Tom Cruise is the patron saint of cinema when it comes to getting the biggest bang for your buck. This didn’t happen overnight and who knows where you could pin point the beginning of this mission for Cruise, in a career that has spawned 30 plus years. “Top Gun: Maverick” delivers. What to say about the original film? It has a paper thin plot and courtesy of director of Tony Scott and the production team of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer.
The opening title sequence is nearly shot for shot of the original film before cutting to somewhere in the Mojave Desert where Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is a test pilot still or something. The sequence of “Maverick” trying to get a plane to mock 10 is a stunning sequence & some nice comic relief when Maverick walks into a restaurant fresh from crashing the jet ala Uma Thurman climbing out of 6 plus feet of dirt getting/needing a glass of water from a restaurant from “Kill Bill Vol. 2”.
From there Maverick returns to Miramar to meet up with Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Warlock (Charles Parnell) the reason for Maverick’s return? An unknown country is about to open up a uranium enrichment factory buried deep somewhere in a mountain.
Cruise and company have 3 weeks to put together a 1st string team of pilots a 6 team back up crew to make the kessel run and destroy the plant that’s your plot. And yes people point out that the mission is the attack on the Death Star, which if they used X-Wings instead of fighter jets this would’ve been the greatest movie of all time.
There is a lot of fun montages as we meet the new pilots “Phoenix” (Monica Barbaro) who has a chip on her shoulder, “Bob” (Lewis Pullman) is Phoenix’s wing man, “Fanboy” (Danny Ramierez) “Payback” (Jay Ellis) “Coyote” (Greg Tarzan Davis) “Halo” (Kara Wang) there is even “Harvard” (Jake Picking) & “Yale” (Raymond Lee) “Hangman” (Glenn Powell) who is basically a cockier “Maverick” & “Iceman” combined . And there is “Rooster” (Miles Teller) the son of “Goose” (Anthony Edwards) a few characters from the original film return except for Kelly McGillis who was the love interest for Cruise in the original then there is Meg Ryan who was Goose’s wife who apparently contracted cancer and passed away as we cut to present day. Then there is Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) who was the admiral’s daughter who is mentioned but we never meet. Penny has opened a bar on the base and sparks kind of sort of fly.
The main stars of this movie are the jets an ALL the aerial sequences which are all practical effects, a lot of time went into the flight training. Overall this movie is just the best film of the year and it might get a few Oscar nods in the technical categories and director Joseph Kosinski should get a best director nomination at the very least, in that category it may goto Steven Spielberg for his upcoming biographical film “The Fablemans”. Kosinski’s filmography is impressive he debuted with 2010’s “Tron: Legacy” 2013’s “Oblivion” with Cruise & Morgan Freeman.
Up next for Cruise is the first of the last two “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1” with writer director Christopher McQuarrie which is the like their 9th collaboration.
Released on Friday September 14, 2001, “Hardball” is an interesting flick. Degenerate gamble/ticket scalper (wait scalper??) Conor O’Neill (Keanu Reeves) are ticket scalpers/brokers are still a thing when going to a ballpark? Just saying Conor loses a large bet, I mean a few thousand dollars at a local divebar in Chicago he pulls a “Tyler Durden” which is probably not a thing and proceeds to smash his head through a bar window and his hand through a car window proclaiming “No one can kick my ass better than I can.” Is “Hardball” problematic? Maybe, I mean there is Neo from “The Matrix” and this was made in the middle of filming of the two sequels I believe. The cast is really good including Michael B. Jordan as a little leaguer who is two weeks older than the other players and is banned or kicked out of the league, we will get to that in a few lines. I’d like to think since the movie is set in Chicago, his character ends up being initiated into a gang and eventually ends up in Baltimore playing Wallace on “The Wire” I digress. Conor is in deep debt to the bookies. He has a hedge fund or investment banker friend, one of the brothers from “The Brothers McMullen”. Instead of bailing him out, the banker friend offers Conor $500.00/week to coach an inner-city baseball team located in the sketchy part of town. Normally the banker friend would do this as part of community service, he has other things that need to get done and it’s for 10 weeks, so there’s $5,000.00, still there’s interest due and broken bones or being found dead in the back of an alley isn’t ideal. What’s a man going to do when he owes two bookies and he isn’t exactly rolling in cash? You coach a baseball team. So the baseball team is made up of well I’m not saying stereotypes, let ‘s say they all have specific personalities. One player wears head phones with The Notorious B.I.G’s “Big Poppa” on a cassette loop. Another character who is really competitive is a coach Matt Hyland (D.B. Sweeney) who is a stickler for the rules and is ultra-competitive almost as bad as the Roy Turner (Vic Morrow) from “The Bad News Bears”. Then there is a great 2001 mentality when both players and parents are chanting “Rally rally, the pitcher’s name is Sally”. With zero sense of irony I only wished there was a pitcher named Sally who threw straight gas or hits the batters no middle ground.
