Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
DEFINITIVE SYLVESTER STALLONE MOVIES
Rocky Balboa’s back on the big screen this week, nearly 10 years after we thought we’d seen him for the last time — and darn it if the big lug’s latest appearance, in the franchise spinoff Creed, doesn’t look like one of his long saga’s finest chapters. In honor of this unlikely comeback, we’ve decided to dedicate this week’s feature to honoring the filmography of the man who brought Balboa to life. Yo film fans, it’s time for Total Recall, Sylvester Stallone style!
THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH (1974) 67%
Before he was Rocky Balboa, Stallone got one of his earliest big-screen breaks with 1974’s The Lords of Flatbush, a period piece about a leather-jacketed gang of street toughs and their efforts to grow up while struggling with peer pressure, romantic entanglements, and unexpected demands of adulthood. It’s perhaps chiefly of interest as a look at some future leading men before they made it big — in addition toStallone, Flatbush stars Perry King and Henry Winkler — but the movie boasts no small amount of charm on its own merit as a modest slice-of-life story told within a timeframe that would later be ruthlessly mined for nostalgia. The end result, as Time Out wrote, is “a small masterpiece that places the mood and general ethos of the ’50s with absolute precision and total affection.”
DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) 85%
Take a story about a dystopian future in which an authoritarian government soothes the masses with the bloody spectacle of a cross-country race, add the words “a Roger Corman production,” and what do you get? 1975’s Death Race 2000, a cult classic starring David Carradine as “Frankenstein,” the champion racer who always defeats his competitors — including the perpetually frustrated “Machine Gun” Joe Viterbo (Stallone). Even bloodier and more gleefully gratuitous than the similarly themed Rollerball, Death Race 2000 earned sniffs of derision from critics like Roger Ebert, who deemed the whole thing tasteless — but most scribes disagreed, including Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader, who called it “an elaborate and telling fantasy about our peculiar popular entertainments” and “fine work carved from minimal materials.”
THE ROCKY FRANCHISE
You’re supposed to write what you know, goes the old saying, and although Stallone wasn’t a boxer when he wrote the screenplay for Rocky, he was certainly a dreamer, and he understood the painful pursuit of a dream in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Like Rocky, Stallone needed a big break, and he got it with this critically lauded box office smash, which earned ten Oscar nominations, winning three, and launched what would become arguably the signature franchise of his career. Though the Rocky movies would eventually lose sight of the qualities that made the original special, the franchise as a whole stands up better than some might remember: Rocky II, which picked up right where the original left off, earned critical accolades while briefly setting the all-time box-office record for a sequel, and the overblown antics of the third and fourth installments are not without their charms. The less said about Rocky V the better, but the belated sixth chapter, Rocky Balboa, brought the saga poignantly back to its roots with a grittier — and deeply melancholy — return to the ring. It all started with one of the most enduring dramas of the ‘70s, and although Roger Ebert was describing the original, he could have been describing substantial portions of the series when he wrote, “A description of it would sound like a cliche from beginning to end. But Rocky isn’t about a story, it’s about a hero. And it’s inhabited with supreme confidence by a star.”
F.I.S.T. (1978) 80%
He’d later find it difficult to be taken seriously as anything other than an action star, but for Stallone’s first post-Rocky project, he demonstrated an eagerness to display his dramatic range with F.I.S.T., a Norman Jewison drama that uses the saga of Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters Union as the loose inspiration for the story of a warehouse worker’s rise through the ranks of the fictional “Federation of Inter-State Truckers.” Responsible for carrying the film as its leading man as well as substantially rewriting Joe Eszterhas’ original screenplay, Stallone acquitted himself well in the eyes of most critics, some of whom saw signs of steely-jawed greatness in his performance. F.I.S.T. is rarely mentioned when people discussStallone today, but perhaps we should; as Variety argued at the time, “F.I.S.T. is to the labor movement in the United States what All the King’s Men was to an era in American politics.”
