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Movies

Star Wars

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Year: 1977
Director: George Lucas
Rating: 10

As I’ve grown older my love for the franchise has abated, and not because of the quality or lack there of with newer additions. I think I just don’t identify with the ethos. While I can certainly endorse the notion that there’s good and evil within all of us and the choices we make matter, the evil people in this galaxy are often sneeringly evil and inexplicably stupid. And in good stories I should be able to either identify with the antagonist or at least understand them. And that never happens here.

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Movies

Steven Spielberg

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Possibly the most recognizable director in the world, Spielberg is certainly one of the best at making blockbuster movies really entertaining.  He almost never goes for straight comedy, but his movies almost always have good laughs. Some of his worse movies have been sequels, suggesting he may have a weakness for resting on his laurels, though being okay with sequels gave us Last Crusade.  He’s great at casting, not always finding the best actor, but almost always someone who fits the role. And since most of the roles in his movies don’t require significant character depth, it works. And while he’s not generally groundbreaking with camera techniques, he’s not afraid to take on really difficult projects with epic scope or heavy drama. He’s definitely earned his reputation.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Dumb, pointless sequel that does a terrible job of building off the first movie. I don’t know how much of that is on Spielberg vs. Michael Crichton, but I’m pretty sure this movie doesn’t need to exist. Love the scene in the field, though.

Grade: F

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial: I’m most definitely in the minority here, but in general I’m not a fan of movies that glorify children and make adults mean and/or stupid. Perhaps because of this I didn’t find it as moving as everyone else does. Some amusing scenes.

Grade: D-

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Somewhat enjoyable in the theater, but upon reflection is just really insulting, going for cheap and easy laughs while poorly developing every character. Spielberg’s inability or unwillingness to take control of this project and let George Lucas call all the shots really killed it. Spielberg liked Frank Darabont’s script. Ford liked Darabont’s script. Spielberg was quoted as saying he wanted no CGI. But Lucas likes David Koepp (who is decent, but also wrote Death Becomes Her) and Lucas likes CGI. In fact, this movie is responsible for the phrase “nuking the fridge”, usurping the similarly meaning “jumping the shark” from over thirty years earlier. It was probably never going to be as good as the hype, especially with the decision to cast Shia Lebouf and Sean Connery bowing out, but we’ll never know how good it could have been had Spielberg had full reins.

Grade: C-

Saving Private Ryan: The first half hour is brutal, gutsy filmmaking, which unfortunately activated serious PTSD symptoms for a lot of men who lived through D-Day. For people like me who barely know which end of a gun the bullet comes out, it was refreshing to get a honest depiction of war, even for a little while. The rest of the movie is a drama about Tom Hanks finding this private (Matt Damon) who has lost all his siblings and is being recalled home. It’s fine, but didn’t do much for me, especially with an ending that has Mr. Ryan asking a very poignant question to the audience, but before we can even mull it over, Ryan’s wife answers it for us. Gee, thanks for that.

Grade: C+

Catch Me If You Can: Based on a true story, we have Tom Hanks chasing another person, Leonardo DiCaprio, a young man who has made a career out of forging checks and his identity to stay one step ahead of law enforcement. Not terribly gripping, but a lot of fun. DiCaprio is perfect for this role and he nails it.

Grade: B-

Minority Report: Tom Cruise works for a futuristic law enforcement agency which has the ability to see murders before they happen, then intervene before the perpetrator has a chance to commit the crime. However, the perp still gets prosecuted as if he committed the crime anyway. This is all fine and dandy until Cruise gets seen murdering someone; of course, he can’t imagine he’d ever do so, and before he gets apprehended, goes on the lam, desperate to clear his name. Engaging premise and a lot of fun. Cruise is capable in the role. I wish it were more than just an action movie.

Grade: B-

Jurassic Park: Crichton’s famous book about a dinosaur park gone bad is pretty thrilling with occasional corniness and some plot holes that are easy to ignore considering the ride. Really tense in some parts, and convincing dinosaurs (other than, you know, the non-existent mutant raptors).