Then there is the teacher Elizabeth Wilkes (Diane Lane)can see through that Conor doesn’t work for the investment firm, still takes an interest in Conor. Ticky Tobin (John Hawkes) is somehow Conor’s best friend and has the best line in the movie when two guys approach him outside a Blackhawks game when he sold them tickets to the previous night’s game. I’m not disparaging the make-up of the baseball team it is based on a true story, and I’m sure there were embellishments here and there. Then there is some of the comedy with the film that is supposed to be a comedy-drama. There is a subplot involving going to a Cubs game Conor drives the kids to the old Tigers stadium for a Cubs game, in Detroit since there is a gambling involved in the plot of the film major league baseball refused to give the filmmakers licensing rights Sammy Sosa has a cameo in the film and he is in a uniform with no logo anywhere. Then there are the few games that Conor bets on sure, they mention the team names for the basketball games however it’s footage from maybe a Division III college basketball game, maybe, Conor and Ticky are trying to sell tickets outside the United Center for a hockey game, however that isn’t the United Center behind them, so kudos to Director Brian Robbins for working around those issues for not having the NBA or MLB to use their product. I’m sure you could guess what happens to all of the characters I don’t want to spoil anything just if you find it on Amazon or HBO Max “Hardball” is worth checking out, especially if you have franchise or Marvel movie fatigue. If you want to do a weird Keanu triple feature use this as a middle film, start off with “The Lake House” because why not and top it off with “The Replacements”.
“Constantine” isn’t terrible it’s mediocre??? John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) dresses like one of the agents he fought as Neo from “The Matrix” films. He chain smokes, he’s a demonologist or something like that. Based on the “Hellblazer” from DC comics and I could’ve sworn it was called “Hellblazer” then again it simply may be simply called Constantine. Directed with some style by Francis Lawrence, the CGI is top notch, and the cast is solid. The script, well there is a lot of world building that has to be done. You could go to Wikipedia and get all the details. John Constantine is scheduled (?) to be damned, because as a kid he attempted suicide and because he saw what he saw as a child started chain smoking at age 15. He can basically see half angels and half demons walk amongst the people. Neither the angels nor the demons can cross over the plain and wreak havoc and interfere with people, however they can influence people’s choices whether to do good or evil, or something like that. Constantine’s office is a bowling alley, a bowling alley demonologist, which I kind of stole from the T.V. show “Ed” where he is a bowling alley lawyer. Or a lawyer who owns a bowling alley, rabbit trail for a second here, how come the series, or at least the first season of “Ed” isn’t available on Peacock or on DVD? Just saying that first season was good. Good things about the film? The cast is good, with Reeves, also Rachel Weisz shows up as a cop or detective rather whose twin sister appears to have died by suicide, she suspects otherwise. 2005 was a good year for Shia LaBeouf, who is always in a sidekick roll during this time. Here he is Chas Cramer and maybe demons don’t like dudes names Chas. Djimon Honsou, is Papa Midnite?? Papa Midnite is Switzerland between the angels and demons, he provides maybe comic relief? He has a magic chair that Constantine needs, so he doesn’t get involved. Gavin Rossdale is Balthazar, a henchman, trying to bring hell on earth, the movie is set in Los Angeles, maybe mission accomplished? Tilda Swinton is the arch angel Gabriel, and Peter Stormare shows up and chews up the scenery. The ending of the film does set up a sequel, which never materialized and I believe there was a short lived NBC series that may or may not be on Peacock. Released in March 2005, which is usually a dumping ground for films, the material is kind of better for films released during this time. The run time is 2 hours and ten to fifteen minute could’ve been easily cut out of the film, or if you’d like to save yourself two hours check the movie out on Cinema Sins, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqTE0kirkzI it wraps all of the film up inside of 20 minutes.
