The Last Boy Scout, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Convicts, Hook, The Double Life of Veronique, 1991
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Two recommended videos – Peter Pan, Mary Martin’s Peter Pan
Thanks to andyfilm for transferring the video!
Here’s something funny about Hook: Two people behind the scenes were involved with both Simpson and Princess Di (not together though). Craig Baumgarten was co-producer and he was a friend of Simpson and played golf with him the day Simpson killed two people. Dodi Fayed was the other (I don’t remember what he was credited as) but he was Di’s boyfriend at the end of her life.
Actually, Roger liked Star Trek and Star Trek 3. He gave them three stars each. Out of the even numbers so far, 4 was the best to him.
I don’t know why Roger generalized the odd-numbered Star Treks like that. Yes, they were less successful than the even-numbered ones, but that doesn’t make them bad. For me, I was a boring poor man’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I thought III was good and rather underrated, and of course gave us the canon side story of the murder of Kirk’s son. And V was just bad. II is still my favorite.
I’m as big a Spielberg fan as they come. But damned if I just HATED Hook. Its by far his worst film, worse than 1941 and Tintin. I really thought his career was forever tainted and in trouble here. Especially after Always and Empire. Then…Jurassic came and all that was gone for good.
What about Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan?
I saw Hook in the theater and didn’t enjoy it at all. I’ve never seen it again and can’t remember anything about it now. Just that it was totally boring and uninteresting. Many of my favorite movies are Spielberg’s 1980s movies, the Indiana Jones series, Goonies, Gremlins, etc. It seemed to me like the childlike Spielberg with the sense of wonder died when he hit his mid-40s. I don’t think the Jurassic films say anything different. They were better constructed technically than Hook but were still lifeless in terms of heart and emotion. He made great films again after that but they were either completely for adults or more adult-oriented. Minority Report is another great sci-fi film from him but it’s a dark, adult thriller, not a kids film.
I was very surprised by Ready Player One in that it was the first movie Spielberg did that absolutely captured the spirit of his 1980s family films. I don’t know if Ernest Cline’s passion for his story rubbed off on Spielberg or if Spielberg at age 70 was ready to embrace thinking like a kid again. Perhaps Spielberg simply got caught up in the nostalgia that Cline revels in and wanted to relive the way he made films in his 30s again. But RP1 worked brilliantly for me and is one of my all-time favorite Spielberg films.
Did you know the backstory to Hook? Does anyone here really know the backstory? First of all, like 1941, this was also intended to be a musical and that’s why Kevin Kline was supposed to star in the film in the first place. John Williams and Leslie Brucusse had worked on songs for several sequences until Spielberg turned it into a standard Peter Pan movie. Kline had to leave the film because of reshoots on Soapdish and Robin Williams took over for him which wasn’t a bad choice. Spielberg also had problems on set with Julia Roberts who just fighting with him on how her character should be. The whole thing was a fiasco but it is by far not his worst film. That honor goes to The BFG which is easily his worst.
As far as Spielberg’s career goes, in Hollywood you can’t keep making the same thing over and over. You get tired or typecast and that’s what Spielberg didn’t want which is one of the reasons why he was branching out with serious projects like Empire of the Sun, Always and led to Schindler’s List, which gave him even more respectability as a serious director. Sure, he can do E.T. or Jurassic Park in his sleep along with Indiana Jones, but at this point in his life, he’d rather do projects that suit his personal interest or excites him like Ready Player One or The Post for example which were really good. So we’ll see if he manned up for the remake West Side Story which is the genre (musical) that’s he been putting off for over 40 years.
I didn’t know Hook had songs originally. Like Siskel and Ebert said, those probably would’ve helped. West Side Story definitely does sound like something that would excite Spielberg creatively. It’s new territory for him. It’s probably a remake worth doing although it would be more interesting to me if the setting had been updated to the present day.