Grade: B

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Gets kind of a bad rap among the original Indy trilogy, though I hear less and less about that since Crystal Skull came out. Completely lacks depth and character development, but it is a prequel that visits Indiana Jones before he began to have feelings, so it’s not entirely unintentional. Casting his then wife as the heroine (Kate Capshaw) was a bad idea, as her sexy to annoying ratio is quite lopsided compared to Karen Allen, though the script is largely to blame for that as well. But the movie is still fun and has many action-packed scenes, which is kind of the point. Jonathan Ke-Quan does a great job as Short Round, and the special effects work is amazing. The final scene on the bridge is a fantastic example of creative film-making without the help of computers.

Grade: B

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: While I find the movie’s finale a little bit of a letdown, Richard Dreyfuss is simply masterful as the line worker who encounters a UFO and gets drawn into the wilderness to discover the truth. I haven’t seen this movie in about twenty years and I can still vividly remember those tones.

Grade: B

Jaws: While I found this a bit frightening as a kid thanks to the music and the shark, I find this even more haunting as an adult as I have a greater understanding of the isolation and emotional trauma these men experience. Dreyfuss is great again, as is Roy Scheider, but the knockout performance comes from Robert Shaw, who is probably scarier than the shark they’re hunting.

Grade: B+

Lincoln: A truly epic look into Lincoln the man and his motivations to end slavery, only briefly touching on the more famous historic events such as Gettysburg and his assassination. Daniel Day-Lewis is exceptional as Lincoln, and I found myself laughing way more than I thought I would. Watches more like a good history lesson than a good movie, but it’s a really good history lesson.

Grade: B+

Schindler’s List: Based on the life of Oskar Schindler who, while working for the Nazis, secretly rescued a bunch of Jews. One of the most emotionally powerful things I’ve ever seen, which is marred only by a completely fabricated Hollywood feel-good speech by Schindler at the end. Shot entirely in black and white and it works. Superb cast. Ralph Feinnes really stands out as one of the bad guys, and Ben Kingsley and Liam Neeson are great as well. Excellent touch at the end to have people who were personally rescued by Schindler honoring him at his grave.

Grade: A

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: A bit disjointed at times, feeling like they had a bunch of great ideas for scenes and just glued them together. But they work on their individual merits, despite how preposterous most of them are (an underground tomb in Venice!) The camerawork is really excellent, providing (along with John Williams) the thrills an adventure needs. But what really helps this movie is Sean Connery, who plays Indy’s father perfectly, giving significantly more depth to Indy’s character. The opening with River Phoenix as young Indy is unnecessary, but it’s fun enough that it was worth keeping in.

Grade: A+

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The perfect adventure movie for those who like anti-heroes. A simple, coherent plot that quickly assigns good guys and bad guys, but gives the bad guys motivations other than just being bad, and the good guys motivations other than being good. Karen Allen is a perfect love interest for Indy, and John Rhys-Davies is wonderful as his convenient Middle Eastern friend. The only significant fault I can find in this movie (and it applies to Last Crusade as well), is that Indy fails at overcoming the bad guy both times and can only idly stand and watch as their arrogance gets themselves killed. Talk about anti-climactic. But more than making up for it is the duel between Indy and the swordsman, which was Ford’s idea as he had dysentery and couldn’t engage in an elaborate fight scene. A lot of brilliance comes accidentally; Spielberg had the insight to see it when it fell in his lap.

Grade: A+

Other Steven Spielberg Movies You May Have Seen

War of the Worlds
The Terminal
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Munich
The Adventures of Tintin
Hook
War Horse
Empire of the Sun
The Color Purple
Amistad
The Twilight Zone: The Movie
1941
Always
The Sugarland Express

Movies

Robert Zemeckis

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One thing that Zemeckis really has excelled at in his career is taking chances. He was the first director to make a major movie that had actors acting with cartoon characters. He was the first director to use technology that allowed the same actor to interact with himself as another character in the same shot. As a young director  he fired his primary actor who had shot nearly all of his scenes and replaced him. He made a movie where over half of it contains virtually no dialogue. He’s not a great director. He seems unable to elevate a mediocre script, leaving good actors out in the cold. But there’s a few things he’s good at, and he’s very good at them.

