Brian's Thoughts on Movies

 A popular debate that comes out around the holidays is whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie, presumably because it is set on Christmas Eve (feel free to correct me, I haven't watched it in ages).  To that I say, how about Die Hard 2, Lethal Weapon, Batman Returns or The Long Kiss Goodnight?  All of them are all action films (two scripted by Shane Black) set around the holiday season but released nowhere near it.  In the end if the film makes you feel festive, then perhaps it is a Christmas movie but if you can enjoy it at any time of the year then it is probably just a good film.  The sixth James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, has about half of its runtime set near Christmas time.  There is a Christmas carol especially written for the film "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?".  I find the song a repetitive bore as a listening experience but within the film the upbeat theme contrasts perfectly against the tense moment in th...

 There is a new Naked Gun film coming directed by Akiva Schaffer and starring Liam Neeson.  I am both interested and apprehensive about seeing it.  Neeson is a first rate dramatic actor who is also very effective in action roles (though I think he has not been selective enough about his material lately) but I have rarely seen in him a comedy and never as a lead.  But hopefully they come up with something memorable.   Recently I showed my kids the original Police Squad TV series and the trilogy of films which I think are the gold standard of the format the ZAZ (the Zucker brother and Jim Abrahams) perfected.  Their films and shows present plots but as a clotheslines for comedic gags and puns that break all narrative convention.  Their characters are presented as mostly straightforward (but also more than a little foolish) who let the craziness around them define them as opposed to chasing laughs with big acting moments. Spoilers below Police Squad ...

Director Joel Schumacher had an interesting career in the 1990s.  Schumacher released nine films that decade and for me his most interesting film is Falling Down, a thriller starring Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall.  The title could either refer to Douglas' character, a recently laid off defense worker who decides on his daughter's birthday that he has had enough of people telling him no and begins a  dangerous 20-mile journey on foot across Los Angeles to go see her and his ex-wife, despite a court order to stay away from them.  Falling Down may refer to society itself, which is represented through various characters all of whom are struggling in one way or another. Spoilers below: Douglas was originally approached to play Prendergast, the part that went to Robert Duvall, but he wisely noted that the fellow who snapped was a more interesting character.  Although it was a risky role for a star of his caliber once Douglas took the part some of the more extreme ...

The Torretto "Family" is back in a film that Vin Diesel claims is the second or third last of the series, depending on when you ask him.  Fast X had some cleanup to do since F9 made a lot of money but many fans of the series had the same middling reaction to it that I did.  After watching the last several Fast films in the cinema we decided to wait to see the new one on Redbox.  The question I had going into this one was could the series rediscover the balance of providing fun without going too far into implausibility?   Spoilers below The nicest thing I can say about Fast X is that it is better than F9.  Justin Lin, who has directed three good Fast films and two bad ones, left the film about a week after production began over story issues and Louis Letterier (who directed The Incredible Hulk and the Transporter films) took over.  Fast X is a mild improvement over F9 because it is has a more memorable villain in Jason Momoa and none of the characters g...

  The Fugitive, sixty years after it first debuted, has strong name recognition which is commendable for a property that is not based on a comic book or classic novel.  I was born in 1972 so my first point of reference was the 1993 film.  My parents might think first of the 1960 series created by Roy Huggins.  If the attempt to revive the TV series either in 2000 or in 2020 had caught on with the general public, younger generations might go first to one of those versions.   When something is successful it breeds a lot of imitators.  The format of the 1960s show was similar to the movie Shane.  A stranger comes into a small town, solves the problems of the people he encounters, and then moves on, usually because he either has to run from the police who have discovered his presence, or because he might be closer to solving his own major problem.  The Incredible Hulk and the A-Team followed a similar template. In the case of  The Fugitive t...