The DailyView continued today with the quintessential 90s high school movie, Clueless. This was, again, one of those movies that I had not considered to be interesting to me. I was wrong. I really enjoyed this one.

Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a Beverly Hills student, at first glance, seems to be the stereotypical Valley girl type of character, but nearly immediately, you can see how much more there is to her than just a vapid, blonde teenager. She goes through several different issues such as grades, boyfriends, fashion and social status in the school.

Cher is concerned with her friends and their lives and she wants to be the friend who helps the others out. It is selfish of her, but she does it in such a sweet manner that you can’t help but like her for it. Alicia Silverstone is wonderful in the role and creates a character that plays both into and out of the expectations.

A young Paul Rudd is here too, playing a step-brother, of sorts, named Josh. Josh’s mother was married to Cher’s father (Dan Hedaya) for a minute. They were now divorced, but Josh would still come over to help with the work on Cher’s father’s lawyer cases.

We get several other characters in Cher’s orbit including her best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) and her boyfriend (Donald Faison), a new girl Tai (Brittany Murphy) who becomes Cher’s ‘project’, Christian (Justin Walker) the boy who dresses better than Cher, and teachers Mr. Hall (Wallace Shawn) and Miss Geist (Twink Caplan) who Cher hooks up so they would ease off and give students better grades.

I loved every scene with Mr. Hall. Of course, I love Wallace Shawn (Vizzini from The Princess Bride) and, as a teacher myself, I loved his banter with his class. He was so funny and witty with this group of odd ball high schoolers that I would have liked even more from him.

We also got stoner/skateboarder Travis (Breckin Meyer) who had a thing for Tai but was not considered datable material by Cher and the popular girls. Travis’s arc of the movie was one of the better ones and he gets quite a bit done for the limited screen time he got.

There were many legitimately funny moments that I laughed out loud at, as well as several smart and subtle moments of humor. The script was very clever, showing these potentially generic characters in a much more three-dimensional light. Clueless was written and directed by Amy Heckerling, who also directed Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Heckerling clearly has some comedy chops when it comes to high school movies.

Nicely paced, the film took its time and used each of the 90+ minutes extremely well. Each character received a well-written and charming scene to develop who they were as characters. There was a great scene with Cher and her father that told us everything we needed to know about them.

I was truly clueless thinking that I wasn’t going to like Clueless. This was funny and clever, filled with great characters and a ton of fun. A top notch cast handles the surprisingly deep script with a deft precision.

The second of the Jason Bourne movies that I avoided for no good reason is the next movie in the DailyView binge. It is The Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon returning to the roll of the amnesiac assassin.

As I said in the review for The Bourne Identity, I avoided the Bourne movies when they came out and I am not sure why. Once again, this movie was fantastic.

We catch up with Jason Bourne and Marie (Franka Potente) in hiding in India, happy together. Unfortunately, they are discovered and, in an attempt to escape, Marie is shot and killed. Bourne heads back to the real world to find out why this happened.

In The Bourne Identity, I claimed that I wanted some more stakes for Jason Bourne. He always felt as if he was several steps ahead of those pursuing him that I did never thought he was in jeopardy. With Marie’s death, that was immediately turned around. Then, Jason Bourne struggled through much of the film, being injured and shot. He still is ahead of the people chasing him but Bourne took the damage of his efforts and I liked that.

The action is top notch and I really love the fact that there is not an excess of gun play in the film. There is some, but it still feels as if the gun action is kept to a minimum and that the film is more about intelligence. The only problem in the action is that there was too much bouncy camera for my taste. I do not remember if there was bouncy cam in the first film and I just did not notice it, but this time, particularly in the hand to hand, it was obvious.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it was a step up from the original, building on all of the positives from Identity. It was about the perfect length of time for the feature and Matt Damon is excellent.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a topic going around social media (I don’t remember if it was Facebook or Twitter or both) that said “The movie that was #1 at the domestic box office on your tenth birthday is the way the rest of your 2021 is going to go.” Interested, I looked it up and my movie was 1979’s The Warriors. I had never heard of it before so I placed it on the DailyView list.

Now having watched it on HBO Max, two thoughts come into my head. One, the film is about gang warfare and that does not bode well for the rest of my 2021. And two, what the hell was this?

I legitimately hated this movie.

It has 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I don’t care. This was terrible.

