Romance novelist gets a taste of her plots when she gets stranded in the Colombian jungle.
Why It’s Good
Robert Zemeckis has a flare for an adventure! This movie is rip roaring fun the minute Kathleen Turner jumps on a plane for Colombia. There she meets the totally charming Michael Douglas, doing his own version of Indiana Jones without the book smarts. The two are dynamite together, with Douglas helping break Turner out of her cloistered shell, and turning her into the heroine in one of her novels. Sure the plot is pure nonsense, but when you’re flying through the air like Tarzan & Jane, it doesn’t really matter.
Walter White Rating
Turner gets the WW Season 1 rating, as she figures out her new surroundings, and what her new place in the world is going to be.
A performer on a cruise gets off for a few days, and starts falling for a pilot/business owner who can only stay in business if he takes the most dangerous flying jobs available.
Why It’s Good
This Howard Hawks gem is a relic of a time gone by. Cary Grant‘s airline would be part of some fleet now, or doing some drug running. But for 1939? The film is two films crammed into one. The first half is a really enjoyable hangout flick, as we learn a little bit about this transient port community and the pilots/toursists who hang out there. The 2nd half is part love story part thriller, as Grant has to send his pilots and himself into more dangerous flight patterns just to keep his airline afloat. Hawks uses that first half to make you care about everybody so when they jump into the pilot seat, you’re instantly rooting for their success and scared for their peril.
Walter White Rating
With all the bickering between a boss and his workers, and the constant threat of an airplane crash, the WW Season 2 Award comes in the form of a burnt teddy bear.
Two small down dreamers stumble upon a series of mysterious deaths in their town, and find the murderer is, um, something they didn’t expect.
Why It’s Good
When doing a genre homage, your best best is to mock the conventions of the genre you’re using, and also make a great movie in that genre (the Edgar Wright method). Tremors genre is the 1950s creature feature, something like Them! or Godzilla. In this case, the script gets smart by dumbing things down: everyone, including the monsters, have something lacking upstairs which allows for the jokes to fly. However, the jokes never overtake the seriousness of the situation, so when people are in peril, the movie gets mighty exciting because of the good will we’ve gotten hanging around with Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, and Reba McEntire(!) on rooftops avoiding large…I can’t say it, it’s so dumb its funny.
Walter White Rating
As Bacon, Ward, McEntire and the cast feel each other out and butt heads early and often, and everyone forces each other into difficult situations trying to stop a big bully from interfering in their lives, I dub thee the WW Season 3 Award winner!
In the 1970s a meeting between a Hungarian General and an MI6 Agent goes badly, leading to an Undersecretary bringing a former agent out of retirement to find the mole in Britain’s intelligence group.
Why It’s Good
This is a Bond movie if the focus were on M instead of agents in the field. Gary Oldman leads an amazing cast of great British actors in an ultra serious game of cat and mouse. That opening meeting immediately sets the stakes, and director Tomas Alfredson goes deep into the minutiae of a spy operation. At times the plot can be hard to follow, but TTSS’s pace is slow enough that you can catch up quickly, in time to refocus for the next subtle upcoming clue you need to connect the dots like Gary Oldman does.
Walter White Rating
With two parts of a gigantic spy apparatus working against each other, leaving causalities in their wake, I award Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the Gus Fring honorary WW Season 4 Award.
A career criminal sees a great opportunity for a big score. So he brings in a team of experts to help him, but those experts might bring in additional people who can throw a wrench into the perfect crime.
Why It’s Good
Like Sterling Hayden’s character in the movie, Stanley Kubrick is a perfectionist. This movie begins his legendary career of making movies that end up on top 10 lists. This one is more straightforward than say 2001 A Space Odyssey, but it’s so intricately plotted that it’s pure joy watching Kubrick maneuver the pieces around the heist. Hayden is his usual best, but Marie Windsor is the standout here as the wife of one of Hayden’s accomplices: a bored woman who desires more for her own life. The movie builds excitingly to the wonderfully anticlimactic conclusion, showing how one small detail missed is enough to derail even the best laid plans.
Walter White Rating
With no enemies and showing full command of his powers, Sterling Hayden wins the WW Season 5 Part 1 Award.
Three men team up to gold rush in the Sierra Madre mountains, but their partnership immediately comes under threats, both real and imagined.
Why It’s Good
What we’ve got here is one of the great cinematic morality tales. Humphrey Bogart, Walter Houston, and Tim Holt are a fun trio of characters combining forces to take advantage of the gold mining possibilities in the mountains. At first it seems great, their efforts produce more than they could ask for! But that lengthy work also attracts outside forces like marauders, which the group has to deal with. In addition, jealousy and greed take hold as the $ count rises, meaning that friend can easily become foe if they say the wrong thing. John Houston directs this movie like a slow burn thriller, amping up the tension until the big climax, showing the consequences of a greedy existence.
Walter White Rating
Perfectly mimicking Walter White’s tale, beginning to end, I bestow upon the trio the WW Season 5 Part 2 Award, for showing what happens when greed and power consume you.
