At this time, I would like to unveil the first part of my second set of 30 favorite movies in 30 days special feature for you. As with the first three part batch, I am trying to only feature films that I have not already written about at length upon this blogsite to simply offer some variety and to also give you a peek into which films have shaped my life throughout my life.
And so, here we go again!
"GROSSE POINT BLANK" (1997)
SCREENPLAY WRITTEN BY TOM JANKIEWICZ AND D.V. DeVINCENTIS & STEVE PINK & JOHN CUSACK
DIRECTED BY GEORGE ARMITAGE
For years I have wondered if John Cusack ever felt as if he was owed some sense of creative restitution.
"Grosse Point Blank," starring John Cusack as Martin Q. Blank, a hitman undergoing an existential crisis who returns to his hometown of the wealthy Michigan suburb of Grosse Pointe to attend his 10th high school reunion and possibly earn redemption from the girl he mysteriously abandoned on prom night (a wonderful Minnie Driver) to enlist in the army, was indeed the very first time I ever experienced the concept of an assassin struggling with depression and undergoing therapy sessions.
This film pre-dates "The Sopranos" (1999-2007) as well as Harold Ramis' "Analyze This" (1999) and "Analyze That" (2002), and while I cannot be certain if Cusack and his co-horts arrived at the concept first, it was an ingenious one as it gave me a film that was entirely fresh and utilizing this unique conceit to brilliantly explore that palpable anxiety of what just may be that very first reunion since graduating from high school, as we take stock of our lives and internally struggle with who we once were in comparison to what we have become and will we be judged by the peers we grew up with.
Throughout this film, we often hear Martin Blank utter the words, "It's not me," conveying a different meaning each time it is uttered while also presenting a certain detachment he wishes to create between his actions and the truth of himself, as he is slowly re-discovering with the aid of his admittedly fearful therapist Dr. Oatman (the great Alan Arkin) in scenes that just crackle with comedy and tension. That very tension extends itself to the fullness of his return home as he realizes that he has grown more disconnected to his past, and therefore himself, than he could have imagined with his Father now dead, his mentally unstable Mother in an assisted living facility and the home he grew up in now a convenience 7-11 type store via a real estate deal brokered by childhood buddy Paul Spericki (a crackerjack Jeremy Piven).
Congeal all of this material with the violence of his post high school life, we arrive at the expertly staged high school reunion sequence during which Martin has a moment holding a classmate's new baby. As the strains of Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" blares in the background, Martin stares quizzically at this baby who stares right back at him, and their wordless exchange, possibly signifying Martin's search for his long abandoned innocence or wondering just how one can grow from that blank slate to the homicidal tendencies afflicted young man he has become, "Grosse Point Blank" has truly ascended into a film that is explicitly one-of-a-kind.
As for the girl he left behind, the now radio DJ Debi Newberry, who specializes in the alternative music she and her classmates grew up with, has her own conflicting issues from the past and present to deal with once Martin returns and the chemistry Minnie Driver establishes with Cusack throughout is electric, making them a couple to root for.
As directed with a terrific snap and spark by George Armitage, the film is exceedingly witty, intelligent and absurd as its rapid fire dialogue, social/political satire (as evidenced by Dan Aykroyd's fast talking, psychotic performance as Martin's rival assassin), explosive violence (Cusack's high school hallway fight sequence during the reunion is especially brutal and beautifully choreographed), truly lovely romantic comedy, exquisite soundtrack and pitch perfect generational perceptiveness, made "Grosse Point Blank" not only one of the very best films of the 1990's but one that has only continued to endure strongly.
Incidentally, I saw this film on opening day when I was 28 years old and I kid you not, when I returned home from the film, what should be awaiting me in my mailbox but an invitation to my own 10th high school reunion--a prospect that, I have to admit, terrified me. Thankfully, and with my cherished friend Kristy at my side, we went...and it was surprisingly warm, with all anxiety quickly fading away.