NIGHTHAWKS (1981) 69%
For a movie refashioned from what was supposed to be the script for The French Connection III — and was eventually, in Stallone’s words, “cut to pieces” by the studio — 1981’s Nighthawks turned out a lot better than it probably should have. Starring Stallone and Billy Dee Williams as a pair of NYPD cops on the trail of a terrorist known as Wulfgar (played by Rutger Hauer in his American debut), this is a quintessentially 1980s police thriller — which is to say that it’s soaked in blood and riddled with plot holes. But a good number of critics looked past its deficiencies to find a solid action flick; as Janet Maslin wrote for the New York Times, “All of it is standard stuff, and yet Nighthawks has been assembled with enough pep to make it feel fresh.”
THE RAMBO FRANCHISE
Like Rocky, 1982’s First Blood acted as a launchpad for a series of progressively more cartoonish action films — and like Rocky, it’s a much darker, more sensitive film than you might remember. The role of haunted Vietnam vet John Rambo took full advantage of Stallone’s gifts, giving him ample room to display his knack for portraying quiet, haunted men as well as his athletic build, and while the end result didn’t exactly stay true to the David Morrell novel it was based on, it resonated with audiences and critics alike, and managed to provide some legitimate social commentary to go with all the action. That largely fell by the wayside as the series wore on, with Rambo repeatedly pressed into action as an increasingly ludicrous fantasy corrective for American foreign policy, butStallone managed to restore at least a little of the character’s haunted soul with 2008’s grim, blood-spattered Rambo. “This is a dark drama about war and the exorcising of demons,” wrote Eric D. Snider of the original. “And an unforgettable one at that.”
CLIFFHANGER (1993) 69%
By the early 1990s, there wasn’t much Stallone hadn’t done as an action hero — and in the post-Die Hard era, the entire genre was starting to feel a little stale. The solution? 1993’s Cliffhanger, which embraced action movies’ inherent silliness (by tapping the marvelously hammy John Lithgow as the villain) while taking them someplace semi-original (the top of a mountain). It certainly didn’t win any points for believability, but it did sate thrill-seeking filmgoers — not to mention critics like Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, who cheered, “Despite the don’t-look-down Olympian settings, Cliffhanger‘s spirit is brutal and earthbound. The movie is like one of those computer-designed simulator rides that whip you around until you’re dizzy and aching but don’t actually take you anywhere.”
COP LAND (1997) 72%
The decade wasn’t a total wash for him, but it isn’t a stretch to say that the 1990s weren’t exactly kind to Sylvester Stallone — and it was partly his fault. After dominating the box office as one of the biggest action heroes of the 1980s, Stallone decided he wanted to branch out, and the epic bombs Oscar andStop! Or My Mom Will Shoot were the disastrous results. He never quite regained his box office mojo, butStallone remained an underrated actor, and with 1997’s Cop Land, he took advantage of a rare opportunity to show his depth. As the overweight, ineffective police chief of a small New Jersey town,Stallone delivered a quietly intense performance, holding his own against a cast that included Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. In the end, of course, Sly gets his guy — but Cop Land played so effectively against type that TV Guide’s Sandra Contreras didn’t mind: “It sizzles toward an explosive and satisfying climax in which everything — Stallone included — fully bursts into life.”
ANTZ (1998) 96%
He’s always been most successful as an action star, but Sylvester Stallone is capable of more — and while many of his attempts to branch out have been met with varying degrees of failure, he hit critical paydirt with 1998’s Antz. As Weaver, the burly best friend of Woody Allen’s Z, Stallone got to do something besides fire weapons and throw blows for a change; in the process, he also made history, as part of the voice cast of the second feature-length CGI film. Though it was overshadowed commercially by Pixar’s A Bug’s Life,Antz was a favorite among critics who appreciated the film’s political subtext and sharp wit. It is, as David Denby wrote for New York Magazine, “A kids’ movie that will leave grown-ups quoting the best lines to one another.”
