Time Marches On: 1986 and The Big Easy

Movie Reviewed: The Big Easy

Director: Jim McBride

Date Watched: 5 September 2021

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

I think that I may have liked this more if I had seen it when it came out in 1986. Despite committed performances by Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin and an impossibly impeccable sense of place with New Orleans locales, The Big Easy lacks storytelling grace and style, seems deeply uncomfortable/ugly in its treatment of both women and African-Americans, and it lingers as a quirky, kinda fun mystery with lots of great touches, Quaid's Capote-esque lawyer among them. 

I think that director Jim McBride's commitment to the light corruption of the NOPD overshadows the gruesomeness of the storytelling and its implications. Ned Beatty does what he can as the beleaguered police captain dating Quaid's mom, but the real challenge here is Barkin's character, a new DA. She is not treated respectfully; instead, she is an object of uptight ridicule often, objectified, kidnapped by police officers, and generally harassed. The chemistry between her and Quaid is apparent and palpable, but the film could have taken itself to some better, more interesting places if there's was a connection of intellectual equals, of debate and ideas as well as the physical. By reducing her to a series of traits and focusing on her ineptness or nervousness, it makes this always Quaid's picture, and his energy drives everything. The mystery is kind of fun, though the police work to solve it involves...finding a car already in police custody... Chinatown, this is not. But, it was fun, breezy, and the music on the soundtrack and in the film performed live was incredible, as was Quaid's commitment to a Cajun accent. A bit artless and clumsy, The Big Easy collapses in on itself, but I enjoyed watching it once.

Squandered Squad

Movie Reviewed: The Suicide Squad

Director: James Gunn

Date Watched: 28 August 2021

jamesintexas rating: *

Just not very good. Despite Margot Robbie's game, fun performance as Harley Quinn, a walking shark person, and Idris Elba's intensity, the film seems sloppy, lazy, and lacking in fun, especially when Robbie is not onscreen. 

James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy, for me, was one of the top films of that year, a master class is silliness, fun music, quirky storytelling, and kinetic filmmaking. This film lacks that imagination and verve, I think, and it seems hung up on presenting lots and lots of characters, far more than we can care about. John Cena's Peacemaker is a silly highlight, but the giant special effects extravaganza is not as much fun as just watching characters riff and dig on each other. 

The Suicide Squad is not incredibly memorable, and so it goes in 2021. I am still searching for the best (or I'll just take simply a good) film to hang my hat on. This ain't it. Margot Robbie, to be clear, is a national treasure in her committed wackiness, though Birds of Prey was much more fun and stylized.

Judgment Day: Instant and Timeless Classic T2

 

Movie Reviewed: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Director: James Cameron

Date Watched: 8 July 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

A potent, mesmerizing mix of action, jaw-dropping special effects that hold up, and powerful storytelling. Schwarzenegger has never been better; less is more from his stoic, Frankenstein's monster-performance. This time, I was moved by Edward Furlong's vulnerable performance as young John Connor and the relationship with Sarah Connor (the always great but really great here Linda Hamilton). The ending closes on shots of the open road, clearly a reach towards the driving of the first film, but overall, the film wrestles with a fiercely determined villain, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), clad in the terrifying carte blanche uniform of the LAPD. Cameron's storytelling, with broad strokes, always appeals to me. A classic.

Day of Truth

 

Movie Reviewed: Training Day

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Date Watched: 27 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2

Compelling and eminently watchable.  Denzel Washington’s magnetic, explosive Alonzo bounces off Ethan Hawke’s more internalized performance as Officer Hoyt. An artifact of 2001, the film consists of multiple great scenes and moments, with crisp action and dialogue, powerful music, and a sense of place.

The Best of the Mohicans (And 90's Action Adventure Films)

Movie Reviewed: Last of the Mohicans

Director: Michael Mann

Date Watched: 22 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

Simply put, one of the greatest action-adventure films of all-time. Emotionally resonant and beautifully shot, Mann's masterpiece features a tour-de-force, visceral performance by the brilliant Daniel Day-Lewis as Hawkeye, adopted son of Chingachgook (Russell Means) and a stirring compliment to that in Madeline Stowe's Cora Munro. The more I watch and study this film, the more I think it is about grief, loss, survival, and the inevitability of time. Mann has crafted something incredibly memorable here, something important and beautiful.

No Solace This Time Around

 

Movie Reviewed: Quantum of Solace

Director: Marc Forster

Date Watched: 22 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: *1/2

A bizarre low point after the marvelous Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace feels disconnected, discombobulated, and a film in disarray, lacking enough scenes with the villain Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), Spectre (or Quantum or whatever they are called). I thought Olga Kurylenko's performance as haunted Camille was strong, and Jeffrey Wright's return as Felix Lighter is always welcome. But Marc Forster seems to be somewhat at fault here: strange choices that defuse action sequences; cross-cutting with horses racing and Tosca operas; and the abrupt ending that just seems to short circuit everything into shooting. Nice moments, but what a mess, and what a let-down. And to me now, in 2021, it feels so derivative of the far superior Bourne films.

The Royale Standard: Bond is Bond

Movie Reviewed: Casino Royale

Director: Martin Campbell

Date Watched: 20 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ****

It just doesn't get better. I think it is because of the ferocity of Craig's debut performance, the physicality and brutish brutality, as well as the searing performance by Eva Green as the complex Vesper Lynd. Martin Campbell's steady direction whisks us from the Bahamas to Montenegro to Venice with a crackling opening scene and both homages and deep seeds of the Bond character and ethos.