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This review may contain spoilers.

I read "Shane" back in high school. It was fine. I saw the movie shortly afterward. It, too, was fine. I assume Clint Eastwood must have liked it a lot more than I did, because he essentially remade it in 1985's "Pale Rider".

"Shane" is about a gunslinger with a violent past who rides into a small community (I believe it's a community of farmers, but it's been over 30 years since I've read it so I could easily be mistaken). He befriends one particular family in this community. He sees that there is a corrupt, powerful despot trying to destroy this community of farmers in order to line his own pockets. The gunslinger, whose name is Shane, tries not to get involved for a while but, when one of the farmers is killed he cannot sit by and watch any longer and he returns to his violent ways in order to help this family and, by extension, this entire community. After he has killed a bunch of people and made the community safe, Shane rides out of town while a small boy who idolizes him yells for him to return, the boy's voice echoing through the hills.

Replace "farmers" with miners and you've got the plot of "Pale Rider". There's a 15-year-old girl who idolizes Clint's Preacher/Gunslinger character instead of a young boy (and it's a little creepy that Clint, who directed this film, has a woman who is forty years younger than him develop a crush on him in this movie to prove that he's "still got it" or something). Shane helps the farm family destroy a stump that is in their way while Clint helps the mining family destroy a large rock that is in their way. There's a one-to-one similarity between "Shane" and "Pale Rider" that is even more obvious a homage than "Logan" was to "Shane", despite the fact that "Logan" included actual footage of "Shane" itself. I don't get why James Mangold and Clint Eastwood love "Shane" so much, but it's cool. I'm not going to complain about people paying tribute to something they love, though I can still complain that it isn't my cup of tea.

Personally, I've always thought "Shane" was overrated...which is why I'm kind of lukewarm on this film AND "Logan". They borrow the structure and story beats of something that I only feel is "all right" and so I can't get too excited by either of them. They're just as "all right" as "Shane" was, so I guess both of these homages are equally successful.

Aside from borrowing the story/plot/basic characters of "Shane" wholesale, "Pale Rider" is fairly routine in most other ways too. We've seen Clint do this sort of thing, and better, for about two decades by the time this movie was released. He rubs a bit of "High Plains Drifter" on this "Shane" riff too (both films have a mysterious stranger riding into town, a Man With No Name, though the Pale Rider is a preacher while the High Plains Drifter was...definitely not) but adding an additional thing that we've already seen to spice up the first thing we've already seen before doesn't exactly kick it up a notch.

All of that being said, the locations are beautiful and captured with an artful eye. The gunfights are well executed and there's a pretty great scene where Clint beats the hell out of some guys with a stick. The movie is also filled with great character actors with great faces that look authentic in a frontier setting. But the plot is so tired, as are most of the other elements. Clint could do this sort of thing in his sleep and, here, it feels like that might be exactly how he's doing it. It's all fine but it's all so...basic.

But I'm still giving this three stars because seeing Clint kick ass while wearing a cowboy hat (or in any other way, really) is almost always worth at least three stars...even if this is one of my least favorite instances of that happening onscreen.

Looking at his filmography, "Savage" Steve Holland has technically made more than three movies but most of those seem to be "Made for TV" efforts and so forth. I know the dude is probably thriving within the Nickleodeon machinery or whatever, but I really wish he'd made more than three hysterical theatrical films (this, "One Crazy Summer", and the woefully underseen "How I Got Into College") because his is a gonzo cinematic voice that I really respond to.

Of those three films, "Better off Dead..." is probably his masterpiece.

Lane Myer (a 19-year-old and impossibly baby-faced John Cusack) has an eccentric family. His mother fails spectacularly at every domestic task she attempts but, unfortunately for the rest of them, keeps obsessively trying anyway. His younger brother, Badger, is a horny 9-year-old genius who builds laser guns and space shuttles around the house when he's not trying to pick up trashy women. His father is engaged in a war with the local paperboy that suddenly encomes the rest of the family. So his homelife is a surreal nightmare, but at least he has the perfect girlfriend, Beth (Amanda Wyss)...until she breaks up with him and sends him into a suicidal tail spin. How could Lane possibly live without such a perfect woman in his life?

"Better off Dead..." is surreal, bizarre, and extremely goofy. But in its own oddball, silly fashion it chronicles the gauntlet of pain and humiliation that is teenage life. It is as absurdist and hilarious as a Zucker/Abraham/Zucker movie but the raw nerve of the teenage experience, though exaggerated marvelously for comedic effect, throbs under every insane moment like a toothache. It lampoons and exaggerates every terrible aspect of being teenager, but it never undermines those aspects. The movie has some wacky failed attempts at suicide, but the pain that prompts those suicide attempts is vibrantly essayed.

But, most importantly, "Savage" Steve (incidentally, more directors need goofy adjective nicknames) has a distinct cinematic style and voice (which is why I wish he'd made more than three films) and delivers consistently hilarious sight gags and silly set pieces that come at the inherent melodramatic absurdity of teenage life from a beautifully off-kilter perspective.
There is an army of disgruntled paper boys and a dancing hamburger (when I hear the Van Halen song "Everybody Wants Some", that dancing hamburger is still the first thing I think of...sorry, Richard Linklater) and whatever Lane's mom is making in the kitchen but my personal favorite gag is probably the running joke involving the Asian drag racers. Holland is excellent at conjuring truly unique and gut-busting set pieces bursting with imaginative details and vibrant energy. The film is a non-sequitur delight from beginning to end.

John Cusack provides the movie with a strong center for this glorious chaos to swirl around. He gives the movie a wounded emotional core which gives these silly shenanigans a sneaky depth. Curtis Armstrong (best known as "Booger" from the "Revenge of the Nerds" films) is a great wacky sidekick with a fantastic look (the top hat is a great touch). And Diane Franklin steals the entire film as a French exchange student who longs for Lane from afar and eventually helps pull him out of his funk. She might be my favorite "soul mate who was under your nose the whole time" character from 1980s teenage comedies (and there were a LOT of them).

These actors assist Holland in giving this chaos a sense of heart that makes it more than a mere series of wacky, wild, surreal, hilarious gags. But even if WERE just a series of hilarious jokes amplifying the absurdity of being a teenager, "Better off Dead..." would have more than enough entertainment value to recommend it. (It's got some underrated skiing stunt footage as well.)

First of all, look at that fucking poster! I ed this movie being merely all right, a middle-of-the-road Clint Eastwood picture, but I purchased it on blu-ray at a pawn shop merely because the cover art was that badass Frank Frazetta painting of Clint looking like a mythic hero with Sondra Locke clutching him like a damsel in distress. I mean, owning that piece of art in some form alone is worth the $5.99 I paid for the disc. If I had a conversion van, I'd be tempted to paint this image on the side.

Does the movie live up to that poster? Could ANY movie? If you had asked me a week ago, I would have said "No" but rewatching "The Gauntlet" it has risen substantially in my regard. It's still not quite worthy of such badass poster art, but it's closer than I expected.

"The Gauntlet", for those of you who did not spend a weirdly large amount of your teenage years watching Clint Eastwood movies, stars Clint as Ben Shockley. Ben is not a model cop. He is, in fact, the sort of cop that Dirty Harry would sneer down his nose at in disgust. When we first meet Ben, he is staggering out of a bar at sunrise (to an excellently jazzy piece of score by Jerry Fielding), driving to the precinct at which he is stationed, and stumbling out of the car for a meeting with a by-the-book new police commissioner played by William Prince (who will eternally be one of the CIA dudes from "Spies Like Us" to me). As he stumbles from his car, disheveled and unshaven and wearing a scorpion bolo tie, a bottle of Jack Daniels falls from his lap and shatters on the curb. Pat Hingle, as his best friend, tries to make him more presentable as he walks toward his meeting but Clint is too drunk/hungover to give a shit (when told that he should have a tie because Prince's commissioner is so strict he responds by growling "Fuck him").

These are five glorious minutes, and I was pretty much putty in this movie's hands by the time Clint reached Prince's office. Prince assigns him to transport a prisoner back from Las Vegas to testify in a trial. Eastwood doesn't ask what trial or why, he just staggers to the airport. Once in Las Vegas, he learns that his prisoner is a woman (a prostitute played by Sondra Locke) and furthermore learns that the casinos are taking bets against him getting her back to Phoenix for the trial.

Almost immediately, people begin trying to kill Clint and he realizes that this assignment is going to be much harder than he anticipated.

I love seeing Clint play such a fucking loser here. He does a pretty great job in this character. He's crabby and seems realistically hungover throughout the film. His character makes a lot of stupid decisions but those decisions make sense for his character. We get the sense that Ben Shockley is SUPPOSED to be kind of a dumbass, that's why he was chosen for this duty in the first place (it quickly becomes apparent that there are corrupt elements within his force that don't want him to succeed, thus they've selected the biggest loser on the force for this task). It takes entirely too long for Shockley to wise up and realize what most audience will already have figured out, but this is a feature and not a bug. It's part of the story, and I loved that element. I loved the fact that the mob is taking bets against his task as well. I've never seen that in a movie before.

I loved Sondra Locke in this movie too. I can usually do without her, but I love how antagonistic she is toward Shockley. Again, this makes perfect sense. The guy is a dolt and he's taking her into grave danger, why wouldn't she try to thwart him and insult him at every turn. Sondra always exudes a kind of cynical anger in her roles and here it fits the character perfectly. She has a wonderful moment in the back of a police car responding to some truly gross misogynist bullshit from Bill McKinney (perhaps the leading scumbag of 1970s film) that allows her to shine and deliver some crackling dialogue in a really mesmerizing way. This movie might be the best showcase that Clint ever gave her.

Though, speaking of misogynist bullshit, there is yet again (as in every Eastwood movie featuring Ms. Locke) a scene where a group of thugs strips her down and tries to assault her. As much as I have always loved Eastwood, I'm beginning to realize that he doesn't have the most enlightened attitude toward the women in his movies (to put it mildly). Locke fares better here than most of his female characters, eventually proving herself the smarter person in their partnership and doing most of the thinking. But he still feels the need to display her breasts and have her get pawed over, which bothers me. It wouldn't be so egregious if this were the only movie in which something like this happens, but it isn't. It was, in fact, a running theme throughout much of his work in the 1970s (and beyond, since Locke being assaulted is the entire plot of "Sudden Impact" though there, at least, her character is allowed to shoot the motherfuckers responsible).

But aside from that scene, I pretty much loved "The Gauntlet". It has some wonderfully quotable dialogue (I have never forgotten "I've got this badge and this gun and I've got the love of Jesus in my pretty green eyes") and a gritty, down-and-dirty atmosphere (most of Eastwood's films have this vibe and that's a big reason I probably appreciate them so much), a fantastic score by Jerry Fielding (it's maybe the jazziest score of any Eastwood film), and perhaps the most action of any movie Eastwood has ever made.

The action in this movie is truly spectacular, and the major reason that I adored this movie on this particular viewing. A house gets demolished by gunfire and collapses in upon itself. There are several great vehicular chases peppered throughout the movie...the best of which is a desert chase in which Clint and Sondra are on a motorcycle being pursued by assassins in a helicopter. These sequence had my jaw on the floor. I had seen this movie before, but I had totally forgotten about this sequence and I cannot fathom how because it is true HOLY SHIT stuff. This sort of thing just used to be more commonplace, I guess, which is why it previously didn't make a lasting impression. But seeing something this spectacular done with physical stuntwork, a real desert highway, and an actual helicopter after seeing a couple of decades of CGI is truly astounding to me at this point. Only Tom Cruise is doing this kind of thing today. The movie's finale, which involves the titular "gauntlet" of police firing bullets into an actual bus as it rolls down a city block, is also HOLY SHIT content of the highest caliber. It's frankly amazing stuff, and Clint orchestrates and executes it with impressive staging and cinematography.

"The Gauntlet" has gone from being a mid-level Eastwood flick to being one of my favorites based solely on this viewing. It's an incredible feat of action filmmaking that feels like "Midnight Run" with a healthy dose of '70s paranoid thriller (literally everyone they meet seems to be trying to kill them and they can trust almost no one) and the sort of beer-drenched scuzziness that you can only get in mainstream films of this level in the 1970s. It's truly a hell of a thing.

What I appreciate about the "Shrek" sequels is that they're all about the aggravations of adult responsibility and how modern man wants to escape those responsibilities and live like a child.

Shrek has adjusted to being married and successfully dodged the responsibility of running a kingdom, but now he has three children. He loves his kids, but the stress of being a parent wears away at him. He finds himself nostalgic for the days when he could do whatever he wanted, like roaming the forest and terrorizing the townspeople. When Rumplestiltskin offers him a magical chance to have one day of living like he used to, Shrek agrees. But, of course, there is a catch and Shrek awakens to find himself in a world where he has never existed...just like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life".

I love my wife and kids...but I can relate to Shrek. Sometimes I miss my carefree single days when no one was around to scowl at me when I spent the day watching movies instead of whatever they wanted me to do instead. When your kids are getting on your nerves (and maybe your wife too) you forget how lonely you were before they were around and start romanticizing your single days...even though, at the time, you wished you had someone to keep you company. It is human nature to think things were better (or would be better) under different circumstances and for all the "It's a Wonderful Life" plot borrowing and silly fairy tale jokes, that fundamental truth gives "Shrek Forever After" a surprisingly effective and affecting emotional core.

Or maybe it's just me, maybe my kids have REALLY been driving me crazy lately. (They seem incapable of putting anything away after using it or cleaning up after themselves no matter how often I get after them for these things. I can yell at them until I'm green in the face and it doesn't make a difference. I've tried taking away their devices and/or banishing them to their rooms. My wife and I have tried EVERYTHING we can think of and it doesn't seem to matter. If Rumplestiltskin showed up and offered me some kind of treacherous bargain, I can't guarantee that I would on it.) It's probably depressing how much I can relate to Shrek, quite honestly (I can relate to him in the previous sequels too. Responsibilities are a major part of life, but they're also such a pain in the ass sometimes that one begins to wonder if they're worth the bother at all.)

Anyway, that's the main reason I enjoy "Shrek Forever After" but it has other things that I enjoy as well. Warrior Princess Fiona is easily the hottest Fiona has ever been in one of these flicks, for example. (Anyone else with me on this one? If not, I don't care. I must speak my stupid truth.) Fat Puss in Boots cracks me up. Rumplestiltskin is a legitimately great villain, probably the best one this series has offered up since Lord Farquad. I like the other ogres that we meet in this film, probably because they're voiced by people like Craig Robinson and Jon Hamm, people I've always enjoyed. The set pieces are pretty fun. Shrek's awkward attempts to romance Fiona amuse me quite a bit. The animation is really good as well. Little details like Shrek's stubble are probably the most impressive in this series so far.

Honestly, the "Shrek" movies are probably underrated...by my generation anyway. I think the younger generation worships these movies (that's the vibe my old ass gets from the Internet anyway) and maybe they're onto something because even the worst of these Shrek flicks have a thematic core that I can embarrassingly relate to. Again, maybe I'm a lunatic...but I don't think I'm the only one who finds myself nodding in recognition with the grievances of a green ogre.

Jim Kelly, of "Enter the Dragon Fame", plays "Black Belt" Jones. As you might expect from the catchy nickname, Jones is a martial arts master. In the opening scene we see him dispatch a bunch of assassins who are trying to kill a diplomat with only his hands and feet (okay, I think he might shoot someone in the ass after disarming them). Right off the bat, this movie establishes that Jones is no joke. Kelly is a true badass, and he's got ample charisma.

From there, we learn that a bunch of mobsters are trying to grab a portion of town that's about to be worth a bunch of money...but, wouldn't you know it, there's a karate dojo smack dab in the middle of it. The dojo is run by Scatman Crothers, who sports a truly terrible toupee in this film (but it's, like, endearingly bad) and he doesn't want to sell it (the dojo, not the toupee). So one of the mobsters, named "Big Tuna", gets another of the mobsters, named "Pinky", to lean on Crothers to sell his dojo. Crothers dies when they lean on him too hard, and Black Belt Jones springs into action with the assistance of Crothers's estranged daughter (a feisty badass named Sydney and played by Gloria Hendry).

