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Dazed and Confused is up there with the best in the coming-of-age genre. It's retained its power and charm 30 years past its making and still feels fresh and young. Watching it recently, I had trouble finding a main theme: avoiding conformity, not taking life too seriously, the bonds of friendship? I don't think there is one — it's just an aimless hang and a nostalgic look back on when things were a little better and a little worse for high schoolers. What the movie does have is a packed car of brilliant performances from its soon-to-be-star-studded cast. Sure, we all love McConaughey, but he's actually barely in the movie. The majority of the film follows lead actors who never made a big splash afterward, and it's the side characters who went on to greatness. What a bunch of characters! Rory Cochrane, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, and Ben Affleck provide memorable, quotable moments that are locked in my memory more firmly than my own experiences in school. The music is great and the cinematography is better than you remember. Take a look at the foosball drop shot when the Emporium is introduced. I had to rewind a couple of times to figure out just how they got a moving camera behind and inside the table. It's something that would be done with CGI these days, but back in the '90s Linklater and his indie peers had to build fun shots on the cheap. I'd argue Dazed and Confused remains a perennial favorite because of its craftsmanship in cinematography as much as its famous performances. This is the movie where the universe all came together, man. I've never met someone who didn't enjoy this movie, alright?

"The Grey Fox" is one of the prettier Westerns I've ever seen and came as a pleasant surprise. I expected an action-filled heist movie, and instead got a slow-paced, philosophical film closer to "McCabe & Mrs. Miller." It is filled with sweeping shots of the Pacific Northwest, hazy and transcendent, and seems to always capture the light of the veranda at just the right moment. It's a movie that feels absolutely authentic in its creation, with period clothing, automobiles, trains, and sets. Where a lot of movies feel constructed, "The Grey Fox" feels well lived-in. If they gave an Oscar for location scouting, surely "The Grey Fox" would have won. Richard Farnsworth always finds himself playing quiet, earnest personas, whether it's in "The Natural" or Lynch's late gem "The Straight Story." Here he plays that character best as Bill Miner, the "gentleman bandit" using old tricks to rob trains in the new century. He's instantly liked by old ladies, young boys, and even the local constabulary. Farnsworth is also the only person who can wear a mustache better than Sam Elliott. As much as I enjoyed the movie, it certainly runs into a wall near the end. The climax is delivered through title cards reminiscent of silent film. In fact, many portions of the movie steal liberally from classics like "The Great Train Robbery" and "The General." While this makes for a beautiful, referential film, it doesn't always make for an exciting one. Maybe that's the point. Train robbing doesn't need to happen every day, just when you get bored enough with the doldrums of the moment.

Superfluous and unnecessary, "The Immortal Man" adds nothing to the grand tapestry of Tommy Shelby. For a show that had tight, action-packed episodes with lots of intrigue, almost nothing of substance happens in this movie epilogue. It takes a full 45 minutes for Tommy to actually show up and do Tommy things. There's an excuse of drugs and a memoir (oof, really?) to explain Tommy's absence, but the first of the half film largely ignores him. Until he appears, we're given an OK premise of Nazis trying to flood England with counterfeit money through bad guy Tim Roth. Roth is excellent as always, and he shows what an prestige actor can do when given almost nothing in the way of interesting things to say. When you imagine "The Peaky Blinders vs. Nazis" my mind perks into Tarantino and all the fun, comic book level things that could be done with that premise, but past the setup it mostly falls flat. This is much more of a music video than a screenplay, and though Peaky Blinders was often wont to juxtapose modern punk music with slow walking shots down the streets of Birmingham, never have they walked so long and so often. This movie looks great, and it has all the flavor you remember. Locations remain surprisingly unchanged, other than some bombed out debris. You're often left wondering... did that bar really not change much in 15 years? Still, it's wonderfully shot and feels painterly in its palette with our main characters getting bright primaries against the drab rubble of English alleys. Unfortunately, the fights don't live up to the setting. The gritty hand to hand betrayals and knife fights from the show are replaced with Nazis shooting from cars at protagonists that refuse to take cover. There's a fun bit with a grenade in a bar that reminds us of the old Tommy, but that scene is overwhelmed by lots of shooting at crates in warehouses for most of the flick. Duke, Tommy's son, is meant to be our protagonist, and it seems clear this was a setup for his own show, but they forgot to introduce any motivation for what might make him interesting. He's certainly chaotic, but even chaos needs to point in a direction. This movie has none, and adds nothing to a show that was genuinely fun and sneaky. I walked away disappointed, and wishing I'd remembered other, deceased characters instead of the new ones introduced here.