I like to think that there was no cosmic accident that this film arrived in my life when it did. In fact, I like to think that it actually helped.
"JUNGLE FEVER" (1991)
WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY SPIKE LEE
Spike Lee's fifth "Joint" was also one of his most incendiary and most misunderstood projects, even to this day.
First of all, the film, despite its brilliant title, a colloquialism describing inter-racial relationships, was NOT an indictment of ALL inter-racial relationships. It was an admonition of relationships that are solely based in racial curiosity and mythology and having nothing to do with anyone's content of character.
The film's story of Harlem architect Flipper Purify (an outstanding Wesley Snipes) who begins a doomed affair with his Bensonhurt based Italian-American temp secretary Angie Tucci (an equally wonderful Annabella Sciorra) was the hook but what Lee truly had up his sleeve was an impassioned outcry against the destruction of African-American communities due to the crack epidemic, and how these two situations are juxtaposed against each other in terms of the respective sense of outrage within both Black and White communities. Critics have long complained that Lee's films are over-stuffed with ideas. I feel that Lee's films are meticulously layered and for a film like "Jungle Fever," repeated viewing are essential to tracking all of the conceptual threads.
Just regard the characters' reactions to race as opposed to drug abuse. Throughout the film, we are witness to families being torn apart--Angie is beaten within an inch of her life and thrown out of her house by her own Father once her relationship with Flipper is revealed while Flipper's wife Drew (an explosive Lonette McKee) holds a "war council" of Black women in her living room (itself a scene unlike anything you will see in the movies) after ejecting her philandering husband from the home.
Another relationship that is shown as a counterpoint to Flipper and Angie is the one starring Angie's tender yet strong hearted ex-boyfriend Paulie (John Tuturro) and the crush he houses upon African-American businesswoman Orin Goode (Tyra Ferrel)--a relationship in which he would withstand the relentless teasing and physical violence brutally inflicted upon him by his Italian friends just to have a date with her. THAT relationship Lee implies, is pure and therefore will endure but for Flipper and Angie, there is nothing but sorrow.
And even then, the layers of intentions within Flipper and Angie are complex. Yes, Flipper may be curious about being with a White woman but for Angie, Flipper represents a way out of her dead end life in servitude to her Father and brothers...and in the end, she just may really have fallen in love with him. But by then, it is all too late, as people's reactions, obsessions and fury tear them apart.
Meanwhile, there is Flipper's brother Gator (a breakthrough Samuel L. Jackson), a crack addict and it is HIS storyline, which includes a bravura seven minute length sequence set to Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City," in which Flipper tracks him down into the voluminous crack den known as the Taj Mahal and then, his final, fatal confrontation with their parents, the Good Reverend Doctor (the late Ossie Davis) and his wife Lucinda (the late Ruby Dee), where Spike Lee proclaims is where we should REALLY direct our collective ire.
As people are riveted and distracted by color, the true destruction lies in the very thing that is given offhanded remarks and exceedingly less attention throughout. And it all culminates in the film's devastating final shot, which is Flipper's fever dream howl into the abyss. It is a film that left me shaken to the core and accented beautifully by Steve Wonder's "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land," his finest song since his 1970's winning streak.
Unforgettable and wrenching.
"GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI" (1999)
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY JIM JARMUSCH
A superbly mesmerizing film of deeply haunting poetry, existentialism, philosophy, graceful violence and wry social commentary of the real and imagined worlds of gangsters and samurai warriors.
This wholly unique film would be completely one-of-a-kind if it had
emerged from the cinematic mind of Jim Jarmusch...yet, as I still think
about this film, it feels to be the very type that could have ONLY
emerged from Jarmusch. Utilizing his trademark meandering and minimalist
style, Jarmusch weaves a hypnotic spell with his tale of Ghost Dog (a
tremendous Forest Whittaker), a New Jersey hitman who works as a
retainer for a local mobster and views himself as a samurai warrior,
religiously adhering to the "Hagakure," a spiritual guide book.
