Cinematic Throwbacks: May 1995/2005/2015

1995:

The original Die Hard set the template for action movies for years (decades?) to come. It is pretty much a perfect movie, and impossible to follow up, which Die Hard 2 tried to do and fell way short.

That might have been the end of the franchise right there, as Bruce Willis was now established as a huge star and probably didn't need to bother with Die Hard anymore. I even remember a quite from him in the early 90s saying that he had no interest in making another one.

But then you had Willis's post-DH2 filmography, which was pretty rough. Now, The Last Boy Scout was awesome and a solid hit, and I stand by mega flop Hudson Hawk forever. But you also have things like Striking Distance and Color Of Night. So Willis was losing his shine, and went back to the Die Hard well. 

What was kind of unexpected was that, in between him signing on for Die Hard 3, and it coming out, a little movie called Pulp Fiction happened. Willis was not THE star of the film, but there is no overstating how much it helped his career and credibility to be in it. So then this comes out and it isn't just another Bruce Willis movie, it's the new movie from one of the main stars of the definitive film of the decade.

Another huge boost that Pulp Fiction gave this movie was the casting of Samuel L. Jackson. Just like it was with Pulp, where Jackson's role was initially going to go to Laurence Fishburne, so was this film's role of Zeus, the shopkeeper who winds up being John McClane partner in the story. But when Fishburne wanted more money, Willis, who knew that Jackson was about to be a huge deal, got them to cast Jackson in the role instead. 

The script wasn't even originally done as a Die Hard movie. It really isn't very Die Hard-y at all. There's the good guy, usually a cop, and the bad guy, usually some kind of terrorist. But the "Die Hard on a" trend was always about taking place at one (usually contained) location. Die Hard With A Vengeance takes place all over New York City. 

Jeremy Irons is Simon Gruber, brother of Hans as we later find out. He's planted.bombs all over the city and it is in to John and then John and Zeus to stop them. In fitting Gruber fashion, it's all a cover to walk off with billions of dollars in gold. I always wondered with these criminal masterminds who steal all this money. Do they then, like, pay their bills? Like, would Simon be cutting a check to pay his electric bill? 

Anyway, Simon forces John and Zeus to do all sorts of tasks, often in the form of riddles (Simon says). It's pretty creative, and most of this stuff leads to some pretty cool action sequences. Original director John McTiernan returned for this entry.

What stands out so much watching it now is how great most of this looks, cause it involved real locations and practical sets and fx work. That bomb that opens the film? They really blew up a storefront. That subway crash? They really built a set to do that. They really had car chases and explosions, with minimal early cgi. That tangible feel to everything really makes everything better.

The film would not be the same though without Willis and Jackson playing off each other so fabulously. Both are at peak charisma here, and are so funny together. You can't fake this kind of comedic chemistry. Irons can't match up to Alan Rickman, but he's a lot of fun as the bad guy. And the supporting cast is a lot of fun, even down to some of the one or two scene actors.

This movie didn't get great reviews (action movies never got their due), but actually wound up being the top grossing film of 1995. Technically I think Bad Boys 3 managed this in 2020, but DHWAV was the last time an R rated movie.was the biggest grosser in a full movie year.

It doesn't happen too often anymore, cause major movie stars are a dwindling lot, but few things in the movies are as satisfying as putting two big time stars in a movie together and having them go at it. 

Crimson Tide is one of the best examples of this. The story is solid enough, but it becomes riveting because two great actors in peak form carry it. 

I kind of didn't love this movie when I first saw it in theaters. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

The film was big time 90s. The director was Tony Scott, a big time pulpy filmmaker who by this point had made Top Gun and The Last Boy Scout and was coming off of True Romance (written by Quentin Tarantino, who.also did some script work here). It was the 2nd biggest production of the Simpson/Bruckheimer comeback, following Bad Boys.

The stars were Denzel Washington, by this point established as.not just a powerhouse actor but a major movie star, and Gene Hackman, the old guard star who.had recently.won his 2nd Oscar.

Hackman is a nuclear submarine commander, Washington his new 2nd in command. There is a power struggle in Russia that could potentially lead to nuclear war. Circumstances lead the US sub to have unclear orders about what to do, and the two leads clash over what to do. 

And boy do they clash. Hackman is a war hawk, who seems all too eager to start World War 3. Washington wants to wait til confirmed orders come through, a delay which carries its own danger. That conflict carries the film. 

