The Shootist (1976) ****

The Shootist represents John Wayne's swan song, the final film where the legend that is John Wayne appeared on the screen. The film follows the final days of J.B. Books (Wayne). Dying of cancer, he visits an old doctor friend (Jimmy Stewart) who informs the old gunslinger that he doesn't have much time left. Books takes up lodgings with a Mrs. Rogers (Lauren Bacall) and her son Gillom (Ron Howard). When the area finds out that Books is in town and dying it seems that everyone wants a piece of him, coming out of the woodwork with money making schemes as this shootist prepares for one final battle.

Directed by Don Siegel (Dirty Harry) The Shootist is Wayne's best acting since The Searchers almost twenty years earlier. Instead of the invincible cowboy he plays a man at the end, preparing for what may lay beyond this world. The legend is still there, but he's a little humbler. Just looking at the rest of the cast, you know the films going to be good, though it does suffer from an almost Made For TV feel.

John Wayne survived almost three years beyond the release of The Shootist. He never made another film. Having this film as a bookend to a career that was simply legendary was a great capstone. He was THE premiere MAN for over thirty years and brought his persona to his films in a way that has never been repeated except by Clint Eastwood. John Wayne was a man and a character that grew beyond the confines of the silver screen and into American culture.

Barry Lyndon (1975) ****

Barry Lyndon allows us to travel back to the Old World and visit an era where a man can go from being an Irish farm boy to European aristocracy based on pure bullshit. There's no claim or heredity. Just bullshit from the title characters stand point.

The film stars Ryan O'Neal as Redmond Barry, who falls in love with his cousin, but she finds him to be but a boy and shuns him for an older British officer. This situation sets off a chain of events that leads Redmond into fighting for two armies and eventually becoming British nobility under the name Barry Lyndon after marrying the Lady Lyndon (the beautiful Marisa Berenson). Barry becomes the typical 18th century nobleman by pissing away his wife's money and whore mongering, leading to a slow and painful downfall.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon is yet another technological achievement for the legendary director. Now before you ask what in the hell I'm talking about and assume I've gone crazy since this is a film set in the 18th century let me explain. The film was shot with specially designed cameras so that natural light can be used instead of the arc lamps typical in Hollywood productions. What does this achieve? Kubrick gets a look that feels primitive because it's bathed in natural light. There's a sense of going back to the old days where there was no electricity or running water.

The film does get dull from time to time and Ryan O'Neal isn't great as Lyndon. What the film is really good at is expressing Kubrick's inspiration- paintings of the era. The film is shot like multiple paintings, beautifully detailed and lit. For this, the film is a work of genius, even though the story is a bit blah. This is one of Kubrick's forgotten films, sandwiched between A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. It's an OK period piece that is polished up with the Stanley Kubrick magic.

The Hunter (1980) **

There are only three reasons I gave the Hunter two stars. First, it was Steve McQueen's last film and he is very good in it. Second, Eli Wallach is in it and Eli makes any movie better (except The Holiday). Lastly, Steve McQueen drives a Trans-Am.

Other than those three things this film is horrible. Directing, writing, acting. It all sucks except those three things. McQueen is a bounty hunter that can apparently go around driving into things, blowing stuff up, and causing mayhem. And he's not even a cop. Where the hell do I sign up? I want to blow up a chemistry classroom, too. Levar Burton shows up- he's wanted for selling old books without covers as a side line to Reading Rainbow.

Enough of that crap, let's talk about McQueen and the T/A. Sadly, a plot to the story is that his character is a bad driver, but the sad part is that McQueen drives a Trans-Am badly better than most people drive normally. Of course it gets blown to hell, but it's a good ten minutes.

Seriously, I can only recommend this for McQueen. It's sad that the guy in the movie that's actually dying is the only actor in the movie that isn't dying on screen. McQueen, Wallach, and Trans-Am are awesome. The rest of this is shit.

