Keyser Corleone's Movie Memoirs

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Carlito's Way
(1993) - Directed by Brian de Palma
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Gangster / Drama
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"The dream don't come no closer by itself. We gotta run after it now."


OK, so take it from a Coppola fan, I am so ****ing happy that so many Italians made their way into Hollywood during the 60's and 70's. Italian cinema and Italian-American cinema are two of my all-time favorite things. Coppola gets my highest respect, and I've seen more Scorsese movies than I can count. The "New Hollywood" scene was a time of innovation that these two were a large part of. Strangely enough, there's a third member of this party that gets ass-tons of respect, but I never had the hard-on for this guy like most film buffs did: Brian de Palma.

See, believe it or not, Scarface was criticized when it came out for Montana's negative personality and lack of real growth. I'm inclined to agree. While I think it's a great movie, I turned it to live up to the mass amounts of drool that the open jaws in the movie theaters have been secreting since its critical re-evaluation. If you're gonna talk about it that way, then I'm giving it high expectations. As for yet another crime drama by de Palma, Carlito's way, I expected something a little worse but still good. So I had less strict expectations going into this. Already familiar with Scarface, Carrie, Mission Impossible and Black Dahlia, I already had an easy time comparing this movie to the other de Palma works. Basically, call this movie the flip-coin toss of whether or not I'd agree with the rest of the world on de Palma's raw quality as a director, despite ordering his movies from best-to-worst significantly differently than most people.

Bombastic ex-gangster Carlito just got out of a lengthy prison sentence with the help of his lawyer and friend Dave Kleinfeld. And now that he's out, Carlito wants to get out of the life for good. He works around his old life, contacting old friends to help him get the money for a new club, but fully within the law. The people on the streets can hardly believe it, but he'll do anything to stay out of prison, as well as rekindling to relationship with dancer Gail, the girl he dropped so as not to drive himself crazy while in prison. Unfortunately, his friends have a tendency to get involved in crime, and that includes Dave, who asks Carlito to help him with ONE LAST crime, one that changes all of Carlito's plans for the worst.

The first thing that came to my mind was the lack of character development for any "villains" in the story. For a movie with quite a few characters over a 2 1/2-hour runtime, you would think that the villains would have more screentime. For a gangster movie, this is quite abnormal. Except... it's not a flaw. This is actually perfectly appropriat efor Carlito's Way, and why? Because this is a movie about his relationships with his FRIENDS. This is about how his FRIENDS are constantly tempting him to go back to the life.

So with that negligence in character fully justified, let's take a lot at everything else...

This... is... ART. This is Brian de Palma utilizing every skill he has to deliver what could be his best ever, assuming I don't give a higher rating to any other de Palma film after this. First, let it be said that the cast of this movie just oozes the word "dynamic." Pacino as Carlito gives us a totally different side of his acting, one that boasts the obnoxiousness of his villain in Dick Tracy but with less sadism and more spunk and humanity, one that you kinda want to sit next to in the movie theater. He's old and wisened, but full of youth and hope. And OH MY GOD Sean Penn. Now I'm mostly familiar with Penn's work in The Game and Mystic River, both movies where he did perfect jobs. But Penn ruled the sleazy lawyer stereotype, but with added nervous breakdowns, by going fully into the character's skin and delivering it so naturally that you'd think Penn has done everything Dave did in the movie but in real life. MULTIPLE TIMES.

Judging by the poster, I was expecting another dark and gritty piece. But no. We get colorful sets that reflect Carlito's youthful but aged persona, and the camera follows him and the other characters in some truly brilliant methods, capturing the scenery and the personalities of the characters without botching the job once. This is some of the most careful visualizing I have ever seen in a movie, and I would recommend this for a film class in that type of lesson almost as quickly as I would recommend Cuaron's Gravity. And with the story going into a lot of thrilling areas, the camera reflects that perfectly as well.

Carlito's Way is like The Godfather in the sense that it's about a guy trying to leave the life and being tempted back in. Only this time, he gets closer and closer and things keep turning for the wost, and the end leaves the best kind of bittersweet taste in your mouth, like an expensive chocolate that earned its expensive cost. THIS is the Scarface I was looking for, and it's seriously tempting me to watch other de Palma movies and put off the war movie ballot for a little while. So I gotta fight that. However, de Palma DID direct Casualties of War, so I'm goin for that next. But as for this movie, Carlito's Way proves that de Palma matured a lot in his time as a director, and even after making the almost brilliant Carrie. Easily my favorite de Palma so far.

= 100/100

Brian de Palma's Average Score (5 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Carlito's Way: 100
Carrie: 98
Scarface: 92
Mission Impossible: 81
The Black Dahlia: 63

Score: 86.8 / 5

Brian de Palma moves up from #108 on my best directors list with an 85.5 / 4 score to #81 between Emeric Pressburger and Adrian Lyne.



Casualties of War
(1989) - Directed by Brian de Palma
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War/ Drama
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"You survive the Nam, you get to live forever, man."



War movie ballot plus mood for de Palma ignited by Carlito's Way equals Casualties of War. I went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it other than it was a Brian de Palma movie. I mean, imagine my surprise when I see the face of Michael J. Fox and hear the voice of Ving Rhames. I could see Ving Rhames doing this, but I know Fox from Back to the Future, Stuart Little and Atlantis. This is a guy a lot of people spent their childhoods with. This intrigued me.

But I probably never would've watched this had I known the plot. It is based on a true story in which a group of soldiers (save one of them) kidnap a Vietnamese girl, raped her and killed her when she became a "problem." Apparently, this is the movie that Quentin Tarantino claims in the greatest 'Nam war movie ever, or so I read on Wikipedia. And after watching I begged to God that's just some internet joker, but God ain't gonna change history, or interviews on articles.

While the spectacle of the first battle scene satisfies enough and has a few shocking moments, the actors are working hard to save the movie's simple story for the first 25 minutes, mostly just showcasing the soldiers with minimal character development. And I expected things to get a little more interesting after the actual kidnap took place, but once again it became nothing but a slow, well-filmed tirade of a bunch of soldiers angrily ranting towards Fox about how they think they're better than everyone else. We finally get a breathe of fresh air when Fox is given the opportunity to report it. But this plot is stretched so thickly that we have to deal with the first chapter, specifically the cruelty, for a literal hour.