SHADE (2003) 67%
Stallone’s highest-profile role of 2003 came in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, but he earned his best reviews as part of a little-seen (and surprisingly well-cast) drama about the world of high-stakes underground gambling. As the legendary card shark known as The Dean, Stallone lent Shade extra heft — and added a little low-key dramatic muscle to a storyline about a pair of small-time crooks (Gabriel Bryne and Thandie Newton) looking to make their mark with a big score. Its brief, limited theatrical run meant thatShade was in and out of theaters before most filmgoers were even aware of it, but critics were mostly kind, including Todd Gilchrist of FilmStew, who wrote, “With so many sucker bets coercing your hand before you’re really ready to make a safe cinematic wager, this will be one film you won’t mind losing your money to see.”
Resource: editorial.rottentomatoes.com
DEFINITIVE MICHAEL CAINE MOVIES
A film and television fixture for decades, Michael Caine is one of Hollywood’s best and brightest (he’s earned an Oscar nomination at least once a decade since the 1960s), with an incredible list of credits as a leading man and a supporting player — and even a few minor roles, like his brief appearance in 2006’sChildren of Men. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Caine’s also a published author, a chillout DJ, and a knight of the Order of the British Empire — and now, thanks to the debut of his latest film, Youth, he can add “subject of a Rotten Tomatoes Total Recall” to his list of accomplishments. Let’s take a look at Michael Caine’s definitive roles!
ZULU (1964) 93%
Caine scored his first starring role in this Cy Endfield production, which told the story of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift during the late 19th century Anglo-Zulu War. The culmination of a long and bitter border dispute, the war ultimately added another bloody chapter to British colonialism in the region, but not without months of the kind of struggle dramatized in Zulu — and the efforts of soldiers like lieutenants John Chard (played by Stanley Baker, who also produced) and Gonville Bromhead (played by Caine), who threw together a makeshift fort to make a desperate stand against the opposition. Though barely a footnote in American history books, Rorke’s Drift produced a number of decorated veterans for the British Army — and an early critical triumph for its freshly minted star. “Caine was just splendid,” applauded Dennis Schwartz of Ozus’ World Movie Reviews. “It is still one of his finest hours in film.”
THE IPCRESS FILE (1965) 100%
Caine made his first — and, critically speaking, his best — appearance as Len Deighton’s rumpled spy Harry Palmer in this 1965 thriller, which gave fans of cinematic espionage a slightly more realistic alternative to James Bond. Emphasis on the slightly: Although Harry had to contend with more bureaucratic red tape (and got to play with fewer gadgets) than 007, his adventures still included a few of the fanciful elements that make a good spy yarn, like The Ipcress File‘s high-tech tape recordings and brainwashing baddies. Caine went on to play Palmer in two sequels and a pair of made-for-TV movies, butIpcress was the one that helped him break out as a leading man: As Angie Errigo of Empire noted, “Caine,Zulu under his belt and Alfie ahead, is the cheeky working class but aspirational bright spark hero par excellence, captured at the exact moment he became a star.”
ALFIE (1966) 100%
The quintessential swinging ’60s film, Alfie is undeniably a product of its time, and it can admittedly be hard to watch it in 2015 without thinking of Austin Powers or wincing at the dated lingo and/or fashions. But this adaptation of the Bill Naughton novel remains a classic for many reasons, chief among them Michael Caine’s impressively nuanced, Oscar-nominated performance in the title role. Alfie Elkins is a cad, plain and simple, but Caine made audiences root for him anyway by giving them glimpses of his humanity — and not only in the few scenes where he was called upon to show some real emotion, but throughout the entire film, as he slowly, subtly took the character on a journey from callow bachelor to… well, less callow bachelor. As Dan Lybarger put it in his review for Nitrate Online, “Caine’s terrific performance makes a viewer almost forget that the film is actually a condemnation of its character’s swinging lifestyle.”