While the film's gangster plot finds Ghost Dog as a marked man by the Mafia. we view what could have been a cliche ridden experience through the completely innovative, unconventional and unpredictable viewpoint of Jarmusch who delivers an anti-hero who just may be mentally ill. communicates his business dealings solely through homing pigeons, is indeed a ruthless assassin and for the finest sequences in the film, the friendships he builds and holds with a French speaking ice cream man (Isaach De Bankole) and Pearline (Camille Winbush), a girl to whom he loans the book "Roshomon," relationships that signify the poignant truth of how we are sometimes able to completely understand when we have no idea of how to understand.
Fueled by a gritty and succulent score by The RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, "Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai," with its dream-like aesthetic merged with its hard nosed streetwise brutality allowed Jim Jarmusch to create a mobster/Japanese swordsman hybrid that truly insinuates itself underneath your skin with a meditative luxuriousness that remains unchallenged to this day.
While the film's gangster plot finds Ghost Dog as a marked man by the Mafia. we view what could have been a cliche ridden experience through the completely innovative, unconventional and unpredictable viewpoint of Jarmusch who delivers an anti-hero who just may be mentally ill. communicates his business dealings solely through homing pigeons, is indeed a ruthless assassin and for the finest sequences in the film, the friendships he builds and holds with a French speaking ice cream man (Isaach De Bankole) and Pearline (Camille Winbush), a girl to whom he loans the book "Roshomon," relationships that signify the poignant truth of how we are sometimes able to completely understand when we have no idea of how to understand.
Fueled by a gritty and succulent score by The RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, "Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai," with its dream-like aesthetic merged with its hard nosed streetwise brutality allowed Jim Jarmusch to create a mobster/Japanese swordsman hybrid that truly insinuates itself underneath your skin with a meditative luxuriousness that remains unchallenged to this day.
"DIE HARD" (1988)
Based upon the novel "Nothing Lasts Forever" by Roderick Thorp
WRITTEN BY JEB STUART & STEVEN E. de SOUZA
DIRECTED BY JOHN McTIERNAN When this film was first released--actually 30 years ago to this very day (July 15, 1988 to be exact)--I wanted nothing to do with it and it had everything to do with Bruce Willis.
In 1988, I really could not stand Bruce Willis. I was not a fan of him on television's "Moonlighting" and please do not get me started on his...ahem..."singing" career. But mostly, those first trailers and commercial made the film look as if it was going to be yet another self-serious Right Wing fantasy film of the sort that was horrifically prevalent during the 1980's (and without the high comical self-awareness of what Arnold Schwarzenegger was releasing). Yet, the reviews were generally good...good enough to sway me to see it one evening at Chicago's McClurg Court theater, and I was skeptical all the way in. How thrilled I was t be proven dramatically wrong.
John McTiernan's "Die Hard" remains one of the best action thrillers I have ever seen due to its commitment to character, story, performances and sensational cinematography over an endless barrage of mindless violence. And to my surprise, Bruce Willis as John McClaine, the everyman cop thrust into the extraordinary situation of those nasty Eastern European terrorists attempting a grand heist as they hold hostages--including McClaine's estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia)--inside of the Los Angeles skyscraper Nakatomi Plaza was just fantastic in the role.
Bruce Willis combined a working class stiff charm, street smarts, dry wit and an impressively non-superheroic quality that made the wild situations, fights, shootouts and rooftop explosions remained grounded as John McClaine was a hero who was vulnerable, frightened, and easily wounded (him being barefoot was a masterstroke and that shot of choosing hacked up feet on broken glass or certain death was a great moment). Add to that the brilliant relationship he created with Reginald VelJohnson as police Sgt. Al Powell, the one man on the outside of the building working in solidarity via walkie talkie.
And I would be remiss if I did not pay homage to the late, great Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, one of the movies' finest screen villains, a self described "exceptional thief" and then some, whose sinister style and charm made him seem like a python in human form, meticulously waiting for the precise moment to strike yet always the deadliest man in the room.
