The Fog (1980)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Janet Leigh

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. It’s not like there were Carpenter movies other than Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) that I have been spending all of these years missing.

Did I Like It: Here’s the problem: I never felt like I got this one entirely. It isn’t a slasher movie, but it wasn’t like people were going to give Carpenter big movie money in 1980 on the heels of Halloween (1978) for anything without stabbings. It’s a ghost story, one supposes, but those ghosts—when they aren’t silent guys who stab things—take the form of one of the most slowly moving, easily avoidable natural phenomena of which I can readily think.

Carpenter himself didn’t feel like the film worked on first blush, and who am I to argue with the master? It isn’t all that scary. Also, there’s no Donald Pleasance in sight, and there really is no excuse for a Carpenter movie to not have Donald Pleasance prior to 1995*. Most damningly, much of the third act groans from the weight of explaining just what is within that fog, and why it wants to wreak just that much havoc. Carpenter at his best, and certainly his two previous films benefit from a ruthless minimalism in their thrills. Maybe this motif was rendered against his better judgment, or perhaps the demands of the horror marketplace and success diminished him for a moment. Ultimately, it’s not so much a case of the difficult second album, but more of a case of the difficult second album about which anyone could be bothered to pay attention.

And yet, it is a Carpenter film and can never be fully dismissed. First of all, he scored the thing, and as much as I might lament him not directing anymore, the fact that he is still producing scores is a throughly satisfying consolation prize. Secondly, even though the fog and what lives within it never quite work, I recognize an idea of unknowable horror that exists in his previous work and that he continues to reckon with. It will never be top tier Carpenter, but him on his worst day (The Ward (2010) not withstanding) is better than almost anybody of his or anyone else’s era.

*Is there a correlation between Pleasance’s passing and the Carpenter’s severe waning interest in continuing to make movies? I’m not seeing a lack of one, to be sure. Not even an injection of Kurt Russell in his life could keep things from eventually unravelling.

Creed III (2023)

Director: Michael B. Jordan

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Jonathan Majors, Phylicia Rashad

Have I Seen it Before: No…

Did I Like It: The prospect of a Rocky movie without Sylvester Stallone is one I shouldn’t be in favor of, right? It’s like a Batman movie in the 90s without Michael Keaton, a James Bond movie without Sean Connery, or a Scream movie without Neve Campbell.

All right, I heard it.

It’s interesting that this film is released in the same month as Scream VI, as this film far more effectively move on from the massive shadow of its iconic central character and performance. That’s probably creditable to Creed II (2018), which I’ve spent the last few years in my mind as a serviceable but vastly inferior sequel to the first Creed (2015), but gave plenty of satisfying conclusion to Balboa’s story, to the point where we may not need to see him again*.

It also helps that both of those films helped establish Michael B. Jordan as an undeniable movie star, and Adonis Creed as a character we want to root for as much as for as his predecessors.

Jordan also acquits himself well as a director. The notion of directing a trilogy capper is daunting enough (with or without the full cast), but directing the ninth in a longer running series has to be an even taller order. What more can be done with this format? While the proceedings do run parallel with Rocky III (1982), Jordan adds an energy to the matches that make the punches feel different (he’s made no secret of Anime influences on the editing and staging, which is certainly something Stallone or John G. Avildsen would have tried). Does all of this make those fights less suspenseful than they had been in the past. I’m going to land on “no”, the fact that there is anything new here is something of a small miracle. Believing that things won’t work out for the main character is probably too much to hope for nine films later.

*A reaction I also had to Rocky Balboa (2006), but what the hell do I know?

The Last Trail (1927)

Director: Lewis Seller

Cast: Tom Mix, Carmelita Geraghty, William B. Davidson, Jerry Madden

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Not entirely sure I’ve seen it at this point.

Did I Like It: I’m sure most genres worked for the silent screen in their day. But I’m supremely confident that, save for a few exceptions, only comedy and horror—those two genres which insist on the viewer having a visceral, involuntary reaction to a film—have any staying power in the here and now.

Therefore, this film is already working at a disadvantage. True, Mix has an impressive fearlessness when it comes to stunts, but that only is brought to any kind of fruition in the final moments of the final act, when Mix surfs the scant remaining splinters of a stagecoach to a final victory against the bandits trying to fix the race. Everything else feels very basic, right down to the main character being forced to adopt an imp of a child who spends most of the runtime outwitting everyone around him like an early-day Jay North, or more accurately a store-brand Jackie Coogan. It feels like Charlie Chaplin would have sent a cease and desist letter if the film would have been a bigger hit, and if every picture of the era didn’t feel the need to partner him up with a little rascal (small “l”, small “r”).

