The Threat (1949)

Director: Felix E. Feist

Cast: Michael O’Shea, Virginia Grey, Charles McGraw, Julie Bishop

Have I Seen It Before: Never. I’m oddly proud of myself for making it out to the Noir Nights. It was the first day back at classes for the fall semester, and I made the calculus that I could afford to shirk classwork for a night to go to the movies, when I would normally only dream of doing when the decks were cleared. When it turned out to be a (if relatively short) double feature, I stayed put. My mother would be horrified. A late movie on a school night.

Did I Like It: Ebert would often say that no good film is ever long enough, and no bad film is ever short enough. However, at a 66 minute runtime, it’s sort of hard to get a read on whether The Threat is just a delightful piece of b-cornball, or a story which quickly (and appropriately) runs out of steam. It has square-jawed detectives, bombshells in over their heads, and grimy wise guys who are inevitably going to be in over their heads. It delivers precisely the bill of goods it promises.

And yet, I wonder if our own melodrama will only serve to inspire laughter in seventy or eighty years. The plot here hinges on something that (I’m not sure why I’m so concerned about spoiling it for you; it’s easy enough to find and insubstantial enough at its core) would now be used to move the plot along in a sitcom, and not a good one. There’s even a moment at the end where Det. Williams (O’Shea) and his wife (Bishop) get in on the joke, and the whole film—which really did involve quite a few people getting shot in the gut—ends in what is very nearly a freeze frame.

Dark Star (1974)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Dan O’Bannon, Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm, Dre Pahich

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. In my head, this movie is playing in my dorm room at some point, but any memories beyond the malevolent bouncing rubber ball (Nick Castle) have dimmed over time.

Did I Like It: I try not to look to other reviews as I begin my own. Too much seeps in and I wonder if I’m offering my own views. I couldn’t help, however, noting that star, screenwriter, production designer, and special effects technician Dan O’Bannon felt as if this collaboration with Carpenter started out as the greatest student film ever created, and ended up being one of the sloppier professional films ever released. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more aware self-assessment from a filmmaker.

And it’s interesting enough on that front. I would have loved to see more of the filmmaker Carpenter was about to become, but that doesn’t really come into play until <Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)>. Maybe if he had decided to remake <Forbidden Planet (1956)>* instead of <The Thing From Another World (1951)>, but that wasn’t the world we live in.

Thus, it ends up being a a pretty strong argument against the ubiquity of the auteur theory. This is largely O’Bannon’s film, and while it certainly reflects the work he would soon do in <Alien (1979)>, but there’s more than enough of <Total Recall (1990)> and his optical computer display work in <Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)> to see just where this film crawled so others could run. In fact it is the test run for so much of what becomes Alien, that those aforementioned fuzzy memories I had of the bouncing ball I thought were the crux of the film. Unfortunately, there are more than a few bits added in to pad out the running time, and not all of them work wit hthe same embryonic interest.

*A prospect which I’ve never found any evidence was ever on Carpenter’s radar, but he jammed two movies into <Halloween (1978)>, so don’t tell me I’m just pulling that thing out of nowhere.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Cast: Roddy McDowall, Don Murray, Ricardo Montalbán, Natalie Trundy

Have I Seen It Before: Yes, but I’ve always had a dim view of that era in the series post-Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) but pre-Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) was just not worth re-visiting.

Did I Like It: And that memory largely bears out here. Conquest is largely perfectly fine b-sci-fi fare. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had thought that this film and its follow up, Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) were produced as a precursor for the short-lived Planet of the Apes TV series. I didn’t get that sense, at least here. This is a fully realized, if flawed, movie.

Montalbán is here, which is always welcome, but departs the proceedings early, sort of for a plot reason, but one imagines far more because the film could only meet his quote for just so many shooting days. The makeup for the various apes have again taken a turn, not necessarily in a sense of artistry (read: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) but as a question of tonnage. Escape avoided problems with dwindling resources by populating the affair with only three Ape actors. Here, the planet is back, baby, but it feels like the vast majority of those whose would take up Caesar’s (McDowall) call to arms are wearing masks which would have been far, far in the background when Charlton Heston still rocked a loincloth.

None of that is inherently wrong. There are plenty of cheap films, and even genre films (Halloween (1978) immediately comes to mind, or any early Carpenter) that are an absolute delight. What’s wrong is that the series has lost its nerve. Every movie in the series has an ending that makes one feel (to varying degrees) genuinely surprised. Here, everything has an inevitable quality. Then again, when Planet of the Apes (2001) felt obligated to throw in a twist ending, things didn’t work out so well. Maybe I’m being unfair, but after three wild endings in a row, one can’t help but think that ideas were running thin.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Director: Robin Hardy

Cast: Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Christopher Lee

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: I’ve been vaguely aware of it for years, mainly from contrasts to what by all indications is an odious remake of the film starring Nicolas Cage. One can certainly see where Ari Aster got his ambition to make <Midsommar (2019)>, and in all honesty it makes me appreciate that film a little bit more than I might have four years ago. That more recent films is a ruthless delivery system of dread and horror, and on that level, I think I certainly recognized those qualities, but did not fully appreciate them.