Early on, the music is one of the better scores by Ennio Morricone, but I noticed some John Williams influence in the orchestra in the first battle scene. But it can be overly dramatic, too, even sugary like Monster Energy writing an opera. But as far as the acting goes, I think the only ones who were really convincing were Fox and Rhames. Fox's typical youthful persona works perfectly as the innocent man in the bunch of rapists he's forced to hang around, but Ving Rhames barely had any screen time. He did a good job at his role and he was onscreen for maybe two minutes. Everyone else was cheesy and overplayed or didn't even try to act. Big flaw.

This is an overly bitter movie with cheesy acting, drawn out and overly dramatic scenes and way too much cruelty with little to no cleverness. The war scenes are pretty good, and the second half is a major improvement over the first. But due to the obsessive length of the first half, this is not a movie I would recommend for anyone despite its merits eventually driving the film toward the end. It's true that this story should have been told, but at two full hours it's just too much. I'm certain that I'm in the minority when I say that you should just watch the tropy Black Dahlia instead. This isn't a bad movie, but I'll likely never watch it again.

= 62/100

Brian de Palma's Average Score (6 good vs. 0 bad)

This film does not alter Brian de Palma's top 5 score. 86.8 / 5



Last Flight to Abuja
(2012) - Directed by Obi Emelonye
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Disaster / Drama
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"Our determination to survive can often be outweighed by our willingness to accept our fate."



If there's one thing I love to do, it's to challenge myself. On of the most common challenges I put myself through is to gain some sort of decent knowledge, or maybe in expertise, in some obscure vein of art. I think I can safely assume that I know more about the history of grunge music than anyone of MoFo. But that's not gonna get me any cred as an aspiring film critic, so I think it's time I did something else very niche: explore cinema from other countries who are only just starting out. In this case, I have chosen Nigeria, as I have very few African movies under my belt and it was the first African country I thought of, other than South Africa for the namesake, and I didn't even count that anyway since most of the South African directors I looked up are white, which I think might be a little offensive if I started out with that first. I mean, my literal favorite music album was only created by breaking apartheid law (Graceland by Paul Simon), although that's not really why I love the album, but just saying.

My first venture into Nigerian cinema is this so-called disaster movie about a few employees about to board a flight to Abuja for a mandatory vacation. And before they leave, some of the employees have to deal with some personal issues. One woman isn't as dedicated to her romantic life as she is to her own career, and even drives her boyfriend to find other women. This one guy keeps having to put off things concerning his wife for the mandatory dates set by his boss, and another guy just so happens to be a criminal. And then they board the plain, something catches on fire, and there's an impending disaster.

Honestly, I should've made sure my first Nigerian movie was a little better. Maybe it's my fault for not checking the ratings because I just wanted a Nigerian director I could add to either my best directors or worst directors list, and for that to happen I needed a director who had enough movies in the public for me to watch, but not ones that were too long. So as soon as I saw that this movie was 75 minutes long, I figured, what the hey, right? Dumb move. Now Letterboxd's average rating for this movie is 2.3/5 out of 177 ratings. Heh, what a merciful bunch you are, explorers of Nigerian cinema. I'm not saying Nigeria can't make a good movie. I've only seen this one. But wow. Really, people? If you want a 2.3/5 disaster movie, you're better off with the TV movie The Horror at 37000 Feet. This is NOT good filmmaking.

First of all, I gotta say that the characters aren't going through anything that most average human beings haven't gone through, except maybe the criminal. And even then, the crime subplot is still, like all the others, so typical and done before that it's obvious that the writer couldn't think of anything better. Don't believe me? Get this. We get at least 50 out of 75 minutes of this pointless and generic drama, that any build up to the actual disaster takes half the remaining time, so we only get 10-15 minutes of the plan disaster actually happening.

On top of this, not only are the actors showing varying levels of acting quality among the extremely low character development, but the direction is Syfy original quality. Seriously. Sharknado has better direction than this. The camera is either too close, too far away or needlessly frantic in inappropriate times, and the CGI for the plan is just plan bad. One shot of the plan flying through the air almost looked like something from a Brett Kelly shark movie. So whether or not it's the acting or the CGI, the movie remains unconvincing for the most part.

Well, I chose a very poor choice for my first Nigerian movie. It's a generic and poorly-made disaster movie that can't handle anything it does well at all. Maybe there's a little merit in the relatable nature of a couple of the subplots, and it's not really an intolerable movie. But from an artistic perspective, this doesn't even qualify as art. The next Nigerian movie I pick is gonna be a lot better. And that might be on Netflix, as there's this one director who apparently has a few decently-received movies there.

= 11/100


Obi Emelonye needs 2 more movies for an average score.



Commando
(1985) - Directed by Mark L. Lester
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Action-Adventure
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"No chance."

I've known about this movie ever since I was a kid looking through a Hollywood Video catalog. I had already known Schwarzeneggar from one thing or another, probably mostly from movie references, so I was naturally curious. But as I grew up I got more into him, and found that this movie's popularity really pails in comparison to other classic Schwarzenegger movies, reducing awareness of the film to a short-lived running gag about going outside without underwear. So today that all changed.

Schwarzenegger plays a soldier called Matrix, an ex-operative who raises his daughter alone in the mountains. A couple of his army buds meet him to tell him that someone is killing off the members of his team. Well, after his house is attacked and his daughter is kidnapped, it turns out to be one of the soldiers. Matrix is being forced to assassinate someone or else his daughter's life will end. Is he really gonna believe that she won't die anyway? Concerning the blood and explosions, I'm gonna have to saaaaaaaay "No chance."

About our director, I'm not really a fan of this obscure "Mark L. Lester," and I never hear anyone talk about him. BUT, he has some cult classics attached to his name, notably Class of 1984 and its spinoff, Class of 1999, Gold of Amazon Women, Showdown in Little Tokyo, and Firestarter. The guy's one of the B-movie kings of the 80's, and Commando is said to be his one rare diamond in the rough, or maybe a ruby. So I was looking forward to this after being fairly satisfied with his movie Class of 1984, which I found wanting a remake of (and more Perry King knowledge). SO I was hyped.

... For all the wrong reasons.

