I was watching the Top 10 Show this week and they were doing the Top 10 Jack Nicholson films.  I try to do a list of my own for each week’s topic, but, when investigating, I was surprised that I could not come up with ten films from Nicholson that I liked.

However, I had not seen several and so I thought I might get a couple of more movies in his oeuvre watched so I could complete the list.  I decided to start with the highest film on John and Matt’s list that I had not seen, which also checks off one of those boxes of an iconic film that I had never seen before.

Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson as Jake “J.J.”Gittes, a private investigator who gets hired by a woman claiming to be the wife of chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) to prove that he was cheating on her.  When Mulwray is killed, Gittes discovers that the woman who hired him was a fake and that the real wife Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) had secrets.  Gittes began investigating the murder, which was connected to disputes in Los Angeles over water.

The story is complex and really develops over the course of the movie.  It is absolutely a movie where you need to give your complete attention if you want to understand what is happening.

Directed by Roman Polanski, Chinatown is a neo-noir crime film with a very complex mystery at its heart.  However, there is more than just the murder in this mystery with the film taking a couple of difficult turns along the way.

Jack Nicholson is the top of his game here and his presence truly drives the film along.  Faye Dunaway has great chemistry with Nicholson and stands out.  John Huston only has a few scenes in the movie, but you gain a deep hatred of him right away.  The performances as a whole are every bit as complex as the story that the movie is telling.

I am unsure how I feel about the ending.  SPOILER (if you haven’t seen the film after all these years) As Faye Dunaway is attempting to escape from John Huston, the police shoot and kill her, making the ending tragic as can be.  Apparently, Polanski wanted this ending and had conflict over one of the writers who had wanted a less tragic ending.  I am not confident how I liked that.  It did leave me feeling unsatisfied, if not emotional.

Chinatown is a certainly a classic film and I was pleased that I finally checked off this box.  It will certainly make my own list of Top 10 Nicholson movies.

Today’s big news that Warner Brothers has begun talks with Michael Keaton to resume his role of Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Flash film brought a great deal of excitement and anticipation to the DC movies.  It made me watch the film that started it all.

In 1989, Tim Burton directed Batman, starring Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jack Nicholson as The Joker/Jack Napier.  This film took the character of Batman in a different direction than he had been.  In the comics, Batman had begun to become darker, especially within the Dark Knight Returns mini series from Frank Miller.  The Joker had started to be portrayed as a more psychotic killer in the comics, The Killing Joke, which came out in 1988, a good example.

Burton’s Batman took the two Batman versions, the campy version from the 60’s TV show and the darker comic book version and combined them into a great movie compilation.

Keaton and Nicholson are magnificent in their roles.  Keaton was really considered poor casting at first, but he truly knocked it out of the park.  Nicholson was comedic and over-the-top, giving the Joker a ton of personality.  Of course, he was just playing Jack Nicholson with the volume turned way up.

Gotham City was as much of a character as any of the main actors in the film.  The city was dark and filled with crime.  The look of the film was pure Tim Burton design and lead to many movies following this one providing important details to Gotham.

Kim Basinger is fine in the film, but honestly, I think the Bruce Wayne-Vicki Vale romance is easily the weakest part of the film.  I did not buy these two falling for each other after one basic night.  And when Alfred (Michael Gough) takes her into the Batcave, well, that just was done to movie the plot along.  I liked her use here, but I would have liked for their relationship to have developed more than what it was.

Watching this again for the first time in a lot of years, I was impressed with how much it held up.  With the exception of the Vicki Vale relationship, I really enjoyed the movie.  In comparison to the more recent Batman flicks, Batman ’89 feels more campy than it did at the time of the release, but it does catch a nice balance between the two styles of the Bat.

The ending of the film is fabulous, taking place at Gotham’s 200th anniversary and ending up in the belfry of a church.  The final battle with Joker is just amazing and Nicholson steals every minute of it.

I personally see this as not as influential a movie as some other people do.  The third and fourth Batman movies following this slid into nearly total camp and almost destroyed the comic book movie.  I credit the Sam Raimi Spider-Man and the original X-Men movies as the true inspiration of the current comic book movie world.  However, that does not make Batman any less entertaining.

I recently watched the Neverending Story, a film from the 1980’s that featured a scene (the death of Artax the horse) that traumatized a generation.  However, there may have been one other scene that was more scarring to the youth of the 80’s than Artax’s death and it appeared in Transformers: The Movie.

