The Big Picture · Review · Discussion · Hall of Fame
November 8, 2024/ 91 min/ Sean Fennessey · Bryan Curtis
Zemeckis reunites the 'Forrest Gump' team for 'Here,' a fixed-camera swing across millennia in a single living room. Sean and Bryan Curtis wrestle with the movie, detour through the craziest gimmicks in moviegoing history, then walk the whole Zemeckis filmography to build a 10-film Hall of Fame.
27 films across 3 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
‘Here’the new Zemeckis
Adapted from Richard McGuire's graphic novel: one fixed corner of a room, centuries of the people who lived in it, told in a static camera and cross-cut across time. Reunites the 'Forrest Gump' crew: Hanks, Robin Wright, composer Alan Silvestri, DP Don Burgess, writer Eric Roth. Both hosts find the writing leaden and the de-aging uneven (Wright's convincing, Hanks's not), but Sean liked it more than he expected: 'not good, but good to me.' A $5M bomb on 2,500 screens.
The craziest gimmicks in movie history3-D, William Castle, popcorn buckets
Shipped with multiple endings across different theaters. It's the gimmick Sean most wants to see revived.
Its showman-huckster is loosely based on William Castle, king of Percepto, Emergo, and the theater-lobby fainting nurse.
Cameron's 3-D revival: mind-bending once, then every action movie went 3-D and the novelty wore off.
The Robert Zemeckis Hall of Fame24 films graded green/yellow/red: 10 inducted
The debut: kids scrambling to reach the Beatles' Ed Sullivan taping. Alive and clever, now in the Criterion Collection. In.
A co-writing credit, not a directing one, for Spielberg's WWII comedy bomb. Neither host can rescue it. Out.
Kurt Russell as a used-car huckster; a cable-rerun classic in the Caddyshack vein, ripe for rediscovery. In.
The studio-for-hire adventure he took because he couldn't yet get Back to the Future made. Turner and Douglas, straight down the middle, still works. In.
The peak. A strange premise turned into 40 years of American culture. Automatic. In.
Sean's most-formative movie: cartoons colliding with hard-bitten noir. In on principle even if you hate it.
Right on the edge (the sequel they hadn't planned for), but it certifies him as a Hollywood master. In.
The Western homage they were economically obligated to make. Fine, and only fine. Out.
Landmark makeup effects and a beauty-standards streak that predates 'The Substance.' Yellowed, then cut to make room for Contact.
Best Picture and Best Director. Treacly boomer crap and genuinely magic at once, a top-five Zemeckis. In.
His boldest swing: Forrest Gump sincerity welded to science-forward ideas. Bryan lobbied it in over Death Becomes Her. In.
His Hitchcock movie: a big hit built on a good reveal, but iterative and inessential. Out.
Bryan's second-best Zemeckis. The plane crash still plays 20 years on, and only Hanks could sell talking to Wilson. In.
Important to the history of motion capture, downright creepy as a movie. Sean makes the case for its import, not for the Hall. Out.
The mocap roll continues; deeper renderings, but nobody talks about it. Out.
A Disney hit and, per Sean, a freakish mocap disaster. Out.
The 'I'm back' movie: a great Denzel performance and a thrilling near-crash, dragged only by the on-the-nose needle drops. In.
The Twin Towers wire walk, formally cool but slight, and 'Man on Wire' got there first. Out.
Sumptuous WWII romance with Pitt and Cotillard; Sean lobbied a generous yellow, but it doesn't make the cut. Out.
The living-army-men PTSD movie: batshit, inscrutable, and the effective end of Steve Carell as a bankable star. Out.
A pointless Roald Dahl remake dumped to streaming in COVID; as if it doesn't exist. Out.
Looks like a fake movie on a poster, critically destroyed, and buried by del Toro's version the same year. Out.
The new one, and the first Zemeckis in years Sean felt had something to say, but even he can't in good conscience call it green. Out.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In the ‘Here’ talk The IrishmanIndiana Jones and the Dial of DestinyThe Substance
Sean's Frida Cinema program The Long GoodbyeThe Big LebowskiUnder the Silver Lake
Comparisons and asides Pulp FictionAmerican GraffitiAnimal HouseCaddyshackBody HeatJurassic ParkSchindler's ListThe Color PurpleEmpire of the SunCrocodile Dundee IIInterstellarFurySilenceTinker Tailor Soldier SpyMars Needs MomsGuillermo del Toro's PinocchioAnyone but YouVenom: The Last DanceMan on WireMarwencolThe Wild RobotDune: Part TwoTerrifier 3IfCaptain EO
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Hard KnocksGame of ThronesBosom BuddiesThe Ed Sullivan Show
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