Films featuring
Alec Baldwin

The Shadow

In the midst of the current boom of comic book movies, it’s easy to forget that was similar, but smaller Hollywood infatuation with the genre in the wake of the Tim Burton Batman movies. Most of the them were quickly and deservedly forgotten but this take on the old radio serials probably deserves to be remembered better than it has been.

The Shadow catches Alec Baldwin at the height of the leading man phase of his career, before his personal life became a bigger story than his acting. Continue reading

Pearl Harbor

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If Fox’s 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! was a little too academic and dry, then Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor is simply all wet. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve rarely seen a movie find more ways to put the wrong foot forward. The tacked-on romantic triangle makes Titanic look like Jane Austen and Shakespeare combined. The historical accuracy is slightly more suspect than O.J. Simpson. The special effects turn one of the most solemn moments in American history into a video game.

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Looking for Richard

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Not long before this movie came out, I spent a couple of weeks in London and, among other things, took in a production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre at Bankside. And unlike my wimpy travelling companions, who splurged for box seats, I experienced the play in true groundling fashion, huddled against the stage in a rain storm. Okay, I don’t think the groundlings of Shakespeare’s day covered themselves in plastic bags, but they would have if they’d had them.

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The Good Shepherd

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The Good Shepherd uses the classic form of the espionage thriller to depict the birth of the Central Intelligence Agency through the eyes of one character, Edward Wilson, himself a composite of several real figures in the early days of the American intelligence community. Despite its length, deliberate pacing and a central character that is not particularly sympathetic, this film is a compelling account of a crucial, little known part of American history.

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Beetlejuice

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So, the story is: One day Adam and Barbara Maitland died and things sort of went downhill from there. The end result is a movie showcasing director Tim Burton at the top of his game. It also helped launch the careers of both Alec Baldwin and Winona Ryder (and introducing me to Winona Ryder is more than enough for me to forgive Burton for that Planet of the Apes remake).

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The Hunt for Red October

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How quickly did we leave the Cold War behind? The dust had barely settled on the fall of the Berlin Wall when this 1990 Tom Clancy adaptation was treating the subject like a period film. Of course, the world had changed so drastically since the novel’s 1984 publication that it was impossible to view the material as current events.

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The Departed

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If F-words were horses, Martin Scorcese’s The Departed would be a stampede. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Scorcese film without an intensive barrage of R-rated language and this is a prime example of the director in his natural environment, among cops and wise guys and navigating a morally ambiguous urban landscape.

Scorcese has spent the last decade away from his natural milieu, possibly pursuing a level of artsy respectability that would earn him that long denied Best Director Oscar. That makes it someone ironic that he finally won the award with a lurid, violent but insightful crime film that played to his strengths.

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Elizabethtown

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Let me say this up front. When I die, I’m going to have my relatives watch this film before planning my funeral. Whether I mean it to serve as a guide or warning, I haven’t decided, but rest assured, there will be no Lynard Skynard songs.

Elizabathtown proves that Cameron Crowe can make a good movie in his sleep. This is far from his best work but even though he’s coasting here, he still delivers a movie that’s equal parts funny, charming and sweet. Maybe not in the same quantities as a film like Almost Famous but second-rate Cameron Crowe is more watchable than a lot of people’s first-rate work.

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Glengarry Glen Ross

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Speaking as some who worked in retail sales for few years out of college, I can certainly vouch for the authenticity of much of what transpires in James Foley’s film of David Mamet’s play Glengarry Glen Ross. The scene in which Alec Baldwin’s character verbally emasculates the sad sack salesmen is reminiscent of any number of sales meetings or visits from the district manager.

Okay, I can’t ever recall being called a “cocksucker” in those sessions (it was often mixed company, after all), but the message was same. Selling is everything. A good salesmen should be able to sell water to a drowning man. Excuses are for losers and low numbers are the way out the door. You might notice that I don’t work in that field any more.

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Aviator

The Aviator

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Making a film about Howard Hughes is quite a challenge, given that the man was largely an enigma even to those who knew him best. How do you tell the story about who struggled to hide his numerous demons and lived the last few decades of his life in virtual seclusion from the world? Director Martin Scorcese wisely chose to concentrate on the part of his life that was lived in the public eye but that is also part of the weakness of The Aviator. The facts presented here are well known to those familiar with the life of Howard Hughes and don’t really offer an incisive look at the private man.

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