Romancing the Stone Movie Review

The movies you loved as a kid sometimes turn out to be classics (i.e. Back to the Future and Star Wars) while others, it turns out, were really just not very good. Ah, the undiscerning view from a child’s perspective. When you’re a kid, a movie is good or not because it has excitement, adventures, romance, and comedy. For some adults I guess that never changes. Before Robert Zemeckis directed Back to the Future, he had a big commercial success in Romancing the Stone, a sort of Raiders of the Lost Ark knock-off starring Kathleen Turner as a dowdy romance novelist and Michael Douglas as a roughneck who saves her in the jungles of Colombia.

From My Collection: A Modern Classic Movie Review of L.A. Confidential

What studio executive looked at the talent and material coming together on the 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy’s pulp detective novel L.A. Confidential and thought it was a good idea? On paper, it just doesn’t look like it should work. But I guess that’s proof then that studios can’t predict everything based on filmmakers’ resumes, popularity of talent and story material. In L.A. Confidential they had on their hands a 1950s period detective story with an unbelievably complex plot, one that rivals Raymond Chandler for its twists and turns and reversals. It’s true that pulp stories were steaming along in popularity in the late 90s and neo-noir was perhaps starting to make another brief resurgence.

25 Years Ago This Month: December 1987

Movie release schedules were not all that different 25 years ago. Studios saved their best films for the very end of the year, just like they do today, in order to be fresh in awards voters' minds. The result is that a lot of deserving films released earlier in the year are largely ignored. The December 1987 film releases garnered a combined total of 28 Academy Award nomination. If we add The Last Emperor, which had a limited release in late November followed by a wider December release, that makes 37 nominations spread over ten films.

In Empire of the Sun, Steven Spielberg returned to WWII, subject matter that has been at the crux of no fewer than six of the films he's directed. Christian Bale starred in the film about a boy from a wealthy British family living in Shanghai who finds himself in a Japanese internment camp after the occupation begins.

25 Years Ago This Month: June 1986

Four of the year's top ten films opened in June.

Let's start with Ferris Bueller's Day Off, an absolute favorite of mine (along with all things John Hughes) when I was growing up. It doesn't matter what Matthew Broderick does with his career, he will always be Ferris Bueller singing "Twist and Shout" on a Chicago parade float. When Alan Ruck turned up in Speed in 1994 and then on the comedy series "Spin City" I could only see Cameron Frye. I don't care how much soft porn Mia Sara does, she will forever be embedded in my psyche as Sloane Petersen. And no matter how many teenage boys Jeffrey Jones coerces into posing nude for photos, he will remain, always and forever, Principal Edward Rooney.

Solitary Man Movie Review: Wonderful and Subtle Performance by Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas and Susan Sarandon in a particularly tender and bittersweet moment in Solitary Man.

Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas), the character referred to in the title of this year’s Solitary Man, is like Grady Tripp from Wonder Boys meets Gordon Gekko of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. When we meet him, his life is spiraling out of control and his decisions over the next few months will continue to drive him further and further downward. Most of his troubles are the result of some illegal business practices within his chain of very successful car dealerships in the New York tri-state area.

Ben used to be famous for being an honest business man. He had everything and even donated enough money to his alma mater up in Boston to have the library renamed in his honor. But then a health crisis caused him to reevaluate his decision making process and things went south in a hurry.