Casino Royale (2006)

Director: Martin Campbell

Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright

Have I Seen It Before?: I had been aching for a proper adaptation of Fleming’s first novel ever since reading it. The multi-director comedy-adjacent Casino Royale (1967) need not be mentioned here.

Did I like it?: And so one might normally be unable to get over what the film could have been. An EON-produced version in the 60s starring Sean Connery, with Audrey Hepburn as Vesper Lynd and Orson Welles as Le Chiffre (the 1967 did get one thing right) would have been glorious. The rumored efforts of Quentin Tarantino trying to launch an all black-and-white version with Pierce Brosnan (and presumably Uma Thurman as Lynd, with maybe Samuel L. Jackson as Le Chiffre?) would have been bananas and also one of my favorite films of all time. 

So, it is a testament to the glories of this film that I like it so much despite what it could have been. The book is surprisingly faithful to the source material. One might scratch their head at the notion of turning The Big Game from Baccarat to Texas Hold’em Poker, but if anyone watching any of the previous Bond pictures claims they understood how the game of Baccarat works, they’re lying. After years of steeping myself in Bondanalia, all I’ve been able to absorb is the fact that it merges the most frustrating elements of both Craps and Blackjack. How hard is it to hit the number nine?

And yet it keeps enough of the Bond movie trappings to be that particular cinematic flavor one can only find in the Bond series. David Arnold’s score is resurrecting the best of John Barry, the extension to the plot make the adventure not nearly as claustrophobic as Fleming’s story kept matters. One might miss the initial gun-barrel sequence, before one realizes that the entire pre-credit sequence is the origin of the gun barrel itself. The film series has been notorious for playing things safe, but here, every risk pays off. I just don’t understand anyone who thinks things have changed too much or that Bond has become too much like the Bourne series.

As with the initial outing for all of the Bonds, one must take a moment to ascertain the qualities of the man himself. Every Bond with the possible exception of Connery make their strongest outing their first. There was a lot of skepticism from the public about Craig, mostly having to do with his flaxen hair. Here, he is more than equal to the task of taking on the 007 mantle, and with a quality far closer to the Fleming original in ways that were accepted by the public, when only twenty years earlier were scoffed at when brought to life by Timothy Dalton. As I write this review we are—depending on the behavior of a pandemic or two—approaching the end of Craig’s tenure, it’s sort of amazing that the weak links in the chain of his time at the wheel of the Aston Martin would have been considered the best films of many of the other Bonds. He is the second coming of Connery for which many Bond fans were always hoping, and I sit here anxiously awaiting No Time To Die (2020) and wondering how the series will recover from his loss.

Space Jam (1996)

Director: Joe Pytka

Cast: Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny*, Wayne Knight, Bill Murray

Have I Seen It Before?: As a child of the 1990s, I’m willing to acknowledge that it was probably my obligation to have watched the film at least a dozen times by now. In truth, it was the eventual admission that despite having seen pieces of it play on various VHS tapes throughout the years, I’ve never seen it all the way through.

Did I like it?: There’s a temptation to say that I just missed the time when this film might have worked.

But I don’t think that’s it. I’m willing to say objectively that the film just doesn’t work. It’s not even a movie, really, but a 30-second commercial stretched out into a runtime of 80 minutes that somehow feels both far-too-rushed and interminable.

But what is it even an ad for? Basketball? Sneakers, maybe? Warner Bros. cartoons? If so, there are far better ways to embrace the anarchic spirit of those cartoons. Might I suggest Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)? There are several moments where I’m definitely getting the impression that I should have an increased awareness of the University of North Carolina, but there’s got to be a better way to increase admissions.

There are flashes that work, but almost none of them involve special effects, and nearly all of them feature Bill Murray. There’s even a moment where Jordan (Jordan, just to keep up the conventions that I’m writing about an actual movie) admonishes Murray for his basketball ambitions by telling him that he can’t play. Now, it might be a bit of stretch to say that Murray is the Michael Jordan of lead performances in a comedic film, but I’m going to stick by it. He probably should have given Jordan the same advice about how he can’t act. He merely has facial expressions while he far-too-easily accepts the cartoon world around him.

Maybe if I had any affection for the sport of basketball, I could get into this a bit more… But even then, I can’t imagine how this film worked for anyone in any context. Oh, also? I could use a lot less R. Kelly in my life. Couldn’t we all?