I was not especially frightened by this film, and eventually the dread with which I came into the proceedings dissipated within the first half hour or so.

That’s where the film’s secret genius does come in. Some of the footage resembles a travelogue (the scenes feel like real people, right up until one character knocks out another in a way that can only happen in the movies or TV) of the imagined island of Summerisle, and I nearly start to like these people in their quirks, especially as I find Sgt. Howie (Woodward) increasingly bastardly in vehemence that the people around him should not behave this way, and need to find Jesus.

When the full picture of the plot comes together, I am still not frightened, but I marvel at just how deceptively byzantine was the plot I just took in. Maybe I’m a little more sympathetic towards our protagonist. Seems like going up with the titular Wicker Man is a bad way to go, no matter how much of a dick he has been over the last ninety minutes. I may also be a little less fond of the Summerislians—at least somebody in that crowd needed to be willing to wonder if the crops were still going to fail on them—but I can’t say they were not consumed of the virtue of fair play. They gave Howie every opportunity—including a naked Britt Ekland—to get out of this.

Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Director: André Øvredal

Cast: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Brand new.

Did I Like It: This may in fact be the first film to feature Count Dracula, where Dracula himself (Javier Botet, who you might remember as the Hobo manifestation of It from both It - Chapter One (2017) and It - Chapter Two (2019), but I didn’t) is easily, far and away, the least interesting thing happening in the film.

Before you take that as particularly special praise for a film, let’s all calm down. Demeter is a mostly competently made thriller at sea which is destined to enjoy a long happy life of endless cable re-airings. Assuming movies are still shown on cable far enough in the future for something released in 2023 to one day enjoy that long life. The characters are stock, but sturdy in that stockiness. The performances are good, especially a moment where young Toby (Woody Norman) is overwhelmed by his fear in disappointing his uncle, the Captain (Cunningham, who I consistently get confused with Bernard Hill, and in that confusion worried the character was a bit too stock, as I kept thinking of the Captain from Titanic (1997). Any movie that manages to get a decent to good performance out of a kid is at least worth one look.

Where the film falters is in the elements which likely made it seem like good business for the studio. The movie bends over backwards to set up a sequel that might happen, but in which I’m only interested so far as I like to go to the movies. Universal, we’ve struggled with you guys trying hard to set up franchises with your stable of classic monsters. I beg you to drop it and just get weird with it. The really canonical classic Universal Monster films were the weakest—if still delightfully watchable—offerings. Don’t be DC or Marvel. Remember that it was James Whale who irretrievably planted your characters in the collective consciousness.

But that’s a disappointment in the final moments, not a fatal flaw of the preceding film. The big flaw stands in front of us on the poster as we walk into the theater. Here, Dracula is a effect, but not a special one. He hisses and jumpscares through the movie, but he has no personality. He barely has a command of any human language out of some light mimicry. The movie is pitched as Alien (1979) on a boat in the nineteenth century, but had they bothered to just pitch it as Dracula meets Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), they might have remembered the movie they were trying to make.

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Director: Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel

Cast: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis

Have I Seen It Before: I’m not 100% sure, but I think I may have seen it twice in the theater. I may be the only person living, or to have lived (including the cast and filmmakers, one would imagine) to have seen it in the theater twice. It was somehow on my—I was all of eight—radar to insist we go see the movie, despite the commercials screaming—even to an eight-year-old—that there was something not quite right about the film. Then, when a friend’s mom decided to try and stem the tide of summer exhaustion with a trip to the theater, I went again, because even then I’d rather be at the movies than almost anywhere else. That’s still true.

Then I remember becoming absolutely fixated on renting the movie and seeing it again when it was released on video later that year. I can’t remember why I might have done this, because I wasn’t all that thrilled with the movie even back then. It may have been a direct result of someone  in the school cafeteria insisting that Disney/Hollywood Pictures (or, the monolithic “they” as we would have called it then) was absolutely, without a doubt going to make a sequel, because the people that make movies don’t include the <Back to the Future (1985)> ending.

As it turns out, I’ve probably seen this film too many times.