“Skyfall” realigns the Bond franchise and proves that “Casino Royale” wasn’t a fluke. It provides the most character backstory in any of the films, and is a rare peek into the origins of Bond. The action ramps back up with some truly impressive stunt sequences (cranes on trains y’all) that realize our protagonist is best when he’s just a bit more clever than everyone else. What’s interesting about watching these modern Bond movies is how they introduce the idea that “Bond is getting old” in only this third movie. Bond has always been somewhat trapped in amber in everything else, and I can’t think of another time where they push the idea that maybe he can’t do the job anymore. Since the actual job of being Bond is always tenuous at best, the possibility is real that they just wanted to provide some pressure on Daniel Craig. Then again, this is also the first movie to declare “Bond will return…” at the end, so who knows. Regardless, “Skyfall” has much of what I want in a Bond film. The return of Moneypenny provides a fantastic Bond girl that is capable, classy and talks down to our hero. The way they work Moneypenny back into old job at a desk is a neat nod to the history of the character. Likewise, the transition of “M” feels natural and similarly references the swappable nature of this universe. Generally though an action movie is only as good as its villain, and Javier Bardeen steals the show as a creepy former agent. There’s some fun insinuations that he’s gay, and Bardeen ramps up the camp to weirdly take a Bond villain back to feeling like a comic book character. The performance could have easily mis-landed, but Bardeen makes it work. They went a little too far with that mouth appliance though. My only complaint is that Bond movies don’t need to be this long. The back half of the movie sure does take awhile to close out, and while the Skyfall mansion and background is a great plot point, the action that climaxes there could have been condensed. The Ramboesque house of traps is neat, but at a certain point you just want a confrontation between our two leads. That it ends with a quick stab in the back feels anticlimactic. Still, this a satisfying movie with the best Bond song of all time.

"Quantum of Solace" is a pretty lousy Bond movie. The action is a little too frantic and jerky. Where "Casino Royale" had intense parkour with lingering long shots, "Solace" hits fast forward and leans into the brutality of Bond. For some reason, the movie decides to intercut between these fast-moving action shots with sibling interludes of a horse race and an opera night. It feels like padding, as if they needed the action to stretch out, but they didn't have enough footage. Compared to Eva Green's Vesper from "Royale", the two Bond girls in this edition are mostly eye candy and don't provide much back and forth banter with Bond. Regarding its women protagonists "Quantum of Solace" feels a lot more like a traditional Bond film, leaving "Royale" as the anomaly. The main villain is equally forgettable, as is his plot to take over Bolivia's water, which is (surprise!) more valuable than oil. We know this because occasionally there will be shots of villagers with empty buckets at the well. The poor villagers. There's a slight subtext in Haggis' screenplay about the corruption of capitalism vs. socialism, which I assume is a nod to Che's failed revolution in the country decades earlier. The poor villagers! Honestly? The film just isn't that deep. This one falls in the category of pinball Bond plots, where you zoom from location to location and learn a little bit more about who the bad guy is and who they really work for. "Quantum of Solace" then feels like a gap movie to set us up for the next chapter, rather than having anything interesting to say on its own. It's still Bond and it's got car, boat and air chase scenes but it's my least favorite of the modern 007 films. The climax battle takes place in a hotel powered by hydrogen that is in the desert of Bolivia, conveniently next to the underground reservoirs that were hidden through secret dams? I don't know. I could look past all this stuff if the girls were a little funnier and the villains were a little more creepy. As it is, "Quantum of Solace" feels more like a "Borne" style action movie and leaves its spy undergarments packed in a suitcase at the casino.

“Leave No Trace” starts off idyllic in its imagery and mood, showing a man trying to avoid the trappings of life as a mechanism to keep he and his daughter true. The first half feels similar to films like “Into the Wild” where there is a juxtaposition between the necessary and the superfluous. The characters start as heroes. Later, the perspective shifts and we see the world not from the father’s eyes, but from the daughter’s. There, the reality of the situation is more clear. I’ve liked Ben Foster since seeing him as an angsty teen in “Six Feet Under”, and he’s grown into being one of the few actors that when I see his name in the cast, it will instantly make me want to watch the movie. He excels here in a very sad role with very little dialogue. So much is said in his eyes. Thomason McKensie is somehow even better as his daughter, and her innocence feels genuine as she navigates a foreign world that might not match the world she’s envisioned. The father / daughter relationship reminded me a bit of “The Ballad of Jack and Rose”, which treads in similar waters of secrecy and love between family members. Unlike that movie, “Leave No Trace” shows the relationship in a positive way, and wishes it could continue if only one of the characters could find some manner of normalcy. Like “Nomadland” this is a movie about people who live on the frindge, and why they stay there. I’m not sure I like the ending, which felt too passive. It’s ties up the story in a poetic way, but takes the easy path of a clean break. I’m more interested where Thom ends up, not her father.

