Nobody Knows Hollywood

Director: Kevin Smith Year: 1999 The universe is in full meltdown mode, befitting many who worried about "Y2K" (yes, it was a thing) but Kevin Smith as the chunky hero along with his foul-mouthed, sex-crazed friend Jay are here to save the day. Okay - it's not all about Jay and Silent Bob, but, unfortunately for me, too much of it was. There's a very interesting story here. And, although I'm not enough of a Bible scholar to take him on about the "truthfulness" of his interpretations (that statement alone doesn't work...), I was impressed with how much information rang true to me, as a man raised Catholic. The greatest things are the simplest things. The bits about love, faith and how powerful these seemingly simple things are. What I didn't care for was how in love with himself and his dialogue Smith is. This is the problem of the Director/Writer auteur, particularly one as relatively young and commercially successful as Smith was at t...

Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller Year: 2014 I'm going to be the bad guy. To criticize such a wildly popular movie is to potentially face a hailstorm of hatred, but I can't go lock-step with everything being awesome. The opening sequence is a fun but predictable bit of setup of structure. Lord Business (Will Ferrell) wants the power and control over all things creative and constructive. He and his overpowering thugs take out Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), the guardian of the Kragle (Krazy Glue) and, inherently, the piece of resistance. The next sequence was, perhaps, my favorite of the movie. Dripping with satire, we meet Emmet (Chris Pratt), the every-man, nothing-special construction worker who celebrates the droll conformity of his life, singing about how everything is awesome every step of the way. It was a hilarious mock of all things corporate in our modern lives. Emmet is rejected by his co-workers and associates he thought were pals and publicly identi...

Director: Sam Raimi Year: 2013 Following up and feeding off of one of the all-time cinema classics is a daunting challenge that appeared to be too great for Raimi and even more so for James Franco. First, for Raimi - the tone of the film is disturbingly uneven. Perhaps the fact that this was a Disney film and there was undoubtedly great pressure to make it a PG rather than PG-13 film, tied his hands back in places where he usually excels. That is, however, so much speculation and beyond what can reasonably be discussed and dissected by what is and what is not on the screen. That is part and parcel with the other main culprit of my criticism, Franco. I have been a huge fan of Franco's ever since his break out role when he absolutely stunned me with his portrayal of James Dean in the made-for-TV biopic. As James Dean is one of my all time favorite screen presences, I was very skeptical of anyone being able to portray him even reasonably well. Franco did a magnificent job a...

Created by: Vince Gilligan Year: 2009 The plot and the characters sicken and they do so at breakneck speed. One of the great strengths of the show is how fast it moves, not necessarily scene to scene as there are scenes that go on for several minutes, but characters are decisive with actions. They are black and white, rather they are forced to be by circumstance or their own pathology is debatable. Walter White is dividing further and further into more stratified characters. He’s a certain kind of man when he begs for his wife’s and son’s forgiveness. He’s another when he admonishes Jesse. He’s yet another when around his brother-in-law Hank, nervous and nebbish. And at school he is a master in a world of dead-faced lemmings. He’s far beyond what some teachers experience and call “burnout”. He’s in a neutral, numb place – wondering why he’s there, but at the same time so comfortable in the environment, it gives him a sense of purpose and normalcy he doesn’t dare drift from. Watc...

Director:  David Greene Year: 1973 If you aren't ready for camp, vaudeville shtick and heavy doses of direct Bible verses, do not bother with this film. It makes no bones about it's intention or drive. This is the book of Matthew put to music, broad costumes and a stunningly vacant New York City in 1973. For all its cynics, who wrote things like "A lesson in how not to transfer a theatrical musical to the big screen" (Phil Hall, Film Snobbery) or "The peppy no-name cast take to the parables like toddlers take to Sesame Street", (Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews) and "Calling this the "Sesame Street" version of the Gospel would be an insult to "Sesame Street." (Jeffrey Westhoff, Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) - say it with me, "Who?"), my retort is simple: Jesus loves you. Now before you click the browser button on me writing me off as a Jesus-Freak, let me list my biases and background when it comes to C...

Creator: Vince Gilligan Year (first aired): 2008 A screenwriting teacher once preached the value of "opening hot" - more than preach, he railed, rallied and proclaimed the need for more of us to "open the story hot!" What he meant, in case you can't figure it out, is to make the action in the first sequence of the film (or TV show in this case) such that you are immediately jolted onto the front edge of your scene, begging to know what comes next (or in this case, as you get the pattern, how the hell did that happen?). Breaking Bad is an astonishingly well-made show, as addictive as the meth the characters make. It is a story with a protagonist who becomes increasingly difficult to like, not necessarily for the choices he makes, but for the way he handles the situations. There are no clear cut "good guys" in the show, making it all the more complex, fascinating and real. Characters, even the most dubious, do small, interesting, thoughtful things right...

Director: Tony Bill Year: 1980 Some films are iconic unto themselves, though they can't reach that status without an audience to hail them as such. My Bodyguard is one of the seminal films of my youth, terrifying, delighting and making me laugh at once. The setup is familiar, with Clifford, a fish out of water (played by a very likable Chris Makepeace, who some may remember from a similar role in the camp classic, Meatballs) starts at a new high school. It's a public school in the heart of Chicago's south side and world away from his private school education up until this point. He makes the mistake of cracking a joke at the expense of schoolyard bully, Moody (done pitch perfectly by Matt Dillon). After this, he's on "the list" with Moody and his goons. The legend of another student named David Linderman (Alec Baldwin in a nicely nuanced role) lingers over the entire class. Students gossip incessantly about where he is since he's not in class, then shiver...

