Guilty Pleasure No. 78: Armageddon (dir by Michael Bay)

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember that time that Bruce Willis and a team of oil drillers saved all of humanity from a giant asteroid that was apparently the size of Texas?

Sure, you do! Everyone remembers Armageddon!

1998’s Armageddon is a film that doesn’t get a lot of respect but which everyone remembers. There’s been a lot of movies made about giant asteroids on a collision path with the Earth. Ever since scientists announced that a collision with a comet or an asteroid probably killed the dinosaurs, there’s been a somewhat irrational fear that the same thing could happen to us. Back in 1978, Sean Connery and Karl Malden tried to stop a Meteor (and failed). In 1998, the same year that Armageddon came out, Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, and Elijah Wood tried to stop an asteroid from causing a Deep Impact (and failed). Adam McKay made an entire film about everyone saying, “Don’t Look Up,” in an attempt to promote increased panic about climate change (and failed). (“I’m so scared!” Leonardo DiCaprio shouted and audiences responded, “Oh, calm down.”) And yet, it’s Armageddon — ridiculed by critics, endlessly parodied by other movies — that people use as their go-to source for commenting on the prospect of a mass extinction event. Mostly because, in Armageddon, humanity didn’t fail. Bruce Willis showed that asteroid who was boss!

Why do we love Armageddon? A lot of it has to do with the cast. Not only do you have Bruce Willis battling an asteroid but you’ve also got Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Michael Clarke Duncan, Peter Stormare, William Fichtner, and a host of others working with him. You’ve got Billy Bob Thornton working ground control. You’ve got Liv Tyler, somehow managing to give a decent performance even while Ben Affleck attacks her with animal crackers. It’s not just the cast is full of familiar and likable actors. It’s that the members of the cast know exactly what type of film that they’re appearing in and they all give exactly the right type of performance for that film. They deliver their lines with conviction while not making the mistake of taking themselves too seriously. Bruce Willis announces that his crew will destroy that asteroid in return for never having to pay taxes again and he announces with just the slightest hint of a smirk, knowing that the audience is going to cheer that moment.

But really, the real reason why Armageddon has survived that test of time is because it’s just so utterly shameless. Director Michael Bay will never be accused of being a subtle director but Bay instinctively understood that Armageddon was not a film that demanded subtlety. Armageddon is a film that demands that constantly moving camera and all of those carefully composed scenes that were clearly made so they could be included in the trailer. It’s a film about big moments and big emotions. Unlike something like Deep Impact, it doesn’t get bogged down in trying to be better than it actually is. Unlike Don’t Look Now, it doesn’t degenerate into a bunch of histrionic speeches. Armageddon exists to make the audience cheer and it succeeds. It takes guts to include a slow motion scene of a bunch of kids celebrating in front of a faded Kennedy For President poster but Bay is exactly the type of director who can pull that off. Michael Bay’s style is not right for a lot of films. But it was perfect for Armageddon.

As I sit here typing this, there are some people panicking because there’s speculation that a meteor is going approach the Earth in the 2030s. It’ll probably miss us but who knows? But you know what? I’m not worried at all. I’ve seen Armageddon. So, on this International Earth Day, let’s remember the courageous men who saved this planet back in 1998.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Holiday Film Review: The Last Boy Scout (dir by Tony Scott)

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

My God, what a violent holiday season!

Like the majority of the films that have been written and/or directed by Shane Black, The Last Boy Scout takes place in December. It’s not quite as Christmas-y as some of Black’s other films. I think that I may have spotted a few decorations in the background of some of the scenes. And there’s a scene where private investigator Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis) discovers that his daughter (played by a very young Danielle Harris) has been drawing pictures of “Satan Claus.” Otherwise, there’s not a lot of Christmas to be found in this December-set film and perhaps that’s for the best. Seriously, this movie is violent! Not even the comedic relief characters are safe from getting a bullet to the head. This is a film that actually begins with a football player shooting three other players during a game and then saying, “Ain’t life a bitch,” before shooting himself in the head.

The film’s plot isn’t always easy to follow. Joe is a private investigator who drinks too much and whose partner has just been blown up in front of his house. (His partner was also sleeping with Joe’s wife so guess who is now a suspect!) Joe is also hired to act as a bodyguard for a stripper named Cory (Halle Berry). Cory is dating Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans), a former quarterback who used to be Joe’s hero. Then Jimmy got kicked out of the league for gambling and Joe stopped watching football. Cory says that she has a tape recording that will get Joe back into the NFL. But then, Cory is brutally gunned down in the middle of the street and the tape is accidentally destroyed by Joe’s crappy tape player. It’s time for Jimmy and Joe to team up, trade one liners, and uncover the conspiracy.