Did I Like It: Making a good movie is a mysterious alchemy. It’s a massive undertaking, where the majority of the intricate pieces involved have to be either simultaneously or in precise coordination at the top of their game, and if the marketing isn’t right, no one may see the damned thing. The one thing that I think probably has to happen is that the people involved have to want to be there*. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo don’t want to be there, but to dip one’s toe in the trivia associated with the train wreck production knows that they were sufficiently lubricated to work through their displeasure. They emerge from the film as genial presences, and we can commiserate with their plight in being in the movie while we are forcing ourselves to watch it. And yet, one can’t help but marvel at the alternate universe—where’s a massive meteor when you need one?—where Tom Hanks nearly played Mario, but was passed on as he wasn’t at that time the kind of box office draw that they could get out of Hoskins.

Dennis Hopper, on the other hand, just spends the film looking angrily confused, screaming “plumbers,” “fungus,” and “meteor” in alternating combinations.

Maybe Hoskins and Leguizamo should have offered him a drink. If everyone had been sloshed, we all might have gotten into the cheap (emphasis on cheap) riff on <Blade Runner (1982)> or <Total Recall (1990)>. Instead, things seem as off as they did when I was eight.

Then again, my usual standard for a good adaptation of a pre-existing property is that it makes me want to take in the original source material. I’m fairly sure that each and every time I’ve seen the movie, I’ve wanted to play one of the Mario games, if only to wash the taste out of my mouth**.

*Sure, a movie like Casino Royale (1967) is filled with overpaid, overly relaxed people, and is perhaps the dictionary definition of a train wreck and by all accounts Bill Murray would have preferred to be eaten alive by wildebeests than continue shooting <Groundhog Day (1993)>, but these exceptions would have to be unusual bordering on unique.

**In the movies defense, we were sufficiently inoculated from having to force ourselves to try and play a terrible SNES game adapted from the movie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

Director: Jeff Rowe

Cast: Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown, Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon

Have I Seen It Before: Nope…?

Did I Like It: As long as the answer is, indeed, “nope,” the film feels fresh and likable. The Turtles feel like they are finally living up to one of those key words in their moniker, and feel like real teenagers for the first time (and I include the original Mirage comics in that comparison). They’ve got girl trouble. They imagine that High School will solve all of their problems, and can only latch onto that delusion as long as they are not, in fact, in High School. They have very specific opinions about superhero films, even though they are surely in one themselves. They mess around making videos displaying their nascent skills. Hardly the art of invisibility, but they are some of the admittedly many fun sequences in the film. Each of the voice actors chosen for the roles also sound like teenagers, with Donatello (Abbey) sounding as if he is demonstrably the youngest of the four*.

The proceedings also manage to avoid leaning on Shredder or the Foot Clan. One might hear that and have images of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) running through their heads. Fear not, this manages to bring all of the weird (minus Krang) characters who popped up in the action figure line, with their bright colors, and fundamental strangeness. That is, up until the very end where the film feels like it is almost unconsciously compelled to foreshadow a sequel with the Shredder as the main antagonist.

That’s what’s weighing the film down, ultimately. It has disappointing flirtations with being derivative. The film’s feeling—and even many of those aforementioned strong points—owe so much to Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and its sequel that Jon Watts might be able to make a case for a producer’s credit. Throw in more than a little of the vibe from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its sequel, I couldn’t help but enjoying myself, while at the same time wishing that someone might make a movie that uniquely harnesses the Turtles, but then again, I suppose we’ll always have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990).

*For some reason—and it may have been established in some other version of the characters—I always thought Michaelangelo (Brown) was the youngest.

Batman: The Long Halloween - Deluxe Edition (2021)

Director: Chris Palmer

Cast: Jensen Ackles, Josh Duhamel, Naya Rivera, Billy Burke

Have I Seen it Before: So, it’s an odd thing. Where to begin? I’ve seen <Batman: The Long Halloween - Part I (2021)>, but never watched the second part. Cut to a year later, and I picked up the deluxe edition—containing both parts 1 and 2–so it’s an unusual situation to answer the question which starts all of these reviews with a resounding “sort of.” Oddly enough, ever since <The Flash (2023)>, I’ve been on a semi-unintentional sabbatical from all Bat-media. Couldn’t even quantify why this is the thing that broke the logjam, but here we are.

Did I Like It: I’ve been resoundingly on the record largely not caring for the recent spate of DC animated movies trying to adapt some of the longer runs from the comic books. Ultimately, the experience is left wanting and in the interest of not belaboring the point, these films have often led me to think that the adventures of the Caped Crusader were inherently more suited to the funny books than any other format. I remember liking both part of the Batman - The Dark Knight Returns (2013) because that gave the story at hand more time to breathe.

