X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Strangely enough, I’ve somehow managed to avoid watching most of the series since starting these reviews. But this last weekend, I’m getting an oil change at one of those lightning fast, don’t-even-leave-your car joints. The guys doing the oil change were talking about superhero movies, and I just joined right in. One of them says this was the best of them all, and I was hard pressed to disagree. So it went near the top of my list to re-watch.

Did I Like It: It’s not hard to say that this is probably the best of the X-Men films*. It manages to weave together many of the elements that made X-Men (2000) and X2: X-Men United (2003) some of the early entries of the superhero boom, and the later films that managed to refresh the series with X-Men: First Class (2011). It even manages to avoid the particularly baffling multiple timelines that weighed down the series as it wore on… Mainly because this is the film that drove the timelines off the tracks.

But then again, as one of America’s fine purveyors of time travel nonsense, I fully approve of even that much.

It also helps that this film largely works. It may not be the bubbly 60s spy movie homage of First Class or the subtle homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)** that is X-Men United. It does owe a lot to The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and it may be the fact that at the moment I’m watching the Dirty Harry films, but Hugh Jackman has been spending the last twenty-five years just doing an Eastwood impression? It’s a pretty good one, sure, but… folks. That’s all he’s been doing.

That all reads like I’m picking at nits, but there were things that I found oddly affecting on this re-watch. And it only kind of has to do with the fact that the whole plot focuses on a megalomaniacal titan of the tech industry (Peter Dinklage) yanking a little too hard on the ear of the president (Mark Camacho) to bring us all to our inevitable doom.

All right, maybe it’s a bit more than kind of, but there’s other stuff here. I’m mainly focusing on the lost Charles Xavier as portrayed by McAvoy. He’s selfish and broken in a world where the only rational response would be to be selfish and broken. Who’s the only man in the entire multiverse who can set him right? The older, wiser Xavier as portrayed by Patrick Stewart. Hell, if I can’t have my future self set myself on the right track, I’d take any number of characters played by Patrick Stewart.

*If one ignores Logan (2017). We’re not going crazy here.

**I’ll die on this hill, but I probably won’t elaborate on it, unless I need to beef up the word count of this review.

Trapped (1949)

Director: Richard Fleischer

Cast: Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Payton, John Hoyt, James Todd

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Between the head cold that wouldn’t die, and the general feeling of exhaustion that filled the universe last fall*, I’ve been slacking on attending Circle’s regular Noir Night. Throw in the fact that before the movie they ran the 1923 animated short from Fleischer’s father, also titled Trapped, I can’t help but marvel that I go to one of the only theaters that still runs cartoons before a movie.

Did I Like It: Even beyond the amenities of the screening, it’s good to be back in the dim world of Noir. There’s something so simply intuitive about putting a hard on their luck schlub in the pursuit of an easy payday only to be completely ruined by that fantasy (it’s a fantasy at the moment) of consequences. Trapped hits all of the beats one would expect and need from the genre. There’s even a blonde (Payton) lurking around the edges of the film who can vacillate between victim and Iago-like manipulator for good measure.

But then the film takes a weird turn. All throughout the runtime, Stewart (Bridges) feels like the main character. He’s the schemer who is one step ahead of the coppers who are trying to bring the gifted forger back into justice. Most of the first act centers on his escape. Then, with twenty minutes left to go, Bridges gets arrested again. One might think he’s got a whole other escape in him before the end credits unfurl, but no. Lloyd Bridges suddenly becomes Sir Not Appearing In This Film. The final twenty minutes involves the Secret Service tightening their noose around a completely different character, Jack Sylvester (Todd).

This might have struck me as a flaw of the film, if it weren’t for the fact that we were all told before the film began that Bridges got quite sick in the middle of production, and with a B production there was no time to wait for him to get better. So it’s suddenly a story about Sylvester. Without Fleischer at the helm, this could have been a real mess, instead of a slightly off-beat one. It’s a testament to Fleischer’s skills that he could make as much lemonade out of the lemons available.

Just imagine how bad Conan the Destroyer (1984) would have been if Fleischer hadn’t been around to keep things under some degree of control.

*Now that that’s over with…

The Big Diamond Robbery (1929)

Director: Eugene Forde

Cast: Tom Mix, Kathryn McGuire, Frank Beal, Martha Mattox

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: I’ve been down on silent westerns. One would hope that they would be wall-to-wall action, but oddly enough the silent comedies are more interested in keeping things moving in improbable ways.

