Movie review - "Deal of the Century" (1983) *

 Having shown he couldn't do comedy in The Night They Raided Minsky's and The Brinks Job William Friedkin showed it again with this flat satire of the arms industry. People who work in that arena are inherently unlikeable but they can be made compelling - but Friedkin directs sluggishly, Chevy Chase is miscast, Sigourney Weaver flounders.

When Wallace Shawn shoots himself it perks up briefly. That's what the movie should have been - real stakes. 

It's bad. Flat. Unfunny. You don't care. Greg Hines could be cut out of the film. Not drama. Just odd. 

Movie review - "Swing Shift" (1984) **

I've got a theory that movies that are endlessly cut and recut have a basic story flaw. That's my take on this one where Jonathan Demme was famously sacked by Goldie Hawn.

It's got a great idea - women working in World War Two. Solid feminism - women working for the first time, being liberated financially and sexually. 

But it's dragged down by being so fair and nice. Ed Harris is nice. Hawn's life before the war is quite pleasant. He joins up.

Kurt Russell wants Goldie. He asks her out a bunch of times which makes him an arsehole.  I didn't like him and I didn't like her. Then he shags Christine Lahti and I didn't like them.

The problems are so easy to be fixed. Just make Hawn's husband horrible. Have her be liberated by the war. Discover the joys of decent sex, money, working. Private Benjamin did it better. 

The movie also is annoyingly expensive - huge sets, factories, ballrooms, extras. Not needed.

It's fun to see people like Holly Hunter, Roger Corman, Stephen Tobolowsy. But the film doesn't work. It's not enjoyable.

In fairness, the film was heavily rewritten and changed from what Demme intended - see here. But I'm not sure even with those changes it would have worked.

Movie review - "A Time for Killing" (1967) **

 I only watched this because Roger Corman was fired as director shortly into filming. I wonder why he wanted to make it - to do a bigger budgeted Western I suppose. It's unremarkable, really - Phil Karlson took over - although it has some good actors. George Hamilton is good as a Confederate officer who leads an escape from a POW camp right at the end of the war and tries to escape with his troops into Mexico. Hamilton is a bit of a fantatic. He's pursued by Glenn Ford, looking constipated as he was want to do. Inger Stevens is a girl of Ford's who is taken by Hamilton, who then rapes her to keep Ford angry at him and his men to keep the war going.

The cast is interesting. People pop up like Timothy Crey, Kenneth Tobey, a young Harrison Ford, Dick Miller, Max Baer, Harry Deean Stanton (billed as "Dean Stanton").

Ford can be good but phones this in. Stevens is competent. Hamilton presses. Nicely shot although the occasional obivous studio-for-location work jars. It's a downer of a movie. Everyone dies so pointlessly.

Apparently Robert Towne worked on the script. And that work impressed Warren Beatty who read the script (he was offered the lead, turned it down)

Movie review - "Tomb of Ligeia" (1965) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Random thoughts:

- filming so much outside acts as a tonic - gives a different feel, ditto filming in UK

- Elizabeth Shepherd has a big part, bigger than Price - she does very well - complex, juicy role

- Price is a massive red flag but I guess life is dull

- good script from Bob Towne

- gosh the young male lead is a drip

Movie review - "Mission Impossible" (1996) **1/2 (re watching)

 This feels like it was made so long ago. The template is actually more influenced by Brian De Palma movies than I recalled - the opening fake out, the twists, the paranoia, split screens.

It doesn't feel as smoothly directed as his best films though. It feels choppy.  Cut about. Too often like a TV episode on the big screen. 

Emmanuel Beart is beautiful and enigmatic but had she already had work done? Some poor special effects. The script is better than the final movie.

Movie review - "Creature from the Haunted Sea" (1961) **1/2 (re-watching)

 The last of the Corman-Griffith black comedy trilogy. It's a madcap adventure with lots of fun stuff - the irreverent nature, the fact a clean shaven Robert Towne plays a leading role, the circumstances of its inception, the comedy of the monster with ping pong ball eyes.