OK, I've never seen Taken, but from what I can gather, Taken has more plot and action. Obviously, Taken was not the first "gritty ex-whatever rescues kid from kidnappers" movie, and neither was Commando I'll bet. By the time I saw this, I had already seen so many lone-wolf rescue movies from the 80's that I could probably compose a top 40 list. I knew the movie STARTED typically, but it didn't steer from that at all. We get our token female sidekick who does nothing but what Arnold tells her to, besides complain, and a villain who only does one villainous thing in the first 20 minutes before the climax. In other words, this is not a movie for characters.

Commando is a cult-classic but Chuck Norris movies are reduced to being exclusively for action nerds? I can check how many Norris movies are about Commando on my chart of all movies I've seen ranked from best to worst, and I guarantee you there will be at least 5. And none of them are his more notably ones with say Bruce Lee or even Expendables 2. What a joke. It's so generic that I don't have any reason to return to it again. '84 and '99 might've been cheesy, but they had OK plots and they focused on story delivery. This only focuses on Arnold's pecs bouncing for no reason whenever his shirt's off.

= 44/100

Mark L. Lester's Average Score (3 Good vs. 2 Bad)

Class of 1984: 65
Class of 1999: 58
Firestarter: 56
Commando: 44
Pterodactyl: 10

Average: 46.6 / 5

Mark L. Lester gets a minimum score of 50 for having 3 good movies vs. 2 bad ones.



Showdown in Little Tokyo
(1991) - Directed by Mark L. Lester
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Buddy Cop / Martial Arts / Yakuza Eiga
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"Listen, will you do this right? Clean? Like a cop in the 20th century, not some samurai warrior?"



I might be focusing on war movies for the time being, but I still like a good B-movie. I'm getting pretty serious about the lists, especially since it's been a while since I posted a "best of x director" list, and I'm still fleshing out my best and worst director's lists. So I have a hell of a lot to work on. Right now, during the war movie ballot, I'm focusing on one war movie and one bad movie a day, and our featured director is currently Mark L. Lester, who started his career by focusing on the drive-in scene. As the times changed, so did he, eventually tackling less B-movie terror and more cheap A-movies, such as our movie for this review: the martial arts yakuza film Showdown in Little Tokyo.

Sergeany Kenner (Dolph Lundgren) is a karate cop with a bloodlust for a local yakuza responsible for killing his family... big whoop. He partners up with Johnny Murata (Brandon Lee) a young and attitudinal cop... big whoo), and together they plan on bringing down the mafia before they gather the gangs together to take over the city... big whoop.

OK, so there's a cool guy vibe throughout the movie thanks to some decent direction and action. Even though Lundgren and Lee aren't exactly the best actors, but there's at least some charisma between them that, while dealing with serious fluctuations between dialogue quality, doesn't feel fake. They're decent enough to work well together. But I feel like Lee's action scenes weren't anywhere near as cool as Lundgren's, so the imbalance there pretty much translates to: "get Lee off the screen. I wanna see Lundgren throw a guy through a wall!"

Our plot here is pretty typical. I must've seen 50 movies with this type of plot, but at least the pace is brisk enough to keep it active, and the trashy city scenery is at least convincing. I can imagine a million guys being entertained at this movie's vision of L.A. yakuza culture, specifically the club scene. Instead of bringing me back to 50 other action movies, the uniqueness brought me to certain scenes in Babylon for its style. So it's not totally irredeemable.

As far as I'm concerned, Showdown in Little Tokyo amounts to slightly more than a typical action movie. Ever. So.. Slightly. I don't really see any reason to watch it for its quality, but as a movie buff I was at least taken in by the historical side due to Brandon Lee's early death. It was also interesting to see an early Tia Carrere. But it's a very predictable buddy cop movie, so there's little to "appreciate" rather than to "tolerate" as not necessarily bad but not original.

= 53


Mark L. Lester's Average Score (4 Good vs. 3 Bad)

Class of 1984: 65
Class of 1999: 58
Firestarter: 56
Showdown in Little Tokyo: 53
Commando: 44

Average: 55.2/5

Mark L. lester is kicked off the bad list and sent to the bottom section of the good list between Tony Randel and Charles Grosvenor.



Reposting the genre colorcoding here so I don't have to keep going back to pg. 13.


Action - Red
Adventure - Orange
Comedy - Yellow
Crime - Dark Blue
Documentary - Green
Drama - Teal
Experimental - Olive
Family - Lavender
Fantasy - Magenta
Horror - Purple
Musical - White
Mystery - Brown
Noir - Black
Romance - Pink
Sci-Fi - Blue
Sports - Cyan
Thriller - Gray
War - Dark Green
Western - Tan
Other - Dark Red
Movement - Slate Gray



After having watched this movie in parts over a total of nine days, I am completely hyped to post the first MoFo review of this extremely important documentary.

Shoah
(1985) - Directed by Claude Lanzmann
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War Documentary
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"So then they began to wonder, 'Where have they put those Jews?'"



I've known about this movie for a long time, but it can be difficult actually bringing yourself to watch a nine-and-a-half hour film. Thankfully, the war movie countdown was just the push I needed. I spent an hour a day watching this while still making room for at least one war movie a day (although I typically kept to shorter ones for those nine days). Considering its legacy, I was hoping it would end up in the same boat that the seven-hour Satantango ended up for me: complete perfection and a position on my top 100.

Despite the movie's length, I'll make this review quick.

Claude Lanzmann's giant of a movie is nine-and-a-half hours of interviews with Holocaust survivors, culled from 350 hours of footage! This footage takes us to the various locations of where the horrors of the Holocaust took place. Many of these places were either abandoned or flat out erased, as some of these places will simply be open fields of grass. We hear these elders tell their stories like we were children on their laps, just ready to realize the true nature of the world, and it can often be difficult for the interviewee to go back to these memories, more so than it is for us to hear these stories.

The first thing you should keep in mind is that this movie IS very monotonous. It's best if you watch this movie in one-hour increments instead of two hours, because the movie doesn't pull any new tricks or try to change its format. So for an hour at a time, I was on one person or another's lap hearing old stories of Holocaust torture, war strategies, ghetto life, etc. We also have a lot of slow scenes of riding trains or through city streets for some sort of visual aspect, but it gets old after a while, even in daily one-hour increments. On top of the fact that many of these heart-wrenching stories can be gruesome, it's best to treat this insightful megamovie as a miniseries. Which brings me to my final criticism: this movie was culled from 350 hours of footage. It would've done better as a show.