GET CARTER (1971) 89%
A stark, unflinching portrait of the lingering stain that violence can leave on a person’s life — even after they’re dead — Get Carter repulsed many critics when it was released, but behind all that ugly violence lurks a film whose sharp script, strong performances, and surprisingly thoughtful themes are impossible to ignore. The critics eventually came around, too; over time, Carter has come to be regarded as one of the best gangster movies ever made — and even one of Britain’s best films overall. In another actor’s hands, the role of the vengeful Jack Carter would have been a thuggish cartoon, but Caine infused his character’s homicidal rampage with palpable pain and sorrow. (For an example of how it could have gone wrong, watch Sylvester Stallone’s 2000 remake, which featured Caine in a supporting role. Or better yet, don’t.) He’d earned praise for earlier roles, but Caine really started coming into his own here; as Roger Ebert noted in his review, “Caine has been mucking about in a series of potboilers, undermining his acting reputation along the way, but Get Carter shows him as sure, fine and vicious — a good hero for an action movie.”
SLEUTH (1972) 96%
Caine went toe to toe with Laurence Olivier in this adaptation of the Anthony Shaffer play, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve). A seriously impressive pedigree, and it paid off on the screen: Caine and Olivier were the only credited actors in the movie, and Sleuth earned them both Best Actor nominations — something that had, to that point, happened only once before (the first? Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf). As with a lot of stage adaptations, Sleuth is extremely dialogue-heavy, but with actors this talented, that helps; over the course of its two hours-plus running time, the complicated rivalry between nobleman Andrew Wyke (Olivier) and struggling businessman Milo Tindle (Caine) deepens with every line. It’s such a rich story, Caine actually took Olivier’s role for Kenneth Branagh’s 2007 remake, starring opposite Jude Law. “It’s one of those works built around a gimmick that in fact requires a little cheating on the part of the filmmakers in order to succeed,” wrote Ken Hanke of the Asheville Mountain Xpress. “But it’s a good gimmick.”
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975) 96%
John Huston waited more than 20 years to finish this adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s short story about a pair of adventurers and their exploits in a remote Afghan village, trying to cast a succession of rugged duos (from Bogey and Clark Gable to Robert Redford and Paul Newman) before finally finding his leading men in Caine and Sean Connery. Blending anti-imperialist themes with swashbuckling escapism, The Man Who Would Be King charts the rise and fall of Peachy Carnehan (Caine) and Danny Dravot (Connery) as they dupe an Afghan village into thinking they’re gods, only to find that the natives aren’t quite as credulous as they seem. It was, in short, a slice of good old-fashioned adventure during a time when it had fallen out of favor — making King, in the words of Cole Smithey, “A must for every 10-year-old boy.”
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) 93%
Woody Allen lined up one of his strongest ensemble casts for the seven-time Academy Award nomineeHannah and Her Sisters, starring Caine as Elliot, the restless husband of Hannah (Mia Farrow) whose dissatisfaction with his marriage leads him into an entanglement with — you guessed it — Hannah’s sister (Barbara Hershey). It’s the kind of story Allen tells best, and Hannah is one of his strongest — and most successful — films, ultimately winning a Best Writing Oscar to go with its healthy $40 million gross. “No matter how passive a viewer you are, how much you attempt to dismiss it or judge its characters,” wrote Steven Snyder for Zertinet Movies, “Woody Allen reaches past those sleepy, cynical, or questioning eyes and makes you think as much as any film I’ve seen.”
