Pet Sematary (2019)

Director: Kevin Kölsch, Dennis Widmyer

Cast: Jason Clarke (sigh), Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jeté Laurence

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly enough, no… Although it feels like the sight of Jason Clarke taking a walk in the middle of the night has bored me forever.

Did I Like It: That feels like a ridiculous question. No. No, I didn’t

Let’s talk for a moment about Jason Clarke. I’m sure he’s a perfectly fine person, but I can’t—after many attempts to make sense out of it—figure out how this man has become a regularly working film star. Between this, Winchester (2018), and Terminator: Genisys* (2015) he’s well on his way to becoming the Ted McGinley of tired franchise movies.

And for once, I don’t think it’s entirely, or even mostly Clarke’s fault that the movie surrounding him is a slowly simmering garbage fire. This film drags through it’s interminable (and yet somehow less than 2 hour) runtime as a mishmash of plot elements set up that go nowhere. The masked cult surrounding the Pet Sematary is introduced in the first few minutes, and hardly referred to again in the film. Pascow (Obssa Ahmed) loses his head** and then promptly has no role for the rest of the film. And even poor Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie), the previous anchor of everything you would expect to come from the story of Pet Sematary has nothing to do other than act as a misdirection for the one profound change from the source material.

And that misdirection does pique peak interest from me during the screening, but unfortunately what appears to be the only rationale for the film to exist in the first place accounts for a minute, and there’s still a lot of movie to sit through at that point. In a fit of fancy I got a large drink and popcorn, so it still managed to be a pleasant way to spend an aftrnoon.

* Which I originally typed with the most ridiculous spelling I could imagine, only to find that the “correct” spelling was even more preposterous.

** It’s deeply distressing how proud I am of this sentence.

A Star Is Born (2018)

Director: Bradley Cooper

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Elliott

Have I Seen it Before: Am I terribly behind the curve if I say no? Probably. Guess I’m just behind the curve.

Did I Like It: It’ll stick with me, so I’m gonna say yes.

By the time I came around to Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, it already had a number of things working against. First, it’s a remake. Not just a remake, but a remake of a remake. By all rights, there should be something diminished about it. 

Beyond that, it’s been hyped to me beyond the previous known limits of hyping. Everyone loves this movie, to the point where In early considered not writing a review of it at all, because what more could I possibly contribute to the conversation? I’ll either join the chorus, or the movie might not work for me in that particular instant, and I’ll be forced for 300 or more words to pass off my particular mood at the time the movie played for some kind of objective truth.

And so, I’m left somewhere in the middle. I don’t know if the film particularly transfixed me in the moment, but as I mentioned above, in the hours that have passed since I watched it, it is sticking with me. Which is more than the vast majority of movies, and hints at even more greatness to come from Bradley Cooper as a director, and Lady Gaga as an actress.

And that’s where the film truly, if you’ll forgive the expression, sings. This is a film built nearly totally off of people expanding into roles that we never expected them to fill. Bradley Cooper acquits himself well as a director, and turns out to be a far better musician than anyone could have rightly expected him to be. Similarly, Lady Gaga emerges as a fully formed film actress where other musicians would struggle, and manages to stretch her muscles in the music arena, while still staying true to her brand.

So, while it may not be as earth-shatteringly good as some people insist, it is far better than it deserves to be, and it will only continue to grow on me.

Reign of the Supermen (2019)

Director: Sam Liu

Cast: Jerry O’Connell, Rebecca Romijn, Rainn Wilson, Cameron Monaghan

Have I Seen it Before: In all the very loose adaptations of The Death of Superman, WB and DC have never really leaned into the other half of the story. So, no I guess I’ve never seen it.

Did I Like It: It’s exactly what it promises to be, if a little slight.

Gotta admire a movie that takes the piss out of its long-running title in the first opening minutes, especially as it tries to move beyond the similarity between the original, more Nietzsche-esque elements of the character’s prototype. I’m a little less sure if I admire the choice to make Superboy (Monaghan) as 90s radical as he was in the source material, although they do manage to include a whiff of Bieber-esque celebrity for the character that is a little more now.

Is this the first review—or even first piece of writing at all—that features both the terms “Nietzsche-esque” and “Bieber-esque” in a single paragraph? God, I hope so.

The animation is a little cheap in places. Not sure if we can expect much more from a Warner Bros. direct-to-disc production, but a boy can dream. Also, the story wraps itself up far too quickly. Trying to jam in nearly a year of comics into a movie just slightly over 80 minutes long seems like a flaw inherent in the form. I’m not sure I can fully recommend it, but then again it’s not the worst adaptation of the resurrection of Superman that’s ever floated across our screens.

A couple of weird nitpicky things that I can’t quiet get completely over:

Having a world where there is both Cyborg (Shemar Moore), a member of the Justice League and a Cyborg Superman (Jerry O’Connell and Patrick Fabian) feels like some muddled story-telling, even if they hang a lantern (ha) on it. I guess, that’s just what the League brand is now.

Having Batman—even halfheartedly—suggest Green Lantern take a shot with a bazooka at Superboy feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the character, but then again, this isn’t Batman’s movie, so I guess I can allow it.

While having a Hillary-esque woman be POTUS is certainly a world I would prefer to live in. And yet, it feels sort of an easy shot, but then again our wolrd is one full of easy shots.

