Never Say Never Again (1983)

Director: Irvin Kershner

Cast: Sean Connery, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Max von Sydow, Kim Basinger

Have I Seen It Before: Although largely ignored in the canon—what with it being the strangest bit of counter-programming ever committed to screen—I have the strongest memory of picking up a VHS copy* from Suncoast** and marveling that there could be a lost Sean Connery Bond to marvel at…

Did I Like It: And then I didn’t think much of it. I’ve often wondered if my initial reaction to a Bond film is largely dominated not by the star at hand, or the villain with which he grapples, but instead the music on display. I can forgive a lot from A View to Kill (1985) because it is propelled forward by Duran Duran, but never quite sign on board with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) because Carly Simon’s song brings the series into a fitful romantic mode, despite never realizing that there is almost nothing romantic about the protagonist of these films. Here, not only am I robbed of any sort of memorable tune, but (for clearly understandable reasons) there is no gun barrel and no Monty Norman in earshot. It never quite feels right.

In subsequent years, I’ve revisited the film and found it—despite my knee-jerk reactions to its deficiencies—to be above average for this era of Bond films. Connery is good, his late-period heyday just over the horizon and his eventual somnambulism in the final years of his career still a good ways off. Had fate been reversed and Roger Moore had starred in this film, it would be far easier to dismiss.

And then we become to the real crux of the matter. It can be a little easy to offer film criticism by way of comparison, but this film exists only to be compared to other films. It is a remake of possibly Connery’s weakest canonical film, Thunderball (1965), and was released within a few months of Octopussy (1983). So, where does Never rank among this traffic jam of movies? It’s a faster-paced movie than Thunderball, which counts for some. Is it better than Octopussy? Well, Sean Connery never dresses as a clown in this film. Hell, he could have dusted off the weird outfit from Zardoz (1974) and he still wouldn’t have done what Roger did that year.

But that’s probably a discussion for a different review.

*Kids, ask your parents.

**Kids, ask your parents, and weep for how good you could have had it.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Director: Mike Hodges

Cast: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: It’s probably one of those films that you had to take in at an early age, and then spend the rest of your life passionately and without reason*, and I came to it far too late. Even the always-welcome presence of Timothy Dalton (doing his best to not look vaguely embarrassed by the proceedings) can’t ultimately turn me around on it.

And really, I should be in the mood for it, right? I’ve been on a pulpy-action kick as of late, and if there is a film pulpier than this, I’m not sure it ought to be released to an unsuspecting public.

So why doesn’t it work for me. I offer three potential explanations. It feels like it is straddling two different eras of this type of film, with Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) being the line of demarcation. Before Star Wars, anything with even an ounce of pulp in it was treated as not just an adventure film, but exclusively children’s fare. See Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975) for the last (great?) example. After Star Wars, every movie was at least trying to be Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Flash Gordon has a lot of the big budget trappings (minus a handful of some of the dodgier SFX of the era), but never seems like its willing to make the pulse pound any more than it might otherwise. Some might call it camp, but it may have taken us a couple of years to learn this lesson**, but camp needs to be funny, and this ain’t it.

This might have all been covered up if Gordon himself (Jones) could carry the day through with his charisma. The Shadow (1994) might in fact be a terrible movie, if it weren’t for the fact that Baldwin took his obligations as an authentic movie star seriously for the last time. I understand the stiff-as-a-board qualities of Jones aren’t necessarily his fault, as Dino De Laurentiis chased him off before filming ended, but it is hard to ignore it.

But really? I’m just annoyed that Flash plays football vocationally. I’m not sure I get sci-fi fans thinking that’s a plus.

*I say that without judgment. I’ve got those films, too. Short Circuit (1986) comes to mind. Let’s not bring Batman (1989) into this if we can help it.

*After we fully internalized the implications of Batman (1966) and Batman & Robin (1997).