All the gangs of New York met at a big summit. They were all gangs like you might see in the Mystery Men. Then, one of the gang leaders named Cyrus (Roger Hill) started to talk to the assembled gangs. He actually said the line “Can you dig that?” several times making me think of wrestler Booker T. Cyrus even threw in a “sucker” at one point. Then, one of the other gang members, Luther (David Patrick Kelly) shot Cyrus and blamed the gang The Warriors. So the Warriors are suddenly being hunted by all the other gangs and had to try to make it back to their own turf.

Absolutely zero character development. I had no idea who this Cyrus was and why his death caused all of these other rival gang members to go so bonkers. Cyrus was giving off some distinct cult leader type vibes so it did not surprise me that someone took a shot at him. Then, with Luther, I have seen better villainous motives on The Laff-a-Lympics. When asked why he shot Cyrus and blamed the Warriors, he said “no reason. I just like doing stuff like that.” Profound. Deep character depth. NOT.

Director Walter Hill spent more time on style than he did on substance. The film had a tone about it that is not your typical film. However, I could not have given two craps about anyone in the story and it doesn’t matter how creative the imagery is or how great the music is (and the music was a strength) if I don’t care about any of the people.

Apparently this has become one of those cult classic films over the years, but I am not interested in that either. I disliked this from early on and the conclusion of the film did little to sway my opinion.

I’m not sure what I had against Jason Bourne. I like this genre of action movie. I never had any issues with Matt Damon. I just never was interested in watching any of these movies. I did watch The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner, and it was okay. Then I did watch the Jason Bourne (2016) which was not very good. Here it seemed as if my choice was justified.

However, as I was going through Peacock today for choices in the DailyView binge, I came across The Bourne Identity. I have heard nothing but positives about this film (and the ensuing two that follow it) with some even going as far as to state it is one of the best spy movies ever made. While that is clearly hyperbole, The Bourne Identity fit beautifully into the concept of the DailyView and allowed me to, if nothing else, close another hole in my movie viewing.

And you know what? I was so wrong about not being interested in these movies. This film was tremendous.

A man with two bullet wounds in his back is pulled out of the ocean by a fishing boat and they try to help him. Little did they know how dangerous that would be. Springing to life, the man realized quickly that he did not remember anything, who he was, how he got into the water, or even his name.

He discovers some of the smaller details of his life, including his name, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). He found money, several fake passports, and a gun that belonged to him. He did not know what was going on, but his instincts were keeping him safe and ahead of those around him. He met up with Marie (Franka Potente), a woman he offers $20,000 to if she would drive him to Paris. She accepts and they begin to unravel the mystery of who he really is. Meanwhile, he is being pursued by agents led by Conklin (Chris Cooper), the head of some shadowy governmental agency.

This was a lot of fun, with exciting action and cool stunts. While there is some, this film does not rely on gunfire as the main weaponry. Jason Bourne’s intelligence seems to be the top weapon. The development of the character of Jason Bourne is awesome too since we have no idea what he was like prior to his amnesia and solving the riddle was something for the audience to get involved in. A big part of how we saw Jason Bourne was the relationship that was developing with Marie. He was very straight with her and was clearly protective of her. I got a feeling that he would have done anything to help her because it was the right thing to do. I wonder if pre-amnesia Jason Bourne was the same way or was that something that changed as he floated in the water.

Something that was fun too was the fact that I was anxious to see how Bourne would get out of the next problem. They placed him in seemingly impossible situations only for him to professionally find ways out. I never really was concerned that he was in any jeopardy, which was fine here, but there should be something more compelling in any sequels because if he is just a Superman-type character that waltzes in and out of danger without any issue then he could become boring. While Marie was with him, he had a character to protect so the concern was for her (or the others in his surrounding area). I do not think he can continue as that without some level of doubt.

The film is based on the novel of the same name written by Robert Ludlum. Directed by Doug Liman, The Bourne Identity spawned a total of four sequels, three of which starred Matt Damon.

The Bourne Identity was a much more enjoyable film than I ever gave it credit for. As I stated, I am not sure why I was so opposed to watching these thrillers, but I do believe those days are now past.

I was looking through the movie section on Peacock, looking for something interesting to watch this Sunday afternoon for the DailyView, and I came across a documentary called Ghostheads, which looks specifically at the fandom of the movies under the Ghostbusters umbrella. I was a huge fan of Ghostbusters so this one drew my attention.