It’s also frustrating to try to sit through a silent film that went neglected for far too long. The Last Trail (1927) had degraded to some blurry shadows with light poking through. I’m happy to report that for some reason the Library of Congress got involved with some restoration*. The copy I saw was pristine, with no strange film breaks. I really feel like I saw the film in the way it was intended to be seen, and that’s even before I mention that I got to see it with an organist.

With all of that being said, it’s now time to be kind of down on this one, too. Take a look at that title. It screams action. Gunplay. Horseplay. Maybe, dare I expect too much from the world of the 2020s, a diamond robbed or two.

Maybe the more apt title of “A Light Romantic Comedy Eventually Involves a Horse And There Are Some Mild Misunderstandings Surrounding a Diamond, But They’re Really Secondary” had no hope of fitting on a poster. Even those huge ones they had in the pre-talkie era. But I would have at least not felt like I was getting short shift from the whole affair. Relegating the diamonds to an afterthought might have been forgiven if Mix was in top form. Reaching the end of his career, he’s understandably not moving as improbably as he might of in those films that only barely exist anymore.

*And yet, the film is not on the National Film Registry. After all these years, it’s really not clear to me where, when, or why they might get involved with something. Probably never will, at this rate. Probably should tell me something.

Sudden Impact (1983)

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, Bradford Dillman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: I go into this one not with hype in my head, but a strange amount of comfort with Harry Callahan and his world. What’s more, Eastwood directs here for the only time in the series. Who knows Callahan and his strange mix of gruff recalcitrance and underlying decency better than the man who probably still is largely identified with the role?

And yes, Eastwood is probably most at ease in this film, but that makes the entire film seem distracted. Maybe he was a little too in love with Sandra Locke and decides to spend too much time focusing on her. Plenty of directors, and more than a few stars have fallen victim to the pitfalls of romantic nepotism, but Locke sleep walks through a role that feels like it at least needs to alternate between borderline-catatonic and scene-chewing manic.

Maybe it’s just that this is a down-note entry in the series between The Enforcer (1976) where Eastwood is able to be so relaxed that he actually got to be a bit funny, and The Dead Pool (1988), a weird—purely hypothetical for me at this point—pop cultural amalgamation. It’s entirely possible I’m being too hard on Sudden Impact. A series that goes five films without having any entries that aren’t willfully embarrassing is probably a treasure to behold. Star Trek couldn’t manage that feat. Maybe Dirty Harry is allowed to have an off day.

And now it’s just me and The Dead Pool. I strangely can’t wait. With it’s weird alchemy of Eastwood, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey (before he started talking out of his ass) and the guys who voices Mario? There’s no possibility this thing will ever live up to the hype I created entirely in my head.

The Enforcer (1976)

Director: James Fargo

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, Tyne Daly

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: Is it possible that Dirty Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is actually funny? I mean, this film certainly seems to think he is and Eastwood is given more one -liners and absurd situations to deal with than he’s gotten in any film that doesn’t involve a monkey. I found myself laughing out loud more than I do with an average comedy.

But if Harry were really the absolutely mean-spirited one-man war on crime that our collective pop cultural consciousness has decided he was, it would be hard to laugh with him amidst a ridiculous world.

But here’s the thing. He isn’t. He dislikes absurdity, and is apt not to participate in it, but in a city like San Francisco that is filled to the brim with the kind of people that would drive a lesser steely-eyed conservative icon to hate everyone in sight. He’s curt, sure. He’s more into doing the job as he sees it, consequences be damned.

But he’s not a fundamentally mean man, especially if you aren’t obviously committing a felony right in front of him at that very moment, doubly so if you’re in a position of authority over him. He really hates that. He gets attached to partners quite easily, in fact. Which one might forgive him for being a dick to the litany of sad sacks who get tethered to him, as they keep dropping like flies. But this doesn’t stop him from both begrudgingly respecting and eventually mourning his latest buddy, Inspector Kate Moore (Daly). This feels like the kind of opinion that will get some red hat to trebuchet me, but I think the only reason they call him Dirty Harry is because Cuddly Bear Harry wouldn’t have looked as good on a poster.

It’s entirely possible that The Enforcer will wind up being one of my favorite of the Dirty Harry films. I’m reserving judgment, as that last one has Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey running around the edges with wacky hairdos, and I wait for that with bated breath.

