For the Record, My First Big Screen Viewings Of The Top Directors

On Twitter last weekend, many folks in my feed were posting their responses to the above tweet. Film-minded folks were recalling the first films by the most notable movie makers, and it was fun to see how the titles would often reveal the age range of the participants. 

 

For posterity, I’m sharing my answers in my tweet here with some notes below:

 

Some notes: The first two films I saw at the Carolina Theatre in downtown Chapel Hill. I saw many crucial movie in my youth at the Carolina, which closed in the summer of 2005 (MARCH OF THE PENGUINS was the last film shown there). RUSHMORE I saw at another long closed venue, the Janus Theater in Greensboro; with BOOGIE NIGHTS and THE GAME at a few unmemorable multiplexes * also in Greensboro. Finally, DO THE RIGHT THING I saw twice in the summer of 1989 – first at the Ram Theater in Chapel Hill, and secondly at the Center Theatre 4 in Durham – both of which have also shut down long ago.

 

*One of these is still operating as the AMC Classic in Greensboro – the only theater that still exists of all the ones I’ve mentioned.

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The Many Times John Landis Put His Director Pals In His Projects

Because today is the 78th Birthday of THX-1138 and AMERICAN GRAFFITI filmmaker George Lucas, I was reminded of his odd cameo in John Landis’s BEVERLY HILLS COP III (1994). Then I thought about how Landis often had his fellow director friends put in brief appearances in his films, and then I thought that might make a good blog post. So before I think about something else, and forget this thread, let’s take a look at some of the most notable times that this crazy event occurred (this post is far from complete as I skipped over as well as probably missed a number of these instances).

 

The whole Landis and his filmmaker friends cameo calvacade starts with Frank Oz.

A few years before Oz began his filmmaking career co-directing THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982) with Jim Henson (his solo debut as Director was LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS in 1986), the voice behind such major Muppets as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal (among many others), made his in-person film debut as “Corrections Officer” in Landis’s THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980). The part consists of Oz drolly, and displaying much disgust, doling out the possessions of John Belushi’s Jake Blues as he’s being released from Chicago’s Joliet Prison. 

In Landis’s beyond misguided 1998 sequel, BLUES BROTHERS 2000, Oz reprises the role, showing that the character is now the Prison Warden, who has the sad task of having to tell Dan Aykroyd’s Elwood Blues, upon his release from Joliet 18 years after the events in the first film, that his brother has passed. Not sure why this important info wasn’t revealed to Elwood before this, but it actually makes for one of the miserable movie’s only heartfelt moments so I’ll drop the questioning.

 

Oz also put in cameos, usually as stern authority figures, in Landis’s AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981), TRADING PLACES (1983), SPIES LIKE US (1985), and INNOCENT BLOOD (1992), which was not only his last appearance in a Landis film, but his last in-person part in a movie until his brief bit in Rian Johnson’s KNIVES OUT, in 2019. 

 

Back to the original BLUES BROTHERS, in which arguably the most famous, and most successful filmmaker in cinema history, Steven Spielberg put in a cameo. It was his film acting debut, as the “Cook County Assessor’s Office Clerk” who helped the black-suited, fedora, and sunglass-wearing music men fulfill their “mission from God.”

After a tragic accident which took the lives of actor Vic Morrow, and two illegally-hired child actors on the set of Landis’s segment for TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983), the director/writer/producer staged a comeback in the 1985 Jeff Goldblum/Michelle Pfeifer vehicle, INTO THE NIGHT. The film was a decent mid ‘80s comedy throwaway, the kind you’d see and quickly forget on cable, but when it came to director cameos it boasted an embarrassment of riches.

Filmmakers Jack Arnold (IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE), Paul Bartel (EATING RAOUL), David Cronenberg (SCANNERS), Jonathan Demme (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), Richard Franklin (ROAD GAMES), Amy Heckerling (FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH), Jim Henson (pictured above with Landis), Colin Higgins (HAROLD AND MAUDE writer/BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS director), Lawrence Kasdan (BODY HEAT), Paul Mazursky (AN UNMARRIED WOMAN), Daniel Petrie (A RAISIN IN THE SUN), Don Siegel (DIRTY HARRY), and Roger Vadim (BARBARELLA) all popped up throughout INTO THE NIGHT as the movie went, well, deeper into the night.

 

There’s too many of these people to post pics of here (unless I want a blog post a mile long), but here’s one of Cronenberg, whose part, credited as “Group Supervisor” was larger than most of the other directors involved.

Landis’s aforementioned 1985 Chevy Chase/Dan Aykroyd comedy SPIES LIKE US also featured:

 

Joel Coen, and Sam Raimi as “Drive-in Security.” 

And Terry Gilliam as “Dr. Imhaus.” 

Directors Mikael Apted, Ray Harryhausen, and Martin Brest (the director of the original BEVERLY HILLS COP) also put in cameos in SPIES LIKE US, but, again, I don’t want to take up too much space with pics.

Landis’s 1996 Tom Arnold comedy, THE STUPIDS, again featured Cronenberg, as well as more filmmaker bit parts by Robert Wise, Norman Jewison, Atom Egoyan, and Costa-Gavras.

I’ll finish with the cameo that inspired this post, Lucas as “Disappointed Man” in BEVERLY HILLS COP III. Unlike his other appearances in HOOK (1991) as “Man Kissing on Bridge,” and as Baron Papanoida in STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005), he actually has a speaking part: “Hey!” – reacting to Eddie Murphy’s Axl Foley stealing his Sky Whirl ride at the fictional theme park, Wonderworld – and “Come on, let’s go.” Okay, those lines obviously aren’t much, but they do constitute Lucas’s only in-person lines ever in a feature film. Watch the scene if you must:

From how awkward, and stiff, the STAR WARS guru was in this scene, one can only guess that Frank Oz was busy that day.