Observe And Report (2009) *1/2

2009 will be remembered as the year of the rent-a-cop with this film and the horrible Paul Blart gracing our screens throughout the country. Both films are basically the same story of a guy that takes his job way to seriously and both fail to be anything close to funny.

Seth Rogen stars as Ronnie, the head security guard at a local mall who goes on the offensive when a flasher goes to work around his mall, prompting him to go into overdrive. He has a crush on the mall slut (Anna Farris) and the detective in charge of the case (Ray Liotta). He makes an ass of himself throughout the film- you know that already.

The funny thing about Observe and Report is the way it harkens back to Scorsese's masterpiece Taxi Driver. A loner that's psychologically unbalanced takes it upon himself to purge society of it's ills- his society being the local mall. Sadly, this isn't Taxi Driver. This isn't even the last season of Taxi. It pushes the dark envelope, it just doesn't do anything with it and when the movie tries to be funny, it fails because we know that our hero is just a sick, twisted bastard.

That's the feeling you get when you finish the film. Sadness. This guy's not funny, he's just coo-koo. Not a funny nutty, just sad. Sure, he screams profanities left and right, but it just doesn't work in the end. Please, no more mall cop movies. Please. Stop.

Firefox (1982) *

The 1980's were not great to Clint Eastwood. For every good movie he did during the decade, there was another that was borderline horrible. You know their names: Pink Cadillac. City Heat. White Hunter, Black Heart. Holding a special place in this list of Eastwood flops from the Reagan era is Firefox, a film that's dull as hell and is the worst miscasting of Clint Eastwood's career.

The film is about a mission to steal a new Russian jet called Firefox, which is able to achieve obscene speeds and runs just by the pilot thinking. That means you have to get a pilot to sneak into to Russia that is the same build, great at flying, and can speak Russian. That narrows he list down to Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood), a former pilot in Vietnam living with shell shock (if you don't know what that is, please look up the George Carlin bit) that fits the criteria perfectly. It's up to Gant and the Moscow underground to get him to the plane so that he can steal it for the USA.

The first thing I noticed watching this film is the number of people willing to die so that Eastwood can steal this plane. It's not like it's the atomic bomb or you're going to stop mass genocide- it's a damn plane. We'll have the Japanese build one that's smaller, faster, and better. Don't sacrifice yourself.

Basically, the entire movie is a cat and mouse game. The KGB are going to get him and....................oh, Eastwood escapes yet again. That's the movie. Over and over again. What should have been a MacGuffin plot in a James Bond film is now a full blown movie with Clint Eastwood as the super spy. But he isn't. It's Clint Eastwood. He isn't sneaky and able to slip through the cracks. Let's imagine Dirty Harry trying to be sneaky. Doesn't work, does it? Eastwood's legend is the guy that roars in, guns blazing with witty remarks against his dumbfounded superiors. Firefox doesn't do that and shows Eastwood in the uncomfortable state of an unstable spy behind the Iron Curtain. It's a failure for the legend.

Sadly, he also directed this film too and with the special effects sequences at the end and the espionage plot throughout he fails to keep our interest. We're just bored as hell and when the big finish starts we're treating to some of the worst special effects seen in the 1980's. You have to remember that this film came out the same year as E.T. and was sandwiched between two Star Wars films and the other effects heavy films of the early '80's. Firefox's effects are laughable.

This film is for Eastwood completists only! It's an artifact. It's a legend stretching himself too much into a role that in no way suits him. This film is a complete disaster. A true plane crash. (Hardy-har-har)

Lolita (1962) *****

Lolita provided a watershed for Stanley Kubrick's career. Sure, he made Spartacus and Paths of Glory before 1962, but Lolita proved one thing to the world: that Kubrick had the balls to do whatever film he wanted to do. This film made him that untouchable, mad genius that everyone believes he was, but it really proves that he can make a great movie no matter the subject matter or the constraints put against him.

