Darkman (1990)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels, Larry Drake

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: On spec, the notion of Liam Neeson leading a Raimi-infused action steeped in the aesthetic of the classic Universal horror films would be at the top of my list of films to watch this year.

Releasing the movie in 1990 before Raimi had his solid run in the 1990s leading up to the breakthrough hit of Spider-Man (2002) and before Neeson had even been in Husbands and Wives (1992) to say nothing of Schindler’s List (1993)… It seems like a crazy idea, but I’m so glad it is there.

For me, this one gives Spider-Man 2 (2004) a run for its money as Raimi’s best work. Every manic impulse is on full display, and none of it has the self-conscious quality of some of his later work. Neeson, on the same front, is becoming the gruff, irate action hero we now know him to be, decades before anyone realized he had a particular set of skills.

Many of the great filmmakers have those films that never got made and we’re left wondering what could have been. Spielberg always wanted to make a Bond picture. Welles (and, for that matter, George Lucas) had his eyes set on some kind of adaptation of Heart of Darkness. James Cameron’s treatment of Spider-Man has always been the stuff of legend, snuffed out by protracted rights issues. Raimi has been on the record wanting at various points to do an adaptation of The Shadow. He didn’t get the go ahead in the 90s, and by the 2000s, he had indicated that he was never able to crack the story the way he wanted. By now, it may be too late. But at least we have this film. It may make us long for that lost film even more, but we are given a taste of what could have been.

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story (2025)

Director: Laurent Bouzereau

Cast: Steven Spielberg, Peter Benchley, Janet Maslin, Emily Blunt

Have I Seen It Before: This is definitely the kind of review where answering that question first might prove to jump into the meat of the review before its time.

Did I Like It: The opening minutes—and, indeed, the trailer—to this documentary both recognizes the challenge it has in front of us, and poses an intriguing question which will fuel the next hour and a half.

Is there anything you haven’t said about Jaws (1975)?

If there is truly anything that hasn’t been said about that point of origin for the modern blockbuster, I can’t fathom what it is, and Spielberg, too, find the question both intriguing and daunting.

Does the film actually reveal much new about Jaws. Not… really. The old hits are touched on, sure. Benchley’s book is startlingly different than the book, especially when it isn’t dealing with its titular shark*. The shark didn’t work, then it did, necessitating that we see as little of it as possible, to great effect. If Richard Dreyfuss** could throw a punch, it is entirely possible he and Robert Shaw would have killed one another. People were terrified of the water in the late 70s, and took it out on otherwise unassuming sharks.

It’s not nearly the revelation that the thesis question presents. That’s ultimately because there may not be much new to say about the subject after all. A vignette where Spielberg lightly admits to a modicum of PTSD in the years after the experience is a new depth into a subject that was already known.

Also, Emily Blunt is a pretty huge fan of the movie. I’m fully willing to admit I didn’t know that going in.

*Lora and I read it definitely, and the biggest revelation there is that Spielberg was elevating material before anyone even realized what he was capable of.

**If memory serves, there’s a drop or two of bad blood between the once and future Hooper and Spielberg, perhaps explaining why he only appears in the film via stock footage from the behind-the-scenes featurette when the film was first released on DVD.

Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy (2004)

Director: Kevin Burns, Edith Becker

Cast: George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher

Have I Seen it Before: I’m almost positive that I have watched it before. By all indications, it as the main feature included in the initial DVD release of the original trilogy in 2004, and I was there the day it came out, my copy long-since reserved*.

Did I Like It: The documentary is fine. it’s professionally made, and it has access to its subjects, and a thoroughness in its exploration of the topic.

But let me take a moment from another piece of recent documentary filmmaking to illustrate this film’s weakness.

After Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) was released, George Lucas never gave an interview that wasn’t at least on some level about selling one of his movies or businesses. He has controlled the narrative of the story of how his films, just as closely as he controlled the story of the saga itself.