 

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Spielberg’s Re-Mix Of WEST SIDE STORY Is Probably Worth A Few Oscars

Despite underperforming at the box office, Stephen Spielberg’s epic adaptation of the musical classic, WEST SIDE STORY garnered rave reviews (92% approval on Rotten Tomatoes), and seven Oscar noms. Now, I’m joining the droves that are catching up with it since it dropped on HBO Max last week.

After both dabbling and diving deep into nearly every cinematic genre known to mankind, Spielberg presents to us his first musical, a big bustling showcase with show-stopping production numbers, sweeping visuals, and ambitious performances. Yet for all its lofty entertainment value, Spielberg doesn’t quite make the material his own.

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s mostly catchy compositions, popularized by the 1957 Broadway smash, and the 1961 Robert Wise-directed interpretations have been re-produced, re-staged, covered, and parodied so many times that folks who haven’t seen any version may feel like they have a working knowledge going in. That’s how I felt as it’s been decades since I’ve seen the original film, and mostly just remember some songs, and bits of the choreography.

I’m not going to get too detailed with the story, as it’s also familiar to most folks, being that it’s reheated Romeo and Juliet set in New York City’s Upper West Side in 1957. The star-crossed lovers here are Tony (Ansel Elgort), and Maria (Rachel Zegler), and Shakespeare’s rich feuding families, the Montagues and Capulets, have become the rival gangs, the scruffy white “Jets,” and the Puerto Rican “Sharks.”

Tony and Maria’s courtship is cute, but too high school play-ish for any real spark to ignite. Elgort (who I regularly mix up with Tye Sheridan) summons a bit of charm and verve for his lovestruck Tony, while Zegler seems a bit nervous about putting herself completely into Maria’s voice. It’s her film debut so she’s still wet behind the ears I guess.

I was somewhat annoyed by the nasal voice (and tough attitude as he’s pretty runty looking) of Mike Faist as Jets leader Riff, but I remember being annoyed by Russ Tamblyn in the ’61 version too. More effective are the turns in the supporting ensemble by Arian DeBose, David Alverez, and Rita Moreno, who, of course, was in the original film, and gets to sing a song (“Somewhere”) on her own.

Longtime Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kamiński’s camera glides through the streets, and lots of Harlem, Washington Heights, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx pleasingly, but, apart from the rumble scene inside a salt warehouse, and the big “I Feel Pretty” Gimbel’s set-piece dance number, the interior shots aren’t as visually interesting.

Spielberg has said that this isn’t a remake, but I’m considering it a remix with a new screenplay by Tony Kushner (another Spielberg veteran), and a mild re-imagining of all the melodic elements. There may be some modern touches here and there, but the ultra-popular filmmaker doesn’t fuss with the formula, or mess with the ingredients; he just attempts to apply his tried and true brand of movie magic on the project. The resulting effect is pure superficial showbiz.

It’s been noted that WEST SIDE STORY ’21 was a casualty of the pandemic in that, with its Spielberg pedigree, and its beloved background, it may have been a big hit during a different time. But I’m not so sure that it would have broken the box office even without omicron in the air. I doubt it’s going to come anywhere near replacing the original in the classic canon either.

WEST SIDE STORY is up for seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress for DeBose, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Director. I bet it’ll win maybe two or three of these Awards, but won’t say which ones until I make my full predictions a few days before the Oscars ceremony on March 27.

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How James Bond Was Indiana Jones’ Father Long Before Sean Connery Played Indiana Jones’ Father

As a young aspiring filmmaker, Steven Spielberg really wanted to direct a James Bond movie. After his successes with JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, he even reached out to the 007 camp, but as he told The Independent, “I called up Cubby (producer Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli) and offered my services but he didn’t think I was right for the part.”

So, as the legend goes, Spielberg went on vacation with his friend George Lucas in the summer of 1977. Lucas’ breakthrough smash hit STAR WARS had just been released, and Spielberg had just completed CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, due to be released later that year. While building a sand castle on the beach at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel (hey, this is how the legend goes), Spielberg told Lucas his dream of making a James Bond movie and how it would probably never come to be.

Then Lucas told his friend he had an idea that was better than Bond.

In a later interview, Lucas explained, “So I said, 'Well, look, Steven, I’ve got a James Bond film. It’s great - it’s just like James Bond but even better. I told him the story about this archeologist and said it was like a Saturday-matinee serial, that he just got into one mess after another. And Steven said, ‘Fantastic, let's do this!’”

Lucas’ character was named Indiana Smith – after his dog’s name. Spielberg disliked the name but agreed it should be an all-American moniker, so they settled on Indiana Jones.

This simple beach chat led to one of the biggest movie franchises in history with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK , INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE dominating the ‘80s box office.

LAST CRUSADE, the third entry, was especially notable as it featured Sean Connery as Indy’s father, Henry Jones, which brought the Bond connection full circle. Although he was only 12 years older than series star Harrison Ford, Connery convincingly owned the role, playing against type as a nebbish bookworm, and the part introduced the actor to younger generations who had never seen any of the seven films in which he portrayed the suave super spy, 007.

As Spielberg later said to Empire Magazine, “Who else but Bond could have been worthy enough to play Indiana Jones’s dad?”

Spielberg never did direct a Bond film, repeatedly saying in interviews that with his colossal career, “now they can’t afford me.”

Connery retired from acting in 2003, but he did consider returning when the fourth Indiana Jones film was in development later in the decade.