It's not that a good movie. It was made too fast, even for Corman - it seems rushed and it's not that well directed. Little Shop of Horrors had more heart because Jonathan Haze was motivated by love and the monster just wanted to be fed - it wasn't his fault he was hooked on blood. There was a lovely core to the film. 

This doesn't have that. Everything is a joke, and there are funny jokes, but there's no heart. Towne falls for a local girl who comes up at the end out of nowhere when it's been set up he's going to fall for Betsy Moreland, the creature is introduced far too late (this is the biggest flaw of the film), Tony Carbone is a joke gangster, ditto Betsy Moreland when some seriousness or at least genuine emotion would've helped. My attention drifted off a bit.

The best thing about it is the garnish around the side - the gags in the narration, the Beach Dickerson being allowed to impersonate animals, Dickerson impersonating animals, Moreland singing a song 'Creature from the Haunted Sea' on a boat while there's fighting (apparently this was added by Monte Hellman - I assume it's a homage to Claire Trevor in Key Largo), the gags about Towne's secret agent name. It's quotable.

Script review - "Tequila Sunrise" by Robert Towne (warning: spoilers)

A decent script for three movie stars (the leads are all described as hot, and two of them have a four hour love making session). It's a love triangle between a drug dealer, a cop and the woman they both love... mixed up with another cop who is also a drug dealer. The American drug dealer has two best friends, the Mexican cop and the American cop - maybe those roles should've merged... the American cop kind of disappears at the end. Towne wanted it to end with the American drug dealer dying which it really should have done - the girl could've gone off with the cop and raised the dead dealer's son. The film doesn't quite manage the transfer of affection of the girl from the cop to the drug dealer.

Not bad. A solid Warner Bros style melodrama well updated to the present day.

Movie review - "Shampoo" (1975) ****1/2

 I didn't like this when I first saw it but I was too young and the film was on TV and had been censored so I was unclear about some things, like how Julie Christie shocked the guests at the part and what Warren Beatty did with Carrie Fisher (did he take a dump?) but as time has passed I appreciate more and can see how good it is.

I don't think it reinvented the wheel - it took a very very old restoration comedy (the rooster in the henhouse) and gave it a new sheen, with Hal Ashby's low key direction, Robert Towne's witty script (I know Beatty is credited as co writer, I just feel he's more an editor and credit hog), perfect cast, fresh set up (male hairdresser in Beverly Hills), and Warren Beatty in the most perfectly cast role of his career. By the late 80s he would be too old for these roles but he is utterly at home in the mid 70s and it has an added tang knowing he co starred against so many ex-girlfriends.

Beatty plays a super stud who drives around Beverly Hills on a motorbike, sleeps with all these women, is great at his job... but it's also reassuring because he's a mess at business (he can't get a loan to start his own shop), he is longing for Julie Christie who he can get but not permanently, and his life is a mess. The women have sexual drive for him - Beatty was most effective as a hapless lust object pursued by strong women and in over his head amongst the world.

Goldie Hawn is charming as is actress girlfriend, Julie Christie is fascinating as his true love (no great catch in a way, with a drinking problem, and a disdain for hard work, but very charismatic), Jack Warden is imposing as the affable but tough businessman, Lee Grant is electric as Warden's wife, Jay Robinson effective as the salon owner, and Carrie Fisher makes a smash debut as the precocious teen (smart beyond her years but not as smart as she thinks she is). The only really dud one is Tony Bill in what is admittedly a thankless part as the director keen on Hawn.

The music is excellent, as is Ashby's direction. It lost a little pace in between parties for some reason - I'm sure it's structural.

Movie review - "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) ****1/2

 I get why this is admired but admit it leaves me a little cold. Not a lot, a little. Maybe it's overlong - almost two hours. It does build but occasionally the same beat got hit. Maybe I felt it was overpraised. I dunno.

It is well made. Beautifully shot. Location work. It was lucky in many ways - the right movie at the right time, the right amount of sex and violence - but Warren Beatty and co worked hard for that luck.

