Bill21 Reviews

Manufacturing Dissent (2007)

More credible than the average Moore hatchet-job

[8/10 · 16 February 2012]

I wasn't even going to bother seeing that "Michael Moore Hates America" pile of crap, because I know it's coming from a place of bias that just hates Michael Moore because he is liberal or fat or whatever. I definitely get the personal distaste for Moore, although I know I'm not going to learn anything watching some Andrew Breitbart protégé create a film about him.

What struck me about this film — and sets it apart from other knee-jerk anti-Moore schlock — is that it's not (just) the filmmakers that seem to be disillusioned with Moore, it's also everyone he's ever come into contact with. It's just just the Limbaughs and O'Reillys of the world hating on Moore, which would be expected; it's his former colleagues and collaborators. And there are a LOT of them. It seems like the guy can't help but burn a bridge every time he gets a chance. What struck me about Moore's disingenuous nature isn't so much that he makes movies that are one-sided and dishonest (watching "Sicko" you can see that), but that everybody seems to dislike him. You can call that sour grapes if you want to, but when that many people dislike you, is it their fault or yours?

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)

Don't Confuse "Seminal" With "Great"

[2/10 · 19 April 2009]

"The Fast Runner" is sometimes beautiful to look at, and in its immediacy it is at times able to transport the viewer to another time and place.

But this is a bad film.

In terms of storytelling, editing and narrative, it just doesn't make any sense. I found myself taken out of the film as much as I was immersed in it due to the poor film-making techniques.

I'm sure that there are some people who were generally moved by this film, and it has a few very compelling moments. But as a film overall, I can't imagine how it gets such universal acclaim, especially considering its sub-AV Club technique. (I hate to call anyone's motives into question, but I tend to think that more than a few people who heap praise upon this film are doing so out of a need to praise this plucky group of Inuits for making a film at all. I think it's less condescending to evaluate it out of context.)

Heavy Traffic (1973)

Can someone help me here?

[2 November 2003]

Can anyone give me one single reason why anyone should watch "Heavy Traffic"? I think it may be the worst film I've ever seen, and I'm saying that without a shred of hyperbole.

First, the animation: I know a lot of people find it charming, but it stinks. Yes, there are a few good sequences and some clever parts, but 95% is just crude and terrible. It's something that would have been much better if put into live action. Why animate something when it would be easy to show it live?

Second, the story. Where the hell is it? An "underground animator" (how cliche) hates his life and then goes out to become a pimp? Are you kidding me? There is no semblance of plot or logic. I know it's a "fantasy world" and all but that doesn't forgive Bakshi of not having any kind of plot whatsoever. A pathetic excuse for a script.

Thirdly, the stereotypes. Gays, blacks, Jews, Italians, the handicapped, everyone is fair game. And while I wasn't offended by these creations per se, I just found them lazy and uninteresting. Is there anything that separates Bakshi's Jewish mother from any other stereotype of a Jewish mother that you've ever seen?

I found this film a complete waste of time.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

It's not "Big Daddy"

[28 October 2002]

I'll admit it. I'm a huge fan of "Billy Madison." I think it's hilarious. I think Adam Sandler's follow ups have gotten progressively worse thereafter. "The Wedding Singer" and "Little Nicky" are crap, IMO.

I'm a HUGE fan of P.T. Anderson. "Boogie Nights" is in my all-time top ten, "Hard Eight" is outstanding, and "Magnolia," while deeply flawed, is too interesting to ignore.

I was expecting a let-down for "Punch-Drunk Love." When I heard P.T., the auteur, was using Sandler in his film, I thought he may have given himself too much of a challenge. But now I am truly in awe of the cinematic abilities of P.T., because he has constructed a character that suits Sandler perfectly, but is completely original and different from previous Sandler characters. Notice I didn't say "Sandler Films," because this is a film where Sandler is not the driving creative force. It's a PT film starring Sandler. And it's incredible what a good script and some creative direction can give to a heretofore mediocre performer. I think Sandler's performance here is astonishing. Where something like "The Waterboy" follows up a potentially meaningful moment with a crude joke (maybe because it's not cool to have a heart), PTA stays with it and revels in the charm of a doofus and a classy Brit falling in love.