He ended up issuing this statement: “If anything could have pulled me out of retirement, it would have been an Indiana Jones film, but in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun.”

Connery’s role was reduced to his picture being seen on Jones’ desk along with Denholm Elliot (Indy's mentor Marcus Brody) in an early scene. As INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is far from a fan favorite, maybe Connery made the right decision. 

In the scheme of things, Connery’s role as Indiana Jones’ dad is a small part of his lengthy legacy, but it’s still a crucial one as it connects the franchises in a major way. Undoubtedly, many kids sought out Connery’s Bond movies after seeing LAST CRUSADE, and went from there to discover his other work which is getting spotlighted right now on the sad event of the great actor’s death.

In conclusion, Spielberg didn’t get what he wanted (making his own James Bond film), but he sure got what he needed (co-creating an iconic character that was almost as good - sorry, Lucas, but it’s true).

One last tidbit is that Connery’s Henry Jones Sr. reveals that his son’s name is Henry Jones Jr., and that their dog’s name was Indiana (obviously inspired by Lucas's dog). This leads to Indy’s long-time pal, Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) to mock him for being named after a dog. A few lines later, the original trilogy is done.

R.I.P. Sean Connery (1930-2020)

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READY PLAYER ONE: Fun Spielberg Is Back!

Opening tonight at a multiplex near everybody:

READY PLAYER ONE (Dir. Steven Spielberg. 2018) 

In a recent New York Times piece about maybe the most famous living filmmaker there is, Steven Spielberg, Brook Barnes wrote about how it’s been a while since the popular director’s movies have had the magic of his early work.

Barnes confronted Spielberg with the idea that the director’s later day output has lacked the fun of films like E.T., JURASSIC PARK, and the original Indiana Jones trilogy in the ‘80s. Spielberg countered Barnes’ thesis by saying he was “always moving really fast, and I don’t look back a lot.” 

But, by way of his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 young adult novel, READY PLAYER ONE, Spielberg looks back quite a bit to the era in which his movies were mega grossing must sees while video games became a big thing, synthetic pop music was the norm, and the possibilities of globally networked virtual reality were just gleams in the eyes of tech nerds. 

You see, this movie is set in the future, but nearly all of its reference points are from three decades ago as that’s when one such tech nerd came of age.

That’s the Steve Jobs/Steve Wozniak mash-up that is James Halliday, played by a frizzy hair wigged Mark Rylance (now a Spielberg regular as he was in BRIDGE OF SPIES and THE BFG) who created the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), a virtual reality world that most of the earth’s impoverished population in 2045 uses to escape their doomed existences.

When Halliday died, five years previous, he left a video message saying that he created a an “Easter egg” that he’s hidden inside his elaborate creation, and the first person to find it will inherit half a trillion dollars, and ownership of the OASIS itself.

So the movie’s protagonist is gunter (a combination of egg and hunter) Wade Watts (MUDD’s Tye Sheridan), going by the name Parzival in the game, who, by studying Halliday’s ‘80s obsessions figures out the first challenge involving a New York car race in which Wade’s vehicle of choice is the Delorean from BACK TO THE FUTURE.

In the overwhelmingly eye-popping sequence, Parzival has to outmaneuver a Tyrannosaurus Rex (ostensibly from JURASSIC PARK) and King Kong (looking like the 2005 Peter Jackson version), and in the process meets the girl of his dreams, another gunter named Art3mis (Olivia Cooke).

Mind you, neither Parzival nor Art3mis knows what either looks like in the real world because they’re represented by self chosen avatars in the OASIS, but there’s immediately a cute connection between them and they team up with Wade’s longtime friend Aech (Lena Waithe), and two other fellow gunters, brothers Sho (Philip Zhao), and Daito (Win Morisaki), to take on the next challenge which lands them into a dead on recreation of the Overlook Hotel from THE SHINING (it was WAR GAMES in the book, but Stanley Kubrick’s classic has a much cooler production design).

Of course, there’s an evil corporation, the IOI (Innovative Online Industries), competing with them headed by CEO Nolan Sorrento (a scenery chewing Ben Mendelsohn doing a convincing American accent), who had once worked as an underling to Halliday and his then business partner Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg, also doing an American accent).

READY PLAYER ONE gets a bit bogged down in CGI-cluttered spectacle in its third act, but it’s such a swiftly paced, wild ride that so consistently pops through each of its shiny setpieces that that doesn’t mar it too much. Sheridan and Cooke’s budding romance gets a bit cheesy at times (a disco dance set to “Stayin’ Alive” I could’ve done without), but they still work as characters that audiences will want to root for.

Many cynics will no doubt decry this film as pop culture pandering, but if you don’t think about it too deeply, it’s a highly entertaining sci-fi fantasy pic that’s somehow post modern, and old fashioned feeling at the same time.

Sure, it’s a geekgasm-inducing orgy of Easter eggs like the appearances of Chucky, Batman, Robocop, Buckaroo Banzai, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Alien chestburster, and even Monty Python’s Holy Hand Grenade, but, by embracing how the kids of today look back at the once tacky, but now endearingly surreal aesthetics of the ‘80s, the 71-year old Spielberg successfully reminds us (and himself) of his fun side.

Since I, like many of my age (late 40s) grew up on the filmmaker’s crowd-pleasing, high grossing work when we were kids first learning what movie magic is, it’s great to have fun Spielberg back.