Then there’s the matter of the film’s presentation. I’d be hard pressed to speak ill about a silent movie presented with a full organ accompaniment, especially when some lumbar company bought all the tickets, but let’s confront some unfortunate truths. First, we may not need to see any animated representations of people of Chinese descent from before… Well, anything before Mulan (1998) is going to have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Also, there’s probably a reason that Felix the Cat disappeared into the mists of time*.

Second, it’s hard to get too much of a handle on the movie at all, as the only available version of the film has degraded so much from the original nitrate stock, that there are a number of shots which are nothing more than bright white light with a few scant shadows. I complain about the film’s average-ness here, but I don’t think mostly disappearing is a fair fate for any movie.

*There may have been an uncomfortable cartoon before the feature.

Scream VI (2023)*

Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Cast: Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding

Have I Seen it Before: Nope, brand new. Well, sort of brand new.

Did I Like It: No review of this film will probably be complete without reckoning with the elephant steadfastly refusing to enter the room, Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott**. Campbell’s  decision to not participate in the film did nothing to remove her from the suspect list. That the filmmakers were still able without skipping a beat to get this film into theaters inside of a year after the release of Scream (2022) tells me pretty clearly that Sidney was not a vital part of this story. Watching it unfold makes it pretty clear that the film probably wouldn’t have room for her. Campbell claims that she was being undervalued by the franchise she has brought so much to in the past, and in a series where it is important to not believe much of what we are told, I believe her completely.

That aside, I find this new film to be an exercise in half measures. The opening sequence—with Ghostfaces upon Ghostfaces being hunted by other Ghostfaces—is promising to the point that I think the series may have found a new lease on life that I was never completely convinced had been earned in last year’s entry. What’s more, spending time with the new “core four” characters this time was so engaging that I doubled down on my desire for six more Screams to come. This doesn’t even cover the fact that Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox, the only original cast member to return, even though I have sneaking suspicion that Matthew Lillard is in a cell somewhere, waiting for Scream 7–Sceaivii?—to come find him) gave Ghostface the fake out we all didn’t know we had been waiting for for nearly thirty years.

And then the ending happens, and most (but not all) of that promise goes up in smoke. Difficult to talk about the ending of a Scream without playing all of the available spoiler cards, but it’s a little disappointing that the new character played by the most famous actor in the cast winds up being behind it all. That’s a rule that will get you to solution of most crime procedural episodes before the second commercial break. That the whole affair ends up being a barely warmed-over rehash of the series-best Scream 2 (1997) doesn’t help anything. And the fact that both the protagonists and the villains of the piece could all come together and agree that Sidney Prescott should not be bothered right now strains the credulity of even the most naive of moviegoers. Namely, me.

Maybe we did need Sidney and Neve Campbell after all.

*Or is the title really SCREAIVI? I’m honestly not sure.

**Which I absolutely typed as Sidney Bristow originally. Thank Wes Craven that I was able to catch that one before sending the review to the press.

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines (2006)

Director: Jonathan Frakes

Cast: Noah Wyle, Gabrielle Anwar, Robert Foxworth, Bob Newhart

Have I Seen it Before: Nah, just as with The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (2004), the adventures of Flynn Carsen (Wyle) have flown outside of my radar all of these years. As Lora watches the eventual series, I tend to be in the room while these films are happening around me.

Did I Like It: It’s clear almost immediately that this movie is far superior to the original. Wyle sheds at least some of that “aww, shucks” quality that made him a TV star in the first place, which goes some of the way to giving the pacing of the adventure a less halting quality.

What’s more, this feels far more like an actual movie than an above average weekend weather report, what with all of the preposterous green screen material that fueled the proceedings in the last go around. Maybe it’s a product of the first film’s marginal success, but there appears to be more of a budget here. At any rate, the production value is infinitely higher. All credit should be given to Jonathan Frakes’ influence, a clearly gifted director who should definitely be allowed to keep making features, even if two of his efforts twenty years ago failed to make a dime. It wasn’t his fault! The man made Star Trek: First Contact (1996). Show some respect!

Now, before we go thinking that my praise for this second Librarian film knows no bounds, let’s keep in mind that it’s not like the film has any surprises in it, even if all of the elements presented work a little bit better here. The twist in the plot is so obvious, I knew from where every new character was coming the moment they appeared on screen. And while the special effects are certainly better, this is still at its core a film designed for the sole purpose of filling time between cable broadcasts of NBA games.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Tony Burton

Have I Seen it Before: All right, fine. Confession time. Never. It’s always floated around the periphery for me, but I never got to it. One screening of the recent 4K restoration at Circle Cinema later, and there was little chance I was going to miss it.

