I could have sworn I'd written about this movie before. It seems impossible that I haven't. Well, caveats out of the way - I threw this on in honor of Back to the Future Day, but only to have something on in the background while I was working on some artwork. Usually, music serves that function, but I've seen "Back to the Future" enough times previously where it's not like I was going to miss anything. Also, anyone of my generation has probably seen this film enough times that it's kind of weird re-watching it, since every scene is drilled into our collective brains. And, as such, the movie goes by very, very quickly.
Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a teenager with teenager concerns; getting through high school, trying to get into the talent show, sneaking away for a "camping trip" with his girlfriend. He's also got a crazy-ass scientest buddy, Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), who may or may not resemble a character from "Rick & Morty." His family is pretty much straight out of "Repo Man." But Dr. Brown has an invention that requires some assistance from Marty, which leads to this:
Huey Lewis & the News - "Back in Time"
So here's my thing. It's impossible to say much about the movie. It made a zillion dollars. Everyone knows every line. I've been on the ride at Universal Studios a number of times. Is it my favorite movie ever made? Not really. But I like it. So does everyone. So everyone involved must've done something right. Is there anything at all that anyone involved could have jumped in a DeLorean to change, that would have made people remember it MORE fondly? That would have this film make even MORE money? Nah, I doubt it. It's not perfect, but it's definitely the right film for the right time that struck the right chord with audiences. "Back to the Future" is a broad, all-ages comedy that completely succeeds at that task, even if it occasionally deviates from my own personal tastes.
It's a lot easier to pick at the sequels than this film, because this has ascended from movie to pop culture touchstone. So lets just say that "Back to the Future" is pretty good, and you're likely not to regret the couple of hours that it'll take to watch it. Anything beyond that is wasted breath. So let's take a look at that sweet ride, and if I watch the sequels, I'll have a lot more to say about them.
"San Andreas" - 2015
Dir. by Brad Peyton - 1 hr. 54 min.
Official Trailer 2
by Clayton Hollifield
Once you've seen the trailer for "San Andreas" (and a lot of films like it), you pretty much know what to expect. Things are going to shake and blow up and end up in rubble (spoiler!), and someone's going to have to save their family (or loved one). What is up in the air is just how enjoyable the film will be. Guaranteed, no one is checking out "San Andreas" for the plot. The relevant questions are: are the special effects up to snuff, how much do I like the actors, and just how many boring parts are there going to be?
We're introduced to Ray (Dwayne Johnson) while he's piloting a helicopter for the fire department, tasked with saving the bacon of some girl who drove off the side of a hill while texting and driving, and is literally hanging off the side of a cliff. So he's pretty good at this sort of thing. He's also got a lot of hero baggage (an ex, a kid he's having trouble connecting with, some other dude banging his ex). Separately, Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) is a seismologist working at Cal Tech, and he's developed a way to predict earthquakes ahead of time. While field testing this with his co-worker, Kim (Will Yun Lee), a big 'un strikes, both wreaking havoc and confirming their predictive technology. And guess what? There's more big one's coming!
It's always nice when a disaster porn movie casts better than it needs to. It's the difference between "San Andreas" and "Sharknado"; the difference between Carla Gugino and Tara Reid. Obviously, you'd cast The Rock given the chance, and there's a good reason for that: he's awesome. And believable as an action star. But it's fun seeing Paul Giamatti in something that's not Oscar-bait. I always love watching Carla Gugino, even in things that don't necessarily require a ton out of her, because she usually adds to whatever she's in. And also, the storyline progeny of Johnson and Gugino (Alexandra Daddario) isn't hard to watch either (other than the story kind of makes you feel a little pervy for eyeballing her, but she first appears in a bikini, there are numerous lingering shots that invite you to get lost in her giant eyes, and she spends the bulk of the movie filling out a wet tank top. So stop baiting me!). This is part of the reason why:
Alexandra Daddario and co.