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Director: John Boorman

Cast: Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: And why did I see it now? This is the truly unfortunate reality of the current streaming age. I watched the theatrical cut of The Exorcist (1973) on Max, and then saw that the sequel was right there waiting for me. I had never seen it, already paid for it, and wanted to keep the good feelings going. I was somewhat aware of the film’s reputation, but it couldn’t have been that bad. Right?

Right?!

Well, let me tell you.

Far be it for me to overly rely on comparisons to Star Trek films, but the comparison just bowls me over here. Sometimes, you bring in a director for a sequel that is detached from what came before who found things he genuinely liked about the series, like Nicholas Meyer in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and things work out great. Sometimes you bring in a similar director who couldn’t be bothered to give one shit about the source material, like Stuart Baird in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), and things wind up disappointing, at best.

Here, Boorman had gone on record hating the film so much that he even tried to convince Warner Bros. not to make it or release it. The contempt not only plays, but permeates the entire movie. What we’re offered is a hodgepodge of weak characters (including those returning), glacial pacing, terrible special effects*, all head together by the weak glue of new age junk of the worst sort.

Avoid the film at all costs. Also, why the hell is it called The Heretic?

*After this and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), we should really make a rule that the instant movie sequels bring locusts into the proceedings, the whole film ought to be re-considered.

The Exorcist (1973)

Director: William Friedkin

Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller, Linda Blair

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. My most memorable screening is when I managed to convince someone who at that time was simultaneously a devout Christian and deathly afraid of demonic possession to watch it with me. Truly, the spirit of Pazusu was working through me.

Did I Like It: As we prepared to remedy a glaring blind spot in the canon of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, I decided to deep dive into the world of Lankester Merrin (von Sydow, for whom the old age make up may look fake at times but is a pretty decent approximation of the man he would become in his later years) and pals. I really enjoyed William Peter Blatty’s original novel, and especially Damien Karras (Miller) as a character, and unfortunately you might soon be subjected to my thoughts about the various Exorcist sequels (except for Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), because even I have my limits*).

And the act of going through the same story in the movie is fine. It hits all the right beats and manages to shake off some of the fat in the original story, but there is something missing in the translation. Such is life when comparing movies to their source material.

Where the movie succeeds wildly (and specifically either the unwieldly “Version You’ve Never Seen Before” or the Extended Director’s Cut) is in its ability to subtly unnerve. One might be able to find the occasional splicing in of Captain Howdy to be a bit of a parlor trick, but for me it is the best kind of cinematic horror. It’s the kind of thing that Murnau excelled at, around which The Blair Witch Project (1999) built an entire movie, and Muschietti occasionally tripped over in IT - Chapter One (2017), where you’re not entirely sure what you’re looking at sometimes, and it seems to live within the shadows which were the stuff out of which the earliest photography was made. That’s simple enough, but then you find yourself thinking about it that evening, and looking at the darkness in the distance as you’re feeding the cat, and before you know it, the movie has stuck in your mind.

*Although I’m not weirdly fascinated by it now. How do you make an early-oughts horror movie (with all of the requisite Matthew Lillard-ness that might entail) with these characters that a studio would feel comfortable releasing? The mind boggles, but that’s probably a discussion for a whole other review.

Minority Report (2002)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: When Spielberg dies, this won’t be even in the top ten films mentioned as his most memorable. In any retrospective of the Philip K. Dick adaptations, this film probably won’t be one of the first ones mentioned. Considering Tom Cruise will likely continue reaching for cinematic excellence after he has grown beyond the use of his physical body to await Xenu’s return, there’s a very real possibility this won’t even rank in the top thousand memorably Cruise roles*.

And, for the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why any of those things are true.

It is far and beyond the best adaptation of Dick’s work ever produced, and yes, I count Blade Runner (1982) in that equation (although I don’t care for it, which I understand already renders me suspect) and Total Recall (1990) (which I ultimately kind of like). It takes a kernel of an idea—which is all Dick was ever really good for—and flushes it out into an actual story that sticks with you.

