opens the film literally made me fall asleep, and the ending left me cold and uninterested, or rather, wishing I was high so I could really enjoy it. Still, the middle part of the film is brilliant everything.

Grade: B-

Paths of Glory: French soldiers in WWI refuse to continue with an attack that is hopeless, but their superiors decide to make examples out of them in order to keep control over their army. Kirk Douglas shines as one of the sympathizers for those that mutiny. Very dark film, both visually and emotionally. Some of the shots are very chilling. My main quibble is Kubrick went for satire at times rather than pure horror; for example, the evil people are a little too evil (much like the communists in Orwell’s Animal Farm).

Grade: B

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: A U.S. general gone mad orders the bombing of the U.S.S.R., which would set off a doomsday machine on their end that would destroy the world. Most of the movie takes place in the war room in D.C. as they try to avert disaster. Laced with obvious satire “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” but also some great subtlety as well. Peter Sellers is great, playing three different characters who are all trying to stop the bomb. A little too off-beat for my tastes, but I have fond memories.

Grade: B

The Shining: Jack Nicholson takes his family to a remote hotel in Colorado to be the caretaker for the winter. In the book, he slowly goes mad as the hotel takes over his psyche. In the movie, he’s pretty much of a psychopath from the beginning, just under control of his violent tendencies. That’s my main criticism of the movie. I don’t really believe Nicholson’s character is anything but a mean drunk who just needed a slight push to go completely mad. Shelly Duvall’s character is pretty believable as the meek wife of an abuser. The kid is downright terrible, no surprise there. At least Scatman Crothers is excellent. Where the movie shines (sorry), is the atmosphere and the genuinely creepy sense of isolation and terror that builds throughout. Kubrick has some superb shots, including one long one following Danny moving through most of the hotel on his tricycle. Also, the young girls and the bleeding elevator was brilliant. The Razzies nominated him for worst director for this movie and I don’t get it. I think they just really hated Shelly Duvall.

Grade: A-

Full Metal Jacket: Two movies in one, with the first half being the brutal nature of Vietnam War boot camps, and the second half being the brutal reality of being in Vietnam. The former is simultaneously hilarious and scary, while the latter is truly horrifying with some biting satire thrown in for good measure. A bit uneven at times, but very powerful.

Grade: A

Other Stanley Kubrick Movies You May Have Seen

Eyes Wide Shut
Barry Lyndon
A Clockwork Orange
Lolita
Spartacus
The Killing
Killer’s Kiss

Movies

Paul Verhoeven

8 Comments

Verhoeven seems to really like exaggeration, both in visual effects and story elements. Directing actors does not appear to be his strong suit, but each film has a definite vision and consistent atmosphere. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen by him, though none of it has out and out wowed me. I also haven’t seen Showgirls, which is wowing in that it’s considered one of the worst movies of all-time.

Robocop: Peter Weller, police officer, gets killed during an arrest. Well, almost killed. The Detroit police force is able to turn him into a cyborg who kicks some royal justice ass, makes witty remarks, and struggles with faint memories of his former life. Lots of fun.

Grade: B-

Total Recall: Arnold Schwarzenegger is a construction worker who’s having trouble memories about life on Mars, so he visits a memory implant corporation to investigate if he’s currently living out implanted memories. Naturally, a bunch of shit goes down and there’s a lot of questions over what’s real and what isn’t. Like Robocop, some over-the-top situations that are mostly fun, as well as the witty one-liners. I love the visual and philosophical representations of late 21st century Mars colonization.  Loosely based on a Philip K. Dick story.

Grade: B

Basic Instinct: Michael Douglas is a detective investigating a murder. The prime suspect is a socialite author (Sharon Stone) who recently released a bestseller which details a murder that is virtually identical. Did she use the book as an alibi or is there a copycat killer? The movie sets up both possibilities really well. Sharon Stone is really good, playing the sexy but emotionally cold psychopath role to a tee. Michael Douglas, unfortunately, never quite comes across realistic. Some will hate the ambiguous ending, though I’m a big fan. Graphic sex scenes broach gratuitousness, but sex is a heavy part of the plot. Your mileage may vary.

Some LGBT supporters were very angry when this film came out, as every suspect in the movie is gay or bisexual, while all of the “good guys” are straight. I have a hard time getting worked up about that, since there is little in the way of emotion in the movie (and I never got the feeling that the sexuality of any character was being judged) and all of those involved, even the “straight” characters, have loose sexual morals.

Grade: B+

Other Movies By Paul Verhoeven You May Have Seen

Hollow Man
Starship Troopers
Showgirls
Black Book
Flesh+Blood
Soldier of Orange
Turkish Delight
The Fourth Man

Movies

Stephen Herek

2 Comments

Stephen Herek’s has had an interesting career. Most of his early movies were well-known and widely disliked, or at best tolerated. Most of his recent movies have been straight-to-video. But then he had one masterpiece in the middle of his career that doesn’t belong with any of these movies. I don’t know what to make of that. Did he luck into it? Does he have the talent but is content with doing safe and forgettable movies?

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: A pretty cool movie when I was nine years old, but the humor has little depth now as an adult. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter find a phone booth that travels through time and with the help of George Carlin, get a bunch of historical figures (including Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, and Napoleon) to come back to the future with them to, I don’t know, vouch for their bodaciousness. Yeah, totally bogus.

Grade: D

The Mighty Ducks: Cheesy and ridiculous, but at times charming and funny, The Mighty Ducks is the one movie where nearly every Minnesotan knows somebody who was in it. Emilio Estevez, a workaholic, gets a DUI and as his probation, must coach a rag-tag bunch of kids who play hockey poorly. Similar to The Bad News Bears in that the bad kids become serviceable, and the coach lands a couple of ringers that do most of the work. Not as good as that movie, as there are more caricatures, including the sneeringly evil opposing coach (who, incidentally, starred in the Bad News Bears sequel). Also, the heartfelt moments are too choreographed. Despite this, I enjoy it whenever I come across it.

