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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

Ron Howard

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The Music Man, Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days star has been a very ambitious director and has had no problem getting the chance to direct big actors and big movies. However the movies I’ve seen have not lived up to those expectations. Like Chris Columbus, he seems very capable but not groundbreaking. And every movie I’ve seen has dramatic moments that just don’t ring true to me. I wonder if being famous his whole life has given Howard a different lens on how people really act with each other, or if he just believes that’s what it takes to be successful in Hollywood.

Far and Away:You plunge and then you scrub is the lesson I learned from this movie about an Irish lad (Tom Cruise) who escapes property persecution in his homeland and comes to America and tries to settle down there. I like Nicole Kidman (a daughter of one of the bastards who wants him dead), but Tom Cruise is absolutely hilarious as an Irishman. Colm Meaney has a memorable but albeit short role as a runner of a bare-knuckle boxing club in Boston. Other than that, the story about these two lovebirds from different social classes figuring things out in America is uninspiring and seemingly pointless. For a married couple, Cruise and Kidman don’t have a lot of chemistry on-screen.

Grade: D

The Da Vinci Code: By the numbers recreation of Dan Brown’s novel, it does a pretty good job with following the story but emotionally it’s pretty cold. There’s a couple of tense scenes, but the pacing never matches that of the book. Ian McKellen is the best part.

Grade: C

Willow: A dwarf must protect a special baby from an evil queen in this story by George Lucas (don’t worry, he didn’t write the script). I’m not much into fantasy stuff, but this is fairly entertaining for how over-the-top silly it is. Warwick Davis gives it his all, but Val Kilmer is mostly a pretty face. I saw this when I was eight years old and Joanne Whalley became my first celebrity crush. The game for the Nintendo is much better than the movie.

Grade: C+

Apollo 13: Mostly true to fact recreation of the Apollo 13 disaster and all the close shaves that occurred before they miraculously got back home. Shot well, and Howard does a pretty good job extracting suspense from naturally slow-moving spaceship problems that we ultimately know will be solved. However, he adds a bunch of faux-drama between the shipmates that never existed in reality to create more conflict, and that really gnaws at me. I’m not sure if I’m more upset at Howard than I am at the reality that the public may need fake conflict to enjoy a story about one of the most amazing scientific events in the world’s history. Solid acting all around by the star-studded cast of Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harirs and Kevin Bacon.

Grade: B-

Backdraft: A family drama set into the world of the Chicago Fire Department. From what I’ve heard, not completely unrealistic representation of firefighters and actual firefighting, but some liberties are taken as well for drama. Very-well paced and some good special effects make this very watchable. Kurt Russell is entertaining as he often is in this kind of thing.

Grade: B+

Other Ron Howard Movies You May Have Seen

Rush
A Beautiful Mind
Cinderella Man
Frost/Nixon
Parenthood
Cocoon
Ransom
Angels & Demons
The Paper
The Missing
Splash
EdTV
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
The Dilemma

Movies

Martin Scorsese

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Scorsese is hailed as one of the best directors of all-time, and sadly I’ve only seen a handful of his movies. From what I’ve read, he likes to focus a lot on male characters (especially Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio) coping with their own inadequacies, mirroring his own struggles and fantasies. Regardless, his directing abilities are as hailed from what I’ve seen. The camera always seems to be in the right place, and he gets exceptional performances out of most of his actors. I haven’t been a huge fan of the stories he chooses, so I’m a bit hesitant to just plow through his lengthy filmography. Of course, I’ll take recommendations from my lovely readers.