Us (2019)

Director: Jordan Peele

Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker

Have I Seen it Before: New movie. On every level.

Did I Like It: Man… If you don’t, I’m fairly sure you’re actually a (SPOILER REDACTED).

And that right there will limit this review right there. I can’t, in good conscience, go into to too much detail about the various goings on in the film. Also, there’s too much. Every moment is filled with either complicated levels of subtext or next-level cinematic skills. Also, those moments interlock together to form a tableau of misdirection, and it all comes together in the end, despite what some people might say. Jokes set up scares and scares set up jokes. Us is a well-oiled machine fo a movie.

It’s also difficult to go forward with an immediate, obvious comparison between Peele’s first film, Get Out (2017). Peele has also managed to avoid one of the more ominous elements of what could have been a sophomore curse. He is most certainly not repeating himself, despite what some of the promotional material might have you believe.

The entirety of Jordan Peele’s career is a marvel. He certainly in the running for the greatest sketch comedian of all time, inside of a week, he will claim his rightful place as the heir apparent to Rod Serling, and here in directing only two features, he has cemented himself as the greatest horror filmmaker of our times. It’d be like if Alfred Hitchcock were also Bill Murray this whole time, and without the horrible mistreatment of Tippi Hedren (so far as we know).

Some may complain that the twist ending either isn’t as satisfying as the rest of the film, or is a bit too telegraphed. They’re definitely wrong on the first part, while I may be able to allow for reasonable people the believe the latter. Even if we grant either premise, it doesn’t matter. Unlike many of M. Night Shyamalan’s films, the rest of Us is so thoroughly thrilling and satisfying that the ending is incidental.

Death of Superman (2018)

Director: Sam Liu, James Tucker

Cast: Jerry O’Connell, Rebecca Romijn, Rainn Wilson, Nathan Fillion

Have I Seen it Before: I’ve seen this story, before yes. And read it, in both comic and novel forms. How I ever got married is beyond me.

Did I Like It: Yeah. Why not?

By my count, this is—excluding the Super Nintendo game from the early 1990s where the whole point of the first level was to die—the fourth adaptation of the Death of Superman. Like the others, it reflects a Justice League of its time (i.e. Batman has a son, which was unthinkable in the pre-Nolan era, and everyone has a smartphone) but it hews closer to the original source material than any of the others. Excluding possibly the abandoned Tim-Burton-directed-Nicolas-Cage-starring movie from the late 90s that lives on in our hearts for how weird it could have been.

Interesting gambit, casting a married couple as Superman and Lois Lane. I’m not sure if Jerry O’Connell has the essence of Superman down as much as some other actors, nor do I think that Rebecca Romijn quite has the energy of an ideal Lois Lane, but they are both flying circles around Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth, so as with most Superman adaptations, all is improved when we grade on a curve. While Rainn Wilson wouldn’t look the art in a live action production, his voice works. Then again, Eisenberg didn’t even have a voice that worked. So, there you go.

Does manage to grab the Superman-as-Kennedy motif that the comic reached for more effectively than any of the other adaptations. While I’m more excited about the followup Reign of the Superman (2019), Bibbo is there, and he’s the character I’ve been waiting for the movies to get to. Everything good about Superman can be found in Bibbo. If you don’t know who Bibbo is, it’s entirely possible that this move may not be for you.

Ultimately, the structure the movie has more of a feeling akin to part one of a multi-part TV episode, which is not the greatest sin in the world. Additionally, we’re so far from the days of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) to expect that much out DC animated movies.

It’s damn sure better than Justice League (2017) or Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and that’s saying something.

Captain Marvel (2019)

Directors: Anne Boden, Ryan Fleck

Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Lashana Lynch

Have I Seen it Before: Tempting to say yes, as the superhero genre has consistently risked reverting to a very bland mean, but I’m pleased to say this film has enough of a unique feel to bring me straight to the answer to my next question.

Did I Like It: Yes, yes I did.

Is it kind of gross to immediately compare this to Wonder Woman (2017)? Reductive, possibly, but impossible to completely avoid while the road to more representation is paved with MRA’s who are insistent on burning everything to the ground. Is it apostasy to say that I prefer Captain Marvel? Wonder Woman is a fine film—and in fact the only film of the struggling DCEU to not be overwhelmed by any particularly glaring flaws—but is ultimately at it is core Thor meets Captain America but with a lady.

Marvel, however feels different. For one thing, there is no interest in any degree of a romantic subplot anywhere in the film. Admittedly, that could be in some small part because the first forty-five minutes are a little weighed down by expositioning a heavy science-fantasy framework of which general audiences likely have no awareness. No time for love here, Dr. Jones. And yet, omitting that part of the story feels refreshing.

Carol Danvers (Brie) isn’t closed off or inhuman in the pursuit of this greater ideal, either. She has tremendous affection for her friends (even in cases where she’s spent over half a decade not remembering them), is the funniest character in the film that isn’t a cat, and She’s a welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and only serves to increase my anticipation of the upcoming Avengers Endgame. What’s more? I think the true measure of a superhero film featuring a character that might not be in the cultural zeitgeist is that I want to read more of the world the moment the movie is over. And in the day since I’ve seen the film, I keep eyeing the comixology collection of Captain Marvel stories. So, well done, movie. Well done.