It all links back to the efforts of football team owner Shelley Marcuse (Noble Willingham) to legalize gambling. Senator Calvin Baynard (Chelcie Ross) is standing in Marcuse’s way because Marcuse didn’t offer him a big enough bribe. Marcuse is planning to assassinate the senator and he’s going to frame Joe for the crime because, in an amazing coincidence, Joe used to be a secret service agent until he caught Senator Baynard torturing a sex worker. Of course, the actual assassination will be carried out by Marcuse’s chief henchman, Milo (Taylor Negron, who is absolutely chilling in the role). Milo rarely shows emotion and always refers to everyone by their formal name. (Joe is called Joseph. Jimmy is called James.) Milo is also a total sociopath, one who will shoot anyone in the head without a second thought.

Shane Black, who is a genius regardless of what I may think of this particular film, has said that he wrote The Last Boy Scout after he broke up with a longtime girlfriend and he was suffering from depression. Disillusionment hangs over almost every frame of the movie. Joe did the right thing and lost his career. Jimmy lost his family on the same night that he played the best game of his career. The Senator is opposed to Marcuse’s scheme solely because he’s not getting enough of a cut. Marcuse is a respected businessman who thinks little of killing strangers. Jimmy and Joe are heroes not because they’re particularly good but because everyone else around them is just so bad. This is also very much a movie about guys doing guy things. I watched it with my brother-in-law and I have to say that I think he got a bit more out of the film than I did. Then again, I also think my sister Megan also got more out of it than I did so maybe I just wasn’t in the mood to watch so many people get shot in the head. It happens.

The Last Boy Scout was directed by Tony Scott so, no matter what else you might want to say about it, the movie looks great. Willis seems a bit bored with the film and Wayans sometimes struggles with the more dramatic moments. In many ways, the film feels like a precursor to Shane Black’s The New Guys, though Willis and Wayans never have the same chemistry as Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling did in that underrated film. However, The Last Boy Scout’s action moves quickly and the screen is always full of neon lights. It’s a well-made action movie though, unlike Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, and The Nice Guys, it’s not one that really sticks around in your head after the end credits roll. Personally, I think it needed a little more holiday spirit.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: A Star Is Born (dir by Bradley Cooper)

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy birthday, Bradley Cooper!

Bradley Cooper is 45 years old today. With all the recent talk about how people’s lives have changed over the past decade, let’s take a minute to appreciate just how spectacularly things have gone for Bradley Cooper, career-wise. Ten years ago, Bradley Cooper was probably best-known for playing the smarmiest member of The Hangover‘s quartet of friends. Now, Cooper is known for not only being one of the best actors working today but also for making an acclaimed directorial debut with the 2018 Best Picture nominee, A Star Is Born.

Cooper not only directed A Star is Born but he also starred in it. He played Jackson Maine, a country musician who has been drinking for as long as he can remember. He used to drink with his father and when his father died, Jackson continued to drink alone. (At one point, Jackson says that he was a teenager when his father died.) Managed by his older brother, Bobby (Sam Elliott), Jackson became a star but his career has been in decline for a while. For all of his talent and for all of his belief that he has something worth saying, Jackson is drinking his life away. He stumbles from show to show and is often dependent upon Bobby to tell him what he missed while he was blacked out.

When Jackson stumbles into a drag bar and sees Ally (Lady Gaga, making her film debut) singing a song by Edith Piaf, he is immediately captivated by her talent. Ally, whose father (Andrew Dice Clay) is a limo driver who once aspired to be bigger than Sinatra, is at first weary of Jackson but he wins her over. After she punches a drunk and he takes her to a grocery store to construct a makeshift cast for her hand, she sings a song that she wrote and Jackson decides to take her on tour. Soon, they’re in love and, before you know it, they’re married!

Unfortunately, Jackson’s alcoholism threatens both their happiness and their future. While Ally’s star rises, his continues to dim. Will Ally sacrifice her career for Jackson or will Jackson sacrifice his life for Ally?

It’s a familiar story, one that’s been told many times. The first version was 1932’s What Price Hollywood, which featured aspiring actress Constance Bennett falling in love with an alcoholic director played by Lowell Sherman. In 1937, What Price Hollywood? was unofficially remade as A Star Is Born, with Janet Gaynor as Esther, the actress who falls in love with faded matinee idol, Norman Maine (Fredric March). The next version came out in 1954 and featured Judy Garland as Esther and James Mason as Norman. Significantly, the 1954 version added music to the plot, with Judy Garland singing The Man That Got Away.

In 1976, the story was told a third time. This version of A Star is Born starred Barbra Streisand as singer Esther Hoffman and Kris Kristofferson as a self-destructive rock star named John Norman Howard. The 1976 version was terrible, largely because there was zero chemistry between Streisand and Kristofferson. And yet, one gets the feeling that the 1976 version is the one that had the most influence on the 2018 version. Not only does Bradley Cooper’s version of A Star Is Born make the story about aspiring singers but one gets the feeling that Cooper watched the 1976 version, saw the lack of chemistry between Kristofferson and Streisand, and said, “There’s no way that’s going to happen in my movie!”

