Cinematic Throwbacks: November 1992/2002/2012

1992:

Probably not a whole lot of many figures in American history with a more compelling life story than Malcolm X. Small time hoodlum turned prisoner turned civil rights icon. 

Spike Lee brought that story to the big screen. I did not see this movie in theaters, but I certainly remember the pre-release hype. This was Spike's 1st really big movie. He famously needed a collection of rich black celebrities to finish the funding for the movie. 

And this is very much an epic biopic in the way they used to make them. This thing runs over 3 hours, and spans several decades.

I think that for the most part this is the consensus pick for the best performance of Denzel Washington's career. Pick a superlative and it applies here. It's easily one of the most convincing performances ever by someone playing a real person. And it's an incredible showcase of range. The Malcolm we see at the 3 stages of his life are all very different yet Washington is note perfect in each.

I've never had this among by top favorite Lee films. I always felt that the first act of the film (pre-prison) goes on too long. It's important to the story, and sets up a couple key supporting characters who reappear later, but it's those last 2 acts that are just riveting.

Everything showing Malcolm post-prison is great. Washington recreates speeches perfectly, with the exact cadence and everything. Yes, it's a famous Oscar travesty that this did not win Best Actor.

Home Alone 2 was an event film in my life, one of the first. The first Home Alone was an indescribably huge thing for what was at the time an 11 year old me. The first movie I saw multiple times in a theater. Just a huge deal.

So of course a sequel was going to be a big deal. But was it? A whole lot changed in the 2 years between these movies. 11 and 13 is vastly different. And in the 2 years my growing movie fandom had really switched. How was a Home Alone movie going to hit when I was now into stuff like Boyz N The Hood?

So I know that when this movie came out and I saw it, it was just different. I wasn't into it. I mean, even the first movie was just kind of forgotten throughout the decade. You know, that's how it it. Anything geared towards kids was not something I was going to be interested in at that time. Home Alone 2 was probably the last kids/family movie I even went to see for years.

But, like with the first movie, years later it gained a nostalgic appeal. Now, as for the movie itself it is obviously a very unoriginal sequel. It's rather shameless in how many ways both big and small it just copes the first movie. 

Same opening scene. Same airport scene. It goes on an on. They even repeat the joke where everyone is watching a dubbed It's A Wonderful Life. Why? 

Nothing against Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, but why are their characters in this? It makes no sense. You already have the hotel staff (led by the amusing Tim Curry) as foils. Just build off of that. And while the first movie has Pesci and Stern get beat up in funny ways, this time some of the things that happen to them would be instantly fatal. Kevin McAllister would be going to juvie. Now if he had done this stuff to Trump...

Not all the copied stuff is bad. The scenes with the pigeon lady are legitimately charming and sweet. The "angels with filthy souls" gag is probably funnier here. 

I'll give Macaulay Culkin some credit here. I think he gives an actual good comedic performance this time, not just a precocious kid saying funny things but an actual performance.

So Home Alone 2 is an often lazy copy of the original, and as such it didn't make nearly as much money, and I would never watch it outside of Christmastime. But we grade Christmas movies on a different curve, and this one is alright. 

By now we were fully into the "Die Hard on" phase of action movies. Passenger 57 was Die Hard on a plane. That's it. It had no further ambition than that. This thing barely lasts 90 minutes.

But they wisely cast Wesley Snipes, who was in that great early 90s run, but who had yet to do an action movie. He fit the genre like a glove, and.it wasn't long before this was pretty much all he did, and post-Blade to very diminishing effect. But he was still spry and engaged here. 

It's a simple as hell movie. Terrorist takes over a plane, with Snipes airport security character aboard. Bruce Payne is the bad guy, and while it's a Hans Gruber knockoff Payne is still a pretty entertaining villain. A young Elizabeth Hurley is one of the henchmen. I wish Snipes had a better sparring partner/sort of love interest than he gets here. 

There's a whole sequence set at a carnival that is kind of ridiculous. There's a random, kind of racist, small town sheriff. It's a very early 90s action movie, but a fun one. 

2002:

I actually have a very specific memory of first hearing that this movie was getting made. When I heard that Curtis Hanson, the director who had just made Wonder Boys, was making an Eminem movie, my first response was....what? 

Cut to the movie's release and Eminem himself was getting a lot of unironic Oscar buzz and I was like....what? 

Look, I do enjoy 8 Mile. I actually enjoy most of the things in 8 Mile, but Eminem is not a very good actor. And yes, he is very much just playing himself, in a film that had a gritty edge to it but is also a total vanity project. Everybody spends the whole movie telling him what a genius he is. There is a blatantly pandering scene where Eminem, at the time under fire for homophobic lyrics, comes to the defense of a gay co-worker.

Where Eminem's presence does shine is the music. Lose Yourself is one of the greatest rap songs of that era. Pretty much any scene in the film that involves music is good. The movie is set in the mid-90s, which was a glory era of rap. 

The best part of the movie is unquestionably the final rap battles. It's as rousing as the big game ending of a sports movie. Now, I gotta question some of the judging of the battles. Pretty sure Eminem did not actually win round 1. And he clearly cheats by going over his time limit. But hey, at least he doesn't have to vomit up mom's spaghetti anymore.