The Monkey (2025)

Director: Osgood Perkins

Cast: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I like It: I really did. The cynical part of me wants me to think that my tragically reduced diet of new fare this year so far, I just really want to like whatever is coming my way. That might account for review of Captain America: Brave New World (2025) that didn’t just collapse in on itself from unrelenting boredom, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

The film blissfully maintains the balance between a gore fest and a knowing comedy of the here and now. Many were the moments where I was caught between a wince and a laugh. The scene at the Hibachi Restaurant is a particular delight, although from the first scene in the Thrift Store, all to the last appearance of the Cheerleaders, the film is more than content to not let up on the audience. One might blink twice at the growing numb reaction of the characters to the insanity around them, but don’t get too judgmental: You’re probably joining them in that regard.

All this is to say that I now I feel strangely compelled to read the original Stephen King story* from Skeleton Crew, if for no other reason to see if that sensibility comes from the source material or if it is original to Perkins and company. That’s probably the best possible thing can say about any adaptation, that I feel inexorably compelled to seek out the source material.

*Incidentally, the only thing about the film that grates on my nerves isn’t even really about the story at all. Apparently Frank Darabont had the rights or was attached to the project for a number of years, only for it not to come to pass. Now, I ultimately think that a Darabont-led version of this story wouldn’t work (unless he were to tap into the same energy from early in his career that made A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)) as well as this did, but I’m perpetually confused as to why Darabont isn’t allowed to make movies anymore.

Mystery Team (2009)

Director: Dan Eckman

Cast: Donald Glover, DC Pierson, Dominic Dierkes, Aubrey Plaza

Have I Seen it Before: Oh yeah. Although I can’t quite remember if I saw it before or after Glover hit it big on Community*.

Did I Like It: The biggest mystery of Mystery Team is why the team of Derrick Comedy doesn’t exist anymore. I can see them becoming less active in posting videos to Youtube after Glover became not only a network TV star but one of the most interesting rap acts in recent years, but they could have done so much more. This film is pretty good. It’s filled with gags, most of which work. The supporting cast is rounded out by enough future sitcom starts that I spent most of the film quietly marveling, “Oh, he/she is in this.” It’s concept also offers a heartfelt attempt at a meditation on the often excruciating need to trade in the last vestiges of childhood for the promised freedom of adulthood.

But the film doesn’t quite hang together like one might have hoped. I’m willing to chalk that up to experience. The film doesn’t quite know how how to get out of a scene before it wears out its welcome, and thus while most of the laughs land, it always feels like they could have been maximized just a little bit more.

One can’t help but wonder if Glover had instead gotten on Saturday Night Live instead of Community, would he and Derrick Comedy might have become the new Lonely Island on the show, producing shorts and then, when the time came, producing features as well. Samberg and company keep getting better at what they do. Derrick never got a chance to come into their own. I wish they might have, while still giving Glover to do all the other work that he would come to produce.

*Dear Hollywood: Community movie. When? Your Pal, Mac.

Bowfinger (1999)

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Robert Downey Jr.

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. It feels like one of those movies that everybody had to see in the summer of ’99.

Did I Like It: There’s an easy criticism of this film that compares in unfavorably to Ed Wood (1994). It’s easy because it is, fundamentally, true. The story of Ed Wood and Bobby Bowfinger (Martin) are roughly the same. The down on their luck scurrying creature of Los Angeles stops at nothing to make a movie—any movie—and brings the people in his orbit along with him. Ed Wood is the superior film, but between being a black and white movie about a transvestite (complimentary), there was never any hope that it would play in Poughkeepsie. Reaching to make everyone funny, and filming it in the same colors everybody expects to see in any other movies, means that the film is ready for all time zones.

The film is lucky that it is quite funny, owing to able and steady direction from Oz. The film winds up taking skillful shots at both Anne Heche* and Scientology**, thanks to a wry script from Martin.

But the real secret here is Eddie Murphy. Certainly the most popular comedy movie star of the 80s—even Bill Murray often needed backup, and even Chevy felt compelled to make Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980) and National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)—Murphy spent most of the 90s quietly becoming less and less funny. Here, he is back in fine form, thanks in no small part to the fact that he is able to let go of his well-earned leading man ego to alternately be the least cool guy in the room and make fun of his own image.

*Don’t believe me? Martin didn’t even try to hide it all that much.

**How is Tom Cruise expected to complain about the cracks, when MindHead is depicted as being almost too into psychiatry. People really should take lessons from him in how to make fun of someone not only to the point that they don’t know that they’re being made fun, but that the mockery actually reinforces their prejudices.