Did I Like It: There’s something to be said for having staggering blind spots in your canon of. absolute greats. I’ve seen every Orson Welles film ever released, so I will never see Citizen Kane (1941), Touch of Evil (1958), or F for Fake (1973) for the first time.

So, here, to see a John Carpenter movie—and an early John Carpenter movie, at that—for the first time is a pleasure unique in the movies. The film is lean and angry, but hungry to impress, far before Carpenter had fallen out of love with making movies (I’m looking in your direction, The Ward (2010)). Every character, from the three leads down to the silent gang members and their poor, hapless target, oozes b-movie cool. In lesser hands, that B-quality is bound to make a film forgettable, but Carpenter has absolute, ruthless control over every image and sound you encounter that you suddenly remember why John Carpenter has deserved his name over the title of every feature he’s ever wrought.

I left the theater positively buzzing, and almost entirely not because of my caffeine intake that day. I immediately searched for the score on my phone to listen to as I drove home, but only found a few instances of the main title to slake my thirst. Had I not had other things to do, I probably would have gone to each and every one of the limited screenings going on that weekend.

But now I can never see it for the first time ever again. Well, crap.

*I might have been so enraptured of the film and taken leave of my senses, but did the precinct always have a sign on it that labeled it as number 14?

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (2004)

Director: David Titcher*

Cast: Noah Wyle, Kyle MacLachlan, Sonya Walger, Bob Newhart

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Lora’s been watching The Librarians on Hulu. So, here we are.

Did I Like It: Rare is that a TV movie** exceeds the limitations of its production. So, I’m probably tempted to give this movie a pass for reverting to the mean, if not exceeding it. Not unlike The Mummy (1999) and its sequels, there was a moment where it wasn’t at all clear that there would be any more forthcoming Indiana Jones films, so we had to make do with what was available. This film also feels strangely compelled to imitate (not altogether successfully) the energy of Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) for no other reason than it came out roughly around the same time.

The special effects are so laughable that I have a hard time believing that this at all held up on crappy SD eighteen years ago. If ever there would be a law passed to provide any sort of limit on excessive use of cheap green screen, then every copy of this movie would be immediately impounded.

And yet, the film can’t be completely dismissed for the diversions it presents. The cast is charming, although nearly it’s an almost foregone conclusion that Noah Wyle, Bob Newhart, Kyle MacLachlan, Jane Curtin, and even Sonya Walger (RIP Molly Cobb) have far more to offer TV than what is offered here.

Everything about this film is at least slightly less than it could have been, but not any worse than it might have been. It is the perfect thing to fill time between other movies for me, and I suppose it was the perfect thing with multiple airings to fill airtime on TNT between broadcast of basketball games.

So, I suppose it hit the intended mark.

*I was under the impression Jonathan Frakes directed these things, so even here I’m feeling a bit deprived. Although I’m heartened to read that he directed the other two TV films.

**Are such things even made anymore? As a genre have they moved into that antiquated format afterlife like silent films and standalone superhero films?

Cocaine Bear (2023)

Director: Elizabeth Banks

Cast: Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Christopher Miller and Phil Lord are associated with this, and they have a nearly unassailable track record of making bad ideas for films insanely watchable. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) might have struggled, but that was rather pointedly not their fault. Here, they have an absolutely killer—perhaps too on the nose—pitch for a movie, so one wonders how they might fair.

However, I fear your mileage with this movie will be tied almost exclusively to the crowd with which you see the film. I saw it with a small crowd that was so primed for howling with every joke and explosion of ultra-violence, with any other movie they might have been astonishingly irritating.

But this kind of movie is so delightfully shameless in its execution, that the shamelessness of the audience only seemed like part and parcel with the whole experience. I even found myself crying out a few times, usually when something horrible happened to Margo Martindale, which, to be fair, was often enough. If the movie hadn’t had a wide release and more than few big stars, it might have been the stuff of midnight screenings for years to come.

Or maybe not. As it stands, I’m wondering if with me writing this review nearly a week after I saw the film and after it was released, the movie may have already collectively disappeared from our collective awareness. I’m certainly struggling to find at least 300 words to write on the subject. I can’t imagine I’m alone when I say that I appreciate funny, ultra-violent, mid-budget movies which don’t feel the need to break two hours in runtime.

