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Overall a good movie, but a poor sci-fi movie.

The story, the characters, the acting, all good.

The production is excellent. But it's a double-edged sword; there isn't enough of it. Good sci-fi needs a minimum level of worldbuilding and Enemy Mine doesn't reach the bar for me.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 12:16 PM on June 18, 2024

I understand why many think TRS the movie didn't do Gus justice. But I never came away thinking the movie was condemning him. The movie does have god-Yeager defend him afterall.

TRS isn't a favorite. But it is a movie I will always watch if I come across it on TV.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 7:57 PM on June 5, 2024

The part where Kimball confronts Zack's dad and then has to go to the principal's office is the movie for me. Schwarzenegger socking an abuser in the gut is wish fulfillment for a lot of people. And then Arnold and Linda Hunt have a great scene. Physically imposing Arnold is excellent playing subordinate and respectful while there is no doubt physically diminutive Linda's character is in command.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 3:57 PM on May 7, 2024

a man teaching kindergarten must be gay

Where does that come from in the movie? Isn't Kimball the object of desire for Astoria's single moms?
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 7:49 PM on May 7, 2024

Mixed feelings. I caught up yesterday. So I'm very much, "it's over already?" But I very much like that ending. If I want a battle, I'll load up Shogun: Total War.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 6:03 PM on April 23, 2024

One of my top three samurai movies. The story, writing, production, acting, everything is superb. I can't say enough, so I won't try!
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 5:09 PM on April 14, 2024

Not really a favorite movie. But it is one I like to watch from time to time. If only for the beginning. Don Pedro and Friends riding up to the villa! Raising their fists in glory! The Household excited for visitors! Everyone getting cleaned up before the guests are received! It's all very joie de vivre.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 2:34 PM on March 31, 2024

ItLoF has one one of my favorite sequences in all the movies: after Booth takes his shot, the Secret Service running the President out of the hotel. Very dramatic. Very real.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:16 AM on February 19, 2024

It's been awhile since I saw HR. Don Cheadle is the strongpoint; great performance as the Euro-mannered Rwandan hotel manager. Nick Nolte was alright as the tough UN CO. What really impressed me was that the corporate overlords back in Europe were actually trying to help their employees.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:47 AM on February 18, 2024

NE is a cool movie. We had it taped. Great cast. Great production. The weak link for me is Stuart Wilson. His performance is too much when everyone else is a little more serious. Plus, he was overexposed as the go-to bad guy in the 90s.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:38 AM on February 18, 2024

I've bothered to sit down and watch Akira just once. It was alright. Not as mindblowing as the ubiquious commercials on cable in the 90s made it out to be.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:34 AM on February 16, 2024

I actually met a "Ferris" once, at a youth conference in DC. He was just some average-looking kid from Texas, had an accent, wore a light jacket and khakis. But everyone seemed to gravitate to him. He was first in every line. Even the journalist Eleanor Clift mentioned his charisma at a Q&A.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:28 AM on February 16, 2024

TPD is a movie I don't seek out, but always watch if I come across it. Anne and Heather are adorable. Julie is Julie. The quirky fake nation isn't overdone.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:13 AM on February 16, 2024

I saw TL in the theater. Sure, it has issues. But it's a movie that I will always enjoy. At the very least, I appreciate it for being Arnold's peak. He had a great run.

That said, I've always wished TL's plot had been reversed, focused on JLC as the "spy" until the reveal in the hotel.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 2:38 PM on February 12, 2024

While I do like CaPD better since it is more Go Team America!, I consider PG to be a far better movie. It's got a great plot that is well executed. The cast is loaded. And Harrison is more 80s-action than 90s-everyman.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 5:54 PM on February 1, 2024

CaPD is excellent overall. It actually holds its own up against the source material. Willem is perfect as Clark. Harrison's perfomance is weak, IMO. He was in his "the character does something awesome and then pauses when he realizes he just did something awesome" phase by then.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 5:43 PM on February 1, 2024

Whenever I come across a movie reaction of First Blood on Youtube, I watch it. And almost always, the reacters are blown away because they were expecting a "Rambo" movie and not a semi-serious movie about a damaged Vietnam vet.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 7:39 PM on December 23, 2023

Ulee's Gold is one of my favorite movies.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:07 PM on September 12, 2023

It's been awhile since the one time I watched ISZ from start to finish. It's a decent movie that is very much of its time. The acting is fine. The production is cool. The story is a bit much, but it works for me. I consider ISZ to be spiritually a part of Patrick McGoohan's Danger Man-The Prisoner saga.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 5:33 PM on September 3, 2023

I watched this today. Great doc. I liked the slow reveals. I'm an identical twin and lost my brother last year. So this hit close to home.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 6:33 PM on August 16, 2023

A metaphor for life in the form of post-apocalyptic thriller. I liked it. But I will never read again.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 12:32 PM on August 12, 2023

Crimson Tide doesn't work for me anymore. The officers who side with Ramsey are just too much "the bad guys" during the action (James Gandolfini oozes menace, for instance). And then it's alls well that ends well. Ramsey retires. But there is no penalty for his trigger-happy psychos.