MONA LISA (1986) 97%
Writer/director Neil Jordan scored one of his earliest critical hits with 1986’s Mona Lisa, starring Bob Hoskins as George, an ex-con who is manipulated by his former boss, a gangster named Mortwell (Caine), into a relationship with a prostitute (Cicely Tyson) so Mortwell can take advantage of her “professional” connection to a rival. Caine is in singularly sleazy form here, but it was Hoskins, in a rare starring role, who walked away with a pile of trophies, including a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, and an Oscar nomination. Part love story, part grisly mobster drama, Mona Lisa didn’t make a ton of money at the box office, but it did earn the admiration of critics like ReelViews’ James Berardinelli, who wrote, “In an era when movies about love almost always invariably devolve into formulaic affairs, Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa stands out as an often-surprising, multi-layered achievement.”
THE QUIET AMERICAN (2003) 87%
The first time Hollywood took a crack at adapting Graham Greene’s bestselling novel, the result was a bowdlerized version that, much to his chagrin, stripped out the author’s distaste with American involvement in Vietnam. More than 40 years later, director Phillip Noyce filmed a much more faithful adaptation, starring Brendan Fraser as an idealistic CIA operative in 1950s Vietnam, Michael Caine as the jaded British journalist who crosses his path, and Do Thi Hai Yen as the woman who comes between them. What Noyce’s version lost in timeliness, it more than made up in script and cast — most notably Caine, who earned a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his work and was singled out in reviews from critics such as Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Caine, who also starred in one other Greene adaptation, 1983’s The Honorary Consul, is the essence of almost all the author’s misfits, ” wrote Gillespie, summing him up as “a practiced cynic masking an aching romantic.”
THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY
Bruce Wayne might be an unimaginably wealthy businessman who lives a double life as the crime-purging vigilante Batman, but he wouldn’t be able to get much done without the dependable service of his long-suffering butler, Alfred Pennyworth — and when Christopher Nolan took over the franchise with 2005’s Batman Begins, he turned to Caine to embody the character with his unique ability to project an aura of good breeding, street smarts, and a quick, understated wit. Though not one of Caine’s larger roles, Alfred is an integral part of the Batman mythos, and his part in the franchise placed him alongside talented actors such as Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, and Heath Ledger — whose bravura performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight was a crucial element in the positive reviews the movie earned from critics like Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, who wrote, “Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, The Dark Knight goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind.”
Resource: editorial.rottentomatoes.com
FILMS THAT HAVE HELPED MOLD THE CAREER OF THE IN THE HEART OF THE SEA DIRECTOR.
A Hollywood pro from the age of five, Ron Howard set the template for every actor who’s ever hoped to make a successful jump behind the cameras after scoring a plum role on a hit TV series (or two). A beloved small-screen star on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days, he’s spent the last 35 years focusing on directing — and his latest effort, the aquatic drama In the Heart of the Sea, arrives in theaters this weekend, so we decided to dedicate this week’s list to a rundown of some of the brighter critical highlights from a career full of crowd-pleasers. Goodbye gray sky, hello blue — it’s time for Total Recall!
NIGHT SHIFT (1982) 95%
Howard could have been accused of tempting fate when he elected to direct his Happy Days buddy Henry Winkler in 1982’s Night Shift — a particularly risky move considering that in the movie, Winkler shed his Fonzie cool to play the nebbishy Chuck Lumley, a newly hired morgue attendant who finds himself going against his better judgment to participate in the cockamamie schemes hatched by his fast-talking co-worker Bill Blazejowski (Michael Keaton) and ends up becoming the de facto co-manager of a thoroughly unusual brothel hosted by a free-spirited hooker (Shelley Long). Ralph Malph was nowhere in sight, in other words, but there was plenty of sitting on it going on — and loads of critical praise, including a positive review from Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader, who wrote, “This isn’t as snappily directed or as caustically conceived as the subsequent Risky Business, which has a similar theme, but it’s arguably just as sexy and almost as funny.”