I love this film. I love the romance, I love the air miles scheme, I love the way Barry Egan cries and how love turns him into a powerful man. I love that in an age where irony and sarcasm and mean-spiritedness reign filmmaking (paging Kevin Smith), a film about loneliness and love can exist with the perfect mix of humor and earnestness. It's both entertaining and challenging, and what's better than that?

Blood Simple (1984)

See the DVD

[11 May 2002]

I am a huge Coen brothers fan, so when I saw "Blood Simple" for the first time a couple years ago, it was on a very old cassette version. Having seen all of their others (this was just before "The Big Lebowski" was released), I was disappointed. It didn't hum for me like their others did. I thought it was cheesy and dated and the visuals were horrible.

Fast-forward nearly 4 years later in the beautiful age of DVD and I have a completely new appreciation for this film. The picture is crystal clear, as if it was released a year ago. The script is so tight (typical of the Coens) where deception and miscommunication lead to a further spiraling of already dire problems. M Emmett Walsh puts in a terrific performance as the shady private eye who sets the havoc in motion.

Now that I've seen it again, it looks like it's a harbinger of things to come from the Coens. It's still not their best, but it's an outstanding genre film.

Prizzi's Honor (1985)

Crap

[6 April 2002]

I really wanted to like this film. I had rented it a few times before and couldn't get through it, but I thought it was because of poor tape quality. So today I rented the DVD so there would be no excuses, and I thought it was an utter waste of time.

This should have worked (and many of you think it did): a great cast, a legendary director, based on a popular book, but nothing clicked. The weakest link (and it kind of pains me to say this) is Huston's direction. He sets this up like a film from the 1940s, and I don't mean set in the '40s, but shot in the '40s. The acting is stilted in that "golden age" style where acting was just reading lines and being melodramatic. There are antiquated fade-outs, poor vocal dubbing -- actually horrible vocal dubbing -- and slooooow pacing (especially the wedding scene which took forever to get off the ground). The love affair between Jack and Kathleen Turner never seemed real to me, in fact, it seemed completely contrived; they meet for 10 minutes and suddenly they're saying I LOVE YOU and getting married?!?!?!?!?!?!?! What the .... ?

And I couldn't agree more with some of the posts here that it just flat-out was not funny. The only time I snickered in the whole thing was in the first scene where the reporter says "Holy s--t" in church while making the sign of the cross. It was a throw-away moment, and I found it amusing, and I was looking fwd to laughing a lot more, but I didn't, not once more.

If you want to see a good mob comedy (and I don't mean the neo-mob comedies like Sopranos and Analyze This, where mobsters are really sensitive inside), see MARRIED TO THE MOB. It's much funnier, and is simply much more entertaining (not to mention that it has a love story that actually works).

The Contender (2000)

Precious amounts of valuable celluloid wasted

[8 October 2001]

As others have written on this board, yes this was a good cast and yes the acting was good, but without a good script, it's kind of like building a temple with raw sewage and landfill debris.

Oh, how I wanted to like this movie. In the trailers it looked to have the same visual style as the magnificent THE INSIDER (I'm sure by the title people could have gotten the two confused), and with the tremendous Joan Allen on board, I figured it had to be a winner. But then a curious thing happened: the film actually began playing and the actors for whom I had such high expectations began speaking the words written by a simple-minded and myopic scribe with no concept of the words "equal time."

Now, let me preface this by saying that I am a registered Democrat (although a disenchanted one at that, I voted for Nader last year), and I share several (though not all) views that were spewed forth in THE CONTENDER. This film, however, is not the proper forum for writer/director Rod Lurie to push his own extremist-left agenda on the unsuspecting filmgoing public (of which I am one) who expected to see a story of a stoic and dignified woman who stood up to those who held her down. Instead of that, I got a lesson in remedial ethics from a former film critic (!) who is less interested in discussion than he is in dissertation. (Note to Mr. Lurie: many of us have college degrees, or at least degrees of intelligence, so please excuse us if we don't take your word as law).