It has many old fashioned values - exciting new stars, gangsters, Depression era criticism - updated in new ways - sex, violence, social issues (Clyde is impotent).

Faye Dunaway is stunningly good. Every film Warren Beatty made between this and Splendor in the Grass flopped. I wonder if perhaps because Beatty isn't really a star - he's handsome, charming, all that, but doesn't have great drive. Splendor was Natalie Wood's film. This is Faye Dunaway's story. Her character goes on the biggest journey: bored country girl (flashing a naked back at the beginning), going along with Clyde for kicks, enjoying it, then doubting it, falling for Clyde but frustrated by his ability to not make love, wanting to give up... On contrast Clyde's character remains more constant: part-shy, part-braggart (he does develop the ability to get an erection).

Gene Hackman is very good. Estelle Parson's yelling may get on your nerves. Denver Pyle's Frank Hamer is perhaps too much of a buffoon. Gene Wilder's performance is excellent. The extras are terrific.

Movie review - "Love Affair" (1994) *

 This must have seemed like a sure thing. Two movie stars in a remake of material that had been a hit twice, and been revived due to Sleepless in Seattle. Script by Robert Towne. Katherine Hepburn cameo.

It flopped. Warren Beatty is in a lot of flops. He's hesitant, not dynamic. He's too old here. So old.

The updating never quite works. An airplane isn't as romantic as a cruise liner - they turn it into a cruise liner eventually but even that's not romantic. 

Beatty is a former football player. His chemistry with Annette Bening is, irony, not that great. Bening isn't very good. She doesn't have much to play.

Maybe this could have worked if they'd rewritten it to make it the Warren Beatty story - a compulsive Don Juan who settles down. That would've been interesting. Have Beatty as a smart seductive movie star. I didn't buy him as a famous former football player. I know he used to play football, but that was in the 50s wasn't it.

I got a kick out of the fact they were flying to Sydney.

This film was annoying. It's very close to the 1957 versions. The final scene at the end felt like that. The dialogue worked with Cary Grant but not Beatty.

It's not even well shot or that handsome. Conrad Hall's photography is... dimly lit. Backlit. Something lit. It's not beautiful. The locations in Tahiti feel nothing. The sets aren't that plush.

Pierce Brosnan is in it playing Bening's original love interest. He is suave and dashing - he would've been better in the lead as written.

There's a random collection of support actors - Paul Mazursky, Garry Shandling, Kate Hepburn. It's old time-y. Not in a good way.

This isn't  good movie.

Movie review - "Reds" (1981) ****

 I feel Warren Beatty is a little overrated but you've got to give him points for this movie, a big budget Hollywood movie about American socialists during World War One. He doesn't quite nail it - the personal story is excellent but there's a lot of scenes of people in committee meetings yelling at each other.

Still, they're yelling at each other about communism, empathetically.

It helps that it's got movie stars and focuses on a love story between John Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), with their various squabblings and separations, and her fling with Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson).

Random thoughts:

* when Beatty and Keaton have an argument about her feeling like a sideshow in his life and him encouraging her to do stuff I went "that's a chat Beatty has with his girlfriends and probably more than once, maybe even with Keaton"

* the real life narrator device works wonderfully 

* all acting is extremely good

* Warren Beatty tends to give the same performance (hesitant, pleasant) and he doesn't have the drive of say Jack Nicholson or Gene Hackman but you get used to this

* they actually could have made this cheaply just by keeping the actors indoors

* set design, photography, etc all excellent.

The film is proof that doing 72 takes on something doesn't necessarily make it better. All those dialogue scenes and communist party scene moments feel rewritten to death. It lacks a universal common touch of emotion.

But its ambition is fabulous.

Book review - "The Big Goodbye" by Sam Wasson (2020)

 Was the making of Chinatown that interesting? It was tricky to write the script, sure. There were some troubles. But everyone had enjoyed a hit recently - it wasn't that hard to finance. A big star wanted to do it. People "got" it was a Chandler throwback. (Come to think of it there's not enough in this book about 30s nostalgia that dominated Hollywood).