And such is the case here, spreading The Long Halloween—arguably my favorite Bat-story—over two parts allows it to not cut anything crucial out of the story. It tells the long-form story of Batman against the madness of his city, with the typical Rogue’s Gallery only playing supporting roles. The problem there is my first reaction to reading the graphic novel years ago: This would make a great movie. And it has. A couple of times. <The Dark Knight (2008)> gives a gritty realism to the downfall of Harvey Dent. Any leftover material with the Falcones and a legitimate serial killer story was taken up by <The Batman (2022)>. Do we really need another adaptation of the story? I wonder…

And that’s largely where I landed in my review of just the first half of the story, so I’m sad to say the second half doesn’t elevate the material like one might have hoped.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Director: Don Taylor

Cast: Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman, Ricardo Montalbán

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: First of all, and I don’t think my eventual re-watch of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) will turn me around on this, but as a general rule you can’t go wrong including Ricardo Montalbán in your science fiction sequel. I challenge you to find me an exception.

There’s a level at which I want to say this might even be superior to <Planet of the Apes (1968)>, and I’m not entirely sure it is insane. Certainly, this third film in the series is less iconic than anything that culminates in Charlton Heston trying to have an argument with a be-togaed French lady (shit, there I go again, spoiling the first one for you…) but even that is a subjective argument. Maybe Escape from the Planet of the Apes has some special meaning for you. What cannot be disputed is that Escape is a far cheaper film then either of its predecessors, to the point where the title almost begins to seem like a misnomer. Then again, A Trio of Apes Travel to and Attempt to Adapt to Life on the Planet of the Humans lacks a certain poetry.

Lest you think that is knock against the film, let me say without any doubt that quality is its secret strength. Right from the opening credits where we’re led to believe that cohorts of Heston’s Taylor or Franciscus’ Brent have somehow made it back to a recognizable version of terra firma, only to be greeted by two of our favorite apes from prior films (and a friend (Sal Mineo)) have somehow found their way on the other end of the franchise’s denial. A dour, foolish sort of person may look at this premise and say that the near-plausible accounting of time travel in the first two films (am I the first person to ever attach the word “plausible” to <Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)>? Quite possibly, yes.) is flipped on its head when it is no longer a matter of time dilation, and instead a stable rift in the fabric of time which will allow travelers to travel back and forth between the simian and human ages.

What this premise does is trick—and quite masterfully so—the audience into letting their guard down. The jaunty Jerry Goldsmith score and the playful banter between Zira (Hunter) and Cornelius (McDowall) all makes you think that this is going to be “the funny one” in the series. For much of its runtime, Escape delivers on that process. We even get a delightful homage of Zira and Cornelius trying on human fashions. You are not prepared when matters become not only just as bleak as the two previous films, but heartbreaking to boot. No longer are we confronted with the massive tragedy of all of humans or apes being snuffed out in an instant, we are forced to watch the painful, tragic death of two characters we have grown quite fond of over the course of three films, and their child lives on, to start the process all over again in just about the only sci-fi headfake ending in this series to rival the first. The bleakness of this series becomes no longer an abstract, and it is all the more heartbreaking for it.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Director: Ted Post

Cast: James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: What’s more, I remember liking it quite a bit when I saw it nearly thirty years ago. There was just something about that ending which struck me as just bonkers enough to make the whole thing memorable. Now? It feels like the classic movie blunder of possessing not so much a conclusion as a halt to the proceedings. Taylor (Charlton Heston, returning but with a look plastered on his face that hopes beyond hope no one will notice him) pushes a giant red button in the furthest depths of the Forbidden Zone, and then we get Orson Welles’ non-Union equivalent in place of what would have satisfied simple, child-like tastes: a big explosion.

The problems with this one go a fair bit deeper (Ha. Get it?) than just the ending. The special effects are somehow even more dodgy than in <its predecessor>. Sure, some of that could be written off to the fact that some of the potentially more epic sights are actually tricks played on the apes by the denizens of the Forbidden Zone, but it’s pretty difficult to not get pulled out of the movie when battle scenes are actually two different shots—one of apes wandering the desert, the other of a fire—optically processed together.

One might be able to get over all that and try to embrace that vibe I must have seen it way-back-when, if it weren’t for the fact that the film feels the need to speed through all of the story beats of the last film, only with Brent (Francsiscus; speaking of bargain basement replacements for the iconic). This serves to keep me from really enjoying it, even on the terms of pure B-movie cheese. It gets a bit boring.

Barbie (2023)

Director: Greta Gerwig

Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Had ambitions to do a true Barbenheimer double feature with Oppenheimer (2023) last week, but the fates of schedules saw that it didn’t happen.