It’s summertime and after a layoff, Disney Studios decided to get back into the swing of things with “Jungle Cruise”. This time around the Mouse House might’ve done well with basing movies on rides. The first “Pirates of the Caribbean” was very entertaining and the makers pulled a very good trick, the sequels? Not so much, just really convoluted messes, that ran over two hours each for no reason. Does anyone really remember Eddie Murphy’s “Haunted Mansion”? Now we have “Jungle Cruise” and it might be just ten minutes too long, really a minor quibble. A pleasant surprise is Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim a German aristocrat with a submarine and an unquenchable thirst for the movie’s MacGuffin. I didn’t know he was going to be in it and I couldn’t believe he was there in the opening scenes. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) is an English archaeologist? Maybe, “Jungle Cruise” has all the fun elements of “Pirates of the Caribbean” the recent “Mummy” movies granted 20 years ago isn’t recent, none the less, there is a smidge of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a tiny dash of “National Treasure” it has all the good elements. Paul Giamatti pops up as Nilo, something out of Elmore Leonard’s “Cuba Libre” but with a playful kids movie vibe. Then there is the main star, the reason people buy the tickets Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) a down on his luck boat captain who entertains his guests with boat loads of Dad jokes, that Dwayne pulls off nicely. Director Jaume Collet – Serra is building a nice filmography his directorial output has been entertaining with a nice range of horror from “Orphan” which could’ve been just awful to the Liam Neeson plane thriller “Non-Stop” and “The Shallows”. What takes up the time in this movie? The script is pretty tight even though there are 5 writers credited with the script and story duties. The special effects are top notch and it is a relatively good family film, with an end that keeps the door opens for sequels.
I’m happy that James Gunn is back to doing comic book movies. Way back when Disney fired or disassociated themselves from Gunn, due to old tweets just a dumb decision by the mouse house. Then again Disney would disassociate themselves from Walt Disney because reasons. 2016’s “Suicide Squad” was a real soulless movie that was just everywhere and miserable. It did take home an Oscar for best make-up. A few of the cast members return for this go around, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is a no-nonsense women focused on mission objectives, consequences or questionable out comes be damned. She has a penchant for detonating small bombs that are implanted in the base of the skulls of the titular team. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) is Waller’s field general. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is back there is no Joker and that is perfectly fine.
Gunn’s take on “The Suicide Squad” has the same touch that he had with 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” however with this movie there is the light touch and a few fantastically funny lines, the rub or curve in this movie is it is gory as can be, there is both a fun spin to the violence & it is brutal, not brutal haha, or anything like that it is not unnerving at the same time if I was a teenager this would be the greatest movie ever, now I’m at the age I’m at, parts of the movie just didn’t sit right with me. It’s like the kid who discovered a magnifying glass and started burning ants.
I won’t really give anything away, for me the best part of the movie is the opening act where Gunn regulars Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion are Savant and T.D.K are part of the opening mission along with Jai Courtney’s “Boomerang”, a dude with a javelin, whose name is “Javelin” (Flula Borg) a weasel (Sean Gunn) Blackguard (Pete Davidson). Other new characters are “Rat Catcher 2” (IMDB doesn’t have a listing of the actress so apologies there) Polka Dot man, Peacemaker (John Cena) who throws heat with his screen time, then there is “Bloodsport” (Idris Alba) who put Superman in a coma with a kryptonite bullet. Bloodsport’s helmet from certain angles, make his character look like a Xenomorph from “Aliens”. Just to show you how gritty Bloodsport is, he gets into a shouting match with his teenage daughter that in reality I don’t think would ever happened. Oh yeah and there is a shark in swim trunks (Sylvester Stallone) the last movie had a crocodile, now we have a shark, if there is another installment what sea creature will they go with?
The plot of the movie is ambitious let’s just say that the creature from the beginning of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” here it is bigger messier and causes digital destruction and havoc. Gunn’s script is quick, concise and funny in all the right places, like I said it has the fun of the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” mixed with a lot of time spent in quarantine doing cocaine, then dropping some acid & exploring the canvas.
