Reviews

You know the music. We all know the music. But do you know the man? "Music by John Williams" endeavors to tell that story. Does it succeed? Kinda.

"Music by John Williams" is somehow both overindulgent and thimble deep. Playing like a patchwork of DVD extra features, it ultimately becomes a nearly two hour gush-fest about the undeniable greatness of Williams and the cultural impact of his iconic work. As a lifelong fan of his, I've heard many of the anecdotes repeated here multiple times before. And as for the man himself, I didn't walk away from this feeling as if I had a deeper understanding of him, which seemed to be at least half the point of it all.

In my opinion, John Williams is not only the greatest film composer of all-time, I'd argue he's the most important musical figure of the 20th century. No artist--not The Beetles, Elvis or Michael Jackson--moved souls and ignited imaginations the way Williams and his music have. The movies of Lucas, Spielberg and others simply don't work without his genius. They may be the engine, but Williams is the fuel.

If you love the music of John Williams, you'll no doubt be moved by the well worn anecdotes here. Not unlike when you get together with old friends and recount the same stories you've heard time and time again.

How do you review a movie like this one? Obviously it's not "good" in the traditional sense of the word, so you have to judge it based on a scale of "So bad it's good", and on that metric "New York Ninja" is only a bit above average.

I grew up as a kid during the Ninja craze of the 1980's, so I've seen my share of cheesy martial arts revenge flicks. Most of them were actually approaching the material seriously. The cheese came as a result of poor production values, a lack of talent behind the scenes and the general silliness of the genre itself. With "New York Ninja", I initially couldn't tell if it was trying to be silly on purpose or if the above criteria was just turned up to a ten. Some research provided the answer for me.

If you know anything about the history of the movie, you know that it sat incomplete in a warehouse for nearly forty years before a company called Vinegar Syndrome acquired the rights and finished it. It would be easy to assume that they intentionally turned up the goofiness to help sell it as a comedic cult classic, but they insist that they were attempting to be true to the spirit of the original filmmaker's vision and took the completion of "New York Ninja" sincerely. If that is indeed the case, the result here was the original production team and by proxy Vinegar Syndrome trying to make a "serious" martial arts action movie. In that they failed spectacularly, but not spectacularly enough to make this movie the cult classic Vinegar Syndrome aspired it to be.

...it kinda sucks. It's not "bad" bad, but unfortunately it's not "so bad that it's good" bad, which would at least redeem it a little. It's just blah. Blah! Blah, blah! Okay, enough of the vampire humor.

The script--written by Joss Wheedon but apparently altered to the point that he disowned it and later turned the premise into a popular television series--is witless and the directing is lazy and uninspired.

About the only saving grace here is the cast. Donald Sutherland and Rutger Hauer class things up with performances that never belie the fact that they're only there for the check, and Paul Reubens and David Arquette are a lot of fun in supporting roles. But the real surprise was Kristy Swanson as Buffy and Luke "90210" Perry as Pike. They're likable and charming and I found it easy to root for them. Something you can't say about many modern protagonists.

If you're a 90's kid, nostalgia grease may coat your gears enough to enjoy your return to the era of Lollapalooza and Zubaz pants, but for others your mileage will definitely vary.

Every sin this movie commits is forgivable save one; It's just not any fun. The characters, particularly Glen Powell's raucous band of hillbilly storm chasers, certainly try and fool you into thinking that you're having a good time, but you aren't. Or at least I wasn't.

Stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and the aforementioned Powell have the chemistry of oil and water and their "romance" is about as predictable as the tornadoes are in this movie (another problem, but I digress). Edgar-Jones is likable enough, handling the girl next door flashback stuff capably, but she lacks the gravitas to make you believe that she's some highfalutin weather scientist. At least the story doesn't turn her into the stereotypical girl boss that has grown so tiresome the last few years. And Powell is... well, he's Hangman. Dude has the range of a spitball. Again, he's likable enough, but that doesn't make him interesting to watch.

The science is dubious. And I don't care. The characters are one note and generic. Again, I don't care. There are no surprises whatsoever. Nope, don't care. What I do care about is that a film like this has one job, and that's to be fun, or least diverting. 'Twisters' is neither.

Jason Statham is the McDonald's of actors. He's not very nutritious and rarely fresh, but he's tasty. Oh, and his shake machine is never broken. He makes the kind of movies that Hollywood at large just refuses to these days. Either because they're obsessed with IP's (that are increasingly losing big money by the way) or because they feel that they're too "masculine". Why try and appeal to the latter? They only make up half of the world's population. It's no wonder why you're losing your audience to video games. Anyway...