Now that he has retired from big-budget moviemaking and the Lucasfilm family of companies, he doesn’t need to have that same control anymore. In Disney+’s docuseries on Industrial Light and Magic, Light and Magic I finally saw Lucas be interviewed and have the filmmaker push back. In the talking head, he looked like someone had farted, but the truth of the moment was at least at least illuminated, if not fully explored.

There are no moments like that in this film. It’s a fully-approved exploration of the party line. Vader was always going to be Luke’s father**, Leia was always going to be Luke’s sister***, and Jabba was always in A New Hope****. It’s not hard to figure out that the truth is more complicated. The truly great documentary about Star Wars hasn’t been made yet, but the possibility exists now, and I’m waiting to see it. Not, a polemic like The People vs. George Lucas (2010) but a more concerted effort to illuminate the man who made those films and the process he took to get it done. A film version of Michael Kaminski’s The Secret History of Star Wars: The Art of Storytelling and the Making of a Modern Epic would be really something.

*I remember it so well because some girl had turned me down that night, and I remember watching the trilogy and by about the midway point of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), I had gotten over the unpleasantness earlier in the evening.

**Was never written down before the second draft of Empire.

***Wasn’t decided until well into the production of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) when Lucas was drowning in what he wrought and decided he never wanted to make the sequel trilogy that would have introduced “the other.”

****Still doesn’t fit into the movie. It introduces the Millennium Falcon right before the scene that actually introduces the ship. Fight me about it.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

Director: Tim Story

Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis

Have I Seen it Before: Considering I only just recently got around to to watching Fantastic Four (2005), it’s a safe bet that I’m only just now coming around to this one.

Did I Like It: This will sound a bit like damning with faint praise, but there is something so refreshing about a superhero movie—especially one of the mid-2000s—that is supremely un bothered by reckoning in any way with whatever is going on in the world at that moment. 9/11 is nowhere in sight. Afghanistan and Iraq are things the film can’t even bring itself to comprehend. The often thwarted* fight for gay rights doesn’t mean anything in a world with at least four verifiable superheroes.

At the time, especially with Nolan, Raimi, and (no judgments, at least in this context) Bryan Singer at the top of this form, it would make the film seem less than ambitious. After nearly two decades of genre films bending over backwards to be somehow relevant, this film just exists. It can just be enjoyed, and the fact that it isn’t weighed down by feeling the need to sell a mind-numbing soundtrack album (I’m looking in your direction, Daredevil (2003)).

Indeed, it’s relatively forgotten in the context of the glut of superhero movies made since X-Men (2000). Fans don’t debate about its relative merits. When the series was rebooted with Fantastic Four (2015), people weren’t bothered by losing this cast. With the characters now folding into the Marvel Cinematic Universe**, this film is unlikely to be celebrated in any kind of 20th anniversary.

It may not be the greatest superhero film ever made, but I’m struggling to think of another film in the genre that I don’t feel obligated to defend, or adore, or be ashamed of.

*And may yet still be. Yikes, what a mess we’ve made of things.

**Don’t look now, but there’s more plot similarities between this film and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) than I think anyone is ready to talk about. Far more than the similarities one might find between Batman (1989) and The Dark Knight (2008).

Weapons (2025)

Director: Zach Cregger

Cast: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Brand new.

Did I Like It: There are long stretches where this film really reaches—and actually grabs—something special. Most of that happens in the film’s middle. That’s kind of a surprise all by itself, as most movies, and especially horror films get water-logged and flabby in their second act. Overlapping the stories of the various main characters keeps the attention far higher than average, and fully develops those characters. All have their flaws, but most of them* are innocent at their core. I’ll be stuck with the memory of their motivations and behavior all careening towards each other.