Of course the personalities are fascinating- Evans, Polanski, Nicholson, Towne, Dunaway.

Wasson is an excellent writer. He's superb on the different drafts of the script. I was shocked Town used a ghost writer for most of his career - Eric Taylor. That was a true revelation for me. That's amazing. One of the greatest screenwriters of all time. It does explain the quality of his work. But Taylor should be better known.

The book is less good elsewhere. I feel Wasson was overly influenced by who would talk to him - he goes in soft on Polanski and Evans, and hard on Dunaway and Towne. I'm sure he would argue that's not the case, but it's the impression I got. And like far too many writers he accepts the comments of Peter Bart uncritically.

Worth reading. But I feel it would've been a better book had he not done interviews of the famous people.

Book review - "Being Hal Ashby: The Life of a Hollywood Rebel" by Nick Dawson

Ashby was one of the stars of Peter Biskind's famous book, Easy Riders Raging Bulls, in part because his early death was so narratively neat. He was older than Coppola and Bogdanovich, working his way up the long way via editing - he became one of the top editors in the country, working for William Wyler and most importantly Norman Jewison, who mentored him and championed him.

Ashby turned director with The Landlord and had a hot streak few directors have equalled - Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, Being There. Then he suffered a cold streak few directors endured - Second Hand Hearts (made before Being There but released after), Lookin' to Get Out, The Slugger's Wife, 8 Million Ways to Die.)

This happened for a variety of reasons - drug use certainly didn't help him, though was perhaps over exaggerated; more critically, he was supported in the 70s but had bad relationships with his studios and producers in the 80s, including people like Ray Stark. He missed out on some films which could have turned it around like Tootsie - he was going to do it but Lorimar wouldn't let him.

I think Ashby would have come back big time in the 90s, though - the way Robert Altman did, for a similar reason: stars loved working with him. This would have meant he would have kept working - indeed he was still in demand up til his early death.

So I don't buy that Hollywood killed Ashby. If you smoke a lot of dope it does carry an increased risk of cancer. He had bad luck with his collaborators but was still mates with Sean Penn, Dustin Hoffman and the like, who would have kept him employed - he wasn't say, a female director.

He seems to have had many fine qualities - inspirational, caring, humanistic - but also a prick - he walked out on his wife and kid as a teenager, which I do get, but also refused to acknowledge the kid later in life, which is awful. He was a compulsive romantic - always getting married and divorced.

It's a fantastic biography - very well researched, with excellent access to Ashby's papers. It's very well done in particular on Ashby's early years.

Script review - "Greystoke the Legend of Tarzan" by Robert Towne and Michael Austin

No writers are credited to the draft I read but from memory and a squizz at the internet it seems to be pretty close to what was filmed so I'm assuming this is the Towne/Austin version.

Towne famously complained about the end result and used a pseudonym. This is actually a pretty tight piece of work - it feels very real, and has a great sense of adventure. The best stuff is the first half which is Tarzan's adventures in the jungle - it jumps around in time a bit but is basically Tarzan's parents wash up on shore, they set up a house, fever kills mother and an ape kills father, Tarzan is adopted by Kala whose child has been killed by Silverback. Tarzan grows up among the apes, using some fast thinking and a knife to take out a panther, and conquer the gorilla who has knocked off Silverback from the head of the group.

There's some really moving moments -the death of Kala's child, the death of Kala, the death of John and Alice Greystoke in the jungle, Tarzan seeing Silverback in prison.

Charactertisations aren't fantastic -the Belgian dude d'Arnot is plucky, Tarzan is interesting physically but that's it, the Greystokes are stiff upper lip chaps, Jane is just... the girl. Mind you Tarzan has never been famous for characterisation.

I was expecting a bigger role to be played by Billings, the captain of the ship who abandons the Greystokes and turns up at a nearby town. Maybe the script lacked a villain - there's just a few snobs. They should have had the fake Greystone in the book - the person who took the estate. Or built up someoneon.