*Right out of the gate, I’m already a little annoyed with the credits for this movie. Bugs Bunny is credited, not Billy West, who voices Bugs. I mean, I guess for the concept (if you can use that term) for the film, that’s fine, but why aren’t the rest of the Looney Tunes gang given any props above the title. Lola Bunny (voiced by Kath Soucie) has plenty to do in the movie. And when the hell will Daffy Duck (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) get any kind of due?

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Director: John Glen 

Cast: Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Topol, Julian Glover

Have I Seen it Before: Yes... There’s a stretch of time in the mid 1990s where I would watch and record any Bond film that appeared on TNT. Without those marathons, I might never have viewed some of the middle-era Roger Moore films.

Did I Like It: Now comes the part in my review of a Roger Moore Bond film where I talk about how I don’t care for him as Bond. He’s too funny, and in that preening sort of way where he thinks he’s pretty funny, too. Sort of like Dane Cook with a vodka martini and a slightly less misogynistic misanthropy. I loathe Moonraker (1979) for feeling the need to chase the Star Wars (1977) and I think his best entry is the one everyone seems to shrug at, his final entry, A View to a Kill (1985), mainly because Moore plays against type. As such, For Your Eyes Only was never in my pantheon of go-to entries to re-watch.

As I continue to read through Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized History of James Bond I was surprised to hear everyone talk about this entry as if it was a return to the form of more Fleming-esque source material, like From Russia With Love (1963) or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).

Then I re-ran my DVD, and I’ll be damned. This is the one where the pre-credits sequence has Bond getting his long overdue revenge on a maniacal villain complete with pet cat. We all know the fiend is Blofeld, but because the morass that became the rights to Thunderball and the larger SMERSH/SPECTRE lore, he goes unnamed. It’s a pretty good beginning to the movie, especially when its as close to coming up against Blofeld as Moore ever got.

The rest of the film is a smaller story (far smaller than the ridiculous previous entry, Moonraker) and that’s a welcome change for Moore. I do get the same sense of ennui that I feel during the last half of nearly every Moore entry (and for that matter, Brosnan as well), but even Moore’s penchant for humor worked better than it does at other times. I’ll be damned if that last moment with Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot didn’t having me laughing, and that typing the phrase “Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot” didn’t have me laughing all over again. So, good job, Roger Moore-era Bond. You got me.

Am I starting to like Roger Moore’s entries? Is that what happens when people get older? Will I start thinking Moonraker is actually worth my time? Surely not.

Goldfinger (1964)

Director: Guy Hamilton

Cast: Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe, Shirley Eaton*

Have I Seen It Before?: Many, many times.

Did I like it?: This may not be my favorite Connery-led Bond film. That will always be with From Russia With Love (1963). But it is hard to deny that this film has been the far more influential entry to the rest of the series. 

One can see why EON productions spent most of the next forty years trying desperately to re-capture the magic of this film. Every ounce of it works**. The villain (Fröbe) and his henchmen (Harold Sakata) have just the right degree of hairbrained schemes and legitimate menace. For a man my age, the women in the film are beautiful in a sort of historical sense, but every one of them is memorable. And then there is Bond himself. Still lethal and cunning in the frame of Connery, there is a sense of bemusement in his face as the proceedings reach for the ridiculously sublime that is so charming here that you almost want to stop it from becoming an unstoppable brush fire by the time Roger Moore takes on the role.

The heirs to Broccoli have spent a lot of time saying that when they set out on a new 007 adventure they always venture to make Goldfinger, but sometimes are left with the reality that they made Thunderball (1965) instead. I would take a different tack and say they should (and in recent years have with more frequency) tried to make From Russia With Love, but all-too-often they ended up making Moonraker (1979) instead.

*Weird side note about Ms. Eaton. In a weird attempt by the collective world to make the uber-fantasy of the Bond films reality, there was an urban legend about how not just Jill Masterson, but Eaton herself also died because skin suffocation due to the gold paint. In truth, Ms. Eaton is alive to this day, but the dark cloud over the film once inspired my mother to warn me about the dangers of painting your entire body. To this day, I have no clue why she needed to tell me that, but I suppose the things parents wanted to warn their children about in the 1990s were going to seem weird either way.

**I’d change that to litres, but large swaths of the film take place in America, so the metric system is just going to have to sit in the ejector seat.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

Director: Pete Hewitt

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, William Sadler, George Carlin

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, without a doubt. Come to think of it, the novelization for the film may have been the first book not exclusively marketed for children that I ever read… Not sure why I chose that moment to admit that.

