The Stop Button

For a painfully brief period in the 1990s, Ron Howard was one of the best filmmakers working. It didn’t last. The Paper kicked off his run. Howard and the Koepp brothers (I can’t remember for sure, but I think Stephen worked at a newspaper) imbue the film with the traditional Hollywood newspaper movie idealism, but […]

Thirty-nine years old when Wyatt Earp was released, all Kevin Costner needed to do to de-age himself twenty years was smile. During the young Earp days, Costner looks younger than costar Annabeth Gish, not to mention Linden Ashby (playing his younger brother).
The extended version of Wyatt Earp clocks in at three and a half hours. […]

Apparently, when Christopher Guest doesn’t do pseudo-documentaries, his films simply don’t work. I didn’t realize For Your Consideration was different in that approach until a lot further in than I should have, probably fifteen minutes or something. As it opens and introduces the set-up (I guess that part would be called the first act, which […]

In many ways, Game 6 is the Michael Keaton movie I’ve been waiting ten years to see. He’s the lead, it isn’t a comedy, he’s got a grown kid, it ought to be a return to form. It’s a mildly high profile film, or at least it should have been, as Don DeLillo wrote it. […]

Let me annotate the opening cast crawl with my thoughts at the time….
James Spader–great, love him on “Boston Legal.”
Melora Walters–from Magnolia, love her, she’s in nothing.
Jay Mohr–liked him in Picture Perfect when I saw it, now can’t believe I liked it…
Catherine O’Hara, Bill Murray… solid people.
So what happened? It’s actually not all John McNaughton’s fault, […]