DC movie franchise wise “The Suicide Squad” is near the top, after Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” movies in fact I’d say it’s probably ranked just ahead of “The Dark Knight Rises”. “The Suicide Squad” isn’t soulless I have never really read the source material however you really don’t need to know the source material to have fun with this popcorn flick.
Is there a drawback to this movie? I’d say the run time of two hours and 12 minutes, at the same time I wouldn’t know where Gunn, could’ve take out ten minutes here and there. I don’t know if there are going to be more movies with this franchise part of me doesn’t want that to happen, because the plot of the movie will always be the same. Then again I really can’t wait to see the next “Guardians of the Galaxy” installment.
It’s been over 30 years and watching Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s “Misery” is still fantastic and still ranks as one of the best King adaptations of King’s work, I’d say it’s arguably the best if it wasn’t for 1994’s “The Shawshank Redemption”. Who knows where King found inspiration for this book that came out way back in 1987, I was never a fan of horror, I have a paperback copy of “The Shining” that is just collecting dust and in the seventh grade, I loaned a giant hardcover copy of “It” to a friend who rifled through that mammoth book, my Mom on the other hand a big Stephen King fan.
And I did read the Wikipedia summary of the book and yikes, I don’t think 1990 audiences might’ve not been able to handle it. William Goldman’s screenplay is very faithful to the book omitting a few scenes. Kathy Bates is Annie Wilkes the “Number 1 fan” of Paul Sheldon (James Caan) an author of a series of books featuring Misery Chastain.
Sheldon lives in New York City but writes his books in Colorado and he just finished the latest “Misery” novel and decides to drive back to New York City in a snow storm in his vintage Mustang. Kids you shouldn’t do that. Paul crashes his car and Annie Wilkes is able to rescue him and somehow drag/carry him to her place that is really remote.
Annie is an acquired taste and it helps that she is a nurse and has a ton of pain killers at her place. Bates took home the best actress Oscar for her performance and her character is unhinged and pure horror. I do shudder to think what would happen if she would be around with the internet, there are unsavory fans and people on the internet I wonder what would happen if a famous author goes missing and no one knows what happens. Paul’s agent Marcia Sindell (Lauren Bacall) is concerned when Paul isn’t seen anywhere for a few days which prompts a call to the local sheriff Buster (Richard Farnsworth) who has a nice rapport with his wife Virginia (Frances Sternhagen) Buster looks into a few things and let’s just say that things don’t end well for old Buster.
Annie loses her mind when it turns out that Paul decided to kill off Misery in latest entry and provides the best scene of the movie. This was 30 plus years ago and if the “Misery” series was real I’m sure that book would’ve been an “alternate universe” entry into the series. So why does Sheldon kill Misery off? The “Misery” series was very financially lucrative for Sheldon, he wants to be taken seriously and putting “Misery” behind him feels like his ticket to legitimacy.
What happens from there? I’m sure you could guess, Caan’s performance is fantastic as well and plays off of Bates very nicely. This is Reiner’s second King story he’s directed, before “The Shawshank Redemption” the best movie adaptation of King’s work was “Stand By Me” a move I need to see again. “Misery” is well worth your time and try not to look at the film with today’s technology in mind.
Oscar winners Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto team up with John Lee Hancock who writes and directs the thriller “The Little Things” during this day and age Warner Bros, is releasing the film in theaters and it is available to watch on HBO Max for the first 30 days.
So normally a film being released early in the year is a sure sign that the film just isn’t that good. Ok that’s been the way things have been done forever and a day it seems like. Ok so Marvel Studios released “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther early in the year and those weren’t terrible at all, and “Silence of the Lambs” was released in the spring and won the best picture Oscar the following year so there are some exceptions to the rule.
The trailer for the film does lead the impression to certain conclusions you could jump to. When it comes to crime thrillers David Fincher’s “Se7en” & “Zodiac” are pretty much the gold standard for those films, I would include Curtis Hanson directed Brian Helgeland adapted “L.A. Confidential” as well.
Then there is Denzel’s filmography, I’d say he wanders back into 1998’s “Fallen” and 2006’s “Inside Man” here is a Kern County sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon who heads back to Los Angeles to pick up some evidence or something else. Deacon has baggage with the LAPD, where he used to be a detective. Head detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) has taken (essentially) Deacon’s place. The movie is set in Los Angeles in the early 1990’s. I won’t try to give away what happens. Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) is a suspect or the suspect according to Deacon of a lot of missing persons/murdered women spread through out Northern and Southern California.