Did I like it?: The filmmakers and cast themselves have decided that this was one-half of a very clever film, and another half of a film that had no idea what to do with itself other than attach itself to a delirium-fueled inside joke (Station!) between the writers.

Maybe I just saw the film for the first time when I was seven, that golden age when films are great and any kind of critical filter is a thing of diminished older beings. And when I came back to the film as I got older, I could only appreciate it more. Convention wisdom would have dictated another trip through time, hitting the exact same notes as the original Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). One need only look to the sequels to Back to the Future (1985). To listen to the commentary on the Blu Ray, there was talk of having Bill and Ted travel through the realm of fiction to pass a troublesome literature class, which is different enough, but I am glad they avoided, for <purely selfish reasons.>

Instead, the sequel to Excellent Adventure turns out to be a fairly effective remake of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957). What a demented, inspired choice. Honestly, between this and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) we got some truly next-level comedy sequels in the early 1990s. 

Complaints are scant and largely cosmetic. I only noticed on this screening that the heroes embedded homophobia is still on display (although the movie doesn’t stop all together to wallow in such a moment) and there is far too little George Carlin in the film to truly satisfy, especially since we’re not going to get him in a film any time soon. On an odd note, I’m now often struck by my theory as to how much this film might have inspired some of the design choices eighteen years later in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009). The lecture auditorium at Bill & Ted University so starkly resembles the bridge of the Enterprise from that film, whereas the brief glimpse of the lair of De Nomolos (Joss Ackland, who legend tells hated being in the movie as much as the character himself hated living the Stallyns’ future) looks like the clockwork interior of the Narada. Even the clothes worn by Rufus (Carlin) and his attempts to chase the villains back in time bring to mind Spock in that film.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Director: Stephen Herek

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin, Hal Landon Jr.

Have I Seen it Before: Uhhh… Yeah. I first became interested in my wife because she randomly mentioned both this film and Back to the Future (1985) in a conversation. It lives in me.

Did I Like It: I remember my fourth grade teacher saying at one point that both this movie and the characters within it were among the dumbest she had ever seen. That statement stuck with me beyond anything else that particular educator said (including her name, now that I think about it) is both an indictment of anything that happened at an institute named after Robert E. Lee, and the fact that even at the age of 10 I so vehemently disagreed with this assessment so immediately.

The movie is not stupid. Any movie that pins a button on the uniform of Napoleon Bonaparte (Terry Camilleri) for eating ice cream and then makes him an absolute fiend for water slides is not stupid. I could keep going on this list of reasons the film itself is not stupid, when you should really go watch the film and experience it for yourself.

But Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Reeves) are not dumb, either. They are exceptionally bright, sort of ridiculously so, but incomplete as people. They are ignorant, but not willfully ignorant. Therein lies their charm. They learn an exceptionally large amounts of information about history in 90 minutes of runtime.

Now, there is a moment in the film that plays so sourly that one is immediately tempted to think the whole movie suffers. After thinking that Ted had died at the hand of one of their antagonists in Medieval England, the members of Wyld Stallyns are reunited and embrace. Horrified, they immiedately push away from one another and call each other fags. 

Now, unlike Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) which went out of its way to predicate its entire plot on each and every character being suddenly and irreparably transphobic, this moment may not age well, but it does feel like two teenage boys of the 1980s would probably have internalize this precise measure of homophobic toxic masculinity. This alone makes their fate as the saviors of all human kind far harder to swallow then any amateurish guitar riff they might play.

They do get better, as Rufus says. We’ll all see soon enough, but even the course of this excellent adventure they have made quantum leaps forward in that regard.

Superman: Red Son (2020)

Director: Sam Liu

Cast: Jason Isaacs, Roger Craig Smith, Diedrich Bader, Amy Acker

Have I Seen It Before?: No, but I did read the graphic novel upon which it was based, and man did it have one of the weirder endings of any of the Elseworlds DC tales, and that is saying something.

Did I like it?: In the past, I have been down on some of the DC animated films in their attempts to jam year-long comic events into movies often less than ninety minutes. The barest sketches of their complex plots tend to eschew the little moments that made the storylines special in the first place. Other entries, like Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) try to expand shorter stories in awkward ways.

Here, it seems like the four-issue miniseries is the ideal source for this format. We get all of the more interesting parts of the original, and they are able to trim just enough off the plotline (read: that ending I wrote about earlier) to make the story work even better than the comic. It’s far smarter than the average DTV movie, weaving Cold War hysteria and twentieth century history with just the right level of speculative fiction. 