Death Becomes Her: Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn compete for Bruce Willis’s love, duking it out Mortal Kombat style as they’ve both consumed immortality treatments that literally makes them survive everything. This should have been good, but the script is really lacking. The special effects are good for the time but even at the age of twelve I was really unimpressed with everything.

Grade: F

What Lies Beneath: Michelle Pfeiffer has been seeing a ghost, so she investigates while her professor husband (Harrison Ford) suffers the consequences. It starts out interesting with some genuinely suspenseful scenes, and then completely derails in the final third.

Grade: D+

Forrest Gump: Tom Hanks is developmentally disabled and fatherless, learning his lessons in life from his mama Sally Field and his best friend Jenny (Robin Wright). Somehow he is able to join the Army in Vietnam, which leads to a number of crazy successes in life as he becomes a table tennis champion, inspires T-shirts, talks to JFK, runs his own shrimp company with the help of Army buddy Gary Sinise, and so on. It’s certainly engaging and the acting performances are top-notch, but as a dramatic story it does little for me. Plus, his relationship with Jenny really starts to make me uncomfortable by the end.

Grade: B-

Who Framed Roger Rabbit: A really cool premise, as the worlds of Hollywood and Toon Town literally meet. The plot is simply a standard detective story, but the jazz comes from real actors engaging with cartoons, completely unheard of 1988. Kathleen Turner does a good job as the sultry Jessica Rabbit, while Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd are capable acting with their toon co-stars. A bit of a novelty these days, but still watchable.

Grade: B-

Contact: Based on Carl Sagan’s story of a girl (Jodie Foster) whose father encourages her scientific spirit and then goes and dies on her, fueling her drive into an all-work, no-play life searching the stars. She discovers what is believed to be plans from an alien species to build a spaceship to go visit them. Politics soon enter the discussion which naturally miffs Foster. More drama than science-fiction, exploring and contrasting Foster’s atheist views to the politicians and other scientists who get to decide whether or not she’ll be allowed to make first contact. Matthew McConaughey is fine but he was miscast as Foster’s lover slash Christian counterpart. Foster is superb and really makes the movie watchable.

Grade: B

Back to the Future Part III: The final movie in the trilogy sees Marty and Doc end up in the Old West, trying to stay alive while figuring out how to get the Delorean to work with 1885 technology. As a western it’s a bit lacking, with an obvious set and a non-authentic atmosphere. As a time travel movie it’s lacking, as the movie focuses mostly on it being a western. However, as a character piece, it’s really quite good. Doc’s character grows by leaps and bounds as he falls in love with a schoolteacher (Mary Steenburgen) who was supposed to die, and Christopher Lloyd hits a home run with his performance. Unfortunately, Marty doesn’t really develop for the second movie in a row, and is there just for comic relief (which Fox is good at). Despite its flaws I can’t help but watch it whenever it’s on thanks to all of the charm. I just wish the ending was more satisfying.

Grade: A-

Back to the Future Part II: The second movie in the series is utterly preposterous, with the primary characters ignoring the obvious several times, making things harder on themselves just to serve the wacky plot, which sees our main characters time travel relentlessly. From a plot perspective, this movie is only here to set up the third movie. There’s no significant character development. However, it’s a hell of a lot of fun thanks to Zemeckis’ and Bob Gale’s vision of the future as well as forcing Marty and Doc to revisit 1955 and run into their own selves from the previous movie. Fox playing four separate characters (including his daughter) is also fun. Zemeckis is a master at exposition. So many times in these movies Doc has to go on a rant, trying to explain the intricacies of time travel to Marty (and the audience), and makes it interesting every time. Christopher Lloyd helps as usual, as he really becomes his character.

Grade: A-

Cast Away: Tom Hanks, a FedEx employee whose life is run by the clock, winds up the sole survivor of a plane crash and finds himself alone on an island without any communication to the civilized world. The movie is bookended by ho-hum drama elements involving Hanks’ relationship with Helen Hunt, but the hour and a half or so that focuses on Hanks’ struggles on the island (and getting off it) is brilliant movie-making. With the only dialogue being Hanks talking to himself (and even that goes away after a while), the movie must rely on Hanks’ acting and Zemeckis’ directing to explore the isolation, fear, and depression that Hanks goes through. They succeed.