Director: Martin Scorsese Year: 1988 The journey of Christ is controversial in nature because of the great number of people who wish to hold the absolute truth when it comes to his life. Scorsese bravely and interestingly takes on an intentionally fictional account (meaning, in this case, based not on the Bible, but rather a book by the same title written by Nikos Kazantsakis in 1955. When this film came out, it set off an immediate and harsh firestorm in the media, churches and many a workplace water cooler. While the film's first two hours (and it does run two hours and forty minutes, though I didn't have a problem with that) do not convey any particularly new revelations fans of other Christ films (e.g. Jesus of Nazareth, The Messiah, The Greatest Story Ever Told, etc.) won't recognize, the last forty minutes are near shocking. When Christ is upon the crucifix, calling out to God, he is visited by an angel who offers to end his suffering if he accepts that he is not the...

Director: Peter Jackson Year: 2012 I re-watched the Lord of the Ring Trilogy about six months ago and very much enjoyed the ride. The second film, Two Towers, remains my favorite of the three. At the same time, I was glad to feel better about the third film, Return of the King, which, at the time I saw it, left me a bit flat. Perhaps it was overkill. Perhaps it was how I saw it (at a midnight screening after a long day of work). Regardless, I was excited to engage in midworld once again. I heard many complaints going into the film about it's look - Jackson shot the film at 48fps which left some saying it appeared "too HD" and not enough film. Jackson landed squarely on the landmine for filmmakers to come. This is the new way, and now that the door has been blasted off that pandora's box, nothing's going back in. As I saw it on DVD, this was not an issue for me. Like the first fllm in the LOTR series, The Hobbit has a long run up. It's a bit tedious at times...

Director: Gus Van Sant Year: 2005 It's about Kurt Cobain, except it's not. It's inspired by the events surrounding Kurt Cobain's last days, but Cobain's former Nirvana bandmates and outspoken widow, Courtney Love say it's not even close. I picked this DVD up because the cover had an image that looked strikingly like Cobain. I loved Nirvana when they came out. I've listened to them over the years many times and they've absolutely thrilled me in many ways. I saw the film was Directed by Gus Van Sant and become doubly intrigued. His film, Elephant, while one of the more disturbing films I've seen, is also one of the more hypnotic - just for the simplicity of the camera movements and the impending doom in real time. Though this film had tragedy written into it's ending, it lacked the drive that made Elephant so exciting to watch. That doesn't mean I thought this was a bad film, but viewers should know that what they're getting ...

Director: Charlie Kaufman  Year: 2008 When you go down the rabbit hole with Charlie Kaufman, you have to be ready. This is acquired taste for many. Personally, I like have my mind tweaked. I like the feeling of not knowing what I'm watching sometimes, especially when I'm in the hands of a trusted artist like Charlie. So it goes with Synecdoche, New York. The brilliant Seymour Phillip Hoffman helms the quest as Caden Gutard and leads us into his melancholy by waking up to the haunting sounds of a child (his daughter, I think) singing, which blends into an NPR like show welcoming a poet who espouses the beauty of fall as a season, particularly in its representations of death. What follows is a two hour meditation into/about Caden's character's death - marriage, family, career and life itself. Kaufman has a gift for walking a line between philosophy, humor and heartbreak. He showcases that throughout via bizarre characters who say and do bizarre things, like his ex-...

Director: Martin Scorsese Year: 2013 My picks for this year's best picture just got a bit more crowded. Wolf is a powerful, exuberant, thrilling, nauseating though not quite completely satisfying journey that ultimately left me wanting to hit the menu button and watch all three hours over again. There were so many beautiful moments handled with a ton of bravado and force by both the actors and Scorsese -- none of which is a surprise, looking at the players bodies of work, but all of which makes for great entertainment. And in that last line lies, perhaps, my reason for why this film doesn't have the same level of resonance as 12 Years a Slave or Gravity - I didn't feel the pain for those affected by the Wolf. By making his crime look victimless, it made me care less about the crimes themselves, viscerally, even when the intelligent/logical side of my brain was screaming: "This guy's the worst! Lock him up and throw away the key!" That's not to say sociopa...

Director: Terrence Malick Year: 2011 Malick's work, like some of Kubrick's, has intimidated me at times. I've feared not understanding it and therefore feeling I am not worthy as a filmmaker myself. So it was with this film that I put it off when it came out. Though I was tantalized by the trailer, Malick's name and the reviews that I chose to listen to led me to a place where I put it on the back burner. Discovering it today, I'm thrilled to have it enter my lexicon and I look forward to watching it multiple times for greater meditation.  Malick puts a small story about relatively small people (in terms of global or historical importance) against the greatest creation myths the Bible has to offer. For reference sake, when I use the word "myth", I mean it in the classical sense, not the modern manner in which it is, quite sadly in my opinion, conflated with lies or untruths. These characters of the early 1950's include a mother, father and t...