Inside Out 2 (2024)

Director: Kelsey Mann

Cast: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman, Liza Lapira

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I felt like I saw the trailer last summer about 150 times, but have yet to get around to it until now.

Did I Like It: There’s a certain amount of inevitability about the movie. The original Inside Out (2015) was such a uniquely clever idea, and all came to the ominous conclusion that puberty was rapidly coming down the pike for Riley (Tallman, replacing Kaitlyn Dias). The audience starts to write the sequel in their own head. There’s not much here that isn’t covered by those passing thoughts as we were leaving the theater after the first film.

New emotions are an interesting layer, to be sure. I may just have a problem believing that any child of the twenty-first century only starts to experience Anxiety (Hawke), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) in the summer before they go to High School, but maybe I’m in the minority there.

The thing I’m most delighted by is the eventual fate of the aforementioned Anxiety. A simpler film would be content to make Anxiety into a villain that must be vanquished for all time. I know plenty of people who treat their own anxiety like that, and it more often than not renders them into something between a sociopath and a mere bore. Here, Anxiety is relegated to another part of the tableau. Anxiety can run away with the whole show and is inherently explosive and unpredictable, but then again so are any number of fuels we might use. Anxiety doesn’t have to bring down the entire operation. It doesn’t have to lead to a never ending chorus of “I’m not good enough.” It can—when properly harnessed—lead one to try to do better.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Director: Julius Onah

Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Carl Lumbly, Harrison Ford

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Somehow I’ve made it halfway into the month of February and this is my first film both released this year and seen in theaters.

Did I Like It: Giving it a moment’s thought, I’ll say this was a nice little action movie that will soon be forgotten and have a relatively benign place on any number of lists on Disney+. There is some action, a couple of dodgy special effects moments, and a tag scene that hardly seems worth it anymore. The film may truly be suffering from the moment it is unleashed and/or a pronounced deficit in the wow factor, as the money shot in this film of the President of the United States (Ford, still feeling like he’s awake for all of this, which is something) transformed into the Red Hulk and standing on top of a slightly demolished White House elicited a bigger laugh than anything I saw in Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

It is weighed down by some of the same problems that would weigh down any series approaching its 40th—yes, you read that right—film. As a public service announcement, I’ll list here a couple of the touchstones this film hits and some feelings about how lost you, the viewer, might be if you missed them in the glut of material from the franchise:

1. I’m real glad I somehow bothered to watch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier or nearly every second of the first hour—and let’s not kid ourselves, pretty much the entire movie—would be desperately searching for some semblance of context. I might have just given up and accepted that Isaiah Bradley (Lumbly) is important to Wilson (Mackie), but just accepting that Wilson is now Captain America coming off the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019) is too much. The film would have had to have a cameo from Chris Evans to set us all right, and even with that context present, I think we still could have used him thematically. It’s not like he’s above still showing up for these films, right?

2. I’m also infinitely glad that I have both seen, mostly remember, and kind of liked that mostly forgotten entry in the series, The Incredible Hulk (2008). The film ultimately is a direct sequel to that entry, but a cameo (spoiler) by Liv Tyler at the end really doesn’t have the same hit it might because a) she isn’t reuniting with Harrison Ford, she just met him, and b) I’m now wondering more about how she might relate to Mark Ruffalo. Honestly, both of the actors she worked with in that film were recast for various reasons, did we have to have her back?

3. I’m apparently not at all bothered that I still haven’t seen Eternals (2021). It seems like it might be a charming film, but as long as I accept there’s a whole mess of adamantium in the Indian Ocean (and I do) the film remains on my watchlist.

But, ultimately, this is held together not by an idiot plot, where people aren’t communicating with each other in an effort to keep the story moving along, but instead populated by idiot elements, where things that simply don’t add up are injected into a film with confidence that the audience would not notice.

I noticed. Yes, they are mostly related to the Presidency and the politics of the whole situation.

Why is the Secret Service agent (Xosha Roquemore) also a close adviser of the President? That seems like an unwise conflict of interest.

Never mind that every single person on planet Earth and beyond—including and especially Secret Service agents—should probably know that shooting any particular Hulk isn’t going to do much. They probably shouldn’t be shooting the President anyway, even if the cabinet somehow has had time to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Finally, and most importantly: It’s established we are hovering around the end of Ross’ first 100 days in the White House, but when Bucky (Sebastian Stan) shows up for a cameo, he has to immediately leave for a campaign stop, because he apparently is running for Congress now. Really? You’ve both announced and are running a full-time campaign for a House seat less than six months since the last election? I don’t believe that, and neither should you. Had he tried to shake down Wilson for campaign funds, then maybe.