The most ridiculous part of this film is how it sets up straw men that are so easy to knock down. Instead of making Allen's Laine Hanson out to be what she really is -- someone with extreme and highly contestable views -- he tries to make her dignified and "above" all those trying to tear her down. This is done by taking various potshots at various stereotypes. For example, a teacher that tells a young student that "Jesus made everything" which, of course, inspires the wrath of Allen/Hanson, because How Dare She? In real life, no teacher in a non-religious school would ever have the temerity to say Jesus created everything, but if that is how Mr. Lurie can get his views on prayer in schools told, then that is how it would have happened. The other example -- when Oldman/Runyan and another conservative legislator imply that they feel anyone who would even SUPPORT abortion is a "murderer" -- are slaps in the face of anyone who holds opposing views to Mr. Lurie. Just because you have a camera and can get Jeff Bridges to be in your movie, that doesn't mean your opinion is worth more than anyone else's. Furthermore, if you want to defend Laine Hanson's views (as you obviously have a chip on your shoulder, Mr. Lurie) why don't you make it a full-fledged political discussion.

Another thing: if someone's personal life is so personal, why does Mr. Lurie feel the need to inject his own views into every facet of this film? (Again, I want to reiterate I don't disagree with everything Mr. Lurie says) The main thrust of the story is "Someone's personal life is no one else's business." Okay, but forcing your own views on anyone who will listen is acceptable? The hypocrisy actually made me angry.

I didn't find Joan Allen to be dignified or heroic, and frankly, I didn't see any qualities that would cause Jeff Bridges (in his ridiculous phony-applause-rendering speech) to laud Allen/Hanson up to a status where it was obvious she would be a legendary political figure.

I found the entire ordeal to be let's-pat-ourselves-on-the-back phony. Needless to say I won't be seeing Lurie's THE LAST CASTLE if this kind of tripe is what I can expect.

All of this is, of course, one Cinephile's humble perspective.

Rhyme & Reason (1997)

A good survey of Hip Hop Music/Culture

[22 September 2001]

I'm someone who listened to nothing but Hip Hop and Rap music for nearly a decade, so I came into this documentary a little skeptical. I had seen Brian Robbins' dreadful, obsequious THE SHOW and wondered if a legitimate rap documentary could be made. And while RHYME & REASON isn't perfect, it's a pretty good survey of the vast landscape of the music, and anyone not familiar with the music might learn something from it and put aside certain previously-held notions.

The reason this film works (and THE SHOW didn't) is that, instead of interviewing a few rap stars and following them around their 'hoods and talking to them, director Peter Spirer talks to around 80 MCs (ie. rappers) and gets their opinions on a variety of topics that are meaningful to the rap community.

First the film examines some of the history of the music: who was first, where historic parties took place, etc. And we see right off the bat that a full gamut of hip hop artists will be consulted here; representatives from both coasts and different genres within rap music. This sheer volume of perspectives not only keeps the film moving at an exciting pace, but allows several views to come out.

After the history of the music, Spirer goes through a series of topics related to hip hop. He explores guns/violence, sex, cops, freestyling (ie. improvisational rapping), family, race and a gamut of topics. To be sure, he touches very lightly on each topic, not really going into any depth, but that is appropriate for this type of doc. This appears to be geared toward those who know a little about hip hop, not those immersed in it (I mean, they already know about most of what's in the film).

Another thing that I love is that the film covers about 1994-1997, just after hip hop's "Golden Age" but before it became the glitzy, mindless, staccato flesh-fest it is today. Some of the footage of rappers rapping (especially the Pharcyde's Fat Lip) reminded me of a day gone by when lyrical skills were the prime asset of a rap artist, instead of how nice someone's car is.

If you listened to rap in the mid-90s this is a nice throwback to those days, and if you know nothing about rap, this film could honestly educate you about the culture.

Grand Canyon (1991)

Simple-minded and two-dimensional.

[11 August 2001]

I really like Lawrence Kasdan; I think he's done a lot of good work. "The Big Chill" is a tremendous film for its introspection into latter-day baby boomers. "Body Heat" is an excellent neo-noir thriller. "French Kiss" was... alright everyone has their down cycles, but nothing for Kasdan (IMHO) has been as down as "Grand Canyon," a film with a hand as heavy as a black hole.

This film addresses Important Issues and Contemporary Themes, the sort of things that an average L.A.'er has to deal with every day. There is a Grand Canyon between people because of their differences (race, ethics, class) and if only people would make more connections and open themselves up to caring and trust, it wouldn't be such a hard world.