The biggest problem for me - and it was so easily fixable - is that the explorer who makes contact with Tarzan is a random Belgian, d'Arnot, when it so should have been Jane. Jane explored in the books - it makes her a stronger character. Now she's just a girl who hangs out at home. Jane going on the trip would have given her agency, a point. It would have strengthened the emotional impact of those scenes. Love stories beat out "respect" stories.

The story peaks in the first half. It struggles in England especially without a villain. There's no threat. The Earl of Greystoke likes his grandson. Jane is lovely. People are a bit snobby but that's it.

But some great stuff in here. A smart movie. Just not entirely dramatically satisfying.

Script review - "The Yakuza" by Paul Schrader based on novel by Leonard Schrader

I'm not sure which draft this is exactly - I'll assume it was the Schrader one that sold for a lot of money and not the Robert Towne rewritten one.

Some of the writing is clunky - the dialogue isn't that great, there's lots of descriptions (everyone's clothes are described), there's some dodgy voice over explaining things.

But it's a good story full of classical tropes - the private eye asked to come back to help out a friend, the missing girl a la The Searchers, the old Yakuza dude who comes out of retirement.

Really the film is as much Tanaka Ken's movie as Harry the American hero. It's a buddy movie about two dudes in love with each other - the girl in the film, Harry's ex, is really a beard. She has no personality just a kid as stakes.

In this version Hanako the daughter lives - apparently in the film she's killed. The death toll is very high. It's a good action film with lots of honour and the Japanese stuff gives it freshness even now.

Top Ten Filmgroup Films

Random procrastination top ten film related post time... just listened to a podcast on The Filmgroup, a short lived production company established by Roger Corman in the late 50s to distribute some films he helped finance and occasionally directed. No blockbusters among them .- indeed, Corman thought it wasn't even worth copyrighting the films (you had to pay a fee then) - and the company wound up in the early 60s. But they included some incredible films. So, a top ten! All these films easily available on you tube etc - all of them are great examples of how to make interesting low budget films and believe should be studied accordingly...
1) The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) - directed by Corman and more importantly written by the legendary Charles Griffith, a crazy black comedy shot in two days apparently (it did take a little longer) whose structure is so sound it formed the basis for a popular musical - still holds up
2) The Intruder (1962) - remarkable look at a rabble rouser in the south well played by William Shatner - some quite shocking scenes (eg a little old southern lady casually using the "N" word) - well written by Charles Beaumont
3) The Terror (1963) - a film impossible to dislike, being a combination of having a few days of filming Boris Karloff walking around a castle, Jack Nicholson as an officer in Napoleon's army, Sandra Knight as a mysterious person, Dick Miller as Basil Exposition, additional footage being directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, Nicholson... actually quite creepy in spots
4) Night Tide (1961) - Curtis Harrington's first full length feature as director (I think)...an eerie, atmospheric boy and his siren story... early performance from Dennis Hopper
5) Dementia 13 (1962) Francis Ford Coppola's first full length feature as director... (he'd made some softcore movies before) an enjoyable psycho thriller written in three days and shot in about a week... atmospheric, well acted... Irish locations help
6) Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) insane Charles Griffith themed spoof comedy with a hilariously terrible monster, way out lines, and a lead performance by Robert Towne no less!
7) Last Woman on Earth (1960) - the first feature writing credit for Robert Towne, who also appears as an actor - not quite the quality of The Last Detail but interesting
8) Queen of Blood (1966) - excellent creepy sci fi "killer alien on the loose in a space ship" movie years before Alien, from Curtis Harrington... uses footage from Soviet sci fi films which Corman got cheaply as did...
9) Battle Beyond the Sun (1963)/Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)/Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) - I've always thought film schools should do a compulsory excercise where students had to cobble a feature with just a few days shooting new footage and using footage from old Soviet sci fi films - that's what Corman did with these movies... they were directed respectively by Francis Ford Coppola, Curtis Harrington and Peter Bogdanovich (his first feature!!!) so obviously it's really really good training
10) The Wasp Woman (1959) - creaky film with a great concept (woman tries to reverse aging process becomes a killer wasp) and central Susan Cabot performance.
Anyone interested in making low budget sci fi/comedy/thrillers could learn a lot from any of these films.