One more note: the work to make Samuel L. Jackson and to a lesser extent, Clark Gregg, twenty-five years younger has finally come of age. Or, at the very least, it’s evolved by quantum leaps beyond the lurching, halting, unfathomable creations that first stepped out of a car in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). With that being said, my common refrain about the future of superhero films may need a slight revision. I’ve been saying for years that the best idea no one is working on is a Batman Beyond film featuring Michael Keaton as old Bruce Wayne. Now that we have the technology to rebuild him, let’s skip the compromise and just make the Batman 3 that we always deserved and give us prime 90s Keaton. We have the means; we need only find the will now.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy

Have I Seen it Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: Look it’s a Batman movie that doesn’t rely on certain characters mother’s being named Martha. What’s not to like? I’ll tell you.

I ultimately don’t think Nolan had a plan going into this one. Maybe he didn’t really want to make a third film in his series, but he really really didn’t want to make any more movies, so he scrambled for a rousing conclusion. It forges together some of the bigger Batman comic plot lines that weren’t covered by Nolan’s two previous movies, Knightfall, No Man’s Land, and The Dark Knight Returns, but the blending doesn’t quite come together. It all fits together not as smoothly as it did in the previous entry, 2008’s The Dark Knight. In the attempt, to many plot lines rise to the top.

Too many plots. How did Bruce Wayne get back into Gotham after escaping Bane’s prison, especially when it is well-established that he’s broke by this point in the movie? And where and with whom is Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul at various points in the third act?

While people moan and wail about the deep, unforgiving chasm that separates Bale's Batman voice from his Bruce Wayne voice, he seems utterly restrained* when compared with the Sean Connery and Darth Vader forged in a blender that is Bane (Hardy). Several years have separated this particular screening from its premiere, but the first moment he speaks on that airplane, it’s one of the most bizarre sounding things that has ever been committed to film, compounded by the deep realization that Bane’s words clearly were modified deep into postproduction, as he didn’t sound quite so ridiculous in the early trailers for the film released in 2011 and 2012. 

Speaking of that airplane sequence, let’s get into what absolutely, unassailably works about the movie. The stunt work is legit. Nolan—although he couldn’t possibly have had the screenplay he hoped for—is one of the last great filmmakers working in studio films these days. I can’t imagine that there is not a single frame of 

Also, where Bane leaves one wanting, Anne Hathaway never fails to impress as Selina Kyle/Cat Burglar who is never explicitly referred to as Catwoman. The role has had so many distinct portrayals over the years, but Hathaway manages to tap into a realistic cat burglar vibe, while also embracing the soul of the character. As it’s always a little bit shocking how strange of a creation Bane is, it’s equally impressive how good she is, when there was plenty of room to be mediocre.

One might be tempted to be more forgiving of the film, viewing it through the same prism as Return of the Jedi (1983) or The Search for Spock (1984), thinking it suffers only because it follows the best-ever movie in the series. Tragically, while there are some things to truly like, and by no means do I think Christopher Nolan’s reputation as a shaper of popular entertainments will have ended up suffering because of it, The Dark Knight Rises ultimately has too many glaring flaws to work on it’s own account.

And I might feel pretty bad about that, but somewhere lurking in the future of this franchise is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), which accomplished the herculean task of making even Joel Schumacher look like Akira Kurosawa.

*Except of course when he’s talking to himself on a rooftop after Selina Kyle departs. I don’t know who he thinks he’s doing that for, but it certainly isn’t part of maintaining his secret identity.

Batman (1989)

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson*, Kim Basinger, Michael Gough

Have I Seen it Before: Let’s put it this way. There was a time when if you were to say any series of words that happened to be a line from the movie, like, say “Better be sure,” I would feel compelled to perform the next ten minutes of the movie. “See? You can make a good decision when you try. Hehehehehe. Where you been spending your nights? Well, welcome Count Dracula… Etc.”

I’ve gotten better in my advancing age, but not by much. I still perform the rest of the movie in my head, I just don’t make you watch it.

So, yes. I’ve seen it before.

Did I Like It: Is it even possible to offer criticism of a film that has lived in your head since your earliest memories? Can I ever watch this movie without watching the Michael Gough-staring Diet Coke Commercial and Bugs and Daffy demanding I call a 1-900 number for a Warner Bros. catalog (the traditional manner, as both ads appear before this film on the initial VHS release)? Is there room in the world for both a Batusi and a Batdance?

These are just some of the thrilling questions I will attempt to answer here.

The film’s production design is second to none. The film is clearly being filmed on a backlot, where every moment of action that isn’t in Stately Wayne Manor, The Gotham Globe, or Axis Chemicals**, seems to take place on the same street corner in Gotham. And yet, with matte paintings and other tricks of the camera, one is almost fooled into believing that Gotham is an actual city. Batman’s (Keaton) vehicles are wrought metal creations so indelible that while they were originally meant to adapt the then-fifty years of comics that had preceded it, but ended up becoming the ur-template for the next thirty years of interpretations of the character. 

The makeup is pretty special as well, but without the man behind it, all you’re essentially left with is Jared Leto. While Nicholson doesn’t quite pull off the same job that Heath Ledger does  in The Dark Knight (2008), but he doesn’t need to. Ledger disappeared into a character so slithery and despicable that there was incredibly little left of the actor. Nicholson chews scenery with aplomb, but isn’t the least bit interested in jettisoning the movie-star persona that had gotten him the role.