The action was relentlessly intense, supremely well staged and choreographed and filled with jump-out-your-seat-and applaud moments that makes summer movies great art as far as I am concerned. John McTeirnan's "Die Hard" is indeed a grand slam of a film that STILL holds up to this day.
HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY!!!
"MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI" (1979)
Based upon characters created by George Lucas, Gloria Katz & William Huyck
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GEORGE LUCAS
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY B.W.L. NORTON
Sometimes favorite movies can be the very films that really aren't that successful.
In this case, I turn to "More American Graffiti," the sequel to George Lucas' timeless, iconic and yes, innovative "American Graffiti" (1973). I first saw the film on television as a child, possibly on the NBC Monday night movie or something like that. Now with my inexplicable fascination with the events of the later 1960's, the movie was a draw for me and I was riveted to the screen from beginning to end (and even with the commercials) and especially remaining gobsmacked as I sat through all of the end credits which featured Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone"--incidentally, the very first time I had even heard of Dylan (I had to ask my Dad once I could get words out of my mouth..."What IS this?" I asked. "That's Bob Dylan!" he answered)
Now time has proven that this sequel is a far inferior film to Lucas' original. But it was no mere nostalgia trip as it took the innovations of the original film (the wall-to-wall soundtrack and moreso, the cross-cutting of multiple storylines and characters) and extended far beyond them, weaving a tapestry unlike anything I have seen in a film either before or since.
Utilizing the original film's jarring and even tragic epilogue as a base, B.W.L. Norton's "More American Graffiti" updates the stories of nearly all of the film's characters (Richard Dreyfuss sat this film out) on four consecutive New Year's Eves from 1964-1967, crosscutting between all of the years, making the film appear as if everything is occurring simultaneously when they were actually not. Yes, the wall-to-wall soundtrack and the voice of Wolfman Jack return as well but visually is where the film standouts supremely. To avoid any such confusion about time lines and such, each New Year's Eve is given a distinctive cinematic look.
So, Paul LeMat's drag racing John Milner and his sweet flirtation with a Swedish girl is featured in a sun drenched California tone, which is a great juxtaposition to a fact that the audience knows that he does not--this is the last day of his life. The nerdy Toad (Charles Martin Smith) and his misadventures in Vietnam (which includes the faking of his own death so he can desert) is filmed in a handheld newsreel footage style. The characters played by Ron Howard and Cindy Williams, now a miserable married couple, as Howard's boorish husband in unable to adjust to Williams' growing independence as a woman and how they each find themselves caught up in a wild campus protest is filmed in a more traditional style. And most audaciously, we have Candy Clark, now a San Francisco hippie and her adventures which is filmed in a glorious triple split screen evoking what we saw in Michael Wadleigh's brilliant "Woodstock" (1970) documentary.
As I said, I was mesmerized as a child and every time I have seen it since, even with its flaws (some underdeveloped characters and some flat moments here and there), I remain mesmerized as it is indeed a film of terrific energy augmented by high, forward thinking cinematic style from B.W.L. Norton, who was handpicked by George Lucas to create this film (although apparently Lucas was extremely hands-on as he edited the screenplay, the final film and even shot some of the Vietnam footage himself).
Kaleidoscopic, heartfelt, and again, extremely innovative, I still stand by B.W.L. Norton's "More American Graffiti" as a landmark movie experience in my life.
"JFK" (1991)
SCREENPLAY WRITTEN BY OLIVER STONE & ZACHARY SKLAR
DIRECTED BY OLIVER STONE
"We're through the long glass here, people. White is Black and Black is White."
-Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner)
It felt to be more than appropriate to feature this specific film at this specific time in our collective national and even world history as we have just experienced the sound and vision of the current President of the United States openly denouncing the country he has been elected to lead in favor of appeasing a national foe. It would be unthinkable but for this particular President, the unthinkable has become a new "through the looking glass" reality every single day. The longer it continues, we will only have ourselves to blame and yet, in some ways, we have already found ourselves in similar spots.