So I don’t actually think I’m actually complaining about the film as I write that last part. The title of the film will likely linger in my memory for some time, but memories of the film itself might very well disappear entirely with another week’s distance.

The Thing from Another World (1951)

Director: Christian Nyby

Cast: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, James Arness

Have I Seen it Before: Never, although I’ve probably seen the opening titles dozens upon dozens of times, as this along with Forbidden Planet (1956) are broadcast on TV during the events of Halloween (1978). When the movie was done, I was immediately overwhelmed with a need to watch Forbidden Planet again.

But then again, I usually want to watch Forbidden Planet, so that’s hardly something that’s John Carpenter’s fault.

Did I Like It: This may all sound like I will damn with faint praise, and it’s hard not to do that to a film which was so dynamically remade later on.

This film is well made b-movie fluff. We never really see the titular Thing (Arness, who by virtue of being hardly seen is barely recognizeable), which is good because given how prominently he was featured on my DVD cover, there is no way that effect would have been able to stand up even with audiences in the 1950s. All in all, this has all the trappings (for good and for ill) of a Twilight Zone episode. Slightly higher production value rules the day here, as the scenes taking place outside are believably shot amongst snowy desolation, which offsets every other scene obviously shot on a nondescript sound stage. The writing is another matter, brining it slightly below the Zone standard, with no bigger idea behind the action. This is, through and through, a movie meant for TV. Again, perhaps faint praise, but it should probably bear mentioning that for all of those reasons I imminently enjoyed the entire thing, and was struck not only by a need to watch Forbidden Planet when the movie was done, but also Carpenter’s remake, because this movie clearly had an effect on the man himself.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Director: Peyton Reed

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Michelle Pfeiffer

Have I Seen it Before: Na.

Did I Like It: As a reframed high-pulp adventure with its protagonist and beating heart being a gender-swapped Obi-Wan Kenobi played by Michelle Pfeiffer, this third Ant-Man and thirty-first MCU film is exactly what I could want from two hours worth of diversion.

Sadly, though, this nearly perfect pitch for a movie only makes up at best half of the runtime presented. Even in those scenes where Pfeiffer reigns supreme, I don’t think I’ve yet to see a star more bored with the movie around him than Michael Douglas here. It’s to his credit that I couldn’t help but share in his boredom. Pfeiffer is game, but every utterance and gesture from Douglas screams “contractual obligation.”

Elsewhere, things don’t fare any better. Paul Rudd has never—even from his first appearance in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)—been anything other than a perfectly pleasant screen presence, and he has always brought the right amount of levity to Ant-Man. This is not a typical case of miscasting. But Ant-Man does feel like the wrong character to usher in this new era of Marvel movies. He is forced to look earnest as Kang (Majors) foreshadows things to come and kicks the shit out of him (anyone else really looking forward to Creed III, regardless of whether or not a Stallone-less Rocky movie feels like a shaky idea?). There are very few jokes. Certainly fewer than either of the two previous Ant-Man films. Luis is nowhere to be found. The filmmakers have explained that he didn’t fit into the story, and they are probably right. I think that says more about how much, again, this is the wrong story for Ant-Man.

But other films in the series have been weighed down by the burden of having to set up the larger story of that phase. Iron Man 2 (2010) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) immediately come to mind. And yet, here, I am underwhelmed. I’ve missed most of the movies released post-Avengers: Endgame (2019). I honestly wouldn’t have made a point to see this film if I didn’t have an oil change running and a couple of hours to kill. I even left the theater before any tag scene started*. These films aren’t surprisingly delightful anymore. Marvel will somehow have to get back that feeling if they are going to keep their dominance over the multiplexes.

*I had to pee. I checked wikipedia to see what the tag scenes were, and were more than fine missing them.

Wicked Woman (1953)

Director: Russell Rouse

Cast: Beverly Michaels, Richard Egan, Percy Helton, Evelyn Scott

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I can’t imagine I ever would have, but Circle Cinema ran the thing in 35mm and I’ll go see a garbage fire if it was projected on film as opposed to digital, and it’d be hard to get me to go to something as good as a fathom even for the greatest movies of all time, as the projection used is just the pits.

Did I Like It: And yet, I was kind of on board with this movie for the majority of its blissfully short runtime. It offers exactly what it promises, dimwitted barflies, blondes who can turn the most straight-nosed lug into a makeshift, would-be criminal genius, and enough willfully arch performances to keep things moving. All of this is bound together by a scheme that under no circumstances will ever work, but the secret pleasure in any kind of crime or noir film is to see how everything will completely unravels in the end. Certainly, this is a B picture and every ounce of that reduced budged finds its way onto the screen, but if you can’t have any fun with a B-movie, I really don’t know how to help you.