Indeed, it’s the chemistry between Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga that makes the latest version of A Star Is Born so compulsively watchable. I mean, we already know the story. From the minute that Jackson and Ally meet for the first time, we know what’s going to happen. But Cooper and Lady Gaga have got such an amazing chemistry, that it almost doesn’t matter whether the movie surprises us or not. There’s a scene where Ally says that she’s always been told that her nose is too big and Jackson responds by nonchalantly touching her nose and, with that one simple and very naturalistic gesture, the film convinces us that Jackson and Ally are meant to be together, even if just for a while. It also makes it all the more upsetting when a drunk and jealous Jackson later uses Ally’s insecurities against her.

(Of course, I should admit that I’ve always been insecure about my own nose so, at that moment, I totally understood what Ally was feeling.)

It’s an unabashedly romantic and sentimental film but it works because, as a director, Cooper brings just enough of an edge to the story. Cooper, who has been sober since 2004, has been open about his past struggle with alcoholism and, as both an actor and director, he’s smart enough not to romanticize Jackson’s addictions. In many ways, Jackson Maine is a pain in the ass to be around. We watch as he goes from being a fun drunk to a sad drunk to a mean drunk, all the while lashing out at anyone who gets too close to him. At the same time, Cooper also captures the spark of genius and the hints of inner goodness that would explain why he is never totally rejected by those that he’s hurt. Cooper offers up hints of who Jackson could have been if he hadn’t surrendered to pain and addiction. We understand why Ally and Bobby stick with him, even if we wouldn’t blame either one of them if they refused to have anything more to do with him.

Lady Gaga, meanwhile, gives a performance is that is down-to-Earth and instantly relatable. Anyone who has ever been insecure or who has ever felt as if she was being punished for being independent or thinking for herself will understand what Ally’s going through. At some point, we’ve all been Ally and we’ve all had a Jackson Maine in our lives. Sadly, these stories rarely have happy endings.

For most of 2018, it was assumed that A Star Is Born would be the film to beat at the Oscars. While it was eventually nominated for 8 Oscars, Bradley Cooper did not receive a nomination for Best Director. (Cooper, Lady Gaga, and Sam Elliott were all nominated in the acting categories.) In the end, Green Book won Best Picture while A Star Is Born only won one award, for Best Original Song.

Of course, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s performance of that song was perhaps the highlight of the entire Oscar ceremony.

That’s the power of good chemistry.

A Movie A Day #214: Urban Justice (2007, directed by Don E. FauntLeRoy)

Posted on August 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Steven Seagal returns and this time, he’s out for justice! Urban justice!

After his son, a beloved Los Angeles cop, is assassinated, Simon Ballister (Seagal, of course) comes out of retirement to get revenge. Retirement from what? Like most of Seagal’s characters, Simon has a deadly and legendary past. Nearly everyone who meets him says something like, “So, you’re Simon.” Everyone wants Simon Ballister to do something for them. El Chivo (Danny Trejo!) wants Simon to help defeat his rival, Armand Tucker (Eddie Griffin). Armand Tucker wants to be Scarface. Simon just wants revenge.

Much like Elvis, Steven Seagal’s career can be divided into a thin and a fat period. Thin Steven Seagal was all over movie screens in the 90s, making up for the fact that he could not act by convincingly beating people up. Fat Steven Seagal appears almost exclusively in direct-to-video productions. He does everything that Thin Seagal did but he sweats a lot more while doing it. Unfortunately, Fat Seagal is an even worse actor than Thin Seagal. Since Fat Seagal produces almost all of his own films, there is no one around to say, “Let’s cut away from Steve during this speech, he looks stupid.”

Urban Justice is peak Fat Seagal. It actually features more fights than the typical Fat Seagal movie but they are all edited in such a way that it is obvious that most of the blows were delivered by a stuntman while Seagal undoubtedly stood in a corner, trying to catch his breath. Since Urban Justice features Seagal in what is supposed to be the ghetto, he calls everyone that he meets, “motherfucker.” Fat Seagal has the same Clint Eastwood-style rasp that he had when he was Thin Seagal but he still sound stupid whenever he says, “I want the motherfucker who killed my son.”

Eddie Griffin is pretty good as Armand Tucker. I don’t know if Eddie improvised all of his dialogue but it certainly seems like he did. All of the movie’s best lines belong to Eddie Griffin. Just one example: “Man, fuck Santa Claus! He never gave me shit! That’s why I sell dope!” As for Danny Trejo, he doesn’t do much but he’s Danny Trejo.

Personally, looking over the career of Steven Seagal, I think he made a mistake by trying to be an action hero. It is hard to think of any other actor with as unlikable a screen presence as Steven Seagal. If Steve had made his career playing villains, he would probably still have a good career going. People would gladly play money to see Steven Seagal get blown up at the end of a Jason Bourne sequel. Instead, he insisted on playing the hero and his career is now made up of appearing in direct-to-video movies and threatening to run for governor of Arizona.

To quote Clint Eastwood, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”