Cinematic Throwbacks: September 2002/2012

2002:

Barbershop was a big hit. It spawned a couple sequels, a spinoff movie, and I guess a TV series. I'm kind of surprised it didn't lead to more. I mean, this is a setting that really works for an ensemble comedy. And you don't even have to worry about a changing cast, cause the cast WOULD change over the years.

I liked the sequels, and I think the spinoff. But the first movie is the best. It's the funniest one, and the ensemble is at its best.

This movie kind of sent Ice Cube's acting career off on a different trajectory, but he is well suited to be kind of the genial straight man as all sorts of shenanigans happen around him. Cedric The Entertainer lives up to his name as the cranky old man barber. Eve, man, she hadn't been in a movie before this but she was at the peak of her....everything here. Yeah I liked Eve.

I kind of miss these PG13 comedies. I guess only network sitcoms can get clean laughs anymore. 

Never heard of City By The Sea? Of course not. This was one of those September dumping ground movies that used to be a staple of the movie release calendar.

I'm not going to pretend that this is one of those hidden gems that has retroactively gained acclaim. It wasn't that well received at the time, and it's not one of the great movies of that year. 

But it's a good movie. Robert Deniro gives one of his better dramatic performances of that era as a NY cop whose estranged junkie son (James Franco) becomes the prime suspect in the shooting death of a fellow cop.

This movie was very much on my radar at the time cause it co-starred Eliza Dushku, who plays Franco's baby mama. She isn't in it that much but is very good. Also very good is Frances McDormand, who enlivens her part as Deniro's neighbor and girlfriend. The weak link is Franco, who is just dreadful and cliche. 

2012:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is not the best high school movie of all time, but it's on the list.

I'm pretty sure that no high school movie that came out so far removed from my own school era is as relatable though.

It has some familiar beginnings. Logan Lerman is the shy freshman, who enters high school with no friends and deals with loneliness and bullying, until he makes friends with a couple upperclassmen: an outgoing jokester (Ezra Miller) and his sister (Emma Watson).

You can certainly tell that this thing is based off a book. Its writer both adapted it for the screenplay and directed the movie. (We'll pretend he didn't also direct Dear Evan Hansen). But no high school kids are this interesting or articulate. I guess they're artsy so you can buy it. 

The film is so warm and good hearted. It doesn't have a cynical bone in its body, just a lot of heart. Lerman is terrific. Emma Watson is just sublime in this, one of the all time teen movie dreams. The Ezra Miller of it all is a little weird now, but he's terrific in this. Mae Whitman is great as another member of the friend group. It has a deep ensemble, with Paul Rudd and Melanie Lynskey and Joan Cusack popping up in small roles.

This is definitely one of the best films of 2012. 

Until my blog-inspired rewatch I had actually forgotten that Looper was written and directed by Rian Johnson. I guess that the internet has spent so much time in recent years yelling at him over Star Wars or begrudgingly praising him for Knives Out that you can almost forget he had a below the radar career before then. 

Well I'm pretty sure Looper is what got him the Star Wars gig. This is a tremendously creative and fun movie, finding a fresh take on that most familiar of sci-fi tropes: time travel. 

Time travel is used basically just by criminals, as a means to dispose of bodies by sending them back in time to be killed by "loopers" who then dispose of people who technically don't exist yet. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in the middle of his excellent late 2000s/early 2010s run, is one of these loopers, who has to go on the run after not killing his older self (Bruce Willis) after he was sent back. It's not that complicated, I just suck at recounting plots sometimes.

The film obviously takes inspiration from the Terminator movies and Blade Runner, but carves its own niche. The world building here is outstanding. The fx work is terrific. Everything feels very credible. 

Terrific ensemble, led by JGL (in some admittedly dumb makeup meant to make him look like Willis). Willis is excellent, in what I guess now may go down as his last great performance and film. The two of them square off in a diner scene that is maybe the best scene in the film. 

Emily Blunt is very good as a woman who crosses paths with JGL in the 2nd half of the film. Jeff Daniels is excellent as the film's main bad guy. Piper Perabo pops up in a few scenes. Weird kid actor though. 

The movie wasn't a huge blockbuster, but it did well and got Johnson the chance to make the best Star Wars movie since the prequels and the best murder mystery in probably decades. Whether haters like it or not. 

Okay, sue me, I liked the original Judge Dredd movie with Sylvester Stallone from 1995. It's not one of my favorites or anything, but it ticks a lot of those 90s action movie boxes.

But the film was reviled, a box office bomb that really sent Stallone's career down. And it was obviously many years before anyone got around to rebooting the character. 

So we got Dredd, a violent, mean take that was more popular with fans and critics, but also bombed at the box office. 

Instead of Stallone we get Karl Urban. People were so mad that Stallone took his helmet off, which Dredd never did in the comics. Urban's stays on. And he gives a similarly gruff and serious performance, but frankly one that lacks any charisma.

One thing that went against Dredd was that The Raid happened. Dredd has the same structure. High rise building full of criminals that want to kill the cop heroes. But it can't compete with that film's peerless action and fight scenes. This one has some explosions and violence, sure, but nothing as memorable. Although the style is cool. 

Dredd is paired with a rookie cop, played by the never more gorgeous Olivia Thirlby. They're taking on Lena Headey, who makes for an appropriately hissable villain, and all her goons.

It's a solid movie. It is wise to keep the run time short, and the bullets flying. There was talk of doing a sequel, but I think that ship has sailed. 