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Film Babble Blog’s Top 10 Movies of 2017 Part 1

2017 was a very weird year, so it's fitting that many of its movies were pretty damn weird too. A lot of franchise films flopped (this is despite the fact that over half of the year’s top 10 at the box office were sequels), a STAR WARS movie was divisive between critics who loved it, and longtime fans of the series who hated it; and there were a number of films with strangely similar titles like LOGAN, LUCKY, and LOGAN LUCKY, and WONDER, WONDER WHEEL, WONDERSTRUCK, WONDER WOMEN, and PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN. 

Then there were WTFWT (What the F*** Was That?) movies like A GHOST STORY and MOTHER! So yeah, it was one weird year.

A lot of the movies of the last year blur together in my head. I mean, I had forgotten about such dreary titles as THE CIRCLE, THE BEGUILED, and BEATRIZ AT DINNER until looking at a list of 2017 releases just now. And there were also a few films I only liked the first halves of like DOWNSIZING, and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, that are also fading in my memory.

But now’s the time to concentrate on the cinema I best responded to, and I thought I'd do what I did a few years back and add what quotes stuck with me as well to the list.

So here goes Part 1 of my picks, in descending order, with their key lines or exchanges, and some links back to my reviews (click on select titles):

10. THE POST (Dir. Steven Spielberg)

Kay Graham (Meryl Streep): “You know what my husband said about the news? ‘News is the first rough draft of history.’”

9. LAST FLAG FLYING (Dir. Richard Linklater)

Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston): “Every generation has their war. Men make the wars, and wars make the men. It never ends!”

Reverend Richard Mueller (Lawrence Fishburne): Maybe one day we’ll try something different.”

8. DARKEST HOUR (Dir. Joe Wright)

Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman): “Please tell the Privy Seal that I’m sealed in the privy and I can only deal with one shit at a time.”

7. LADY BIRD (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf): “I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be.”

Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson (Saoirse Ronan): “What if this is the best version?”

6. THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Dir. Sean Baker)

Moonee (Brooklynn Prince): “I can always tell when adults are about to cry.”

So that’s 10-6 of my favorite films. See 5-1 at Part 2.

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THE POST: The War Against Fake News Has Been Fought Before And Won

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

THE POST (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2017)

After putting his stamp on just about every other cinematic genre out there, Steven Spielberg now tries his hand at newspaper drama with this timely story that’s ripped straight from the headlines, but, obviously, they’re headlines that are over four decades old. Simply, THE POST relays how the Washington Post defied President Nixon and all his men by publishing top secret files detailing the lies the government told and was still telling about the Vietnam war.

As the paranoid, dishonest tactics of the Nixon White House have many times been likened to the Trump Administration’s troubling methods, it may seem a bit too on the nose to get this big star-studded prestige picture from those liberals in Hollywood about how then is just like now, just in time for awards season.

And yes, this is a cautionary tale about how journalism is being threatened in our current era of “fake news,” but despite the predictable packaging, Spielberg has successfully structured an earnest, old fashioned, and highly entertaining showcase for his inspiring subject, and his superb cast.

And it really is a superb cast as Oscar-winners Tom Hanks, as Washington Post Editor Ben Bradley, and Meryl Streep as the Post’s publisher, Katherine Graham, head the strong ensemble that also includes Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk (with David Cross also on board we get a Mr. Show re-union!), Jesse Plemmons, Tracy Letts, Bruce Greenwood, Bradley Whitford, and Carrie Coon.

The film begins in 1966 Vietnam, evoked by the familiar sounds of helicopter blades, and CCR blasting, as we see gritty shots of soldiers loading their guns, and applying war paint. Mulling about these men is Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), a military advisor on a fact finding mission to monitor the war’s progress.

After we see Ellsberg witness a night ambush by the Viet Cong in the rainy jungle, he reports back to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Greenwood) that things haven’t gotten any better or worse over the last year, they’ve stayed the same.

To Ellsberg’s disgust, McNamara lies to reporters telling them that “Military progress over the last 12 months has exceeded our expectations,” so Ellsberg steals a top secret 7,000 page document soon to be dubbed “The Pentagon Papers,” that strongly says otherwise about US strategy in south-east Asia, and later leaks it to the New York Times.

That brings us to 1971, where Streep’s Graham is taking the Post’s stock public just as the Times’ is publishing a portion of the Pentagon Papers, which leads to the Nixon administration suing the Times to halt further publication.

Under intense pressure, Graham frets over the legal ramifications of the Post publishing the secret files obtained from Ellsberg while Hanks’ Bradlee scrambles with his staff to distill thousands of pages into articles fit to print under strict deadlines.

THE POST can serve as a companion piece and a prequel to Alan J. Pakula’s, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, as it ends where that essential Watergate expose begins, but it stands on its own as a solid, stately tribute to the power of the free press.

Since Hanks, Streep, and Spielberg, all at the top of their game here, have already won multiple Oscars, they may cancel themselves out of the race.

So may co-screenwriter Josh Singer, who won last year for SPOTLIGHT, cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, who’s already won two Oscars for Spielberg films; and composer John Williams, whose won five (count ‘em – five, and three were for Spielberg movies), so I can see this movie not winning anything (it didn’t win any of the six Golden Globes it was up for), but it won’t matter because THE POST is an Oscar-caliber film regardless.

See it so you can see that what is going on now has gone on before, and since it was overcome then, it can be fought and won against again.

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THE BFG: A Fair Fantasy Film With Fart Jokes

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

THE BFG (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2016)

As it’s been half a decade since Steven Spielberg’s collaboration with Peter Jackson on THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, it’s been a bit since one of the world’s most famous filmmakers has put out a movie, you know, for kids!

So here comes THE BFG, which stands for “Big Friendly Giant,” Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1982 children’s book about a young orphan girl who befriends a behometh, the 24-foot title character, who appears here as a lanky CGI-ed creature who dresses like a peasant and talks funny.