The story is incredibly routine, but the action sequences are generally a lot of fun. There's a wonderful sequence where Hendry and Kelly fight as a form of flirtation on the beach. There's another sequence where Kelly beats a bunch of mobsters in a dark room (he even jokingly claims to be "Batman" during this sequence). There's a fun bit where the martial arts students whup on a bunch of henchmen and then Scatman himself leaps into action alongside them. (Watching Scatman Crothers kick a little ass is enough for me to recommend this flick all by itself.) There are various other martial arts exhibitions peppered throughout the film as well. The non-ass-kicking highlight of the film is probably when Pinky starts essentially rapping about cool he is (Malik Carter is a lot of fun as the most noteworthy villain).

But the direction, by Robert Clouse, is fairly pedestrian and the story is sooooo boringly basic that these bursts of martial arts mayhem aren't quite enough to raise this to the level of greatness. Those sequences are fun, though, and the movie has enough personality and flair to almost compensate for the drabness of everything else. Jim Kelly and Gloria Hendry have enough charisma to make this worth watching all by themselves. But one wishes there weren't so many slow stretches or...or that there was a more unique plot driving all of this mayhem. Still, it's a fun combination of Blaxploitation and martial arts that serves as a cool demo reel for Kelly's physical prowess and his particular form of "cool".

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

I don't think Clint Eastwood and I align politically, based solely on the "empty chair" speech at the RNC several years ago, but I can get behind the view of America that he offers up in "Bronco Billy".

Eastwood portrays "Bronco" Billy, a rootin' tootin' gunslinger who travels from town to town with a group of underpaid misfits putting on a wild west show for the public. Very quickly we understand that these people wouldn't fit in regular American society (eventually the movie explains why each of them has landed in this ramshackle circus) but Bronco Billy doesn't judge them. He offers them a place in his makeshift society and each of these misfits love him for it. They might bemoan the fact that they don't get paid regularly, but Bronco Billy provides for them and cares for him as best he can.

Eastwood's film reminds me of the Bruce Springsteen song "The Land of Hope and Dreams", where the Boss talks about America as a train full of losers and winners, whores and gamblers, saints and sinners. Springsteen pictures America as a place where everyone is welcome and everyone is given the chance to realize their particular dreams. That's exactly what Billy's traveling circus is: a place where everyone is welcome. But the dreams they're working to make manifest are definitively Billy's dreams. This makeshift family (as quirky and scruffy as any found in a Wes Anderson picture) don't really have dreams of their own, but they can put their talents to work in realizing Billy's dreams. What ARE Billy's dreams? To entertain, pure and simple. Though they barely have two nickels to rub together, Billy makes sure they put on free shows for orphans and mental patients. He gives his last dollar to bail one of his ad hoc family out of jail. He's tough and sometimes he loses his temper, but he's a big softie who doesn't care about money except as a means for improving his meager Wild West Show and making it better.

"Bronco Billy" is not a perfect movie. Not even close. Like the misfits that form its cast of characters, it is ramshackle and scruffy. The story feels meandering, though as I analyze it now it seems surprisingly focused in my memory...which means this movie is actually pretty cool from a structural standpoint. I love movies that feel as though they're being made up as they go along. Aside from being a dream of how America could work (why else would the tent be entirely made from American flags by the end credits?) "Bronco Billy" also feels like Eastwood's attempt at a screwball comedy. Sondra Locke's character is a spoiled heiress who essentially gets kidnapped by Eastwood and company when she is stranded at a cheap hotel by Geoffrey Lewis (who was already a big part of Eastwood's stock company by 1980) and Billy needs a lovely assistant for his act. Locke has nothing but disdain for Eastwood and his cohorts at first, but she eventually comes to appreciate how Clint takes care of everyone. She finds a home among these misfits, and the way in which this happens feels authentic and sweet. Locke isn't a great actress (I've never really warmed up to her) but she does well in this part and she won me over by the end. Though there is a sequence where someone attempts to rape Locke here which made me realize that someone attempts to rape her in every Eastwood movie in which she appears (from what I recall). The fact that he staged a scene like this and put his real-life girlfriend in it in multiple films is pretty creepy, when you think about it.

I found "Bronco Billy" on DVD at a thrift shop a while ago and I figured that Eastwood's 95th birthday was as good an excuse as any to finally check it out. It's a much warmer, sweeter movie than Eastwood's usual fare (though, as I already mentioned, it does feature an attempted sexual assault and a scene in which Clint shoots a couple of guys) but it has a wonderful laidback, inclusive vibe that I quite enjoyed marinating in. It's shaggy but it's still kind of beautiful. It's full of country songs and beer drinking and thus feels of a piece with his orangutan epics of this same time period, but it's more sophisticated (honestly, most movies are more sophisticated than "Every Which Way But Loose" or "Any Which Way You Can") and loving. Eastwood clearly loves these misfits, and as a result we end up loving them too. They deserve a place where they can fit in and Eastwood/Billy has given them one.

Happy Birthday, Clint...and God Bless America!

Incidentally, this was the first movie that Scatman Crothers made after "The Shining" and I love the anecdote that when Clint called Cut and said they had a scene after the first or second take Scatman actually burst into tears because he was so relieved not to have to do 100 takes of every scene (as he did for Kubrick). Crothers is great in this. I wish he'd made a few more movies with Clint, because the two of them have wonderful chemistry together.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Like everyone else, I the car chase. But I also the sandwich. It's easy to look like the coolest dude ever when you're tearing up the streets of San Francisco in a green Mustang. But Steve McQueen manages to look like the coolest motherfucker on Earth while eating a sandwich in a hospital room.

I mistakenly recalled McQueen making a sandwich while watching someone else get chewed out and giving them a look that silently s them slyly from off to the side of this conversation. But, watching it again, I was kind of stunned that McQueen is just eating the sandwich (Steve McQueen is probably too cool to make his own sandwich) and that what's actually happening is that he's giving a black doctor a "That's bullshit" look as oily, attention-hungry politician Robert Vaughn demands that the hospital assign a "more experienced" (AKA "White") doctor to his star witness that is barely clinging to life. I may have forgotten the exact details of this scene, but I think it's worth noting that Steve McQueen handling a sandwich was somehow one of the coolest things I have ever seen. He's not even doing anything in particular. He's not eating the sandwich in an overtly "cool" way. And yet it's still nonchalantly captivating. McQueen still captures your full attention. It wasn't quite as cool as it was in my memory, but it still illustrates how effortlessly cool McQueen was as a screen presence. He's cool in a way that barely needs to draw attention to itself.

His character, Frank Bullitt, is San Francisco police detective who has become something of a celebrity after a series of high profile cases. It's this celebrity status that prompts Vaughn's ambitious politician to choose him to safeguard Vaughn's star witness. As much of this movie is devoted to Bullitt frequenting night clubs as it is to him driving cars fast or solving crimes. His successful, posh girlfriend (she designs swanky fountains for rich people or something) is in this movie more than his superior officer. Yet despite being a celebrity cop, McQueen seems incredibly humble in the character. He's not a showboat. He's a quiet professional who only cares about getting the job done. McQueen manages to make the character feel both blue collar and white collar simultaneously, which is no mean feat. He seems laidback, but he doesn't back down when pushed. That's a fascinating combination that McQueen plays with a riveting naturalism.

I didn't even the plot of this movie, just the car chase and the sandwich. To be honest, I'll probably forget the plot all over again in a week. The movie does a good job with its unique storyline (the man McQueen is supposed to be protecting is attacked and he commits some acts of subterfuge to set up a trap for the guilty party...and learns a shocking revelation along the way) and the twists and turns it takes are engrossing.

But, let's face it, that car chase overshadows virtually everything else. The rest of the movie is pretty cool, but that chase is so much cooler that everything else just kind of fades away in one's memory. Literally thousands of car chases have been staged in films since this movie. You'd think that would mean that this particular chase would be dated, wouldn't be as exciting as it initially was. But you'd be wrong. This car chase is still pulse-pounding and impressive. A lot of that has to do with where the cameras are placed, we're often sitting shotgun during these chases which makes us feel like an active participant. The fact that McQueen is doing his own driving also contributes to the coolness factor. But mainly, the reason "Bullitt's" car chase is still legendary is because it's a wonderful example of near-silent storytelling. It's a short movie in and of itself, really, with set pieces layered WITHIN this set piece and its own narrative twists and turns. It reveals information about the characters involved, it's pure kinetic fireworks, it tells its own story (though it doesn't further the overall story all that much...in fact, one could say that it distracts from the story to a degree that might actually be problematic) it does about everything that such a sequence can possibly do. It wasn't the first car chase, but it was the one that set the bar for all car chases to follow.

This whole movie is just cool as hell, somehow. The Lalo Schifrin score is just the coolest jazz shit you've ever heard, mellow but somehow badass. The Pablo Ferro titles are surreal and engaging. The movie is filled with little details that lend everything a striking authenticity, like the terminology used during a life saving operation or how a wounded officer is transported in an elevator. These details make "Bullitt" feel like a slice of life rather than a mere exercise in cool. Though it is one of the coolest movies ever made, thanks to the arresting aura of McQueen and the tight direction and everything I've already mentioned. It even manages to make those weird 1960s costume and decor choices look cool as hell.

But I can't entirely describe why the movie IS so cool, it just is. I know it when I see it.

Watched for the second time within a week. Watched about half of it on my 65" TV at home and the other half on my phone during lunch break/while waiting for my son at a school function. Yes, I know, watching something this spectacular on your phone is a sacrilige but if you hold your phone six inches from your face it takes up as much of your perspective as watching it in IMAX...right?

I hadn't heard anything terribly good about Ethan Coen's solo directorial debut, co-written with his wife Tricia Cooke (he went from collaborating with his brother to collaborating with his wife...which I find kind of neat, actually), but the trailer started playing when I lingered too long on the thumbnail for this movie on Amazon Prime and, for whatever reason, I was in just the right mood to give it a shot.

And I'm glad that I did, because I enjoyed the hell out of this. It lacks the polish of (most of) Ethan's collaborations with his brother Joel but, if I'm being honest, that scruffiness is a substantial part of its charm. It has a pleasantly ramshackle feel to it, and a frank sexuality that I really enjoyed. I love that there's a lot of bedroom talk threaded throughout this movie. It's one of the raunchiest and most sexually candid films I've seen in a long time, and that aspect gives welcome spice to the more conventional elements of the film (like the criminal caper at its center).

There's a lot of heart to this film as well, which was also an unexpected pleasure. It's a horny movie about mismatched lesbians involved in a criminal plot involving some true bozos (and the criminal bozos storyline is beyond familiar territory for the Coens, and they've done it much better than it's done here) but there's an underlying sweetness to it all that made me deeply invested in the central characters. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan have sparkling chemistry and friction together, like a lesbian version of "The Odd Couple", to the extent that the movie could have jettisoned the criminal caper altogether and still been a compelling watch.

But I liked the criminal caper, if only because it involves the most unique Macguffin I've seen in a film like this in a long time...if not ever, to be honest. The Macguffin alone makes this movie worth watching. I love the criminal bozos themselves too, Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson's characters are clearly drawn from the same portion of Coen's brain as Stormare and Buscemi's "Fargo" characters, but Coen gives them their own dynamic that is just different enough from that of Stormare and Buscemi that it works. They weren't my favorite part of the film, but I still enjoyed them. The movie also has crackling, witty dialogue as befits a Coen film.

Coen has done this sort of thing before (though the lesbian milieu is new and adds refreshing atmosphere) but even if he is retreading some of the same ground, he does so with wit, humor and heart (not to mention some fun cameos). It's no "Fargo", but I had a ball with it and I'm now even more excited to see Coen/Cooke's next collaboration later this year.

"In Country" is a Vietnam-War-adjacent story about a girl named Samantha (Emily Lloyd) whose father died in Vietnam before she was born. Her mother is living in Lexington and raising a whole new family and basically seems to have abandoned her daughter (though later in the film she seems excited to spend time with her so she's either changed her mind or Samantha has misrepresented her relationship with her mother this entire time) so she lives with "Uncle Emmett" (Bruce Willis), a Vietnam vet clearly suffering from PTSD and so haunted by the trauma of the war that he has retreated from society and become eccentric.

I respect what "In Country" is trying to do. I love that it gives Bruce Willis an early dramatic role (actually, dramatic roles were rare throughout Willis's career, he was mostly consigned to the action movie genre despite consistently showing that he had the chops to do damned near anything). I love that it attempts to shed light on the trauma endured by Vietnam vets: the trauma of war but also the trauma caused by their treatment after returning home from the war. And Norman Jewison directed some powerhouse movies in his career (chief among them "In the Heat of the Night") so there's no reason to believe that he wouldn't knock this material out of the park.

But he doesn't. I think the problem is that Oliver Stone had already covered this subject to some extent (and would cover it more exhaustively in the same year as this film in "Born on the Fourth of July") with authenticity and unflinching honesty. Jewison's attempt here, by contrast, feels a bit toothless and obviously far less personal. This feels like a TV Movie, to be honest, and it's weird that the film focuses on this teenage girl to such an extent. Okay, maybe this isn't supposed to be about trauma and PTSD. Maybe it's just about the aftermath of Vietnam even on those who weren't alive when it was happening. Maybe it's about how that war affected the national psyche and the reverberations that it is still sending through American culture more than a decade afterward. I mean, Emily Lloyd's Samantha is the focal point of the film so that s this as being the film's central theme. But Samantha, despite being the center of the story, isn't extremely interesting. She's searching for an identity to some extent, and hoping that learning more about her father will help her to know herself better. Vietnam stole physical and psychological health from the veterans in this movie, but it stole Samantha's family life. It robbed her of her father and, because her mother retreated from the entire situation after losing the man she loved, her mother. It looms over her through her uncle, who is emotionally devastated by his experience in the war, because she lives with him and often has to take care of him. Her entire life is defined by an event she wasn't even a part of, but that's what it means (arguably) to be an American. We were born in war and seem defined by it in our two-hundred-and-almost-fifty year history. We always seem to be fighting someone, and maybe it's because the legacy of war was here before us and shaped everything that came after.

Samantha is more interesting as an idea that she is as a person, and she makes some dumb decisions (which, I suppose, makes her a realistic teenage character). Emily Lloyd is pretty good in the role. I was stunned to learn, after finishing this film, that she is actually British. She has such a thick Southern accent in this movie (though my wife apparently thought that her accent was off the entire film and that her voice was pretty bad) that it hit me like learning that Bob Hoskins was a Brit after seeing "Roger Rabbit" (though Hoskins is much more convincing). But she has to wade through a lot of melodrama in this film, and it doesn't do any of the characters any favors.

Bruce Willis tries hard but fares even worse here. It's not necessarily his fault, it's the dialogue that he is burdened with delivering. Though, much as I love Willis, I gotta say that he never disappears into this role. A lot of Willis's zany charisma shines through the character and undermines him, slipping through no matter how much he tries to hide it. Joan Allen is fine as Samantha's estranged mother. But, again, she's given some soap operatic material with which to contend. Then the movie expects us to buy Stephen Tobolowsky as a Vietnam vet and...you know what? I can't. I just can't. Ned Ryerson has never handled a machine gun. Ned Ryerson has never waded through a rice paddy. Ned Ryerson has never killed a VietCong soldier and taken his ears as a trophy. He is completely unconvincing.

Though the movie does deal in its fair share of melodrama, it's also very low key and slight...and maybe that's its biggest problem. In theory a film about these themes and experiences done in this modest and more grounded manner is a great idea. But in practice this approach deflates the movie in some fundamental way. Also this movie can't entirely decide whether it wants to be a "coming of age" movie or a "trauma of war" movie and, yeah, it's both. But it doesn't do either of these things in a manner that resonated with me in any meaningful way. I didn't feel invested enough in either Uncle Emmett's story of Samantha's story that I really cared how they turned out.

I did like the ending, where Emmett and the entire family feel some measure of validation and acknowledgment while visiting the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. This is a very effective sequence that evokes all of those themes I keep peppering throughout this review, all of those fascinating ideas that have otherwise gotten lost under the soap opera content that comprises much of the film. It is simple and haunting in a way that I suspect the rest of the movie was intended to be. There was flashes of this throughout the film, and it was enough to keep me watching despite finding a lot of this pretty obvious and clunky. But it crystalizes in the finale in a genuinely affecting way, which is enough of an achievement that I recommend this shaggy but well-intentioned movie.

