Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection (2022)

Director: Kelvin Mao

Cast: Billy Campbell, Thomas Jane, Joe Johnston, Dave Stevens

Have I Seen It Before: No. I’m finding it a real failure of our supposedly comprehensive algorithmic age that this film hasn’t come across my radar up until this point.

Did I Like It: My normal critical scale for a documentary might be a little moot in this situation. The film is competently—if not engrossingly—shot. It might be at home as a special feature on a 35th anniversary re-release of The Rocketeer (1991). It has an unusually strong level of access to its subject, offering up previously unseen footage of Stevens pontificating on his work, which makes the film all that more special.

But neither of those mattered all that much, when we come to the third criteria: My level of interest in the subject. I love Stevens work, and not just the movie it wrought. Reading The Rocketeer is a completely different experience from seeing the (still relentlessly terrific) Disneyification of Stevens character. His predilections that wouldn’t have fit with the mouse house are relentlessly terrific for completely different reasons, and this film certainly examines those. Bettie Page—and Stevens friendship with the real Page—is all throughout this film. I might have liked a little more study of his affection for pre-Superman pulp heroes, but that aspect speaks for itself in the work, and if you don’t pick up on it, no documentary is going to make it clearer for you.

I feel I know Stevens the man a bit better—or as well as anyone did—after seeing the film and the people whose lives he impacted. He was an artist who was never fully satisfied with his work, despite our collective adoration of it. He was also fond of curvy women. Respect. To gain that knowledge and respect has got to be the reason we started making documentaries, wouldn’t you think?

The Rocketeer (1991)

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast: Bill Campbell, Alan Arkin, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, my goodness, yes.

Did I like it?: I haven’t seen The Rocketeer in at least five years, but I’ve probably seen it dozens upon dozens of times since it’s ill-fated release in 1991. Every single time I watch it, I’m floored by how much I am enamored of it. Such is the way when you re-visit one of your favorite films of all time.

Some might say it’s too much like the Indiana Jones films for its own good. I dare say it has an equal—if not even higher—spot in my heart than even Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Some might say it’s too silly for its own good. Those people need to lighten up. Some might say it was too smart (with at least a pop-cultural sense of history) for the audience of children for whom it was intended. Those children could grow into the film. I know I did.

Along with Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) it is quite possibly the film most influential to the work I do here on the site.

I love every performer in the film, from the guy who plays W.C. Fields (Bob Leeman) perfectly problematically (although, the camera work does most of the leering work here), all the way to the lady singing Cole Porter songs at the South Seas Club (in case you were wondering, she was Melora Hardin, which only makes her singing as Jan Levinson in The Office that much better).

I love the James Horner score so much that I very nearly considered canceling my Apple Music subscription when I realized they didn’t have it. When Disney Junior started airing a CGI series where Cliff Secord’s 7-year-old great-granddaughter takes to the skies as a new Rocketeer, I resented it at first, because the Rocketeer shouldn’t be for 7-year-olds, it should be for me. Then I realized I was 7 in 1991, so I got over it. Screw it, I may still watch it. It’s The Rocketeer, for pity’s sake.

I love this movie. If there are flaws in it, I cannot or will not see them. For my money, it is the single greatest thing currently on Disney+. It is objectively one of the top ten things on Disney+, and if you’re not watching it right now, I’m not sure what to do with you.