Did I Like It: It’s going to be very difficult to find a unique or unusual take on this movie. It’s so thoroughly captured the zeitgeist, if you are reading this, you probably have a very particular opinion about the film. You probably have thoughts on the subject regardless of whether or not you’ve seen the film; the only qualification is being alive in any sort of rudimentary way.

A subset of those people are men. Well, we’ll broaden the definition of that word to include male persons allowed to vote. They feel attacked by the film.

I really, truly, don’t understand how someone can come to that conclusion. Let’s forget for a moment that the movie is genuinely very funny and far, far weirder than one has any right to expect from a major studio release. The notion that Barbie is somehow anti-man is laughable on its face. Even though the Kens, led by Beach Ken (Gosling) try to bring the patriarchy to Barbieland, when the plan falls apart they are not pilloried. They’re forgiven. Ken himself doesn’t get the girl, but he wasn’t going to get the girl even if he hadn’t made all of the mistakes he did. He gets an opportunity to find some degree of happiness without Barbie, and presumably without using every photoshoot Sylvester Stallone exposed us to in the 80s as the Platonic ideal of masculinity.

What they mean to say is it empowers women, and that’s all they need to hear before they could even try to realize it is not only empowering to women, but oddly (in the best way) life affirming to men as well. I say that not as someone who might view himself as better than the complainers, but as someone who got called out pretty thoroughly by the Kens’ behavior, too. (The scene with The Godfather… struck a chord, but it was definitely a fair hit.)

I’d be willing to put money not only on the fact that it has an inside track on best picture in the spring, but also that we are about to enter an age not of mega-budget superhero-fests in hope that they have the next Avengers: Endgame (2019) on their hands, but instead of female-skewing, unashamedly weird, IP-based movies that cost about 100 million dollars. If Mr. Zaslav, head of Warner Bros. Discovery is reading this, haaaaave you met Batgirl?

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)

Director: Joel Schumacher

Cast: Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy

Have I Seen It Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: Question before we go any further. How did fully half of <The Breakfast Club (1985)> go from detention to that disaffected first year after college in less than six months? Isn’t that the biggest special effect asking us to leap from our logic in 1985?

If I’m asking those kinds of questions about the movie, I couldn’t have along for the ride, free of any self-consciousness. The reputation of the film is one of general revulsion, countered only by the fact that it appealed and continues to appeal to a certain subset of the population who were that terrible in 1985. As an infant at the time, I was probably terrible, but at least I had an excuse.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a review that isn’t fixated on just how terrible all of the characters. And that’s because they are. Well, everyone except Wendy (Mare Winningham), about whom I spend the entire runtime wondering why she was hanging out with these people. It celebrates their worst impulse not only for far longer than any sane film would have, but as a central, load-bearing element of the entire film’s rationale for existing in the first place.

Several of them ought to be arrested*. Most of them probably ought to not have jobs. I can’t imagine any of them adding value to the universe by marrying and having kids.

You might think I’ve become an old fuddy duddy (or as the movie would have you believe: interested in a quiet place for brunch). You might think I have some unresolved issues with the films of Joel Schumacher. <The Flash (2023)> kinda proved that much, so I’ll cede that point, if nothing else.

Here’s where the problem lies in the film. Much of it rings unnervingly true, making the film all the more frustrating. Have I worked in a job in social services where—if the film had bothered to stay a moment longer in the scene—it would have become the single most preposterous series of events ever captured on film? Maybe… Did I spend any sustained moment of my twenties with a particular opinion about Billy Joel’s The Stranger**? I mean, sure. Didn’t we all? Was I the President of my college’s Young Democrats, only to slowly realize that if I were to have any kind of future in politics, I was really going to have to switch sides? Listen: at least I decided to get out of the game all together. Did I ever (read: usually) try to weird my affection for and knowledge of the films of Woody Allen as my opening line with women?

Damn it, Schumacher. I didn’t come to the movies to get called out like that.

*They are all male, in case you were wondering, and I’m mostly thinking about Kirbo (Estevez), before who you think I’m thinking of, although he should spend some time in a cell, too. Incidentally, I also don’t think there is any way Kirbo ended up successfully finishing a year of law school, to say nothing of becoming a lawyer. Don’t ask me how I know.

**I still don’t quite know what Alec (Judd Nelson) was on about in that scene. If you can explain it to me, please reach out to me on any still-functioning social media platform.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner

Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. Those far-flung summers where all I need out of life was what I’ve come to think of as the Albertson’s Special. Some chicken from the Deli, and five VHS (kids, ask your parents) rentals (kids, ask your parents) from the grocery video department (kids, ask your grandparents). Perfectly fit for five-film franchises (at the time) of varying quality, like this or the Superman films (yes, I’m counting Supergirl (1984), and you should, too; it’s better than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)).