For decades, Hollywood attempted to make their own version of James Bond: an American spy who's as cool as the iconic British character (because God forbid another country have something cool when we don't have our own equivalent). It took me a while to realize it, but I think that Tom Cruise has finally done it. His Ethan Hunt is the closest thing Hollywood has found to its own James Bond. None of the other attempts (and there have been dozens) have worked nearly as well.

The reason that Ethan Hunt succeeds where all others have failed is probably due to the determination, maximum effort, and movie star charisma of Tom Cruise. He might even beat Bond at Bond's own game. None of the Bonds have done their own stunts to my knowledge, for instance. So he's got THAT going for him. Few of the Bond movies have ever had set pieces as cool as the helicopter chase/demolition derby in "Fallout", either (I'm trying to wrack my brain and I can't think of an equivalent...though, to be fair, that has to be one of the best action sequences I've ever seen). The "Mission: Impossible" movies also frequently feature gadgets that are at least as cool as those found in your average Bond movie, and the missions are usually harder to accomplish (as befits a film series with the word "Impossible" in the title).

The Bond movies generally have better villains though...and if we're comparing Ethan Hunt to James Bond as characters, well, Bond is still cooler. Bond is a hard-drinking womanizer with better one-liners. But, to be fair, Ethan Hunt isn't trying to emulate Bond's personality. He's got his own thing going on. He's unwilling to sacrifice a single person to achieve his goals (even if billions of lives are at stake, Ethan refuses to let a single person die to prevent those billions of death). He's loyal to his friends. He's willing to do the craziest thing ever if that's what it takes. He is, as Alec Baldwin once said, "the living manifestation of destiny". Bond might be cooler, but if the fate of the world was truly hanging in the balance I think I might choose Ethan over Bond to get the job done. Ethan has laser focus and a relentless tenacity, unwilling to do anything else until his goal is achieved. Bond tends to get distracted by hot ladies and martinis.

Plus I love the fact that, in this movie (and I think it was maybe mentioned in the original "Mission: Impossible" film) they reveal that Ethan Hunt was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. As a lifelong Wisconsinite, having lived within an hour of Madison my entire life (and there was a period of time when I lived in Madison itself) seeing this on Ethan Hunt's dossier made me unreasonably happy. It's a little thing, but I always appreciate some Wisconsin representation.

I was a bit disappointed by the previous installment of this series, but "Final Reckoning" improves on it substantially. It's longer but feels, like Ethan, more focused. I had read a couple of reviews that complained about the first hour of this film being "slow" but I found it riveting from the very beginning. I loved that the world within this film genuinely feels like one on the verge of apocalypse. Christopher McQuarrie establishes an ominous tone from the first moments, one infused with palpable dread. Civilization feels fragile here, a tone that not every movie attempting such a thing can manage. It really does feel like the world is three days away from Judgment Day (to borrow a phrase from "Terminator 2" which, since this movie feels like "Mission: Impossible Vs. Skynet", feels appropriate) and that gooses the tension instantly.

The film is marinated in tension throughout. The stakes couldn't possibly be higher, and the movie does a great job of making you feel them. The movie also manages to tie this story into the others in a way that feels a lot less sweaty than I anticipated. I enjoyed them bringing back a minor character from the original film and fleshing him out, for instance. I liked that they brought back Angela Bassett and even made her the president this time around (it made me wish that Bassett were the president in reality...seeing her deal with her own impossible situation made me shudder to think how the orange dipshit we actually have in the Oval Office would handle such a thing). I liked that Kittridge is the same slimy bag of shit that he's been since the beginning.

I actually enjoyed that the first hour focused on the story and building the world/fleshing out the characters. It made the fireworks factory that much more intense and exciting when the movie finally gets there. There aren't that many action sequences in this film, but the sequences that it delivers are pretty incredible. The movie's submarine set piece is more exciting and engaging than most underwater action scenes I've seen. And the Tom Cruise's Flying Circus sequence in the finale had me literally biting my fingernails. I've heard the phrase "nail-biting" before, but I don't ever seeing a movie that made me actually do it.

The ing characters/actors do a uniformly great job. The particular standout, for me, was the submarine commander (Tramell Tillman). He has my favorite line of the whole movie (it involves the phrase "poking the bear" or some equivalent). Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, Bassett, Katy O'Brien (who makes a strong impression with just a couple of scenes), Holt McCallany, Henry Czerny and Mark Gatiss all add personality to their scenes and, of course, Tom's team (Pom Klementieff, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell, and Greg Tarzan Davis) are great too. Every element of this film is firing on all cylinders and it's a joy to be put through this particular wringer. Esai Morales isn't my favorite villain of this series, but I probably want to punch him more than any of the others so I think he gets the job done.

Sure, you could probably pick apart the plot if you really wanted and it borrows elements from "The Hunt for Red October", "Terminator 2", and "Fail-Safe". But it borrows those elements really well, quite honestly, and integrates them nicely. Sure the finale is basically just the finale of "Fallout" but with biplanes instead of helicopters. But it works. And, yeah, the movie once again talks up Ethan Hunt as a selfless messiah figure but...well...he kind of is. It's mildly derivative but it has a propulsion and intensity that most action films would kill for. It's a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride made with impeccable skill and I had an absolute blast.

If this is the last ride of Ethan Hunt, he's gone out on a hell of a high note (not as high as "Fallout"). Though, after the alleged "retirement" promised by the third installment, you'll forgive me for not quite fully believing that this is the series finale. This franchise has tried to fool me too many times.

There's some awkward editing, a choice involving a major character that still irks me, and it's entirely too long. But the third act compensates for a lot of those issues and sends you out on a high note.

Goldie Hawn is a recently divorced librarian who isn't ready to plunge back into the dating scene. In the opening scene her eyes meet those of a cute guy at a party, but then that guy causes a small calamity with his klutziness and she loses interest.

Things seem better when she picks up a handsome hitchhiker (who looks vaguely like Gene Wilder...and, since Colin Higgins, the director of this and screenwriter of "Harold and Maude", had previously written Arthur Hiller's "Silver Streak" in which Wilder starred maybe he had originally wanted Wilder to play this part and simply cast an off-brand Wilder when the real deal was unwilling/unavailable). The hitchhiker asks her to hold his pack of cigarettes (weird but okay) and meet up with her at a film noir festival at the Nuart. It originally looks like he stands Hawn up, but then he does show up...although he has mortal injuries and dies at her side leaving her only the words "Beware the Dwarf". She alerts the theater manager but, when he comes to investigate, the hitchhiker's body has disappeared.

From there "Foul Play", like "Silver Streak" come to think of it, turns into the sort of vaguely Hitchcockian comedy/murder-mystery/thriller that became popular during this time and lasted well into the 1980s. It might well have been the box office success of these two films that started this trend, actually, so maybe we have Colin Higgins to thank/blame for every comedic Hitchcock riff that came afterward.

The plot is shaggy and involves a conspiracy to kill the pope (or something). It's engaging enough to keep everything moving and give it some kind of shape, but the real reason to watch "Foul Play" is to see Goldie Hawn headlining a movie. There was a time when she was regularly doing so, and thank God because Goldie Hawn is among the most adorable actresses of all time. One can't help but care what happens to her, probably because of those huge blue eyes and her intoxicating smile. But it's not just her looks, she's got movie star charisma as well and puts it to full advantage here.

She also has crackling chemistry with Chevy Chase. If I'm not mistaken, I think this his first attempt at movie stardom after leaving "Saturday Night Live". When I first watched this film, as a kid who thought Chevy Chase was one of the funniest guys ever, I was initially disappointed because Chevy wasn't in smart-ass, one-liner-delivery-system mode like he would be in essentially every film made after this one for a decade (at least). He's fairly subdued here, but demonstrates ample charm that makes a compelling case for him being a leading man. If he'd continued along this path, he could easily have been the Cary Grant of the 80s instead of...whatever he was instead (Chevy Chase, I guess). He's handsome, sweet, and he also gets to deftly execute a lot of pratfalls and slapstick shenanigans...probably because that was his main claim to fame in that first year of SNL. The two of them are terrific together. It's no wonder they got paired again in "Seems Like Old Times", though it's kind of mystifying that they were never paired after that (though I suspect that the success of "Caddyshack" probably inflated Chevy's ego and made him think that he didn't need Goldie muscling in on his stardom).

In addition to these engaging leads, the movie benefits from a remarkable ing cast that elevate virtually every moment. Burgess Meredith is a particular standout as Goldie's surprisingly ass-kicking landlord (he also owns a snake, and the snake has a moment reacting to a pack of cigarettes that easily got the biggest laugh of the film from my wife). There's also Brian Dennehy, who is always a pleasure to watch. But the MVP of the ing cast, and maybe the entire cast full stop, is Dudley Moore. The scene where Hawn picks up Moore at a singles bar and accompanies him back to his place to escape from some villains is easily the funniest sequence of the entire movie. This might be the funniest thing I've ever seen Moore do onscreen, to be perfectly honest. He's great in subsequent scenes as well, but this initial sequence involving Moore is gut-busting, legendary stuff. It absolutely slays me every time I see it.

Sure, "Foul Play" is a little frayed around the edges and the whole plot doesn't entirely convince. But the thriller sequences AND the comedy both work pretty well. The cast is great. The San Francisco atmosphere gives the movie a lot of personality (and the credits sequence that just shows a car winding down the Pacific Coast highway to the tune of a goddamn amazing Barry Manillow song is worth buying the stunning Kino Lorber 4k disc all by itself...Thanks Barnes and Noble sale!) and there's a great race-against-the-clock sequence during the finale involving a car hauling ass through the streets of San Francisco that still knocks my socks off. In fact, I probably appreciate it more than ever because I'm starving for stunts and location shooting during this digital age. If there was something like this in a modern film it would be talked about for months but in 1978 this was just a standard comedy, no big deal. We used to be a proper country, and so forth.

Watched on Saturday May 24, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 24, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 24, 2025.

Margaritas and "Con Air". Summer has officially begun.

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

Of all the planets in the "Star Wars" universe, Endor might be the place I'd most want to hang out. That tree village is cool as hell, and those Ewoks definitely know how to party.

Meg Ryan is engaged to Timothy Hutton. Yeah, I know, she could do better. But apparently Hutton didn't get that memo because, while on a business trip in Paris, he falls for a French hottie and drunkenly calls Ryan to inform her that the engagement is off. Hey, at least he had the decency to break things off before they were married. I respect him for that much. If anything, Ryan dodged a bullet. It was probably only a matter of time before he hooked up with someone else anyway.

But, of course, Meg doesn't see it that way so she hops on a plane (even though the opening scene establishes that she has a paralyzing fear of air travel) to Paris to find Hutton and win him back. On the plane she is seated next to Kevin Kline, who plays a French scoundrel returning to Paris with contraband. He slips the contraband into Meg Ryan's purse, rightfully assuming that no one will search her bags, but then gets separated from her once they land.

Thus begins a series of shenanigans involving stolen bags, a friendly police inspector played by Jean Reno, hotels, and one of the most beautiful vineyards you've ever seen in your life (this movie was released the same summer as "A Walk in the Clouds" so vineyards were clearly having a moment 30 years ago). As I said in my "Forget Paris" review, it's kind of odd that both the stars of "When Harry Met Sally..." released -related romantic comedies in the same month but it happened and they're of similar quality, actually. "French Kiss" doesn't have the same unique structure as "Forget Paris", it's actually pretty straightforward (like most romantic comedies). In fact, you essentially know where this movie is going virtually every step of the way. But it's one of those movies where the predictability of the plot is actually satisfying. It's kind of soothing to know exactly where this movie is going at any given moment. It's relaxing, like slipping into a warm bath with some scented candles and...uh...a Yanni CD? (Is Yanni soothing? I don't think I've ever heard a moment of his music.)

There was a reason that Meg Ryan was the queen of this genre in this era: she makes it look so easy to be adorable and charming. I love spending time with Meg, and she's particularly delightful here (but let's face it, she's usually a good cinematic hang). She's cute as a button, has fun friction with Kevin Kline, and possesses a comedic timing that is precise but feels effortless.

Speaking of Kevin Kline, I always enjoy watching Kevin Kline. This is no exception. He's charming in a scruffy yet lovable sort of way. This movie is directed (though, curiously, not written) by Lawrence Kasdan, the man who at least help bring Han Solo to life, so he knows his way around a scruffy, lovable scoundrel. Kline is a perfect fit for the role. Sure, maybe you'd prefer an actual Frenchman playing a Frenchman but I happen to find his accent highly entertaining (the way he says "Bob", for instance, has lived rent-free in my head for thirty years now) and, hell, I can't think of a single Frenchman that I enjoy watching as much as I enjoy basking in the glory of Kevin Kline.

I also like that this movie is about the importance of finding a romantic partner that shares your goals. Kline and Ryan couldn't be more different when they initially meet but I like how they discover that they want the same things out of life once they get acquainted, whereas Hutton simply listened to Ryan's dreams and goals without ever agreeing to them which, in retrospect, was a definite red flag. It's a nice little observation that gives "French Kiss" more weight/relevance than a lot of films in its genre.

The plot is pretty standard, but the charisma of the leads more than compensates for it. Kasdan has made better films, but this one has a lovely flow to it and some gorgeous cinematography of the stunning French countryside (courtesy of Owen Roizman, the DP of "The Exorcist", of all people!). The jokes land big time throughout and, slight as it should be, it all matters while it's ing in front of your eyes. As I've said before, this was the Golden Age of Romantic Comedies and, while this one isn't the greatest of the time period by any stretch of the imagination, it's better than any film in the genre that has been released in at least a decade. The genre is still alive on the Netflix and the Hallmark Channel, but none of those movies are made with a fourth of the skill, charm, and beauty of this one. If you love this sort of thing (or if you simply love Meg Ryan or Kevin Kline) then this is a forgotten treasure worth seeking out.

Paddington is back! The world needs him now more than ever. He's a kind, calming presence in a world on the verge of annihilation and I savored every moment that I spent in his company.

Honestly, I like all of these movies about the same. Apparently this one was directed by a different person than the first two but, if I hadn't noticed that in the credits, I doubt I would have figured it out. Like the first two Paddingtons it has wonderful production design, a joyous sense of humor (I was belly laughing pretty consistently), inventive adventure sequences, a well-known actor hamming it up as the villain (Antonio Banderas gets to have just as much fun here as Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman did before him and so does another high ranking member of the cast who I shan't name because I don't want to spoil the surprise). It maintains the same soothing, exuberantly silly atmosphere as its predecessors. It has the same lovely production design and creative spark. It's just as wonderful as the others.

Maybe if I watched it immediately after the first two I'd think less of it, but it's been a while since I've watched those two and I found myself just as charmed by this one as I was with the others. I missed Sally Hawkins at the beginning but Emily Mortimer is so winning as her replacement that, honestly, I didn't even think about the replacement after the first scene.

By the end, our whole family was on the edge of our seats and laughing our butts off. Hell, a neighbor kid showed up for the last act and immediately got sucked in by it. He was laughing and smiling right along with us. A highly entertaining film that I can already tell, like its predecessors, will be a comfort movie for years to come. It warmed my heart.

Random thoughts about "The Empire Strikes Back".

The way light shines off Darth Vader's helmet brings me joy.

This whole movie has such a rich, beautiful look despite its visual pallet being dark and foreboding.

If I'm being honest, "The Imperial March" is one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. Musical composition peaked right here. John Williams is the GOAT of film music, no one else even comes close.

I used to have a wampa (snow monster that attacks Luke) action figure. You could pull its arm back and it would fly forward quickly, probably so you could smack a Luke action figure (or any of them, for that matter, which is the joy of playing with action figures. You could make the wampa beat the shit out of He-Man if you were so inclined). I still regret the fact that I lost this figure somewhere along the line. I had SO many "Star Wars" action figures, and a lot of them came from this movie. I had Yoda, with a little fabric robe that you could take off...for sexytimes, I guess. (This is another thing you could do with action figures, not that I ever did. I was way too young to know about sex.) II had an ugnaught (for those of you who are not huge nerds, that's those pig-looking dudes who appear to be melting down destroyed robots). I even had a Chewbacca that came with a disassembled C-3PO that you could make him carry around in that sexy little mesh backpack thing. I wish I still had all of these figures, but I lost them somewhere along the line. When I was a stupid little kid I used to treat these action figures like buried treasure. I would dig holes in the lawn and bury them for a while and then try to where they were and dig them up later. But I was really bad at ing where they were, so I lost a lot of them that way. In my defense: the Internet wasn't invented yet.

