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Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)
Watching Star Wars as an adult–as a cynical adult–is an interesting experience. There are plenty of frequent reminders of the first film’s “faults,” from Alec Guinness and Harrison Ford deriding the...
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Falling Down (1993, Joel Schumacher)
When the film started, I sort of marveled at how absurd it was–Joel Schumacher and Michael Douglas making a subversive movie, then I quickly realized Falling Down isn’t subversive… it’s...
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Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma)
If one were to, empirically, examine the films of the 1990s and onward to the present, he or she might be inclined to not believe in Blow Out. Literally, not believe such a film could exist. Not only...
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Righteous Kill (2008, Jon Avnet)
I don’t know when I first realized De Niro and Pacino had never been in a movie together (really together)–it was long before Heat; their pairing doesn’t exactly seem obvious (both were always leading...
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Footloose (1984, Herbert Ross)
Footloose isn’t so much awful as dumb and obvious. Some of it is awful–the scene where Kevin Bacon, fed up with the small town getting him down, just has to go to an abandoned mill and dance it...
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Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987, John Hughes)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles is probably most impressive technically. The narrative is problematic but not a bad narrative, it’s just a problematic one. Director Hughes can’t decide if he wants...
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Mission to Mars (2000, Brian De Palma)
If it had been made earlier–even with the same flawed script–Mission to Mars would probably have been more successful. Many of its failings relate to the CG special effects. Stephen H. Burum is...
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