Not helping the movie is two of the three seasons of HBO’s “True Detective series, when trying to develop a seedy underbelly and the hard boiled characters of the genre that span from Raymond Chandler, James Elroy to today’s authors Michael Connelly and Robert Crais.
Then again you need to judge the movie on its own merits and the end result is…..I’m not sure it’s ok there is good chemistry between Washington and Malek, Leto is creepy as can be so mission accomplished there. I’m sure this was filmed during the pandemic so it’s kind of comical to see very light traffic on the LA freeways. As for the plot of the film? It does go in a different direction and it’s not clichéd so that is a plus. John Lee Hancock has written a few films including “The Blind Side” 2004’s “The Alamo” and 2012’s “Snow White and the Huntsmen” so having him diving into a seedy thriller is a bold move. Directing wise he also did “The Blind Side” 2019’s “The Highwaymen” with Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner and that movie is decent, then there is 2013’s “Saving Mr. Banks” which has a scene in an airport with my niece, so that was cool to see that.
S.W.A.T isn’t problematic it’s an ok movie with some talent involved. The drawback to the film is the villain some type of Euro trash type drug dealer Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) is pulled over for a busted taillight in the car of an uncle he murdered. On his way to jail he offers “one hundred million dollars to the person who gets me out of here.”
Before all that happens you meet the characters and a lot of semi-shaky cam footage straight from “The Blair Witch Project”, of parades and armed robberies. In one of those robberies where a hostage is wounded “Hawkeye”/Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) and “Bullseye”/Jim Street (Colin Farrell) get reprimanded/suspended by Captain “Turn in your gun and badge” Captain Thomas Fuller (Larry Poindexter) whose philosophy is “Sometimes doing the right thing, isn’t doing the right thing.” Wait what?!? Anyway Hawkeye gets booted from S.W.A.T while Bullseye gets bumped down to maintenance desk duty where he deals with a coworker who cheats on his wife by drinking soda and eating McDonalds because he converted to Mormonism. There’s this exchange between Gus and Street Gus: [discussing his wife’s disapproval of the soft drink Dr. Pepper] “You know the deal, Jim. When we got married, I converted to Mormonism. We can’t consume anything that alters our state of mind. We treat out bodies with respect.’ Street: “And I treat mine like an amusement park. That’s the differences that make this country great!”
Bullseye had a girlfriend drives a fancy Chevy muscle car, spends his off days running the beach with a ruck sack and hitting a punching bag. In steps Nick Fury /Sgt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson who returns to S.W.A.T at the request of Lt. Greg Velasquez (Reg E. Cathey) who is in charge or has been charged with cleaning up the LAPD’s public image via S.W.A.T & Nick Fury is the guy to put the team together via montage. Of course Fury has to put the team together under the guidance of Capt. Angry Thomas Fuller. First up he recruits LL Cool J, who gets some sass from Octavia Spencer when he apprehends a suspect. Letty/Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) is a single mother probably Domenic Toretto’s the father, just saying you know it’s all about family.
Anyway after his 100 million dollar offer everyone and their brother gets their inner “Grand Theft Auto” on auto on and there are some video game-esque hijinks happening. There is a chase seen at the Pershing Square MTA, a place in Los Angeles that seems only to be of use in movies if the locals use the MTA that’s cool, yet the location is used in “Hollywood Homicide” and “Speed”. Just a side note if someone is offering a hundred million dollar payout and there’s a whole lot of people trying to cash in on this lottery ticket of an idea, would he really be good for it? What if 101 people bail him out if successful?
Director Clark Johnson has a decent filmography it is mostly episodic TV and I am not saying that as an insult, the man gets work he’s living the dream. In the end as Hawkeye tries to enable the escape of Montel Capt. “Yell and Scream a lot head in his Kazoo” Miller believes that both Hawkeye and Bullseye are in this together and there is no communication between S.W.A.T and the command center because they are deep in the sewer somewhere past Pershing Square MTA. Overall “S.W.A.T” is ok there are a couple of homages here and there, soundtrack wise. Nick Fury lives to see another day he isn’t monologuing in front of an open dive tank where a shark can leap out and bite his body in half while LL Cool J the chef looks on with his pet parrot oh wait that’s “Deep Blue Sea”.