That is, the BFG, voiced and motion-captured by Mark Rylance, who won the Best Supporting Oscar for his performance in Spielberg’s BRIDGE OF SPIES last year, speaks in half-nonsensical jargon using such made up words as “phizzwizzard,” “delumptious,” “splitswiggled,” and “humplehammers.”

There’s even a running gag about “whizzpopping,” which means farting – something that happens when a green, bubbly drink called frobscottle is consumed.

This language is called “Gobblefunk,” and from what I gather it’s pretty faithful to the book (even the fart jokes), but its use in the film doesn’t quite invoke the transcendent charm or the laughter it’s reaching for.

12-year old Ruby Barnhill makes her screen debut as Sophie, the little girl who’s scooped up by the BFG out of her bed at the orphanage in a small unnamed English town and taken to “Giant Country” where he assures her that’s he’s gentle and doesn’t eat children.

However, the other much taller giants in the village, led by the thick-headed Fleshlumpeater (voiced and mo captured by Jemaine Clement), aren’t as friendly and would eat Sophie if they found out she was hiding at the BFG’s humble, but ginormous living quarters (actually a cave).

At night, Sophie assists the BFG in his hobby of dream-catching in Dream Country, which involves the capturing of dreams in the form of bright glowing orbs with a big butterfly net and storing them in jars.

Because of the looming threat of the evil giants, with such names as The Bloodbottler (voiced by Bill Hader), The Bonecruncher, The Gizzardgulper, The Childchewer, and The Meatdripper (their monikers are listed several times throughout the film), Sophie convinces the BFG to go with her to get help from the Queen of England (Penelope Wilson), whose command of the British Army will surely be able to take care of that crew of overlarge, disgusting doofuses.

Rylance and Barnhill play well off of each other’s sensibilities, and the animation at times beautifully builds upon the warm aesthetics of storybook imagery, but the experience as a whole feels a bit slight. There’s not much that’s very interesting about these characters, and a little bit of the silly wordplay goes a long way (so do the fart jokes).

THE BFG is a fair piece of throwaway entertainment that gives the impression that Spielberg is coasting. For instance, a scene in which the evil giants are searching the BFG’s cave for Sophie overly recalls the raptors in the kitchen from JURASSIC PARK or the alien probes in the farmhouse basement in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. The man can do, and has done, this sort of stuff in his sleep.

Sadly, the E.T. trifecta of Spielberg, composer John Williams, and the late screenwriter Melissa Matheson (this is her final screen credit), can’t muster the ole movie magic needed to make this film anything more than mildly amusing.

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BRIDGE OF SPIES: Spielberg & Hanks Serve Up Splendid Cold War Spy Stuff

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

BRIDGE OF SPIES (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2015)

You know we’re really getting into the season of Oscar-baiting when a prestige picture with such pedigree as this one comes along. I mean, it’s a Steven Spielberg film, starring Tom Hanks, concerning historical events, with a screenplay co-written by the Coen brothers – can you get any more Oscar baity than that?

But BRIDGE OF SPIES, the 29th movie by the most famous and successful filmmaker of our times, is a worthy, noble piece of entertainment that ranks with Spielberg’s best work, and it’s my favorite of his four collaborations with Hanks, of course, one of the most famous and successful leading men ever.

Set in 1957 at the height of the Cold War, the film posits Hanks as James Donovan, a Brooklyn-based insurance lawyer who was recruited by the CIA to his initial chagrin to defend an accused Soviet spy.

The assignment makes Hanks’ Donovan very unpopular with the public – he gets nasty looks from folks on the subway looking up from their newspapers – and draws ire from his wife, played by Amy Ryan, elevating the role of the typical concerned wife-on-the-side, who asks: “Do you know how people will look at us, the family of the man trying to free a traitor?” (sure, it’s an easy, obvious role for Ryan, but if you have to have that part played - who better?).

Donovan consults with his client, Rudolf Abel (played with nonchalance by Mark Rylance) and explains that if convicted he could be facing the death penalty. “You don’t seem alarmed,” Donovan observes to which Abel says “would it help?” This line becomes a running joke of sorts.

As expected, Donavan loses the case but argues that Abel should be kept alive in case the situation arises in which the Soviets have captured an American then a trade could possibly be arranged.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to a group of U.S. fighter pilots who are sent on a secret intelligence gathering mission involving the Airforce’s new fangled high altitude, camera-equipped U-2 spy planes. One of the pilots, Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and captured by the Russians.

Representing the CIA, Donovan travels to East Berlin to negotiate the trade of Abel for Powers, and another American, a Yale student named Frederic L. Pryor (Will Rogers), who was arrested and is being held without charge by the East German police.

Maneuvering through the negotiation process between East Germany and the U.S.S.R. is tricky for Donovan as has to work out the conditions of the deal with such prickly bureaucrats as Wolfgang Vogel (Sebastian Koch), a German lawyer; and German Stasi agent Harald Ott (Burghart Klaußner).

Between meetings on the street of Berlin, Donovan is accosted by a group of young German toughs, who steal his overcoat. Afterwards, one of his colleagues asks “How did you lose your coat?” Hanks shrugs and replies: “You know, spy stuff.”

Spielberg and Hanks serve up splendid, you know, spy stuff here in this sturdy, grey-toned drama that beautifully builds to the tense prisoner exchange climax at Glienicke Bridge between East and West Berlin, where Powers’ fighter pilot friend Joe Murphy (Jesse Plemons) is brought over to confirm his identity.

This stand-out sequence is where Spielberg’s longtime cinematographer Janusz Kamiński captures the film’s most stunning imagery with the glare of lights on the snowbound bridge juxtaposed with the pitch black of the night effectively surrounding these little men just doing their jobs, as one character puts it.