I still have my tauntaun action figure though. It holds a place of honor in my knickknack case...though it doesn't really stand up the way that it should. I vividly recall my parents putting a wadded up piece of tissue paper between the leg t and the stomach to make it stand upright...but that was a temporary solution at best.

Looking at my knickknack cabinet (which mostly holds my wife's dolls, a Gollum figure still in its original packaging, a few ceramic figurines, and the complete series of "Tales from the Crypt" on DVD) it appears that I also managed to hold onto a Han Solo figurine in his Hoth outfit and Chewbacca. My parents told me that my Chewbacca figure was my most prized possession as a small child. In fact, when I lost it they made a special trip into town to acquire a new one for me. They almost never did things like this, so I must have been a REAL pain in the ass about it. Hoth Han is currently sitting astride the tauntaun...or, rather, IN the tauntaun because the tauntaun has a little trap door thing in its back so you can put an action figure in it and make it look like they're riding it. But since the tauntaun can't stand upright, Hoth Han is sitting inside the tauntaun while it's in a resting position.

Is Luke eating a burned bratwurst? A petrified taquito? How DOES he get so big eating food of this kind? God, space food looks terrible.

This is the most acceptable of the "Star Wars" special editions. In fact, I would go so far as to say that nothing they inserted into this one actively pisses me off. Well done, George!

I've always asserted that the original "Star Wars" was the best one but, fuck, I think I'm coming around to believing that "Empire" is actually the best just like seemingly everyone else. This thing moves like nobody's business, has that rad Luke/Vader lightsaber fight, and the chemistry between Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford is off the charts. And I've always loved the sections with Han and Leia evading the star destroyers. I find the dynamic between Han and C-3PO incredibly entertaining as well.

I think that's all I have for now. Until next time...may the force be with you!

If nothing else, "Star Wars" remains a thrilling triumph of imagination. Sure, George Lucas was inspired by "Flash Gordon". We all know that he wanted to adapt that into a new movie but couldn't get the rights, so necessity became the mother of invention and forced George to come up with an all new myth that combined elements of swashbucklers, old war movies, samurai movies, and westerns in a way that basically took the coolest parts of all those things and updated them with a futuristic sheen. But the imagination to make those futuristic leaps, to turn the swords into light sabers, to stage the WWII dogfights in space with spaceships, to incorporate robots and create entire alien species and, hell, even to come up with the word "jedi" itself...that remains staggering to me no matter how many times I've seen this film (and I have seen it A LOT).

But it's not just George whose imagination still thrills me. Take Ben Burtt's incredible sound design, for instance. Think about how cool it is to invent the way a light saber SOUNDS, the way those spaceships SOUND, the way Chewbacca and R2-D2 SOUND. I can't fathom having a mind that works that way, but thank God Ben Burtt's mind does because all of those sounds are ICONIC. These movies have the best sound design of all time. The impact of those sounds alone is kind of unprecedented. They revolutionized what you could do with sound effects, and Burtt continued to push that envelope with every film he had a hand in afterward ("Jurassic Park", the Indiana Jones series, "WALL-E", etc.) Burtt is easily the GOAT of sound design.

Creating this world on a story, visual and audio level is cool enough but the craftsmanship of all this makes it more convincing than most sci-fi epics before or since. These spaceships feel real to me because of all the little details on them. Most cinematic spacecrafts look too smooth, too polished. I love that these ships have little bumps and nodes all over them. I love that Han occasionally has to bang on the Millenium Falcon's controls to get it to work right. As a man who has owned plenty of crappy old cars in his lifetime, the mechanical issues of the Millenium Falcon give it an underrated sense of realism. Look at those robots (er, droids...which is such a cooler word): they look like shit. I mean, the designs of them look awesome. But they're scuffed and dirty. They look like they've been through hell, even when we first meet them. Like those spaceships, they look used and battered. They don't look too smooth or shiny to be convincing. Lucas and his team didn't have to include those little details, but those details are what make this world feel authentic. They make this world feel like a place you could step into.

When I revisit these films, it's not just watching a movie...it's like taking a vacation. It's like traveling to this place and hanging out with old friends. I've known Luke, Han, Leia and Chewbacca longer than I've known most people in reality (aside from my parents). They're not characters, they're family. As a kid growing up on a dairy farm and knowing that I hated farming, I have always been able to identify with Luke. He's stuck in a dead-end town, staring at those suns and dreaming of going somewhere where things are HAPPENING. He's a character in a Springsteen song, but he's getting out of that dead-end town ("It's a town full of losers but I'm pulling out of here to WIIIIIIIIN") on a spaceship instead of a muscle car. He says the most when he simply stares off at the horizon. He doesn't have to utter a word. We know exactly what he's thinking. It's perhaps the most lyrical part of the entire film in its silent simplicity.

Lucas created the most enduring myth in modern film, a world that filmmakers are still playing in to this day (to varying degrees of success), and I still marvel at his achievement every time I revisit it. It's not just his achievement, of course: it belongs to Ralph McQuarrie, Ben Burtt, John Williams, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and dozens of others. Each of them contributed a little moment, a beautiful little detail, that makes the world bigger, a little piece that further fires up the imagination.

Movies can do a lot of things, take you to a lot of places, make you feel a lot of emotions. But "Star Wars" made me feel all of those things first. It's elemental. It's spectacular yet it feels personal. It seems like disposable entertainment, but it's been so lovingly, ionately crafted that it becomes powerful, mythic, profound. Critics of the time said that it didn't mean anything, and maybe it didn't mean anything to THEM. Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you (it doesn't mean much to my wife, for example) but it still means something to me. It touches me and excites me in a way that transcends its story/characters/technical expertise. Lucas and his collaborators tapped into something at the root of human experience, and they did it effortlessly here...and in a way that grabbed us more than most openly serious films because of how unassailably COOL it all was. It brings me as much joy and touches me as deeply at 47 as it did when I was five. How many movies can you say THAT about?

"Megamind" is a fun riff on the Superman mythos with a villain (voiced by Will Ferrell) and a hero (Brad Pitt) both being sent away from neighboring doomed planets moments before an apocalyptic event and landing on Earth at the same time. Pitt's character, who grows up to be MetroMan, lands in a mansion under a Christmas tree while Ferrell's big-headed blue baby (obviously inspired by Brainiac) lands in a prison. Thus both of them have their destinies accidentally determined from their first moments on the planet and societal prejudices determine their paths as much as anything.

Yes, beneath all of the silly mischief and comic-book-related humor this is a story about Nature vs. Nurture and Prejudice. Megamind has become a villain because he thought it was expected of him. Metroman has become a hero because he had all the benefits of superpowers combined with extreme wealth and was was treated like a hero from the very beginning. If Megamind had landed in the mansion would he have become the hero? Or would his blue skin have caused the prejudices of others to treat him like an outcast despite where he landed? If you want to just enjoy Will Ferrell's antics and Brad Pitt playing with his matinee idol image, you can definitely enjoy "Megamind" for those surface pleasures (and the movie is a lot of fun in that regard) but there's meat on this movie's bones for one to contemplate as well...and I dig it for that.

The movie gets even meatier once Metroman is apparently destroyed by one of Megamind's schemes and he finally gets to control the city just as he's always threatened to do...only to find this victory to be totally hollow. He instantly misses having a nemesis and finds that being an evil overlord isn't nearly as satisfying as he thought it would be. This prompts an identity crisis. Who is Megamind without a superhero to battle? Where does he go from here?

The movie could be funnier, honestly, but I appreciate the story itself and the wonderful little ideas within it. The movie is a lot richer than one might expect from the premise/trailers and even throws a lot of delightful twists at the viewer at a pretty impressive clip. It has some sharp observations about incels woven throughout it as well, thanks to Jonah Hill's obsessive cameraman character. Tina Fey does a good job as the film's Lois Lane stand-in too, infusing that character with more depth than one might expect.

I love all of this, but for some reason I don't completely love the movie and I'm not sure why. It's doing everything right, but somehow it still feels slight to me. Maybe I got so burned out on Will Ferrell in the 2000s that I'm still unable to fully embrace any movie in which he appears (come to think of it, that might be part of the reason I like "Barbie" less than most people). Maybe the casting in general feels too obvious (Tina Fey, Brad Pitt, Ferrell, David Cross, J.K. Simmons, and Jonah Hill could all play these roles in their sleep...come to think of it, I've always had a personal aversion to Jonah Hill as well). I don't know what it is, but I should like this more than I do.

It's still a very solid movie though, with more to ponder than you'd reasonably expect.

Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan co-starred in "When Harry Met Sally..." (I know most of you probably already know this fact, but I felt that it needed stating nonetheless). So I find it strange that 7 years later they both released romantic comedies that involve Paris (this was Crystal's, Ryan's was "French Kiss") within a couple weeks of each other. I doubt that either of them planned this to happen, so I assume it was just a weird coincidence...but it IS a pretty weird coincidence.

Billy Crystal's "Forget Paris" is less of a conventional romantic comedy than it is a movie about making a relationship work over the long haul. Billy Crystal plays Mickey Gordon, a NBA referee who travels throughout the country officiating basketball games. (Crystal is obviously a big NBA fan and this choice allows him to include cameos from a variety of huge basketball stars such as Charles Barkley and Kareem Abdul Jabar.) His estranged father dies and Billy flies his body to so that he can be buried with the other of his WWII platoon. (Sorry for yet another sidebar, but this is the second movie involving Billy Crystal and written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel in which a character's father left when they were a child and never really ed them afterward. The first was, of course, "City Slickers". It seems to me like someone is working through some shit.) Unfortunately, the airline misplaces the casket. Though the silver lining is that Crystal's character meets and quickly falls in love with Debra Winger, who plays a customer service specialist for the airline.

That's one hell of a weird meet-cute, but it's only the first of many things that make "Forget Paris" unique. In fact, it's not even the first. The movie begins with Joe Mantegna telling the story of Crystal and Winger's courtship to his fiance (Cynthia Stevenson). The movie unfolds in flashback as Mantegna and then, eventually, Mantegna and Crystal's mutual friends (played by Richard Masur, Julie Kavner, John Spencer, and Cathy Moriarty) gather at a restaurant before Crystal's arrival and continue the tale of Crystal and Winger's romance, marriage, and the rocky complications that arise after they marry. Speaking of "City Slickers" (which I did a paragraph or two ago), the waiter of the restaurant is played by Robert Costanzo, who viewers may as the foul-mouthed construction worker who appears at a career day in that earlier film. Robert Costanzo isn't a household name, but I can't a movie that he didn't improve by showing up (he also tried to kill Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Total Recall").

I really enjoy this structure. It separates "Forget Paris" from the dozens of other rom-coms being released during this era. It gives the movie just the tiniest hint of "Rashomon", with ing characters giving their interpretations of the central relationship. Things like this are the reason I generally enjoy the work of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who were among the best comedic screenwriters of the 1980s and 90s. Sometimes their work was a bit sitcommy (they wrote "Father's Day", starring Robin Williams and Billy Crystal-hey, were they just Crystal's go-to guys?-and that movie is fucking terrible) but I usually find their work clever, insightful (their script for Ron Howard's "Parenthood", for instance, is downright profound at times) and consistently hilarious. "Forget Paris" isn't as funny as some of their work, but it does have a few gut-busting moments. There's a scene involving Crystal and a sperm bank, for instance, that made me cackle. And the film has some genuinely insightful things to say about the hard work required to make a relationship last between two independent-minded people. It's also nicely even-handed, respecting both Crystal and especially Winger's characters enough that we understand their perspectives and concerns. Neither of them is in the wrong here, and that's refreshing.

Billy Crystal directed this as well and he actually does a pretty solid job, IMO. He brings the script (which he had a hand in writing) to life, he nails the comedic timing, he gives a roster of great character actors a chance to shine (I haven' even mentioned the scene-stealing work of William Hickey as Winger's aging father who reads billboards as they drive) and he teases out the emotions within the film without exaggerating them to the point where they become schmaltzy. It's a solid piece of work, and kind of a forgotten gem.

Granted, Winger and Crystal don't have the chemistry of Crystal and Meg Ryan (Winger is good but doesn't quite nail the wackier moments that are required of her) but otherwise "Forget Paris" is a solid example of how well romantic comedies used to be assembled during this era, arguably the golden age of the genre. Let's face it: if a rom-com this strong were released today it would be considered the best one in like a decade.

I've been in a big time "Star Wars" mood lately, and a lot of that probably has to do with Fortnite. My kids play Fortnite (they're kind of addicted to it, really) and the new season of that game (for those who do not know) is "Star Wars" related. So I've been bombarded by the sounds of light sabers and TIE fighters for a couple weeks now.

ittedly, I found myself in the mood to watch the prequel trilogy even before that happened. People have lately been talking about how Trump's current power grabs eerily mirror aspects of Palpatine's rise to power in those movies (though Palpatine is secretly manipulating things behind the scenes while Trump is openly, flagrantly raping democracy to the cheers of his dumbfuck ers) and that made me eager to revisit them...which I did, and found them more enjoyable than I have in ages.

But once I finished the prequel trilogy, I found myself enjoying Lucas's world so much that I wanted to keep going and, since I started at the beginning of the "Star Wars" stories (are they still making that "Biblical epic"-style "Star Wars" movie that James Mangold was talking about that would chronicle the origins of the Jedi? Because I would watch the FUCK out of that), I decided to keep going in chronological order with "Rogue One".

I hadn't seen "Rogue One" in probably 8 years or so, and I was strangely lukewarm toward it at that time. This time, however, I thoroughly loved it. Is that because it's a story of people ri in defiance of a power-hungry dictator, which is more relatable right now than it's ever been? Is it because I was in the biggest "Star Wars" mood that I've been in for ages? Probably yes to both of those things, but I love the look and feel of this film. It feels of the same texture and atmosphere as the original "Star Wars" trilogy. It takes itself more seriously than those movies did, but it still has some goofy little touches like Forrest Whitaker's absurd performance and Bor Gullett that have always, for me, been part of the "Star Wars" charm. It's full of aliens and dynamic shots of spaceships (the designs of the spaceships in the "Star Wars" universe are my favorite in any sci-fi series) and genuinely spectacular moments of blockbuster spectacle executed as beautifully and powerfully as anything in recent memory.

I honestly don't know why all of this didn't grab me as much on my first couple of viewings, but I thoroughly loved it on this viewing. It's basically "Dirty Dozen" in the "Star Wars" universe with a cast of interesting characters (Ben Mendelsohn's sniveling, glory-seeking kiss-ass Krennic amuses me more every time I see him), some gorgeous cinematography, special effects that look as tactile as the practical effects of the original film, and action sequences/space battles that are as intense as anything that this franchise has ever served up. Why didn't I love this immediately? I don't know, but I'm fully on board now. It's so good that it makes me wish I hadn't cancelled Disney Plus so I could finally check out "Andor" (I'll probably be renewing that service and ditching one of my others sooner rather than later).

Probably the blandest movie of this series, but still pretty fun. Laurence Fishburne definitely should have been in more than one of these.

Also, I used to think Owen Davian was the best villain in this series but Solomon Lane owns his ass.

I was 17 when I saw "Braveheart" in a theater. I vividly that my high school English teacher, Mr. Heasley, was at the same screening I attended which, for some reason, blew my mind...even when you should be old enough to know better, it's still odd seeing your teachers out in the wild. Hell, I bumped into my elementary school art teacher at a thrift shop in my late 30s and it was still a surreal experience! I don't know why it seems like teachers should only exist within the confines of your school, but it does.

I only bring all of this up because 17 is kind of the perfect age to encounter "Braveheart". It helps that this was 6 years before the "Lord of the Rings" films existed (and, honestly, I think it helped pave the way for those films by showing that a medieval-style epic could do good box office numbers and nab awards). If I had seen this AFTER "Fellowship of the Rings", I probably wouldn't have adored it as much as I did. But at 17, Mel Gibson's medieval epic felt just important enough to transcend its roots as, essentially, a revenge movie (William Wallace doesn't want to get involved in the struggle for Scottish independence until some English prick slits his wife's throat and then he is a bloodthirsty force to be reckoned with).