That scene is, of course, the scene where the Autobots’ leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is killed in a battle with Megatron (Frank Welker).  There are countless children whose first concept of death came from this animated movie.

I remember where I was when I was watching this movie for the first time.  Prime dies int he first act of the film and it took the whole air out of the rest of the movie.  I disliked the film at the time because they were trying hard to introduce a bunch of new characters into the cannon, most of which were oddly colored and non distinguishable from the others.

Hot Rod (Judd Nelson) led the new characters, all voiced by well known actors, and he was the most distinct of the new Autobots.  Megatron was transformed as well into new bad guy Galvatron (Leonard Nemoy) and they introduced the epic villain Unicron (Orson Welles).

Most of the music is just horrible, but the song called “The Touch” is a perfect song for the moment and, of course, Dare to Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic was a great surprise.

Watching this again, the story is weak and the film never really builds on the emotion of the death of Optimus Prime.  The animation was not much better than the animated series from the 1980’s.

I just cannot understand the choice to basically toss aside all of the characters that was well known and loved from the TV show to introduce a bunch of new characters that would not last for long.  It would not be too long before Optimus Prime was brought back to life and the characters from this film are discarded.

I was a fan of the animated series, but this film not nothing to continue this.

This was the second time that I watched this movie.  My memory was of the first time figuring out what was going on.  On this second viewing, I liked it even more because I could notice set up that I did not see before.

It is 1954 and federal marshal Leonardo DiCaprio arrived on Shutter Island, an insane asylum, to investigate the escape of a prisoner/patient who had been committed because she murdered her children.  As he investigated, DiCaprio discovered that there was much more going on at this facility than was obvious.

I will protect the ending in this review so if you are someone who has not yet seen the Martin Scorsese film, you can still approach it with a blind eye.

This is well crafted and constructed.  The story works well and unfurls at a good pace.  There are several distinct, almost horror-like aspects here too and they all work in detailing the narrative of what is going on here.

Along with DiCaprio, the film features strong performances from Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, and Michelle Williams.  The acting is stellar here, especially since the performers are acting in a way that is meant to be interpreted differently later.

The film has some fantastic scenery and some beautiful shots, except for one point when DiCaprio and Ted Levine were in a jeep.  That was a painfully noticeable green screen.  Other than that, the film was beautifully rendered.

The mystery of the film is gripping and does a great job of moving you through the story.  It may be a touch too long, but that is a minor complaint.  You do have to pay attention for maximum enjoyment, which should not be a negative either.  I enjoyed Shutter Island quite a bit.

I consider myself a fan of Kevin Smith.  However, I have never been a huge fan of many of his movies (outside of Dogma which I love).  Most of the movies that he makes, I find okay at best.  I really love listening to Kevin Smith tell stories.  I am a fan of his podcast and his verbal skills.  He also seems to be a truly fine person.

Red State feels like a totally different film than most, if not all, of Smith’s oeuvre, and I enjoyed the switch up.

Three horny teenage boys head out in their community after finding an older woman on the internet that was willing to have sex with them.  Turns out, the woman was a member of the Five Points Trinity, the local cult lead by fundamentalist preacher, Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) and she drugged the boys and took them to the Cooper compound to be used in their religious ceremony.

ATF Agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) was also on the trail of Cooper, but for different reasons.  When all of the forces came together, all hell broke loose.

This movie kept me off guard the entire time because you never knew what was going to happen.  Every time it felt as if we were following a certain main character, that character winds up dying.  Nobody involved in the story felt like our hero.  They all felt like rotten people, whether conflicted or not.

John Goodman is the closest we have to a heroic presence in the film but he seemed to be concerned more with self issues than doing the right thing.  Admittedly, he was the most conflicted in the cast and Goodman gave a stellar performance.

Michael Parks is great as the charismatic cult leader.  It gives you a real idea of how these kinds of men are able to get, apparently, normal people to follow and commit atrocities in their name.  I feel that this character is all the more relevant in the world today as I can see pieces of certain leaders in his role.

The film is very violent and filled with gun play.  The seemingly randomness of the deaths during the shoot out speaks to the chaotic nature of guns and how they can be damaging depending on who are using them.  However, the government forces are not shown as the hero here either as their overall goal in the situation is anything but moral.