Grade: A-

Back to the Future: The hallmark time travel movie (and my favorite movies) sees Michael J. Fox accidentally go back in time and accidentally prevent his parents from hooking up. After seeing this at least a hundred times, I can confidently say that Gale and Zemeckis created as flawless a script as possible. While it’s easily watchable for kids thanks to quotable one-liners, fun music and suspenseful action, there are layers and layers of intricacy weaved in to make it watchable by adults repeatedly. The movie never insults the viewer by overexplaining things, all the while effectively getting buy-in to this world where time travel is possible. Easter Eggs are plenty, and repeated viewings reveal double-meaning in nearly every line of dialogue. Zemeckis somehow manages to weave in incest themes without making it trite or uncomfortable. It also helps that Crispin Glover puts in a dynamite performance as Fox’s father. Despite the amazing scripts, I wonder how successful this would have been with a separate cast. I’ve seen a couple of scenes with Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly, and he just didn’t have the comedic energy that Fox has. Plus, Christopher Lloyd has to the best crazy scientist ever. He’s such a master at subtlety, which makes his over-the-top character work.

Grade: A+

Other Robert Zemeckis Movies You May Have Seen

Flight
A Christmas Carol (2009)
Beowulf
The Polar Express
Romancing the Stone
Used Cars

Movies

Ridley Scott

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If there’s one hallmark of Ridley Scott is that you’ll be hard pressed to forget any of his movies. His ability to create atmosphere is one of the best in the business. He definitely knows how to raise the goosebumps. However, he seems to a bit lacking in character development, which I definitely crave more of as I get older. Can any of my readers enlighten me as to whether or not he’s improved upon this in the last ten years?

Blade Runner: This movie (based on Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”) may have my favorite cyper-punk dystopian vision of the future. To this day the movie is still breathtaking. Harrison Ford plays a blade runner, an enforcement agent tasked with finding and terminating replicants, man-made human slaves gone rogue. I love the ideas here, especially the Voight-Kampff tests designed to detect replicants by asking them benign questions. But oh boy does this movie have a lot of problems. Ford’s character is so callous and cold that I was actually rooting against him by the end. There’s a rape scene which is just brutal and completely out-of-nowhere. In fact, it’s too much like a Christopher Nolan movie in that it’s more or less devoid of emotion, which this story needs in spades. I watched the Director’s Cut, which apparently has a better ending and eschews some god-awful narration by Ford. I’m glad I watched the movie; it certainly made the computer game more enjoyable. But it’s current ranking at IMDb as the 126th best movie of all-time is kind of embarrassing.

Grade: C+

Hannibal: Very stylish follow-up to The Silence of the Lambs, which focuses more on Hannibal than detective Starling. Unfortunately, Foster bowed out and was replaced by Julianne Moore. I like Moore, but I don’t think she was the best choice for Starling and the lack of chemistry in this movie severely dampened the emotional impact the first movie had. That said, the atmosphere is fantastic, dark and horrifying. Anthony Hopkins is great once again.

Grade: B

Alien: Incredibly horrifying movie. Scott is a master of suspense here, creating a claustrophobic environment where the scares rely mostly on the unknown (and some great shooting). Sigourney Weaver is great. I really need to watch this again.

Grade: A-

Gladiator: Loosely based on the lives of Maximus and Commodus, Russel Crowe shines as the former, avenging the murder of his wife and death and engaging in Coliseum battles, trying to survive as a gladiator. Oliver Reed’s final movie. Joaquin Phoenix puts in a masterful performance as Commodus. We are supposed to hate his character and he makes it very, very easy. As is usual with Scott, the visuals are stunning. The story isn’t perfect and is just a teeny bit too manipulative for my tastes.

Grade: A-

Other Ridley Scott Movies You May Have Seen

Prometheus
American Gangster
Black Hawk Down
Kingdom of Heaven
Robin Hood (2010)
Body of Lies
Matchstick Men
Thelma & Louise
A Good Year
G.I. Jane
Legend
Black Rain
1492: Conquest of Paradise

Movies

Irvin Kershner

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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

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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