SPLASH (1984) 92%
Starring in a frothy romantic comedy as a man who falls in love with a mermaid may not seem like the surest path to starting a film career, but then, 1984’s Splash was no ordinary movie — in fact, it started a lot of things, among them an entire studio (Touchstone Pictures, created to allow Disney the ability to release more “adult” fare without sullying its name brand), a surge in the number of girls named Madison, and, supposedly, a name change for the Disneyland ride that eventually became Splash Mountain. Not bad for a movie featuring a pair of largely untested stars (Hanks was fresh from Bosom Buddies, and Hannah was known mainly for her role in Blade Runner) and a director most people still thought of as Opie Taylor (or Richie Cunningham). Nearly $70 million in domestic receipts (and one Academy Award nomination) later, and all three were on their way to bigger and brighter things, thanks in part to positive critical buzz that has proven surprisingly durable; recently, Empire’s Ian Freer held it up as “the movie that really showed Tom Hanks’ promise as a deliverer of great comedy and heart-warming pathos.”
COCOON (1985) 80%
Round up a group of wily old acting pros like Don Ameche, Maureen Stapleton, Wilford Brimley, Jessica Tandy, and Hume Cronyn, and you can have them do pretty much any old thing and make it well worth watching — even if the script in question is a gauzily sentimental sci-fi dramedy about senior citizens accidentally stumbling across a batch of age-reversing alien pods while Steve Guttenberg does his uniquely 1980s Guttenberg thing. The threat of heartstring-tugging sap was high with Cocoon, but screenwriter Tom Benedek (working from David Saperstein’s novel) treated his characters with dignity, and Howard’s direction left plenty of room for the cast to carry the movie with remarkably deft performances that managed to be funny, thought-provoking, and heartbreakingly poignant — sometimes within the same scene. “Mr. Howard brings a real sweetness to his subject, as does the film’s fine cast of veteran stars; he has also given Cocoon the bright, expansive look of a hot-weather hit,” wrote Janet Maslin for the New York Times. “And even when the film begins to falter, as it does in its latter sections, Mr. Howard’s touch remains reasonably steady.”
PARENTHOOD (1989) 92%
Ten years after redefining doofus comedy with 1979’s The Jerk, Steve Martin had (mostly) traded in props and pratfalls — and he cemented his more reflective, mature on-screen persona with his appearance as sensitive dad Gil Buckman in Ron Howard’s Parenthood. Blending comedy and drama with crowded casts was trendy for a time in the late ’80s (thirtysomething, anyone?), and there are few better examples of the “dramedy” subgenre than this tender, witty look at the tangled bonds between parents and their kids; Parenthood was greeted with a wave of glowing reviews upon its release, many of them reserving their highest praise for the uncommon dexterity with which the story (written by Howard, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel) jumps between its numerous threads. As Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers pointed out, “It’s a shock, and a welcome one, to see Steve Martin cast against type as a doting dad. Martin’s nippy wit continually lifts this movie above the swamp of sentiment.”
THE PAPER (1994) 88%
Howard reunited with his Night Shift star, Michael Keaton, for a very different kind of project in 1994: The Paper, an ensemble dramedy about the frantic goings-on behind the scenes during 24 hours in the life of a New York City newspaper. While things have changed drastically for the publishing industry in the years since The Paper’s release, rendering the movie’s backdrop rather quaint, the sharp writing (from brothers David and Stephen Koepp) and rock-solid acting — rounded out by a showy cast that also included Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Jason Robards, and Marisa Tomei — are timeless. “Howard, after stumbling with Far and Away, is back in form, and perhaps at the top of his game,” enthused Chris Hicks for the Deseret News. “There are times when the sheer size of the film seems enough to throw it off the track, but Howard manages, for the most part, to keep things rolling along in his usual slick, if sometimes obvious fashion.”