The ending is controversial, but I found it very funny and ironic.  The ending is absolutely an example of a deus ex machina, a literary technique where “an unexpected power or event saves a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device.”  Many times this technique can be seen as a negative, but, when used properly, it can be a wondrous event.  This ending may feel to some anticlimactic, but I found it to be a perfect end to this film.  It turned out to be as random as the rest of the film had been.

Red State does not follow your expectations of how this type of movie should be and that is part of its charm.  The film has solid performances and keeps the audience confused and uncertain about how this is to be resolved.

Checked off another box this afternoon.

For the first time, I watched what is undoubtedly a masterpiece from the classic director Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai.

This movie has inspired multitude of films over the years from The Magnificent Seven to the Avengers.  You could literally see the development of what would eventually become tropes in action movies worldwide begin in Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

A village of farmers in 16th century Japan are being threatened by a group of bandits, who are preparing to pillage the village.  To protect themselves, the village decided to hire a group of samurais to protect them.  The samurai warriors were assembled and fought the bandits.

Toshirô Mifune played the rapscallion rogue Kikuchiyo.  Takashi Shimura played Kambei Shimada, the older and respected leader of the samurai.  Isao Kimura played the young and untested son of a wealthy family, Katsushirō Okamoto, who talks Shimada into taking him on as an apprentice.  

All of the samurais received a certain spotlight in the movie, and not just one from the action.  Each character had important pieces to their story that really brought each man to life.  You did care for each one, so when they were in jeopardy, you felt it.

There were other characters among the farmers that received character bits as well.  Keiko Tsushima played Shino, a daughter of one of the farmers who wants her to be a son.  She has a relationship with Katsushiro that leads into struggles for both characters.

This is a spiraling epic of a movie, lasting over 3 and a half hours (including an intermission breaking the film into parts).

The battle scenes in this are absolutely beautifully shot and masterfully planned out.  Each moment is important to, not only, the story, but to each character’s development as well.

There is no doubt this is one of the great movies of all time.

“Who are these guys?”

That was asked several times during the classic Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the titular characters.

Iconic outlaws Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) were leaders of the infamous Hole-in-the-Wall Gang in the Old West.  After a series of train robberies, a seemingly unstoppable posse, hired by the railroad president, comes after Butch and Sundance, chasing the outlaws across the land.  This leads them to flee to Bolivia with Sundance’s girlfriend Etta Place (Katharine Ross).

I really enjoyed this movie.  I am not sure I had seen it before, though I have seen some of the scenes involved here, in particular the iconic cliff jumping scene.  The relationship and banter between Paul Newman and Robert Redford was utterly fantastic and easily the best part of the movie.  They were so quick-witted and engaging that you fall immediately in love with them despite the fact that they were criminals.

The script was written by William Goldman, who would write the book and movie The Princess Bride, and you can see the similarities between the sharp dialogue and the connections between characters.  I laughed out loud several times as Butch and Sundance snipped at each other showing perfect comedic timing in a film that did not make me think would be funny.  Goldman earned an Academy Award for his writing on this project.

The music here is amazing as well.  The happy and bouncy “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head” works so well in a beautiful scene with Butch taking Etta around on a new-fangled bicycle.

Robert Redford and Paul Newman showed amazing chemistry with each other and totally make this movie work.  Everything depends on these two actors delivering the characters and their dialogue and they are just great.  I had a lot of fun with this movie, as it becomes one of my favorite Westerns around.

Reach the stars, fly a fantasy
Dream a dream, and what you see will be-eh, yeah, yeah, yeah-eh
Rhymes that keep their secrets, will unfold behind the clouds
And there upon the rainbow is the answer to a Neverending story-eeh

The Neverending Story is a classic tale of fantasy and adventure, a beautiful family film that provides thrills, humor, deep themes and magic.

A young boy Bastian (Barret Oliver), who has recently lost his mother, is getting bullied by a group of kids.  One day on the way to school, Bastian ducks inside an old bookstore to avoid the bullies chasing him.  Inside, he meets an old man who shows him a book that is meant to be more than what it was.  Bastian sneaked away with the book and found a deserted building to read it.

In the story, he discovers a land called Fantasia that is slowly being taken over by the Nothing and the leaders of Fantasia has recruited a mighty warrior by the name of Atreyu (Noah Hathaway), who turns out to be a kid, and they send Atreyu on an adventure to save the Princess, who was dying from the Nothing.

This adventure becomes majorly meta for Bastian as he learns the importance of imagination and daydreams, something he has been told to stop doing.