My guess is that this documentary was created to help promote the reboot attempt of Ghostbusters (2016). We see a press junket at the end of the doc, but most of the movie focused on the fans of the original two Ghostbusters movies. I did not hate the 2016 Ghostbusters movie and I think it got a bad rap from the fans. I am curious to see what these fans focused on in this doc thought of the new film.

The doc told the story of several of the people involved in the fandom for this film. There were so many people with their own jump suits, their own unlicensed nuclear accelerators, their own Ecto Mobiles. People who live their lives around the movie and the joy and inspiration they are provided with from the movie.

One of the best things the documentary does is provide us with a picture of how important in their lives Ghostbusters had become. There were several powerful stories of how it brought them together, how they found their spouses, how they felt accepted for the first time.

There was one Ghosthead that talked about his son who had cerebral palsy but the ability to cosplay Ghostbusters helped give him a positive in his life. The doc ends with this kid tying his shoes for the first time, shoes that he said he could learn to tie. It was powerful stuff.

The doc had interviews with several of the cast from the original film including Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, director Ivan Reitman, Jennifer Runyon, William Atherton, and Ernie Hudson, as well as others tied to the movie including Ray Parker Jr, the daughter of Harold Ramis, Matt Cardona, Dave Coulier, and Paul Feig.

If you are a fan of the Ghostbusters franchise, this is a documentary for you. It gives the real world examples of how important movies can be for real people. It is a quick run time and I liked this doc.

Sylvester Stallone returned to the franchise that made him a superstar when he came back for Rocky Balboa, the sixth movie in the Rocky franchise. When it first came out, I had had enough of Rocky and was not interested in seeing it. That makes it a perfect addition to the DailyView binge.

An aging Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) owns a little restaurant in Philadelphia and mourns the loss of his beloved wife Adrian. Rocky starts to get that pull back into the ring and wants to resume his fighting career. Brash young world champion Mason Dixon (Antonio Tarver), after a computer simulation of a dream match between them had Rocky winning, wanted a shot at the Italian Stallion in an exhibition match. The match, however, was anything but an exhibition.

The first part of the movie is done very well as we see Rocky flailing in his life, with Adrian gone. He put up a good front, but the anger inside was still there. With his family and friends also struggling through life, Rocky returned to the world that he knew best.

I’m not sure what the subplot involving Marie (Geraldine Hughes) was meant to be. She played a woman who had been walked home as a child by Rocky. I do not think it was meant to be a physical relationship at all, but it was certainly a weird one. She wound up in the crowd during the fight taking the place of Adrian, and her son Steps (James Francis Kelly III) was in Rocky’s corner. The movie had a mixed message about what this relationship was going to be.

Rocky and his son Robert (Milo Ventimiglia) had some issues during the first half of the film and they had a nice scene together outside the restaurant, but those issues magically went away and, in the second part of the film, Robert was fully supportive of Rocky.

The boxing match itself was thrilling, filled with great shots and beautiful imagery. Some of the black and white shots with either the blue trunks or the red of the blood breaking the color are just great. Rocky films have always had great montages and the fight is extremely well done.

This was a strong goodbye to the character of Rocky as a fighter. Of ocurse, Stallone returned in Creed as a trainer for Michael B. Jordan, but that was more about post fighter Rocky than this was. This was the way Rocky wanted to go into retirement, with one more major slugfest. Rocky Balboa delivered that.

One more musical today as I headed to Disney + for this entry in the DailyView. O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A… Oklahoma, Ok?

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma has been another film that I had an eyeball on for awhile, but it was quite long (2 hours 25 minutes- including an intermission).

Oklahoma is the story of a group of cowboys and farmers competing for the attention and love of the local ladies. The main story includes first, a love triangle between cowboy Curley (Gordon MacRae) and handyman Jud (Rod Steiger) for the affections of Laurey (Shirley Jones) and second, a cowboy Will (Gene Nelson) and Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame) try to get their relationship together while a peddler (Eddie Albert) gets in the way.

I knew many more songs in Oklahoma than I did in Hairspray or In the Heights. Even still, a few of the songs I had not heard of were really fun. My favorite was when Curley went to troll Jud and sang about his death and funeral, and had Jud singing with him. The lyrics of these songs were very clever. The song about the farmers and cowboys that kicked off the second part of the movie was great too, full of funny lines.

