From My Collection: Rounders Movie Review

I reviewed this film sixteen years ago in the Connecticut College Voice. It is far too embarrassing to republish the original so in revisiting the film, here is my new and updated reviews.

For a brief time in the 90s and early 2000s, director John Dahl was establishing himself (in my estimation, at least) as a maker of dark and fascinating tales of low moral character or the underbelly of places we thought we knew. In 1998 he brought us, via a screenplay by David Levien and Brian Koppelman, to the underground and illegal poker scene of New York City in Rounders. He showed us a seedy version of New York that stands outside the realm of most Hollywood movies. And it’s populated with a cast of characters, most of whom you wouldn’t be too quick to invite into your home.

25 Years Ago This Month: December 1988

Typical of December, the final month of 1988 was full of releases vying desperately for awards consideration, especially Oscars. Eight films released in this month received Academy Award nominations, including all five of the Best Picture nominees.

As always, we start with what I've seen...

Barry Levinson's Rain Man was the box office behemoth of the year and winner of the Best Picture Oscar the following year. It embodies everything a typical "best picture" is, but mostly it's a rather simplistic portrait of autism produced at a time when virtually no one knew anything about the disorder. A quarter century later, many people can probably tell you something about it, most mistakenly that it's caused by childhood vaccinations. Dustin Hoffman's autistic savant is the very rare exception among people on the spectrum, but in 1988 it led most people to believe that being autistic meant being able to count cards and take the house in a Las Vegas casino.

25 Years Ago This Month: Empire of the Sun Movie Review

There are three images that stand out in Steven Spielberg’s WWII drama Empire of the Sun that help define the film as a coming of age and loss of innocence tale. The first is of a boy becoming separated from his parents in a throng of Chinese citizens fleeing Shanghai as the Japanese invasion begins. The second is the same boy being slapped in the face by a Chinese household servant whom he has probably spent his short life bossing around. The third and most powerful is when the boy witnesses the flash of light from the Nagasaki bomb, a moment that heralds both the boy’s passage into a new world and more grown up life and the loss of innocence of humanity, which had definitively demonstrated the ability to destroy itself.

25 Years Ago This Month: April 1987

The Police Academy franchise continued in April 1987 with the fourth installment, subtitled Citizens on Patrol. Each film in the series earned less at the box office than the previous chapter leading me to wonder how they went on to make parts 5, 6, and 7. The only actor who could reasonably be called a star in the entire series is Steve Guttenberg and he bowed out after the third film. Everyone else was famous for nothing other than their roles in this lifeless, flaccid, completely unfunny comedy series. David Spade made his film debut here as one of the titular citizen police officers. Sharon Stone also makes an early film appearance.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Review

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is one of the great movie mysteries. It poses seemingly impossible conundrums and then refuses to solve them. Some of them include such questions as: Why is it called “Dark of the Moon?” What happened to the word “side?” Was it too long for the movie posters? Other riddles to behold are whether or not action screenwriters actually know what the word “triangulate” means and how can a screenplay so irreparably dumb know how to use “whom” correctly? Also, is there a book of action movie dialogue clichés from which Ehren Kruger took about 33 percent of the lines? Is it possible to release a Hollywood mega-budget film that isn’t overflowing with expository dialogue? Did director Michael Bay and his visual effects teams understand the action sequences? Did they actually try to make them coherent and fail miserably or is it just pure laziness. This movie is wondrous to behold. I’ve never seen its equal.

Secretariat Movie Review: The Disney Version of Horse Racing

We should expect treacly and trite when it comes to Disney’s live action films. It’s what they’ve always produced and I suppose there’s some value in good wholesome family entertainment. Certainly that’s what the Disney brand sells and it’s what many people want, but does this also have to mean that they make their films in a paint-by-numbers fashion, following the rules of Screenwriting 101 to the letter? As a company, Disney goes so far out of its way to avoid offending or upsetting anyone that the result is typically bland mediocre entertainment.

Sweet stories about animals have been their bread and butter for a long time. Secretariat is the latest about the legendary eponymous racehorse that won the Triple Crown in 1973 (the first horse to do so in 25 years). That it’s directed by Randall Wallace (who wrote Braveheart and directed Pearl Harbor) and written by Mike Rich (Radio) should tell you something about the lack of subtlety in this desperately earnest sports tale.