First we get a lot of really good set up aboard the sub. We really get to know that enclosed area, and we come to know the lingo. And we meet a whole bunch of supporting characters, some played by rising stars like Viggo Mortensen and James Gandolfini. It's great table setting. 

The US sub and the Russians are occupying the same waters, and we get some very tense action scenes. But it's after the action that the real drama begins, and the Hackman-Washington fireworks begin. Hackman is legitimately intimidating in the film, but Washington matches him in intensity. Career best level performances from both. 

Obviously, the film is not likely to conclude with the beginning of a nuclear war. I think maybe that was why I wasn't as into it originally. But I came around. This is a dynamite thriller.

2005:

It has long since become tradition that whatever film wins the best picture Oscar will immediately be met with tons of backlash and hate, and everybody with access to the internet calling it shit. Doesn't matter if it's a good film or not. 

None have ever been attacked like Crash, though. Crash was a surprise best picture winner, and it beat the presumed favorite Brokeback Mountain. This unleashed a torrent of anger that has never been equaled. And I think it is utterly ridiculous.

Crash is a sprawling ensemble drama about characters interconnecting over the course of a couple days in Los Angeles, in situations that largely feature racial conflict. It's kind of a message film, basically that everybody has prejudice of some kind. I mean, okay, I'm not saying its message is groundbreaking, but it it well conveyed here.

This has one of the decade's best, and certainly most eclectic, ensembles. This was the 1st movie in years in which Sandra Bullock stretched her dramatic chops, and she played a genuinely unlikable character. Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton have some explosive scenes as a married couple. Matt Dillon brings way more shading to his character than most would. Michael Pena is terrific.

I think this is a very solid 7 out of 10 type film. And it won best picture out of, admittedly, one of the weakest awards season fields of the century. Get over it. 

2015:

There have been 4 Avengers films. All of them have been absolutely fantastic. But one has to be the "worst" of the 4. That responsibility falls to Age Of Ultron, the 2nd of them, and the concluding film to.phase 2 of the MCU. 

By the time this film arrived, the MCU had completely hit its stride. This wasn't an Avengers film where we were wondering "could this work." We knew it would.

Back in the director's chair was Joss Whedon, and considering all that happened to his reputation in the years since, this may be the last film he ever makes. But I'm sorry, the man was supremely talented and one of the key figures in my pop culture life. I genuinely don't think the MCU becomes what it did if he wasn't shepherding the first Avengers. 

Age of Ultron has one of my favorite openings of any film. There's no slow burn here. We are dropped instantly into the middle of a giant action sequence, with all the Avengers storming a Hydra base to get back Loki's scepter from the previous film. But that's not the only thing there. There are a pair of "enhanced" individuals, created using the power of the scepter. They're Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, neither called that by name, just Wanda and Pietro, but we know. 

Main plot kicks in with Tony Stark wanting to use the scepter to create Ultron, his plan to give Earth a permanent defense system. It backfires of course, but before then we get a really fun party scene at the Avengers tower. We get little cameos from Falcon and Rhoadey and Stan Lee. We get the scene of everybody trying to lift Mjolnir (wonder if that might pay off in the future?). 

Then the unknowingly created Ultron (voiced by James Spader) shows up and lays waste to everything, even Jarvis.

Ultron doesn't want to protect the world, he basically wants to destroy it. And he proves especially tough once Wanda and Pietro team up with him. Ultron is able to create clones of himself, too.

The film utilizes all the new adversaries powers in cool ways. It was a quirk of rights issues that allowed Quicksilver to be in this film after already being in X-Men. Wanda has the cooler, creepier powers, and she works the mind voodoo on everybody. We get that awesome scene of a raging Hulk and Tony using the Hulkbuster to try to take him down.

Lots of world building here. We get more talk of infinity stones, largely from Thor. We get a Wakanda name drop.

We find out Hawkeye is a married man with kids. There's a long interlude at his farm house, arguably too long. Tbh I didn't care about the attempts to make Bruce and Natasha a romantic item. And that's never really used again anyway.

Ultron's plan proves to be to basically turn a city in the country of Sokovia into a asteroid, wiping out humanity. Wanda and Pietro find out and switch sides. Along the way, we get the introduction of Vision. When he picks up Mjolnir, the whole theater at my midnight showing gasped. 