Rod Steiger’s Jud made for a menacing villain. His work during Laurey’s dream sequence was particularly frightening and he had several moments of sincere cruelty in his pursuit of Laurey’s love.

The film does not have much of a story outside of the two couples getting together. At times, Oklahoma does feel like it is a bunch of entertaining and fun musical numbers with great choreography strung together by minor story elements. Still, there is a lot of entertaining music and dancing and the actors are strong and charismatic. Plus, they talk with a funny accent.

One more shout out for the cast goes to Charlotte Greenwood who played Aunt Eller, the wise voice of the show. She was a hoot from the beginning and every moment of every scene she was in, she stole.

Is it a little too long? Yes. Could there have been more of a story? Probably. Oklahoma is still highly engaging and entertaining and worth the time.

Ok?

This is another one of the main films that I intended to finally see during this DailyView. Because of its length, I had to find the proper time to fit it into the schedule. Today was the day for Cinderella Man, the boxing biopic from director Ron Howard to make the list.

The movie tells the true story of James Braddock (Russell Crowe), a washed up boxer who suddenly found his left hand and made a remarkable return to the squared circle, taking him right up to a match for the heavyweight championship of the world.

The film starts with Jimmy breaking his hand and trying to get through a match by avoiding using it. He never had a left hand punch so it turned the match into one that got thrown out as a no contest. Jimmy had his license revoked and he settled in to dock work to try and feed his family, consisting his wife Mae (Renee Zellweger) and his three children. The work on the dock was hard and dangerous and people struggled to try and live.

An unexpected match, filling in for another boxer, started the come back of a century. Braddock’s left hand, strengthen by his dock work, was suddenly a weapon and Braddock started to overcome the odds.

This comeback brought him right up to the world champion, Max Baer (Craig Bierko), a feared and powerful striker who had killed two men in the ring.

Cinderella Man had some of the best choreographed boxing of any boxing movie. It was right up there with the level of any Rocky or Creed movies. There was a realness, a feel of grit among the fighters that took it to another level.

Paul Giamatti received an Oscar nomination for his role of Joe Gould, Jimmy’s corner man, trainer and friend. Giamatti was special in this film, taking a role that could easily be considered cliché and brought a life to it.

The Great Depression era is shown in all of its problems in the film. You believe that you are in this location and that the situation is as bad as it seemed. The reemergence of James Braddock is shown to provide the people of the land inspiration and allowed them to be able to root for an underdog. It gave the people hope that with determination and heart, any obstacle could be overcome, a message that they desperately wanted to cling to during this time.

Cinderella Man was an outstanding film and one of Ron Howard’s best efforts.

I wanted to have a DailyView binge to honor the exceptional In the Heights, out this weekend. That meant a musical. I had several choices, but I wound up choosing the 2007 film, Hairspray. I had heard some negative comments about the movie, but I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. In fact, I went to Rotten Tomatoes and it had a huge 91%. I don’t know where I heard the negative comments and I am so glad that I watched this.

It was wonderful.

John Travolta played Edna Turnblad, an overweight woman who was so embarrassed by her appearance that she had become an acrophobic, staying with her husband Wilbur (Christopher Walken). This is a role that has always been played by a man in drag, dating back to the original 1988 movie (drag performer Divine) and the stage musical (Harvey Fierstein). Travolta is known as a great dancer, including some iconic movie dance moments, so his casting as Edna is perfectly understandable.

Nikki Blonsky was the heart of this movie. Blonsky played he main protagonist Tracy Turnblad, a ‘pleasantly plump’ young girl whose dream was to dance on the Corny Collins Show and have a chance to be Miss Teenage Hairspray. Blonsky has such energy and joy in the performance that she is infectious. Utterly charming, Blonsky gives the audience an easy to cheer for lead who is a blast.

The messages, although fairly obvious, are great messages for today’s world. The film focuses not only on the way in which overweigh people are treated or looked at, but it also dives deeply into the Civil Rights movement and deals with interracial relationships and the integration of dancing on TV. Those messages made the final music number powerfully compelling and made me hopeful that the world could come together and show love instead of being such a divisive and hateful place.