Oliver Stone's gargantuan "JFK," which follows the pursuit by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner in one of his finest performances) for the truth concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In a mammoth three hour film that is part detective story, part political thriller and part hallucinogenic fever dream, Stone, with his all star cast and cinematic wizardry that meticulously blends a variety of film stocks, B&W and color and jaw dropping editing, weaves a hypnotic, kaleidoscopic vision that places us in the maelstrom of political conspiracies within political conspiracies and the effect was exhilarating, exhausting and electrifying filmmaking and storytelling.
Yes, and despite the large box office success and industry awards, Oliver Stone took a beating with this film as historians charged him with grossly negligent historical discrepancies, charges I have long felt to be completely unfair due to the story he was telling and the message he was so passionately trying to convey.
For me, "JFK" is not designed to be a documentary or even necessarily a docudrama. This film is truly an impressionistic painting of Stone's own viewpoint of that specific period and what it meant and still means to him. And in doing so, Stone is essentially using his film to scream from a self-made pulpit, exclaiming that he does not believe the official Warren Commission report that claims that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and if there are those who feel the same, then we, as Americans, owe it to ourselves and our country to search for the truth.
Because, as I look at this piece of or nation's history and the preposterous of the Warren Commission report (really.."magic bullet," anyone?), I felt that Oliver Stone offered a provocative quandary for everyone watching the film, especially Americans. Enduring the assassination of a President is of course unthinkable. But how about enduring your own government conspiring against the very people who elected them to become public servants? When faced with the easy, identifiable monster (in this case, Oswald) against something that feels to be unfathomable and not tangible (a massive conspiracy by your nation's government), what would you believe? Or in this case, what have generations of Americans chosen to believe? Or better yet, what is EASIER to believe?
For that, combined with a Herculean filmmaking aesthetic, Oliver Stone's "JFK" is a masterful, titanic achievement.
"GHOSTBUSTERS" (1984)
WRITTEN BY DAN AYKROYD & HAROLD RAMIS
DIRECTED BY IVAN REITMAN
As I like to tell my younger friends, I am old enough to remember a time in which there was no such thing as "Ghostbusters." And once it entered the world, it was AWESOME!!!
Released in the summer of 1984 when I was 15 years old, Ivan Reitman's
"Ghostbusters" was the cinematic surprise I do not think that nearly
anyone was ready for but was resoundingly embraced as it really is a
near perfect film as well as being the full culmination of the OG
"Saturday Night Live " movies, which began with John Landis' "National
Lampoon's Animal House" (1978) and "The Blues Brothers" (1980) and
continued with Harold Ramis' "Caddyshack" (1980) and Reitman's
"Meatballs" (1979) and "Stripes" (1981).
Honestly, WHO KNEW that a big budget, special effects heavy comedy with elements of horror and starring that peerless wiseacre Bill Murray alongside his co-horts Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis would really amount to much. Even for me, who worshiped these comedic heroes, I had no clue as to what would be unleashed. The stars were in absolutely astonishing alignment as the final results were undeniably magical, so magical that even all of the main principals have really been unable to recapture what they harnessed in this original film ever again.
And really, in some ways, it really should not have worked at all. A story in which it is established that the paranormal and metaphysical are real and tangible and the scares are honest while having all manner of Tom Foolery at the core, striking that extremely tricky balance of having a laugh at the spooks and specters while also establishing the ghosts as real malevolent threats. To Murray's endless stream of brilliant and often ad-libbed one-liners flowing freely through a film where the apocalypse via a giant Marshmallow Man is imminent and with an insanely catchy theme song to boot?
"Ghostbusters" gave the world something so unique, so inventive, so out of the box and so downright joyous in its madhouse glee that all we could do was to be swept away by the cheerful audacity of the experience. And now, we are able to see this film as being fully representative of a time in which originality and creative risks were more embraced by Hollywood.