But the real reason for the movie's existence is purely justified. I mean, out of 350 hours, think of how many stories didn't make the final cut of this movie? That's a lot of stories the world needs to hear. This movie is already chock-full of stories with a historical relevancy that matches its emotional core. And we don't just interview the Jews, but some people who were related to the experiences. Even near the end, one ex-Nazi is trying to make his old position in the whole shebang seem less vital than it was by claiming it was a small part. My mind immediately went to a quote from Orson Welles' film The Stranger, in which Welles plays a Nazi hiding under an assumed name: "I was only following orders," to which a detective replied, "You gave the orders."

The descriptions of the interviewees can oftentimes be so detailed and visual, which means we can see these horrors happening as we travel these old and barren sites of the Holocaust, almost as if the spirits of the dead are reenacting these horrors in our own heads. In the end, the horrors are almost as real for us as it was for the Jews being interviewed, even though we can't even begin to share the full extent of their pain. I won't tell you any of their stories, though, for two reasons: A: spoilers, B: I couldn't possibly tell these stories as well as them, even if I mastered the art of copying memories or some psychofantasy bull like that.

Shoah is not perfect filmmaking, and I understand when there are those who say the movie is boring. Nevertheless, this is a movie that needs to be seen, at least for anyone interested in the history. Thanks to Claude Lanzmann, these Holocaust survivors' stories will be told long after their deaths, and I feel like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders not for watching a nine-and-a-half hour movie, but for taking the responsibility to hear their stories. It's a very odd feeling, but one that I'm happy with as a human being and a critic. Well worth the nine days I spent watching it.

And now onto the sequel: Shoah, Four Sisters.

= 87/100


Claude Lanzmann needs 2 more movies for an average score.



OK, I mentioned this before on this forum: I'm autistic. And I'm pretty sure some aspects of that behavior have bled into the message boards. And I do have a tendency to be offended when someone calls me an idiot. Having said, there are varying levels of autism, asperger syndrome or whatever you wanna call it. So when I see a, ahem, as this movie calls it, "retard," onscreen, I don't take it as a comparison to all people on the spectrum, so I'm not offended. This case is especially true when said type of character is a role played by a character in the REAL movie, and the in-universe movie is considered in-universe to be one of the worst movies ever, thus meaning the movie is NOT offensive by addressing offensive-



Tropic Thunder
(2008) - Directed by Ben Stiller
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War / Parody / Action
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"Just corn syrup you guys!"



Leave it to a rated-R comedy written by, directed by and starring Ben Stiller to be controversial for jokes pertaining to mental disabilities and blackface. The thing is, 90% of the movie has NOTHING to do with either! The movie is a mockery of everything Hollywood does, and I'm more than happy to go into the details right now.

Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downer Jr. all play actors starring in an adaptation of a biographical account of a real-life soldier, but production is just one disaster after another. Once the actors let things get out of control, the director is convinced by our soldier to take them into the actual Vietnamese wild to do a better job of replicating the soldier experience. Little do they know that they're dropped right in the middle of the Golden Triangle, and soon end up fighting for their lives against a dangerous mafia of heroin processors.

OK, so it's one thing for a white actor to play a black man. No matter how well you do it, people will have a problem. It's another thing for a man to play a white man playing a black man and still make both at the same time convincing! I mean, that is some meta crap! I suppose it's not as controversial as I would've otherwise heard about from conversations for other movies because Downey Jr. showed a level of skill that is so rare that we might not see it again for many years to come.

Now that I'm done fawning over Downey Jr., let me say that it's unfair to say that he outshined everyone else. The majority of the cast sinks into their roles and the sub-roles of their characters very easily, so we get the same kind of skill from a few angles. And even when people aren't playing actors, they're still kicking serious ass. Take Tom Cruise as the verbally abusive producer, Les Grossman, who's casting against type is one of the best performances of his career. Just seeing him on-screen doing what he does makes him one of the funniest characters

Speaking of kicking ass, this might be a parody of the whole Vietnam War schebang, but it takes its storytelling seriously. The thing is, this story is so wacky-ass that I can't believe it even HAS good delivery. The delivery is phenomenal, and thanks to that we get some serious action sequences that gross-out with exaggerated gore, astound with expert timing and direction, and blow away by combining the obnoxiousness of the comedy aspect with the serious and more artistic direction you'd typically find in modern war movies.

The final compliment I have for this movie is the way it handles Hollywood themes. The first thing I noticed was how the movie handles the more offensive subjects by either reflecting how the public views these things or by subverting the way these things are handled. Other themes include the relationships between actors and the rest of the Hollywood industry, as well as their expectations in the general public. All of these things are challenged once the plot takes the turns for the absolute worst, and so things are not always predictable, making the plot much weirder.

There is one little flaw I have is that some of the major characters, the other soldier actors specifically, don't shine onscreen or have as much development as Stiller and Downey, Jr.'s characters. Jack Black is pretty much just playing another semi-idiot with fat jokes to back him up, and the other two dudes don't entertain anywhere near as much, despite their heavy relevance to the social and Hollywood-central themes.

I'm definitely returning to this one. A war film that's not really a war film, Tropic Thunder is all about subverting the tropes of moviemaking, and is actually about those subversions. One wouldn't think that a parody movie could drive itself so heavily on themes, but this one did. This might even end up as one of my favorite movies overtime. Ben Stiller might be no Orson Welles, but Tropic Thunder reflects the best of Stiller as a writer, director and actor.

= 96/100

Ben Stiller needs 1 more film for an average score.



I watched a few movies today. Once again, I chose a classic war movies for the countdown. This time it was A Man Escaped. It's an excellent movie with minor flaws that deserves to be talked about and studied by both film student and movie junkie. This movie is featured on a couple of our MoFo list challenges, and whether or not one believes it's a war movie and votes for it in the upcoming countdown, I feel like people should watch this even if out of curiosity.

Unfortunately, I chose the movie I felt I had the most to say about instead, since I can only say what's been repeated about A Man Escaped. So... my apologies, everyone.