The conflict between Superman and Batman is both more understandable, and far trickier to resolve. These two will not become good friends all of a sudden based solely on shared trivia. I’m looking in your direction, film I won’t bother artificially inflating my word count by mentioning.

It’s a little passé to engage in the “What if Kal-El’s Kryptonian Pod landed somewhere other than the Kent Farm?” speculation. True Brit places him in the stilted neurotic place in the English countryside. Brightburn (2019) imagines if the devil himself was delivered upon the Kents instead of a gentle space Moses. Even I once wrote several more pages than I ought to of a story that imagined the Last Son of Krypton landing in the middle of a Reagan re-election rally, and quickly becomes the scion of Truth, Justice, and the Republican Party*. This was that first venture into that speculative territory, and given that the film sheds the more head-shaking aspects of the graphic novel, I dare say I might recommend this film more.

*Okay, the comic script was bogus, but now that I type it out again, it has a certain appeal in some other format.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Cast: Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Richard Kiel, Curd Jürgens

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes.

Did I like it?: I’ve been reading Nobody Does It Better: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond lately, thus increasing my craving for a bit of that old EON touch. I could have gone for one of the films I’ve watched a number of times like From Russia With Love (1963) or even one I’ve already reviewed like Goldeneye (1995), but I thought I’d take a deep dive into the most universally loved of Roger Moore’s entries, instead.

I’ve never been a big fan of Moore in the role. He shed too many of the trappings originally associated with the character as created by Ian Fleming. In fact, of all his entries, I’m most fond of A View To A Kill (1985), Moore’s last entry which most fans and even the actor himself view as unusually dour and violent (read: more Flemingian… Flemish?). Which figures.

But something about taking in this movie this time worked better than I thought it might. Sure, the rear-screen projection used during the ski sequence forever solidifies that Moore was never actually doing anything real during the entire time he was 007, but the opening sequence is still thrilling and the turn that Russian Agent XXX is actually Anya Amasova and not the bland (dare one say, Lazenby-ish) dude she’s sleeping with is a surprise far ahead of its time.

There are no sheriffs, no spaceships, and Bond doesn’t once dress up as a goddamned clown. What’s more, I learned today, when cinematographer Claude Renoir could not properly light some of the larger Ken Adam sets due to his deteriorating eyesight, EON brought in none other than Stanley Kubrick to pinch hit. Which is just astonishing when you think about it. Sure, as happens with almost every Bond film I’m pretty bored by the third act (yes, the villain wants to wipe out society with nuclear weapons to build something new) but when one focuses purely on Moore’s intent with the role and not what a viewer like myself would want out of it, nobody does it better.

I’m not proud of that last line, but it feels like St. Roger might appreciate it from the great beyond.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Director: J.A. Bayona

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Jeff Goldblum.

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes…

Did I like it?: But it’s memory had pretty thoroughly faded by the time I came back around to watch it again. Quite specifically, I couldn’t remember in which of the World sub-series did they come upon the wrecked electric Ford Explorer that Sam Neill and Joseph Mazzello escaped from in Jurassic Park (1993)* until the scene that featured it came started in this film.

My lack of memory cannot bode well for my feelings about the film. It also is telling that I spent far more time wondering during this film than I did with the original Jurassic World (2015) why the vestiges of the old park from the original film weren’t completely cleared out by the time the 21st century version of the park opened.

I also can’t help feeling that this movie is really two ideas for two separate movies, neither of which were enough to prop up their own single feature. I’m fairly interested in the idea of a ticking timebomb movie, trying to save as many dinosaurs—even if they are trying to eat the people—as possible before a long dormant volcano takes everyone and everything out. I’m far less interested in yet another cat-and-mouse scenario with raptors, all held together by the tenuous glue of greedy heirs to the legacy of John Hammond. 

In my review of Jurassic World, I praised it for not feeling the need to hinge any part of its appeal on a returning original cast member. This film sees fit to fall pressure to the legacy sequel formula, but in its surrender is frustratingly stingy with what they’re prepared to bring us. We get a brief scene of Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) testifying before Congress, and then another scene of him doing the same thing at the end. I was promised a measure of Goldblum and I feel cheated by the amount I received. Even Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) knew its own weakness and attempted to compensate by turning the Goldblum meter up to 11.

Jurassic World (2015)

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, BD Wong

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, sure.