The film’s post script shines with Spielberg’s brand of sentimentality which many may find to be cheesy – i.e. such shots as a woman on the subway looks up from her paper to give our modest hero Hanks a smile of approval in obvious contrast to that earlier aforementioned scene - but it felt earned to me.

Hanks and Spielberg are among the only ones these days who can really sell such a Capra-esque vision of an all-American family man – an honest lawyer, mind you – who works to do the right thing to make the world a better place. Donovan’s role in the trial and the trade deserves such a treatise, enhanced by the timely commentary on how the Cold War of yesteryear echoes through the War on Terror of today.

It’s also a pleasure to have Hanks handling the sharply scripted dialogue by Joel and Ethan Coen, who co-wrote with Mark Charman, that’s so much better than what the Coen brothers gave him in one their rare misfires, 2004’s THE LADYKILLERS. Still, Hanks, as solid and dependable as his performance is, will doubtfully get any Oscar action for this (the Academy has been there done that), but I’m betting that Rylance, who quietly steals the movie as the amusingly jaded Abel, will get a nomination.

BRIDGE OF SPIES may be another case of the “Greatest Generation” saluting itself again, but it’s grand, old fashioned entertainment made by one of our most trusted storytellers, and one of our most trusted actors that does stately justice to its subject. So go ahead and label it Oscar bait, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth swallowing hook, line, and sinker.

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It’s A JURASSIC, JURASSIC, JURASSIC, JURASSIC WORLD

Now playing at a monster-sized multiplex near you:

JURASSIC WORLD (Dir. Colin Trevorrow, 2015)

There are only two plot points in every JURASSIC PARK movie. They are as follows: #1. There are dinosaurs – that’s amazing! #2. We must now get the Hell away from them.

It’s been 22 years since the highly praised first film in the franchise which was based on the 1990 Michael Crichton bestseller, and 14 years since the heavily maligned third entry, but those same elements are strongly intact in this fourth installment.

They just added some new faces on top of the premise that we’re now dealing with a fully functioning theme park, and a new hybrid dinosaur designed to wow the kids because, as park operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) puts it: “Let’s face it, no one’s impressed by a dinosaur anymore.”

This “new” adventure concerns Claire’s nephews (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) coming to visit Jurassic World at the same time that the ginormous hybrid breaks free and, you know, starts killing people and other dinosaurs.

The idea to create this highly intelligent, extremely dangerous animal dubbed the Indominus rex for the purposes of marketing a new attraction is criticized by the park’s buff raptor wrangler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), who leaves all his lovable Chris Pratt-isms (see Parks and Recreation, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY) behind to play a generic bad ass hero character complete with lame wise-cracks.

Meanwhile, the villain this time is the head of the park’s private security force portrayed by Vincent D’Onofrio, who wants to use the dinosaurs for military purposes. The moment he starts spouting out his evil disrespectful to nature rhetoric, we know we’re gonna see him getting eaten later.

There’s also the useless mystery of what dinosaurs the Indominus rex is a hybrid of. We are told that its base is a T-rex, but the rest is classified, so throughout the movie Pratt is trying to put together that puzzle.

But, of course, nobody cares about that flimsy connective tissue. What people are coming for is the mayhem with dinosaurs attacking tourists, kids narrowly escaping grisly deaths, and lots of CGI-ed spectacle, and it’s all here in set piece after set piece.

There are lots of call backs to the Steven Spielberg-directed original too, including an appearance by the old, crumbling Jurassic Park’s visitor’s center (complete with the same old jeep), holograms of the most memorable creatures such as the Dilophosaurus in the new fanged visitor’s center, and B.D. Wong, the only returning cast member from the first film, as Dr. Henry Wu, the chief geneticist, who could be seen as the film’s other villain.

There is some comic relief in the control room via Jake Johnson (New Girl) and Lauren Lapkus (Orange is the New Black) as frightened engineers, but very little of the film’s humor really takes hold.

JURASSIC WORLD is a fast paced ride, which will surely please hardcore fans of the franchise, and folks looking for a few hours of air-conditioning, but it’s just another pile of dinosaur shit, one that, at times, doesn’t look that different from last year’s GODZILLA reboot.

The monster mash-up that is the Indominus rex is just a much bigger T-rex, Pratt’s and Howard’s characters could have been played by anybody, and D’Onofrio's by-the-numbers bad guy is a crude bore (he's a much better villain on Netflix's Daredevil series).

And as much as composer Michael Giacchino cribs from John Williams’ original score to accompany sweeping shots of the island and theme park, that old Spielbergian sense of wonder just can’t quite be summoned.

I will say that the film does serve up a crowd pleasing climax, one that really roused the audience at the screening I attended, but that alone doesn’t elevate this tired material much.

That it took four screenwriters - Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly, and director Trevorrow - to come up with this supersized retread may the only genuinely shocking and hair-raising thing about it.

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EARTH TO ECHO Is A Hollow Echo Of Kids-Minded '80s Sc-Fi

Now playing at a multiplex near you...

EARTH TO ECHO (Dir. Dave Green, 2014)

Stop me if you’ve heard this before – a small group of kids from the suburbs make contact with a cute alien stranded on Earth. Pursued by shadowy figures from the government they race to help their new intergalactic friend rebuild his spaceship so he can go home. Yes, I know you probably were trying to stop me when I hit the words “cute alien,” which is pretty much the same place that I wanted this movie to stop.

Oh, and I should mention that unlike the J.J. Abrams’ 2011 Spielberg-produced, Spielberg-derived SUPER 8 which has an almost identical premise, it doesn’t take place back in the era of Spielberg's seminal sci-fi kids flicks.