There's nothing new I can write about "The Shawshank Redemption". It's an American classic and one of the finest movies ever made. A re-watch with the kids reminded me that it breaks a storytelling rule with its heavy use of narration, which typically is used to bolster worse movies when they have trouble showing us their characters motivations instead. Blade Runner is the best example of a movie that is better without all the narrative exposition, and film is traditionally a "show don't tell" medium. Another thing I noticed is that Morgan Freeman's Red is the main character, not Andy. Sure, Red tells the story of Andy, but the film follows Red's perspective, and the redemption is Red's, not Andy's. The score is excellent, and this is a long movie that doesn't feel like it because every scene is meaningful and has something to say. Tim Robbin's distant smiles sort of make the movie. It could of been a much worse movie is he overacted a lot of the lines, but his Andy is quiet and says most of his dialog in hushed whispers. This is my Dad's favorite movie, and I'm guessing it's the top movie for many others. Who doesn't like a story about hope? Watching the bad guys get their comeuppance is always rewarding, but "Shawshank" makes it more satisfying because of the slow burn of its storytelling. This movie breaks conventions and somehow not only works, but is better because of it. Truly a wonderful film.

There are only a few good sports films. "Moneyball" does a lot right by avoiding montages. They do cheat a bit by cobbling together real footage from games to remind you... hey, not only is this real, but it was crazier than you remember. "Moneyball" sits in a small class of movies, like Oppenheimer, where you'd assume the subject matter would be boring, but instead makes for an exhilarating narrative once you understand the smaller details. "How can you not be romantic about Baseball" is oft quoted, and it certainly fits the theme of the scrappy underdog A's on their bid to survive against the high salaried Yankees. I love the vignette near the end showing an overweight batter going for a double, only to trip, run back to first and then be told he actually hit a home run. That's Baseball. It's a sport of certain failure. Hitters at best will get on base 3 times out of every 10. It makes those hits feel magical not just the first time they happen, but when it happens again right after. Can you believe it? Pitt, Hoffman and Hill deliver steady performances that don't try to overdue the source material. The story is better than the acting, but they don't get in the way. These are analysts, not action stars, and even their small excitements come off awkward. That's how it should be. They're nerds. 15 years after its release, the legacy of Beane is hurt slightly by the plight of the orphaned Athletics. Still, this true-to-life film and its source material, do the biopic well by focusing only on a single point in time, without getting lost in the life of its heroes. The weakest bits are the family plot-lines which try to humanize Beane outside of baseball. They feel unnecessary against the main thread in an otherwise riveting arc. My kids cheered when the A's won their 20th game, which is good as it gets for a sports flick. It's always fun when the underdog wins.

This was one of the few John Candy movies I hadn’t seen before and I came in with high hopes, but “Summer Rental” is pretty terrible. It takes about thirty minutes for the family to even get to the beach, with the movie’s opening ten minutes devoted to an unnecessary preamble about our lead being a burnt out air traffic controller. There’s a mixup at the rental, an overly long intro to our main villain (Rambo’s Richard Crenna does comedy!), and a dog that seems to always get in the way. Once we get to the beach things start to pick up and Candy can start showing off his physical comedy chops, but the pacing is uneven through the rest of the movie. The editing in particular is rough, and shots switch quickly as if the Director accidentally yelled cut before an actor got out their dialog. There is a bit of fun with Rip Torn as the local beach town pirate restaurateur. Torn doesn’t need to do much to invoke a pirate’s snarl, and he and Candy bounce off each other well. Overall though this movie feels like a studio’s reaction to Chevy Chase’s “Vacation”, but with a lame sailing regatta and a D-level Casio keyboard score added on top. The only consolation is that John Candy got a redo a few years later with Dan Aykroyd in the excellent “The Great Outdoors” which is the mainstay vacation film in my family. It covers almost the exact same ground as “Rental”, but has a better supporting cast and dumber situations to set up Candy as the schlocky Dad just trying to make sure he gives his family some memories. Unfortunately, “Summer Rental” didn’t create any for me. It stinks!