Did I like it?: If a movie isn’t a Marvel movie, chances are it is a legacy sequel. Some have been delightful, like Halloween (2018). Some groan through the bloated run time and are instantly forgotten as soon as the lights in the theater come up, like Tron: Legacy (2010) or, for a far more apt comparison here, Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). 

Why does this one work so well? One might be tempted to say that it doesn’t try to groan its way through including an aging cast member in the proceedings, and lets us learn to like the new characters that are the vehicle of the plot, but movies like Star Trek (2009) and the aforementioned Halloween’s best moments are with Leonard Nimoy and Jamie Lee Curtis. Even so, this film has a reprisal from BD Wong as geneticist Dr. Henry Wu, but it’s not exactly like that was a special moment in the trailer or a focal point in the poster.

Maybe Jurassic World’s secret weapon lies in a mostly successful attempt to capture the spirit of the original film and not just pepper the film with references to the original and jam it into some kind of framework that would be more palatable for a modern audience. The references are there—an extended sequence in the ruins of the original park from Jurassic Park (1993) and a few brief glances at a book written by Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum)—but they aren’t the main thrust of the plot. I’m looking in your direction, Luke/Anakin’s lightsaber. The movie tries its best to capture that Amblin spirit, complete with a sensitive, mop-topped young boy dealing with the fantastic things around him while the family situation may be unravelling a bit.

It doesn’t hurt that the true focal point of the film is one of the more charming movie stars to become a leading man in recent memory, Chris Pratt. He manages to sell the notion of trainable Raptor soldiers, and that isn’t exactly something that any other actor could make watchable. Sure, the special effects have already aged a bit even in the five years since its release, where the first thing remarkably holds up after thirty years, but it is imminently digestible entertainment, and that is all that it aimed for.

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Missed it in the theater. May be missing a lot of movies in the theater for a while. Sigh. 

Let’s not get into that right now.

Did I Like It: There is nothing wrong with this second (third?) movie in this series. It’s reasonably funny. It is adequately filled with the kind of adventure-film tropes one would expect from the series. The stars are all people I would have no trouble watching in really any movie in which they might appear. 

To that note, Warner Bros. would be insane to not let Karen Gillan play Barbara Gordon/Batgirl (Oracle?) in a movie, and let her direct it, but Warner Bros. has been pretty thoroughly insane in their missed opportunities with that character so far. 

Dwayne Johnson continues to make his wrestling career an afterthought for his career, playing equal measures weirdo and pulp hero. He could have been an unbelievably awesome Doc Strange, were it to come to pass, but it seems like we’re going to get stuck with some merely competent former wrestler/actor like John Cena or Donald Trump*.

Let’s not get into any of those things right now.

But all of this was present in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). The film explores some new territory with its characters, bringing in the energy of Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, and Awkwafina into the mix. Ultimately all of these new additions and how they play into the film came fully delivered with the film’s first trailer. Upon watching that trailer, I thought this new film would be as fresh and exciting as the original (second?) film.

As it turns out, it’s more of the same. Not a complete condemnation, but not a delivery on the promise it once showed.

*Yes, absolutely, that was low hanging fruit. Did it make me smile to type it? Also, absolutely.

Interstellar (2014)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine

Have I Seen It Before?: I’ve finally gotten around to see my big blind spot in the Nolan catalog.

Did I like it?: One needs to open any review of a Nolan movie by reminding oneself that there are few better craftsman working today than Nolan in terms of pure cinema. Only one man could pull Batman out of the cinematic depths, and his craft makes his one of the few films that managed to play in this rinky-dink town in 35mm.

So why does this movie not work for me as well as some of his other entries? The most obvious reason would be that I neglected to see it in the theaters, the venue for which Nolan ideally intended it. He’s steeped this film so firm the tradition of Kubrick, and if there is one thing I’ve learned from these reviews, it is that all things Kubrickian are best enjoyed on the largest screen possible.

Then again, my less than thorough acceptance of the film may have something to do with the fact that—as I write this review—we’re all spending at least some part of our day contemplating wearing masks and wondering how long our food supplies will last.

It may be the wrong time to take the film in, but it is a testament to the skills of Nolan that I think another chance is warranted. And the film itself does recommend itself to that second viewing. It’s meticulously designed, often visually stunning (if, again, derivative of Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and acted with a far greater range of emotion than most movies that involve space travel and (spoilers) a magic bookshelf, and the sheer amount of surprises in the cast kept things lively throughout.