Oh, and could they have made Weps any more a weakling?
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 4:27 PM on August 8, 2023

I am going to Oppenheimer with my 70-year-old dad tomorrow. How graphic is the sex and nudity?
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:41 AM on July 20, 2023

TBH, I wasn't impressed. Very much less than the sum of its parts. A lot of great effort is wasted in another Nolan clunker. And I'm not sure what Nolan is trying to say. The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer? All glory is fleeting? Nuclear weapons are bad, m'kay?
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 4:44 PM on July 21, 2023

I watched The American President often back in the day. And while I have issues with some of its politics, I remember enjoying it as a decent enough movie. But I mostly remember it for being the inspiration for The West Wing.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 2:03 PM on July 4, 2023

The Rotten Tomatoes score is at least a bit misleading...

I agree that Yojimbo is the far better film. But I think Sanjuro is the more rewatchable of the two. If I am in the mood for Mifune's wiley samurai, Sanjuro would be my first choice. Maybe that is why it score's higher.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 11:11 AM on June 28, 2023

I watched this last night. Overall, it's a so-so movie. The performances were excellent. Michelle and Chris stand out. But making this as a "heist" movie was a mistake. I was looking for more of a character study. And the material doesn't lend itself to the "heist" format anyway.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:56 AM on June 21, 2023

Between this, TRON, and Time After Time, David Warner had an excellent villain run there on the cusp of the decade.

Bookended by playing Heydrich in Holocaust (1978) and Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil (1985) on television.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:57 PM on May 8, 2023

A classic from my childhood. I rewatch it from time to time. There are no weak links in the acting and Robert Preston is spectacular. The effects, yeah, this is nascent CGI. But it looks cool and they did a fine job merging it with the live action.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:36 AM on April 21, 2023

I like The Rocketeer. But it's only so-so overall; not terrible and not great. Timothy Dalton and Jennifer Connelly are the stand-out performances. And I love Terry O'Quinn as Hughes. Also, the movie looks fantastic. The sets, the costumes, the logos and advertisements are all attractive.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 3:20 PM on March 13, 2023

Fletch is a movie I know very well. First of all, Harold Faltermeyer's work on the soundtrack is a big part of the 80s for me. As for the rest, Fletch is hit and miss for me. Fletch's characterization is scattershot, IMO. I agree, much of Chevy's performance is Chevy being Chevy, which ruins some scenes for me (in the jail for instance, when Fletch is being put in a cell to be cowed or killed, he hits his head, which is typical Chevy Chase). Tim Matheson is excellent, though.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 1:54 PM on March 8, 2023

I rewatched Taps last night. And I got more out of it than I ever have in the past. The movie is buoyed by its performances and production values.

George C. Scott is excellent in what is basically the Patton character in another time and place. Tim Hutton gives another excellent performance as young and wounded. Sean Penn is also excellent as the requisite "outsider" character. And then there is Tom's performance. Very over the top. But it… [more]
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 5:31 PM on February 26, 2023

I've only seen Dick Tracy once, in the theater when it came out. Nothing, absolutely nothing, from the movie sticks out in my memory. Utterly forgettable is all I can say about it. It doesn't help that DT is kind of lost in the shuffle among movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit on one side and Cool World, The Shadow, and The Phantom on the other.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 1:05 PM on February 22, 2023

I have seen Munich just once, years ago. I would say that the movie is even-handed in the sense that neither side is particularly lionized. The story is more the main character's emotional journey along the way rather than a straight depiction of events. So there are feelings and doubts and such about events which puts a damper on there being any actual good guys. Good movie, BTW. Sky high production values.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 12:55 PM on February 6, 2023

I rewatched School Ties the other night. This is not a bad movie at all. It doesn't have the starpower or the iconic moments that Dead Poets Society has. But the story is good and the acting is solid. Plus, I enjoyed seeing Brendan, Matt, Chris, Ben, all of those guys together. I imagine this was a fun movie to make.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 11:38 AM on February 6, 2023