And then there’s Michael Keaton. He was shamed on spec for even approaching the role of the World’s Greatest Detective, because, I dunno Beelejuices and Messrs. Mom can’t kick ass? Once the movie actually came out—indeed, by the time the first trailer artificially inflated the box office of Deepstar Six (1989) or The January Man (1989)—he became Batman for an entire—read: my—generation. I’d love to see him reclaim the role in a Batman Beyond/The Dark Knight Returns adaption, but what really makes his performance stand out is that Keaton, as Bruce Wayne, is a stellar nerd. He’s never been able to be Bruce Wayne with any reliable success, but when he is at work, he is his best self. It also helps that he has a car that’s essentially a jet engine on wheels. Between his performance in these films and Bill Murray as Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters (1984), I had most of the attainable pillars of masculinity that I would ever need.

That probably says more about me than anything else, but I digress.

I have been effusive with praise for the film up until this point, but there is plenty that doesn’t work, and I’m not just talking about Robert Wuhl***. My generation is pretty in love with Prince, but since this film was my first exposure to his work, I’ve never found him—dare I speak ill of the dead—anything more than distracting. Also, the screenplay doesn’t hold up under even minimal scrutiny, buried as it is under the whizbang circus that Burton is far more interested in. And, here I’m not talking about Jack Napier/The Joker (Nicholson) usurping Joe Chill’s rightful place as the the murderer of Bruce Wayne’s parents. In fact, I’m only kind of talking about how eager Batman is to kill those that stand in his way. The rest of the plot is far too wobbly for its own good., too. And, on spec, it isn’t a bad plot, either! The idea of the mob getting a hold of CIA-abandoned nerve toxins and unleashing them on a city’s cosmetic product supply could make a pretty good movie, but it just isn’t particularly allowed to breathe here. The closest thing to a traditional goal-oriented story arc is handed to Vicki Vale (Basinger), but her dogged sleuthing of just what is up with both Batman and Bruce Wayne always rings a little hollow, because we have come into the film with the mystery all wrapped up in our heads. Honestly, I’ve thought a superhero story where the secret identity element becomes the back-bone of a whodunit has always appealed to me, and I may yet write it one day.

The film is chicken soup, just like mom (or, in this case, Tim Burton) used to make. I went into this screening nursing the tail end of a head cold and a stomach ache, and now I’m thrilled to say I can enjoy the films more medicinal properties the next time I don’t feel well.

So, sure, it’s worth watching, I guess. It’ll probably take upwards of thirty years for the film to reach the same level for you as it does for me, but I think you can get there.

*Some confusion about who should get top billing on this one, but I choose to go in alphabetical order. Some eagle-eyed readers will think I am giving way to bias and putting Keaton ahead of Nicholson. I’m reasonably sure that’s not what I am doing here.

**Which themselves are re-used sets from James Cameron’s Aliens (1986).

***I’m supremely confident Mr. Wuhl is a decent guy, and wouldn’t have made that crack about him if I didn’t think he was in on the joke. I once saw an interview with him where he called some other film I’ve now forgotten, “So bad, that I thought I was in it.” He seems like he knows what’s up.

The Terminator (1984)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul WInfield

Have I Seen it Before: I want to make some kind of joke about their being no fate but what we make

Did I Like It: Why don’t you make movies with real things and real people, James Cameron? Why?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. This film is perfectly cast. Before he became the most improbable quip-machine in history, Schwarzenegger brings all of his monosyllabic lethality to the role of a lifetime. Lance Henriksen wouldn’t have been the right choice—although he is good in the film, and does eventually reach his potential as a robot for James Cameron one day. OJ Simpson was in the running at one point, but everyone decided he wouldn’t be convincing as a killer. True story. Linda Hamilton plays the arc of the Final Girl’s transformation to Warrior Woman much more efficiently than her peers or successors. And then there’s Michael Biehn. Is there an American action star who is better to display constant patience with the events and people around him? That he hasn’t been a much bigger star over the years is completely beyond me.

But let’s really talk about how this film has no business working out at all.

This thing could have floated away in a river of nonsense exposition, in the middle of the second act. But Cameron is no idiot. When Kyle (Biehn) has to tell the whole story of the future, and John Conner, and the Terminators to Sarah (Hamilton), he does so in the middle of a car chase. And not just any old blah-blah middle-of-the-backlot run-of-the-mill car chase. This is a next level, look out French Connection (1971) car chase, and it’s one of three in the film. You could do a film like this much less artfully, but then it would be Highlander (1986).

Even the few elements fo special effects in this film that don’t age super well (spoiler: it’s those moments when there’s any kind of rear-screen projection, or when The Terminator (Schwarzenegger) is clearly a puppet) have their delightful charm. I can kind of see how a grade-a control freak like James Cameron now wants to exclusively make films using the motion capture technology he adopted in Avatar (2009). He is no longer at the mercy of the elements, time, or people. It sounds nice, but I’m starting to miss great movies made outside of a computer, especially when James Cameron is making them.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Cast: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Michael Ironside, Virginia Madsen

Have I Seen it Before: One might be forgiven for asking why I decided to write it now.