Gibson is a damn good director, quite frankly. I mean, obviously there are better directors (he had no right winning Best Director over Michael Mann, for instance) but Gibson brings a ionate energy to this film that helps it overcome a somewhat episodic structure and some really obvious themes/dialogue (a crucial moment involves Gibson shouting the word "FREEDOM!" at the top of his lungs, for God's sake). In fact, the obviousness of the themes becomes a benefit in Gibson's hands. It's impossible to miss what Gibson and his collaborators are saying here, which somehow makes it all the more powerful.

The lush, stirring cinematography of John Toll and the gorgeous, soaring score by James Horner (who would essentially dust this sheet music off, tweak it ever so slightly, and use it for James Cameron's "Titanic") augment every moment. It's all so gorgeous and stirring that you can't help but be swept up in its emotional pull. At least, I can't. I find the battle sequences absolutely pulse-pounding to this day. Honestly, that moment where the Scots are all standing their ground as the English army charges full-on toward them and James Horner's score just deliriously amplifies the tension...oh God, it's bliss! I've rarely seen that moment matched, to be honest, and I've seen a shitload of movies since then!

The acting helps immeasurably also. Gibson is too old to realistically portray William Wallace (I believe I once read that Wallace was under 20 when he died...which makes sense, only a young man can summon this kind of fiery, revolutionary ion) but he's enough of a bona fide lunatic that the revolutionary zeal, righteous anger, and ion radiate off him in heat waves. His arresting blue eyes stare out of the frame and directly into your soul. He utters every word with the utter conviction of a lunatic (this lunatic conviction is what always made him such an arresting screen presence...and eventually a darker strain of that led to his public downfall) and there's a moment where he reacts to the betrayal of someone he trusts that is staggeringly effective in its emotional rawness. In that moment Gibson somehow genuinely looks like his heart has been torn out of his chest. I don't know HOW Mel Gibson always managed to make moments like that more convincing than nearly any actor that ever lived, but he routinely did so. GodDAMN this man could act!

But Gibson has surrounded himself with a fairly stellar ing cast as well. This was the first time I recall seeing Brendan Gleeson in a film, and he's just as awesome here as he would be in the next thirty years of films in which he appeared. Angus Macfadyen is excellent as a Scottish nobleman. Patrick McGoohan is a scene-stealing, PURE EVIL motherfucker that you just love to hate. Brian Cox has a brief cameo to lend the film gravitas and coolness. Even Catherine McCormack and Sophie Marceau get some wonderful moments that elevate the whole experience. Though my favorite ing turn may very well come courtesy of David O'Hara as a crazy Irishman. He's a joy to behold whenever he's onscreen.

The movie loses some steam in the back half, but by that point it has already generated more than enough momentum to carry it over the finish line. The battles are bloody and rousing and occasionally heartbreaking, and the finale is inspiring and elicited genuine tears from my 17-year-old self if I'm not mistaken. It didn't quite have that power over me now, 30 years later, and I don't know how I would have responded if I were seeing this movie for the first time and not probably the dozenth (though it had been probably twenty years since the last time I sat down and watched it). But it still held up. I don't think it deserved to win Best Picture but, hell, I don't know if "Heat" was even nominated.

Though this movie feels like a warm-up for "ion of the Christ" on Gibson's part. It's like he already wanted to make a Christ movie but he suspected that he was too old for the part so he turned the story of William Wallace into a kind of Scottish Christ allegory, with Wallace (SPOILERS) dying (on a cross, no less) to save Scotland from the English. It works, no doubt because our familiarity with the story of Christ helps us to transplant those emotions to Wallace, a figure with which Western audiences were obviously less familiar. Though it's kind of strange to consider how many times Mel Gibson has been tortured onscreen over the years and/or had the woman he loved get killed (I being absolutely shocked when this happened in SPOILER "Lethal Weapon 2"...and I recall being shocked all over again when it happened here).

I graduated from high school in 1996 and there was a guy in my graduating class named Chris who wore an "Akira" shirt to school on a regular basis. At the time, no one in my school cared about anime. Most of us didn't even know what it was (I was a huge cinephile, but I think the first anime film I watched in its entirety was "Princess Mononoke" when it hit DVD in 1999). In the mid-90s, in rural Wisconsin, anime was about as foreign a concept as one could get. Chris was ahead of the curve in a pretty substantial way. Twenty or so years later, Chris would have been considered a pretty cool guy (and, to be fair, I thought he was creative and funny and incredibly smart...in addition to the "Akira" shirt he also frequently sported a Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" shirt). At that time, in that place, was simply an enormous nerd.

I was more of a dork or maybe a geek. Nerds are generally smarter and while I did graduate with honors, I don't think I held a candle, intellectually, to Chris.

"Akira" is fine. I know it's considered one of the greatest films in the anime genre, possibly even THE greatest, but it's always left me cold for some reason. I don't even have any reasons for not loving it as much as I love the work of, say, Hayao Miyazaki. It's brutal and intense and, unlike a lot of anime that I've seen from this period, there are only a couple of animated breasts on display. I find the plot a bit convoluted, to be honest, but I appreciate the world that director Katsuhiro Otomo has created here. The film is full of action AND ideas, which is a truly stimulating balance that overwhelms my tiny mind (I think I had a tenuous grasp on some of the ideas explored in this film while I was watching it, but it's been a few days and those ideas are now elusive to me). I it that there are moments here that fired up my imagination and others that blew my mind (the finale is a bit of tragic, unsettling, spectacular body horror that probably left David Cronenberg green with envy). I wasn't completely enthralled by the characters, which is probably why I don't love this movie as much as most viewers (I prefer "Ghost in the Shell" by quite a bit), and my head was occasionally swimming as I tried to follow the plot. But I ire what Otomo does here and I definitely find it exciting to watch. It doesn't hit me in that personal place that makes me fall in love with a movie but that's obviously a matter of personal preference. But the artistry and potency of "Akira" is pretty undeniable and I doubt that this will be the last time I watch it. It's a movie entertaining enough that wrestling with its concepts and deeper meanings is a pleasurable experience...even if a lot of the film's events are decidedly unpleasant to witness.

But I'm not gonna rush out and buy an "Akira" t-shirt or anything, for instance. I wonder what Chris is up to these days. I hope he's doing well (I think I heard that he was living in Japan, which makes perfect sense) and I hope that he realized some of the awesomely intricate story ideas that he frequently told me about. Speaking of things that are overwhelming, Chris's highly detailed and imaginative story ideas often left my mind reeling as I tried to follow the complex narratives that he outlined. No wonder he loved this flick (I vividly recall that his shirt featured the phrase "Neo Tokyo is about to EXPLODE" which was rad as hell, even if I didn't know what the hell "Akira" was at the time).

Why aren't there more "Atlantis" movies? I want a whole fictional (or...is it?) historical epic about Atlantis, done in the style of a 1950s Biblical epic, with thousands of extras and tons of spectacle enhanced by cutting edge CGI. I want an epic saga of man's hubris and how it brings about an epic downfall.

But until someone finally does that, I'll settle for this kickass adventure flick from Disney studios.

"Atlantis" follows a wannabe archeologist named Milo Hatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox in what I believe was his last major role) who convinces a rich eccentric (voiced by the awesome John Mahoney) to bankroll an expedition to the bottom of the sea to find the lost continent of Atlantis. There is a lost civilization, a mystical power source, a couple of mechanical monsters, and some twists that, yeah, you'll probably see coming a mile away.

But "Atlantis" serves up good, old-fashioned adventure and exploration the likes of which we rarely get these days. I love its Jules Verne-esque atmosphere. I love the camaraderie between its characters (any movie that casts Don Novello, AKA "Father" Guido Sarducci, gets bonus points from me). I love the animation, which combines beautiful traditional animation with CGI embellishments that make the eye positively pop. This animation style makes the action sequences look fluid and breathtaking. The two styles are married almost perfectly to evoke a sense of wonder, awe, and excitement.

Watching this for the first time in well over a decade, I couldn't help but think that Disney was stealing a page from the Studio Ghibli playbook. "Atlantis" specifically evokes comparisons to "Castle in the Sky" with its legendary lost civilization, its mechanical marvels, and its warnings about tampering with powers that humans aren't meant to meddle with.

The only thing that holds "Atlantis" back from reaching the full heights of "Castle in the Sky" is the predictable twist at the beginning of the third act and some slapstick that isn't integrated as effortlessly as it could be. Though, honestly, "Castle in the Sky" has a lot of broad humor as well so that's a negligible complaint...especially since the humor in "Atlantis" generally makes me laugh. It's more that "Atlantis" never accesses a deeper level that gives it the emotional weight that Ghibli's films always manage to attain. It's satisfied with merely being cool/fun as hell and, honestly, I'm satisfied with that too.

I've always loved this movie. I'm a sucker for an adventure tale and it's cool to see the Disney animators bring one to life with their impressive tools and talents. It's a genuinely rousing, funny, and imaginative tale that deserves a much better reputation. Also, if Disney is hellbent on doing live action remakes of their animated catalog, this is probably the one I'd most like to see get that treatment. I can't help but think that a live action "Atlantis" (or, as I mentioned, a prequel) would be pretty awesome. I could totally see Tom Holland as Milo. Hell, I could even picture Zendaya as Kida, the Atlantean princess. See! Casting-wise, we're halfway there!

One of the greatest "sweaty face" movies ever made. I still think "Hunt for Red October" is the BEST submarine movie ever made, but "Crimson Tide" might be the MOST submarine movie ever made, incorporating every possible situation that might befall a military submarine (except for a nuclear meltdown or a giant squid attack) into its narrative. Tony Scott lights this movie like a god and brings an incredible style to everything and the actors are incredible.

I'm hoping that Gene Hackman is in Heaven right now, puffing on a stoagie and petting his Jack Russell terrier.

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

There are probably things that a movie needs which are lacking in "Heavy Metal", but those things have been replaced by something even better: boobs. Lots of boobs. So, so many boobs. More than I even ed (and I ed this movie being pretty boobtacular). Not only are there boobs (really awesome animated boobs, the kind every horny teenaged boy tried to draw when he thought no one was looking, or when he thought his friends would think it was cool, but never quite managed to capture in the animated glory that this film achieves) but this movie has decapitations and stoned aliens and monsters and a kickass female warrior riding through the sky on a fucking pterodactyl and several characters voiced by John Candy!!!

Speaking as a horny adolescent boy (I've been one for over thirty years now) this might possibly be the greatest movie ever made. I'm sorry that I didn't see this film until my twenties. It should be issued to every boy as soon as he hits puberty.

Granted, this movie does objectify women (and how). That's definitely not a thing to be celebrated. But the naked women in this film sure are! Oh shit, I got off topic again. Wait, no I didn't. The topic was BOOBS! how you used to type 58008 on your blocky digital calculator and then turn it upside down and laugh? Well, that's the perfect age for watching "Heavy Metal".

"Heavy Metal" is a fantasy film. It's a fantasy anthology, to be more accurate, telling several tales that span centuries of time and an entire universe while recounting the adventures of a sentient glowing orb that fancies itself a god and leaves a swath of destruction in its wake wherever it has gone. It seems to be narrating its adventures (and it speaks with the voice of Percy Rodriguez, the ultimate Trailer Guy Voice as heard, most famously, in the trailer for "Jaws") to a terrified pubescent girl who the orb, named Loc-Nar, has cornered in a farmhouse after dissolving her father. I don't know why the Loc-Nar wants to impress this girl so much (okay, I have an idea what he might be after...pervert) but he's laying it on pretty thick.

Most of these stories involve someone getting their hands on the Loc-Nar and then dying horrifically. Sometimes this happens the second they encounter the Loc-Nar. Sometimes the Loc-Nar possesses them (or something) and makes them do a bunch of catastrophic shit before they bite it. But, in disparate circumstances, planets and galaxies, the Loc-Nar consistently starts some shit. He's such a dick!

Despite this movie being the Loc-Nar humble-bragging about being the ultimate evil force in the universe, he doesn't come off very favorably.

Anyway, the stories are rad albeit a bit underdeveloped and kind of clunky at times in the way they manage to shoehorn violence and nudity into the narrative. But it doesn't matter. This is "John Carter" if that (delightful) movie had been closer to the books. It's a fiendishly delightful cavalcade of rock music (though, weirdly, not heavy metal...aside from like one Black Sabbath tune the rest of the music is by bands such as Devo, Journey, Stevie Nicks and a musical act I've never previously heard about named "Riggs"), beautiful yet gritty animation, imaginative concepts that get my neurons firing like crazy, pretty awesome action sequences, and comedy (the movie features John Candy, as I already mentioned, as well as Eugene Levy and Harold Ramis).

Unlike a lot of anthologies, there really isn't a bad story in the whole batch. At times the movie feels like it's trying to be a kind of edgier "Fantasia"...and it actually succeeds! But most of the time, "Heavy Metal" is like what every horny adolescent boy hoped for when he picked up a pulp novel whose cover featured a scantily-clad woman, a muscular shirtless man with a sword/ray gun, and a snarling monster. It fulfills the promise of sex, violence, and sheer cool that all of those pulp novels promised but few ever truly delivered upon (at least in my limited experience).

Am I saying that's the finest thing a film can do? No, I am not. But I AM saying that this is a fantasy crafted to anyone who wants their sense of wonder AND their libido satisfied. "Heavy Metal" is funny, sexy, creepy, exciting, awe-inspiring, sometimes brutal/nasty, and genuinely "cool" as an adolescent boy (and the adolescent boy within us all) might define it. Virtually every other movie I've seen that's trying to be as cool as "Heavy Metal" falls flat in some fundamental way (not horny enough, not imaginative enough, not "cool" enough). "Heavy Metal", on the other hand, proves more satisfying to me every time I watch it...and I definitely should watch it more often.

Douglas Sirk is the undisputed King of Melodrama and "Imitation of Life" is one of his masterworks.

All of the Sirk films I've seen so far have been pretty stellar. I think the best one I've seen is "All That Heaven Allows", though my favorite is probably "Written on the Wind" (it's the most fun). "Imitation of Life" isn't quite good enough to capture either of those titles for me, even though it seems like most of the people who've reviewed it on this app/site think that it's Sirk's triumph. But it IS damned engrossing, and perhaps the most ahead-of-its-time of all the Sirk melodramas I've seen thus far.

It's one of the finest "mother/daughter" films I've seen. In fact, it might be one of the MOST "mother/daughter" films I've seen, due to the fact that it explores not one but TWO mother/daughter relationships. You've got Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) an aspiring actress whose relationship with her daughter (Sandra Dee, in the teenager section at least) grows strained as she achieves Broadway success. And then you have Annie Johnson (an incredible Juanita Moore), a black woman who befriends Lora and offers her services as Lora's live-in maid/nanny after their daughters become fast friends.

The Lora/Susie relationship is fine, but the movie really excels the more it focuses on Anne and her daughter Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner). Sarah Jane has much lighter skin than her mother, you see, light enough that she can usually as a white girl. So she grows increasingly angry any time her mother appears at her school or workplace and ruins her attempt to assimilate. This is provocative stuff, especially for 1959, and it packs a definite wallop.

I applaud Sirk for having the guts to commit to this exploration of race relations and the artistry with which he does so. I love the framing of virtually every scene and his usual, vibrant use of color (though, maybe it was just the digital copy I watched, but this one doesn't seem quite as striking as the other films I've seen of his). Sirk could stage and film a scene to deliver heightened, sometimes thermonuclear emotional impact and that gift makes this movie soar and stick in the mind. Sirk is a wonder. I marvel at his ability to heighten every situation almost to the point of going over-the-top without ever actually doing so. He skirts right up to the edge of overdoing it, amplifying the emotions within any given scene to the point where pushing them any further would give way to camp/parody.

The subject matter is edgy and fascinating enough to ground everything, keeping the experience intense and often raw in lovely contrast to Sirk's style and the actors going quite big. It's magnificent stuff that has more social relevance than probably any of Sirk's other films. So, yeah, I understand why people think is his best work. It's a remarkable film.