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991)

Director: David Zucker

Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, O.J. Simpson, Robert Goulet

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes?

Did I like it?: And the answer to that last question is part of the problem, I think.

I have no memories of sitting down to watch the sequel to The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad! (1988) from beginning to end, but there are elements of it I do remember. I remember the litany of physical abuse delivered upon First Lady Barbara Bush (Margery Ross). I remember Zsa Zsa Gabor having an altercation with the police lights during the opening credits. For the most part, I remember Goulet, who is competent in a thankless role, but has no hope of challenging Ricardo Montalbán for arch movie villainy perfected.

And that would certainly damn the movie with faint praise. The bits in this series are interchangeable so much so that I’m completely uncertain as to whether or not I have ever seen Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). Those gags that did manage to cut through were the muted political material. The jokes at the expense not only of Bush and early 90s Republicans, but still smarting from the rout suffered by Michael Dukakis in 1988. I chuckled at them from the perspective of my own status as a political junky, but even by 91’ it seemed like ancient history. Those jokes age all the worse when one thinks about the deep dive into the other side of the aisle director David Zucker took scarcely ten years later with GOP hackwork and dreck like An American Carol (2008).

And then there’s OJ. Not a single second of his screen time could ever play the way it was intended. It’s odd that ever moment he’s in both of these movies, he’s being injured, as if in some other life he committed some kind of great transgression against humanity.

Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (1985)

Director: Ken Kwapis

Cast: Carroll Spinney, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Thomas

Have I Seen It Before?: That poor VHS copy we had never stood a chance. Smash cut to the 2000s, I find a copy wallowing quite unfairly in the five dollar DVD trough at the local Wal Mart. Watching it again, I was likely emotionally compromised, whether from being at a sensitive age, or having a normal amount of some substance pushing me along in that direction*.

Did I like it?: There is a tendency in children’s entertainment—especially feature films geared towards children—to eschew any sense of an auteur. The puppets of Sesame Street may have originated with Jim Henson, they were further refined by puppeteers like Frank Oz, Carroll Spinney, and Kevin Clash, and the program may have been nurtured through its first several decades by producer Joan Ganz Cooney. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t watch this film now, notice that a number of characters including Big Bird (Spinney) and Miss Finch** (Sally Kellerman) staring at the camera and expressing their frustration and bemusement, and couldn’t help but notice that director Ken Kwapis was forming the skills he would bring to bear twenty years later in the US version of The Office.

That, however, is only what I noticed on this particular viewing of the film. I’m brought back to it because of its pointedly cinematically literate. The film should have made 100 million in the box office, based soley on the notion of everyone’s favorite eight-foot-tall bird in the place of Cary Grant in that most famous sequence from North by Northwest (1959). Alas, it bombed and put the Children’s Television Workshop’s financial life in some jeopardy for the next few years.

It is fast paced—naturally to keep pace with a child’s waning attention, even in the 1980s—but never deigns to skip over real peril or stakes for the characters. The wants and needs of Big Bird that send him through the story are real, and he comes through the process having changed, realizing all the family he really needs or wants are at Sesame Street. At the same time, Sesame Street’s selfless, almost unconscious, collective efforts to jump into action to find him are enough to send this reviewer to a point where faith in humanity may not be the craziest idea in the world.

With human society feeling like it might just possibly crumble or snap, I think we all may need to give this one a whirl in the DVD player again.

*Is this the first piece of writing about Sesame Street that alludes to the use of marijuana? Surely not…

**Every time I hear a mournful wail of that name, I am reminded that such calls became synonymous with “Oh no!” in my house for several years.

Godzilla (1998)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria

Have I Seen it Before: It is the beginning of the summer in 1998. The Promenade Palace theater is having its grand opening. I very particularly remember a large inflatable Godzilla on the roof. I also remember all of its screens were committed to the showing of this movie. So, naturally, I was there for it. It was one of those summers where I saw everything I could. In retrospect, betting big on this film was probably a losing gambit for the theater to enter the world. As I type this, the theater is now abandoned. Now I’m depressed. Thanks, Godzilla.

Did I Like It: This film was resoundingly rejected upon its release, and time has not been any kinder to it. The special effects are poor (even for the era), and the story is the laziest version of the loose thematic trilogy that Devlin and Emmerich started with <Stargate (1994)> and continued with Independence Day (1996), which feature a nebbish scientist being the key to the secret wonders of some slimy alien thing that will spend most of its time blowing up famous buildings.