Did I Like It: If I grade on a curve…

No. I didn’t like it. It’s an objectively bad film. I’m even reasonably sure that I watched one of the later revised cuts, that are supposedly better than the allegedly worst-of-all-time theatrical cut, and there isn’t much to like here. The theatrical cut apparently reveals that the immortals are extra-terrestrials. This may be profane among Highlander fans (I don’t really care if it is), but that’s a much better origin than the warmed over time travel mishmash served here.

Are there plot holes that you can drive a truck through, leaving the entirety of the plot incomprehensible? Sure. 

Are the special effects cheap to the point where one wonders if, a la Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987), the filmmakers ran out of money and simply had to release any old thing? I’m kind of thinking that yes, this is precisely what happened here. 

Is there no reasonable reason for Sean Connery to be in this film, to the point where the common legend that Bond The First turned down roles in The Matrix (1999) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy because he “didn’t get them” becomes absolutely astonishing? Yes. Demonstrably so. He died rather conclusively in the first film and is alive again in this one for… reasons. This series is about a clan of immortals who can only be killed by beheading. Also, beheading doesn’t matter.

But the consternation the film inspires in people is a little inexplicable. Anyone that is somehow betrayed by anything that happens, or fails to happen, or insists on happening despite all reason, is pointedly forgetting the weird car wreck that is the original Highlander (1986). They’re both crappy. This one is somehow a little more spirited in its crappiness. And that’s something.

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

Director: Christopher Landon

Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Rachel Matthews, Phi Vu

Have I Seen it Before: Brother, I haven’t even seen the original Happy Death Day (2017).

Did I Like It: God help me… Bring it in guys. Let’s keep this secret, but… I did.

No sane person could reasonably claim that Happy Death Day 2U is a great film, but damned if it didn’t win me over despite its flaws. It’s often funny, it’s got enough time-travel whiz-bang about it to keep interest, and it’s only barely a slasher movie, despite what this films advertising and the original film might have you believe.

As mentioned earlier, I had not seen the original film from which this sequel spawned, and I’m thinking that this plays better in that context. The quick recap of the original film becomes extraordinarily helpful, where it might have been clunky and needlessly expositional in any other context. It’s nearly suggested an idea to me that I should write a horror movie that is a sequel to a much better film that never actually existed. Maybe one day I will actually write that movie.

I don’t know if I can fully recommend the film, though, unless you happen to be living insider my own brain. There are just too many groaners in the plot. Did we ever figure out what was going in with Fake Ryan (Vu)? Is Danielle (Matthews) just a bitch, or is she actually their friend because she helps them distract the Dean in the climax*? If she is their friend, why is she their first pick for the DARPA relaunch of the reactor project that got them all into this in the first place**?

Is it possible I’m over-thinking a movie with a title like Happy Death Day 2U? Probably. I would say go see the film if you haven’t seen the first one (and please report back to me your findings so I can see if I’ve truly gone off the deep end). If you have seen the original, you might be more inclined to like a film like the original, so this might not be the one for you.

*With just a moderate re-write, this film’s screenplay could have served as the basis for the fabled movie based on “Community.”

**Typing all of that out now, it dawns on me that the movie might be more bananas than it seems at first blush. Good for it.

Stardust (2007)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Cast: Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer

Have I Seen it Before: I really was pretty sure that I had, but as I watched the movie on this screening, it became pretty clear that I’ve only ever seen bits of it. My wife loves it, and so I must have, over the course of ten years, seen about half an hour of it.

Did I Like It: The fact that just half an hour feels like a more than complete experience of the movie, should tell you something. Ultimately, its unfair to expect me to like it, but here we go.

Something about the fantasy genre usually bugs me. J.R.R. Tolkien may be a master wordsmith, but the legacy of having to excruciatingly detail your world building in fantasy is often mind-numbingly boring and stops any forward momentum in the story when in the hands of lesser writers.

Now, Neil Gaiman is not a lesser writer. In fact, he is one of the greats. That only makes me expect more from him, and maybe the book from which the film springs is different, but this is entirely too much run-of-the-mill fantasy material for me to recommend it in any way. The first ten minutes are weighed down by a lead balloon of VO narration by the admittedly pleasant Ian McKellen and wandering plot lines that never quite pay off.

The rest of the film is pleasant enough, I suppose, but never quite outgrows the turgid first half an hour. Maybe the big performances of Pfeiffer and De Niro are meant to be fun, but in the context of this film she feels too kitschy for her own good, and it’s been years since De Niro has approached a film role with more focus than I make a left-hand turn. 

Primary Colors (1998)

Director: Mike Nichols

Cast: John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates, Adrian Lester

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, man. Many, many times.

Did I Like It: There are few films (to say nothing of the source material) that have more influenced my early writing. 

The story of campaign workers slowly losing their sense under the weight of a wave of pure charisma speaks to, if not me, than certainly a younger version of me. That’s not who I am anymore, but its hard not to deny the sheer tonnage of nostalgia that the movie brings.

I just realized I didn’t answer the “did I like it” question, did I? Imagine that, not giving a straight answer to a question. Kind of like a politician. I do like the film. There are few truly great Travolta performances, and with his aw shucks Dr. Jekyll fighting with his horny, petulant Mr. Hyde, this might be my favorite of his work. But, ultimately, this movie  may not quite sing for me as much as it once did. 

I don’t think that it is the fault of the filmmakers. Just like a news story from the era, I just thin kit doesn’t age terribly great. Who could have guessed at the time that it would have this problem?