"The Beekeeper" is pure Statham. It's absurd if you think about it too much, but you don't watch a movie like this to think, and that's perfectly okay. It's fun. Remember when that wasn't taboo?

Ever since the massive success of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', Hollywood has seemed intent on trying to mine old fashioned pulp adventure gold. Most have failed--including Indiana Jones himself of late. But while 'The Mummy' and 'The Mask of Zorro' found success, films like 'The Rocketeer', 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', 'Flash Gordon' and 'The Shadow' failed to find an audience and ended up on the ash heap of forgotten films. With that kind of track record, did 'John Carter' even stand a chance? It turned out that the answer was "no".

I love this genre. Love it. Many of the films listed above are in my personal top-20. A couple are in my top-10. So when I went to see this back in '12, I was pretty excited. I hadn't read the novel then, but this felt like something that was totally in my wheelhouse. But... meh. So, disappointed, I left the theater and John Carter stayed on Barsoom. Until now.

It took revisiting many of those other pulp "failures" to truly appreciate them, so I decided to finally return to Mars with the title character. And... meh. It turns out I just don't love this movie like I'd hoped I would.

To be sure, 'John Carter' looks incredible. How this didn't even get an f/x Oscar nod is mind-blowing. And the score, while generic, certainly evokes the genre in its very DNA. But at two hours it's way too long, dull despite tons of action and the cast is bland and detached, as many such casts are when they're only there for the check. To be fair, star Taylor Kitsch does at least try, but he's woefully miscast.

I'm sad to say that this revisit did nothing to change my opinion about 'John Carter'. It took two re-watches and nearly twenty years to discover my love for 'Sky Captain', so maybe I'll come back here in another decade or so and try again.

Like the first film of this two part adaptation of Frank Hebert's sci-fi classic, 'Dune: Part Two' was a very mixed bag for me. On a technical level it's brilliant. Easily one of the best looking films of this century. If nothing else, director Denis Villeneuve sure knows how to shoot a movie. I just wish he were better at telling a story.

His 'Blade Runner 2049' was also gorgeous, but it suffered from being cold, soulless and without any real sense of purpose. Unlike the latter, 'Dune: Part Two' has a purpose (thanks to whatever is left here from Frank Herbert's vision), but it also lacks any semblance of emotion or genuine humanity. It somehow manages to be both epic and flat. Quite a feat, but not one to be proud of.

The film is also tragically miscast. Timothée Chalamet finally starts to rise to the occasion in fits and starts once he becomes "the one", but everyone besides Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem are just dreadful. Enough can't be said about how awful Zendaya is here. Even in her wheelhouse she has the range of a spitball, but she's in way, way over her skis on this one. And don't get me started on Christopher Walken as the Emperor. Christopher Walken?! Are you kidding me! This needed an actor with some gravitas and regality. Walken feels far too contemporary for this sort of thing.

Look, 'Dune' is my favorite novel of all-time, and my cool reaction to the first part of this adaptation is why it took me nearly six months to watch this. It's not the changes that bother me, save for the ending with Chani, which is an unforgivable sin in my opinion. It's that this whole thing ends up feeling like a pretentious, preening bore instead of the grand spectacle space opera it should have been.

If you get the reference in my title, we can be friends.

Megaforce is simultaneously a very bad film and also a very fun movie (there's a difference between a film and a movie btw). The two aren't mutually exclusive; or at least they didn't used to be. You see in the 80s we were far less lactose intolerant. In fact, we liked our cheese and often asked for seconds. And make no mistake, there's plenty of cheese here and then some. But that's half of what makes it so charming.

So, you may ask, what works? The production values are very good. There are dozens of the various Megaforce vehicles and their HQ is impressively rendered. The action is well staged and occasionally epic, the score is great (as is the theme song by AOR rock legends 707) and the performances are energetic and charming. What doesn't work...

The blue screen stuff is legendarily awful. Probably the worst that I've ever seen. The villain doesn't get nearly enough screen time, and he's about as threatening as a neutered house cat. And besides Barry Bostwick's Ace Hunter, only one other Megaforce member really gets to be a character (Dallas, a charming good 'ol boy played by Michael Beck). All the rest are glorified extras. But as you can see, nothing fatal.

Sure, the geopolitics here make zero sense. But who cares? The entire thing takes place in some nebulous desert environment that's apparently supposed to be several different places. So what? There's exactly one woman in the cast. Oh well. Abandon logic all ye who enter. It's fun and that's enough.