Onto the special effects, which were up to par. Many times, in these kinds of movies, the film will settle for destroying only Los Angeles, or only New York. But we get the bonus of watching the San Andreas Fault have it's way with both Los Angeles AND San Francisco! Buildings are destroyed, topple, submerged under water, people are shaken, set on fire, and washed away. And all of it looks cool. Part of that is that we get to see some of the destruction from Ray's chopper seat, which isn't necessarily a different angle to view carnage from, but gives a reason why we're in the sky to begin with. Just a little nod towards logic goes so, so far sometimes. And, this might be the only time you'll ever hear me say this, the resemblance towards video games actually helped things out. This is largely because Ray's character might as well be a superhero; he repeatedly scans a scenario, finds a way to make things go together, and then gets right to action. There is no hesitation, no fear, just him figuring out what to do, and then, improbably, making it happen over and over again. And that's pretty compelling!
And, thirdly, there aren't that many down parts. There's surprising effort put into rounding out the standard hero baggage into something that gives the characters depth. This is another area where just a little nod towards logic makes things so much better. Johnson and Gugino actually feel like they have a past and a connection (although that might just be Gugino being awesome again), and when the movie starts working on your tear ducts, it succeeds on the basis of their work.
Carla Gugino and some dude who's trying to cock-block The Rock.
All of this adds up to a fun couple of hours. It's probably not something that people will go back and watch years down the road (unless Daddario becomes a huge star, and this was an early work of hers), but you get to see two towns get wrecked for the price of one (and a vacation destination, too). You get Mr. Johnson doing what he does best (and stretching his acting muscles a little bit, too). You get to watch two beautiful actresses do a lot of jogging in tank tops (I'm not going to sit here and pretend that totally didn't happen, okay?). And it'll probably kick your stereo's ass when you sit at home crank this bad boy. If you want some loud, explosive, action hero entertainment, "San Andreas" will most certainly get the job done.
There's a lot of good material in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," but boy did it feel fresher on the heels of "Walk the Line." That's pretty fitting, because "Walk Hard" borrows a lot (and I mean a LOT) of plot points from Johnny Cash's life (and the rest from Ray Charles' life, which was the big music movie that preceded "Walk the Line"), and he was kind of a big deal. But it's also a very silly, very fun romp through all the rock 'n' roll cliches that we're all familiar with. It's just that the childhood trauma that haunts Dewey is that he accidentally halved his brother while play-fighting with machetes.
Whoops.
Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) is Johnny Cash a rock singer who came to prominence in the 1950s, with his hit "Walk Hard." Through his career, he hits every imaginable speed bump from "Behind the Music," from bigamy to drug abuse to losing his sense of smell. He meets his first wife, Edith (Kristen Wiig) when he's 14 and she's 12, and they leave home to chase Dewey's dream. And then there's a second wife, Darlene (Jenna Fischer), and she's a little more permanent. And basically, we work through the decades of Dewey's life until a late-career resurgence brings him back into the spotlight.
Any discussion of the positives of "Walk Hard" have to begin with the cast. John C. Reilly is funny. Make that really funny. He's such a goof that you kind of look forward to things falling apart over and over again so that his character will take his frustrations out on a sink somewhere. Both of Dewey's wives have found deserved success in the near-decade since this movie came out. The ghost of Dewey's brother is played by Jonah Hill. His band is comprised of Matt Besser (Upright Citizen's Brigade), Chris Parnell, and Tim Meadows. Even a one-off joke has Elvis Presley played by a hyper-active, karate-enthused, mumble-mouthed Jack White. The Beatles are played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jason Schwartzman. The cameo characters are played by people like Jane Lynch, Harold Ramis, and Craig Robinson. So the main thing to know is that if you've enjoyed pretty much any comedy movie in the last decade, you're going to recognize a lot of faces.
Secondly, the movie zips along. Part of the appeal of "Walk Hard" is that it's a comedy trip through rock 'n' roll, and since we're all pretty familiar with the tropes, there's not much need to establish jokes. We're on the same page before they even start talking, so the jokes come quickly, and the scenes don't overstay their welcome. The running gags are good, too, like Dewey's aforementioned targeting of sinks whenever things go awry, and Tim Meadows' "you don't want any of this shit" refrains.