The movie is truly wonderful.  Yes, visually, it looks like a 1980’s movie, but actually the practical effects involved here are part of the film’s charm.  The creatures and the sets are masterfully imagined and designed.  There is a realness to most of the movie that is sometimes missing in the big green screen epics of CGI today.

Barret Oliver does a really solid job as Bastian.  Some of his reactions as he reads through the book are well done.  Some may be over the top as well, but he is solid enough to keep the narrative going.

Noah Hathaway is a good looking young boy for the role of Atreyu.  He does get a little whiny at times with his voice. but I am guessing that he is directed to do so.  However, there is no denying… this kid had some magical hair.  One scene he turned from the camera and his hair flowed like the mane of a lion.  It was epic.

Then the film pulled out the tissues for us early on as Atreyu was trying to get his way through the Swamp of Sadness with his horse Artax.  You have to have a heart of stone to not be affected by this scene.  It came out of nowhere but it does a great job of setting up the difficulties that Atreyu would be facing while being a metaphor for depression and how dangerous it can be for individuals.

The Neverending Story was a beautiful story with all kinds of emotional beats in it.  The young actors do a decent job and deliver when they need to.  The tale is remarkably meta, although the ending when Bastian uses Falkor the Luck Dragon to get revenge on the bullies who had dumped him in the dumpster may not have been the most evolved message to give.

I was scrolling through Netflix to try and find a movie for tonight and I found something new on the streaming service from 2014 that featured Dan Stevens.  It was a movie called The Guest.  However, that had not sold me on watching the film as of that point.  Then I saw that the list of actors included Brendan Meyer, and I was in.

Brendan Meyer is an actor who also participates in the Movie Trivia Schmoedown as Brendan “The Kid” Meyer.  I liked the Kid a great deal and getting a chance to see him work in a movie was a great opportunity.

David (Dan Stevens) arrives at the house of the Petersons.  He tells Laura (Shelia Kelley) that he was a friend of her deceased son during their time in the military and that the last thing he had promised to her son was to look out for his family.

Laura’s other son Luke (Brendan Meyer) and her 20-year old daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) started to bond with David as he showed that he was capable and helpful.

However, David has a dark secret that threatens to put the entire family in jeopardy.

Dan Stevens does a very solid job as the machine-like soldier who never seemed to be out of control.  You could understand why, just by the way he carried himself, this family took him in so quickly.  He was clearly a skilled manipulator, finding specific way to endure himself to each member of the family.  Plus, he seemed to be going out of his way to make their lives better.

Little did they know there was a darkness inside him and that he could snap and turn on them all at any moment.  The film does a great job of playing that tone of uncertainty, always suspecting but never being totally sure what was going on.  In fact, there were chances that the story might flip on us and that what we were being led to think was not that way at all.

When the tables turned, it went violent very quickly, putting our protagonists in desperate situations.  There some moments of brutality that was tough to watch.

Now, David’s motivations did feel muddy.  I was not sure I understood in the end why he wound up in this place and what his true motivations were.  I understand why things happened the way they did, but I am not sure what brought him here in the first place.

The film moves briskly and gives you some good thrills and some exciting moments.  The performances are decent and there was an appearance by Abaddon from LOST (Lance Reddick) too as Major Carver.

This is a fine watch on a Saturday night if you’ve got nothing else to do.

Maybe the news networks should take a closer look at this film.

Network was the story of an aging anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) whose ratings had slipped and was going to be fired until he flipped out live on television.  The ratings for his diatribe soared and he became a network standby.

This is still completely relevant in today’s world, especially in the world of 24-hour news networks as we have now.  The ratings are the most important factor.  The networks spend more time with the darkness than in the light.  They try to get viewers to believe/do certain things, mainly to keep tuning in.

Network is full of amazing performances including Oscar winner Finch (who became the first winner to receive an Oscar posthumously).  Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight also won Academy Awards for their performances.  William Holden and Ned Beatty were nominated for Oscars.

Directed by the iconic Sidney Lumet, Network won for writing as well.  Everything was brought together in the perfect package at the right time.  The United States had just gone through Watergate and the desire of the public was ripe to respond to such work.

The movie was a satire on the media and the influence of ratings.  It provided some ridiculous situations to show how responses could be just a bad.

News networks such as FOX News, MSNBC etc can easily be seen and recognized in the fictional UBS network in Network.  It makes one wonder why we have not come fartehr.