Free Willy
(1993) - Directed by Simon Wincer
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Family / Melodrama
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"I'm sure you miss your family too. And I hope you find them one day."



I never saw this movie as a kid. I saw a trailer for the third one on the Bugs Bunny Road Runner VHS I had and I had a kid's book where apparently Jesse and Willy could communicate. As you can image, little really pressured me to beg either of my parents to get it. Not like Titan A.E. did when my sister showed me X-Men when I was 8 (never gonna deny my sister changed my life with that movie). So the decision to watch this now was pretty much a 100% "why the hell not" moment.

Jesse is an orphaned with a serious authority problem. The only thing he cares about is finding his mother who abandoned him. When he gets in trouble with the law after spraypainting a whale tank at a waterpark, he's put on probation to clean it up and work there. That's when he befriends Willy, a rebellious adolescent orca who's been snatched from his family. Jesse is the only one Willy trusts, so unless Jesse can get him to cooperate, Willy's dead and his insurance money will be cashed on.

I normally don't like sentimental animal-meets-kid movies. Other than the rare exception like Dolphin Tale, or the more unique twist on tropes Lilo and Stitch, these kind of movies are just fodder to feed my charts. But such is not QUITE the case with this movie. I mean, yeah, dozens of similar movies made before and after this one make it predictable. But for once, the sentimental value actually really kicks in. This isn't just some eco-friendly romp like Spirit Bear or Captain Planet. This actually has something to say concerning a connection between a kid and an animal. The whole lost family thing actually works thanks to some very reealistic dialogue, more realistic than these types of movies usually have.

There was one very weak point in this film that desperately needs addressing: Michael Ironside. He was given so little to work with, and even though he did it well he just didn't have enough at all! They cut his role as the villain to the absolute basics of necessity to the plot. As a part of hid career, this movie can be accurately judged as a blotch. Thankfully, we have a charismatic trio of Jason James Richter, August Shellenberg and Tank Girl herself: Lori Petty, filling that gap with easygoing performances that convince more than they entertain. Richter also generated very strong charisma with the foster parents, played by Jayne Atkinson and Michael Madsen, who generated almost as much charisma as he did. Really, I wanted to see more of Richter as an adult, but he took an 11-year break from the industry.

Free Willy might be more popular than it deserves, but I'd say that isn't a bad thing due to the talent of Richter as an actor. The movie is a successful take on kid and animal relations that utilizes melodrama properly. The real glory of this sentimental kid's tale is the acting and the themes, making the movie much more enjoyable than it otherwise deserves. So I'm gonna check out Free Willy 2 just for more Richter.

Oh, and fun fact: one of the stuntwomen would later be the voice of Jimmy Neutron. Caught that listening to the Michael Jackson song in the credits.

= 66/100

Simon Wincer's Average Score (3 Good vs. 1 Bad)

Quigley Down Under: 82
Free Willy: 66
Operation Dumbo Drop: 55
The Phantom: 45

Average Score: 62 / 4

Simon Wincer moves up from his spot at #213 on my top directors list, moving to #201 between Fred M. Wilcox and James Tinling.



Dead Poets Society
(1989) - Directed by Peter Weir
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Teen Movie/ Coming-Of-Age / School Drama
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"Oh, Captain! My Captain!"



So what we have here is a team of young actors who feel right at home with the surroundings the director has given them. This is a kind of acting collective that requires keen precision and personality to get right. I mean, on every side, even for underdeveloped minor characters, the acting is flawless. It didn't even have an all star cast. It had lots of young hopefuls, like the recent TMNT Mutant Madness film, although the latter had star surrounding the young leads. This didn't. You could feel everybody's emotions so easily thanks to the effortless talent. It's very difficult for a movie about a class to gather the character development needed to make everyone feel as human as they should be, so Weir makes up for this with acting ability and delivery of both theme and poetry from our "society," this group of young hopefuls fed up with having their lives controlled.

This is compliment number one. Compliment number two goes to the incredible writing. Our story is built upon the concept of relation to the audience. We are free thinkers or at least desire to be, and this movie never wastes a moment to let you know. Because of this, it's easier than blinking to feel for the characters when they risk their own welfare or get into trouble, because the moralist in you shouldn't want to see them get in trouble, unless of course they actually do screw up on their own, like the kiss scene. Some have said that Dead Poets Society is a niche movie, appealing more to the artistic type. Not true, IMO. This movie also appeals to the free thinker and the socially imprisoned teenager. I mean, if you can get a movie against teacher stuffiness taught in film school, you'd have to make sure it's highly relatable. On top of that, the dialogue is perfectly realistic.

I should fault the movie for giving in to some typical subplots for each of those more thoroughly explored. I mean, falling in love with a girl who has about as much character development as the pretty girl crush on Nick cartoons hardly amounts to much. This is just one example, though. However, sometimes there is real emotion attached to the subplots, namely Neil Perry's subplot involving his horrible and obsessive father who thinks he can control everyone.

I don't know if the moralist in me can stomach another play of Dead Poets Society, but I commend all of its pros, greatly making up for the cons. It teeters between tugging at your heart so hard that it bruises and uplifting you to the point where you want to go out and find a desk just to stand on it. Highly recommended.

= 95



Peter Weir's Directorial Score (4 Good vs. 1 Bad)

he Truman Show: 100
Dead Poets Society: 95
The last Wave: 92
Master and Commander: 78
Homesdale: 27


Average Score: 78.4 / 5



Fantasies
(1981) - Directed by John Derek
--------------------------------------------
Romance
-------------------------------------------------
"I am a woman."



So apparently John Derek is the ex-wife of an old fart who's 30 years older, and made several movies with Bo. It's one thing for a 20 year old to get hitched with a 50 year old, but making rated-R romance movies together creeps me the **** out. Nevertheless, in lieu of a tingle down there, my B-movie senses tingled instead. But of course, by this point I hope the movies I pick at least have something redeemable about them. So before I watch the one I'm most interested in regarding this infamous pair: Tarzan, I'm heading to this freaky little number: Fantasies, also knows as, And Once Upon a Time.