The Departed: While I like this film, I’m definitely in the minority for not thinking it’s one of the best of all-time. Currently, it is ranked #49 at the IMDb. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, though he did seem to give every movie four stars in the last several years of his life. The Departed is a remake of a Hong Kong film called Infernal Affairs, where one boy recruited by the mob (Matt Damon)  infiltrates the Boston police department, while one boy recruited by the Boston police department (Leonard DiCaprio) infiltrates the mob. It’s a fun, tangled web, and DiCaprio is superb, but I just never really got into the movie. I felt Jack Nicholson gave an uninspired performance as the mob boss. The police psychologist’s motivations felt completely unbelievable to me. And I felt little attachment to any of the characters, leaving me not all that interested in how it ended. Ebert says the movie is a lot about Catholic guilt, something Scorsese is intimately familiar with. Perhaps if I understood that I would have enjoyed it more.

Grade: B-

Hugo: A charming fantasy about an orphan boy in 1930’s Paris who lives inside the walls of a train station and has to solve a mystery surrounding one of his father’s automatons. Asa Butterfield, who plays the boy, is excellent, ultimately believable. The always delightful Chloe Moretz is great as well, making Hugo possibly the best assembly of pre-pubescent acting I’ve seen. Ben Kinglsey, not quite pre-pubescent, is also solid. Unfortunately, the plot itself lost my interest about half-way through. The excellent acting, directing, and cinematography kept me going through the end.

Grade: B-

The Color of Money: I haven’t seen this movie in a long time, and my memory has faded. What I do remember is that I loved Paul Newman’s performance as the old-school pool hustler. The story has its ups and down, and there’s no payoff to the mentor/pupil cliches, but it’s enjoyable to watch. What I need to do is watch The Hustler with Newman and Gleason. Someday..

Grade; B-

Goodfellas: For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. Ray Liotta narrates the first line of this epic gangster movie that rivals The Godfather in many ways. Liotta dreams of having the freedom he believes he’ll have if he can get into the mafia. He works his way in, generally happy as he’s working his way up the hierarchy, but then the shit gets really real and he wonders whether this is really the life for him. Based on the life of Henry Hill who worked with Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci while the film was being made. The acting is tremendous all around, with special props to Pesci, who is so good you can easily forget his comedic characters while watching. If you liked The Godfather, there’s a good chance you’ll like this as well.

Grade: A

Other Martin Scorsese Films You May Have Seen

Taxi Driver
Raging Bull
Casino
The Last Waltz
Shutter Island
The King of Comedy
After Hours
The Last Temptation of Christ
Gangs of New York
The Aviator
Cape Fear

Movies

Rob Reiner

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Up through 1992, one might predict Meathead would become one of the most hailed directors of all-time. Six of his first seven movies were monster hits (and deservedly so) and won or were nominated for many awards. But then he directed North, considered by Siskel & Ebert one of the worst big-budget films of all-time. Since then, you’d be hard pressed to find a memorable film by him. To be fair, I haven’t seen anything he’s done after 1995, but based on reviews and recommendations, I haven’t exactly been dying to either.

The American President: Aaron Sorkin loves writing his fantasies about society into his scripts. The West Wing fantasizes about democracy working, Newsroom fantasizes about a responsible journalism, A Few Good Men fantasizes about justice against corrupt military officials, and this movie fantasizes about a fair and honest president who sticks to his convictions even in tough times. In fact, Martin Sheen must have impressed Sorkin in this movie as he brought him on to play the president in West Wing. Anyway, The American President is a harmless, charming fantasy. Michael Douglas does what he does, Bening is good as usual, and Michael J. Fox has a mildly funny role.

Grade: B-

The Princess Bride: One of the best quote-dropping movies ever, which one normally wouldn’t associate with a movie based on a book. But then you realize WIlliam Goldman, a prolific screenwriter, wrote the book, and it makes sense.  The narrative flow is intentionally choppy, which normally would bother me, but it works here because every scene is beyond ridiculous, kind of like a Monty Python movie. Reiner gets most of these actors’ best career performances. Don’t know I’ve ever seen Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, or Wallace Shawn better (except perhaps as Rex in the Toy Story series), and who figured Andre the Giant would make a movie better? It’s also one of Fred Savage’s first appearances and it’s easy to see why he got cast for The Wonder Years a year later. Reiner favorites Christopher Guest and Billy Crystal also have solid performances.

