Oliver Stone

That controversy guy, who's pretty good sometimes (almost too good to be true) and pretty bad sometimes (almost too bad to be true).

Platoon (1986) -- Tom Berenger plays a bad guy, and Willem Dafoe plays a good guy. Apparently, this was a new sort of war movie, but it seemed just pretty good to me. B

JFK (1991) -- I believe every word of it, and why not. And even if I didn't, this is a fantastic motion picture. It throws everything at you, in a style confusing as life itself, and by the time you're done you almost as worn as Garrison (played by the awful Kevin Costner, but you get used to him after a while). Above all, perhaps (even though based on real events), it's one of the most superb mysteries ever--especially since lots of it is left to you to puzzle out (and good luck). A big maze of genius. A

Natural Born Killers (1994) -- Oliver Stone attempts to show the crap of America by making crap... which of course doesn't work to make a good movie, but just makes crap (kinda like showing boredom by making a boring movie). It's preachy, stupid, and over-directed in the worst sense of the word. F

Nixon (1995) -- Not perfect, but good. It's almost a sequel to JFK (there are pretty direct winks to that movie). Maybe the most interesting thing is that Nixon isn't seen as simply a bad guy (which I expected), but by the end he's even shown honor and respect. Well worth seeing. B

Any Given Sunday (1999) -- After a while, you say, "Ah, I see," such as when Stone shows how football players get caught up in their fame, and you assume he's up to his usual tricks of exposing America's faults. That may have been fine, but he wasn't up to that at all. I'm not sure what he was up to, but by the end, the movie turns into a regular ol' "I hope we win this football game!" movie, and by that point so much nothing has gone on (for almost three hours) that you can't even enjoy it on that simple level. D