Magnum Force (1973)

Director: Ted Post

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, David Soul

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: First of all, in my review of Dirty Harry (1971) I noted that since Harry (Eastwood) spent the final moments of that film throwing his badge into the water, the opening minutes of this film pretty much had to have him wading into the water to go retrieve it.

No such luck. By all rights I should get over that little oversight, but thematically it’s a little hard to account for Callahan’s utter—and arguably justifiable—disgust with the system in the context of this movie. Not to spoil the plot of a fifty year old movie, but when it becomes clear that the real bad guys in this film are forces within the San Francisco Police Department*, Callahan has to throw away a quick line about how much he still hates the system, but has to live with it until it changes.

It’s an awkward—and unfortunately load-bearing—moment in an otherwise skillfully constructed thriller. Harry is a hero that I’m increasingly less dubious about headlining a multi-movie franchise. Those shots that are going to be the first up in obituary reels for Eastwood make Callahan seem like the kind of cop one hopes to not meet in a darkened alley, or in bright daylight, or really anywhere. The truth, though, is that Callahan might be a grump, but he is a decent man. He’s not interested in hurting anybody that hasn’t already gone out of their way to hurt other people. He’d even like to gently stop somebody who might hurt somebody from indulging in their worst impulses. He doesn’t kick ass when McCoy (Ryan) starts betraying his meltdown. He tries to talk him into hanging it up before something terrible happens. He doesn’t even sleep with McCoy’s wife, when the runway was absolutely clear. Are all cops bastards? I’ll leave that for other people to decide, but I would at least submit that Dirty Harry Callahan is at least a bastard for the angels.

*An odd paradox in this genre of kick-ass guys with guns starring guys who would be perfectly welcome at the Republican National Convention: They are weirdly, and pointedly, anti-police, or at least eager to admit that police corruption exists and is inherently difficult to route out. I’m surprised that the left haven’t adopted both this film and First Blood (1982) as their own.

Predator (1987)

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Kevin Peter Hall

Have I Seen it Before: Heck, you’re talking to the guy who started a Facebook group in support of the idea of Carl Weathers becoming Governor of Oklahoma because, apparently, the cast of this movie is where we need to get Governors.

Did I Like It: There’s a problem that happens when a long-running film series has a complete revelation with a later entry. I’m looking in your direction, Prey (2022). The original film can start to feel a bit stripped down, a bit tame. I have a real hard time really getting into A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) when I know that Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) exists.

Can this film possibly hold up?

Yeah, pretty much. It accomplishes what the series lost to certain degree as time went on (and especially when they were set up on a series of blind dates with xenomorphs for a couple of movies. The Predator films are at there best opportunities for seamless genre mashup, and accomplishing this by simply giving us a well-made example of one genre*, and then injecting the Predator into the mix. Prey did it by giving us a well-crafted epic in the pre-colonial world of indigenous America… and then threw a dreadlocked alien into the mix. Here, this film would work perfectly well as the group of paramilitary soldiers enter the jungle with a mix of motivations and understanding about their mission, only to reach disaster. Come to think of it, what the hell was Schwarzenegger’s name in Commando (1985)? Is this a sequel to that? I’m sure someone would have noted that before I did, but it sure as hell could have been**.

*Probably doesn’t work for every genre, though. And, just as soon as I type that a Kindergarten Cop (1990) riff where one of the students is a Yautja would be watchable as hell.

**I keep lamenting that Rambo: Last Blood (2019) didn’t follow the rumored plot line of Stallone squaring off agains a malevolent alien. I had apparently forgotten that this film is essentially that, and way better than we could have expected if Stallone had gotten control of the works.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to see this when it came out back in ’16, especially when one considers how it took me about a year to get more than a little sick of Independence Day (1996). Maybe it was one of those years where I just felt compelled to see everything.

Did I Like It: Relax, the film easily passes the criteria for sequels: it is just as good as the original, or at least pretty cool. If you think otherwise, I submit that you might be remembering Independence Day through the lens of someone who was a child in the 1990s and thus, far easier to impress. It’s just as much of mindless special effects sizzle reel as the original.