Smoking reefers
On the whole, I enjoyed "Walk Hard." I enjoyed it when I watched it when it came out, and I enjoyed it this time, too. I don't have any real complaints about it; this movie is fun and quickly-paced. It doesn't aim very high, which probably keeps it from being great, but it's still really funny (particularly if you're versed in rock lore), and you'll see a ton of people you'll likely recognize. So go ahead, give it a whirl when you're bored and want some laughs.
Impossibly, these "Mission: Impossible" movies seem to keep getting better. To give a quick history of my viewership of these films, I was okay with the first, hated the second one so badly that I refused to see the third, watched the fourth only because it was Brad Bird's first live-action directorial job (and was very happy with that film), and was actually looking forward to this fifth installment. And this one delivers, at least as well as the fourth film did.
Once again, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back on the job, trying to get his next assignment. However, he's been identified by the enemy, an organization called "The Syndicate," and is captured in a typically elaborate manner. Meanwhile, Stateside, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) is tasked with defending Hunt's and the IMF's actions against accusations by the director of the CIA, Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin). Ultimately, the IMF is shuttered and folded into the CIA, and Hunt is on the official government shitlist, trying to solve the issue of the Syndicate without any official help.
So, let's get the big stuff out of the way. With films in this franchise, you know there's going to be at least a couple of spectacular, arm-rest-gripping scenes, and that they completely need to deliver. There are two (well, three, if you include the opening scene), and they come correct. The car chase is spectacular and wild, and there's an underwater scene that's just as gripping. So rest assured that you'll get your action fix. As far as the actors, they've eased into their respective roles. Especially so with Simon Pegg, whose exasperation with Cruise's character is a constant stream of amusement. He has a more prominent role this time around, and he's game.
Beyond that, the story does carry some intrigue. There are unexpected twists and turns, and the movie keeps you guessing all along, until you see exactly how things are going to play out. I mean, you know that everyone's up to something, and that the movie is essentially a series of reveals, and that's okay. That, along with the action pieces, are why you'd show up for a MI movie. That, and the girl, of course.
Someone get Rebecca Ferguson a towel!
Ilsa, played by Rebecca Ferguson, is up to the challenge of stringing along both Ethan Hunt and the leader of the Syndicate, and looking damned good while doing so. It's not a femme fatale situation; Ilsa has her own motives beyond romance (and there's not exactly a romance angle in MI5; there's the possibility, but Ethan always has other things on his mind). And, as the picture above shows, the nod to Ursula Andress in "Dr. No," albeit in evil black instead of white, was appreciated.
I don't have anything bad to say about MI5. I was looking forward to seeing this one, and it delivered. One might suggest that the complicated traps and the insane stunts stretch credibility, but that's exactly what you sign up for when you buy your ticket to a Mission: Impossible movie. So no complaining about that now. I was completely into the story, and the run-time flew by, and the twists and turns worked. "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" is maybe the best of the five movies (or at least even with the fourth installment). It used to be that sequels were an exercise in the degradation of a concept, but this franchise and the Fast & the Furious franchise prove that doesn't have to be the case.
"Spies Like Us" - 1985
Dir. by John Landis - 1 hr. 42 min.
Trailer
by Clayton Hollifield
It's impossible for me to give a fair review of "Spies Like Us"; this was one of my favorite movies growing up. So even though I'll try my hardest to present a decent look at it, ultimately I've already watched this movie dozens of times, and I'll probably end up watching it another dozen times before my days are over. To kick things off, a song:
Soulfinger
A pair of CIA wannabes, Emmett Fitz-Hume (Chevy Chase) and Austin Millbarge (Dan Aykroyd) get a last-minute opportunity to take a test that would turn them both from desk jockeys to actual field agents. Emmett is a classic BS artist (as most Chevy Chase characters are), and Austin is great with machinery and languages, but is languishing in a basement somewhere, doing someone else's work for them. The test goes poorly (!), but the CIA decide to put Emmett and Austin in the field as decoys, to draw attention away from the actual operatives and operation. Once they're air-dropped into Pakistan, they make their way to Afghanistan, all in the middle of the Cold War, trying not to get captured or killed along the way.