Lolita is based on the 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov about Professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) and the lodgings he has taken in the town for his new position. He is a boarder in the home of Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters), a widow who seems to be hopelessly in love with any man that breathes and knows about her existence. Also living in the house is Charlottes teenage daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon). Humbert becomes obsessed with this "nymphet" and goes out of his way to be near her, even marrying her mother for the chance to show her affection. A relationship develops that's hot and cold between the two and is also strained by the presence of another "beau", Quilty (Peter Sellers).

James Mason scores as Humbert, pocessing the European demeanor of the character while being able to transmit the lust, the longing, and the conniving throughout the film. This was a ballsy move for Mason and it pays of in his performance. Sue Lyon is also excellent as Lolita, playing a girl that's a bit younger than her actual age. You can tell that she's grown way beyond her years and has more experience than her mother and even Humbert. Peter Sellers pulls out his thousand faces and voices routine throughout the film and delivers a nice performance, though it is brief. Honestly, the real standout is Shelley Winters. Sure, she's Lolita's mother, but it almost seems like there's a competition between the two. It's like a sort of jealousy that Charlotte holds against her daughter because of her relationship with boys and even men that mother just doesn't seem to get. So she's mean to her. Winters expresses all of the e,motions at the same time and can turn them on and off at will. She's briefly in the film, but she makes an impression.

Kubrick continues to hone his craft into his classic period which would start with his next film, Dr. Strangelove. The opening scenes in the mansion are shot masterfully with Kubrick making you uneasy just being in the place without using cob webs and coffins lying around. You know something's going to happen, you just don't know what it is. The film feels like a comedy/thriller. Sure, the hilarity is right there for all to see, but you have the thrill of Humbert getting caught in his games throughout the film that actually keeps you on the edge of your seat. Nabokov gets the writing credit, but the film is built by Kubrick.

As I said in the beginning, Lolita was a turning point in Stanley Kubrick's directorial career. For many, it was his first true film and set up that golden age of Kubrick films that ran from Lolita through A Clockwork Orange. It's a masterpiece of playing by the rules while breaking them all at the same time.

Bullitt (1968) *****

The world wasn't quite sure about Steve McQueen before Bullitt. Sure, he was famous, a great actor and all that. But his best work was ensemble pictures (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven). Could he really carry a film on his own. There were a few good movies. Bullitt is the great movie that turned him from movie star to icon.

Frank Bullitt (McQueen) has been plucked by a political wannabe (Robert Vaughn) to guard his witness. The problem is that the witness gets shot and killed under Bullitt's watch and now he wants to know who did it and why. That's the basic story. Simple, yet complicated as the film progresses. A little too complicated. I'm not going to lie, the script isn't that great. It's McQueen and that damn car chase that makes this movie great.

This is McQueen's defining role. Hell, we've got him selling new Mustangs on TV because of Bullitt. He was cool to begin with, but Bullitt made him uber-cool. And he sold a shitload of Mustangs with it. He maintains the movie and rises miles above a script that would be a bottom of the barrel affair with most other actors. McQueen fleshes out the film because he can. He creates something on screen that you can't put your finger on, but damn it, you know it's there.

Of course there's the car chase. Often ripped off, but never duplicated mainly because of the kick ass cars doing the chase (Bullitt's Mustang and the bad guy's Charger). I can't forget the white Firebird (the Trans-Am wouldn't show up for another year) three times and the green VW Bug they pass at least six times. Sure, there are continuity errors in the chase, but who cares. It's spectacular. Just like Ned Beatty's pig scene and the surprise in the Crying Game, you've all heard of the chase in Bullitt.

That's the funny thing about Bullitt. It's such a horrible script when you think about it, but the McQueen factor raises it to classic status even above the stink of the writing. It's rare that an actor and director (Peter Yates) can elevate a movie beyond the anchor that is its script, but these two accomplish it with such a great movie that it's amazing. A true piece of late '60's film making that created the genre of the anti-hero cop that would be later defined by Eastwood and ripped off by everyone (including John Wayne himself). This is one of those true classic films.