Look, I have no problem with the sentiment of this film. I think it has a lot of good things to say, but why couldn't he just say them with a little less Symbolism and a little more storytelling. The characters are all pretty half-baked and stereotypical: Kline is a hot-shot L.A. lawyer, McDonnell is a new-agey L.A. wife, Glover is a blue-collar L.A. tow truck operator, Martin is a sleazy L.A. movie producer. Yes, it's an L.A. world out there, Kasdan tells us, but maybe if he could have stepped outside the confines of the city of angels for two seconds or perhaps cut the cast by half, his vision could have been much more efficient and less cluttered. But what do I know, I'm a shlub from Western New York, I don't know L.A.

There has been much talk on this message board of hope and feel-goodness, but as the film goes, none of the hope comes as a result of choices that any of the characters make. Yes, at the end, the principal characters all look with awe over the spectacle of the Grand Canyon and are given a realization of the chasm between them, and that their diversity is important, but where did that come from? All the events of occur serendipitously to the characters (McDonnell finds a baby, Kline meets a kindly black person, Parker gets a glowing recommendation from former boss Kline, Woodard is in the right place at the right time, Martin is shot by a mugger in an unconvincing scene), and the good fortune these people experience are more the result of chance than of good judgment or moral struggle. I would be more impressed if each character had a dilemma (a real dilemma, between two opposite choices with real consequences, not just whether to adopt or whether to fix two people up on a date) and goodness came out of those rather than out of some mystical happenstance or some benevolent lifeforce (like the otherwise meaningless homeless man/Christ figure).

Kasdan, I love ya babe. You wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" for pete's sake, but you should have hired a script-doc for this one.

Cop (1988)

A formulaic thriller with a GREAT fade-to-black.

[7 April 2001]

Full disclosure: I love James Woods and I love James Ellroy. I rented this film based on those two factors. It's not a great movie.. although I thought it was very good. The pacing was good enough to keep it interesting, although the whole serial killer angle was a little too detached. As a genre film, it's no better (but not necessarily any worse) than, say, "Kiss the Girls," "Sea of Love," "Copycat," or others of that ilk.

I didn't think the acting was too good. Or rather, Woods was too good, and the rest of the actors around him just couldn't compare. The synth soundtrack did make it feel dated and "80s" but not too much.

Anyway, let's get to the ending: (don't worry, I won't give it away) this is one of the greatest fades-to-black I have ever seen in a movie. Some may think it is too abrupt and didn't leave a denoument or closure. I think it was an amazing exclamation point to an average film, and it is definitely what I will remember about it. Only "The Taking of Pelham, One, Two, Three" comes close in terms of final scenes.

See it for the ending, it makes the rest of the movie worth it.

Matewan (1987)

A dynamite overlooked film

[17 April 2000]

John Sayles is quite simply the best storyteller in film. He knows how to push a story from it's logical beginning to its logical end better than anyone in film today. And this may be his best. If you haven't heard of MATEWAN, you're not alone. I happened to rent it on a gamble, knowing of Sayles, but not really having much of an interest in movies taking place in the Hills of West Virginia. I found myself completely rapt from five minutes in until the end. Not only is it great storytelling, with suspense and dastardly villians, it also has one of the best shootout scenes I've seen in a long time.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1998–2007)

Funny, but not as good as the British one

[16 September 1999]

This version has Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops (sometimes) and that's about all it has in common with the true spirit of the superior British version. Anyone who has seen the British version knows that host Clive Anderson's sense of humor was much more subtle (and funny) than Drew Carey, who is just not funny enough to sit at the adults' table on this show. (Most annoyingly, every week he says, "It's the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter!" and then looks around for laughter/applause and only gets a mocking laugh from Ryan Stiles. Clive would say "I'm going to give Ryan a million points..." and move on.. much funnier. Note to Drew: it's funnier when you don't laugh at yourself.)

The cast is terrific. Ryan Stiles is an improvisational genius, and he and Colin Mochrie have a great working chemistry together. The other members are hits and misses (usually pretty competent). The real find is Wayne Brady who is very talented, although he seems to be more of a performer than a true comedian. Still, he seems to bring out the most highlights because of his clever songs and characterizations.

The American "Who's line..." pales in comparison in two major regards. The first is that it seems to rely on non-obscure pop culture references (like when the usually funny Greg Proops put on a blond wig and said "My name is Mimi, and i just hate that Drew Carey!" Semi-humorous as a reference to the Drew Carey show, but not more than that). The other downfall is the absence of the inimitable Tony Slattery, the straightlaced psycho of the English show.