"The MCU hasn't been any good since 'Endgame' blah, blah, blah.". How many times have we heard and/or said that over the last five years? I've lost count. Heck, there are Youtube channels that have based their entire existence on it. To be honest that drumbeat has gotten a little tiresome, even if it is completely true. So I'm pleased to say that Marvel finally has a winner. But is it a fluke? A bandaid on a mortal wound. Maybe. Probably.

You see 'Deadpool & Wolverine' succeeds by largely turning all of the played out MCU conventions on their collective heads. Kudos to Disney for having the courage and foresight to let Ryan Reynolds and his team do it, but there's little evidence that this will be the new template.

But all of that conjecture can wait. Here and now is 'Deadpool & Wolverine', a fun (and relentless), witty (but overstuffed), fresh (yet somehow still contrived) bit of steroid-infused fan service.

Is it a classic? Nah. Something I can envision ever watching again? Probably not. But this is just the sort of thing that the once powerful Marvel juggernaut (no, not *that* Juggernaut) needed.

Sometimes you don't realize that you missed something until it returns. For me, that thing was fun. More specifically, fun movies.

There was a time, not so long ago, that going to the movies held the promise of a good time. Sure it was hit or miss, but generally speaking the discerning fan could sniff out the crap and escape the stress of the real world for two hours or so. Today, however, fun seems to be a four letter word to the geniuses in Hollywood. There are reasons for this. Reasons that are mostly of a socio-political nature that I won't expand on here, but the point is that after a decade or so of rising ticket prices and diminishing returns, I think that the audience is craving the return of the "f" word. That's why it's such a shame that "The Fall Guy" wasn't a bigger hit.

Make no mistake, "The Fall Guy" isn't a classic. It's probably not even a movie that most people are likely to ever revisit. But it's a seriously entertaining movie with laugh out loud humor and great action that is also far more clever than it appears to be on the surface. And there are no agendas or people dressed in spandex costumes. That alone makes this a movie worth checking out.

"The Fall Guy" is a good time and nothing more, and that's okay.

M. Night Shyamalan is a very polarizing writer/director. Even at his best his style isn't for everyone, and 2004's "The Village" represents everything that his critics hate and that his fans love.

Naturally there's a twist. It's his calling card. But never has the dramatic success of his films ever been so dependent on whether or not the one here "works" for you. For me it did, but that's not to say that it didn't come with some concessions. Chief among them is that you just can't try and analyze the logic here. At all.

Whatever you may think of Shyamalan, he's a very good director on a technical level. He does an excellent job of creating a mood and quietly pulling you into the world he's creating. Here he's in top form, and he's aided by strong performances from his cast. In particular Bryce Dallas Howard, who carries the movie. I contend that she'd have gotten an Oscar nomination in a more "serious" film.

I've always believed that "Unbreakable" was Shyamalan's best movie, but "Signs" had always been my favorite. It'd been years, probably since it was first released, that I'd watched "The village". Having had a few hours to digest it I think that I might be willing to put it alongside "Signs" as my favorite. It's a movie about a return to a simpler life that resonates even more in this rather crazy world of 2024 than it did 20 years ago. And it's just really good... if you can set aside the plot holes.

Look, my favorite movie of all-time is about a kid who travels to a planet to train with a space frog (see if you can guess the movie), so suspending disbelief is something that I've never had a problem with. All movies are fake, even the so-called serious ones. So if you can buy "The Godfather" and "Citizen Kane", there's no reason why you can't just escape into movies like "The Village" as well.

Mission: Impossible is an odd franchise. For one, it's nearly 30 years old and features the same actor in the lead. During that same time 'Batman' has been rebooted three times and is on its fourth actor. The other oddity is that it's continued to get better.

Typically long running franchises begin to fizzle out and end on a whimper. Not M:I. Most people agree that part two was the worst of the series, that part three was a decent course correction and that four was a solid step forward (for the record I don't care much for either of them ). But things really began to take off when writer/director Christopher McQuarrie came on board.

Suddenly there was some continuity and it began to feel like a "cinematic universe". Ethan Hunt, who heretofore had no real discernible personality, started to feel like an actual person and a cast of regulars began to fill in around him. But if all of that was the tinder then the match was the action. In short; no franchise going does it better than M:I, and that is certainly on display here. It's not just that it's frequent, which far too many action movies mistake for being good, it's that it's fun, creative and expertly executed.

Despite being in his 60s now, Tom Cruise is once again in fine form, embarrassing action stars half his age. The rest of his crew are solid as always, and the new actors and their characters are all good additions.

'Dead Reckoning' isn't a perfect movie. For one, it's just too long. Believe me, it's no slog, but I can't believe that there's not a better film in here with ten to fifteen minutes trimmed. The MacGuffin is also a bit generic and redundant. But these things do not diminish the fun and white-knuckle thrills of this movie and saga which should serve as a blueprint for Hollywood.