It may seem silly to those who just weren't there during its original release but "Ghostbusters" was just a beautiful time at the movies, where the level of entertainment could send you over the moon...laughing hysterically all the way.
Honestly, WHO KNEW that a big budget, special effects heavy comedy with elements of horror and starring that peerless wiseacre Bill Murray alongside his co-horts Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis would really amount to much. Even for me, who worshiped these comedic heroes, I had no clue as to what would be unleashed. The stars were in absolutely astonishing alignment as the final results were undeniably magical, so magical that even all of the main principals have really been unable to recapture what they harnessed in this original film ever again.
And really, in some ways, it really should not have worked at all. A story in which it is established that the paranormal and metaphysical are real and tangible and the scares are honest while having all manner of Tom Foolery at the core, striking that extremely tricky balance of having a laugh at the spooks and specters while also establishing the ghosts as real malevolent threats. To Murray's endless stream of brilliant and often ad-libbed one-liners flowing freely through a film where the apocalypse via a giant Marshmallow Man is imminent and with an insanely catchy theme song to boot?
"Ghostbusters" gave the world something so unique, so inventive, so out of the box and so downright joyous in its madhouse glee that all we could do was to be swept away by the cheerful audacity of the experience. And now, we are able to see this film as being fully representative of a time in which originality and creative risks were more embraced by Hollywood.
It may seem silly to those who just weren't there during its original release but "Ghostbusters" was just a beautiful time at the movies, where the level of entertainment could send you over the moon...laughing hysterically all the way.
"MONTY PYTHON'S THE MEANING OF LIFE" (1983)
WRITTEN BY GRAHAM CHAPMAN, JOHN CLEESE, TERRY GILLIAM, ERIC IDLE, TERRY JONES & MICHAEL PALIN
DIRECTED BY TERRY JONES
So, what is life but a morass of bodily functions...and fish.
Unlike the universally beloved "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) and what is considered to the very best Python effort with "Monty Python's Life Of Brian" (1979), the final film from Monty Python's Flying Circus is not nearly as adored but I do believe it was the most audacious, riskiest, innovative, inventive, nastiest, most surreal and possibly, the most faithful Python effort as it returned to the sketch format of their iconic television series to an often uproarious (and sometimes stomach churning) effect.
Accompanied by Terry Gilliam's bizarre, brilliant short feature "The Crimson Permanent Assurance," which actually invades the main feature at one point, "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life" is a series of sequences that are loosely structured by the film's titular theme which explores existence from birth to death with episodes devotes to war, sex, extravagant musical sequences, live organ transplants, disgusting amounts of gluttony, surrealist animated sequences, death inducing dinner parties (beware the dreaded salmon mousse), Heaven as conceived as a garish Las Vegas showcase, the anarchistic breaking of the fourth wall and other oddities that defy classification ("fishy, fishy, fishy...fish") yet congeal into an experience that has remained unforgettable.
By straddling the hilarious, the philosophical and the extremely profane, it is a film that may even deter Python devotees, let alone novices. I remember my Dad being decidedly confused and even alarmed by the film. "These British!!! They just take everything too far. I mean---WHY is any of this even funny?" he exclaimed after walking out from the Ford City movie theater.
And I could easily understand. Remember those bodily function? The Python's truly conceived of a quite grisly, messy film indeed as their vision of the life experience was a bounty of sperm, blood and vomit, so much so, that even I shielded my eyes during the horrific Mr. Creosote restaurant scene (even as I laughed myself sick). "Well..." I began in my best 14 year old budding Siskel & Ebert film enthusiast, "I think that everything is SO extreme and SO absurd that the ONLY reaction is laughter."
My Mom, however, had a completely different and entirely surprising reaction, especially as I figured she hated the entire thing from end to end. "I thought it was quite poignant."
And yes, it was.