"Who's line..." is a fun show, but it lacks the wit, the edge and the out-loud laughter of the original... but if you've never seen the original, then you wouldn't care, would you?

Mr. Show with Bob and David (1995–1998)

The funniest sketch show ever?

[16 September 1999]

It may be too early to tell. Monty Python was a lot zanier, SCTV was a lot more deliberate and thoughtful, Kids in the Hall was more random (maybe). But I don't think I've ever laughed as hard a sketch show as i have at practically every episode of Mr. Show with Bob and David. SNL and Mad TV? Please.. not even close. Even the Ben Stiller Show which seemed so fresh and new in it's brief run seems kind of stale when compared with Mr. Show.

Mr. Show is simply a totally different brand of humor than you will get anywhere else. Yes, they do swear, but the swearing is always in the service of the comedy (it isn't South Park). And it is *smart* comedy. They really go all out to be funny, and rarely does a joke fall flat. And if it does, they move on very quickly to extend the uninterrupted half hour of insanity. (To give an example, a commercial for "Rap: The Musical" ... "It's all the fun of rap, without all that rap!") I wish HBO would put it on every night, but then I might not miss it as much.

Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993)

The Greatest Comedy-Variety Show Ever.

[16 September 1999]

"Late Night with David Letterman" is without a doubt the most clever, experimental (apologies to Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs), and downright hysterical television program in TV history. To describe it would be pointless, because so many different things would happen in a given show. From about 1986 to about 1990 was Dave's finest period (he was still smiley sarcastic Dave and hadn't yet become angry sarcastic Dave), but the show was very solid overall. The Top Ten lists on those shows were 50 times better than the lists on the CBS show, and to me are some of the most valuable comic documents of this century, a sort of numerological Dave Barry.

Kids, you think Tom Green was the first person to get into confrontations on camera? Check Dave when he went to bring "those weasels at G.E." a fruit basket and was promptly escorted out. Sure Viewer Mail and Stupid Pet Tricks were Dave's trademarks (both superior to the CBS versions), but it was things like the "Late Night Thrill Cam" and "Network Time Killers" and the show filmed in an airport, and the show that was played at a high speed to "save time," etc. that made Late Night the best thing on TV when it was on.

Waiting for Guffman (1996)

Possibly the funniest film ever made

[10/10 · 9 September 1999]

I hate to be hyperbolic, but I don't think i have ever laughed so much as I did the first and second times i saw "Waiting for Guffman." Christopher Guest reprises his Corky St. Clair from the old SNL "Synchronized Swimming" bit and makes the perfect mockumentary.

Yes this movie is a satire, but unlike "This is Spinal Tap" (another laugh-riot, by the way), "Waiting for Guffman" really likes it's characters. It does not look down on them. It acknowledges their quaintness (the small-town talk, the audience placed on a basketball court to watch the show), but it does not make fun and it does not demean, which is why it is such a treasure, and which is why the ending is so crushing... we really wanted these no-talents to at least think they could make it big.

Supposedly there are more than 30 hours of footage for this film. A plea to Christopher Guest: please please please make a director's cut DVD (even if it has to be multi-volumes).. there has got to be at least 10 hours of it that are at least half as hilarious as the released version. If there is any justice, this film is destined to become a cult classic.

Barton Fink (1991)

I've got that Barton Fink feeling!

[10/10 · 9 September 1999]

** Minor Spoilers **

Portrait of the Artist as a Hollywood Hack.

I love this film. I have never seen a better portrait of the artist. It is both scathing and empathetic to the writer. It's a story about Barton Fink, a dynamo playwright from New York who is hired to go out to Hollywood to write screenplays for Wallace Beery wrestling pictures. This film is a masterpiece on three distinct levels: 1) It characterizes Hollywood as a self-imposed hell. (I'm sure other comments about this movie will elaborate on that) ... 2) It is a scathing commentary on the politics and ironies of Hollywood and of producing art in general. Nowhere is that better personified by the brilliant Michael Lerner, who just like Barton is put in a position he has no business being in. And 3), most importantly, the core of this story is Barton himself, his pretense, his talk of "the common man," his writers block. Barton cannot write successfully about the common man because he hobnobs with artsy-folk and knows nothing about the common man, until he meets W.P. Mayhew, a miserable drunk, and "Charlie Meadows," a common man. Mayhew shows Barton that art comes from pain (even if Mayhew is the inflicter of pain), and Charlie gives Barton a chance to do some real art, by taking him out of "the life of the mind" and putting him in a situation where real pain takes over.