I agree with GenjiandProust. I would also add, Amistad suffers from the fact that Lincoln follows many of the same beats, which kind of diminishes each movie's impact in retrospect.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:16 PM on February 2, 2023

ToD is the Indiana Jones of my childhood. It's the Indiana Jones we had taped off of Cinemax (right alongside Goonies and Return of the Jedi, IIRC) and that I watched again and again with my brother. Raiders is the superior movie, but ToD has a special place in my heart.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 2:56 PM on February 2, 2023

The Last Crusade is the weakest entry of the first three, IMO. It's bad enough that they threw Marcus and Sallah under the bus for comic relief. But that really isn't the Indiana Jones I know and love from Raiders and ToD. I understand why they would noble him up for the main plot. But the cold opening of the movie strongly implies that Indy was always on the up-and-up in his pursuit of archaeology, which he wasn't.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 2:45 PM on February 2, 2023

Lordsburg is my favorite western setting. It's dark. It's full of spectators hiding in the shadows (not unlike Greely's in Unforgiven). And it has a creepy red light district (not unlike Lolo's in A River Runs Through It).
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:35 AM on January 31, 2023

The beginning of TGoW blew me away the first time I saw it. The movie did an excellent job of creating atmosphere: Tom roaming around a desolate and oppressive OK countryside.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:08 AM on January 31, 2023

I have not seen MDC in a long time. But I remember being impressed by it. "This is a good movie." And also by Henry Fonda, another one of his superlative performances. The scene where he's tipping back in chair and tick-tocking the post is pretty cool.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:02 AM on January 31, 2023

I actually prefer Vincent (Tom Cruise) over Fast Eddie (Paul Newman) in this movie. I don't know it's the writing or the direction or the performance, but Vincent is the better realized character, IMO. This might be a little bias talking since I think Paul Newman was way way more effective in Absence of Malice and The Verdict. And, of course, Tom Cruise pretty much steals the movie when he says "doom" and then flashes his million dollar grin.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:25 AM on January 13, 2023

A staple of my adolescence, absolutely. This is not a bad movie at all. The part that I remember best is Swell and Kenny having a domestic argument, Swell noticing that Kenny fluffed the cushions on the couch and complimenting him on it, and then Kenny admitting, "it needed it." It's movies like DTMTBD that challenged gender roles without knocking me over the head with a message.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:27 AM on January 6, 2023

Robert Wightman was effective in this, IIRC. A bland handsomeness, but still creepy looking and acting. Him and the kid being a true crime nerd are about all I remember. I really miss the days when franchises were still geared towards squeezing every last dollar out of a title.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 5:31 PM on January 1, 2023

Call Northside 777 is one of those post-war message movies where they used hyperrealism and hyperdrama to create gritty real life on screen (along the lines Carillon mentions about: documentary and dramatization) . To be honest, I've never liked that formula for a movie. Maybe the post-war audience appreciated the change in pace from the usual Hollywood schlock. But to me, it's obvious the filmmakers are trying, which immediately makes the whole effort feel inauthentic and manipulative.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 8:47 AM on December 21, 2022

Satan's Alley was a masterpiece. Even better than Hamlet starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 11:50 AM on December 12, 2022

Superman II isn't terrible. It has its moments. The diner scenes are classic. And the end when Superman apologizes to the President for being away and promises not to let the country down again before warmly looking up at the Red, White, Blue, is II's best moment.

But II just isn't as good as Superman TM. And it also establishes a few of the cliches that superhero franchises would fall… [more]
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 3:17 PM on December 5, 2022

For me, Lex Luthor's best moment in Superman is the end, when he whips off his wig, scowls up at the warden, and declares himself "Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind of our time." For one brief shining moment, we see the supervillian that Lex Luthor really is and that Gene Hackman could have easily played. But then Otis ruins the moment. Because in the movie Lex is just your run-of-the-mill swindler who surrounds himself with idiots.… [more]
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:16 PM on December 2, 2022

Like Alvy, I've only seen Z once. But from what I remember, the movie did a spectacular job of feeling dangerous. However, I remember the movie also being uneven. Most of it is a serious movie about assassination and political corruption. But I thought some of it was trying to be a satire, which didn't really work for me.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 10:00 PM on November 29, 2022

Gladiator is a favorite. But it is another movie that really shouldn't have been made by Ridley Scott. His fingerprints are all over which is distracting at best and detracting at worst.
posted to FanFare by Stuka at 9:53 PM on November 29, 2022