I currently rank the films in order from best to worst: 6, 7, 5, 1, 4, 3 and 2.

I love Indiana Jones. 'Raiders' and 'Crusade' are in my personal top-five favorite movies of all time. The latter was a perfect send-off for the character and the saga. I certainly yearned for more Indy adventures, but I knew that there were likely going to be diminishing returns from that point forward. And I was right.

'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' is a very mediocre action-adventure film, and a really bad Indiana Jones movie. Spielberg was clearly checked out at that point and the whole effort felt like an obligation as a result. It seemed destined (no pun intended) to be the disappointing capper on the legendary saga. That was until 'Dial of Destiny' said "Hold my bullwhip.".

The opening is moderately fun. The CGI looks pretty sketchy, and the deepfake Indy technology veers from "Wow" to "Yikes" within a few frames of each other, but it manages to evoke some of that classic Indiana Jones feel. Unfortunately it doesn't last.

When we flash forward to the "Present day", the whole thing begins to unravel. There are a lot of reasons why, but chief among them is Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Words can't describe how irritating and unlikable her character is. Her Helena Shaw was clearly being set up to take Indy's place, and thus she shoves him aside and takes center stage in HIS movie. That would be unforgivable in a good movie, which this is not.

I hate to beat a dead horse with this one. I waited a year to even watch this because I knew it was going to be bad. I'd started to wonder if I'd ever summon up the courage to finally give in. Tonight I did, and alas I was right.

But like Disney's abhorrent handling of the 'Star Wars' saga, the failure of 'Destiny' cannot retroactively taint the original Indiana Jones trilogy. And in fact I came away here appreciating those classics that much more.

I seriously doubt anyone who stumbled upon this really needs me to tell them why they should watch "Gladiator". So instead I'll just use my 600 required characters to lament the state of current Hollywood and the death of films like this one.

Despite its incredible success, "Gladiator" sort of represents the end of an era. Soon after its release the age of the comic book film would take over Hollywood and epics like this one would be cast aside as originality and creativity were replaced by a cookie cutter assembly line filled with brands and I. P.'s.

There's also the matter of the cultural shift that has taken place over the last quarter century. Not with society at large necessarily, but certainly within Hollywood. Terms like "Toxic Masculinity" are often thrown around to describe anything that even remotely involves men behaving like, well, men. Therefore contemporary portrayals of men are often neutered, rendering them as either soft and weak or big and dumb.

But as super hero/comic book burnout combined with companies like Disney gnawing every scrap of meat off of the bones of their once mighty brands, I believe that audiences are quietly thirsting for the return of films like "Gladiator". Big. Epic. And yes, masculine.

Sometimes we don't know what we need until we find it, and I hope that some producer or director out there has the foresight, talent and drive to fill this vacuum before movies are shoved aside by video games for good.

You've probably noticed that the world doesn't make a lot of sense right now. Maybe that's why we've been getting so many so-called "Nostalgia bait" movies the last few years. The return of a beloved character or franchise is a bit of comfort food that takes us back to a moment or a time when things were (or seemed) a bit simpler. It could also just be that Hollywood has forgotten how to make good, original content. I'm betting it's a bit of both.

Most of these "I'm/we're back!" projects have been, at best, mid (I'm looking at you "Ghostbusters"). So my expectations for "Axel F" were pretty low. I'm pleased to say that nostalgia and member berries aside, it's a pretty fun movie on its own,

Make no mistake, nostalgia greases its gears at times, and there's precious little here that's fresh or inspired, but it's an agenda-free movie that only seeks to entertain. Remember those?

2004's "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a film inspired by a genre that had been out of fashion for nearly half a century. Kids thought that it was corny and older folks who grew up with the kind of pulp adventure serials that inspired it were likely unaware that it even existed. Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers just shrugged and moved on. But I contend that it deserved a better fate and that the time is right for it to have a re-evaluation.

The throwback adventure genre was kicked-off in 1981 by "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Unfortunately it and the other Indiana Jones films are about the only ones who really succeeded (1999's "The Mummy" notwithstanding). Movies like 1991's "The Rocketeer", 1995's "The Shadow" and 1996's "The Phantom" absolutely nailed the look and spirit of those old-time serials, yet they failed at the box-office and were largely forgotten. In recent years however they've all developed a cult following and are now regarded as highly underrated and even classics (certainly "The Rocketeer"). I think the time is long overdue for "Sky Captain" to receive the same treatment.