There are fewer memorable special effects shots as the original. Nothing quite matches that shot of one of the alien saucers obliterating the White House, but I think that means the trailer for the original film is better than the trailer for this film. That much I’ll grant you. Also, I’ll admit that where the first film at least had the sort of heartwarming thought that the only thing that will unite humanity is the knowledge that there is something else out there for us to hate. Here we have… :checks notes: the realization that the aliens have a queen who is far larger than any of the others. Where have I seen that before?

The film’s ambitions are minimal, but I can’t say that I can completely dismiss any big tentpole film that fundamentally has little to offer when it offers me this much of Jeff Goldblum being as much Jeff Goldblum as he can be. It got me through Jurassic World Dominion (2022) and it made this a relatively easy way to spend a couple of hours, too.

Everybody might want to complain about the absnece of Will Smith, but it honestly didn’t even occur to me. I don’t think he would have improved anything.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Jeremy Irons, Samuel L. Jackson, Graham Greene

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I wonder sometimes what was the last movie I saw before starting these reviews in 2018. There’s a better than even chance that it was this during my last march through the sequels to Die Hard (1988).

Did I Like It: In my head, I’ve always viewed this as not just the best sequel in the series, but the only one even remotely worth a damn. I wondered, though, after my recent re-watch of Die Hard 2 (1990) if I would start thinking differently. Ultimately, though, I still think this is the strongest aside from the original, even if I finally found the charms in Die Harder.

It might be a fairly run of the mill 90s actioner. Indeed, it started out life as a completely unrelated original film intended as a vehicle for Brandon Lee. Abandoned after he died during the filming of The Crow (1994), it was then dusted off as a potential sequel for Lethal Weapon (1987) before eventually becoming what we have now.

One presumes that Simon (Irons) was not Hans Gruber’s brother the entire time, but that would certainly have been a choice. Come to think of it, the film seems so quintessentially New York-based (I don’t dare say that the city is like another character, so relax) it feels like it would have lost something had it followed Riggs and Murtaugh in LA, although I have no trouble imagining that the opening sequence with the sandwich board was written for Mel Gibson first.

It allows John McClane (Willis) to no longer be a fish out of water. Shedding the trappings of the first movie, it feels like this series can go pretty much anywhere.

Let’s just ignore where the series did go, shall we?

Conclave (2024)

Director: Edward Berger

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Having been waylaid by the Oklahoma Flu for the better part of a month, I’m sad to admit that I’ve missed most (read: all but Dune: Part Two (2023)) of the best picture contenders for this year. Luckily, Peacock had me covered and only jammed two minutes of commercials into my eyes at the top.

Did I Like It: I’ve found myself, and really only since my recent viewing of The Exorcist (1973), strangely admiring of the Catholic clergy. I mean, I haven’t gone completely insane. I’m not going to take an entirely new theological viewpoint, and I could really spend the rest of the review talking about all of the bad things that the Catholic church has perpetrated through their myopia. But the best among them seem intellectually curious and ultimately confront doubt with some regularity.

On that front, I immensely enjoyed the film. The deep dive into papal politics kept me rapt with the same level of interest of any political drama. My sympathies naturally went with the more liberal cardinals, and that’s only partially because Stanley Tucci can’t avoid being likable*, even when he’s engaging in some underhanded machinations.

My only real reservation about the film lies with the third act. There’s a twist, I suppose, in just who becomes Pope at the end of the titular conclave. I won’t spoil it for you, but some might clutch their pearls at the turn. The turn itself isn’t my problem, though. It’s that the twist doesn’t seem to come from anything else that happens in the film. It almost feels like the ending of some other film about gender politics in the Vatican found itself grafted onto this film. I far more enjoyed the road to that twist than the twist itself.

*Truly, they had to pit the man against Tom Hanks to make him anything less than likable in The Terminal (2004).

Salem's Lot (1979)

Director: Tobe Hooper

Cast: David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: I worry I went into this with the wrong mindset. People have enjoyed it, right? I’m pressing play on the blu ray, and I can’t get the reality out of my head that It (1990) is a 4 hour exercise where maybe two minutes of it work. Maybe the network boradcast treatment of horror novels—and especially King’s work—is destined for failure. The movie really had to win me over.

And didn’t quite get the job done. Here there might be scant seconds that work, and each of those seconds are jump cuts. The entire film is not kept together by any performance that gives the film real menace, a la Tim Curry in It. James Mason has a little bit of menace to him, and Bonnie Bedelia is always a welcome a presence, but neither of them are given enough to do to even remotely make a three hour run time not feel like a chore.

