The first half of “Weird Science” (1985) is so good – classic teen comedy from writer/director John Hughes – you forget how badly the second half runs off the rails. Rejects from “Mad Max?” Cruise missiles? Bill Paxton as Jabba the Hutt? Granted, the ship rights itself for a semi-sensible ending that’s a cross between “Risky Business” and “Sixteen Candles” but you’re left wondering what could have been. Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are classic high school dorks who use early computer technology to build a beautiful woman (Kelly LeBrock) for immoral purposes. She ends up teaching them a valuable lesson.
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When I recall “Apollo 13” (1995), I envision a scene where Cmdr. Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) gazes out the window of his space capsule at a lunar surface he longs to touch but can’t due to his wounded ship. When I go back and re-watch the film, the scene is shorter and less poignant. As a filmmaker, Ron Howard has a way of taking things that happened and making them seem more like we want to remember (or imagine). It’s a gift and a curse, because Howard is snickered at by some who live a more ironic life. Pity them.
Hey, Frank Sinatra made World War II movies – why not Jon Bon Jovi? The younger New Jersey pop star plays a supporting role in “U-571” (2000), in which a group of American submarine sailors carry out a secret mission against the Germans. The Yanks – and the movie, for that matter – are led by untested skipper Matthew McConaughey. Not to worry, because Harvey Keitel, David Keith and Bill Paxton are there to lend ballast to the neophyte leading man. The film is boilerplate war movie stuff – ragtag bunch faces adversity, yada, yada – and (spoiler alert) we all know how WWII ends.
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