Damir is a young man who is extremely bossy to his adopted sister, Anastasia, who's longing to be treated like a woman. They travel together to an island where our man wants to redevelop the island into a tourist trap. But his anger gets him into trouble with locals and with his sister, who he now has to learn to let go and live her own life. But Damir soon realizes that his overprotective behavior might've blossomed into true love.

Now this plot is pretty underdeveloped. What I described in the summary is pretty much a good portion of the movie. We get lengthy work scenes being mingled with so-so shots of the beautiful landscapes, which do little to distract from the truth. Basically, very little happens, and you can guess the plot and ending within twenty minutes of the movie.

But the real reason this movie sucks so much is simple: acting, characterization and dialogue are equally bad. First of all, Peter Hooten's lead character is so bossy and unrelatable that it's disgusting. The whole first half I wanted to kick his ass before he finally starts to calm down and shut the hell up. And his obnoxious behavior remains in the second half, which is supposed to come off as playful but makes him look like an idiot. And every time Hooten screams "No!" or some junk, I think to myself, "He couldn't even get a role on Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills."

Bo Derek's character is all about wanting to be a woman, but her behavior is so five-year old and cheesy that her terrible acting is sadly perfect for the job. To add to the creepiness, she's a 25 year old playing a 16 year old girl, undressing with her Commander Hoo-Ha's visible.



Sorry, I've been watching Hell's Kitchen Season 11 and Nedra wouldn't shut up about her hoo ha's.

To add to this criticism, the dialogue is just effing terrible. I mean, all this stuff between an adopted brother and sister about "you've been bad, you've been a bad girl" is not only unrealistic but intolerable. The movie tries to come off as philosophical, but any five year old could write the dialogue if they just saw a rated-R romance movie.

There is only one redeemable thing about this movie, and it barely counts towards what I was saying in the intro to this review: there are plenty of moments that aren't as annoying as the bad dialogue or the cheesy acting. And ironically, this usually comes with the work scenes. Otherwise, this is the kind of movie I wanna shut off because the less bad but still meh scenes just can't come quickly enough.

Yokay, my first venture into the Dereks' movies was a total disaster. This was less than B-movie quality on all levels, tasteless whether intentionally or accidentally and doesn't do any favors for the pair this movie's known for. I honestly feel that American Flatulators has a better sense of art. This isn't gonna stop me from checking out the other movies with this actor-director pair, as I believe this might be their worst movie already since it can't get much worse. But this director-actor pair makes Jovovich and Anderson look like Burton and Carter.

= 4

John Derek needs two more movies to get a score.



Ghosts Can't Do It
(1989) - Directed by John Derek
--------------------------------------------
Romance / Fantasy
-------------------------------------------------
"I'm your girl all right. But you're not my man, you're my ghost!"


So going quickly into another bad B-movie after my first venture into the Dereks' filmography, I nearly gave the first one a zero. I was desperately hoping that the next one I check out wasn't anywhere near as terrible. And I could quit, but I really don't want to, as I've become dedicated to my list of the 100 worst films on earth, and I have a rule for scoring directors, so I'm not gonna completely knock him until I've seen enough of his movies. This one was on Tubi, so there was no way I wasn't gonna check it out,. I could only hope it was laughable.

When the elderly husband of a young widow finally passes away, his spirit contacts her from beyond. Eventually, he decides that he and she can have a romantic relationship again if he possesses someone.

And that's it. That's literally it. Our plot was so filled to the brim with pointless scenes involving Bo Derek just goofing off and crying for no reason, while our husband man stays behind walls of campy SFX to bring out that ghost feel. The plotting goes nowhere for about half the movie until it very slowly picks up near the end with no surprise attached.

I find it extremely unbelievable that this woman is comfortable having so many conversations with this dead guy IN PUBLIC while everyone just watches and only addresses the weirdness for a moment, like it's supposed to be a running gag. This honestly ruined a good portion of the "light-hearted" moments, and ends up being a bad joke that gets nowhere as the plot throws random characters at us like the husband's old business partner who has a relationship with her that has five minutes of plotting, and a maybe witch who adds nothing to the plot herself.

There is ONE thing good about this movie, though. Bo Derek's acting has improved. In fact, while none of the actors are good, they all still beat out the worthlessness of the acting quality in Fantasies. In comparison to her work in Fantasies, her acting feels real, even though she still fells kinda campy.

Welp, two reviews in and it's pretty obvious to me that John Derek is one of the absolute worst directors ever. Having said that, I'll still try a couple more to score him. But overall I was bored for most of it, even when I was feeling good about the intro having seen it after finishing Fantasies. But still, this movie was a big step up.

= 15

John Derek Needs 1 more movie for an average score.



Higher Learning
(1995) - Directed by John Singleton
--------------------------------------------
Teen Drama / School Drama / Coming-of-Age
-------------------------------------------------
"See I figure, it's not what a person says it's what they think!"



End of the month on Tubi, which means it's time for another movie marathon before they leave. I've already got a John Singleton movie down: 2 Fast 2 Furious, and this one was on Tubi, so I gave it a go knowing absolutely nothing about it.

In a school dealing with cultural and racial tension, one shy little Kristen gets molested by a sexually frustrated fellow student. After this, she decides to speak out against it and start a peace day campaign where everyone can get together. But things aren't looking so good as things get very tense between a black runner who's working hard to maintain a full athletic scholarship and an emotional white supremacist who's looking to blame everyone but himself, especially when the fights break out.

The movie is very heavy on themes and dialogue, but it's also following closely in the vein of movies like Malcolm X and American History X. It largely centers around what teens and college students are doing in their final years of proving themselves. But despite its efforts to put together several variations of these themes, the movie is still dead centered on the African-American vs. Nazism theme, especially in the third act, which kind of makes Kristen's entire presence meaningless by the end. This means that her actor, as well as her friend played by Jennifer Connelly don't really need to be there and could've been easily written out, and it also means the vast majority of character development goes to Malik.