I did not know any of the songs in the soundtrack, but they were all very catchy and enjoyable. Much like In the Heights, which I also did not know any of the songs, Hairspray’s music did not require me to be singing along to enjoy.

Besides Travolta, Walken and Blonsky, there is quite a diverse and amazing cast of actors. Queen Latifah showed her multiple talents as Motormouth Maybelle. Michelle Pfeiffer hammed it up as the villain of the piece, Velma Von Tussle. Tracy’s love interest was played by Zac Efron. There was also James Marsden, Amanda Bynes, Brittany Snow, Elijah Kelley, the always epic Allison Janney, Jerry Stiller, Paul Dooley, John Waters, and Jayne Eastwood.

I really enjoyed this movie and found it an emotional joy. If only all of the world’s problems could be solved by a dance number and a little hairspray.

I had been having some issues with my HBO Max, because I did try to do this movie for the DailyView a few days ago. Hopefully, the kinks are worked out for now with HBO Max because I was able to watch the John Carpenter classic Escape from New York today, starring Kurt Russell as the EYG Hall of Fame character Snake Plissken.

On his way to a vital summit, the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) was aboard Air Force One and was highjacked and forced down inside the prison of New York. In this dystopian future, the island of Manhattan is used as a maximum security prison, with a wall surrounding the entire island. The prisoners behind the capture of the President, led by The Duke (Isaac Hayes), had plans for him.

Police Chief Hauk (Lee Vann Cleef) , looking for a way to keep the President alive, came up with a plan of his own. He brought the recently captured Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) and offered him a deal. If Plissken would head into New York and bring the President out, he would receive a pardon.

Of course, I knew about Snake Plissken, despite not having seen these movies. I was surprised how extensive the cast of this movie was. Of course, there was Kurt Russell. There was Western star Lee Van Cleef. Isaac Hayes and Donald Pleasence have already been mentioned. There was also Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, and Season Hubley. There was also former professional wrestler Ox Baker in the cast as Slag.

Snake works his way through this landscape dealing with the criminals. The action is excellent. I especially enjoyed the battle inside the ring with Ox Baker. Kurt Russell is certainly the key to this movie, as his portrayal of Snake is iconic. Russell is the reason this film worked as well as it did.

I enjoyed this. It was light hearted and fun.

When I started making the list of movies that I could watch during the DailyView, one of the first films that I placed on the brainstorming list was Goodfellas. I have never been a huge fan of gangster movies, but a few of them transcended the genre. From all intent and purpose, Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese, was one of those, and it felt as if it were a hole in my movie knowledge.

Based on a true story written in the book, Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, Goodfellas is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. It detailed the life of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and his involvement in the mob from his early days as an impressionable teen until he turned evidence against the others. Paul Sorvino played Paulie Cicero, one of the big bosses that helped Henry get into the mob. Robert DeNiro played Jimmy Conway, one of the wise guys in the mob and Joe Pesci played Tommy DeVito, another juvenile brought into the mob. The film highlights these main four characters as they made their lives through the violence, greed and odd comradery of life inside the mob.

Joe Pesci was particularly haunting as Tommy, the hard headed and quick tempered one who was consistently doing things that needed to be cleaned up. Yet, he never saw anything he did as out of line. He was clearly a sociopath and Pesci played him brilliantly, earning himself an Oscar for the role. I know as I was watching, there was no character that I wanted to get his comeuppance more than Tommy DeVito.

Goodfellas presents a look inside the mob and the strange code of honor that seems to color everything that they do. The way everything is business and handled with a lack of emotion, when someone enters the scene with emotion, such as Tommy, you can see how it upsets the apple cart. Even then, there is a bond of friendship, however uneasy it may be. Henry, Tommy and Jimmy were always together and were clearly close, but with every incident, you could see a sliver of doubt in the eyes of each of them. They were friends and they trusted each other, but only to a certain extent.

Ray Liotta served as the voice over narrator, revealing the story and the internal monologue going on with him. The voice over was not over done and was an effective way of presenting the story information.

It is a story of family and how ambition can darken even the best of situations. It pulls back the curtain of a lifestyle that is both romanticized and darkly cruel. There are great performances throughout and every scene is expertly shot. This is quite possibly Martin Scorsese’s best film ever. I am still not the biggest gangster movie fan, but this one is right near the top of the list for me.