Could it be that large swaths of it ring tone deaf in the #metoo era. Possibly, but there is a moral environment in the film where our protagonist, Henry Burton (Lester) seems willing to fight (even if he eventually loses) for those more lofty ideals.

Is it because a cynical political satire about the Clinton era of politics doesn’t quite work the same in a time when the entire world seems like its increasingly on fire? That may be the more likely explanation for where the age is showing. Characters stand around knowing that if the juggernaut candidate Freddy Picker (Larry Hagman) is involved in some kind of nepotistic business deal or a tax swindle, he clearly has disqualified himself from being President. Twenty years ago, this film was bleak in its cynicism, now it is either Capraesque or naive in the extreme.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba

Have I Seen it Before: Once again. Unless it’s a brand-spanking new release, it’s a safe bet that I’ve seen a Star Trek film before.

Did I Like It: It’s almost like they finally took every complaint I had about the previous two films (more the second than the first) and incorporated them into a new film. This is that film.

Here’s a deep, dark secret about Star Trek, especially anything having to do with any version of Kirk and company, the original crew. Everyone says it is about lofty ideals and political parables. But really, truly, it is an adventure series. It works best when its an adventure story. 

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) goes back to the purest distillation of the franchise and presents Horatio Hornblower in space. Certainly, you get something like various episodes of the TV series, or both Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) that have deeper ideas, but those ideas are fully developed. This film’s predecessor, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), tries to reach for those lofty ideas, but half-bakes some kind of post 9/11 mush.

This film doesn’t have that problem. There’s a hint of a dissertation as to whether the Federation’s ideals of peace and unity, but here are the elements that keep the film together. There’s a bad guy who wants to do bad things. The only people that can stop them are the crew of the USS Enterprise. they will have a hard time repelling this threat.

That’s all you need, really, and this film doesn’t need anything more than the basics. Those lofty ideals should really be reserved for Nicholas Meyer, honestly. This film is far more engagingly Star Trek than any of the previous Abrams-involved ones. It also has the unusual distinction of not having any scenes take place on or in orbit of Earth (Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) is the only other entry in the film series to do this), and that is far more true to the reality of Star Trek than the alternative.

At the time of this writing, it is entirely possible that the “Kelvin” series will stay a trilogy. Time will tell, but as a finale, it works in remarkably subtle ways. The Beastie Boys are back to my undying chagrin, but at least here it has some kind of story-based reason for existing in Roddenberry’s future, and even kind-of-sort-of makes its original existence in Star Trek (2009) as set-up for this eventual payoff. The angry young men that Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto) were when we first met them have settled into the people they are supposed to be, and are no longer bound by the prime universe that preceded them. If they do return, then it would be nice to see them just inhabit the characters, now that the development is complete.

Highlander (1986)

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Cast: Christopher Lambert, Roxanne Hart, Clancy Brown, and… Sean Connery?

Have I Seen it Before: Never. 

Did I Like It: God help me… Maybe?

I can’t be the first one to bring this up, but I’d be remiss if I completely avoided the issue.

A British spy. An Irish cop. A Russian submarine captain. Whatever the hell he played in Zardoz (1974). Connery has been—at least on paper—miscast more than any major movie star in history.

And then we come to Highlander. The movie about a Scottish immortal casts the frenchman as the Scot, and the most Scottish man who ever Scott’ed (and didn’t run a starship engine room) gets to play the Spaniard?

Oh. He’s an Egyptian. My mistake.

Truly bewildering decisions not withstanding, this opening entry in the inexplicable Highlander franchise is a wobbly hut built on the foundation of other, much better films. It plays out like a mixture of Terminator (1984) and The Duellists (1977), but clearly wasn’t made with any of the skill of either Ridley Scott or a James Cameron. I admire one of Mulcahy’s films, 1994’s The Shadow, but even that is a pillar of flaws with a few brief flourishes of watchability. This seems to be his M.O.

The fact that Christopher Lambert has enjoyed any manner of a career, while at the same time we collectively sneer at the very presence of Tommy Wiseau. They occupy the same real estate in moviedom. I don’t get it. Now that I think about it, has anyone seen Lambert and Wiseau in the same place at the same time?

And yet, it’s been almost a day since I watched the movie as I type this review, and Highlander hasn’t left my mind since. It’s almost gleefully bad, and, again, God help me, I’m morbidly intrigued to take in the experience that is Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), because apparently that is the truly inexplicably awful movie in this series. I can’t even imagine.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Bruce Greenwood, and that great latin lover, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Have I Seen it Before: Since 1994, it is reasonable to assume that I’ve been there for every Star Trek film on opening weekend.

Did I Like It: Folks, I really want to enjoy every Star Trek film. I want to. And yet…

It’s difficult to try and criticize this film without taking a deep dive into my long-standing Trek fandom…

So here I go criticizing from that perspective:

The opening scene is such a complete and total violation of the Prime Directive in every way, shape and form. How Kirk (Pine) is not arrested and sent to a prison colony for life twenty minutes into this movie is beyond me.

They keep referring to the transwarp beaming equation that Scotty (Simon Pegg) “developed” in the original film. That was supposed to allow people to beam onto a ship traveling away from you at warp speed. It has nothing to do with beaming people to a planet in a completely different sector of space many light years away. Also, not for nothing, the effective development of that technology negates the need for starships at all, and pretty much nullifies the entire concept of Star Trek. Not great, all things considered.

