The John Spencer Rumsfeld Explosion

Last night, after spending far too long staring slack-jawed at the new War of the Worlds trailer (see previous post) while it looped at full size on my computer monitor, I popped in the Criterion Collection's fantastic release of Alarm favorite Michael Bay's The Rock.

Aside from the criminally underlooked cinematography with its deep, sunset oranges and withered yellows and greens, what's really great about this movie is the casting. A grizzled, animalistic Sean Connery gets teamed with Nic Cage in prime tic-ridden geek mode to form one of the most unlikely but thoroughly entertaining action pairings in recent memory. Ed Harris does the sorrow laden man of honor thing with total commitment, though you have to see him curse at the cast on the second disk blooper reel to get a true sense of how utterly seriously he takes it.

Even Michael Biehn turns a performance worth watching, probably the only time he's done so without the aid of James Cameron. Best of all, though, is the decision to cast Phillip Baker Hall and John "Leo" Spencer as the bureacratic curmudgeons who get to argue about releasing Connery's character from an illegal thirty-year imprisonement. Hall, whose work with P.T. Anderson is borderline iconic, is one of the best character actors working today. As for Spencer, I've said it before, but he was born to play the role of cantankerous government codger. I don't even want credit for the idea: I just want him to star in Donald Rumsfeld: The Movie right now, dammit.