The filmmakers would tend to blame a rushed production schedule forcing them into the Memorial Day weekend, but I don’t buy it. There is not one instant of this film that isn’t crassly calculated to lurch its way through an opening weekend. Each set has just enough room for product placement for everything from KFC and Taco Bell to Bacardi. Even Mac and Me (1988)* had some whimsy about it. It has very little to do with the Godzilla series, aside for the licensing of the name from the Toho company, and would have been more aptly titled The Iguana Who Ate Manhattan and Some Fish. Even it’s poster tagline, “Size Does Matter” feels like a junior executive excreted it than any kind of creative decision.

And then there’s Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner). I’m not sure what the point of a set of characters based on Siskel and Ebert is supposed to be. It’s a running gag in every scene where the film is groaning to try to sell the seriousness of its peril. It also isn’t that funny. It also doesn’t make any sense to put these caricatures in New York City, when the two critics were Chicago institutions.

Was it intended to buy some goodwill with the critics themselves? Well, it didn’t. I looked it up and they both hated the film. And aside from some fond memories of a movie theater that’s never coming back, I kinda hate it, too.

*A film I remember both fondly and likely incorrectly from my childhood, if for no other reason than it has my name in it.

A Quiet Place (2018)

Director: John Krasinski

Cast: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes. It feels so strange to come back around to films that I had first seen just before I started writing these reviews. In fact, I had to double check to make sure I hadn’t already written a review. I guess that is what life will be like from now. That, and Purell. And, if this film is any indication, silence.

Did I like it?: I think the only flaw you can lay at this film’s feet is one of which most viewers would indict most horror films. Why are the characters making the decisions they make?

The Abbott family (even after this second viewing, I am almost certain that they are never referred to by name during the film, and only during the closing credits) have made valiant efforts to exist within this eradicated world, far more than I would ever be interested in. I’ve thought this while watching The Walking Dead, but if wi-fi was down for longer than 48 hours, I’d be ready for early checkout from the planet. 

But was there any talk (or gesturing, naturally) on the subject of birth control in this house?

I suppose I can understand the grief of their youngest child dying at the claws of the ear-o-morph influencing Mr. (Krasinski) and Mrs. (Blunt) to find comfort in the prospect of giving birth to another child, but as prepared as these folks were for life under the audio goblins, they were not prepared for post-natal care. In all fairness, though, I do tend to look at people having kids in our current situation as being cursed with an excess of optimism.

While I can never fully escape this line of thinking when watching the movie, the writer in me realizes it is essential to the creation of tension throughout. Nary a moment is wasted in the film, even with those parts where I’m screaming at the screen “Why would you do that to yourself?!” It’s a tightly packed thriller that you would never have expected to come from the guy who spent the better part of ten years smirking at the camera.

This doesn’t even being to cover the sound design of the film. Pitch perfect in every single moment, all the more impressive when a film insists on this level of pristine sound design.

Honestly, I’m willing to forgive the pregnancies if we can all decide to focus on the sound.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Taika Waititi, Scarlet Johansson

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. Regretfully, painfully, I missed it in the theater. I desperately wanted to go, but the timing never worked out, and so I’m left with a Blu Ray.

Did I like it?: Oh, man…

For some, the precarious moral stretch to make a movie about a boy (Davis) and his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Waititi) is never going to work. Especially now, the business of anything even resembling moral equivalency within twenty miles of fascism gives one the ickiest of icky feelings.

A lesser filmmaker (myself included, although I would have probably chickened out at the funny Nazi movie, and you would have, too) would have been so wrapped up in the tone of the piece that they would have insisted on shying away from the horror and evil of the time, content in the fact that it will still appropriately loom over the smarter audience members.

Here, the horror of everything is real from the beginning, and in one of the best balancing acts in my cinema memory, the jokes are woven seamlessly into the tragedy.

All right, sure, one can easily make the argument that the need for a “good” Nazi—in the face of the Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell)—is not far enough removed from the ethical insanity that has so thoroughly mired our recent history, but I think that is the wrong read on the character. Klenzendorf isn’t the Nazi with a heart of gold. He’s just as much of a shit as the rest of them, and as all Nazis must eventually do, he is a broken shell of a man. Every idiotic thing he ever believed in has come crashing down around him as the allies approach the fatherland. With that, he does decide to do two decent things with his last acts on Earth. It doesn’t redeem him; it gives him a moment of comfort to realize that at least his death can be of use, even if his life wasn’t.