APOLLO 13 (1995) 95%
Splash buddies Tom Hanks and Ron Howard reunited for 1995’s Apollo 13, a dramatization of NASA’s aborted 1970 lunar mission that combined one of Hanks’ biggest personal passions — space travel — with Hollywood’s favorite thing: a blockbuster prestige picture. With a cast that featured a number of similarly prolific actors (among them Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, and Hanks’ Forrest Gump costar Gary Sinise), Apollo probably would have made decent money even if it had played fast and loose with the real-life details of the launch, but Howard and his crew strove for verisimilitude, going so far as to shoot portions of the film in actual zero gravity. The result was a summertime smash that restored some of space travel’s luster for a jaded generation — and made for an exceedingly good filmgoing experience according to most critics, including Roger Ebert, who called it “a powerful story, one of the year’s best films, told with great clarity and remarkable technical detail, and acted without pumped-up histrionics.”
A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) 75%
Only a year after scoring his Best Actor Academy Award for Gladiator, Russell Crowe resurfaced on Oscar ballots for his work in Howard’s A Beautiful Mind, which dramatized the life of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a Nobel-winning economist whose struggles with schizophrenia have darkened a remarkable life. Though its historical accuracy was questioned, and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman was accused of cherry-picking details from Nash’s life to make him a more sympathetic character, the result was still a film that grossed more than $300 million and earned four Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director, as well as another Best Actor nomination for Crowe). As Bob Bloom of Lafayette Journal and Courier wrote, “A brilliant performance by Russell Crowe, who takes his audience on a terrifying journey inside a man tormented by self-created mental demons, propels A Beautiful Mind.”
CINDERELLA MAN (2005) 80%
One good biopic deserves another, A Beautiful Mind teammates Ron Howard and Russell Crowe reunited four years later for another life story — the tale of Depression-era heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, who was dubbed “The Cinderella Man” even before he overcame 10-to-1 odds and defeated Max Baer to claim his title. Surrounded by a top-shelf cast that included Renee Zellweger, Paddy Considine, and Paul Giamatti (who received one of the film’s three Oscar nominations), Crowe embodied both the raw physicality and the inner struggle of a fighter who risked his health, and his marriage, to stay in the ring. Though Cinderella Man wasn’t a Beautiful Mind-sized hit, it did break the $100 million mark — and it earned the admiration of most critics, including Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, who wrote, “How exceptional a film actor is Russell Crowe? So exceptional that in Cinderella Man, he makes a good boxing movie feel at times like a great, big picture.”
FROST/NIXON (2008) 92%
Howard earned some of the better reviews of his career for 2009’s Frost/Nixon, which adapts the Peter Morgan play that dramatized British broadcaster David Frost’s (played by Michael Sheen) efforts to secure and sell a series of TV interviews with the politically exiled former president (portrayed by Frank Langella). Although plenty of pundits took umbrage at the way Morgan’s screenplay took liberties with the actual events that inspired the film, for the vast majority of critics, Frost/Nixon‘s flaws seemed pretty minor when weighed against the script, direction, editing, completed picture, and Langella’s performance — all of which received Oscar nominations. For the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Steven Rea, it all added up to “A must-see for political junkies, history buffs, and folks still fascinated by the paranoia-fueled follies of the twitchy, sweaty, decidedly uncharismatic 37th president.”
RUSH (2013) 89%
As he’s shown repeatedly throughout his career, Howard is adept when it comes to finding the cinematic drama in a nonfiction story — and there was plenty of it to distill for the fact-based fuel that powers Rush, his 2013 biopic about the real-life rivalry between Formula 1 racers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl). Where many filmmakers might use a racing biopic as an excuse to focus on glossy, Days of Thunder-style revving and zooming, Howard honed in on the human element at play between his dual protagonists, crafting an engrossing tale of two temperamental opposites conjoined by a career that could kill either one of them every time they step on the track. “Howard keeps his cameras small and all over the cars, to show us dazzling machinery in motion, the ground whizzing by in a blur underneath,” observed Stephen Whitty for the Newark Star-Ledger. “Playing to his own strengths, though, he keeps this a movie about character.”
Resource: editorial.rottentomatoes.com
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