The supporting cast is pretty vibrant, most notably an alluringly sleazy Brittany Murphy. We also get some early Anthony Mackie and Michael Shannon. And this IS a movie so there IS a Mekhi Phifer.

2012:

Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for this quirky dramedy, directed by then then very Oscar friendly David O. Russell. She's a young widow who develops a friendship and maybe romance with Bradley Cooper, who is bipolar and newly out of the hospital.

Cooper's family are all giant Eagles fans, and a lot of the meandering story involves the Eagles. The movie specifically happens during their 2008 season. Some of the movie is about Cooper trying to get back with his ex-wife. Some of the movie is about Lawrence and Cooper doing a dance competition. 

The performances carry this one. Lawrence was just about peerless as a movie star at this point. I think this is the best performance the often overrated Cooper has ever given. Robert Deniro gives one of this best 21st century performances as Cooper's dad. Chris Tucker pops up for a few scenes. 

I will say that this one maybe doesn't hold up as well on a rewatch. At the time I might have had it in my top ten for that year, but don't think it's that high now. But it mostly fits the criteria of a romcom, and it's one of the better ones in recent memory. 

I liked all of the Daniel Craig Bond movies, but yeah Skyfall is a pretty safe pick for the best of the bunch. 

I know the Bond movies can tend to bleed together, but this one stands out for a few reasons. 

One is Javier Bardem, who is both sinister and playful as one of the better Bond villains, one who has ties to Bond and M. Two is M. Judi Dench was always perfect in the role, but this movie she gets a send-off and really shines.

This movie has a trademark wow opening, one in which Bond is seemingly shot dead, only to just go off the grid before the main plot drags him out of early retirement. And the finale goes very low tech, very Home Alone-ish, as Bond, M, and Albert Finney (in his last role) fend off Bardem and his goons. 

This Bond film just has it all. All the spectacle and fun one liners, but also a lot.more depth and gravitas. 

Flight was one of those movies that had a misleading marketing campaign. When this was coming out you saw the shot of the plane flying upside down and probably thought it was an action movie of some kind.

But it's actually primarly a drama about alcohol addiction. Not what one would expect from director Robert Zemeckis.

The casting of Denzel Washington is the key to the whole thing. He plays a veteran pilot who is no doubt an alcoholic, but who also performs a miraculous bit of flying to save a plane full of passengers. While drunk. 

Washington is always the epitomie of cool and controlled. So it is very bracing to see him so UNcontrolled, so unable to keep his cool. Much of the movie is about the investigation into the accident. There is also a parallel story with Kelly Reilly as another addict who gets involved with Washington. 

Washington got an Oscar nomination for this, and it is one of his better and more unique 21st century performances. 

Other non-deep dive flicks...

1982:

-Piranha 2: Never seen it. But it was the first movie James Cameron ever directed. 

1992:

-The Bodyguard: Okay, love the music for sure (Hot take: I Have Nothing > I Will Always Love You), but I never liked this movie. I thought it was dull, and Whitney was not good in it. 

-Aladdin: Saw the remake, but never saw the animated version. Was a huge hit though. 

-Bram Stoker's Dracula: Francis Ford Coppola's star-packed Dracula movie. I saw this a looooooong time ago. 

-The Crying Game: Never saw this movie, but we all knew about the twist that the girl was really a guy. 

-Jennifer 8: Thriller with Uma Thurman as a blind woman. 

-Love Potion No. 9: Sandra Bullock's 1st starring role. I watched this on cable a fair amount back in the day. 

2002:

-Die Another Day: Considered the worst of the Pierce Brosnan Bond films. Yeah it was cheesy and had an annoying Madonna cameo, but it also had Halle Berry. 

-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The first of these I saw in the theater. One of the weaker ones in the series iirc. 

-Friday After Next: A very disappointing Friday threequel set at Christmas. 

-Solaris: A George Clooney sci-fi drama. Was pretty dull and unmemorable.

-Femme Fatale: Brian DePalma doing the, well, femme fatale thing. Rebecca Romijn was the femme. 

-I Spy: One of the many Eddie Murphy flops of the early 2000s. 

-Eight Crazy Nights: Adam Sandler's aninated Hanukkah movie. It wasn't that good and the animation was deeply.cheap. 

2012:

-Wreck It Ralph: One of the better animated movies of the last 20 years. A really terrific premise, a few expertly cast voice roles (John C. Reilly was perfect as Ralph, and Sarah Silverman never better as Penelope), a colorful, fun look and lots of great jokes.

-Lincoln: Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for one of his most transformative performances. Great cast. Spielberg directed it well. Haven't seen it in 10 years but need to revisit it. 

-Breaking Dawn Part 2: At long last the Twilight franchise ends. I recall hating this less than part 1, but I also recall hating that fakeout sequence where half the characters die. 

-Life Of Pi: Ang Lee's hugely expensive 3D movie with a guy and a tiger. 

-Red Dawn: 

-The Man With The Iron Fists: RZA in a martial arts movie. It was billed as "presented by Quentin Tarantino" but wasn't in the same galaxy of quality as Kill Bill. 

Coming in December...

Well, two of my favorite movies of all time turn 25, so there may be a couple special throwbacks.

Otherwise there are quite a few turning 20 and 10. It's gonna be busy.