If that solid plot and character work had been coupled with an array of some of the more basic horror movie cliche you’re likely to find in a major release this year. Strange looking villain who’s strange looking for the sake of strange looking? Check. Jump scares a-go-go? Check. The camera pans across a character looking at something, landing on an open hallways and WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? Check. Dream sequences within dream sequences that are just a vehicle for the aforementioned jump scares**? You better believe, check.

The film could have truly been great in a year filled with great horror movies, but I’m left with the frustration of a average-to-good film that couldn’t quite get out of its own way.

*Everyone but Paul (Ehrenreich), the opportunistically tee-totaling cop.

**When they aren’t offering one of the more over-the-top images I’ve seen in a film in a long time. One that doesn’t even feel thematically right, even if it does go a long way to offering a sweatier than it needs to be reason for the title being what it is.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Director: Matt Shakman

Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I remain sort of ambivalent about the Tim Story-directed films of the mid-aughts, so any degree of comparison to this and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) is largely going to miss me.

Did I Like It: With Lora not going with me, I made the somewhat unusual decision to take in the film in 3D. But not only that, I opted for MX4D, one of these immersive experiences meant to up-charge/save theatrical exhibition and would have absolutely delighted William Castle, were he still with us. I’m not sure how I feel about the experience, getting shot with streaks of air having my chair occasionally punch me in the posterior certainly would keep me awake through most films. Scorsese once complained that the glut of superhero movies are less cinema than theme park rides. It’s entirely possible that this might be the way to take in the film.

As far as the film is concerned, I was bracing myself for an Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) or Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantummania (2023) situation, where I would have to sit patiently through a glut of exposition ahead of next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, but the film does a valiant effort of making the film focus on its own story. I would say there are only two shots specifically looking ahead, and one of them appears in one of the post-credit tags.

The retro-futuristic world on display is a delight. Everyone’s a sexy as the cast of Mad Men and nobody’s racist, and we can travel faster than light? Sign me up. I might want more of this feeling, but there are stray moments where the film delightfully feels like it was made in the 60s.

The cast is good, especially Moss-Bachrach, who never lets the illusion of Ben Grimm stand in the way of a charming performance, and Kirby, who is the beating heart of the film and never once content to “just be the girl on the team.”

The one thing I’m left feeling as the film ended, though, is that the whole affair felt slight, almost to the point of being withholding. Maybe word that the film was re-cut recently (and, indeed, lost an entire performance by John Malkovich in the process) sticks in my mind, but I could have used more time in this world and with these characters. We might complain about these cinematic confections being overloaded with plot and bombast, but it may take me a while to grow re-accustomed with a big-budget entertainment that is content to focus on its own story and telling it to us as fast as we’re able to comprehend.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

Director: Alex Gibney

Cast: Lawrence Wright, Mark Rathbun, Monique Rathbun, Mike Rinder

Have I Seen it Before: It feels like I may have seen some of it before. Those scenes that dealt with the harassment of ex high-ranking members of Scientology. I may very well have flipped to HBO at some instant and stuck with it for a moment, while it may even be possible that I had seen the whole thing and forgotten it. Is that something that just happens in your 40s? If only there were some kind organized method of making the brain better…

Did I Like It: I kid, I kid. And I do so only partially because I saw that the church went after people who wrote reviews. I imagine a decade on, they’re probably not looking to close at the chatter, but one can never be too careful.

One can’t argue with the form on display here. It’s hard to believe that the church didn’t have a role in preventing it from getting a Best Documentary nomination. But as I’ve often determined, craft is secondary in the field of documentary. An array of stumbling amateurs can mangle the format, but for the skilled, it becomes a question of access and point of view.

The film has the benefit of adapting its perspective from the similarly title book, and therefore has more focus than most.

Access, however, is always going to be the tricky part when Scientology is concerned. The film makes the point that they certainly tried to get the perspective of figures like John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and especially David Miscavige, but to naturally not get any cooperation. Given their secretive nature (to put it mildly) that’s not terribly surprising, but it does leave the possibility of the truly great Scientology documentary has yet to be made. Maybe it will take years. Probably most of the people I just mentioned will have either left the church or died. It may even take the end of Scientology for the full, strange picture to be there.