Grade: A-

Misery: William Goldman also wrote the script to Misery and Reiner got exceptional performances out of James Caan and Kathy Bates. Many of Stephen King’s novels, especially up to 1990, had been butchered on screen. Goldman and Reiner possibly make it better. A true horror film about a writer who crashes his car and then gets kidnapped by his biggest fan who nurses him back to health. Non-stop tension from beginning to end with at least one horrific visual moment that should make just about everyone curl up into the fetal position.

Grade: A

This is Spinal Tap: The whole idea of a mockumentary, especially about a genre of music (hair metal) I have zero interest in, never appealed to me. But my wife made me watch this a few years ago and I’m forever grateful. Reiner’s first movie is one of his best, with pitch perfect satire and top-notch performances, especially from Christopher Guest. I belly-laughed at least seven or eight times while watching, which is about six more times than most comedies I like.

Grade: A

A Few Good Men: While I love this movie more than most, it may be the best proof of Reiner’s superb direct capabilities. Aaron Sorkin’s stage play and movie script is flawed in his usual way in that he wants to spell out the conflict, tell everyone how the characters are going to solve it, show them doing it, then recapping what they just did. It also had a mild romantic subplot that has mostly been taken out for the movie. There’s definitely problems left, but it’s largely improved from the original script. Reiner also takes two middling actors in Tom Cruise and Demi Moore and gets two of the best performances of their careers. I’ve seen Moore’s character, Commander Jo Galloway, played on stage and it was dreadful. It’s a tough role, and Moore gets it. Meanwhile, Cruise is cast perfectly, as the role calls for a young hot-shot who likes to fling his hands in the air and yell a lot. Kevin Bacon is solid as the government’s attorney, J.T. Walsh is his usual loose cannon, and Kiefer Sutherland always plays a good prick.

Of course, Jack Nicholson is the star. He’s larger than life, thanks in part to his performance, and part Reiner’s camerawork. I think I read somewhere that Nicholson has one of the shortest appearances in a film while getting nominated for best supporting actor. He definitely deserved the nomination.

While I’m gushing, I may as well mention that Marc Shaiman’s score is amazing, chilling in all the right places. I’ve seen the movie at least forty times and can annoyingly recite nearly all of it from beginning to end.

Grade: A+

Other Films By Rob Reiner

Stand By Me
When Harry Met Sally
Ghosts of Mississippi
The Story Of Us
Alex & Emma
Rumor Has It…
The Bucket List
Flipped
The Magic of Belle Isle

Movies

Barry Levinson

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I have seen very little of Levinson’s catalog, and I may have seen his best three movies. Other than using Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman, he seems to like larger-than-life characters and really exploring how they respond to adversity and triumph. I suppose that could be applied to nearly every story, but these movies really make sure you know that the heroes are fallible and not everything has a storybook ending, while also making you feel good about the heroes when it’s over. It could also just be a common theme among these three movies and he could be a hack otherwise for all I know. If you’ve seen anything else he’s done, please illuminate me.

The Natural: An epic feel-good baseball movie starring the always charming Redford, The Natural basks in its button-pushing ways. Die-hard baseball fans will cringe on occasion (the walk-off homer in the top of the ninth comes to mind), but the excellent acting allows me to forgive those errors and the occasional schmaltz.

Grade: B+

Good Morning, Vietnam: I don’t quite feel all that comfortable about the movie as a whole, but I like so many individual aspects of it that I still enjoy it today. Robin Williams plays a real-life human in Adrian Kronauer, but sadly he just plays Robin Williams. Some of his ad-libbed jokes are still funny, many are dated and obnoxious. And after a while he just comes off as a insubordinate, whiny jackass. But the dramatic moments in the movie are very powerful, and Williams’ character is knocked down a couple of pegs by the end, leaving us with a realistic and bittersweet finale. The soundtrack is amazing and the supporting cast is also good, though Kronauer’s superiors are a little too cartoonish in their dickishness.