Despite the brutal satire of a piece like "Every Sperm Is Sacred" and the puerile charm of "The Penis Song," we are also given what just may be Eric Idle's finest musical composition, "The Galaxy Song," an absolute marvel that deftly explains the Science and mysticism of the universe and existence itself in under three minutes. Additionally, the mayhem gives pause to a lovely animated moment in which a tree in autumn loses its leaves, each one falling to the ground while wailing a final cry before reaching the ground. Somehow, someway, a film this purposefully disjointed is richly, beautifully connected, allowing us to think about the course of our lives, and despite any interpersonal, cultural, racial and sexual differences, the existential trajectories are so very much the same.
Shortly before the release of the film, I saw a profile of the six man troupe on an episode of "20/20." As I watched, there was a portion in which the educational backgrounds of the Pythons were discussed--revealing that these were distinctly serious learned individuals. My Mom, who was grading homework at the time, looked up and said, "Well, that explains it. Those people have to be GENIUSES in order to be that ridiculous!"
Indeed.
"Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life" in unrepentant and unapologetic in the finest fashions and remains a testament to the superior talents of these peerless satirists, writers, and actors, all of whom were crucial in shaping my sense of humor but a certain altered yet perceptive way of viewing the world...bodily functions and all.
"BACK TO THE FUTURE" (1985)
WRITTEN BY BOB GALE & ROBERT ZEMECKIS
DIRECTED BY ROBERT ZEMECKIS
On the afternoon of July 3, 1985, I believed that I held the greatest secret in the world. Yet shortly thereafter, the world knew.
Yes indeed, on that summer's afternoon when I was 16 years old, I ventured to the Ford City movie theater to take in a screening of "Back To The Future," the latest production from Steven Spielberg and the follow-up directorial feature from Robert Zemeckis, who had previously helmed "Romancing The Stone" (1984). It was a film I really knew nothing about going into it other than Spielberg's pedigree and the fact that my man Michael J. Fox, who I LOVED from television's "Family Ties," was starring in his first major film role. And to that end, perhaps really nobody knew anything about it because maybe that (plus the impending 4th of July holiday weekend) was why there was absolutely NOBODY in that movie theater other than myself that afternoon. It felt like a private screening made just for me and once the film concluded, I was stunned that I was alone because again, for me, this was the movie of the year and eventually it would become the #1 highest grossing film of 1985 plus being a critical darling as well. But for that afternoon, knowing that no one else knew about it alongside me just made the day more special.
"Back To The Future" stars the outstanding Michael J. Fox as 16 year old Marty McFly, whose wholly unexplained yet completely believable best friendship with the town's local eccentric scientist Dr. Emmet "Doc" Brown (the wonderful Christopher Lloyd), lands him in a life altering, time shifting adventure via the Doc's improbable time machine--a modified DeLorean powered by stolen plutonium running at a speed of 88 miles per hour--in which he ends up 30 years in the past, circa 1955 and attending the same high school as his own parents, the gorgeous Lorainne Baines (Lea Thompson) and the nerdy, Science and Science-Fiction loving bookworm George McFly (Crispin Glover).
Yet, his accidental presence spoils Lorainne and George's first meeting, therefore altering the course of events that would eventually have the two teens falling in love at the school's Enchantment Under The Sea dance, which woud then ultimately erase Marty from existence. And so, it is up to Marty to sway the intense crush upon him courtesy from his own Mother-to-be towards the geek who would one day become his Father. But, then, there are other, even more perilous matters including the town bully/date rapist Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) to contend with and even moreso, somehow returning to 1985 without plutonium but by being in the right place at the right time to be hit by a bolt of lightning.
Robert Zemeckis' film is absolutely ingenious and through the excellent performances from the entire cast, his relentlessly inventive direction and the air-tight screenplay by himself and writing partner Bob Gale, "Back To The Future": was an instant film for the ages as it combined whimsy, edgy comedy, social satire, cultural commentary, action, suspense, an enormous heart, downright delirious romanticism and one surprise after another after another after another that never let up until the end credits hit the screen.