Grade: C-

Mr. Holland’s Opus: It’s funny to go from a movie that does the dramatic moments so poorly to a movie that is absolutely superb and evoking genuine, non-manipulative tears. Richard Dreyfuss plays a well-liked high school music teacher who struggles on the home front with having a deaf son and on the work front with the reality that the school is going to cut the music program. Nearly every moment of this movie feels real and Dreyfuss puts in possibly the best performance of his career. I’ve seen this several times now and cry like a fool every time.

Grade: A-

Other Stephen Herek Movies You May Have Seen

Critters
Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead
The Three Musketeers
101 Dalmatians
Holy Man
Life or Something Like It
Man of the House
Picture This
Dead Like Me: Life After Death
Into the Blue 2: The Reef
The Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice
The Chaperone

Movies

Irvin Kershner

3 Comments

Robocop 2: Just a brutal sequel that I don’t think any director could have saved.The last movie Kershner directed, and I may have given up too after this trash. Awkward, poor dialogue, confusing character motivations. Most sequels don’t need to be made but few are as miserable as this.

Grade: F

The Flim-Flam Man: A fun con-artist movie starring George C. Scott. Nowhere near The Sting in terms of plot or acting, but charming and funny through and through.

Grade: C+

Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back: Right before he wrote the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lawrence Kasdan wrote the script for Empire. It was his first script and a pretty good debut. Lucas gave the reins to Kershner and he directed the best movie in the series. The love triangle between Han, Leia, and Luke is a bit uncomfortable, but the action is one creative scene after another. From the imperial walkers to the asteroid belt to Cloud City to Luke’s showdown with Vader, there is little time to relax. Yoda makes his first appearance; he could have been a complete disaster but the puppeteer does an excellent job of giving the Jedi master pathos and an aura of wisdom. The end of the movie is a series of powerful cliffhangers. By the time I was old enough to watch this, the sequel had already been made. I couldn’t have imagined waiting three years to see how this wrapped up.

Grade: A+

Other Movies by Irvin Kershner You May Have Seen

Never Say Never Again
Eye of Laura Mars
Raid on Entebbe
The Return of a Man Called Horse
S*P*Y*S
Up the Sandbox
Loving
A Fine Madness

Movies

George Lucas

4 Comments

Lucas isn’t too bad of a story creator. After all, Raiders of the Lost Ark was mostly his idea, though no doubt having Spielberg and Kasdan around helped. But the guy can’t write good dialogue and other than the occasional special effect, the guy can’t direct a scene very well either. Granted, Lucas has almost no experience with directing outside of the Star Wars movies. The guy is obviously very skilled at surrounding himself with the right people, creating a multi-billion dollar cash cow. But when he takes full creative control of anything, it’s usually bad news.

Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones: The awfulness of this movie can be proven by one of the worst lines in movie history, also written by our friend George Lucas. “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.” Yes, an adult wrote that line. I’d be willing to wager that 90% of the Star Wars fan fiction has more competent writing than this movie does. A terrible bridge between the other two prequels, Attack of the Clones is cringe-worthy when it’s not boring your synapses into a coma. The only thing that saves this movie from an F rating is some fairly well done battle scenes, including a kick-ass one-on-one fight with Yoda.

Grade: D-

Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace: My expectations were actually pretty low when I went to see this as I had already heard the blah reviews coming in. Those expectations were met and then some. Jar-Jar Binks is a problem, but he’s barely more annoying than C-3PO. The problems lie in the directing and the awful acting of Jake Lloyd who got to play kid Darth Vader. The casting wasn’t all bad, as I quite enjoyed Liam Neeson and Ian McDiarmid. Even Ewan McGregor plays an okay Ben Kenobi. But Natalie Portman is wooden, though I’m not sure how much of that is her versus how her character was written. George Lucas ain’t exactly strong with character depth.

Grade: D+

Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith: A mild improvement over the previous two films, if only because of the improved story. Much like the second movie in the original trilogy, nothing much good happens to any of the annoying heroes. Perhaps Lucas is better at writing dark than happy. Fairly solid connections to the fourth movie in the series, with only a couple of annoying continuity things.

Grade: C

Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope: For the record, this review is for the original version, not the retrosuck updates Lucas made in the 90’s and ongoing. The pantheon of space operas, this movie mesmerized me as a child and I still enjoy watching it today. If I’m flipping channels I’ll almost always stop. The story is very simple, with clearly divided lines of good and evil and fairly flat characters. The dialogue is as terrible as anything Lucas has done. “My name is Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you!” is pretty lame stuff. Princess Leia’s lines are nearly universally cliche. The directing of the actors is also obviously flawed. Now Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill aren’t the world’s best actors, but they’re better than they are here. What helps Lucas out is that the actors, especially Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, really appear to be enjoying themselves. And, naturally, Alec Guiness is fantastic as Ben Kenobi. I know he was upset that he was most remembered for this short role and not the rest of his career, but he was really good here and if it weren’t for this movie, I may not know who he is.

What Lucas did do right is direct some pretty incredible special effects. It still amazes me how realistic the spaceships look for 1977. There are some glitches, but nothing too distracting. And, of course, John Williams’ score is epic. The opening trumpets still give me chills, and the sound effects are solid. Finally, the confrontation with the death star is wonderful. “All right kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home.”

Grade: A 

Other George Lucas Movies You May Have Seen

THX 1138
American Graffiti