Brian's Thoughts on Movies

 I remember when Cameron Crowe was casting the female lead for Jerry Maguire in early 1996 there were stories of a lot of famous actresses such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Marisa Tomei, and Cameron Di being tested but Crowe was having a difficult time finding the perfect Dorothy.  Dorothy to some degree represents Crowe in the film and there is a character like her in all of his films.  Dorothy is strong but genuine and thoughtful and it is important that this character never loses this quality throughout the film.  When Rene Zellweger was casting I thought “who?”.  As I recall in the article that announced Zellweger’s casting Crowe said she was perfect and with Tom Cruise cast in the title role Crowe did not feel the need to cast a bigger name.   Crowe’s choice paid off perfectly.  Zellweger is the heart of Jerry Maguire and though her character gets put through the wringer and makes mistakes throughout the story she never loses her sense of self.  Zellw...

 One of my debits as a film fan is my big blind spot for Paul Thomas Anderson ’s work.  I admire how like Christopher Nolan , Anderson clearly has a lot of interests and his films cover different subjects.  I am reluctant to use the term “genre” to describe any of Anderson’s work because his films always tell stories about characters who are in a specific setting but they can take on any tone.  The trailers for Anderson’s films are often misleading and not too involving so I do not often rush to see one unless I hear enough about it that it grabs me.   The Anderson films I have seen are Magnolia (which I liked a lot), The Master (a worthy look at a Scientology like religion but I found it very difficult to understand a lot of the Joaquin Phoenix character’s actions), Phantom Thread (which had a intriguing character dynamic between a dressmaker and a young woman in England in the 1950s) and There Will Be Blood . I went to see this film on the big screen by mys...

 “Rosebud” These dying words of the title character of then 25-year old Orson Welles’ debut film become the MacGuffin of the story as a reporter (and by extension the audience) tries to figure out what it means.  At the end of the story we find out what it is attached to but the audience is left to discern the meaning.  I certainly have my opinion but others likely have their own. Citizen Kane was one of the late film critic Roger Ebert’s favorite films.  Citizen Kane also appears on a lot of favorite critics list and for years topped the decennial list of Sight and Sound favorite films.  I think for these reasons, as well as a reluctance to try to embrace a film that was released in 1941, a lot of modern audience members do not watch Citizen Kane or are quickly disappointed if they do and are not quickly swept up into its rhythms.  Film fans should ignore the praise around the film and give it a look and see if it grabs them.  While I do not rate it a...

Tom Hanks has made so many films where he has played the title character (A Man Called Otto, Sully, Captain Ron, Forrest Gump, among others) that I could create a post or Letterboxd ranking just focusing on those films.  However at the end of his career if there is one film he is most remembered for it will likely be Forrest Gump.   When Forrest Gump came out I resisted it somewhat and I have not been too kind to it in other posts.  I saw it in the cinema a couple of months after it was released and thought it was both inventive and touching in spots but also overrated and I did not understand why in a year that included The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show The Lion King, and Nobody’s Fool, it walked away with Best Picture and more accolades than those other five films, all of which I thought were superior.  I read the Winston Groom novel a year or so after the film was released and found it to be much more satirical.  In the film we are supposed to...

I have noticed that many great directors who are no known for suspense movies try their hand at the genre.  Martin Scorsese has made Cape Fear and Shutter Island.  Spielberg has made Duel.  Sidney Lumet made Guilty as Sin and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead.  Sydney Pollack made Three Days of the Condor, Rob Reiner made Misery, Orson Welles made The Lady in Shanghai, which had a climax that was spoofed by Woody Allen in his comical take on the genre in Manhattan Murder Mystery.  More recently Christopher Nolan made Insomnia, Denis Villeneuve made Prisoners and Quentin Tarantino made Death Proof.  In most of these cases these films are less ambitious than their directors’ greatest works but are more fun and thus audience pleasing.  I watched Killers of the Flower Moon in a half empty theatre in 2023 and I could not take my eyes off the screen for a moment and held off going to the bathroom during a 3 1/2 hour movie because I did not want to miss anythi...

John Grisham, a former attorney from Mississippi, became a popular writer in the early 1990s.  I think attorneys read a lot of cases during law school and then in practice come across different situations that lend themselves to good fiction.  During the 90s and early 2000s adaptations for the popular legal thrillers were fast tracked by studios as soon as they came out and often the screen versions appeared within a year or two of publication.  The books were page turners and the film versions often attracted A-list actors and directors.  Sadly although Grisham continues to write the books and they are well received there has not been a feature film since 2004, though there have been some television projects.  The characters became a little more complex and while a lot of the novels are terrific, especially The Broker, The Testament and The Partner, some of the stories did not have clear villains and may have been seen as less commercial.  Additionally whi...