Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

In many popular narratives of the period, it was the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) who “ruined” the movies. Here’s the pretentious film snob summary of the death of Hollywood’s alleged second Golden Age, as popularized by Peter Biskind. The seventies were filled with bold, dark art and transgressive intellectualism. Then the greedy Baby Boomers – like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – made “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” All of a sudden Hollywood did not want to make serious, grown-up pictures. Now it was the age of blockbusters so simple that 3-year-olds can summarize them.

It was the 1980s when Boomer Blockbuster filmmaking would arrive in the event pictures of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. We see this tendency further in the films of arch-Boomers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. For a definition of Boomer cinema just look at the output of their company Imagine Entertainment. These aren’t the New Wave-influenced pictures of Roger L. Simon’s generation.

It was the Boomers who also gave us our most strident and simpleminded cinematic leftists: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore. Think about these three careers. Over the past 30 years have any of them shifted an inch in their political thinking? Of course not and neither have most Boomers who are still arguing over sex, race, and the Vietnam War as though it were still 1975. (more…)

Actor Gary Sinise didn’t jump at the chance to be the subject of a documentary feature.

The “Forrest Gump” star works relentlessly on behalf of the troops via his rock outfit the Lt. Dan Band, but he’s much less willing to toot his own horn.

Director Jonathan Flora convinced the humble star that a documentary could help spread the word to people and places Sinise would otherwise never get the chance to visit.

“Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good” hits streaming devices everywhere July 4th. People who want to screen the film can pay a $3.99 fee, with $1 going to The Gary Sinise Foundation which continues his work on the troops‘ behalf.

Flora had met Sinise several years ago, but he recalls the first time he saw the actor’s band on stage: “I was on pins and needles,” he recalls, echoing a common fear about actors who pick up a guitar. “You hope they don’t stink.”

Flora quickly learned what soldiers, sailors, and their loved ones have over the past eight years: The Lt. Dan Band rocks. (more…)

Okay, maybe not the best year ever, but easily my favorite of the years I’ve covered so far.  They should change the award to: The Academy’s Favorite Movie of the Year. Either that, or they could give out the award years later when a movie has either stood the test of time or has not.

But even then, some dumbass would do this.

The nominees:

“Forrest Gump” – The part that always confused me was he said, “She tastes like cigarettes,” like it was a bad thing.

“Four Weddings and a Funeral” – For my money, the oddball nominee at the time. I like it more now, but back then I was convinced it was only nominated because it’s British.

“Quiz Show” – I love the part when Herb Stempel cranes his neck to see what’s going on in the other soundproof booth, CLONKS his head on the glass, then checks-real-quick to make sure no one in the studio audience saw him. We saw ya, ya sponge-memoried freak.

“The Shawshank Redemption” – Great movie, saved by the studio’s rejection of the alternate ending, in which Red goes to Buxton, but can’t distinguish one hayfield from another because he’s never read a Robert Frost poem, screams in agony; meanwhile, the grocery store owner calls his P.O., who calls the fuzz, who come to Buxton, and gun him down. As life flickers from his eyes, he realizes he’s laying on a piece of volcanic glass that has no business being in a hayfield in the middle of Maine. He laughs to FADE OUT. (more…)

The Best Picture Winner of 1994 brought Tom Hanks his second Oscar in a row, and held the top spot at the box office for a remarkable 10 weeks. “Run, Forrest! Run!” became an unlikely catchphrase. And the talking heads were heard debating whether “Forrest Gump” was a celebration of conservative or liberal values.

At the time, I loved that the movie had inspired such debate. The conservative crowd pointed out that Forrest’s beloved Jenny, in her relentless pursuit of pleasures of the flesh, was left with an incurable disease (AIDS, presumably, though the movie never explicitly confirms this assumption). Liberals pointed out the compassion Forrest showed his Jenny upon hearing of her disease was confirmation of the film’s liberal message.

The flaw in this liberal point of view is that it sees the conservative take on Jenny’s life as lacking in compassion. It confuses the problem with the solution. The conservative take is rooted in fact: Jenny did run around, take drugs, sleep with any swinging Dick who would have her. Pointing out Forrest’s heroic compassion to her situation doesn’t erase the reality of how she got in the situation to begin with.

It’s a conservative movie, no question about it. (more…)

At least as far as movies go, I believe the above headline to be accurate. The Best Picture nominees at the Oscars that year were Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, and The Shawshank Redemption. In this series, I will look back at the Best Year Ever, cleverly focusing on a different movie each week. Starting with…

The key to any great year at the movies is a great summer at the movies, and 1994 had that. I can’t personally decide which movie that summer was my favorite, so I’m starting with my wife’s favorite. My wife grew up in a small town in South Georgia. They didn’t have a movie theatre. Not that she was in the stone ages, but going to a movie was, to her, an event, not a regular occurrence. We had been dating for only about a month, when one Tuesday afternoon in December of 1991, I said, “Hey, let’s go to the movies.” Puzzled, she replied, “It’s Tuesday.”

As good a day as any, I replied, before whisking her off to see “The Last Boy Scout.”

Three years later, she was worse than me. We would watch two movies in an afternoon, three if they weren’t playing at the General Cinema theatre, with its uncomfortable red seats. Our tastes were not discriminating, we would see anything. On July 15, 1994, we went to see Disney’s Angels in the Outfield (co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Adrien Brody!), then ducked into the next auditorium to watch True Lies. My wife saw it at least ten times that summer. (more…)

John Nolte’s review of “Brüno,” a film I haven’t yet seen, tackles Sasha Baron Cohen’s previous film “Borat,” a film I have seen about twenty times. That being said, Nolte is dead-on in his appraisal of the film: it found favor with the left-wing elitists because it poked fun at us regular folk. But in praising “Borat,” they revealed something about themselves, something I’ve known to be true since the summer of 1994.

That was the best year for movies that I can recall. That summer alone we had “Forrest Gump,” “True Lies,” “Speed,” and everyone was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Cannes winner “Pulp Fiction.” And we also had “The Lion King.” I remember the critic for my campus newspaper, The Red & Black (Go Dawgs!), panned the film, noting that the “Circle of Life” song, sung by a gay man, was really about keeping groups of people, particularly minorities, in their place. I thought this was bizarre and brought it up with some of my classmates. (more…)

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing a man who has helped bring to life some of my favorite films, series and projects. Captain Dale Dye, USMC (Ret.) has enjoyed an incredible career in Hollywood as an actor, a writer and as the most recognizable military/technical advisor in the industry. He recently worked as the Senior Military Advisor on HBO’s upcoming World War II miniseries “The Pacific” (currently in post-production) and is preparing to direct his first feature, “No Better Place to Die.”

J.R. Head: Thanks so much, Dale, for taking the time to talk with me.

Dale Dye: You’re most welcome. It’s a pleasure to be anywhere talking about the business we love these days. Hopefully, things will loosen up a bit, we’ll all go to work and I won’t have time for this in the near future.

JRH: Well, I’m glad I caught you when I did. First, let me say that I’ve enjoyed so many of the projects you’ve worked on.

DD: That means a lot coming from a guy with a military background. The reason I work so hard at it is to ensure guys like you and millions of others who served get a fair shake from Hollywood. (more…)