And yet, aside from the superior spectacle of the entire enterprise was the brilliant core of the piece: Would you or could you be friends with your own parents if you happened to be teenagers at the same time? Beyond that, the even greater time machine aspect of the film which was the impossible perspective of a teenager seeing his parents as they once were as the exact same life period: flawed, insecure, risky, reckless, nervous, anxious, and oh so, beautifully lovestruck.
It is truly rare to find movies that are so instantaneously outstanding on a variety of levels (let alone one that can spawn a trilogy as classy as this one) but "Back To The Future" indeed was that film, the one that came seemingly out of nowhere and the one I just wanted to tell EVERYBODY about....that is after I could hold onto it just for myself even for a short while.
"SHATTERED GLASS" (2003)
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY BILLY RAY
Sometimes, there are those movies that I will sit down and watch every single time I just happen to stumble upon it as it is so riveting and compulsively watchable. This is indeed one of those movies.
Billy Ray's "Shattered Glass" is a docudrama centered upon the actions
of Writer Stephen Glass, once the shining star reporter for The New
Republic during the 1990's, who, in actuality, fabricated 27 of the 41
stories he wrote, in part or entirely.
First things first, Hayden Christensen can act! Yes, the man took a beating for his portrayal of the doomed Anakin Skywalker in two of George Lucas' "Star Wars" prequels (as far as I am concerned, undeservedly so) but for this film, a real story set within an extremely real world, Christensen absolutely nailed the multi-layered levels of privilege, narcissism, utter cunning, unctuous neediness, undeniable magnetism and an unquestionably powerful ability for self-preservation and survival that enabled this journalistic figure to have gotten as far along as he actually did...especially given the journal's meticulous, exhaustive process for quality control and accuracy.
In turn, this was also the very first film in which I took serious notice of Peter Sarsgaard who portrays New Republic lead editor Charles "Chuck" Lane to riveting effect, making this film also function as a mystery thriller as Lane slowly pieces together Glass' journalistic and therefore, ethical fraudulence.
Billy Ray wisely never allows the film to fall into needless melodrama or hyperbole, always ensuring that the film flows with a quietly intense seriousness and an forthright agenda of just allowing the tale to be told as succinctly and as honestly as possible...much like the finest journalism. This is a cleanly direct.presentation that always finds me glued to the screen in full amazement that this situation actually happened.
Quite the contrary in our age of fake news, which now makes this excellent film serve as somewhat of a lament for what seems to be a (sort of) bygone era in writing, journalism and the reporting of the news.
Stay tuned for Part Two!!!
First things first, Hayden Christensen can act! Yes, the man took a beating for his portrayal of the doomed Anakin Skywalker in two of George Lucas' "Star Wars" prequels (as far as I am concerned, undeservedly so) but for this film, a real story set within an extremely real world, Christensen absolutely nailed the multi-layered levels of privilege, narcissism, utter cunning, unctuous neediness, undeniable magnetism and an unquestionably powerful ability for self-preservation and survival that enabled this journalistic figure to have gotten as far along as he actually did...especially given the journal's meticulous, exhaustive process for quality control and accuracy.
In turn, this was also the very first film in which I took serious notice of Peter Sarsgaard who portrays New Republic lead editor Charles "Chuck" Lane to riveting effect, making this film also function as a mystery thriller as Lane slowly pieces together Glass' journalistic and therefore, ethical fraudulence.
Billy Ray wisely never allows the film to fall into needless melodrama or hyperbole, always ensuring that the film flows with a quietly intense seriousness and an forthright agenda of just allowing the tale to be told as succinctly and as honestly as possible...much like the finest journalism. This is a cleanly direct.presentation that always finds me glued to the screen in full amazement that this situation actually happened.
Quite the contrary in our age of fake news, which now makes this excellent film serve as somewhat of a lament for what seems to be a (sort of) bygone era in writing, journalism and the reporting of the news.
Stay tuned for Part Two!!!
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