I watched this one for the kids. As a 47-year-old man, I had little interest in it personally. The trailer looked stupid. The whole concept of "Minecraft" is one that eludes me. I have witnessed my children playing Minecraft in the past and why anyone would find this blocky business engaging simply boggles my mind.

But my children were dying to see this. They've been asking if I would take them for weeks. And I felt that I needed to. Maybe more than any movie of their lifetimes, this feels like an essential pop culture experience of their generation. It has quickly become memed (which is not surprising) and shared on YouTube and feels like perhaps the first real pop culture event that is completely made for their generation, not recycled/reheated from a bit of IP that was originally created for my own generation (X) and which we refuse to allow to die (my generation seems to insist that its popular culture deserves to live on forever...whether it needs to or not). I respected that and, frankly, I find that intriguing enough that I didn't totally mind driving them to a theater.

Besides, it contains footage of Jack Black and Jason Momoa and those two guys usually ensure a reasonably good time...though both have had their massive missteps here and there, so a good time was by no means guaranteed.

But, in this case, I did indeed have a good time. The movie achieved the impossible: it made me give a crap about Minecraft. That alone is worth three stars. The movie has plenty of inside jokes for the kids who are obsessed with Minecraft (even I got a few of them thanks to my ing knowledge of the game, its sound effects, and its characters) but it wisely treats the whole concept as the mystifying absurdity that people of my aged generation generally find it (though I'm sure it has plenty of fans that are in my age bracket).

I really appreciated this movie's oddball sense of humor. I laughed harder at this movie than I've probably laughed at anything in the past five years. Honestly, I was just happy to be seeing a blockbuster comedy film again. Those are an endangered species in this day and age. I don't even know why a lot of this is funny, it's mostly in the way that great comedic actors like Jack Black or Momoa (who is the film's MVP IMO, I love how game he is to look stupid and mock machismo and throw himself into the dumbest shit imaginable with the deadpan glory of someone like Leslie Nielsen) or especially Jennifer Coolidge deliver the most non sequitur dialogue I've heard in years. "People always want to sue me when I hit them with my Jeep Grand Cherokee" had me cackling with glee, for instance.

The first half of this movie was a certified blast. As the movie became more dependent on telling an actual story, one using the cliches inherent in quest/fantasy rebellion movies, my eyes began to glaze over. I think I might have fallen asleep for a few minutes somewhere in there, because a character was presumed dead and I had no memory of how that had happened. But the movie got goofy again by the end and won me back to its side by the time the credits began to roll.

The fact that my expectations for this film couldn't have been any lower probably helped my enjoyment of it, but there's no way I could dislike something this gleefully goofy. It makes me think that I've been underrating Jared Hess all these years ("Napoleon Dynamite" left me underwhelmed and confused, although I did laugh a few times). Maybe I liked this more than most of Hess's work because Hess had to tone down some of his weirdness in making a bigger budget film (the fact that he was handed the reins of something this big in the first place is kind of incredible, to be honest) though he still brings enough of his unique personality to the enterprise to set it apart from bland studio behemoth filmmaking as usual. This balance made the film more accessible to someone like me. The whole thing also made Minecraft more accessible to me, which was nice.

But, hell, I was in a theater with my kids (who loved this, unsurprisingly, and my oldest son was quoting along with the movie at several points despite the fact that this was the first time any of us had seen it!) eating nachos. The movie could have been absolute dogshit and I probably still would have had an adequately nice time.

Christopher Nolan is currently working on a big screen (IMAX, even) version of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey". This made me wonder if it's the first cinematic adaptation of the story that Hollywood has made. I mean, sure, I there being a miniseries of the tale starring Armand Assante back in the 1990s and the Coen Brothers sort of adapted it from a weird angle into "O Brother Where Art Thou" (not to mention "The Odyssey" serving as the structural blueprint for Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now") but was there ever a full-on adaptation of "The Odyssey" itself?

Of course there was, I just didn't know about it. There are probably several that have made their way to movie screens over the decades, but the one that really grabbed my attention was this one: "Ulysses". Since it wasn't called "The Odyssey", it apparently slipped under my radar. I had totally forgotten that the main character of "The Odyssey" was named Ulysses. In fact, I could have sworn that his name was Odysseus. I think that was his name in the poem when they made me read it back in high school (do they still make kids read "The Odyssey"? I'll keep an eye on my kids once they enter high school and maybe report back) but it's been thirty years (Jesus!) since I was in high school so certain details have slipped away from me in that time.

Anyway, Kirk Douglas plays Ulysses who, in classic Homer fashion, pisses off the gods (he destroys the temple of Neptune, god of the seas, during the sack of Troy...which is probably not the wisest move considering that the sea is how he's going to get home) and is made to suffer. Neptune makes Ulysses get lost on the ocean, encountering various dangers and temptations that keep him from returning home for ten years (give or take).

Kirk Douglas is perfect as Ulysses. He's got a delicious amount of confident swagger and stubborn dickishness. He's deliciously arrogant (an emotion that Douglas was able to convey about as well as any actor who ever lived) which is a magnificent fit for a character so full of himself that he essentially gives the gods the finger. He's able to convey Ulysses's inner turmoil really well also. Plus it's just so much fun to watch him go full John Wick (or did Wick go full Ulysses?) in the third act. He's pretty big here, but the entire production is full of big scale spectacle and production design so he kind of needs to be larger than life to fit the atmosphere. This is an epic tale, after all, perhaps the MOST epic tale so it makes sense that his performance strives for something epic as well.

Everyone else is fine. Anthony Quinn is good, as always, though he's disappointingly restrained compared to his usual performance style (he's not a "river to his people" or anything). Silvana Mangano brings grace and royal bearing to her role as Penelope, which is mostly what is required of her. Besides, she's clearly speaking Italian (this is one of those movies where most of the actors are dubbed into English and were obviously speaking in their native tongue, which is distracting for a little while but I quickly got used to it) so it's hard to judge.

The action is full-bodied and extremely exciting. The film seems pretty faithful to its source material (what I can of it thirty years later, anyway) bringing moments like the Cyclops and the Sirens to boisterous life. The Cyclops is obviously a dude wearing a makeup appliance over his eyes, but it looks good enough that I bought into it. I loved how the movie plays with scale during this sequence as well. It, and every other moment, worked really well for me. The production design is incredible and, as always, it's just cool that they really built all of this stuff for the film (like that cool ship!). The tone is great, though the structure of the film where we meet Ulysses after he's washed up on a beach with amnesia, means that it kind of takes a while for the film to really get going. Atmospherically, this felt like a Ray Harryhausen film without the Harryhausen effects (I can only imagine how much cooler this flick would have been with Harryhausen's stop-motion magic involved, but in most Harryhausen movies the effects are the star and that probably wouldn't have sat well with Mr. Douglas) which I can't really explain any better than that.

I'm sure Nolan's movie will be great, all of Nolan's movies are, but he's got his work cut out for him if he's going to make a better film than this. Matt Damon is cool and all, but I doubt he's going to bring the same badass swagger and delightful dickishness to Ulysses that Kirk Douglas did. This might already be one of my favorite Kirk Douglas performances and that alone makes "Ulysses" pretty awesome and well worth seeking out.

Watched on Friday May 2, 2025.

Oliver Stone's "Heaven & Earth" has one thing that distinguishes it from virtually every other Vietnam War film that I have seen: it's told from the perspective of a Vietnamese person.

It's something I never thought about until I listened to a limited run podcast about Vietnam movies a couple years ago (if memory serves, I think it was entitled "Do We Get to Win This Time?" and it was on the Ringer podcast network) but actual Vietnamese people usually exist in Vietnam War films as either villains (the VietCong ambushing American soldiers) or victims (people being brutally slaughtered by American soldiers who are "following orders"). We never see the conflict from their POV. Hell, we rarely see them as fully-developed human beings with dreams and fears who are just going about their lives while an ever-changing stream of outsiders compete to take over their beautiful country (the only exception that springs to mind is Barry Levinson's "Good Morning, Vietnam"...which is actually a pretty underrated movie at this point, IMO).

Oliver Stone made two previous films about the Vietnam War from the perspective of American soldiers involved in the conflict and this is understandable. He was, after all, an American soldier who served in Vietnam. It makes perfect sense that he wanted to capture his singular, personal experience on celluloid for posterity. But I find it irable that, for this third film about the conflict, he adapted the memoirs of Le Ly Hayslip. Hayslip grew up in Vietnam and chronicled how the War impacted her life. Stone's adherence to her story makes this probably the only film about the conflict told entirely from that perspective, and I find it fascinating.

Le Ly grew up in Paradise, but she didn't get long to appreciate it. French soldiers invaded her idyllic village when she was a little girl, and then Vietnamese rebels arrived to recruit to their forces to push back against these invaders. Then the Americans invaded her village. The Americans torture the villagers (including Le Ly) for information about the rebel forces. Then the VietCong take back the village and torture the villagers for information about the Americans. The villagers are tortured and tormented by both sides, caught in the middle of a war they never had a choice in ing.

This is bad enough but, from witnessing Le Ly's experiences, we see that women in Vietnam had it ten times worse. Le Ly is constantly being propositioned and manipulated by those wanting to exploit her sexuality. Eventually she seems to find a decent man who treats her with love and respect (Tommy Lee Jones) but War has warped him to the point where violence is second nature to him, which obviously causes some terrifying problems.

Hiep Thi Le is incredible as Le Ly. She delivers a raw, fearless performance that is tenacious and vulnerable by turns (and often simultaneously). I looked up her filmography after this to see what else she was in but, unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Hollywood knew what to do with her (she appears to have a small role in "Cruel Intentions", which gives me another reason to finally catch up with that film). But I loved her here. She conveys wide-eyed wonder at times, is open enough to occasionally be crushed, and refuses to be a mere victim no matter what Life throws at her. Hiep Thi Le handles every facet of Le Ly's life with engaging naturalism. The movie occasionally becomes melodramatic, and Hiep goes as big as she needs to when the movie calls for it (not a complaint) and is the reason that the movie retains a strong emotional core even when it makes the occasional misstep.

Stone's film feels episodic, but that comes with trying to capture a person's entire life during the course of a two hour and twenty minute film. The film is beautiful thanks to Robert Richardson's stellar cinematography and Kitaro's lovely score. It has a steady, propulsive flow thanks to Sally Menke's editing skills. Stone makes the film as raw and harrowing as it should be. There's a claustrophobia to how much we identify with Le Ly during all of the terrible situations that befall her. But I loved how Stone captures America as an alien world of casual miracles (like frozen food) when Le Ly arrives there. The sight of a fridge stuffed with junk food looks like Aladdin's Cave of Wonders to someone who has struggled to obtain a meager bowl of rice their entire life. Stone also makes such modern conveniences feel overwhelming, as they would certainly have felt to Le Ly. Personally, I think taking everyday things that most viewers take for granted and making them appear this exotic takes true skill. Oliver Stone is a remarkable filmmaker who rarely gets the respect he deserves, and such achievements are indicative of his impressive talent.

If I have a complaint with the film, it's that Stone seems to rush through the third act and glosses over Le Ly's entrepreneurial success and subsequent experiences in America in order to document her journey back to Vietnam. That section is a wonderful way to bookend the story and illustrate how the character has changed, but I would have liked to see more of her life in America after a certain tragedy as well. This is one of those rare movies that is too short, IMO. It could have used another twenty minutes or so to give us a deeper understanding of her life.

But any movie that leaves you wanting more is doing something right, and there's much to appreciate about "Heaven & Earth". I don't think it's the best film in Stone's "Vietnam Trilogy" but, honestly, I think it's just as good as the other two. All three of them benefit from harrowing dramatic moments, excellent performances (Tommy Lee Jones was so great during this era, before he just settled for being America's Favorite Curmudgeon), empathetic and insightful writing, and top notch production values. I like all three of them equally, to be honest...though "Heaven & Earth" is definitely the most overlooked of the three films and feels ripe for discovery.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Ever since I saw "Rambo 3" (this will tie in, I promise) I have thought that Sylvester Stallone in that film gave the definitive onscreen delivery of the phrase "Fuck 'em!" But unfortunately, Sly has just been usurped. There's a new "Fuck 'em" king. All hail Phillip Baker Hall! Not only does he spit the line with more rage, bile and impact but he does so multiple times throughout the film. True King Shit!

Richard Nixon fires up the tape recorder, grabs his handgun, and pours himself a few glasses of whiskey in order to...narrate his memoirs? Simply capture his thoughts for posterity? Confess his sins? Outline a political conspiracy that led him into politics, elevated him to the highest position within the political sphere, and eventually caused him to resign (though not for the reasons you might expect)?

Yup, that's it. That's the whole movie: Phillip Baker Hall playing Nixon and ranting in a single room for ninety minutes.

And it rules!

Phillip Baker Hall doesn't particularly resemble Nixon, but he somehow fully embodies the man nevertheless. His performance gets bigger, louder and more unhinged with every moment of screen time. He rants, he raves, he rages, he curses, he moves from one subject to another in a way that sometimes feels incoherent. It's a brilliant, mesmerizing, tour-de-force performance that crystallizes the character's imagined paranoia, self pity, and self loathing. It's even, perhaps, a portrait of mental illness. Nixon wants our pity yet hates every ounce of our being simultaneously. He loves and despises America. One moment he feels power-mad, the next he seems powerless. I don't know how accurate a depiction this is of the former president, but it's definitely a riveting one. Hall IS the movie. He's the whole thing. If he doesn't work, if he's even merely "good", our attention wanders and the film falls apart. Fortunately this is Phillip Baker Hall we're talking about. Not only does the film work, but he's so good you forget you're watching an actor and just brace for the fucking hurricane. Phillip Baker Hall could elevate an entire movie just by lending it his presence for a single moment, so watching a movie entirely crafted around letting him cook is a rare treat. He almost NEVER got this kind of showcase (only in "Hard Eight", my recent rewatch of which finally spurred me to cross this one off the Ol' Watchlist) and he makes an eight course meal out of it. His performance is volcanic yet vulnerable. He's a pathetic powerhouse. It's little wonder that PTA, an avowed Altman fan, saw this film and chose him to lead his first film (and lend crucial assistance to two others).

Speaking of Altman, you might not think he can bring his trademarked "overlapping dialogue" approach to a film about a single character but I'll be damned if he doesn't somehow do it anyway. This version of Nixon is such a spellbinding contradiction that he sometimes seems to be talking over...himself. Altman helped coax this performance out of Hall, I assume (or he saw Hall perform the play and merely felt compelled to capture it for cinematic posterity) and played with the editing and the camera work and this single room to such an extent that I never got tired of looking at it for ninety minutes (which is a neat trick all by itself). The single room setting tightens the noose around Nixon, helps us feel that the walls are closing in on him just as he undoubtedly does. The atmosphere is perfect and complements this performance beautifully.

An electrifying movie that couldn't be simpler, yet also couldn't be more chilling and profound in its content and impact.

I must be honest: this is exactly the kind of shit that I'd probably write if I continued trying to be a writer. The idea of someone accidentally hitting a unicorn with their car? That's just the sort of thing that I could see myself getting jazzed about. Though the novel I'd pen from this premise would probably be too rambling, encoming tons of mythology and characters and wacky situations and I'd keep adding sub-plots and ideas until the whole thing crashed under the weight of its own unwieldly ambition (that's why I gave up on writing novels and just write these rambling, unwieldly reviews instead).

"Death of a Unicorn" is tightly focused, for the most part. It tells a straightforward story from this fun premise, and adds obvious themes about the American pharmaceutical industry, greedy capitalist assholes, bad parents distracted by their careers, and killer unicorns. It's kinda clunky, the visual effects range from neat practical effects to underwhelming CGI, and though it makes sense that Paul Rudd's character is a ive wimp easily bullied by rich people it doesn't make him an engaging protagonist...like, at all. Jenna Ortega fares a bit better, but her ittedly understandable annoyance with Rudd's character (she portrays his daughter) makes her hard to latch onto as well.