“Beautiful Girls” is kind of terrible, I think I’m not sure, I don’t want to do a hate review it is really close . Directed by the late Ted Demme, whose two best movies is “Blow” and “The Ref”. Highlights of the film? It is 90’s, as all get out, granted it was released in 1996, so there’s that. The studio is Miramax, before all the stuff with Harvey came to light. During this time Miramax was that writer/director independent studio that turned out promising dramas & comedies here and there.
So a group of friends are having a high school reunion in the middle of winter in the town of Knights Ridge, MA. Willie (Timothy Hutton) is a jazz pianist coming home where his father is dealing with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s there is his brother Bobby (David Arquette), who isn’t annoying. Willie does rock a sweet Celtics starter jacket from back in the day and amazingly it still fits and his bedroom does have a wiff of Larry Bird worship, he is in Massachusetts after all, so there’s that. I detest the Celtics, I am a Lakers guy, still though.
Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (Matt Dillon) has his own snowplow business which is just a rusted out Dodge, Ford or maybe Chevy pick-up there is the partner Kev (Max Perlich) you’ve seen him everywhere he has that kind of face he just needed to lose the mustache. Paul Kirkwood (Michael Rappaport) is a man child afraid of commitment he won’t propose to his longtime girlfriend Jan (Martha Plimpton) he has pictures of super models plastered all over the walls of his place. I had that phase once, when I was in high school to be fair I didn’t know better, this guy is in his late 20’s oh something I didn’t do, but he does he has a Saint Bernard named Elle MacPherson. He has an interesting philosophy when it comes to women “Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man – promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That’s all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.”
Darian Smalls (Lauren Holly) is married with a couple of kids, or maybe one anyway she & one time high school crush “Birdman” they are carrying on as if she wasn’t married. Birdman is married to Sharon (Mira Sorvino) things get super awkward when Darian shows up at Birdman’s surprise party. Stanley “Stinky” Womack (Pruitt Taylor Vince) runs the local tavern who spouts to his friends “I have apps.” He means appetizers. Michael Morris (Noah Emmerich) is the manager of a textile factory, he is married and has three kids.
Rosie O’Donnell has some killer lines and is likeable here. One of her monologues “I’m finished speaking to both of you okay? You’re both f***ing insane. You want to know what your problem is? MTV, Playboy, and Madison f***ing Avenue. Yes. Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That’s the way it goes. God doesn’t fu** around; he’s a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers. It’s not my rule. If you don’t like it, call him.” Yeah, that’s nice right? Well, it doesn’t exist ok. Look at the hair. The hair is long, it’s flowing, it’s like a river. Well, it’s a fucking weave ok? And the tits, please! I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits by design were invented to be suckled by babies. Yes, they’re purely functional. These are silicon city. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being too unruly and all. Very key. This is a mockery, this is a sham, this is bullshit. Implants, collagen, plastic, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush shaved… These are not real women, all right? They’re beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs, hi bob, and our cellulite feel somehow inadequate. Well I don’t buy it, all right? But you fucking mooks, if you think that if there’s a chance in hell that you’ll end up with one of these women, you don’t give us real women anything approaching a commitment. It’s pathetic. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do. You’re going to end up eighty-years old, drooling in some nursing home, then you’re going to decide, it’s time to settle down, get married, have kids? What, are you going to find a cheerleader? Charge it Mitch.
Tommy:” I think you’re over simplifying.”
Gina: “Oh eat me. Look at Paul. With his models on the wall, his dog named Elle McPherson. He’s insane. He’s obsessed. You’re all obsessed. If you had an once of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound, beauty is truly skin-deep. And you know what, if you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you’d be sick of her.”
Tommy: “Yeah, I suppose I’d get sick of her after about, what, twenty or thirty years?”
Gina: “Get over yourself. Thank you Mitch. Say hello to Gertrude.”
Tommy: “What?”
Gina:”No matter how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there is some other shit going on in the relationship, besides the physical, it’s going to get old, ok? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip. Otherwise, the future of the human race is in jeopardy.”
Willie Conway: What was that?
Tommy: I don’t know, but a great ass.
Willie Conway: Nice tits. Come on let’s go.