I'll give Singleton this. Even though his storytelling is predictable, he knows how to direct a scene and increase the excitement output as a result. There's always focus on the now and leaves some room for artistry, but I think it was really the combination of direction and music that put things together. Throughout every 80's and 90's college film trope in this movie save the frat wars, this serious drama plays things up a little to show off the extremes of what does happen, but a little too often for comfort, which gives me the impression that, unlike a typical Spike lee movie that calls EVERYBODY racists, this movie is largely centered on a black man's problems with white people. Having said this, our other lead, Kristen, is whiter than Hanes underwear, and she and Malik come together in understanding at the end of the movie thanks to its climax, which tells me that, despite Singleton's political stance, he's not playing a blame game. This is further hinted at the presence of Lawrence Fishburne's character, Prof. Phipps, who's all about people exploring who they are and forming their own opinions.

Honestly, every merit that this movie has feels a bit underdeveloped for the most part, and they've also been beaten out by better movies that came before it. It all comes together fairly well, but doesn't fully utilize its depth. It had a lot of potential, but not enough balance and philosophy which we haven't seen and heard before.

= 66

John Singleton needs 1 more movie for an average score.



Bolero
(1984) - Directed by John Derek
--------------------------------------------
Romance / Erotica
-------------------------------------------------
"Oh, what beautiful word: ecstasy."



This is it, folks, the review where I give cheesy erotica director John Derek his official score. So far, he has a 4 (Fantasies) and a 15 (Ghosts Can't Do It) out of 100, meaning he's got two really bad movies so far. Bolero seems to be his most popular on Letterboxd, so this was an easy next choice. Finding it was easy as well, having only to spend ten seconds on Google. Since it's Derek's most popular movie, I'm going to assume it's possibly his best, so I'm really expecting a massive step up from Fantasies.

Ayre is a rich girl fresh out of a snobby college and looking to cement her womanhood by losing her virginity. She decides to take her best friend and her chauffeur around the world to find this perfect man. But the journey eventually turns into a search for true love, and once she finds the right man, she's willing to face the same dangers as him.

Well, the concept is just as erotic as one would expect from a John and Bo Derek movie, but at least there's more room for plot delivery here. And as I expected, there was a little more than usual. The journey around the world brings us to a couple of interesting places at least. Unfortunately, for the most part anymore can guess what's gonna happen five-to-ten minutes ahead of time. There was a couple things I didn't expect, however, which made the third act a bit more interesting.

But all in all, let's be honest. We don't watch John Derek movies often for a reason: their only purpose is to show off Bo Derek's body. And we get a few serious instances of this. It opens up with Derek flashing a stuffy college. I mean, the movie doesn't really do the best job of balancing the romance and erotica with the adventure aspects, largely relying on building up sensuality for the first two acts and then finally getting into basic swashbuckler storytelling in the third.

So Bolero still wasn't as good as I was hoping, but I guess it was better than I was expecting. Between this movie and the earlier Fantasies, John's directing and Bo's acting had gone up some, and they chose a better story to tell, even though the romance was largely less heart and more skin. Its flat characters and predictable plotting don't really do much.

= 27

John Derek's Directorial Score (0 Good vs. 3 Bad)

Fantasies: 4
Ghosts Can't Do It: 15
Bolero: 27

Score: 15.33 / 3



Wall Street
(1987) - Directed by Oliver Stone
--------------------------------------------
Drama
-------------------------------------------------
"Greed, for lack of a better word... is good."



I remember when I was young and we just got Netflix streaming, I saw the DVD covers for Wall Street and its sequel. I don't know what it was, but something about the two intrigued me. Maybe it was the mystique of an entirely new genre? Maybe it was because it looked like the kind of movie that didn't have the same R-Rated stuff as most of the modern movies on TV? I don't know but the very idea of the movie somehow stuck in my mind forever. And just now have I finally gotten around to it because of availability and not having any specific plans for which types of movies I need to watch.

Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is a stockbroker who comes to Wall Street's hotshot star Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) with some insider information... relating to the business his father works at (being Martin Sheen). After a few shares bought and sold, and a few tricks here and there, Bud becomes the next big thing on Wall Street. However, soon he finds out that Gekko has other plans for the business they invested in, and Bud needs to find a way to save the company.

I went into this movie immediately thinking about The Wolf of Wall Street, and I thought of its strengths and criticisms while hoping that the same deal wouldn't be seen on this earlier 80's movie as well. But the first and foremost aspect of this film I was most excited for was Michael Douglas. I really wanted to see his performance, and as I expected, I was not disappointed in the slightest. This movie features one of his best performances and the largest amount of sleeze and charm I have ever seen from this man. And there's also the pairing of Charlie and Martin Sheen sharing some very heartfelt and realistic discussions with each other, adding a heavy family theme with plenty of relatability and a strong forefront of logical dialogue.

But I really have to say it. After Bud becomes successful, the plot seems to halt for a while. For the whole middle act, we're left with a bunch of thoroughly-detailed stock 'n' share gobbledygook that would more likely appeal to the niche audience interested in that whole economic shebang, and fine acting to make these scenes good enough to watch, but not necessarily memorable to me. This is the EXACT same primary flaw made by The Wolf of Wall Street, which wasted a good deal of its three-hour screentime on debauchery and heavy R themes. However, there are some very personal standout scenes, such as the elevator argument between Bud and his father. It's such a grand performance from both father and son.


But then the third act comes around, and things get interesting again. We get some serious development on Gekko's side with an incredibly well-written and perfectly acted speech on American economics and its usage of money. Unfortunately, much of the plot is still based on heavy stock 'n' share stuff. But the ending is still very satisfying as it maintains its complexity in more personal ways, and adds a couple of twists to make it all the more satisfying. You can't help but feel good for Bud's newfound character at the end of the movie.

It's perfectly obvious to me that if I tried watching this movie back when I first got Netflix, I would've been bored. But today, I came in with plenty of experience in Michael Douglas's catalog, and have a fair deal of experience in the crime and real world drama genres. On top of that, I'm glad I went into this having already seen The Wolf of Wall Street. Personally, I think this is better. The pairing of Martin and Charlie adds a lot to the heart of Bud's character, Michael Douglas is an onscreen treat and it's obvious that the crew put a lot of effort into this script. It's not my genre, but I think someday I'll watch it again. I know the sequel isn't supposed to be as good, but I still really want to see it.

Btw, this is the movie where I finally score Oliver Stone.