This film features a pretty prime performance by both Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. It's hard to think of a better Chevy Chase movie (maybe one of the first two "Vacation" films?), and Dan Aykroyd excels as the straight man to Chase's insincere motor-mouth character. It's almost impossible to overstate how much Aykroyd owned this time period; his run from "Blues Brothers" through "Ghostbusters" and "Spies Like Us" is a stretch that most comedians would be envious of. This duo is enough to justify the film, even if it's a little like "Stripes," minus any Bill Murray pep talks. The story is good enough - it's a series of settings in which Chase and Aykroyd get to ply their craft, and is no more or less complicated than it needs to be.
One word scene.
So what's the downside to "Spies Like Us?" Is there a downside to "Spies Like Us?" Not really. Yeah, it's an '80s comedy, and plays like one, but it's one of the better examples that kind of film. You might not be partial to Chevy Chase, but this is one of his best roles. And if you don't like Dan Aykroyd, you should probably go ahead and kick yourself in the crotch. Get help if you need, but definitely get that done. There are a number of great (!) scenes, like the doctor scene, or the test-taking scene, and everything moves pretty quickly aside from that. There aren't any lulls in the movie, just set-ups and pay-offs, and it works well.
Like I said before, I've seen this film a ton of times, and I'll surely watch it another ton of times. While all the other kids were watching Disney films, this is exactly what I grew up on. It's cinematic comfort food. I completely accept that your mileage might vary, but I'll probably judge you harshly if you disagree with me. So let's just leave it at that. I like "Spies Like Us." You might too. I hope you do, so that I don't have to dislike you.
Perhaps the faintest praise you can damn a project with is to dub it "for fans only." "The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled," I dub thee. There's a lot of reasons for that, perhaps the biggest being that it took me two sittings to get through the film, and then I forgot to write about it for another week after that. Clearly, that meant that I was not particularly compelled by the material, even if it was good enough to get through. And it was that. But your enjoyment is going to be determined by how much you love Doug Benson almost entirely.
"The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled" is a documentary of a tour headlined by Doug Benson, supported by Graham Elwood. It's a mix of travelogue (sort of) and performance material, and Doug smoking weed out of apples. There's not really a point to any of it, nothing important happens other than that they get through the tour, and no one stuck around to smoke with Doug in Des Moines. But that's about the worst thing that happens in the film. This is a very low stakes movie.
On the positive side, this film exists. Benson and Co. set out to document a tour through the heartland of the United States, and they were able to accomplish that (and apparently fund it through the concerts). The crowds seemed to be into the shows, and that's always good. Beyond that, there's not a lot to tie the material together. There's a fundamental issue with comedians that their personalities aren't usually radically different from their stage personae. There's no layers to peel back, because the peeling of layers usually occurs on-stage. So, the footage of Benson and Elwood travelling aren't really relevatory, because they're just less refined versions of what you see on-stage. This isn't like with musicians, who frequently craft an image of themselves that isn't perfectly in line with their actual personalities.
But also, nothing really happens in the movie. There's no focus on the locations being of interest (which is probably exactly how you'd view an endless parade of cities you were performing in), there's nothing to overcome (or if there was, it wasn't included). There aren't even a ton of interesting personalities in the film, and you'd expect some of that. There's just performance, travel, and Doug seasoning apples with his own herbal blend of spices. That's super cool if you're a big Doug Benson fan. I'm enough of a fan to have watched a stand-up special of his, and "Super High Me," and now this. "The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled" is definitely the weakest of the batch, but it's still watchable. Yes, it's pointless and directionless, but that's at least part of the appeal of Benson himself.
So if you're a fan, dig in. If not, try "Super High Me" first.
"Hackers" - 1995
Dir. by Iain Softley - 1 hr. 47 min.
