My Five Favorite Films From...1994

Honorable Mention – Natural Born Killers: I have a story to tell about this film but I will save it for another time. Very intense, bloody and off-the-charts nuts, but it’s well-made and definitely worth seeing.

5. Hoop Dreams: Even now I think this stands as one of the better documentaries of the past 20 years or so. It was a sin against common sense and general decency that it wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award that year.

4. Clerks: To many this is still Kevin Smith’s best movie*. I think it holds up as one of the better comedies of my generation. The sequel…not so much.

3. The Shawshank Redemption: If this was a list about quality, this would be first in a cakewalk. The best adaptation of a Stephen King story ever**. Still amazes me whenever I watch it.

2. Léon (The Professional): A huge sleeper film that caught everyone by surprise and is now recognized by many as one of the better movies ever made***. Not a down moment the entire movie. And it still amazes me that this was Natalie Portman’s first film. Who acts like that their first time out?

The Awesome Nick Offerman as The Narrator in The Gunfighter is ... Awesome

One of the oldest narrative tools in film is the voice-over. A way to convey information to the audience, or storyline information to the audience while keeping characters on-screen ignorant of that information, they can be useful or clunky or outright bad.

Good voice-overs add to the narrative. An example would be anything from Goodfellas



Bad voice-overs cover for holes in a weak script. Or add nothing to the film. The voice-over that was added to Blade Runner fits this description perfectly. Forced to add it in by the studios, the rumor is that Harrison Ford intentionally delivered it poorly so it would have to be cut. It didn't work and the film was released with voice-overs in 1982.



But now comes the short film The Gunfighter which presents a different take on the voice-over. What if everyone on screen could hear the voice? And what if Nick Offerman were said voice? The results are pretty fantastic.

My Five Favorite Films From...1993

1993 was a powerhouse year for the movie industry. The sheer number of quality films that came out just boggles the mind. I had to struggle to pick my favorites.

Honorable Mention (x2) – Carlito’s Way and Dazed and Confused: Already I can’t pick just one film. Carlito’s Way is a fantastic gangster film and what I think is Pacino’s last great role. As for Dazed and Confused let’s just say that not only was it funny, but I was in my senior year of college and definitely enjoyed many of the same things the characters did. And I don’t mean Wooderman and high-school girls.

5. Schindler's List: An incredibly powerful movie. It seems ridiculous in retrospect that it took this movie to re-ignite interest in the Holocaust and preserving the memory of that evil as a warning to us all. But that is just how good it was. And that girl in the red coat…

4. True Romance: An excellent reminder that Tarantino has been writing great scripts for a while, Tony Scott could direct a film without gimmicks* and Christian Slater could act his ass off. And who knew that Balki from Perfect Strangers made such a good coke-head?

3. Shadowlands: I love this movie. If you told me 20 years ago that a British film about the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham would be a personal favorite, I’d have laughed in your face. But I do so love this film.

2. Army of Darkness: You have to love The Bruce in his seminal role as Ash. It’s corny and funny and ridiculous and I love all of it. Even people who don't like horror movies like this movie. Because The Bruce is awesome.

Review: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

“It's life, Captain, but not life as we know it.” – Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy)

Director: Robert Wise

Writers: Alan Dean Foster (story), Harold Livingston (screenplay)

Producer: Gene Roddenberry

Studio: Paramount

Major Stars: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Stephen Collins, Majel Barrett,

It’s Star Trek, friends, but not as we know it. Short on action and long on meditations about life, it’s purpose and it’s creation, Star Trek was an ambitious movie that inexplicably made the universe we all knew and loved god-awful boring.

You would think that the Enterprise flying out to intercept an alien cloud that has destroyed multiple Klingon ships and a Federation outpost would have some great action scenes. Instead, you get Spock trying to mind-meld with the remains of the ancient (by movie standards) Voyager space-probe that is now the heart and mind of a massive life-form called V'ger. That would be a nice compliment to a concurrent action sequence. Instead it’s just more of the same.

I was too young to appreciate the letdown a lot of Star Trek fans felt when it came out in 1979. These are the people that fought and begged NBC to keep the show on television and were teased by rumors of a second television show. So when this came out and it played like a snooze-fest, they were understandably pissed off. Throw in the fact it cost close to $50,000,000 and you didn’t get half the action of one of the television episodes, it’s amazing they went back to the well for Wrath of Khan. Thank God they did, but it was a leap of faith by Paramount. By comparison, Wrath of Khan cost just $11,000,000. Sometimes less is more.