Grade: A-

Rain Man: I’ll get out of the way that Dustin Hoffman winning best actor really annoys me. While his portrayal of an autistic savant is pitch perfect, it had to be one of the easiest performances of his career. He literally had to show no emotion, most of the time. Tom Cruise had a significantly more complicated role, playing the brother who has to process his own emotions of dealing with an autistic brother (and one he didn’t know he had). That’s not to say Cruise is a better actor, but I’m more intrigued by his performance, one of the best of his career. It’s not perfect; Cruise is not a master at subtlety, but Levinson gets the most of him and I still believed his anguish.

It’s an occasionally funny story that does a little bit to bring to light the lack of public awareness and available resources for those with autism. Granted, autistic savants are extremely rare, but the late Kim Peek (the person Raymond Babbitt is based on) still suffered from many of the same social and daily living problems that those who are not savants suffer from. The movie treats the problem fairly honestly, and the ending is poignant and subdued.

Grade: A

A Partial List of Other Barry Levinson Movies You May Have Seen

Sleepers
Diner
Wag the Dog
Avalon
Bugsy
Man of the Year
Disclosure
Sphere
Toys

Movies

Tony Scott

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For the most part, Tony Scott (brother of Ridley Scott) stuck with the action/suspense/thriller genres. Dialogue often seems to just be filler in between action shots, at least for his earlier films. Looking at his career, he seemed to get better as he got older, the movies improving in quality regardless of the scripts he was using. Getting away from using Tom Cruise couldn’t have hurt, either. Scott passed away last year at the age of 68

Beverly Hills Cop 2: I honestly remember virtually nothing about this movie, other than I didn’t laugh much and whenever I flip by it on TV I don’t find myself laughing.

Grade: D-

The Last Boy Scout: The opening scene to this movie is awesome. A star football player finds out in the locker room that he’s S.O.L. with the wrong man. Back in the game, he catches a pass, makes a few good moves, then pulls out a freaking gun and shoots a bunch of defensive players, including one in the face; he scores a touchdown, kneels, then kills himself. Holeee shit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get better after that. Bruce Willis plays buddy cop with Damon Wayans, delivers some corny one-liners amidst some awful clichés and decent action scenes. It’s fine, but it’s not Die Hard.

Grade: C-

Top Gun: All homo-erotica jokes aside (or perhaps because of them!), Top Gun is a decent time-waster when you want a testosterone laced dogfight. The dialogue is an extra helping of ham, and Tom Cruise’s character would be given a dishonorable discharge in reality–if not a fast trip to Fort Leavenworth–for the stunts he pulls. It’s a largely offensive movie with a terrible romantic subplot and a terrible romantic song, but the actors have a lot of fun with it and the action shots are top-notch. It’s not as fun or as dumb as Iron Eagle, but it’s a close second.

Grade: C

Crimson Tide: We move from battles in the sky to battles under the water. Hackman and Denzel are really fun to watch (“I’m the commander of this ship!”), and there’s a good sense of claustrophobia on the submarine. The military protocol broken is laughable, and the movie’s denouement is ridiculous, but it’s entertaining if you can look past those things.

Grade: B

Enemy of the State: Scott utilizes Hackman again for good results; this time his partner is another young black actor, Will Smith. Smith is just a normal dude who accidentally gets his hand on evidence of a political crime, putting his life and his family’s life in danger. Hackman, who knows a lot of inside info, begrudgingly helps Smith avoid being taken. Sometimes funny, sometimes suspenseful, but never quite as engaging as it could be. Still, it has a fun ending and the performances are solid.

Grade: B+

Other Tony Scott Moves You May Have Seen

Man On Fire
Deja Vu
True Romance
Unstoppable
Days of Thunder
The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3
Spy Game
The Fan