Then there is the most troublesome part of the film is Willie’s neighbor’s daughter Marty (Natalie Portman) who is 14 at this point in time, thankfully there is no super creepy things happening between them still though, Willie finds Marti fascinating at the woman she could grow into. I will leave it there. Paul (Rappaport) sums it up in a lot less cruder way than one time my cousin told me. Paul” I don’t care, man. If she can cut her own food, she’s fair game.” Now I’m not a father to a daughter or to a son for that matter it’s just creepy. There is a good repartee between Willie and Matry, its just that Willie is 16 years older than Marti, one of Marty’s lines “What we’ve been doing lately is smoking massive amounts of drugs, binging on Entemmann’s and listening to old Pink Floyd CD’s.”
In the end of this disaster of a flick, Darian goes to the reunion only to be confronted by Peter who reveals that Darian was flat out mean to her calling her “Mean as a snake”, which when you’re in high school well high school is a prep for real life which this generation may never learn about. Darian’s husband eventually confronts Matt Dillon in a bar with some friends beats the crap out of him and justifiably so. Oh yeah Uma Thurman is in this flick as a cousin of Stinky’s and arouse the interests of the male leads. In the end (again) of a disaster of this flick I do give credit to screenwriter Scott Rosenberg who actually is a writer for “Con-Air” “Jumanji: The Next Level” and 2000’s “Gone In 60 Seconds”.
The best part of the flick is when Willie, Kev, Paul and Michael shows up at Darians house to inflict some kind of retribution on Darian’s husband Willie T-Bone’s Darians husbands friends BMW, while they try to rescue or escalate things. The writing of this film sort of makes things watchable in this film overall it is a tough watch.
I couldn’t imagine if they tried to make “Superman: The Movie” today. Yes, I’m aware of the Zack Snyder Christopher Nolan produced 2013’s “Man of Steel” honestly it’s not terrible it just loses its momentum when Superman and General Zod literally wipe out city blocks in the last 20 minutes of the movie, before that? It is completely compelling and very watchable.
Let’s go back to the late 1970’s shall we, with “Superman: The Movie” The ‘blockbuster’ movie was still a new thing starting with “Jaws” in 1975, then there was “Star Wars” in 1977, which brings us to 1978. Now I did Google search for a couple of tidbits about this movie. I was shocked to find out that the budget for this movie was $55 million dollars which is a little over $219 million in 2021. Why so much? Turns out that the producers behind the picture decided to roll the dice and not only film the first movie but the sequel at the same time. This worked with the epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and before that “Back to the Future Part 2” and “Back to the Future Part 3” were filmed back to back as well.
Focusing on this film, director Richard Donner handles the spectacle of the story very well and today it still holds up. As for the sequel? I remember when I saw it as a kid because I was a kid in 1981 and something just seemed really off in that film. Turns out Richard Donner filmed about three quarters of that film when the Salkinds, the producers of the film went with Richard Lester which explains the deeper, campy slapstick, tone of that film. There is a Richard Donner cut of the film that I supposedly better I’ve never seen it and I may see it one day who knows. In the 1970’s what do you do with a comic book film? You play to the day, the city of Metropolis is basically New York City complete with a Statue of Liberty, polyester clad alley robbers, when Superman (Christopher Reeve) changes into his costume via department store entry door, instead of a phone booth, why is that because phone booths were being phased out in the 1970’s and when we get our first glimpse of “The Man of Steel” there is an honest to God pimp or a caricature of a pimp, still it’s a pimp!!! His line “Say Jim Woo!!!” Superman: “Excuse Me” Pimp “That’s a bad outfit, wooo!!!”
So there’s that and yeah I was still a little kid when the original film came out and I’m so happy that scene is there and that people weren’t that sensitive in the 1970’s, and I totally didn’t get it at the time because I was 6 years old and fairly sheltered to the things of this cruel, cruel world.
Lex Luther (Gene Hackman) murders a police detective because he has an elaborate lair 200 feet below Grand Central Station and no one bats an eye really. His girlfriend Ms. Tessmacher (Valerie Perrine) tells Lex he’s sick. His henchman Otis (Ned Beatty) provides a ton of comic relief Hackman and Beatty are really the only watchable thing in “Superman III” in fact if you’d like to do a deep dive on that film check out the “How Did This Get Made” podcast on Spotify I’m sure that still maybe available.