The ending to this thing, however, is a completely different matter. It was so weak-willed, so sitcom-y in its conclusions. Indeed, one could be forgiven for assuming that this was an abandoned pilot for some series which would see Billie (Michaels) wandering from town-to-town wreaking as much domestic havoc as the Hays Code would allow. A b-movie by its very nature might be forgiven for settling for an unworthy ending, but I think ideally it should go as gonzo as possible with the characters situations unravelling, not bend over backwards (to say nothing of fraud statutes) to put everything back the way it was at the beginning of the film.

Dr. Jack (1922)

Director: Fred C. Newmeyer

Cast: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, John T. Prince, Eric Mayne

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Recently I’ve become convinced that I’m not living up to my true potential as a weird film snob, and to make amends for that, I need to go to far more screenings at Circle Cinema here in town, and that includes going to their Second Saturday Silent Screenings. Complete with an accompanying organist, the whole experience felt like I had legitimately travelled through time, except for when my phone would vibrate and remind me that I am in fact, the victim of a cosmic joke and have to live the majority of my life in this sewer of eras, the 21st century.

Did I Like It: I’ve long been of the opinion that adding synchronized sound to movies hasn’t been an unassailably good idea, so naturally I would be in for this. For a number of obvious reasons, I’ve always been more of a Charlie Chaplin fan, but I’m worried now that I’ve been limiting myself too much. Of the holy trinity (Chaplin, Lloyd, and Buster Keaton), I’m thinking that picking one and sticking with him has been a fools errand.

Lloyd might not have the pathos of Chaplin, or the ultimate physical fearlessness of Keaton, but he’s got plenty of both to compete in this pantheon. What’s more, he might be the only of those silent comedy greats who is handsome enough to be a romantic lead under his own power. That helps this film immeasurably, as it works exclusively on Lloyd’s charm and the traditional trapping of a farce. That may seem like damning with faint praise, but there’s no way to look on spending 60 minutes* with these characters as anything other than delight.

Naturally, with a movie that is 100 years old, there are more than a few moments that age less than well (that there are only a few is no small feat) and none more than when the real chase of the plot begins** when a perfectly benign pit bull gets in on the action. I always wince at bad things happening to animals in movies, if for no other reason than I know no Humane organization will be there to tell me it’s all a goof. I was only relieved to learn that the dog gives Lloyd back his just deserts. I’ve never seen a dog pull a carpet out from under a human being before, but I laughed, and I laughed without any guilt.

*Is it possible that I’m so wistful for the silent era because their features weren’t afraid of sticking it closer to an hour, and thus never quite wearing out their welcome? Yes, yes it is.

**I was tempted to write this whole review about how great a character name is for the never-seen lunatic “Humpy” Logan? Move over Fred Krueger. Get over yourself Michael Myers. Jason Voorhees? More like Jason bore-hees. You’ve all got boring names. “Humpy” Logan is here to cure what ails us. I’m needing the nickname to not be about him being a hunchback, but in reality about some other incident we’re never meant to see.

Magic (1978)

Director: Richard Attenborough

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter

Have I Seen it Before: Never. A Cabin movie, but one I only pushed for after seeing Siskel and Ebert (mostly; Roger had some reservations) about it on and old episode of their show).

Did I Like It: Yes, to a point. Hopkins is exceptionally effective as both ventriloquist and dummy, made all the better as before The Silence of the Lambs (1991), he didn’t feel the need to play “Anthony Hopkins, certified movie maniac.” This is a role which—had it been made after Lambs—would have lent itself to a typical Hopkins schtick. It’s a shame that all too often he has to play similar characters now, but there is not an ounce of self-consciousness here. For someone who made large parts of his fame and fortune off of the personae of a gleeful killer, it is an interesting counterpoint to see him play someone who is as horrified—if not more so—than the audience by the increasing violence in his life. He even manages to evoke a pretty competent ventriloquist, which is no mean feat for someone who hasn’t spent years training for that type of performance. I’ll allow for the possibility that some of this was accomplished via ADR, so at worst, the sound editors did a superlative job. Burgess Meredith and Ann-Margret do end up playing only slight variations on their established screen personae, but I would be hard pressed to say having them around in a movie hurts the proceedings

The plot, however, is where I’m left with something of bad taste in my mouth. There’s the final moments when Peggy (Margret) returns to the cabin, which feels too cute of an ending for my taste, but I’m willing to forgive that. I think the moment might have been more effective had we seen her re-enter the Cabin (and just before she could give voice to her horror) or just before she started saying anything and we see her walking into the cabin might have been more effective.

