With his late partner, sleaze legend Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer pioneered the high-concept blockbuster with its shiny machinery, big stunts, sexy laydeez and pounding rock soundtrack. Since Simpson imploded on the toilet in 1996, Bruckheimer has delighted in cherry-picking indie stars and turning them into his screen bitches, buying off their artistic principles like 10-dollar crack whores. Witness John Cusack, John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi sucking Hollywood cock in the fabulous airborne hijack thrill-ride Con Air. Or Christopher Eccleston, for fuck’s sake, in the vacuously enjoyable Gone In 60 Seconds. Nicolas Cage stars in both, as well as the enjoyable Alcatraz shoot-’em-up The Rock. Tony Scott’s grainy Enemy Of The State is also a great conspiracy yarn with echoes of Coppola classic The Conversation, although his earlier submarine drama Crimson Tide is more routine.
The only real turkeys among this 10-disc set are the screamingly homoerotic Bruce Willis sci-fi romp Armageddon and the windy wartime romance Pearl Harbor, both directed by Michael Bay?a prize jerk famous for parking his Ferrari in disabled parking spaces?with all the subtlety of a turd sandwich.