The plot of this film? In the beginning there was the planet Krypton where Jor-El (Marlon Brando) is persecuting, General Zod (Terrence Stamp) Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O’Halloran) three criminals who are entrapped by a rotating double hula-hoop.
The judges or gigantic faces on a screen which is where maybe Ridley Scott or Steve Jobs got the idea for that Super Bowl Apple Ad. They are found guilty sentenced to spend time in the glass triangle that was used in “A Current Affair” logo.
Then there is Lex Luthor’s lair there are a ton of books electricity, I just have to ask how in the heck did all of that stuff get down there with no one noticing? Then again these are things that weren’t and are still not thought out all the time. Lex Luther is semi-abusive, one of Ms. Tesmacher’s lines is “A meteorite, in Addis Ababa I know, I’m going to get wrapped in the mouth for this, but so what?”
There is Luther’s scheme to steal a nuclear missile from the US military. Why? So that he can launch it toward the San Andreas Fault, so that ALL of California will fall into the ocean, and the new land that Lex Luther bought will be his to sell to the highest bidders. I guess Lex has money how? I don’t know then again his lair has a fantastic swimming pool. Back to the plot of hijacking the missile Ms. Tessmacher is in a dazzling red dress unconscious during a staged car wreck. Soldier “She’s having trouble breathing sir, what do you think?” Sergeant (who can’t believe his eyes) “Well I suggest uh a vigorous chest massage and if that doesn’t work um mouth to mouth.” Soldier “Yes Sir” Sergeant then pulls his soldier “I won’t get any of one of my men doing anything I wouldn’t be prepared to do.” Soldier (disappointed) “Yeah but sir” then the Sergeant commands his troops to an about face, granted in today’s day and age, that would not even be filmed, you have to see the scene, it’s just how things were back in those days, before things became exploitative or “woke” or whatever, I don’t mean this dismissively, I’m saying that yeah I can see why people would be kind of uncomfortable. When that plan is foiled by Otis bumbling Luther and company somehow change their disguises from an ambulance driver to truck driver carrying a home barreling down towards the convoy that had left earlier somehow someway they passed up the convoy changed clothes hopped into said diesel and headed back towards the military convoy. Lex Luther is supposed to be a super genius, I guess how that works.
Christopher Reeve is perfect as Superman and frankly everyone who has played him since has lacked something, to be fair Henry Cavill is pretty good in the Zack Snyder film and is perfect for the tone of that movie. Where as in this film the tone is different from other DC films that will get made, in the upcoming years, whether it’s Tim Burton’s “Batman” a mere 11 years after this film or just other DC Universe films.
The film is PG runs two hours and twenty four minutes. There are some massive plot holes in this film Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) interviews the owner of the desert property in California, or Nevada or somewhere, in the freaking United States, so the Daily Planet has that type of travel budget to send their reporters basically anywhere. There are some iconic names attached with the movie. Superman is interviewed by Lois Lane who literally flies her around the city, her apartment is astoundingly fancy as to how much she makes a year, who knows how that happened. Somehow during the interview Superman for some reason tells her everything, including his weakness to Kryptonite or something like that, somehow Lex Luther figures out fragments from the wreckage of his home planet would be his weakness, all pop culture heroes have to have their flaws. Other “Flaws” Well a teenage Clark Kent is in reality 27 at the time and looks like he’s wearing either a bad wig or just some questionable hair style choice. Lara is a cheerleader played by Susannah York who is 39 years old at the time.
Don’t think too hard with regards this film if it were to be made today all the things that I mentioned above would be rewritten or just taken out. In 2006 there was another attempted reboot of the Superman property with “Superman Returns” which is more or less of a sequel to this film Brandon Routh fills in admirably in the lead role, Kevin Spacey is Lex Luther and if you could forget about what both Kevin Spacey and director Brian Singer have been accused of the better you are for it.
The tagline of this film was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” And you do John Williams score is top notch Richard Donner is on top of his game as a director and if you can just not be as so nit picky and an internet troll, you just might enjoy this film. There are other moments in the film that are solid and entertaining and I won’t spoil them. The special effects for the day were top shelf and yes now, it would be laughed at still though they were good for the day and are better than some of the today’s lazy CGI stuff that audiences see today.
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Take52 