King Arthur (2004)

★★★
If given a choice, I'll take John Boorman's version of the Arthurian legend, Excalibur, any day of the week over Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur. This new envisioning purports to be based on the actual historical figure who inspired the stories, but there are still plenty of routine plot elements present, right down to the hero and villain meeting on the battlefield, to raise a few eyebrows. The movie's accuracy is hardly the point, though. Writer David Franzoni took the characters we already know and gave them new backgrounds and incorporated them into a new adventure, to give us something unfamiliar to watch. It turned out to be pretty good, which surprised me. He'll probably tell you he was being faithful to true events, but as the opening caption tells us, recent archaeological discoveries have uncovered the true King Arthur. Since the evidence is recent, we hardly know the whole story. Give the archaeologists time to keep digging.

The Batman (2022)

★★★½
Matt Reeves has a wonderfully creative mind. While a Batman reboot might normally be cause for alarm in this era of reboots, Reeve’s deft hand and clear vision guide this character into an exciting new direction. Clocking in at a sprawling 176 minutes, The Batman ditches any semblance of an origin story and gets straight to the point, much to our benefit. Rather than a protracted training and equipping sequence, the movie dives right into an intriguing narrative involving high-profile murders, police corruption, mobsters, detective work and a long-overdue appearance by The Riddler, who gets a serious upgrade from his previous incarnations. He’s meaner, more menacing and more threatening than he’s ever been.

Michael Moore Hates America (2004)

★★★
In 2004, I didn’t believe that Michael Moore hated America. Now I’m not so sure. He is a filmmaker who uses the documentary format to tell stories and advance his viewpoint. He’s shameless about it. It worked in Roger & Me and The Big One. By the time Fahrenheit 9/11 came out, he had morphed into a pompous imbecile who presented events in his films that were completely detached from reality. It’s interesting to chart the evolution of his career, to watch him maintaining his everyman act but appearing in increasingly absurd situations that have become more obvious as the years progressed. When he couldn’t fall any lower, he did with Sicko, in which he abandoned all pretensions of a man searching for the truth. He is actually a man who will manipulate events to his liking and employ whatever means necessary, no matter how unscrupulous, to achieve his objectives. Maybe this is the man who was there all along. Perhaps The Big One, his most authentic film, was to get us to drop our guard and make way for the showman within him.

Scorched (2003)

★★★
Scorched came and went so fast it passed virtually unnoticed in the public's eye. At first sight, that doesn't seem like a big deal. Receiving top billing are Alicia Silverstone and Rachael Leigh Cook, two actresses who delivered terrific performances in their respective breakout movies but have since slipped into obscurity with few successes after their initial brush with fame.

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

★★★
Good for Nicolas Cage for making oddball movies like Willy’s Wonderland. One could argue that his peak years are behind him, but… are they really? A combination of financial issues and perhaps a desire to seek out imaginative projects has led to an interesting late-career trajectory into low-profile high-concept territory. Though many of these efforts have gone straight to video and are of variable quality, there are hidden gems to be found. The path he has taken is the complete opposite of Bruce Willis, who has appeared in such a staggering number direct-to-video garbage that a rare theatrical appearance at this point would be an accident. Cage, on the other hand, still displays a passion for acting, and we can all benefit from his decision.