Trailer
by Clayton Hollifield
"Hackers" is a really weird movie. That's probably the best thing it's got going for it. It's really weird, it's a movie about a despised subculture, it doesn't even bother apologizing for that either. At the time it came out, it didn't really have any stars in it (obviously Angelina Jolie blew the f up over time, and you can see why here, but some of the other actors have had decent careers as well), and movies could kind of tell where things were going with the entire "internet" thing, but nobody had a good idea of exactly what it was going to look like. In fact, the "internet" at the time was pretty much the province of college students and government employees. This is a pre-AOL free disk movie. It's pre- everything that we all take for granted as part of our daily lives now, but it was trying to look forward a few years.
Hackers
Dade Murphy (Johnny Lee Miller) is a child prodigy at hacking, to the degree that he gets in a significant amount of legal trouble for messing with the stock market, and is banned from things like using touch-tone phones (Google it, youngster) until his 18th birthday. Fast forward to his senior year of high school, and he and his mother are forced to move from Seattle to NYC, and he's got to fit into a new school. Dade, or Zero Cool as he was once known, celebrates his 18th birthday by pulling an all-nighter and taking over a TV channel, before getting booted out of the system by another hacker named Acid Burn. Meanwhile, at the school, he gets jerked around by a super-confident girl named Kate (Angelina Jolie), and some of the other hackers take note of his skills. One of the low-level hackers, chain-smoking Joey (Jesse Bradford), breaks into a Gibson (Google it) and copies some garbage files, which contain proof of a worm (Google it) being used to scam a giant oil company out of a royal buttload of cash. This also brings the attention of The Plague (Fisher Stevens), the oil company's hired hacker goon, who sets out to frame this batch of teenaged hackers for what will be a fairly significant crime.
Yes, "Hackers" 100% looks like a film from 1995. There's no getting around it, but it's a fairly decent representation (visually) of the time and subculture. But, to director Iain Softley's credit, he gives zero fucks about trying to represent what the actual world looked like at the time. Everything is weird and custom and computery and neon and on wheels. The batch of good guys rollerblade everywhere (which, thanks to the WTF interview with Josh Homme from a couple of years ago, is called "fruitbooting" in my head whenever I see it). Even The Plague, middle-aged corporate hacker hoe, is first seen skateboarding into screen. He even skateboards during a hand-off!
Mine!
Everyone in the movie dresses like there are no mirrors in this universe, which is why you just have to accept Matthew Lillard in pigtails, or Angelina Jolie's weird white leather biker outfit. Basically, what you need to understand is that people dress here like Tank Girl, if Tank Girl lived in New York City. And then there's the visual representation of hacking. This film might have the best approach I've seen from this era; there are scenes of microchips as cities, everyone's hacker stuff is on the level of a 13 year old's aesthetic, and whenever anyone hacks into anything, they start tripping balls (if LSD caused mathematical equations and lines of code to swirl around one's head).
Dade is so high right now.
In fact, the best thing about "Hackers" is the director's insistence on visualizing anything that could potentially be boring. Sure, the actors always look interested and involved instead of having that dead-eyed, slack-jawed, lightly-drooling look that comes from staring at a screen for hours, but this is a visually interesting (if dated) film, when it could have been about beige boxes and the consumption of Jolt Cola (Google it). And there are no apologies for that, either. There were no stars here, no one in the real world was going to sympathize with hackers because they were the scourge of the ongoing computerized revolution, so this film goes for broke over and over again on the visuals. Nonetheless, this gets a little closer to the heart of the movement than anyone should have expected from a Hollywood film, and gives credence to the concerns of the kids involved.
"Hackers" pays more than lip service to the idea that the kids are going to be fine; The Plague is a semi-skilled sell-out (Google it), and his speeches about being cowboys with no loyalties don't resonate with the hacker crew; kids that fruitboot together stay together. Even when the fix is in, they stay on point and get done what needs to get done, both to preserve their own freedom and to keep deliberate sabotage for profit from being the order of the day. Even if some of the technobabble doesn't make any sense, and the visual metaphors aren't necessarily dead-on, they're still interesting enough not to lose me as a viewer. And the idea that the government is clueless and manipulable resonates super hard. And, if you needed another reason to check this out, Angelina Jolie. This was a decent role for her, but it's also immediately clear that she's kind of too good for weird teenager movies about computer dorks with braids, but boy was I glad she was there.