Oh, did I mention the movie’s also one of the funnier ones in years? Well, it is. I probably should have spent more of the review talking about that, but why dwell on that, when you should really be watching it right now for yourself.

Clueless (1995)

Director: Amy Heckerling

Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I have a very strong memory of watching it for the first time on HBO. I’m allowing for the possibility as I spent the 90s growing up with a younger sister that I *may* have watched all of it in bits and pieces as it wound its way through a VCR in multiple viewings over the year. It’s only fair, I’m sure my sister saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) in much the same way.

Did I Like It: I recently wrote in my review of Natural Born Killers (1994) that it may not be fair to judge satire by the effectiveness with which it annihilated its target through wit. It’s even less fair here, as the wealthy continued to grow vapider as we’ve leapt into the twenty-first century. Indeed, many probably viewed the Cher Horowitz of this film’s first and second act as the hero of their times and ignored any of the changes she went through at the end of the movie.

But this movie strikes me as way funnier, or at the very least more deliberate in its attempts at humor. The jokes land with mor accuracy when the movie is not trying to buzz its way past my perception.

It’s also worth marveling at the fact that this one of the few teen comedies that does not feel the need to predicate its third act on some kind of dance or prom. I’ve been racking my brain for other examples as I type this, and all I can come up with is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and The Breakfast Club (1985) and the specific settings and timeframe of both of those films are the only thing protecting them from defaulting to the trope. Clueless gets bonus points for not tracking in the same tired old beats.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones

Have I Seen It Before?: Nope.

Did I like it?: One can’t help but go through a movie like this and wind up with a few questions.

My first question is this, and may betray the reality that I’m missing the point: How did the Coca-Cola Company feel about the use of their polar bears? I can’t imagine they were into it or even sought the product placement out, but then again, I can’t rule it out.

Is it fair to judge satire through the prism of the time that has passed since its creation? Maybe, but it’s as good a point as any to start. America was a violent place in 1994, and we couldn’t stop watching it on TV.

It’s a quarter of a century later. We’re more violent. We’re covering it more. The parasitic relationship didn’t die with Robert Downey Jr.’s character. The only change is that the killers of the 21st century are far less likely to live to their exclusive interview.

If it’s not fair to judge the film through the prism of time, it’s probably not fair to judge it because the problem diagnoses didn’t get fixed. Our politicians are still dishonest if it gives them the slightest advantage, even those we saw Wag the Dog (1997). The trend of humanity to embrace its ignorance continues apace, despite the fact that Idiocracy (2006) is a thing. If anything, I’ve only watched more TV since The Cable Guy (1996), a film which is clearly built on the foundation of Natural Born Killers.

What were the other questions with which I was left? First, was manic Tommy Lee Jones ever really a thing, and I just happened to miss it? Second: Is the forthcoming Venom 2 going to be a sequel to this movie? Only time will tell.

Popeye (1980)

Director: Robert Altman? It’s always a little mystifying that something like this could have happened. But then again, Coppola directed Jack (1996). Shit’s been weird all over, for far longer than most people have ever bothered to remember.

Cast: Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall, Paul L. Smith, Paul Dooley

Have I Seen It Before?: Never. Until it popped up on Netflix with a runtime and everything, I couldn’t be 100% sure that the movie wasn’t some sort of extended practical joke on the world. I’ve read plenty about the troubled making of the film, but even then I thought it was at least slightly possible that they just decided everyone would be better off not finishing the film at all.

Did I like it?: One cannot deny that Shelley Duvall is perfectly cast. One can really only point to Patrick Stewart’s run as Professor Charles Xavier for a more perfect fusion of established screen presence and iconic role.

The rest of the film is… Well, it’s not nearly as bad as its reputation has sometimes made it out to be.

Still, it’s not a great film, or even a good one. It’s flaws are not in the casting, to be sure (even Williams, who seems unusual casting for the role lives up to it with the help of prosthetics), or even the mere idea that no one ever needed a film based on any cartoon.

It’s more the spirit and energy with which this is all presented. Is it possible for someone to produce a musical by accident? Every song and accompanying dance number is mumbled in the moment as if there was no plan for what effect the filmmakers might have wanted. Given that the aforementioned troubled history indicates the films existence is an attempt for Paramount to compensate for losing the rights of the eventual Annie (1982) to Columbia. At least Annie was based on a Broadway show of some renown, while this appeared to come about as an afterthought, and it shows.