Not that the whole film was a bust. Some of the sounds were unique, like that crazy buzz when V’ger appears. I liked a lot of the special effects, especially the interior of V’ger. Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack was a good one. And you have to admire the scope of the movie, even if its execution was flawed.

Plus, you have to give credit to what Star Trek: The Motion Picture gave birth to:

• 10+ more movies, including the new Star Trek reboot
• Four more television series (and undoubtedly more to come)
• Countless novels and tie-ins, video games and God knows what else

All that would never have happened without the first movie. In it’s own way, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was as influential on the science-fiction genre and entertainment in general as Star Wars was two years earlier. In some ways, maybe more so.

Why Accuracy Matters When Talking About Cultural Problems

How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like “Neighbors” and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of “sex and fun and pleasure”? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, “It’s not fair”?

- Ann Hornaday, Washington Post Film Critic: In a final videotaped message, a sad reflection of the sexist stories we so often see on screen

In the wake of the mass killing committed by Elliot Rodger at UC - Santa Barbara, there has been a focus on three things.

1. The availability of firearms to anyone and the death that results
2. Mental illness and this country's seeming unwillingness to properly deal with it
3. A cultural reinforcement of misogynistic thought that dehumanizes women

The face of what happens when mental illness, misogyny and easy access to firearms intersect

I am not going to argue any of those points, because I think they are all accurate. Nor am I going to argue with Ms. Hornaday's overall point:

If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger — thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections — no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large.

The cold truth is that our culture does dehumanize women into objects that are "rewards" for the "nice guy". Look at a classic movie like "Say Anything". Lloyd Dobler is a borderline stalker in real-life. But in a movie he shows that persistence and never taking "no" for an answer will get you a girlfriend. Over and over the message that "nice guys get the girl" is pounded into our heads.

So what happens in real life when the girl says "no" to the "nice guy"?

A lot of times...nothing. A majority of men are not predatory misogynists who see women as objects or rewards. They are human beings with good points and bad points, ups and downs... and they know something important. Something Elliot Rodger never quite understood.

Life owes you nothing. Women owe you nothing. No one owes you anything. And a majority of men get that.

But there is a sizable minority of men who don't understand that. Who see women as rewards. Who desire women, are scared that women have that power (in their minds) over them and then hate them for making them scared. This is where rape finds it's genesis, where the burqa was born, where mentally ill animals like Elliot Rodger find their justification for violence. It's why the most dangerous thing on this planet to women ... is men.

And this has to be confronted and addressed. This isn't blaming media for violence or saying that video games/movies cause mass killings. It's saying that the messages we communicate in our culture, regardless of the medium, can create ideas and beliefs that are dangerous and that can find root in a sizable minority of the population.

My Five Favorite Films From...1977

Honorable Mention – Annie Hall: It’s not my favorite Woody Allen movie, but Alvy Singer is my favorite Woody Allen character. Plus, the scene in the movie line with Marshall McLuhan is a classic.

5. Smokey and the Bandit: Yes, this film is pure cheese. But I must have watched it a hundred times as a kid when it first came out on cable. So I didn’t even understand the whole bootlegging angle. But it had fast cars and lots of chases. Worked for me then and still does.

4. Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The more intellectual sci-fi hit of 1977. The final scene with a peaceful exchange between humans and aliens was a landmark moment in film at the time. In some ways it’s sad to see that the pendulum has swung back the other way (ID4 as one example).

3. Slap Shot: I love this movie. Definitely a Top 5 All-Time for sports movies. Everyone thinks about the Hansen Brothers, but the best scene for me was when Reggie Dunlop goads the opposing goalie into a brawl by telling him his ex is a lesbian.

2. A Bridge Too Far: One of the greatest war films ever made. Probably the most accurate war film ever made. It did poorly in the US, which is inexplicable to me, but did great business overseas. Just a top-notch film across the board with a cast you just wouldn’t see the likes of today.

1. Star Wars: This is the first film I remember seeing in a movie theater. I was five years old. Up until then, I had only gone to the drive-in during the summer. It is still my favorite movie-going experience.

Films I Like But Didn't Make The List: Allegro non troppo, Padre Padrone, The Hobbit, Kentucky Fried Movie, Cross of Iron, The Late Show, The Car, Suspiria, The Rescuers, The Gauntlet, Oh, God!, Soldier of Orange

Insane Film I Have To Mention – Eraserhead: I didn’t even see this film until the late 80s when I was in high-school. Wow. Lizard babies, brains for erasers and that’s the tip of the iceberg. I’m still not entirely sure what was going on. But it was very watchable. And without it I’d have never gone on to rent Blue Velvet a short time later, which just blew me away.