Still, it's fun to watch rich assholes get their comeuppance. It's nice to see Tea Leoni and Richard E. Grant onscreen again (especially since Grant's rich douchebag character sometimes feels like he's channeling his Darwin Mayflower character from "Hudson Hawk", which is the character that made me fall in love with him as a performer in the first place). Will Poulter has impeccable comedic timing. I liked seeing Jessica Hynes of "Spaced" fame get to play a gun-wielding badass. I loved seeing unicorns stab the shit out of people with their horns. Seriously, I never got tired of it...though it happens A LOT.

The movie could have used some more surprises, since it kind of progresses exactly as I thought it would every step of the way. In fact, a sharper script in general (one that brings a bit more humanity to its characters and has a few extra levels to explore with this fairly awesome premise) would have made this even better. But, fuck it, I had a good time...good enough that I could see myself watching this again.

"Shrek the Third" finds Shrek dealing with responsibility. The king is in poor health so Shrek and Fiona find themselves taking on the king's royal duties, such as knighting people and christening ships. Shrek hates these duties, and he can't wait until the king is back to full health and he can go back to being antisocial in the swamp (with his wife this time, so they're presumably going to have a lot of hot, disgusting ogre sex).

But then the king dies and bequeaths the rule of the kingdom to Shrek full time. As if that wasn't enough, Fiona reveals that she's pregnant. Shrek freaks out and jumps on a ship to find Arthur, the only other heir to the throne, to hopefully take the king gig off his plate at least.

I was 23 when the original "Shrek" was released. I saw it in the theater opening weekend. It was a good time. I liked "Shrek 2" less when I first saw that, also in theaters, but the last time I watched it I was closer to sharing the opinion that everyone else has toward it (it's pretty great). By the time "Shrek the Third" hit theaters, I officially didn't care. I was Shreked out. I didn't wind up seeing it until my wife and I started having kids, and I don't know if I ever really sat down and paid full attention to it. It was mostly just something that the kids watched while I was doing something else.

I had no intention of revisiting this but my youngest son wanted to watch an animated film, and if we were going to do that then I at least wanted to see something that I hadn't already watched a dozen times. When we found this on Peacock, it appealed to me more than the other options hence we fired it up.

I see that this is considered the worst of the Shrek films. Apparently people think it's terrible? And, sure, it's not as funny as the first two. It lacks the shaggy, anarchic kick of those films. But the less zany tone kind of fits a movie that's about a man accepting the responsibilities that he's been given and learning to appreciate them. It's about a man (er, ogre) transitioning into a new phase of life and actually captures this feeling, one that most adults will experience at some point, with a level of sharpness that I did not expect. It obviously doesn't take this whole experience TOO seriously. There's still a wisecracking donkey voiced by Eddie Murphy, a swashbuckling cat with the voice of Antonio Banderas, and plenty of silliness involving fairy tale creatures. But I liked that the movie ends with Shrek fighting for a position that he didn't really want in the first place because he realizes that he's better for it than the power-mad lunatic who's trying to take it from him. You can't always get what you want but, if you try sometimes, you might find that you get what you need...or some shit. Things like that give this movie an unexpected richness that I appreciated. I definitely liked this more than I did the times that I halfway paid attention to it in the past.

Additionally, "Shrek the Third" is still pretty fun IMO. The "Immigrant Song" moment with Snow White is one of my favorite things from the entire franchise, and I also love Pinocchio's double talk to avoid lying while being interrogated by Prince Charming. It's still not as funny as the first two, but it's got plenty of amusing moments (and Eric Idle is great as Merlin).

So, yeah, maybe it's the worst "Shrek" movie (though I don't liking "Shrek Forever After" all that much) but it still provides consistent entertainment...and I kind of like seeing Shrek grow up and accept being an adult here. It's a transition that many of the film's viewers (including some of the parents begrudgingly watching it) could benefit from considering.

Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall) is a professional gambler who values manners and respect in a world that is sliding into chaos. He takes a down-on-his-luck gambler named John (John C. Reilly) under his wing after an encounter outside a coffee shop. He becomes John's mentor, teaching him how to game the casino for a free room and other perks. Under Sydney's tutelage, John becomes a better gambler and, frankly, a better man.

But two other people come into their relationship and complicate things. One is a cocktail waitress and part-time prostitute named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) who respects Sydney and takes a shine to John. The other is Jimmy, who works security for a casino and is profane, disrespectful and overall just "bad news".

"Hard Eight" is a solid debut film for Paul Thomas Anderson, even if never does reach the heights of most of his filmography. Even though it's his first film, "Hard Eight" is still about a makeshift family in seedy circumstances, which become an even greater focus of his followup film (the amazing "Boogie Nights") and remain an element in most, if not all, of Anderson's subsequent work. Like his other work, the film is distinguished by unique characters, intense situations, and some truly delightful little cinematic flourishes. Anderson would go on to do better work, but "Hard Eight" has moments that only PTA could have conceived and executed in this particular style. There's a lingering shot of two cups of coffee in the opening sequence, for instance, that would seem mundane yet, in Anderson's hands, becomes something strangely magical. I also love the flashback to "the matchbook incident". Anderson didn't have to include that little moment, it doesn't add anything of particular note to the film, but I love that he did so. It's little moments like those that make "Hard Eight" come alive, that make it something special within the overcrowded scene of mid-90s independent film.

My biggest complaint is that I wish there were more little curveballs like that throughout the film. There's nothing bad about "Hard Eight", per se. It's an engrossing film. But it traffics in a similar, Tarantino-esque tale of sex and violence that many post-"Pulp Fiction" films did. It has just enough of those little PTA touches to set it apart, but not enough of them that it really soars.

It does, however, have four excellent performances to recommend it. Samuel L. Jackson honestly doesn't do anything here that he wasn't routinely doing during this era of film. He's just as good here as he was in everything else at this time (though my favorite 1996 performance of his is probably in "The Long Kiss Goodnight", I love him there). He's got ample charisma and a dangerous undercurrent that makes him electrifying.

It's kind of shocking to see Gwyneth Paltrow play someone this sleazy. I had forgotten that there was a time when she didn't feel like a porcelain princess. I wish she did this sort of thing more often, because it's gripping.

As for John C. Reilly, I always appreciate seeing him this close to the center of a film. Reilly is great as always, portraying a dimwitted, well-meaning innocent who frequently gets in over his head. Reilly was born to play dudes like this, and his unique facial features and disheveled style are a perfect fit for the character.

But the best of all of these performers is the incomparable Phillip Baker Hall. The revelations and twists that this movie throws at the audience feel even more shocking because of the quiet, unflappable dignity that Hall seems to bring to this character. Hall is pure class here...until he isn't, and the moments where we see what his character is truly capable of pack an incredible wallop. God bless PTA for crafting a great showcase for such an awesome but underutilized actor. Hall rises to the challenge and inhabits this gentleman with a riveting naturalism. I also love that Jackson name drops two other Phillip Baker Hall characters within this movie. It's an Easter egg for movies that Anderson hadn't even MADE yet!

"Hard Eight" is on the lower end of Anderson's filmography, almost by default, but it's still a gem. Any film fan worth their salt owes it to themselves to seek this out.

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

• Blood Simple
• Cléo from 5 to 7
• Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
• Hollywood Shuffle
• Three Colours: Blue
• The Virgin Suicides
• The Man Who Fell to Earth
• Baby Face
• The Lineup
• Nightfall

...plus 269 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm currently vacationing in Colorado and loving the mountains and rock formations, so I thought it might be fun to list all of the films using the most iconic group of rock formations (arguably). This list will probably include every John Ford film, dude clearly loved that place.

• The Searchers
• Easy Rider
• The Lone Ranger
• Once Upon a Time in the West
• Forrest Gump
• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
• Sergeant Rutledge
• Windtalkers
• My Darling Clementine
• Dudes

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Like Denzel Washington in "The Hurricane", these movies are now "50 years old" so because of that (and because I'm currently in a Seventies State of Mind) I thought it was a good excuse to revisit movies I loved from that year and catch up with ones that I hadn't seen yet.

Also, this gives me an excuse to watch "Jaws" again and I'm always looking for an excuse to watch "Jaws" again (seriously, ANY excuse will do).

• Hard Times
• Barry Lyndon
• Nashville
• Shampoo
• The Fortune
• The Eiger Sanction

• The Bad Guys
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Bram Stoker's Dracula
• Dune
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• F9
• The Fifth Element
• Ghostbusters
• The Grinch
• Hostiles

...plus 96 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies that didn't do much for me the first time I saw them but that I probably need to revisit.

• Barry Lyndon
• Y Tu Mamá También
• 28 Days Later
• Lost Highway
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• The Wild Bunch
• The Conversation
• Southland Tales
• Bicycle Thieves

1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
2. Mandy
3. Hereditary
4. The Favourite
5. Eighth Grade
6. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
7. Bad Times at the El Royale
8. First Man
9. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
10. Tully

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All Hail the Majesty of Tom Cruise.

None of these movies are bad. They're simply varying degrees of fun.

• Mission: Impossible – Fallout
• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
• Mission: Impossible
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• Mission: Impossible II
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible III

Self-explanatory, really. Drive-in movies are included.

• The Care Bears Movie
• Rustlers' Rhapsody
• Summer Rental
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
• Uncle Buck
• Prancer
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• The Adventures of Milo and Otis

...plus 617 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An ongoing collection of important and influential films that have shaped the world of cinema...or a bunch of movies that I have affection for and/or found really cheap somewhere.

• Lethal Weapon 2
• Pinocchio
• Up
• Toy Story 3
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
• Knight and Day
• Ghostbusters
• Public Enemies
• Apocalypse Now
• Tangled

...plus 1874 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

For no apparent reason, I've decided to revisit the films of 1995 and catch up with some that I never saw. Why? Who knows! It's just the mood I've been in. But it's been pretty fun so far, so I'm going to roll with it until it isn't fun anymore.

• Clueless
• Mr. Holland's Opus
• Tommy Boy
• Judge Dredd
• Johnny Mnemonic
• First Knight
• Congo
• Species
• Higher Learning
• To Die For

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An ongoing list of films that I have rated the highest. There are other movies that probably deserve such a rating, and I shall be adding those as I rewatch and re-evaluate them. Think of it as my own amateur version of Ebert's "Great Films" list.

• Star Wars
• Ghostbusters
• Life Itself
• Metropolis
• Dazed and Confused
• A Guy Named Joe
• The Palm Beach Story
• The Nice Guys
• Midnight Special
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit

...plus 343 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

"Empire Strikes Back" and "Godfather 2" are great and all, but neither of them quite outdoes the movies that came before them. These movies, on the other hand, are superior in virtually every way.

Of course, as with everything on this site, this is just, like, my opinion, man.

• Mad Max 2
• Gremlins 2: The New Batch
• After the Thin Man
• Young Guns II
• The Conjuring 2
• John Wick: Chapter 2
• Aliens
• Hot Shots! Part Deux
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
• Escape from L.A.

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2
• The Way of the Wind
• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• The Running Man
• One Battle After Another
• The Life of Chuck
• Father Mother Sister Brother
• Highest 2 Lowest
• The Phoenician Scheme
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Here
2. The Wild Robot
3. Nosferatu
4. The Substance
5. Love Lies Bleeding
6. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
7. Challengers
8. Dune: Part Two
9. Hit Man
10. Wicked

...plus 47 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Fisher King
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Brazil
• Twelve Monkeys
• Time Bandits
• The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
• The Zero Theorem
• Tideland

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Ghostbusters

  I know, I know, there are probably "better" films out there, but none of them occupy as large a portion of my heart as this one.

• It's a Wonderful Life
• Seven Samurai
• Jaws
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
• Amadeus
• Nashville
• Chinatown
• Citizen Kane

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This list is hard. Need to rewatch every one of his movies that I haven't already reviewed before this is finalized.

1. Jaws
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
4. Schindler's List
5. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
6. Jurassic Park
7. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
8. Bridge of Spies
9. Catch Me If You Can
10. Minority Report

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Lake House
• The Survivors
• Dogma
• Being There
• Dr. T & the Women
• 54
• Devil in a Blue Dress
• The Natural
• Johnny Handsome
• The Rainmaker

...plus 181 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A list of movies taking place at Christmas that are low on Christmas spirit but high on carnage.

• Die Hard
• Gremlins
• Lethal Weapon
• Batman Returns
• The Long Kiss Goodnight
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
• Krampus
• Die Hard 2
• Iron Man 3

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Inside Out
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Spotlight
4. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
5. Brooklyn
6. Creed
7. Bridge of Spies
8. What We Do in the Shadows
9. Bone Tomahawk
10. Blackhat

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Doesn't mean I liked it, definitely doesn't mean I hated it, just means I didn't know what star rating to give any of these films.

• Head
• Darktown Strutters
• Three Colours: Blue
• The Lighthouse
• Eureka
• Sorry to Bother You
• Solaris
• Space Is the Place
• Cruising
• The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Everyone else is doing it, so I thought I'd try to collect my thoughts on all of the Pixar films thus far.
Note: I have not seen "Cars 2" or 3 yet. In fact, I may never.

1. Up
2. WALL·E
3. Inside Out
4. Ratatouille
5. Toy Story
6. Toy Story 2
7. Soul
8. Coco
9. Monsters, Inc.
10. Toy Story 3

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
2. Batman
3. Ed Wood
4. Beetlejuice
5. Edward Scissorhands
6. Batman Returns
7. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
8. Sleepy Hollow
9. Big Fish
10. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Fandango
• Open Range
• Wyatt Earp
• Waterworld
• Tin Cup
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
• Thirteen Days
• Dances with Wolves
• The Postman
• Message in a Bottle

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Trying to watch more anime during May, hence "AniMAY".

• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
• Suzume
• Bubble
• Perfect Blue
• NiNoKuni

Why not on Disney Plus, Sheriff Willoughby?

I'm not counting "Song of the South" because, well, we all know why THAT's not on Disney Plus.

• Tower of Terror
• The Love Bug
• Now You See Him, Now You Don't
• Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks with a Circus
• The Watcher in the Woods
• A Tiger Walks
• Savage Sam
• Son of Flubber
• The Monkey's Uncle
• The Misadventures of Merlin Jones

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Tarzan the Ape Man
• George of the Jungle
• King Kong
• Tarzan and His Mate
• Kong: Skull Island
• Planet of the Apes
• Mighty Joe Young

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Holdovers
3. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
4. John Wick: Chapter 4
5. Nimona
6. Ferrari
7. Poor Things
8. Asteroid City
9. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
10. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Megalopolis
• Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
• Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Dune: Part Two
• The Fall Guy
• Argylle
• Gladiator II
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• MaXXXine

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Cuz, fuck it, that's why.
There are many like it but this one is mine.
Honestly, there are a bunch in the middle that are all of comparable quality and their ranking just depends on which one I probably watched last. None of these movies are terrible, to be honest, and I've watched most of them multiple times and been at least moderately entertained by them.
Also, tired of people shitting on Thor 2 and Iron Man 3. Y'all can throw that bullshit right out your head.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. Spider-Man: No Way Home
3. Iron Man
4. Thor
5. The Avengers
6. Guardians of the Galaxy
7. Ant-Man
8. Doctor Strange
9. Black Panther
10. Captain America: Civil War

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Nice Guys
2. Silence
3. The Conjuring 2
4. Midnight Special
5. Moonlight
6. Hidden Figures
7. Kubo and the Two Strings
8. Sing Street
9. The Lobster
10. La La Land

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Pure Cinema Podcast always makes a list of their favorite discoveries every year, movies that, while not necessarily new, were new to them. I thought it would be fun to make my own list of favorite films that I watched for the first time. No matter how old these films might be, they were new to me...and reaffirmed the reason I love films in the first place.

• Jewel Robbery
• The Italian Connection
• Synchronic
• Crawl
• Encounters of the Spooky Kind
• Oppenheimer
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Wendy and Lucy
• John Wick: Chapter 4
• Nimona

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking the work of David Fincher based on personal preference. Not all of his films are on here because I'd like to rewatch them all before finalizing this thing.

1. The Social Network
2. Zodiac
3. Gone Girl
4. Fight Club
5. Se7en
6. Panic Room
7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
9. The Game
10. Mank

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Cinemonster, an all-around groovy dude who created this challenge ten years ago (that math can't possibly add up...but I'm getting to the age where I feel that way about most things) has unleashed another gauntlet of cinematic pains and delights (indivisible from one another) onto us with an all new set of criteria to fulfill. It's the only Letterboxd challenge that I usually bother with, and it's drawn me to some wonderful films that I probably wouldn't have sought out otherwise over the years.