“Gravity” is a movie that wowed me the first time I saw it in the theater, and lost some luster on the rewatch at home. More than most action movies “Gravity” really requires a nice, large theater, and even my 110 inch basement setup with 5.1 wasn’t up to the task. My kids liked it enough, but you definitely lose some tension when you know how the movie ends. The first time though, this movie ripped, and there are few movie experiences I remember feeling as physically present for (Jurassic Park comes to mind). What threw me off this time was the heavy handed, way too obvious symbolism. The in utero and man’s first steps scenes held the camera in pause just a little too long as if Cuaron was saying “you see what I did there right?”. This is an adrenaline laden action film, and these brief art house notes feel a little out of place. I would have enjoyed a little more comedy in their place. The special effects are brilliant, and the Newtonian physics are being tested at all times. Watching this in the theater I often felt dizzy, but without the physically large screen it didn’t create the same sickness. Maybe in the years since release, good space-based special effects have numbed me to just how awesome the effects in this movie are. I tend to over focus on things I don’t like, but “Gravity” oozes visual style and contains great pacing. It also includes some of the better first-person camera perspectives in film. Clooney is great as always. Bullock has ridden this tense bus-ride before and knows how important it is to breath in the quiet moments. Harris plays himself from another movie, which is funny. I walked away from this viewing of “Gravity” wondering why so much of the film feels real-time, but force “90-minute” reminders on us. A couple edits or time-lapses could have made this something closer to 1917 with an uncut barrage of action and that clock could have been made more precise. Instead, it just makes you question things a little too much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun ride, just try not to do any of the math in your head.

Watching "Casino Royale" twenty years after its release is a revelation. Quite bluntly, action movies don't look like this anymore, and I was surprised how gripping and tense the fight sequences were in this movie. Why? What feels so different? It's the minimal use of CGI, and the focus on stunt-work and practical effects. Nolan's Batman trilogy shares a similar raw feel and its because you're generally watching humans do all that jumping! It helps that "Casino Royale" has all the ingredients of a good "Bond" movie with an excellent villain and love interest. After a couple decades of cartoon bad guys Mads Mikkelson turns in a subdued, creepy performance as the major contrast for our hero. Eva Green might be my favorite bond girl. Most love interests of Bond say cheeky one-liners, but Green's has the backing of intelligence and wit equal to 007. It's an absurd thing to say, but this felt like a real relationship. I like nearly everything about the movie. You'll bounce between fifteen minute action scenes where not a word is said, to an equally long poker game that has nothing but good dialog. What I like about "Casino Royale" is that from a distance this movie follows the formula religiously, but at the same time feels like a fresh reboot of a very different, more confident, brutal Bond. Take the "chase" scene that starts after Green's Vesper Lynd is kidnapped. Having not seen the movie since release I blurted out "here we go" as the cars raced off. In less than a minute it was over, almost taunting me for assuming previous action expectations. If it has any flaw it's the overly long epilogue past the casino climax. I understand why it's there, and how it attaches Bond to our heroine, and sets up the sequel, but it does take a long way to close. Some small editing could have resolved to credits quicker. Still, this is a fabulous movie, every bit deserved of its praise on release. In the years since, when every movie is shot entirely on green screen sets, its only improved. Special effects generally only get better over time, but "Casino Royale" feels like a peak moment for action before Hollywood figured out how to make high quality CGI work so well, that nearly everything looks the same.

“The Devil’s Advocate” is a mediocre movie made great by one of Al Pacino’s best performances. It doesn’t work without him, and despite the star power of the lead cast, everyone crumbles at the altar of Pacino’s Satan. This is a role only he could pull off, and where his exaggerated mannerisms are an asset rather than a hindrance. Although his acting here is remembered for some amazing soliloquies, his facial contortions, tongue whips and guffaws are equally well suited to the beast he creates. The rest of the cast has a bad time trying to match Pacino’s bombast. I recently watched Point Break and thought it might be Keanu’s worst work, but he’s dreadful here. Charlize Theron struggles in the same way, trying to pull off a southern accent for a role that doesn’t really require it. Connie Nielson, in one of her first American movie roles, is one of several actors that can’t figure out how to cry. I remember a story Ethan Hawke told on Maron’s podcast about prepping for Training Day in an attempt to not get eaten alive in scenes against Denzel Washington; that he knew it would happen and just wanted to keep up. Keanu and Theron are utterly eaten alive in this movie. They react to Pacino’s frenzy with some of their own, and come off looking like community theater nerds trying to show off. The core premise of the movie is excellent. Of course the devil runs a law firm. Don’t think too hard about it. Of course the devil runs a law firm, “it’s the new priesthood”. Surprisingly, the court room scenes aren’t very exciting, and most of the fun instead happens on the streets of New York as Pacino monologues. The movie is supported with great set design, and Milton’s office is the standout with its gothic artwork and creepy sculptures. That’s all you need really. Pacino saying fun lines in front of a fun set. Unfortunately half the screenplay doesn’t have Pacino in it. It’s these scenes where the movie lags and keeps it from rising into that upper pantheon of thrillers. “The Devil’s Advocate” is fun, but I’d prefer a one-man play of Pacino’s Satan yelling his insights at a dark, reflected crowd. Everything else, even the plot, just get in the way.