Month: August 2022

After his friend former CIA-turned DEA agent Felix Leiter’s (David Hedison in his second outing) new bride is murdered by drug lord Robert Davi, Timothy Dalton’s James Bond finds his licence to kill revoked when he choses to pursue Davi instead of following MI6 orders. When I decided to watch various Bond films, it seemed prudent to also check out each actor’s portrayal of the iconic character. I generally expect Dalton to be a film’s villain, so casting him as Bond provides a much different take than the previous actors, much darker and younger. The Drug War plot, propelled wonderfully by Davi’s ruthless kingpin who is himself supported by a young Benicio del Toro, amps up the tension and pulls Bond into a more modern action flick age. I also can never not be amused when the licence to kill is referred to as an actual thing instead of the metaphorical device I had always assumed it to be.  

Loosely based on an actual FBI sting operation, struggling FBI agent Alec Baldwin devises a scheme to entrap mobster John Gotti by pretending to be a movie producer. He hires wannabe screenwriter Matthew Broderick (in what I’ve come to think of as his standard middle age schlub role) to unwittingly help with the ruse. I often find films about making movies fascinating but this isn’t one of the good ones. The potentially interesting tale doesn’t try to go beyond the silliness of the concept. The cast, which includes Toni Collette and Ray Liotta, is obviously filled with talent, but the script doesn’t require much of them nor brings forth anything but average performances.

Beatlemania comes to New York and four friends, each with a different motivation, are desperate to get tickets for The Beatles’ debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. With my own recent Beatles obsession, it seemed an opportune time to watch director Robert Zemeckis’s first feature film. I’m incredibly surprised that I had never seen this before and how perfect it was in encapsulating that one specific pop culture moment while barely even showing the actual musicians. I remember reading that the foursome on Sex and the City television show tried to cover the various opinions that women would have on any subject and the four girls here do the same: stereotypical Beatles fan Wendy Jo Sperber dreaming of a future as Mrs. Paul McCartney, ambitious Teresa Saldana trying to get a rare photo of the band, cynical Susan Kendall Newman staging a protest at their mere existence, and engaged Nancy Allen wanting one last fling with her friends. Aside from being relateable, it’s also incredibly entertaining.    

At first honored to be chosen for the job, James Coburn soon discovers that being the President’s analyst is the loneliest job in the world and makes a run for it with spy agencies from across the world on his tail. I had started this thinking it was going to be a straight-forward narrative like an Analyze This but with the President. Instead, the President isn’t ever shown and it doesn’t take long for the film to firmly establish itself as being part of the swinging, psychedelic 1960s. Coburn is fantastic in his role with a wide grin that appears as he slowly begins to lose his grounding. There are many weird, but hilarious parts, but William Daniels as a gun-toting, suburban liberal is pure awesomeness.

Jennifer Lawrence is serenely renovating the home she shares with writer husband Javier Bardem when Ed Harris shows up and starts impeding on their lives, bringing his family and then more and more people with him. I had been fairly certain when this film was released that it would not be my type of thing, but eventually I caved and discovered I was correct in my initial assumption. I enjoy most of director Darren Aronofsky’s work, but is him at his most arty pretentiousness. Very heavy in allegory, particularly of the biblical variety, it does not allow a moment to breath by constantly inundating the viewer with brutality forced onto Lawrence’s character all for the sake of blatant metaphor.