A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. Hell, there was a stretch there in the early 2000s where watching the movie, or listening to the score (that carried over to the 2020s, now that I think about it) were just about the only thing that could get me through any sort of brain freeze on a school project. That’s probably less than healthy, now that I’m really thinking about it.

Did I Like It: The odd thing about revisiting media that you know well but haven’t taken in more than a few years, there are things you never noticed before that now you can’t help but fixate on. Think Danny Pudi being one of the Santos campaign staffers in the last season of The West Wing, like the whole show was a Community prequel this whole time, and I never noticed. Here, Anthony Rapp—not the wide-eyed kid from Adventures in Babysitting (1987) mind you, but a discernably grown Rapp—runs around as one of Nash’s (Crowe) mathematician colleagues, and I’m left wondering someone is going to break the Prime Directive before everything is said and done. It really shouldn’t be difficult to separate an actor from the role with I most identify them, but when they were stealthily there the whole time, it’s just spooky.

Is that a sufficient criticism of the movie? Probably not, but it is the “new thought” I had to share, to be sure. Howard does tend to be the most journeyman among his elite level of filmmaking peers, and this is one of those examples. Strip away the James Horner score, the Roger Deakins cinematography, and most of the performances, and what you have is not much more evolved than a TV movie-of-the-week from days of old.

But how can you strip that many elements away from a film before you make assess it. Time may have been altogether kind to it, but it still tugs at all of the emotions that it wants to target.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Val Kilmer

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Missed any sort of convenient IMAX screening, and I’ll probably just have to live with that. Drifted into a matinee recently more than a month after the film’s release.

Which felt like a safe thing to do, not just from the COVID side of things, but because this tends to minimize encounters with the absolute dumbest people to emerge from underneath rocks. I’m definitely one of those guys generally less enthralled by seeing a movie with a crowd (although the right crowd—difficult though it is to find—does have its charms), than with seeing bigger movies on the biggest screen possible.

No such luck this time, though. The screening was already crowded when I got my tickets, which should have been my first alarm bell. I was enjoying my popcorn just at the limit of social distancing, and some jabroni takes the seat right next to mine. I’m doing a quick calculation in my head regarding the average vaccination status of a Top Gun audience on a Wednesday afternoon, and at first I think I have three choices. First, slap on my KN95 and abandon all hope of enjoying the rest of my popcorn. Second, just leave before the movie starts.

Both are unacceptable. So, in desperate need of a third option, I broke the social contract of the modern moviegoing experience and moved to a seat for which I had not bought a ticket. It felt simultaneously rebellious and safe, and I got to finish my popcorn. What’s more, I moved to the front row, and that was probably the better way to take in this film anyway.

Did I Like It: Oh, sure. You probably want to hear more about the movie itself. Much has been said about how much better this film is than the original Top Gun (1986). They are right, but I can’t help but wonder if this is because this film is truly that great, or because the original film is not much more than an energetic pageant of the state of masculinity in the mid-80s. This one has an actual story. There are stakes. Several characters go through something resembling an arc. That’s already something. Is the story kind of preposterous and ultimately hinges on the insane idea that an enemy (let’s not name them, because nothing in a film dates it more than identifying the collective bad guy) base has a mostly-ignored, still-in-working-order, retro-bordering-on-antique fighter jet ready for Maverick (Cruise) and Rooster (Teller) to use to make their escape? Yes, but it exists, and there’s a nice little romance between Cruise and Jennifer Connelly to help make the larger preposterousness go down easier.

I think what people are really responding to is the cinematography of the aviation sequences, which are truly an improvement not only for the series, but the idea of aerial photography in general. There were several moments I genuinely wondered how the production obtained the shots they did without just letting Cruise actually pilot priceless warplanes. I don’t think I really want to know.

Labyrinth (1986)

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud, Brian Henson

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, and I can’t 100% remember when it might have happened. I missed it in my youth entirely, and by the time I did catch it in my 20s, my brain wasn’t in a place to take in any level of magic like Henson had to offer at the height of his powers.

Did I Like It: And I still think I may have missed the moment where this film would have burrowed into my brain in the way for which it was designed. Every moment is visually interesting (even the stuff that doesn’t quite work, i.e. some rudimentary CGI in the film’s early moments). Henson never stopped innovating, even if this squarely falls in the category of films where Henson took himself too seriously. I wouldn’t insist he only make the goofiest of Muppet movies, but I certainly know where my preferences lie.

I don’t dislike Bowie, but he’s never been a big part of my life, so the film already runs at a disadvantage. I enjoy Connelly a great deal, but I’m mainly thinking of her work in The Rocketeer (1991).

Which brings me to the thing about the film I just can’t—regardless of my generally unwavering respect for Henson and his work—wrap my head around. No, it’s not that the film never feels like it is anything other than an `80s film. It’s far more unnerving than that, although that would normally be enough for me to look down on a film. I’m reasonably sure we’re supposed to be swept away by the imagination and fantasy of the proceedings, but are we not also supposed to be pointedly creeped out by Jareth (Bowie) spending most of the film’s runtime leering after a teenage girl (Connelly)? It’s difficult to try to view the idea of marriage between these two characters as anything other than prurient when the aggressor is one of the most sexual figures ever to rise to the height of pop cultural consciousness.

Yes, it is quite clear either the movie missed me at the time it might have hit me harder, or I may be missing the point of the film entirely now. Nevertheless, there is a disconnect. 

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.