This movie may seem dull or slow upon first viewing, but watch it again and you can truly see what an important film it is.

Night on Earth (1991)

4 out of 5 ain't bad

[8 September 1999]

This is a really terrific film that takes place in five cabs in five cities: L.A., New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. Fast forward through the first story with Gena Rowlands and Winona Ryder: it is wooden, boring and unconvincing. All the other four stories, however, are funny, touching and entertaining throughout.

The second story pits the unlikely pair of Helmut and Yo-Yo, (not to mention the typically verbose Rosie Perez), and has the right tone of humor and sadness. I wish we could have seen more of this brief friendship.

The last three stories are all foreign. The Paris chapter concentrates on a black cab driver who is made fun of by foreign (and also black) dignitaries. He is proud, until later he finds a cynical blind woman and he becomes curious about her. It's not riveting, but it does hold interest.

The fourth story from Rome would be normal slapstick fare ... if it weren't for the manic comedy of the great Roberto Benigni. His monologue to the priest in the back seat of the cab - even when read, not heard - is hysterically funny, with Benigni giving the perfect blend of absurdism and sincerity. You can't tell whether he is telling the truth or not, and you can see where the comic brilliance that produced "Life is Beautiful" comes from.

The fifth cab takes place in Helsinki (that's in Finland, right?) Three drunks get into a cab, one of whom has had the worst day imaginable. Then the cabbie tells a tale of his own, and it puts the unlucky drunk's problems in proper perspective.

The great thing about this film (other than the various locales) is that each one could work as a stage play, or a radio play. It's about people, and what different people can learn about each other, even if they are put together by chance. None of the combinations of driver/passenger would probably remain friends in normal life, but for the brief moments they are together, they gain (or in the Rome story, lose) something as a result of the other's experience.

Brother's Keeper (1992)

Quite a story...

[9/10 · 27 August 1999]

It's very sad to look at the Ward Boys, a trio of brothers whose simple world is brought out into the national spotlight in 1991 when one of their brothers is found dead in the morning, and one of the brothers, Delbert (who shared the bed with Bill, the dead brother), is accused of murdering/ euthanizing him. To watch them is to see a segment of the country that gets little attention, but is made king of quaintly riveting in this context. We basically see all the different characters of the town go about their daily lives (including the brothers) while the backdrop of the murder trial casts a pall over their lives. It's funny to see people who would have never normally talked to these outcast bumpkins now embrace them as if they were relatives. And the old Ward Boys, all in their 50s and 60s, don't seem too affected by it all until the trial.

This is a really enthralling watch and it gives an insider's view into a community and a world that many of us never get to see. Some of the townspeople are really fun to just listen to, and the police make themselves look pompous and suspect, which is one of the great achievements of this film... it makes us relate to people who are unlike most of us and rally around them against those most like ourselves.

Goodfellas (1990)

Best film of the decade

[10/10 · 17 June 1999]

It happened again. Just as America's greatest living (greatest ever?) director created the best film of the decade in 1980 -- "Raging Bull" -- and lost the Oscar to Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" (an outrage by all accounts), yet another thespian's pretentious film -- Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" -- beats out one of the best acted, best directed, most kinetically charged and most entertaining/horrifying films ever created... "GoodFellas"

This is one hell of a ride. Everything in the film is perfect. The soundtrack perfectly mirrors the time period (musically and lyrically, from "Rags to Riches" to "My Way"). Joe Pesci is a revelation. Of course he could be a thug, but they way his Tommy DeVito enters every shot as an unknown factor -- "Is he going to snap?" is the only thing we can think of -- gives the film an edge that would not have been the same with another actor. Robert DeNiro is, of course, terrific, and Ray Liotta inhabits the character unlike he's done since.

But the real star is Martin Scorsese. Just when it seems that "Raging Bull" would be his apex, I think "GoodFellas" may top it, on the basis of scope and technique. It's not just a man as in "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver," his other legendary works. It's a whole lifestyle, a way of being. And it follows three decades of a "family's" rise and fall. And there is never a slow or tedious moment. The movie is raw action. Whether it's the hellish tracking shots or the point of view shots or the way the trunk lets off an evil red glow, everything is for a reason. And the double voice-over technique is brilliant, because it gives two different perspectives of mafia life.