Movie review - "De Palma" (2017) ***1/2

Funny sort of doco - basically just De Palma talking to camera about his career, interspersed with photos, clips from his films and home movies. But since his career has been so long and varied and De Palma is a strong raconteur (I'd actually never heard him speak before, I think!) it passes the time well.

I particularly enjoyed hearing about his upbringing - upper middle class (dad was a surgeon), squabbling family life but Brian seemed to have plenty of cash (another spoilt boomer director!), lots of education, he only got the film bug at college. Loved seeing clips of a young De Niro, Jennifer Salt and Jill Clayburgh.

De Palma was given a lot of advantages in life (his sex, his background) but was/is a self starter - he had the moxie to make his own feature back in the 60s, and made a living out of doing promotional documentaries. He also has resilience to bounce back from things like being booted off Getting to Know Your Rabbit.

He's got one of those careers where failures are followed by successes then failures. The success of Sisters led to the failure of Phantom of the Paradise led to the success of Obsession (Cliff Robertson was a pain in the neck which was sad to hear) and Carrie, led to the failure of Home Movies, led to the success of Dressed to Kill (the script was hot property and sold for $1 million), led to the failure of Blow Out, led to the success (ish) of Scarface, led to the failure of Body Double and Wise Guys led to the success of The Untouchables led to the failure of Casualties of War and Bonfire of the Vanities, led to the success of Carlito's Way (which he says "I can't do better than that"), Raising Cain and Mission Impossible (clashes in approach from David Koepp and Robert Towne), the mixed success of Snake Eyes and the failure of Mission to Mars, then the more "indie" path he's tread since then.

De Palma comes across as affable and confident, hungering for success as much as anyone in Hollywood, remarkably unaware and un-analytical of what all these scenes in his films where women die violently might mean for him or how derivative he is, and simplistic in his political takes ("it's a sewer"). He's appreciative of great composers and actors and collaborators.

Lots of interesting bits:
- Sean Penn punched out Michael J Fox in Casualties of War to help Fox's performance - thanks Sean
- he still stands by Bonfire of the Vanities
- he's bitter Sidney Lumet pinched Prince of the City off him
- he was offered Flashdance
- he followed his father around when younger to see who his dad was cheating on his mother with
- he hit up Spielberg and Scorsese for money to finish Home Movies

Very much worthwhile.

Script review - "Marathon Man" by William Goldman (warning: spoilers)

It's been ages since I saw the movie but I gather from what I've read the two differences between this and the final film were this had more scenes involving Scylla at the beginning and alsouo the ending was different. In Goldman's account Babe meets Szell takes him out to the lake and shoots him. This version I read may have been the one with some Robert Towne doctoring because Szell seems to cut himself here... or is he shot? I wasn't sure. He doesn't eat the diamonds though.

Never mind, you can still tell it's mostly Goldman - page turning, gripping stuff with this bleak nihilistic tone. Babe really goes through the wringer: his professor doesn't like this thesis, he gets mugged, his girlfriend is a spy, his brother is a spy, he gets tortured by Szell, Janeway pretends to be his friend and betrays him. But he is a good runner and has a handy gun and those things turn out to save his life.

I never quite believed the scene where Babe blew away three toughs, crack shot or not, but the twists are great: Elsa is spying on Babe, Babe is Doc's brother, Babe is killed, Janeway is a traitor.

Goldman's New York feels like a horrible place, with its road rage, airport baggage chaos, bullying crims, muggers, corrupt officers, sweltering heat. Adds to the intensity of the piece.

The best character is Scylla, torn, broken, loves his brother... though some of his "we're too old for this" spy dialogue is clunky.

