Nic Cage wasn’t always a walking punchline. But after winning the Best Actor Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas (1995), he started choosing roles that allowed him to work with interesting filmmakers, regardless of whether the movies would be any good. His first post-Oscar film, Michael Bay’s frenetic The Rock (1996), was a hit, and his […]

In the lead-up to Transformers: The Last Knight, Craig J. Clark is mapping the road that led Michael Bay — and the rest of us — here. There’s just one catch: Craig had never seen a Michael Bay movie before now. Things are about to get real. . Part II: Sneak Attacks (2001-2005) It would be a […]

Alec Baldwin does not like Harrison Ford. In his recently released memoir, Nevertheless, Baldwin isn’t content to merely insult the man, but deconstructs his entire image with the speed and ferocity of a prison-yard shanking. He describes Ford, Indiana Jones himself, as “a little man, short, scrawny, and wiry, whose soft voice sounds as if […]

Whether Nazis, Communists, or Thuggees, Indiana Jones fights them all, and he gets his share of bruises and beatings. But just how much damage does he take in the course of his adventures? How many concussions has the great archeologist suffered while fighting the most evil of evil jerks around? We kept track. Here’s a handy movie-by-movie summary. . […]

Of all the directors who graduated from music videos and commercial work to feature films in the 1990s — a roll call that includes such luminaries as David Fincher, Antoine Fuqua, Spike Jonze, Brett Ratner, Dominic Sena, Gore Verbinski, and Simon West — the reigning king of the summer popcorn flick has to be Michael […]

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a movie that should not have worked. It’s an expensive swashbuckler based on a theme park attraction. Do you remember what the other movies based on Disney rides were around the same time? The Country Bears and The Haunted Mansion. It’s a pirate movie, […]