Man, to live again in a time when cholesterol and VHS tapes were all one needed on a hot day…

Did I Like It: If you’re reading this review, you’ve probably already seen the movie. Or, at least, you’ve seen the last few seconds of it. The ending was ruined a good fifteen years before I was ever born. But, if you’re a fan of that particular brand of pulpy sci-fi (read: the kind of stuff at which Arthur C. Clarke, and by extension, Stanley Kubrick, would turn up their noses), then there is hardly a movie I could recommend more. One might be tempted—before getting into either actor’s later politics—to say that Heston is really just bringing the same schtick to the big screen Shatner was still using to make his living on the original Star Trek. Maybe it’s hard to wander around the any American western desert in a torn spacesuit and not evoke something resembling Shatner. That feels like a complaint, but it isn’t. It’s an attempt to bring in more eyes who have just seen the Statue of Liberty (crap, now I’ve gone ahead and spoiled it too) to a movie that has more than few other pleasures to offer.

Oppenheimer (2023)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr.

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Brand new. I’ll occasionally detour in this section of a review and talk about the movie going experience. I could take a moment (again) to extoll the virtues of seeing movies actually projected on film (Oppenheimer is shaping up to be the third film I have seen this year projected on 35mm), or wonder if I will make a second trip to a theater to try to take in the film on IMAX, as I live in one of those unluckily uncivilized parts of human civilization without a 70mm venue (more on that in a bit), but what I really would like to do is give a message to that guy with the two cokes. I won’t get into it too much, but the fact that it took you the better part of twenty minutes to realize you had intended to go see Barbie will be something many of us will never forget.

Did I Like It: Before, people might look at you a little sideways if you made a declaration like Christopher Nolan is the closest thing a generation like ours is going to get to a Stanley Kubrick. The idea that Kubrick would be found within 1000 miles of a Batman movie is equal parts insanely intriguing and just insane, and one usually had to ignore most of Tenet (2020) (which I probably need to give another shot), but that pure devotion to the camera as quite possibly the most important part of the film at hand gives them both the same ambition.

Now we can say—without getting those funny looks, mind you—that Nolan even succeeds in that ambition. All of the tools of a master filmmaker are put to use, and that use is not some genre entertainment. I have no beef with genre entertainment. Without it, I might cease to exist altogether. But the next time someone complains that movies aren’t real movies anymore, I think they are having the unfortunate inherent myopia of someone seeing things as they happen. One might long for the days of the New Hollywood, where Lucas was making THX 1138 (1971) and Coppola could nearly bring a studio to the brink of bankruptcy, but those days had their lauded turkeys and bland entertainments, too*. Oppenheimer will be one of those movies we remember.

It is intense. It is merciless. It runs through its material with no real need to graft a heroic arc onto J. Robert Oppenheimer (Murphy). I listened to the source material, American Prometheus, earlier this year and to my observations there appeared to not be much—if any—dramatic embellishment to bring the story to the screen. It’s a bold move that could have backfired and made the film frightfully boring. And yet, it isn’t. Oppenheimer is easily one of the best films of the year, and may yet take my top spot.

One other note I can’t help but make: I saw a comment—the source of which escapes me, tragically—which said that it is rare to see a film where there are easily close to a dozen career-best performances from bona fide movie stars. That’s true, but it would be hard to honestly engage with a review without dwelling on what Robert Downey Jr. has done here. For years he had been giving the best performances in tiny films, even when he wasn’t necessarily conscious of what he was doing. Then, surprising nearly everyone, he became the world’s biggest movie star. One might point to Dolittle (2020) as a sign that he couldn’t keep making franchises forever, but I imagine if he was committed to the idea of playing Iron Man forever, even in films which had nothing to do with Marvel Comics, he would have had more successes than failures in the long run. Instead, he tries now to surprise us all again and remind us why we all thought he was great in the first place.

*Granted, all of those trifles were shot on film, so even something like The Love Bug (1971), were it released today, would be in serious contention for a Best Cinematography Oscar.

Wonder Boys (2000)

Director: Curtis Hanson

Cast: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey, Jr., Frances McDormand

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, my, yes…

Did I Like It: I was having a conversation with a friend recently, and she described Free Enterprise (1999) as one of—if not her absolute—favorite film ever. That caused me to shake my head a bit, as even when I first saw that film at the tender age of 17-or-so, I found the film to be a cheap, misanthropic riff of Play it Again, Sam (1972) and Swingers (1996) (and that’s when it was hitting its intended target). Seeing my dubious reaction, she immediately explained that watching the film feels like “being with my people.”