Its modern edge is from its tale being completely told BLAIR WITCH PROJECT-style via imagery from phones, video cameras and spyglasses. So it’s got that found footage thing happening, but otherwise every other element here was done to death over 30 years ago.

Teo Halm, Brian “Astro” Bradley, and Reese Hartwig play the tween leads, BFFs, who will soon be separated because of a huge highway construction project which will tear down their Nevada neighborhood. The kids’s phones start picking up crazy images which they trace to the desert, so on their last night together they ride their bikes out to find the extraterrestrial or whatever it is.

Echo, the alien robot thing they befriend looks like a robotic owl or some kind of miniature WALL-E so prepare to cringe for the “aww” factor. All the shaky cam chases, shadowy action scenes, and consistent affirmations about the power of friendship, that like SUPER 8, have the boys running around accompanied by a love interest blonde tween (Ella Wahlestedt), bored me to tears. So did the incredibly underwhleming CGI-ed climax, that I bet you can guess involves a ginormous mothership.

I read that first-time director Green studied kids’ video-making today so that he could make a film that looked like it was made by 13-year olds. Green does indeed achieve that, but he’s also made a film that was made just for 13-year olds, but only ones that haven’t seen E.T., or EXPLORERS, or FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR, or even MAC AND ME - pretty much any ‘80s kids-minded sci-fi that is.

Disney sold this to Relativity Media, which proves that the Magic Kingdom sometimes can tell when a project is sorely missing magic.

The good but far from great SUPER 8 sure looks like essential Spielberg next to this otherworldly waste.

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Filmmaker Biodoc MILIUS Now Streaming On Netflix Instant

MILIUS (Dirs. Joey Figueroa & Zak Knutson, 2013)

When I was a kid in the ‘70s I first became aware of writer/director John Milius when I read that he was the inspiration for the character of John Milner, the drag racing greaser played by Paul Le Mat, in George Lucas’ 1973 classic AMERICAN GRAFFITI. The fact that that piece of trivia isn’t even mentioned in Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson’s 2013 biodoc MILIUS, currently streaming on Netflix Instant, just attests to what a richly layered life the mythical maverick filmmaker has led.

From coming up with Dirty Harry’s best known dialogue (the “‘Do do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” speech) to crafting the Oscar nominated screenplay for APOCALYPSE NOW to upsetting liberal Hollywood with his cold war opus RED DAWN - just to name a few highlights - the ultra manly Milius's contributions to modern cinema form a colossal career, in which as THE GODFATHER producer Al Ruddy tells us in the intro, the man “had more movies made than any other writer in the history of Hollywood.”

It all began in the ‘60s shortly after Milius was crushed by being rejected by the Marine Corps because of his asthma (“I missed, you know, going to my war”), he wandered into a theater showing a week of the films of Akira Kurosawa. The Japanese filmmaker’s work made Milius realize that being a director was the “next best thing” to a military career.

Then he was off to USC (University of Southern California) where his classmates included George Lucas, Caleb Deschanel (father of Zoey Deschanel), Donald F. Glut, and Randall Kleiser (GREASE) - most of whom appear to provide interview soundbites throughout the film.

Milius was the first of these film-minded folk to achieve success when he was hired by AIP (American International Pictures), a studio that specialized in cheapie “teensploitation” productions. His first screenplay credit was on a rip-off of THE DIRTY DOZEN called THE DEVIL'S 8 (“they didn’t have enough money for a full dozen”).

Following that, Milius worked on the scripts of EVIL KNIEVEL (1971), DIRTY HARRY (1971), JEREMIAH JOHNSON (1972), THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN (1972), and his feature length directorial debut DILLINGER (1973).

Milius’ second movie, the 1975 adventure epic THE WIND AND THE LION, starring Sean Connery and Candice Bergen, garnered a few Academy Award nominations, but his third film, the 1978 coming-of-age surfing picture, BIG WEDNESDAY, flopped big-time (of course, it became a cult classic later).

Much more notable during that time were his iconic contributions to Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark attack classic JAWS (Robert Shaw’s USS Indianapolis monologue), and Coppola’s massive 1979 mash-up of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and the Vietnam war, APOCALYPSE NOW. Can you get any more quotable than “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning,” or “Charlie don’t Surf”? I don’t think so. 

“Everything memorable in APOCALYPSE NOW was invented by John Milius,” Coppola stresses.

Milius’ fourth film as director, the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger fantasy epic CONAN THE BARBARIAN (co-written by Oliver Stone) was a hit, but it was with his next film that things got pretty hairy. 1984’s RED DAWN, about a Russian invasion on American soil, polarized critics and got Milius ostracized from Hollywood for its pro-war stance. “Right-wing jingoism,” more than one critic called it.

There’s no getting around that the big beefy bearded gun nut - there are more photos here of Milius with machine guns, rifles, whatever firearm than you can count - rubbed a lot of people wrong. His following projects, FAREWELL TO THE KING, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER, and the TV movie ROUGH RIDERS, were barely blips on the pop culture radar.

Figueroa and Knutson’s film gets a bit muddled around this point of the narrative, but regroups with the revelation that Milius suffered a stroke that left him unable to talk or write. A condition that Spielberg says was “the worst thing to happen to any of my friends.”

This obviously explains why there’s so much footage of Milius doing interviews from the ‘80s and ‘90s – a 1984 sit down is the most prominently featured. MILIUS left me feeling like every larger than life tough guy character of the modern film era was based on his powerful persona. Especially when his son Ethan and daughter Amanda talk about how much John Goodman’s Walter Sobchak in THE BIG LEBOWSKI reminded them of their father.