What I really have a problem with is two scenes that are positively load-bearing on the plot. In the key encounter where Greene (Meredith) tells Corky that if he can go without the dummy for five minutes, then he doesn’t need help, Corky can’t make it thirty seconds, indicating an undercurrent of compulsion in his psychosis. Later on, Corky takes a ride in a fishing boat with Duke (Ed Lauter) and can go without Corky for several scenes which are just as harrowing and stressful for the man. The plot is double dealing, and even if I could blame only William Goldman*, but Attenborough was certainly within his rights to make even the psychotic logic of that a little more cogent.

*Man, between this and my review for The Princess Bride (1987), these reviews are quickly becoming a microcosm of a feud with Goldman. I probably need to cleanse the system and take in Misery (1990) as quickly as possible.

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird

Have I Seen it Before: First opening weekend movie of the year.

Did I Like It: By the time I’m posting this review, the notion that Dave Bautista is the greatest actor to come out of the world of wrestling is going to feel like a cliche. The Rock may be the greatest movie star—even that much is debatable—but Bautista is a pillar (maybe really a tank) made of restraint and gentility (an odd choice for a horror film, but I’ll allow it), punctuated by fury and violence. It’s an absolute blalancing act of a performance, and he pulls it off. I’m imagining it won’t be for this film, based on the release schedule alone, but one day this man will win an Oscar one day. Mark my words.

The rest of the movie is fine. I was engaged with the story, and I wasn’t even snared in the classic M. Night “when’s the twist coming” cycle until the third act. Which, spoilers, that twist never came. Some might be put off by that (after reading about how the ending changed from Paul Tremblay’s novel, it’s unassailable that they made the right choice), but when a level-headed case can be made that Signs (2002) or The Visit (2015) are his strongest movies*, largely because he was able to shed that unspoken obligation with the moviegoing public.

Unfortunately, things fall apart for the movie the longer I’m away from it. The element I keep thinking about the most is not a significant lack of backstory or mythology (I actually kind of like that, even though there’s enough of an absence to make me wonder if Shyamalan or Tremblay had the whole thing worked out all the way) but the fact that I’m not sure any kind of live stream would keep recording after the tsunami reached land. When the plot is that thin, the holes show a bit more glaringly.

*I’ll never give up on Unbreakable (2000), even if things eventually careen towards Glass (2019).

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I know, I’m running behind. It’s probably mostly a busy holiday season that kept me out of the theater all together, but it might just be a little bit that when I saw the original Avatar (2009), I made the boneheaded move to show up to the theater late. This was before theaters had assigned seating (kids, ask your parents). I then sat in a 3D IMAX screening for 3 hours in the front row. I spent the next few… uh, weeks, if memory serves, vomiting.

The movie was fine. I enjoy it now a lot more on Blu Ray and with no 3D

Did I Like It: So, anyway, yeah, I went to go see it in IMAX 3D again. I chose seating anywhere other than the front row, and am happy to report that I experienced not even the slightest bit of nausea this time. Put that on a newspaper ad*, Disney!

There’s been an obnoxious, bad-faith debate leading up to the release of this movie about whether or not the whole Avatar thing has any cultural relevance, especially with more than ten years between movies. Given that the sequel is making money hand over fist, that argument feels quaint already, but why did it come about in the first place?

Is it that gap? No, I think that’s too easy. Really, I think it was the first film’s success giving way to a new trend of 3D releases, many of them not needing them in the slightest. I’m looking in your direction, The Green Hornet (2011). I spent most of the 2010s patiently wearing two pairs of glasses in every movie, and you can’t help but feel a little resentment for the Na’vi each time it came up.

Which is unfair. The first was great (even with becoming quite ill), and now it is absolutely impossible to deny both the skills of James Cameron, and any film that goes north of 3 hours and doesn’t wear out its welcome. Sure, the man who built the Terminator may be returning to some wells here (is there a director who can better make a third act out of a sinking ship?), but the action is non-stop, it all serves character and story.

But do you want to know the movie’s best special effect? Sigourney Weaver. No, not the fact that Weta’s motion capture can make her character look like a 14 year old, but her performance in making me believe that she might actually be one.

That’s Cameron’s real strength. All the toys and tools are put to full effect, but in the end the writing and performances keep things aloft… until the third act, when they’re supposed to sink.