= 80


Oliver Stone's Directorial Score (3 Good vs. 0 Bad)

Platoon: 96
Wall Street: 80
Snowden: 76

Score: 84 / 3



So does anybody know a football player named Dick Butkus? Please don't make fun of his last name as he just died this month. He was considered one of the greaters linebackers ever, playing for the Bears for eight years. Apparently, he took up acting as well and appeared in some bigname stuff. Unfortunately, the movie I have for you today doesn't do him any justice, but after seeing that the reviews, while bad, were far more favorable than I would ever give this movie, I have to say something against these ridiculous ratings.

Hamburger: The Motion Picture
(1986) - Directed by Mike Marvin
--------------------------------------------
Absurdist Comedy / Sex Comedy / School Comedy
-------------------------------------------------
"It's tasty, by god!"



Russell has gotten himself kicked out of multiple colleges for getting into sexual relations with teachers and students, and he doesn't get his grandfather's large inheritance if he can't graduate. After he finds out that the fast food chain Buster Burger has their own college for training new managers, he enrolls, knowing that the only way for him to do graduate is to clean up his act. Along with a team of eccentric students such as a kidnapped pop star, a nerd who obsesses over the burgers, a nun and an obese man who keeps a shocker to use when he gets too hungry, Russell butts heads with the school's drill sergeant who's learned to hate these students and will take extreme measures to ensure that they all flunk, even if it means destroying the restaurant.

OK, so I thought I knew what I was getting into when I turned this movie on. I figured, it'll probably be like a mix of Police Academy and Good Burger with a little Sausage Party attached. I figured it would just be a bunch of meaty euphamisms to go through before the end. Oh my god, was I wrong... First of all, these eccentirc characters have only one gag, and they're never funny, not even the first time. On top of that, we have some of the STUPIDEST things I've ever seen on a movie happen, even for an absurdist comedy. The school has a church where they rewrite hymns with bad puns like Burger-lujah? There's a mad genius who's using fake science to create new products with even worse puns, and it's all filmed like a 60's color b-movie? And don't even get me started on the eating club. The last thing this irredeemable movie needs, or we need for that matter, is fart jokes.

The second worst thing about the movie is its inability to hold down a story. None of these characters are relatable enough to care for, largely because of their one-track-mindedness. For example, it's easy to stop caring about the relationship between one of the students and the CEO's wife, because it never really goes anywhere, like Russell's attempts to withhold his libido. It just doesn't go anywhere. And then their final test happens in running a restaurant like in Hell's Kitchen, and that whole thing plays out like you'd expect, detail for detail considering these types of 80's school movies.

I would rather watch Going Overboard ten times in a row than watch this ever again. The humor is the lowest of the low and none of the writers or actors ever try to get a damn thing right. What had a fairly interesting setup for an absurdist comedy in the beginning turned into something absolutely horrible until a fairly funny resolution which goes bad again after thirty seconds. Avoid this movie at all costs. In fact, you should probably just avoid Mike Marvin movies in general.

= 2


Mike Marvin's Directorial Score (0 Good vs. 3 Bad)

Hamburger: The Motion Picture: 2
Sunstorm: 22
The Wraith: 31

Score: 18.33 / 3



Dances with Wolves
(1990) - Directed by Kevin Costner
--------------------------------------------
Revisionist Western / Historical Drama / Epic
-------------------------------------------------
"The white man the soldiers are looking for no longer exists. Now there is only a Sioux named Dances with Wolves."


This was one of those double-VHS's laying in my dad's movie cabinet for years. I never got to watch it with him, as we always had other plans, even other movie plans. But with Tubi's schedule changing this month, I'm getting this movie in before they take it off tomorrow. In fact, as I'm writing this, I'm finishing up the movie after it's already off, as I avoid reloading the tab for any reason. I've seen the other two directed by Kevin Costner, so this makes for the completed trilogy as far as I'm concerned.

Lt. John Dunbar is a Civil War hero who always wanted to see the frontier, and he gets his chance when he's transferred to Fort Sedgwick. But not only is he find out that the fort is in shambles, but his delivery boy killed by Pawnee after leaving, meaning his fellow soldiers won't know he's there. As he spends his time restoring the fort alone, he eventually delivers a white woman raised by Sioux back to the tribe, and he slowly gains their trust and eventually becomes one of them as he defends them against the Pawnee.

I have some mixed feelings about this one as far as the "pretty good vs. amazing" range of rating goes. As far as complaints go, I have to say that this movie could've been cut in half because the plot's pretty simple. Everything's happening at 50% or less pacing, so I'm glad I took everyone's advice and didn't wait for the director's cut. There was so much more room for character development here, and while I liked the relations between people, it wasn't as jam-packed as a three-hour movie should warrant, speaking from the perspective gained from viewing other three-hour movies like the Godfather and LOTR series, as well as movies like Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music.

However, there was a very strong appeal to this movie because of its Herculean heart and spirit. We have a very realistic tale told with the balance between racial tension and total understanding evolving and shifting into some well shot and occasionally outright beautiful scenes. We learn to feel for everyone involved despite their lacking development. Even though story progression is slow, we're growing and learning with Dunbar as we learn to celebrate this Native American culture, portrayed less violently than they typically end up being represented in movies, although it seems less serious these days. We kind of want to sit by the fire with these people and hear their stories the same way Dunbar is doing.

I'm glad I finally got through this movie, as it did some things pretty beautifully. However, I'm still put off by its length. Dances with Wolves is a good piece of historical fiction that needed some cutting, but in the end left me in a good mood for the most part. While I liked the movie, I disagree with the Imdb ratings in comparison to the RT ratings: it's not perfect but it stirs the soul.

I heard Costner's getting back in the director's chair. Hopefully, the next thing he directs won't be an overlong epic like this or The Postman.

= 83

Kevin Costner's Directorial Score (2 Good vs. 1 Bad, Complete)

Dances With Wolves: 83
Open Range: 82
The Postman: 44

Score: 69.66 / 3



Btw, I've added 4 directors to my best directors lists as a result of my scoring.
  • John Derek is the 19th worst director, put between Tony Zarindast and Robert F. Slatzer.
  • Oliver Stone is the 110th best director, put between Kathryn Bigelow and George Miller.
  • Mike Marvin is the 22nd worst director, put between Camillo Teti and Albert Pyun.
  • Kevin Costner is the 179th best director, put between Jeff Tremaine and Amy Heckerling.