Hell, the man’s influence even stretched as far as inspiring the military code name of the U.S. Army’s capture of Sadam Hussein in 2003: “Operation Red Dawn.”

MILIUS is for the most part a fascinating and thoughtful look at the life of a macho force that can still be felt in the fantasy realm from Game of Thrones to THOR, and the amped-up egos of the overblown action movie genre. As his encouraging rehabilitation continues, I sure hope the man can finish his long gestating GENGHIS KHAN project. That would give his legend the satisfying epilogue that this biodoc only hints at.

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10 Memorable Marquees In The Movies

Regular visitors to this blog (there must be a few, right?) may be aware that I have a bit of a thing for movie theater marquees. I regularly post pictures of local theaters like the Colony Theater and the Rialto Theater’s marquees here in Raleigh on the sidebar (in the old days it would be the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill when I lived there), and I have them collected on Facebook in the “Movie Theater Fun File!” section of my profile.

So since it’s been a while since I've put together a good ole Film Babble Blog list I thought I’d get back in the game with this top 10 of memorable marquees that have appeared in the movies throughout the years:

1. THE SORROW AND THE PITY in ANNIE HALL

It was a running gag throughout Woody Allen's 1977 Oscar winner ANNIE HALL that protagonist Alvy Singer (Allen) would drag his girlfriend (Diane Keaton in the title role) to see Marcel Ophüls' THE SORROW AND THE PITY (1969). The marquee shot above comes from the end of the film, after the couple has broken up, when Allen runs into Keaton coming out of a screening of the four hour documentary about Nazis at the Thalia Theater, which used to exist on 95th Street off Broadway (it's an apartment building now). It's a long shot so it's easy to miss that Allen's date is Sigourney Weaver, in her first film appearance. A bonus Woody Allen marquee appears at the top of this post.

2. FAMILY PLOT in DAZED AND CONFUSED

This is one of hundreds of well chosen details that helped Richard Linklater's 1993 cult comedy drama classic DAZED AND CONFUSED so convincingly recreate a day from May of 1976. Hitchcock's final film, released a month earlier, appears in a few early shots on a standing marquee for a drive-in in the background of the film mostly set in the suburbs of Austin, Texas. It works as both a piece of a time capsule capture, and a shout-out to the master of suspense.

3. PLAY MISTY FOR ME in DIRTY HARRY

This, and #4, are inside-jokes. In Don Siegel's 1971 cop classic DIRTY HARRY, Clint Eastwood's iconic Harry Callahan character enters a San Francisco burger joint in one shot in which a marquee advertising Eastwood's previous film, PLAY MISTY FOR ME (also '71) can be seen around the corner. Nice plug, Clint!

4. THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

The same type of thing happens in David O. Russell's SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK from last year. While leads Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are arguing in front of a theater midway through the film, a marquee advertising Ryûhei Kitamura's little seen 2008 thriller THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, which starred Cooper, is fairly visible - partially obscured but still obvious.

5. PLATOON in THE NAKED GUN

During a very funny falling-in-love montage set to Herman Hermit's “I’m into Something Good” in David Zucker's 1988 comedy classic THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD, Leslie Neilsen and Priscilla Presley exit a Los Angeles movie theater laughing their asses off. The camera pans up to the marquee:

It's a cheap laugh, but still always gets me.

6. A double feature of A BOY'S LIFE and WATCH THE SKIES in GREMLINS

The fictitious film titles on this marquee seen in Joe Dante's 1984 classic GREMLINS are Spielbergian in-jokes. A BOY'S LIFE was the original title of E.T. and WATCH THE SKIES was the early working title of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, so the fake double bill presents a double nod to the film's executive producer. This marquee has been mentioned before on this blog as has:

7. SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE

This marquee for the phony film SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY (previously covered in “Film Within Film Follow-up Fun” 7/13/07), seen in the 1977 ZAZ sketch comedy movie THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE is part of a running gag through many of the films of John Landis. It comes from a line from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY that the director liked enough to feature in the form of billboards, posters, and more than one marquee.

8. A double bill of DEEP THROAT and MEATBALL in SLAP SHOT

This marquee glimpsed in the background of a parade shot on the streets of Jonestown, Pennsylvania in George Roy Hill's classic 1977 hockey comedy SLAP SHOT proudly displays a double feature of Gerard Damiano's 1972 pornos DEEP THROAT (possibly the most famous porn film ever) and his lesser known, but presumably just as filthy MEATBALL.

9. JAWS 19 in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II

I also featured this one before (“10 Self Referential Or Crossover Moments In The Films Of Lucas And Spielberg” 5/20/08), but couldn't resist including the marquee of JAWS 19 that Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) encountered in the future in Robert Zemeckis' BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (executive produced by Spielberg) here because, you know, hologram shark! Also the fact that the director of the 19th film in the JAWS franchise is credited to Spielberg's son Max Spielberg (born in 1985) is a nice touch.

10. THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

I'm including this one because I used to climb up a ladder and change the marquee a lot at the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill when I worked there from 2004-2009. So I appreciated that Quentin Tarantino's and Eli Roth's revisionist World War II romp, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, included a scene in which Mélanie Laurent's character Shoshanna is taking down the lengthy line of letters that spell out “German Night Leni Riefernstahl in Pabst's THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU.” Thankfully, I rarely had to put up that many letters.

Post note: I should definitely note the cool blog Marquees in Movies, which houses a collection of screenshots from movies showing movie theater marquees. I, ahem, borrowed that great screenshot of SLAP SHOT from them.

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