*Do newspapers even run a movie times section anymore?

Escape from New York (1981)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I remember there was a stretch of time there during a particularly ice storm in 2007 where I was desperate to watch this film (in addition to Robocop 2 (1990) for reasons which are still unclear to me), but couldn’t get it running without power to a DVD player. Any time there is cold temperatures, I’m flooded with a desire to watch this movie. How I haven’t watched it since starting these reviews is beyond me.

Did I Like It: So much about this film feels like it is of the later Carpenter period, but it is only three years after he leapt on to the scene with Halloween (1978) almost immediately after The Fog (1980), almost immediately before Carpenter binge-drank his way through the screenwriting process which bound Michael Myers and Laurie Strode as siblings for decades in Halloween II (1981). Maybe it’s the presence of Kurt Russell, which more than any other single element props up Carpenter’s ambition to fuse westerns and sci-fi films together and for all time. Russell channels sufficient Clint Eastwood energy as Plissken and Carpenter wants to be—if not quite Sergio Leone—at least John Ford. They even managed to bring Lee Van Cleef along for the ride, for good measure. The two of them trying their best to be the second coming of that is not a complaint, by the way. Far from it. There are few things in movies I’d rather watch than that pairing with that ambition than almost any other movie combination. Ok, so I want to wrap up the review and watch The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986) as soon as possible, don’t I?

Other little parts of the film delight, and of course I’m talking mostly about the hilariously miscast, creepiest British man who ever lived Donald Pleasance as the President of the United States. I mean that sincerely. I love it. Pitching that man playing the American President is enough to sell a movie on its own merits.

Robocop 3 (1993)

Director: Fred Dekker

Cast: Robert Burke, Nancy Allen, Jill Hennessy, Remy Ryan

Have I Seen it Before: Here’s the thing about Robocop 3. Imagine being around ten years old, and the only thing you want to watch is Robocop (1987). Notorious, sublimely violent Robocop. Sure, it gets broadcast on TV, but that’s like waiting for a lunar eclipse. There’s this movie, which delivers a… modicum of Robocop-ness in a package marked by the MPAA to get past the shrewdest of parental goalies. It’s not a good enough movie to own, but you’ll be damned if you didn’t rent it five or six times over the course of the 90s, dreaming of the day when both Mom and the MPAA would not hold you down, and you could have free reign over both the original and Robocop 2 (1990).

I have no trouble imagining that.

Did I Like It: It’s going to be impossible to say that anything other than the original Robocop is worth a damn, but the question is does this film deserve the hate it has.

Sure, the film’s ultimate mortal sin is that it tries to market itself to kids, shut out the original’s (and the sequel’s) visceral qualities, in exchange for a kid sidekick (Ryan) and a PG-13 rating. The same thing which allowed the movie to fly under the radar of the hyper-vigilant 90s parent defangs things.

Peter Weller leaves the role, knowing that practically anyone with a particular kind of chin can meet the studio’s requirement* for a poster, but throws away all of the thoughtful work toward making Murphy move like his body was replaced by chrome and servos.

But is it worse than Robocop 2? Here’s where the this review might become just a touch controversial: No, I think Robocop 2 is far, far worse. Yes, the first sequel has the begrudging participation of Weller, but that’s the only round in which the other film wins. Robocop 2 tries to ape the original with none of the soul or wit, each and every time I watch it (and I did re-watch it shortly after viewing this film again), it rings a little bit more hollow. This movie to imitates some of the beats in the original film, but manages to throw in some new shades as well. B-movie nonsense (Robocop versus an android ninja/samurai from Japan, anyone?) has some baser pleasures to behold, while Robocop and the Detroit Police Department actually helping poor people plays a lot more like wish fulfillment than it must have in the 90s.

In addition, Robocop 3 has one secret weapon which makes it at least attempt to feel more in line with its cinematic ancestor. Basil Poledouris, and when I find Leonard Rosenman’s score for Robocop 2 to be one of the worst scores for an action movie ever, the return of Poledouris’ march goes a long way to engendering at least some good will from me.

*Yes, Orion. The same studio which was hemorrhaging money at this point (less than a year out of their Best Picture win for The Silence of the Lambs (1991)), and had to leave the movie on a shelf for upwards of two years.

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

Director: David Silverman

Cast: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: I’ve been thinking a lot about the denizens of Springfield lately. It doesn’t matter why. With any luck, you might see the connective tissue one day. My re-watch of the series has burst past the eighteenth season, and so it comes time to take in the movie again.