There’s not a genre which Spielberg hasn’t conquered, so it’s almost a tragedy that he hasn’t done more hard-boiled detective stories. He didn’t even need to include any of the Dick-ish trappings present here.

Cruise may still be working through his post-Mission: Impossible II (2000) malaise, but he’s approaching his later day renaissance with the vigor even his detractors must grant him.

*As I type that, I feel like I’m being unfair to Scientology. I might have saved this revelation for my eventual review of Top Gun: Maverick (2022), but I’m struggling to think of any religion not built on a foundation of abuse. Only one religion has its adherents speaking out against the horrors of motion blurring on HD TV sets. So, even though it might not bring me the kind of power of a Cruise or the horrors of a Kirstie Alley, I may need to keep a more open mind.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Cast: Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Max Von Sydow

Have I Seen it Before: I made a point of watching it when I was in high school, as I was in that phase when people (it might have just been me) aren’t really ready for the more important films of the world, but insist on watching them anyway. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) may have had something to do with it.

Did I Like It: It’s iconic qualities—again, see Bogus Journey—are hard to discount. It’s cinematography is stark and consistently interesting, even if it has a sort of almost-too-clean quality one might find in television productions over the next decade. Although, to be fair, that may be a byproduct of a trend in Blu Rays where the print becomes a bit too remastered for it’s own good. Thank God Bengt Ekerot wasn’t hiding a mustache under all that white make-up—a la Cesar Romero—or this film might have threatened to be fun.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? The film’s so aggressively self-serious that even in moments where there is comedy relief, it’s still a little bit about the weight of God and death. What’s more, the is a lot of road (well, at least 96 minutes of road) to get to the ultimate realization that hemming and hawing about the inevitability of death is a fool’s errand: death will still come and put you in checkmate. It’s such a self-apparent conclusion, that I was getting a little annoyed at the proceedings about three-fourths of the way in when I came to it. When, in its final moments, the film doubles down on my own perceptions, I wasn’t exactly sure why I had—for the second time in twenty years—gone through this exercise.

Maybe I need to give it another twenty years.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Director: Sydney Pollack

Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow

Have I Seen it Before: Inexplicably, no.

Did I Like It: This first thought is going to sound like a complaint, but it isn’t. Maybe, it’s a foolish sense of optimism, but I think that the Times did publish whatever Joe Turner/Condor gave to them, shedding light on the shadow CIA propped up by Higgins (Robertson) and others at the company.

Although that probably makes the movie more similar to a television pilot than a traditional movie with a contained story. Again, that’s not a problem. I want to follow Condor as he tries to take down the people that double-crossed him. I want it to take six years, and I want the last shot of such a series fade away from Turner finally re-uniting with Kathy (Dunaway) in favor of Wabash (John Houseman), back at headquarters contemplating either spending the rest of his days in prison while his enemies claim victory, or hiring Joubert (von Sydow) to offer him the only clemency he can hope for.

I want more of it, is what I’m saying.

This movie fits snugly within the wrinkles of my brain. Between the now ancient computers accomplishing tasks we now take for granted, typewriters in every home and on every office desk in all of creation, and the only good guy in town is the one who’s read the most books, I don’t only want to watch this movie again, I want to live in it. Which, as I’m typing, I realize is an odd reaction to the movie.

It’s so unusual to watch one of your new favorite movies for the first time, much less have that movie be waiting for you to find it for over forty years. I honestly don’t understand how this movie—which wasn’t exactly hiding in Faye Dunaway’s apartment—slipped by me for so long. It may just supplant Die Hard (1988) as my favorite Christmas movie. Fight me.

EDIT: Turns out a Condor series was released last year on AT&T’s fledgling streaming service, Audience. All things I wasn’t previously aware existed, but somehow have already been paying for all this time. What a time to be alive, I think.