She hardly turned me around on the fictionalized exploits of Mark Altman and Robert Burnett (or Shatner rapping, certainly) but I couldn’t help but think of this movie.

I can’t imagine myself as accomplished and revered (or even as easily traditionally published) as even the most hapless character in the movie, but: Have I sat, mildly disaffected at a party, idly providing character histories for the people apparently enjoying themselves? Yes, yes I have. Have I stifled a laugh while attending a writing lecture? Yes. Yes, I have. Many times. Have I thought that writing conferences were kind of silly, and only wanted to go do some writing or hang out with other people that might actually have some ambition towards the completion or consumption of a book? Yes. Many, many times. Would I feel like I don’t have anything to contribute to an adult conversation other than movie trivia, and would be far more interested in priceless movie memorabilia than anything else at the host’s house? Have you met me?

Maybe these characters are not “my people,” but they are what “my people” are often like at their best. They’re what I want my people to be.

That’s more than enough to recommend the movie, I would think. But is it objectively good. Do I extol the virtues of the film, only to invite the sideways glances I give Free Enterprise? I would think not. The film manages to wrangle Chabon’s sprawling contemplative novel into a night-in-the-life story which tends to deflect the maudlin and embrace the jaunty. Putting aside my sentimental feelings for the movie, Douglas harnesses the same “likable asshole” energy which even ten years earlier would have been right in Jack Nicholson’s wheelhouse. The rest of the cast is great, too, to a performer straddling the line between funny and authentic*.

*Remember when Robert Downey Jr. was in movies which didn’t give a rat’s ass about the four quadrants? I do too, and… I might just be itching to get to my screening of Oppenheimer (2023).

Biosphere (2023)

Director: Mel Eslyn

Cast: Sterling K. Brown, Mark Duplass

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. In a supreme twist of fate, Lora talked me into going to see a movie I had yet to hear about.

Did I Like It: I mean this in the best possible way. This movie is very strange. Go ahead, watch the trailer real quick before we begin. I’ll wait.

Pretty strange, right? Here’s the thing, it’s far stranger than anyone will tell you before actually starting the movie. It’s more than just strange. It’s a perfectly functional buddy comedy, a tragedy (depending on how you read that ending, and how long has it been since I’ve really had to think about the ending of a movie?), and a surprisingly thoughtful deconstruction of what we collectively think about gender now.

You read that right. A lot of that isn’t in the trailer.

On spec, the film appears to be a micro-budget sci-fi piece the kind of which we haven’t really seen since Cube (1997) (one might want to point to Moon (2009), but even that film had to spend a fair amount of money to make the audience believe Sam Rockwell was marooned on ). Then again, maybe independent studios are making this kind of film all the time and this like most of those others will disappear into hazy, incomplete memory all too quickly.

But I really don’t think this one will slip into obscurity, assuming enough people get eyes on it. I for one won’t readily forget the Duplass playing a one of the last men on earth/the President of the United States who is likely—by all accounts, almost certainly—responsible for this sad state of affairs, while Brown plays his boyhood best friend/top aide/last-rational-man-on-the-planet-long-before-the-shit-went down. As “life finds a way” (they both appear to be roughly my age, as their references are just so) their relationship continues to develop, even in the face of their own extinction.

I’d tell you more, but that would be ruining most of the truly surprising parts of the movie. Go see it first and then find me. I’d love to talk about it.

Blood Quantum (2019)

Director: Jeff Barnaby

Cast: Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Forrest Goodluck, Kiowa Gordon

Have I Seen it Before: Never. For some reason I have as yet relented to subscribing to Shudder. As we approached the episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods for this movie, I thought about relenting to one more streaming service, and if there were more movies on this year’s Cabin schedule that could be found there, I might have.

Did I Like It: I really, really have lost most of my patience with the very idea of zombies. I can only imagine if you’re reading this that at some point you’ve given up on The Walking Dead. Whenever that moment was for you, I guarantee I jumped ship earlier than that. The commentary of George Romero is long since gone for me, and the craft of making up the creatures was probably passé for me even when Romero was at his height.

And with all of that being said, there’s quite a lot new, and a lot to like here.

I cannot honestly think of a better introduction to a zombie apocalypse than a fisherman suddenly realizing something is terribly, terribly wrong with the already cleaned and gutted catch of the day.