I can't wait to see what kind of sick shit I discover this year.

And so, without further ado, the categories:

QUICK EASY RULES:

There must be 31 films
6 countries (Canada- Prom Night, Britain- The Mummy, etc., Hong Kong- Encounter of the Spooky Kind, Italy- Bay of Blood, - Eyes Without a Face, New Zealand- The Frighteners)
8 decades
2 post apocalyptic or natural disaster related films (Crawl, Day of the Dead)
1 film with Robert Englund (Urban Legend)
1 something is underground film (Tremors)
3 Satan/Devil centered films (To the Devil a Daughter, The Devil Rides Out, End of Days)
1 Amicus film. (The House that Dripped Blood)
The worst Dracula film (by Letterboxd rating) that you haven't seen and can access. (Dracula 3D)
1 LGBTQ+ connected film (Dressed to Kill)
5 Films from De Palma, Wes Craven, Ken Russell, Hitchcock and/or Morehead & Benson. (Dressed to Kill, Psycho, Synchronic, Scream 3, The Fury)
2 Peter Cushing films (The House that Dripped Blood, The Mummy)
1 film based on a work of or invoking the name Bram Stoker (Dracula 3D)
1 film based on a Clive Barker story (Lord of Illusions)
1 film that was released the year that you turned 10 (Friday the 13th Part 7)
1 Mario Bava film (A Bay of Blood)
1 film with an 'x' in the title (Doctor X)

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film) The Mangler

• Tales of Terror
• Tremors
• Lord of Illusions
• Prom Night
• The Mummy
• Urban Legend
• The Mummy
• The Mummy's Hand
• The Mangler
• The Hand

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I love doing the Hooptober challenge on here every year but I also try to work as many films from these categories into my October viewing as possible because, IMO, there are certain categories of horror (and other) films that just make the season feel right to me. I've been meaning to make this list for a while to share with everyone else the perfect mix of sub-genres and so forth that I have discovered over the years to generate the ideal Halloween atmosphere.

A Vincent Price movie-I've only recently begun diving into the filmography of Vincent Price, but he's like the Grand Marshall of the Spooky Season Parade in my opinion. His voice, his look, his style of performance, the films he chose to do and how he perfectly modulated each performance to heighten those projects. He's spooky yet somehow comforting, like a slightly creepy Mr. Rogers. Watching Vincent Price do his thing is like sipping hot apple cider while taking a hay ride through a pumpkin patch. Choose one of his Roger Corman/Poe adaptations, one of his 70s Revenge Jams (You really can't have much more fun than "The Abominable Dr. Phibes") or one of his magnificent William Castle collaborations ("The Tingler" is fantastic). You really can't go wrong whatever direction you go with Mr. Price.

A Universal Monster Flick- In the 1930s Universal bankrolled some horror films that have defined these particular stories to this very day. Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's Monster, Lugosi's Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man and Claude Rains as the Invisible Man are all iconic and throwing one (or even more) of these films into your Spooky Season rotation is bound to bring you joy. Even if you've seen the big guns a hundred times, there's bound to be a fun Universal Monster flick that you haven't caught up with yet (like the Frankenstein sequels with Bela Lugosi as the violin-playing hunchback or "The Old Dark House" or "The Raven").

A Tim Burton Movie- Burton's early work might not be horror per se, but it established the iconic Hot Topic/Halloween aesthetic from, say, 1988 onward and movies like "Beetlejuice", "Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Sleepy Hollow" have become staples of the season for me ever since. Honestly, it doesn't feel like Halloween without him.

A John Carpenter Movie- Midway through October I'm always tempted to abandon whatever films I have planned to watch and just spend the rest of the month watching John Carpenter movies. Like Tim Burton, though with a totally different atmosphere and aesthetic, Carpenter's films just feel like Fall to me. When the leaves start to fall, I always find myself wanting to grab some Octoberfest beers and fire up "Halloween" (an obvious but kind of unbeatable choice for the season) or "The Fog". In fact, "The Fog" is, in my opinion, the PERFECT film to watch every October. From its opening with John Houseman telling a ghost story by a campfire on a beach through its fog-shrouded streets and slasher movie kills it's just the ideal atmosphere for autumn. I liked Carpenter's films before I saw "The Fog", but "The Fog" kind of unlocked his entire filmography for me and made me appreciate his work on an even deeper level.

A Hammer Horror Film- In the late 50s, Hammer Studios took the iconic Gothic horror tales that had been defined by the iconic Universal films and redefined them for a new era with lurid Technicolor cinematography, a fun British sensibility of stiff-upper-lip attitudes being ripped apart by the side effects of their greedy hypocrisy, bright red blood and oodles of cleavage. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing became the Karloff and Lugosi of a new generation. "The Horror of Dracula", "The Curse of Frankenstein", "The Curse of the Werewolf" (with Oliver Reed in the role he was born to play) and 1958's "The Mummy" (all written by Jimmy Sangster, the Hammer Horror Gangster, and directed by Terence Fisher) all breathed fresh life into these iconic stories and made them fresh. And then Hammer established their own, original horror tales that are less iconic but just as awesome for those diving deep into their catalogue ("The Devil Rides Out", for instance, is fantastic).

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"- You loved it as a kid and you'll find new things to love about it now, like its subtle jabs at organized religion (represented by Linus's devotion to the Great Pumpkin) and consumerism/conformity. There's a reason that it still endures. It deserves to.

A Ghost Story- There's nothing spookier or more fiendishly pleasurable than a great ghost story. For me, it wouldn't be Autumn if I didn't see at least one thing that goes bump in the night. Old school ("The Innocents", the good version of "The Haunting", "The House on Haunted Hill"), 70s and 80s ("Poltergeist", "Burnt Offerings") or modern ghosts ("The Conjuring" and "Insidious" films breathed new life into this whole sub-genre). Whatever flavor you choose, you're bound to have fun.

A Slasher- I've always preferred supernatural horror but,over the past few years, I've finally come around on the masked killers with knives and machetes (or even power tools). The Friday the 13th series is like a textbook definition of this and I long thought they were kind of sluggish, but starting around the fourth installment they dial up the energy level and crazy kills to a really enjoyable degree (I just watched the sixth one and it's kind of unbeatable fun). But "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Black Christmas" took the Italian giallo films and Americanized (or, in the case of "Black Christmas", Canadized) them to create the sub-genre as we know it and are still the cream of the crop as far as I'm concerned. But there's a lot of gold to be mined in this sub-genre in movies like "Sleepaway Camp" (one of my favorites) and "Slumber Party Massacre".

Giallo- I don't love Argento's "Suspiria" as much as everyone else (but I'm willing to give it another chance one of these days) but his giallo work (gory thrillers and murder-mysteries that were clear inspirations for the work of Brian DePalma) is pretty unbeatable. "Deep Red" and "The Cat O' Nine Tails" are Primo Argento for me (though "Phenomena" is possibly my favorite, a mix of giallo and Argento's horror work) and great examples of the genre. They generally involve killers with white gloves and masks brutally carving up beautiful women in various forms of undress (you can see how this inspired the slasher genre) and unlikely heroes trying to identify them (such as the blind crossword puzzle maker played by Karl Malden in "Cat O' Nine Tails"). But there's an insanely deep bench of films here with awesome titles such as "Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key" (which might be my favorite giallo...so far) and "Blood and Black Lace" (ooh, actually THAT might be my favorite giallo...so far). Look for an Italian movie with a title that's an entire sentence long and you're probably on the right track.

A Horror Anthology- Again, it wouldn't be Halloween to me without a film telling several horror short stories. "Trick r' Treat" and "Creepshow" are my favorites but there's a LOT of these and they've been happening for decades. From 1945's "Dead of Night" (in which a group of guests assembled at an English manor compare the spooky dreams they've been having) up to the "VHS" films of the modern era, it's a Halloween staple and, frankly, just a fun way to spice up your viewing calendar.

Last but not least: A Stephen King Adaptation- Speaking of "Creepshow", no author of the modern era (or maybe of ANY era) has written as many horror classics as King. He's not known as the Master of Horror for nothing. He's probably my favorite author of all time, and October is a great excuse to revisit his work through film. He's been adapted by great directors (Brian DePalma's "Carrie", Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone") and, well, less-than-great directors (including King himself, who directed "Maximum Overdrive" with the assistance of a massive pile of Cocaine).

Those are the main ingredients for a great Spooky Season, IMO, and you can just add in monster genres (vampire movies, zombies, horror-comedy, etc.) and your own personal tastes from there (I personally don't feel like the season is complete until I see a werewolf). This is probably a pretty basic list and anyone on this site probably already knows these titles/sub-genres but...I dunno, I just felt like writing it.

• The Abominable Dr. Phibes
• The Masque of the Red Death
• The Tingler
• Bride of Frankenstein
• Dracula
• The Wolf Man
• Beetlejuice
• Sleepy Hollow
• Halloween
• The Fog

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Thief
• Collateral
• Heat
• The Last of the Mohicans
• The Insider
• Blackhat
• Manhunter
• Ali
• Miami Vice
• Public Enemies

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This was a lousy year for a lot of things, but a pretty good year for movies. Maybe I'm alone, but it was kind of nice that the smaller movies got a chance to flourish (mostly on VOD and streaming) without a huge Marvel movie etc trampling all over them.

1. The Invisible Man
2. Nomadland
3. First Cow
4. Emma.
5. Freaky
6. Soul
7. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
8. The Gentlemen
9. Palm Springs
10. Bad Boys for Life

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is an incredibly tough list to put together. My least favorite is, definitely, "Inception". For me, it is easily his most flawed film. That being said, the rest of his filmography is of very high quality and the titles could be virtually interchangeable for me. "Interstellar" might be his finest achievement, it certainly floored me on my first viewing, but "The Dark Knight" just gets better every time I watch it, so that's getting the top spot...for now.
Also, I have not yet seen "Following".

1. Dunkirk
2. Interstellar
3. The Dark Knight
4. Oppenheimer
5. The Prestige
6. Insomnia
7. Memento
8. The Dark Knight Rises
9. Batman Begins
10. Inception

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Top Gun: Maverick
2. Babylon
3. RRR
4. The Northman
5. The Fabelmans
6. After Yang
7. Everything Everywhere All at Once
8. Avatar: The Way of Water
9. The Batman
10. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

...plus 64 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
2. Rabid Dogs
3. Caliber 9
4. Slap the Monster on Page One
5. Confessions of a Police Captain
6. I Am Afraid
7. The Italian Connection
8. The Big Racket
9. The Case Is Closed, Forget It
10. Rome, the Other Face of Violence

...plus 140 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Maybe

• The Grapes of Wrath
• Ran
• The Raid
• My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown
• Roman Holiday
• American Sniper
• The English Patient
• Dillinger
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Stranger Than Paradise

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

You're sitting there, minding your own business, watching a movie that you wouldn't, in a million years, expect to include one of its main characters wearing a dress or dressed as a man (in the case of a lady, naturally) and then, BAM, out of nowhere...cross-dressing. Here are some examples. If you know of more, shout them out.

• Cape Fear
• Tango & Cash
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
• Stardust
• Wild Wild West
• Cloud Atlas
• Paddington
• Nighthawks
• The Dark Knight
• The Boxtrolls

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Pig
2. The Last Duel
3. Judas and the Black Messiah
4. Spider-Man: No Way Home
5. The Mitchells vs. the Machines
6. Dune
7. West Side Story
8. The Tragedy of Macbeth
9. Nobody
10. Last Night in Soho

...plus 56 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Michael Bay, ranked from best to worst. Unseen by me: "13 Hours" and "Pain and Gain" (though I hope to rectify those soonish).

1. Bad Boys II
2. The Rock
3. 6 Underground
4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
5. Ambulance
6. The Island
7. Armageddon
8. Transformers: Age of Extinction
9. Pearl Harbor
10. Transformers: The Last Knight

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Terminator
• Aliens
• The Abyss
• True Lies
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• Titanic
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Avatar
• Ghosts of the Abyss
• Aliens of the Deep

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
2. Little Women
3. Knives Out
4. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
5. Klaus
6. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
7. Dolemite Is My Name
8. Blinded by the Light
9. Rocketman
10. Parasite

...plus 53 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It's happening again.

Just when you thought it was safe to watch your television, a bloodcurdling horror from beyond the grave arises to hold you in an icy grip of fear. No blu-ray/4k/DVD player or streaming service is safe. Can your heart stand the shocking horror of Hooptober...9?

Hopefully mine can. As always, the benevolent and groovy Cinemonster has concocted a diabolical challenge for Spooky Season, composed of several monstrous categories of unspeakable mayhem.

QUICK EASY RULES:

There must be 31 films
6 countries- Australia ("Next of Kin"), Japan ("Vampire Hunter D", "Wicked City"), India ("Tumbbad"), Canada ("Ginger Snaps"), ("Hands of Orlac") and Belgium ("Daughter of Darkness")
8 decades
2 insect centered films- "Prince of Darkness" and "Naked Lunch"
1 horror film set in space or the future (relative to when it was released)- "Ghosts of Mars"
2 animated films- "Vampire Hunter D" and "Wicked City"
1 bloodthirsty old person/people film- "X"
2 1970s regional US films (Thanks Sean Young)- "Psycho from Texas" and "Giant Spider Invasion"
The worst horror sequel from the 1990s that you haven't seen and can access. (I realize that this will take a little work)- "Lawnmower Man 2"
1 German Silent- "The Hands of Orlac"
5 Films from David Cronenberg, Ti West, Bill Rebane, Charles B. Pierce, William Grefe and/or Joy N. Houck Jr.- "X", "The Innkeepers", "Blood Harvest", "Naked Lunch", "The Giant Spider Invasion"
2 Christopher Lee films-"Horror Express" and "Rasputin: The Mad Monk"
1 film with a musician or band in it (A real life musician or band)- "The Bride" with Sting, of all people
1 Stephen King adaptation that is not the first go around- "Carrie", the one from 2013
1 Lon Chaney film- "The Unholy Three"

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)- "I'm Dangerous Tonight"

***FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TO DO EXTRA WORK: WATCH The Last Circus and Silent Madness. Like last year, there is a third film: Pennywise: The Story of It.

****This years surprise: The IT doc is on Screambox. Screambox peeps gave us Hooptober folks a code for a free trial. Everyone can watch the doc, if they want to.
The code is HOOPTOBER and you can sign up HERE
There is a lot of cool stuff on Screambox (including Terrifier 2), so enjoy. 🤡

Here's the link to the original list letterboxd.telechargervous.com/cinemonster/list/hooptober-neun-from-outer-space/

the fun....if you DARE

• Vampire Hunter D
• The Relic
• X
• The Empty Man
• Psycho from Texas
• I'm Dangerous Tonight
• Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow
• The Bride
• The Giant Spider Invasion
• Daughters of Darkness

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Wolf Man

  A Universal Horror Film, A Film and it's Remake, 7 Franchises, 5 Films from Before 1970

• The Conjuring 2

  7 Franchises

• The Guest
• Housebound

  6 Countries (New Zealand)

• Prince of Darkness
• Suspiria

  5 Films by Romero, Argento, etc., A Film about Witches (but not "The Witch"), 6 Countries (Italy)

• The House of Exorcism

  5 Films by Bava, Argento, Romero, etc.

• Nosferatu

  A Silent Film, 5 Films from Before 1970, 6 Countries ()

• Shaun of the Dead

  6 Countries: Britain

• The Orphanage

  6 Countries (Spain). I'm replacing "Ju-On" with this because I just realized I've had this disc sitting around for a while and I need to watch it.

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Dune
2. West Side Story
3. CODA
4. Drive My Car
5. The Power of the Dog
6. King Richard
7. Nightmare Alley
8. Don't Look Up
9. Belfast
10. Licorice Pizza

This January I have decided to watch a lot of Jackie Chan movies, simply because I thought of the name "Jackie-Chanuary" and it was too good not to use.

• Snake in the Eagle's Shadow
• Drunken Master
• Rush Hour
• Rush Hour 2
• Rumble in the Bronx
• Shanghai Noon
• Rush Hour 3
• The Protector
• The Cannonball Run
• Shanghai Knights

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.