"GoodFellas" does not try to glorify the mob life... it just presents it as it is, blood and all. And 20 years from now tell me if "Ordinary People" and "Dances With Wolves" are that great...

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Is this what we've come to?

[2/10 · 21 May 1999]

If Jerry Maguire is a typical American, give me a one-way ticket to Winnipeg. This is a film whose values are so out of whack that it shocks me that it's universal acclaim confounds me. The film tells us the following: money is important, public affection is important (sure Cuba Gooding and the Daughter from "227" are a cute couple, but if they were making out at a restaurant in front of me, I'd slap 'em till they were insane), jazz is bad and lame (I guess John Coltrane and Miles Davis aren't as venerable music talents as Heart), and of course, America sets the tone for the world. The whole film can be summed up with one sequence. Rod Tidwell catches a touchdown and inspires a nation on Monday Night Football. What does that mean? Tidwell can now bank on a fat new contract. Boy that's a real tear-jerker. Go rent "Brian's Song," and get your priorities in order.

Short Cuts (1993)

A colossal achievement in filmmaking.

[21 May 1999]

This is one of the most original films of this decade. The characters are all 3-dimensional, and all likeable/detestable in some way. Like many other great films, don't look for a plot, or some kind of ending payoff, just enjoy what a great director (Altman) and writer (Carver, indirectly) can do. This is one long, meandering, plotless movie, but what variety! And just when a scene starts to be getting long or boring, it switches to a brand new set of characters. (My only criticisms: Andie MacDowell isn't yet ready to play with the big boys, and Peter Gallagher should have had a much bigger part.) So turn off the lights, take the phone off the hook and commit to 3 hours of terrific storytelling, as only Robert Altman can do it.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

This kind of movie doesn't need a plot.

[21 May 1999]

Admittedly, this film does not have the most labrynthine story line that's every been created, but David Mamet -- one of the great writers of this quarter of the century -- has written one of the most interesting, depressing, hilarious and thought-provoking screenplays of this decade. Based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1984 stage play, "Glengarry Glen Ross" excels in it's added scenes (including Alec Baldwin's best performance, albeit 4 minutes and sans the "I am God" whisper) and incredible dialogue. If you don't think it's going anywhere, maybe you aren't paying attention. Even without the swearing, the tension that the dialogue creates gives us more of an insight of what's going on than who-broke-into-the-office? would. And even if the dialogue doesn't grab you, how can you not be excited by 6 of film's best actors in arguably the best performance each has done. Pacino is a fireplug whose arrogance you actually grow to love. Arkin is the only redeeming character. Lemmon is alternately annoyingly-brazen and pathetic. Spacey is the louse that we've all met somewhere and Ed Harris is magnificent with jealous rage. And don't forget Jonathan Pryce (from "Brazil" and the Infiniti commercials) playing a guy who's too smitten with Pacino to say no to him. Foley's direction is terrific, with little touches like the Wayne Shorter soundtrack, the chugging subway every time a character goes on a rage, the gloom of the rain, all adding up to one hell of a depressing and exhilarating film. You may feel a little uncomfortable watching it, but you're supposed to.

The Right Stuff (1983)

An overlooked gem of an epic.

[21 May 1999]

It doesn't spend as much time in space as "Apollo 13" or "2001:A Space Odyssey," but, with apologies to Tom Hanks, "The Right Stuff" might darn-well be the most entertaining space film ever made. Don't let it's 3-hour plus running time scare you, this ain't "The Deer Hunter." It's a frenetically-paced, fun-as-all-hell story about people, mainly 7 astronauts picked to beat the Russkies in the Space Program. Yes, it's about space, but it's more about people, from Chuck Yeager to John Glenn. The film moves, but takes it's sweet time getting to where it's going. The pacing is not slow, but takes its time to develop naturally, so it doesn't feel forced, nor does it lag. Like "Goodfellas" or "Short Cuts" (also tremendous films) it doesn't have a plot per se, but a long chain of events that make us care about the real-life characters. "The Right Stuff" is only one of the very few truly great films of the '80s, and it deserves much more attention than it generally gets.