I’d say the film ages poorly, but I’m having a hard time imagining that the people of 1979 could reach for dread when confronted with only occasional appearances of a vampire that looks less like Count Orlock in Nosferatu (1922) and more like the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine (1968).

Even those few and far between jump scares wear thin as things proceed. I realize as they pile up that not only is a vampire suddenly jumping into frame, but that frame freezes in place, to really drive home the fact that I’m supposed to be scared. Throw in some act breaks that were originally designed to sell me an Atari 2600 doesn’t help matters much.

Then again, it could be worse. I direct the curious to Salem’s Lot (2004). At least this version didn’t force Rob Lowe to leave The West Wing.

Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914)

Director: Mack Sennett

Cast: Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain

Have I Seen it Before: Never. As big a fan I am of Chaplin, I’m a little surprised about that as well. But this is certainly a different thing, so I think I can be forgiven.

Did I Like It: Not only the first feature length appearance of Chaplin, but the first feature length comedy of any kind, I’m also willing to forgive the Keystone comedy for not quite knowing what to do with something that was supposed to last over an hour. Sennett brings all of his slapstick tricks to bear, but there’s a reason that if you went out onto the street and asked random people if they have heard of any of the people involved in this film, most would say yes to only one name.

I really do believe that if Chaplin had somehow died young and never fully become the Tramp that we know today, it would be impossible to take your eyes away from him in this film. He’s already thinking about what this form can do. He’s unpredictable. He’s dynamic. He’s graceful. Above all else, he’s funnier than anybody else in the movie, and even funnier than the movie itself. There may be moments where he—and everyone—really, feel an inexplicable need to look at the camera and speak so that no one can hear them, but considering a few short years ago the entire cast was performing on Vaudeville stages, this, too, can be forgiven.

You might have a different reaction as the film unfurls. Seeing Chaplin in garb other than that of the Tramp might cause one to dismiss the entire film before realizing that Chaplin didn’t even direct it. But let me offer a perspective that might be only really of use to moviegoers of the 21st century: In my head, this is an origin story. Charlie, the City Slicker here wears clothes that don’t quite fit (it makes him funnier) and eventually acquires a bowler hat. This is an origin story of the Tramp for me. Canonical concerns be damned, but from this moment on the funny little man feels the need to atone for his ways here, leading him all the way through adopting a child,   all the way through having a breakdown in the middle of a factory, all the way through to impersonating the dictator of Tomania.

Spaceballs (1987)

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Mel Brooks, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah. And I’ve never really cared for it. While the majority of the human race immediately proceeds to tune out of this website forever, let me say that I’ve always liked some of his other movies—chiefly Young Frankenstein (1974)—far more.

Did I Like It: But this time was going to be different! Perhaps I’m too precious about the science fiction genre to see it spoofed. I managed to even find flaws with Galaxy Quest (1999) when everyone else on the planet thinks it’s the best thing since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). I’m fully willing to admit that I may be the problem, and if I can just get out of my own head, I’ll enjoy the film as much as you do.

No such luck.

The film just doesn’t work for me. Many of the film’s Brooks mocks in his work are timeless, even if they are very much part of the age they were made in. Every time “Spaceballs” by the Spinners is needle dropped in the third act, it is impossible to think of this film as anything other than something made in 1987.

Funny actors like Candy and Moranis are largely stiff (Candy more than Moranis) when they should be given free (or at least more free) reign to play to their heart’s content. This saps the film of many of the laughs it by all rights should have. I’m not saying the film is completely without laughs, but I didn’t laugh more than I did when we’re waylaid by the kind of exposition the serious versions of these films tend to insist on, and Moranis turns to the camera and barks, “Everyone got all that?”

Why do things not come together here? I think it can absolutely be a byproduct of the fact that Brooks has no real feelings for the Star Wars or Star Trek (or any of the other sprawling sci-fi epics of the age). He loved the James Whale Universal Horror films. That’s why Frankenstein is his best film. He loved Hitchcock movies, that’s why High Anxiety (1977) connects. He loves westerns. Hence, Blazing Saddles (1974)*. Here, I imagine that his kid loves sci-fi movies, and he has a mild fascination with them. That’s it. And so, the experience here is far more hollow then many of us want to admit.

*I’ve said it in other reviews, but no matter what my feelings about this film are, the fact that he was able to do both Frankenstein and Saddles within a year makes him an unassailable legend.