This is one of Goldman's best works but be warned, it is a bit depressing, with its torture and hero losing everyone close to him.

Corman's screenwriters - some random thoughts

Corman is renowned for the stars and directors he gave an early break to - Bogdanovich, Demme, Howard, etc. But he was also a fine judge of screenwriting talent. Consider this roll call
1) R Wright Campbell - an actor with a strong career as writer, including an Oscar nominated Man of a Thousand Faces. Did a lot of good work for Corman including Machine Gun Kelly.
2) Charles Griffith - doyen of off beat screenwriters, his work for Corman was actually the peak of his career as opposed to Act One, but it included some stunning brilliance. Best known for his comedies but his dramas such as It Conquered the World were also good.
3) Richard Matheson - a highly regarded writer when brought in to adapt the Poes, he did some very good work for Corman.
4) Robert Towne - Corman gave him some early jobs, and used him often. A superb writer from the get-go.
5) Charles Beaumont - died young, did a lot of work for Twilight Zone, wrote some good Cormans, notably The Intruder
6) John Sayles - genius screenwriter, discovery of Frances Doel, whose work enlivened New World's output in the late 70s so much.
That's damn, damn impressive.

Movie review - "Days of Thunder" (1989) **

For the first half hour of watching this I thought "this holds up well" - with it's montages, and luscious photography and Tony Scott stylistics - plus the dramatic heavyweights of Robert Duvall and Randy Quaid acting away, and the camp factor of Tom Cruise arriving on his motorcycle being Cole Trickle, clashing with Michael Rooker (remember when he was the up and comer in Hollywood) and so on.

A lot of this has been mocked over the years but the things that are normally held up for ridicule are actually charming: John C Reilly appearing in a support part (when he'd later send up the film in Talledega Nights), Nicole Kidman as a hilariously young neurosurgeon, Don Simpson playing a race driver, all the late 80s excess (big hair, sunglasses). There are plenty of memorable bits, like zooming around the race track to 'Gimme Some Lovin', the rental car race between Rooker and Cruise, the meet cute between Kidman and Cruise.

The big problem with it is the story, which is hopelessly murky. In Top Gun the dramatic lines were clear - Maverick was haunted by the ghost of his father's reputation, he had a best friend who died which causes him a crisis that he had to get though, he struggled to be a team player but learned in the end, he had a competition with Ice Man which was resolved, he learned to let love into his life.

Here it's more confusing. Cole Trickle is basically a good kid who wants to be liked, there's something in his past with his dad but nothing really; he has an at times difficult relationship with Duvall but not really; he becomes mates with Michael Rooker who can't recover from an accident and so Cole drives his car but Duvall says he shouldn't or something and Rooker doesn't die; Cary Elwes comes in as a villain but never does anything that villainous, does he - he's aggressive on the track, sure, but no more than Rooker or Cruise/Cole, but we're supposed to hiss at him because...? His girlfriend has short hair whereas Rooker and Cruise have girlfriends with long hair? Randy Quaid seems set up to become villainous by preferring Elwes to Cruise but then at the end helps Cruise compete in the race, so you wonder what point he has in the whole movie?

It's like a whole bunch of script decisions were made because of fear of being too close to Top Gun - "oh we don't want Rooker to die because that's too close to Top Gun", "we don't want Cruise to be haunted by his past because that's too close to Top Gun", "we dont want him to go on an egomaniac to team player journey because that's too close to Top Gun" - but they haven't replaced it with anything as interesting/compelling. Cruise is a danger on the track at the beginning and by the end of the film hasn't really learned his lesson (at one stage he even takes off after a taxi driver with a terrified Kidman as a passenger.... she dumps him because of his, understandably... but then just all of a sudden forgives him and there's no problem).

Still, it's hard not to feel affection for this movie, with Simpson and Bruckheimer running loose, and Robert Towne selling out, and Nickers and Tom having little on screen chemistry despite hooking up in real life. I think when you mention it's name most movie fans smile, and that's worth something.