My 1/2-Ass Movie Blog

  STAR WARS:EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Alec Guiness. Dir. George Lucas, 20th Century Fox, 1977 Over the 18 months since starting this blog, I've avoided writing about STAR WARS. That fandom has become so toxic and unpleasant it has grown difficult to write about the film or the franchise without touching off controversy and often inane debate. It felt like maybe it just wasn't worth the potential heartache, but it's an enormously influential film in my life and, after watching it again the other day - I believe I've seen it over 1,000 times but have no idea the actual number - I decided I'm tired of not talking about what I love on a blog dedicated to just that. I'm not pointing fingers when I say the fandom has grown toxic. I am pleased to say I had nothing to do with running Kelly Tran offline, nor will you find me in any of those tiresome threads where clueless white guys complain about diversity in George Lucas'...

  DUEL Dennis Weaver, Cary Loftin. Dir. Steven Spielberg, Universal, 1971. Not long ago, I ran across an old interview with HALLOWEEN director John Carpenter in which he professed to hate the New Hollywood movement of the '70s, a movement which includes Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. Carpenter does not single directors out by name, and I have to wonder if he hated Spielberg, because a good argument can be made that he & Carpenter employ a similar approach in their filmmaking, at least in the sense that both infuse story & thematic elements from one kind of genre film into others. Carpenter has long touted Howard Hawks's RIO BRAVO as his favorite film, yet he has never made a traditional Western. Instead, Carpenter took the ideas he loved from BRAVO - and Hawks in general - and used them in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. Ditto Spielberg. Though he exec-produced BACK TO THE FUTURE III & AN AMERICAN TALE:FIEVEL GOES WEST, he, too...

  TRUE GRIT John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall. Dir. Henry Hathaway, Paramount, 1969 For those who read the title of this piece, "No Comparison," to mean that I prefer the Coen Brothers' 2010 version - it's ludicrous to call it a remake - over Henry Hathaway's 1969 take, I've got bad news. Though the plot of both films is, with two exceptions, identical, these films have very little in common, to the extent that doing a head-to-head comparison does both films a disservice. Preference is a willful creature. The heart wants what it wants. We love what we love, regardless of whether it makes sense. I prefer Hathaway's version, but that doesn't make it better than the Coens' or vice versa. What do I prefer in Hathaway's 1969 production? Quite a bit. Barry Pepper's reading of secondary villain Lucky Ned Pepper may well be one of his best performances, but I'll take Robert Duvall over Mr. Pepper. Domhnall Gleeson gives an ...

  EL DORADO. John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Ed Asner. Dir. Howard Hawks, Paramount, 1966 Of his work, John Wayne was known to say, "I'm not an actor, I'm a reactor." Various talents have disputed that idea over the years (particularly the late Peter Bogdonovich, whose commentary for El Dorado I just watched this morning.) I happen to love Wayne, in general, & a number of his performances rate particularly high in my pantheon, but I don't know that I'm qualified to say if he's acting or reacting. Whichever, it cannot be disputed that, for Wayne, the quality of director, and the quality of Wayne's relationship with that director, went a long way toward deciding the quality of Wayne's work in the finished project. Of those directors to whom Wayne responded so well, two take precedence: John Ford & Howard Hawks. Ford more or less discovered Wayne, though Raoul Walsh was the first director to cast him as a leading man in 1930's THE...

  THIEF James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, James Belushi. Dir. Michael Mann, United Artists, 1981 Is Michael Mann's first film, 1981's THIEF, better than his 1995 LA Noir epic HEAT? I don't know. Is Canadian whiskey better than bourbon? And does it matter? I took an unplanned 40 year break between viewings of THIEF. I loved it first on Movie Channel in 1982, and fell back in love with my next two watches, ten days ago & yesterday.  Rewarding myself for a few months of budget discipline I treated myself to the Criterion Collection bluray & two-day delivery at the start of March. It's one of the best presents I've given myself. That comes from a guy who has taken delivery of THE GETAWAY, NETWORK, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE CONVERSATION,  MAGNOLIA & HATEFUL EIGHT in the last few weeks. In between, I've rewatched BOOGIE NIGHTS, SEA OF LOVE, THE LAST DETAIL, & DONNIE BRASCO, to give a full basis of comparison. ...

  BRICK Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Emilie de Ravin, Richard Roundtree. Dir. Rian Johnson, Focus Features, 2005 Raymond Chandler was born in 1888. In 1933, a washed-up exec in the oil business, Chandler published his first pulp fiction short. For the rest of his life, Chandler helped invent modern P.I. fiction, as well as what we now generalize as crime noir, with a literary elan suggesting Lawrence or Maugham on their off-days. While Chandler toiled in his now-immortalized Los Angeles, Dashiell Hammett & his P.I., Sam Spade, worked to promote San Francisco's virtues. Though it probably goes without saying, it's hard to imagine either foreseeing a world in which their shared style would forge a literary/filmic template often imitated, frequently parodied, but never replaced - film noir. It is impossible to imagine either envisioning a future in which their filmic champions include both Rian Johnson & Shane Black. According to Ye Olde Internet one of the more popular fan t...

  GATTACA Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Tony Shaloub. Dir. Andrew Niccol, Columbia, 1997 Between 1990 & 1997, Jon Peters & Peter Guber, exec producers of '89's mega-smash BATMAN, ran SONY Studios, releasing no significant hits & a number of notorious bombs over seven years which should have witnessed the hapless team run SONY/Columbia out of business, altogether. During those years Columbia invested in genre:scifi, scifi-horror, horror, including two films riffing on Stevenson's Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. One, 94's MARY REILLY, a literal retelling through the narative view of Jeckyll's Irish maid, flopped in large ways (though I happen to like it.) The other, Andrew Niccol's figuratative retelling involving genetics and faking one's DNA - like faking a piss-test - gained traction & a devout cult audience over the next decade+. Writing about the former film recently, I opined on the nature of Jeckyll's formula allowing him to b...