Vegas Vacation (1997)

Director: Stephen Kessler

Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry

Have I Seen it Before: The film holds a certain amount of legendary status in our family, although not for any reason beyond the circumstantial. Between 1994 and 2000, my family and I made at least four, and potentially more (I remember one summer alone we made three trips alone) to Vegas. It was that period—Chase even mentions it in the film—when Vegas was experimenting with being a family destination. We could ride roller coasters while Pop engaged in what might be called a gambling addiction if he didn’t seem to be somewhat skilled.

Our average rate of visiting the city was so frequent, that it was almost inevitable that we were there when this was filming. The film itself is sort of weird memory burned into my brain, but the moment I looked across the casino at the MGM Grand and saw the man who once was Fletch and would one day be Pierce Hawthorne between takes near the Keno room, dressed in full Clark Griswold regalia.

The legend continues from there. I had all but forgotten about the film and my brief brush with Chevy. Cut to last fall and I’m visiting the parents. Apparently, they had bought copies of the DVD in bulk to hand out as prizes when friends come over to play poker. Rolling my eyes, I got a copy for free.

Did I Like It: The film is perhaps a perfect example of medium ambitions not remotely fulfilled. Clearly, it would not be a controversial opinion to say that National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) are the ones we’ll see in obituary b-roll for Chase one day. I’ve never been that enamored of the Griswold’s all together, so while I can’t share that disappointment, I can understand it. The franchise has certainly taken a step down when John Hughes is nowhere to be found in the credits.

But it goes beyond that. Produced by Jerry Weintraub, this feels like the first pass at a commercial for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, before he finally found the right vehicle for such an endeavor in Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequels. I honestly think Chase could have reached for a comeback with a return to Fletch, but given the film on display here, a return to any character at this point would have been similarly anemic.

The film isn’t without its charms, though. There are several points where Chase seems to be emulating my father. A general audience might find a family breakfast interrupted by a sudden trip to the Craps table to be not terribly relatable, but I’m not one of those people. My dad may not have Tarzan-ed his way across the Hoover Dam, but that’s more because we didn’t really go see the sights when we were in the area. We laugh in my house about Rusty’s (Embry) adventures as Nick Poppageorgio, but we laugh because had I found my way into a fake ID, it’s only a mild exaggeration. “I do not require them” is a line repeated often growing up. A film can move beyond the realm of criticism if it can hit a group of people at the right time.

And yet, a couple of laughs do exist. Primarily they rest with supporting players. Wallace Shawn as a pernicious blackjack dealer is worth a chuckle or two, but I can’t help but laugh at the brief moment we’re treated to Toby Huss as a Frank Sinatra impersonator with a plan.

The Net (1995)

Director: Irwin Winkler

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam, Dennis Miller, Diane Baker

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I’m beginning to realize that we got HBO in my house in 1996, and that just meant my instinct to see just about anything that got released the year before, and with the help of VHS, doing so multiple times.

Now that all of those films are hitting their 30th anniversary, I feel increasingly dusty and am finding these films (I’m looking in your direction, Tommy Boy (1995)) at a rock bottom prices online, and can’t help but wonder, “Does this one hold up?”

Did I Like It: No. This one doesn’t hold up. There are some mildly interesting moments in the film’s first act where Angela Bennett (Bullock) is clearly living her life that seemed like science fiction in the 90s (probably the film’s main draw) but are almost depressingly mundane now. She works from home, to the point where no one she has worked with has ever seen her. She lives nearly exclusively online, patiently enduring sexual harassment from complete strangers. She orders her meals—including a large pizza she apparently eats all by herself—entirely with the aid of her elite level of computer skills.

Now that all of those activities are completely within reach of even the lease skilled among us, is there anything left to recommend the film? Not really. All we have left is a warmed over Hitchcock plot that never seems terribly interested in working on its own terms. There’s one brief sequence where Bennet tries to take back control of matters by actually going to her place of employment, but the rest of the rest of the plot listlessly wanders, hoping desperately that Bullock’s charm will paper over the lack of the kind of plot mechanics that a film like this needs to work. That might all be forgiven, but this thing is barely held together by the kind of scotch tape editing choices that drive me up the wall. Bennett takes the wheel of a car being driven by a fake FBI agent, and he has to scream from the safe confines of an ADR session, “My seatbelt!” I was able to follow that the guy wasn’t going to make it in 1995, and I definitely don’t need the extra bit now.