The fact that Leonard Nimoy, in his final performance as Spock Prime, doesn’t argue with McCoy (Karl Urban) is a missed opportunity that will never present itself again.

Maybe one can try to make an argument that the film has a certain energy that someone who isn’t steeped in the lore of this franchise might find entertaining, but in my best attempt to try and see this film from that perspective, I just can’t make it happen. This movie has been unleashed on the public for nearly six years. Can anyone explain to me what it is actually about, beyond a tame studio-watered down semi-parable for the post 9/11 world? 

Even the stakes are much lower here. In Star Trek (2009), Nero threatens the entirety of planet Earth, after proving that he is a real threat by destroying the planet Vulcan. Here, Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) has a plan. I’m still not entirely sure what it is, but at the end of it, a large ship crashes into San Francisco. 

Let’s talk about Khan, and for that matter, Khan, while we’re at it. The casting of the whitest man in all of time and space to succeed a decidedly non-white hispanic actor playing a man of Indian decent is a little… Well, it’s certainly something. The error is retconned by a four-part comic series published after the movie was released, but it doesn’t bode well for the film itself if you have to have the ancillary material to make heads or tails out of it. Also, the reversal of roles merely for a rehash of the far, far superior Wrath of Khan (1982) is lame in extreme.

Also, his blood wasn’t some sort of fountain of youth. Just saying.

It’s flimsy, and cheap in its writing, and that’s pretty impressive when you could say that about a lot of the big budget action far hoisted upon us. I cannot help but think that Abrams was eyeing adventures in another galaxy, far, far away and didn’t have his eyes on the prize here, and it became clear that his various lieutenants don’t have his same skill.

For some reason I want to rate this film higher than the generally accepted worst films in the franchise (either Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) or Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), depending on your particular taste), but on this particular viewing I don’t think I can go light on it. This may be the worst Trek film…

Or it’s as bad as Nemesis, not worse. I think I’ll go with that much. Worse than Nemesis feels like a stretch. 

Aliens (1986)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Carrie Henn

Have I Seen it Before: It is one of the greats..

Did I Like It: It is one of the greats…

*I viewed the 1990 special edition, which is notedly preferred by director James Cameron.*

There can be a problem with director’s cuts, especially when the vast majority of additional footage is lumped into the first forty-five minutes of the movie. Hard to front load a story like that, but Cameron is right in his introduction. This movie has 40 miles of bad road before things go truly pear-shaped, but when it does, that first bunch of the film is necessary. Without them, the film would be less. It would be more like most of the bland movies that exist now. Most writing advice would have you start your story as close to the meat of the action is possible, and I’m glad that Cameron ignored—at least in one format—that advice.

This first sequel in the Alien series is a master class in floating opposites, and miraculously, it makes a strong argument for itself as the superior film. Where Alien (1979) is steeped in subtext within the relationships between the characters. 

The original film straddles between a space-based haunted house movie, demonic possession movie, slasher, and monster man-in-suit shocker, all while staying firmly weighted in Horror. This one embraces a full-throated action vein by becoming a Vietnam War picture in space, but still feels of a piece with the original film. It’s a tricky thing to do, as most movies in a series that try to jump genre usually have to jettison much of what made the earlier films work.

The people of the Nostromo in the original film don’t particularly care for each other or the work they do in the cosmos, but they’ve been on the job for so long that they would never dare speak about it. In this film, the marines have much more clearly defined relationships. The subtext is gone, but the motivations are far clearer, and richer for the specificity. In the original film, Ripley’s (Weaver) mission to recover the ships cat is a gaping flaw in the work, if for no other reason than not one character appears to have any particular attachment to the cat up until that point. Here, Ripley’s forming of a surrogate family makes her quest to recover Newt (Henn) makes perfect sense.

Is this sequel superior to its progenitor? I’m not sure there is an objective answer to that, as it will almost exclusively (as with a great many things) be a matter of taste. It’s certainly in the running, and it isn’t exactly like any other film in the series can compete in that fight.

Star Trek (2009)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quntio, Zoe Saldana, and keeping the whole thing together, the late, great Leonard Nimoy

Have I Seen it Before: I saw it four times in the theater. 

Did I Like It: It may have launched some irritating things (including its own 2013 sequel), but it is hard to deny this film its charms, or, more importantly, the moments where it absolutely sings.

The last ten years or so should be a difficult time for action-adventure movies like those that make up the Star Trek series. They aren’t about anything, other than the thin connective tissue that will propel characters from explosion to explosion. So that this first attempt to relaunch the franchise after the petering out experience by Nemesis (2002) and the then most-recent series, Enterprise, does something incredibly smart. It presents the space opera as coming of age story. Sure, it’s not the loft ambition of a Horatio Hornblower story, or even a parable about Chernobyl in space, but telling the tale of James T. Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto), Angry Young Men, is certainly a good starting out point for the film.

And it mostly works! There are things that serve to annoy. The lens flares are ubiquitous, but commentary about them has become far more irritating than the flares could ever have hoped to be. The decision to shot any utilitarian section of a starship in a brewery has never made sense to me. The Beastie Boy-laden scene where the spunky tween-who-would be Captain Kirk (Jimmy Bennett) faces off with Robocop and gravity remains one of the most irritating scenes in recent memory, compounded by the unassailable reality that it lifts right out of the movie. Not many people talk about how there’s some serious post-production jiggery pokery that leaves the bad guys waiting around for twenty-five years with nothing to do, and I will opt not to go into it much further here.