"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a dazzling and inventive film filled with great performances, witty dialog and featuring a great score. It' also just a lot of fun, and I think we could all agree that we could use a bit more of that from our movies today.

"The Invisible Monster" is a pretty lean episode. It's just the Quest team and the titular monster for all save the obligatory mad (but well meaning) scientist in the prologue. To be honest it could've used a main human baddie and a few thinly veiled stereotyped toadies to spice things up a bit.

The generic jungle island locale doesn't offer the most exciting palette for our heroes to operate in, and the boilerplate story is as bland as it gets. Despite a VTOL jet plane, rocket packs and an energy monster, there's really not a whole lot of fun to be had in the very middling "The Invisible Monster".

More often than not, pop culture and entertainment are disposable. Yesterday's news before today is even over. But some things stand the test of time. "The Dark Knight" is one of those things.

For the last quarter century, Hollywood has flooded the market with "comic book" movies. The two biggest IP's are obviously Marvel and DC, and Marvel has won that battle handily. Their so-called cinematic universe is (or at least was) a well-engineered juggernaut. It had its clunkers, but the overall world building was immersive and impressive. It was also soulless and bland.

DC, on the other hand, never could get its act together. Their attempt to copy the MCU blueprint was an utter disaster. Cold and disjointed, it never felt like it knew where it was going. The DCEU was so busy trying to play catch-up that it forgot to come up with a plan.

But before this clash of the comic book titans began, Christopher Nolan began his "Dark Knight Trilogy". Given the artistic freedom to make actual films and not to try and copy Marvel's dumbed down, CGI-riddled shenanigans, he and his team made a saga that will live long after the many genre films that followed have faded into the white noise of our pop culture consciousness.

What else can be said about "The Dark Knight" that hasn't been said already? It's not just the best "comic book movie" of all-time. It's one of the best FILMS of all-time.

The Marvel brand used to be the standard bearer. Today it's on the verge of needing a pallbearer. After a decade spent meticulously building a cohesive cinematic world, Disney released "Avengers End Game". It's a bit bloated, as you might expect for a story that had to tie together a nearly infinite number of plot and character threads, but it triumphantly sticks the landing on the so-called Infinity Saga and brings to a close one of cinema's grandest experiments.

In the five years since "End Game", Disney has lost sight of what made their Marvel brand so successful in the first place. Sure, the over-saturation of the superhero/comic book genre hasn't helped. I get the sense that the genre, like the Roman Empire before it, is in its last days. But if Disney wants to recapture their momentum, they need to rediscover their purpose and return to what made the MCU great in the first place. And they need look no further than the first "Avengers"

Well written, expertly made and featuring excellent performances by all of the major actors, it remains the gold standard for the MCU, and the blueprint for how Disney can stop the rotting decay of their brand and return it to its former glory.

Oh, and this goes for Star Wars, too.

In 1999, I walked out of the Phantom Menace in a bit of a daze. It didn't seem real. After 16 years of dreaming about a new SW film, it was finally here... and I didn't think that it was very good. It had its moments to be sure, but the bad far outweighed the good for me.

Naturally I revisited it over the years, but my opinion never changed. But having been dragged by some friends to see it for its 25th anniversary/May the 4th release, I gained a somewhat new appreciation for the film as a whole, and a few things specifically.

Let's start with what still doesn't work.

• Jar Jar. Enough said about that.

• The Gungans in general.

• The Neimoidians and their comical battle droids.

• Natalie Portman's stilted performances as both handmaiden and queen.

• A very dull first act paired with a protracted second one.

• A pretty generic and forgettable score by John Williams beyond the iconic "Duel of the Fates".

• Massive plot holes.

Now for what I came to appreciate with this new viewing

• Jake Lloyd isn't bad in this film. In fact, he's pretty darn good. Oh there are a few bumps here and there, but he does a very solid job as young Anakin. He runs circles around Portman, that's for sure.

• It's a well made film. It looks great. The location work is good, helping the whole thing to feel more tactile than the two prequel-sequels to come. And it's skillfully directed by George Lucas, who shows some flair and solid instincts.

• The dialog isn't nearly as bad as I remembered. Yeah, the formalities and exposition are a bit stiff, but there are several memorable lines here.

• As much as I hate CGI, the f/x stand up remarkably well. In fact, a lot of it is light-years ahead of many contemporary films. The Pod Race and the final space battle are especially impressive.

Overall, the Phantom Menace is a better movie than I gave it credit for these last 25 years. I can't say that I'm itching to revisit it anytime soon, but when I do eventually get around to watching it again, it will be with more enthusiasm than I had going in this time.