The whole 3rd act action blowout in Sokovia is awesome. Wanda kicks ass. We get another one of those "everybody in action" megashots. Pietro dies, cause Whedon always kills someone off. Ultron is defeated. And the film ends with Cap about to train up the new crop of Avengers.

It's a blast of a film. All the characters get great stuff to do. It's really funny. The action is excellent. 

It was a massive success, and got pretty good reviews, and most everyone seemed to like it. 

So what happened? Well, it was as if maybe a month after it came out everyone decided en masse to just shit on it. I've never seen anything like it. Whedon took the brunt of it, cause people didn't like how Natasha was portrayed. There's a line where she calls herself a monster, and people lied and said the movie was calling any woman who can't have children a monster. Really weird shit. Then when the movie got outgrossed by Jurassic World it was retroactively called an underperformer. I guess it was just the early stages of idiot MCU that we are now drowning in. 

I still have this one in my MCU top 10. I think it has aged extremely well. Haters be damned. 

Other non-deep dive flicks...

1985:

-Rambo: First Blood Part 2: I watched all these in the COVID year, and recall this being the good one. 

-Fletch: Chevy Chase as a private eye. Watched this some back in the day  

-Brewster's Millions: Think I just saw this within the last couple years and kinda enjoyed it. Richard Pryor has to spend a bunch of money within a certain time.to inherit a fortune. 

-A View To A Kill: Bond movie with a Duran Duran theme song. 

1995:

-Panther: Mario Van Peebles movie about the Black Panthers bursts with ambition and passion, but is also about as big a mess as you'll find. 

-Braveheart: Mel Gibson's big Oscar-winning epic. I honestly haven't seen this since it hit video and wasn't a big fan. 

-Casper: Christina Ricci befriends a ghost, one reported to the the friendliest. 

-Forget Paris: Romcom with Billy Crystal as an NBA referee. Would he have let SGA flop?

-Mad Love: Romance with Drew Barrymore at peak hotness. 

-Tales From The Hood: Cool horror anthology, a different kind of hood movie for that era. Wasn't scary but had some cool stuff in it and Clarence Williams III was wild. Awesome soundtrack.

-Johnny Mnemonic: Keanu Reeves sci-fi flop, kicking off that rough period between Speed and The Matrix. 

2005:

-Kingdom Of Heaven: Ridley Scott epic that mostly bored and definitely flopped. People swear by the director's cut, which I have never seen. 

-House Of Wax: Solid horror remake best remembered for the gruesome death of Paris Hilton. 

-Madagascar: Well, they made a bunch of these, and this was the first one. 

-The Longest Yard: Adam Sandler remade the inmates vs guards football movie, and boy did it suck. 

-Unleashed: Jet Li action movie. This was kind of the end of his bid for US stardom. 

-Monster In Law: Atrocious Jennifer Lopez comedy. 

2015:

-Mad Max: Fury Road: Alright, a lot of people haven't shut up for a decade about how unbelievable this movie is. I don't get it. Sure it has some cool action, a lot of it done practically, and it gave us Charlize Theron at her most badass. But it has zero story and Tom Hardy was a bore. 

-Tomorrowland: Haven't seen this since it came out, but recall kind of liking it. 

-San Andreas: The Rock vs an earthquake. Much was made of how he pilots a rescue helicopter but largely ignores saving people so he can go find his wife and daughter. Fair point. Decent destruction fx but nothing that hasn't bee done before. 

-Pitch Perfect 2: Um, don't really remember much. I know this one added Hailee Steinfeld to the cast. 

-Hot Pursuit: Absolutely terrible comedy with Reese Witherspoon and, I'm sorry but she is not worth dealing with that voice Sofia Vergara. 

-Maggie: Kind of interesting latter day Schwarzenegger, where his daughter might be turning into a zombie. 

-Aloha: Infamous Cameron Crowe flop where he cast Emma Stone as a Hawaiian woman. 

-Barely Lethal: Hailee Steinfeld again, as a teen assassin. Hang in there, The Edge of Seventeen is coming soon. 

Coming in June...

A very busy month.

Jaws turns 50.

Batman Forever and Apollo 13 turn 30.

Batman BEGINS and War Of The World's turn 20. 

And Jurassic World and Inside Out turn 10.