I could go on. Honestly, it should be a little bit harder to beat the Kobayashi Maru test, even if you have reprogrammed the simulator. But the parts that do work far outweigh the nitpicks. The film is cast perfectly, with the new cast bringing new energy to roles we already think we know. Karl Urban might (and I stress, might) have been more born to play the role than even Deforrest Kelley. The mini-tragedy at the beginning of the movie heralds the coming of Chris Hemsworth, undeniable movie star and latches the film to real emotions, even during those scenes and plot holes I can’t abide. 

And there is one moment, and one spark of performance, that makes this film—and, indeed, the entire “Kelvin” series—work on the whole. It is the first moment in which Kirk encounters Spock Prime (Nimoy). The elder Spock takes one look at this brash upstart and says, haunted by everything we as the audience has already seen. “James T. Kirk…I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” In that moment, I believe Pine is Kirk, Quinto is Spock, and on and on. It’s a moment the film absolutely depends on, and Nimoy nails it with such subtlety, that it’s hard not to marvel at the moment with every repeat viewing.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis

Have I Seen it Before: I’m a pop culture junkie who grew up in the 90s. Had I not seen the film, it’d be sort of like a Catholic not know the catechism.

Did I Like It: Let’s put it this way: I made the fewest notes for this film of all of the reviews I have written. 

Could anyone—and I do mean anyone—construct a screenplay like Tarantino did for this movie, and not have it be immediately dismissed as confusing pile of racist, self-referential garbage? I think one need only look at some of the other films that cropped up in the grunge-adjacent independent scene around it—Kevin Smith’s Clerks (1994) comes chiefly to mind—or the other fragmented crime movies that launched in its wake—Suicide Kings (1997), a film I only have the faintest memories of loathing, comes to mind in that category—to realize that no, you cannot simply reverse engineer the deft touch that Tarantino has brought to each of his films.

Pulp Fiction is a film that beggars belief. It shouldn’t be, and yet it is. Even those who might detract from it in the past (it has certainly aged better than some of the above mentioned contemporaries), complaining that it is too lurid, or too violent for its own good seem to miss the point. Yes, there might not be a film in all of creation that shows drug use so lovingly as this does, but it also, with the OD of Mia (Thurman) brings it all back down to Earth. Drugs are bad, mmmkay? So, too, is it with the violence. When people are killed, yes the carnage is vivid, but the violence is either integral to the plot or given its proper weight under the circumstances. Mr. Wolf’s appearance in the film if Marvin (Phil LaMarr) didn’t have his little accident? I’m also often struck by the awful, real toll of the gunplay between Marsellus (Ving Rhames) and Butch (Willis) before they run afoul of Zed (Peter Greene) and company. Anyone who accuses Tarantino of glibness is focusing too much on the cheeseburgers and the foot rubs, if you ask me.

As I said above, my thoughts on the film are ultimately rather few. It is the superlative entry of its time and place, and if you haven’t watched it, well then you’re just… Where’s Uma Thurman when you need her to draw a square for you?

Alien (1979)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, and Bolaji Badejo as himself.

Have I Seen it Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: As Brett says, “Right…” 

This is another movie that proves difficult to try and write about critically with any sort of honesty. It’s a great film. You know it’s a great film* because they’ve been trying to remake it about a thousand times in the forty years since it was unleashed. And after you see a great film several times, it’s harder still—if not downright impossible—to unpack the experience. One is more struck by the little things that one may not think about on first blush.

The performances are pitch perfect and so against what would be the obvious direction a film like this could have taken. Ash (Holm) particularly stands out on second watch. He slithers through the movie, fighting down his glee (or as much glee as a robot could muster) that things are about to go down. 

The others are no slouches, either. They don’t particularly like each other—or at the very least, have gotten sick of one another after this much time beyond the frontier—and it shows. They don’t even like being in space, which is unique in both this series, and in science fiction as a whole. 

All of this comes about as subtext as well. Never once does one character turn to another and say, “I don’t like you, and I don’t like having to work in outer space.” This, along with the occasionally insane design gives the entire world a lived-in feel that Star Wars or Trek series often reaches for and comes up wanting.

Another element that never fails to delight—although it is likely less of an intentional choice and more of a reality of the time in which it was made—is the technology that surrounds the characters. Between clicking and clacking, displaying nonsense numbers as comprehensible data, and literally everything about the Mother computer make me long for a time when every piece of tech in a film didn’t look like it was designed by Tony Stark. Eagle-eyed readers of these reviews might detect a hypocrisy in that thought, as I have often extolled the virtue of films resisting looking like they were filmed at the time in which they were, but if films still used computers like this, it’d be impossible to tell when any film is made without consulting IMDB or Wikipedia, and that would make me a very happy camper, indeed.

If a film doesn’t have these little things, maybe it is not all that great in the first place. We are lucky that this one has them in spades. They make them worth coming back to every once in a while.

*While it is a great film, it is a competitive candidate for best trailer of all time. You have to kind of imagine yourself as a person who has no idea what the film is about when watching it, but from that perspective its one of the greats.