Post-Cloverfield, it seemed like for several years every genre got its own found footage style movie. End Of Watch may not strictly fall into that category, although it does feature a handful of scenes that are meant to be being shot firsthand by an LAPD cop played by Jake Gyllenhaal. 

That sporadically used hook aside, this is one of the best cop movies of the last decade. Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena have tremendously entertaining chemistry. They are one of the best pairings ever in a movie like this.

Anna Kendrick is terrific as Gyllenhaal's gal. Her lightness is a welcome change of pace in a film that, as one would expect from a David Ayer film, is pretty dark and extremely violent. And yeah, it has a collection of Latino gang member villains who even Fox News would concede as being stereotypes. That stuff is a bit rough.

The gang plot that drives the last third of the film feels less authentic than the rest of the film, but it is very gripping drama. The ending is wrenching. Cause you really do like these two guys. I think this movie is peak Gyllenhaal and peak Pena. 

Paul Thomas Anderson had not made a film for 5 years when The Master came out, and this was coming off There Will Be Blood, so expectations were sky high.

The Master was a bit disappointing at the time. I hadn't watched it for years before this rewatch, and with good reason. It's not the easiest film to just pop on and watch. And compared to PTA's best films this just isn't at that level. 

Joaquin Phoenix stars as a wayward WW2 vet who comes under the sway of a charismatic man played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who may be the leader of a cult. Although it's never really called that.

The movie was said to be based off of Scientology, although again this is never explicitly talked about. Hoffman's following certainly feels like a bunch of true believers, including his own wife (Amy Adams). Much of the film involves Hoffman putting Phoenix to various mysterious tests.

The film stays cold and remote, but the two main performances (both Oscar nominated) are mesmerizing. Phoenix in particular is just amazing, in a dark and twisted performance that set him off to be arguably the best actor of the 2010s. And this sadly was the last great performance by Hoffman.

Other non-deep dive flicks:

1992:

-Captain Ron: Kurt Russell as a a pirate. I watched this one a fair amount back in the day. 

-The Last of the Mohicans: Daniel Day-Lewis in a Michael Mann film that I somehow have never seen. 

-Singles: One of the big gen-x movies. Never seen this either. 

-Mr. Saturday Night: Billy Crystal's one real stab at dramatic acting. I did see this one a long time ago. 

-School Ties: Never seen this either, but I need to considering all the budding stars in it. 

-Sneakers: I recall being pretty bored with this one despite a loaded cast (Redford, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix in one of his last movies). I've never really liked spy movies without action. 

-Bob Roberts: Tim Robbins political comedy. 

-South Central: One of the forgotten movies from that early 90s wave of black movies. I watched it a lot though. Great ending. 

2002:

-Swimfan: This was a big deal coming out. We got Shiri Appleby from Roswell. We got Erika Christensen from Traffic. But it was just an okay teen Fatal Attraction. 

-Sweet Home Alabama: A hit romcom with Reese Witherspoon. I didn't like it much at all. 

-The Tuxedo: Jackie Chan's US movies started to go downhill, and not even the presence of Jennifer Love Hewitt could turn that around. 

-The Banger Sisters: Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn as groupies. Don't recall it being good. Is one of Hawn's last movies though. 

-The Four Feathers: Some failed Oscar bait with Heath Ledger. 

-Trapped: Charlize Theron's daughter gets kidnapped. 

-Secretary: The movie that put Maggie Gyllenhaal on the map. 

-Stealing Harvard: The movie that officially took Tom Green off the map. 

-Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever: Okay this one is a notorious bomb. It has 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I recall actually liking it a little, despite never seeing it since. Maybe it just caught me on a good day (although in the fall of 2002 I didn't have many🤔). 

2012:

-Pitch Perfect: Bring It On with singing. This movie is so enthusiastically put together that the cliches don't matter much. The music, other than the part with Anna Kendrick doing No Diggity, never did a thing for me. But you get Kendrick, an on fire Rebel Wilson nailing every delivery, and a pretty enjoyable ensemble. Sadly the movie did give us Adam Devine and Ben Platt. 

-Trouble With The Curve: Clint Eastwood baseball movie with Amy Adams (👍) and Justin Timberlake (👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎). This one had no chance. 

-Hotel Transylvania: The first one of this series that I have seen none of. 

-House At The End Of The Street: One last pre-Hunger Games flick for Jennifer Lawrence, released after of course. It wasn't that good. 

-Bachelorette: A comedy with a bunch of likable actresses that completely exited my.memory bank. 

-Arbitrage: A solid Richard Gere thriller. 

-The Cold Light of Day: A junky action movie with Bruce Willis and the just about to be Superman Henry Cavill. 

-Resident Evil: Retribution: I think this was the last of the Milla Jovovich ones, but I am too lazy to confirm this. 

-10 Years: I just saw this a few years ago. One of those reunion movies, this one had.a bunch of rising stars in it, most notably Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza and Anthony Mackie. 

-Liberal Arts: A Garden State-ish dramedy with Ted from How I Met Your Mother and the darling Elizabeth Olsen. 

Coming in October...

Okay, Jesus, there's a lot of em. 

Turning 10 are Argo, the hugely underrated Seven Psychopaths, and Smashed, which should have won Mary Elizabeth Winstead all the awards. 

Turning 20 we got the ever relevant Bowling For Columbine, Punch Drunk Love, The Rules Of Attraction, Katie Holmes's hugely underrated Abandon, and White Oleander, which made me an Alison Lohman obsessive for a while. 

And turning 30 is a little thing called Reservoir Dogs.

There's even a couple of special 25th anniversary ones. 

So I'm going to be busy.