That alone would have inched me closer to making the unlikely conclusion that the genre might still have some life (or, I suppose un-life, if you’re going to force me to relent to the pun orbiting around me) in it yet, but making the supposed realities of a zombie apocalypse a reflection of the indigenous experience made the entire experience refreshing. What’s more, the central plot line involving the fate of the baby to be born to Joseph (Goodluck) and Charlie (Olivia Scriven) keeps the tension up, not just because it is unclear how the character’s fates will be resolved, but it’s never completely made clear what the movie would prefer to happen to them.

I’m even prepared to forgive the film for occasionally becoming a very typical zombie film in the execution, but please, let’s keep that between you and I.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg

Have I Seen it Before: Nope, but if the one religious figure who takes a clear stand on the vagaries of motion blurring wants me to do something, I do it. Especially when it means coming out to the theater for his nearly 300 million dollar* epic. If he starts making other demands of me, we’re just going to have to take those on a case by case basis.

Did I Like It: I like it when the following things happen to me:

- Spy movies make me feel like I could engage in espionage and intrigue, even though there is a plethora of airtight evidence that I would be absolutely crushed by any job with even slightly higher pressure than the one I currently have.

- I am witness to Tom Cruise proceeding with a series of increasingly preposterous stunts, which will inevitably culminate in what I can only assume is his somewhat hilarious demise.

- I get to sit in a darkened, air conditioned room and eat M & Ms. (Really, this would qualify when I get to sit in a brightly lit room with M & Ms, but they work even better in the dark)

- Mission: Impossible sequels make reference to the first—and for my money, the best—Mission: Impossible (1996).

On those qualifications, the movie is an unparalleled success, especially the last one, where with the inclusion of Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) this feels like—more than any other film in the series—a direct sequel to the original. Sure, the plot may feel a little saggy in the middle and a little convoluted, but the impulse to label that as a complain about the movie should really be redefined as a return to form.

* Studios, if you keep doing that… Forget it. It’s not worth getting into it right now, but one imagines I’m going to have a lot more to same by the time Barbie and Oppenheimer roll into town.

High Fidelity (2000)

Director: Stephen Frears

Cast: John Cusack, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Iben Hjelje

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, well. Where does one begin with a question like that? I’m not entirely sure just how many times I saw this movie in the spring of 2003 (for reasons) but I do know it was a lot. Change popular music to movies, and I felt a lot like Rob Gordon there for a little bit about twenty years back.

Did I Like It: We’re a different world now. I’ve changed, and even Rob Gordon (Cusack) has changed*. Can a movie which lived so aggressively rent free in my head at one time mean the same thing now? Should it?

As with many other movies I have seen dozens of times before, I had half a dozen other things going on while it was playing, but I couldn’t help dropping those other things and once again being transfixed by the movie. I doubt I’ll ever have it on repeat again like I did back then, but the memories are all still there, and enough time has passed to make them something akin to pleasant. I wonder what Rob is like now. I’d like to think that he would have the same morbid fascination with his prior antics that I do.

Aside from that, every note of the movie feels correct. The soundtrack is great top to bottom, and that has almost nothing to do with the memories it inspires. Jack Black arrives as the movie star we now know him to be. It is truly impressive that the filmmakers were able to change the location of their adaptation from London to Chicago, aside from the long runner where Rob goes on and on about the hypothetical man “called Ian (Tim Robbins)” and I don’t think any American has ever avoided the verb “named” that resolutely.

* Played most recently by Zoë Kravitz in a recent television series that absolutely should have gotten a second season, but I digress

Tetris (2023)

Director: Jon S. Baird

Cast: Taron Egerton, Nikita Yefremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Been on the list to watch for a minute.

Did I Like It: The gold standard of any adaptation is does it make you want to continue the good feelings that the film engenders by going back to the source material.

Now, this isn’t really an adaptation of the game literally every person on planet earth both communist and capitalist has spent at least a little bit playing since 1989. How could one do that? Although, it’s not entirely departed from the puzzle game, as there is certainly a vibe in the films concluding car chase that urged me to play several rounds of the game after everything was done.

Now, the real strength of the film lies outside of those sequences. Indeed, any scenes trying to reach for special effects and production values take me out of the proceedings. Much of the climax, taking place during a massive Soviet parade has all the verisimilitude of an endless series of geometric shapes built out of four squares falling down from the ether.

And that’s a real shame, because the film has a real energy to it. Not the dour drudgery of The Social Network (2010), but a delightful, heist movie, borderline buddy cop energy that has easily been one of the more enjoyable movies I have taken in this year. Does it have anything to do with what actually happened between Henk Rogers (Egerton) and Alexey Pajitnov (Yefremov) and the road from Tetris being a Soviet home brew game to the ubiquitous puzzler of the 90s.

I might spend a little more time delving into the rest of the movie, but the reality is this review has been difficult to write. I keep stopping to play another round of Tetris.