There’s a lot of hoary cliches that can be thrown around about how The Simpsons has aged poorly*, that even those criticisms have aged poorly themselves. I remember the movie being a step up from the episodes of the era. Ultimately, I think it’s decidedly of its era. There’s the politics which are resoundingly of the Bush era and have aged, even if the conservative celebrity becoming a willfully ignorant President of the United States is less funny “ha ha” and more funny “uh oh”, and, oddly unfair to Arnold Schwarzenegger, as it turns out.

But it’s also reflective of the show at the time as well. Episodes past the “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” imbroglio aren’t really comedic stories as much as wanderings from unrelated plot point to unrelated plot point in hopes that the clock runs out before anyone notices. It’s funny. Frequently quite funny, but it’s no wonder that every conceivable comedic story has already been touched on by The Simpsons, as they manage to go through three or four in twenty-two minutes, and manage to go through three times as much in a feature.

I can’t help but note that almost as much time has passed since the release of this movie as have between the show’s premiere in 1989 and the release of the movie itself. We’re all growing old. We’re all going to die one day. On the Sunday following our annihilation, there will be a new episode of The Simpsons waiting for the survivors. I fear what the episodes are like now. I really fear what the sequel might be if it is going to take this long.

But, seriously. Are we supposed to believe the Simpsons-verse has both a Rainier Wolfcastle and an Arnold Schwarzenegger? The Simpsons wiki seems to think they might be brothers, but  it doesn’t look like there’s anything to back that up.

*Indeed, the best things to come from the property in the last twenty years aren’t even traditional animated material at all, but instead The Simpsons Pinball Party and Hit and Run.

Violent Night (2022)

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Cast: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Had half an inkling to go see it in the theater, and now that it is available on Peacock, I ran out of reasons to stop.

By the way, Peacock has spoiled me on the ad supported movie services. They front-load all of their ads, while literally every other service that has ads, is jamming them in the middle of the movie. I love you Peacock, and I didn’t think I would. And this is only kind of about you guys footing the bill for the Community movie.

Did I Like It: For some reason, I thought this was a horror movie as I went into it, which seems silly now that I think about it. Instead, it’s not just the best argument against Die Hard (1988) being considered a Christmas movie, it’s just about the only cogent argument that can claim an even baseline level of cogency.

Aside from the fact that the movie takes the Die Hard model and injects it into a story more directly at home with the themes of the Christmas holiday (giving of gifts, frustration with family members, presence of any children whatsoever, and expressing even a small degree of disappointment with the holiday), it isn’t offering much new. The notion of Santa (Harbour, shaking off any stink he might have gotten on him from trying to be Hellboy) in an unassailably adult action picture, coupled with a suddenly tragic backstory for the legend is all new. But literally everything else screams a quick pitch of “Die Hard, but with Santa.” Even the supporting cast feels like ideas Rian Johnson might have scratched out while writing Knives Out (2019) or Glass Onion (2022).

It’s probably unreasonable to expect much more from a film. In all reality, it was selling a particular bill of goods, and delivered those precisely. Come for Harbour’s performance, stay for the Harbour performance. Everything will work out fine.

The Mark of Zorro (1920)

Director: Fred Niblo

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte, Noah Beery, Sr., Charles Hill Mailes

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I may be one of the last people alive still sticking up for the silent era, but I keep making the classic blunder that all the format really has to offer are broad comedies. There’s plenty of horror, science fiction, and in this instance, action to offer.

Did I Like It: But is this even an action picture? One thinks of Zorro as an action character, but this is probably more of a romance than anything else. Ultimately, The Curse of Capistrano—on which all of the various Marks are based—is also a romance, so this can’t really be leveled as a criticism. The silent form lends itself well to that genre, requiring a higher degree of theatricality in the performances, which inoculates the proceedings from accusations of possessing a saccharin quality. I might say that by this point in the refinement of the cinematic for, director Niblo and producer (and likely author of the larger part of the affair) Fairbanks could have done more with the camera to make those scenes in which buckles were rightly swashed, buckle a bit more swashy.

Fairbanks as a performer is uniquely suited to the role. He lurches through every stunt asked of him not with a nimble grace that makes the action seem like a dance, but more of the barreling action of an athelete. When Zorro leaps, you feel as if it might actually hurt. But more importantly, he adopts a key element to his dual role of Don Diego and Zorro by making the Don a slinking nebbish. When literally everyone in California is shocked to find out the two men are one in the same, I buy their shock. Fairbanks walked through this role so that Christopher Reeve and the vocal work of Kevin Conroy could run with it.