When that documentary is made, one doesn’t have a hard time imagining that filmmaker using piece of this film as a foundation, and probably even a good amount of b-roll.

Superman (2025)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi

Have I Seen it Before: That really is the big question, but no, the film is (mostly; more on that later) brand new.

Did I Like It: The problem with reviewing DC films (whether DCEU, DCU, or Elseworlds) I feel like I have to state my credentials, so that you, dear reader, can decide whether you want to stop reading or not.

I don’t mourn the loss of the DCEU, finding the majority of the films ill-considered, while at the same time, despite some flaws, I kind of liked and still do like Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013). I was so exhausted by Justice League (2017)—and resolutely never want to discuss Mother Boxes ever again—that I let my wife write the site’s review of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). I greatly anticipated The Flash (2023) for obvious reasons, and was largely disappointed by it, again, for obvious—but different—reasons. I ultimately couldn’t care less about the Snyder vs. Gunn debate which I can’t imagine is of any interest to people outside of the chronically online, and feel that the saga of DC films post-2013 has largely been a cautionary tale about the dangers of caring too much about superhero movies.

Now that we have that fact out of the way, what did I think of this film? It’s well acted, often thrilling, frequently funny, and perfectly cast. I’m coming to my review a little late, but I’m feeling increasingly comfortable saying that it is the most purely enjoyable of this summer’s tentpoles, made all the more impressive by the fact that there has yet to be a thoroughly hyped dud released this season.

As superhero films are often at their weakest when they feel the need to bend over backwards to set up future films, this feels like a very soft set up for a new shared universe. Aside from a road sign pointing the way to Gotham City, and the cameo appearance of a new Supergirl (Milly Alcock) that briefly steals the show and serves as a pretty great teaser for her film next year, the film is more concerned with telling its story. Gunn has said that no film in his new effort will go forward without a completed script. Not every one of his films will be a winner, but it’s hard to deny that’s a good sign.

It’s a 90s Superman comic brought to life, right down to Nathan Fillion’s haircut. I mean that in the best way possible. As long as they find a reason for him to enter one of these stories, I may yet live to see a live-action Batcave with a penny, a T-Rex, and a Joker card before I die. For the first time in a very long time, I’m not positively exhausted at the prospect of more DC films coming my way.

My only complaint with the film is the one point under which I have to give Zack Snyder the advantage. Gunn claims he wants a fresh start, but he couldn’t help but lean on the musical themes written by John Williams for Superman (1978). Even that poster up above is absolutely eating Christopher Reeve’s leftovers. It’s a trap that Bryan Singer grabbed onto with both hands, but on which Snyder did indeed break new ground. I can see a studio wanting to go with that idea, but that may be the kind of muddled decision making we’re going to occasionally get when the filmmaker and the executive are the same person.

What About Bob? (1991)

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss, Julie Hagerty, Charlie Korsmo

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Relatively sure I saw it in theaters.

Did I Like It: If pressed, I would say that the peak period of Bill Murray probably started with the famous Saturday Night Live sketch where he admitted that he wasn’t really doing so great on the show*, and goes up to about Scrooged (1988). His current era is a bit more reserved and attracts some awards, give or take a handful Ghostbusters legacy sequels. Then there’s that middle era, where he was a holy terror to everyone he worked with. Starting here, and culminating with him not being asked back for a second Charlie’s Angels film.

What we have here is a basic, even erring on the side of too-broad-for-its-own good comedy. This is especially true in the third act, where the wide-release sensibility prevents the story from reaching its natural conclusion, where Dreyfuss strangles the life out of Murray, and instead culminates in a comedy of error that sees Dreyfuss blow his own house up.

What the film has going for it is that it is perhaps the perfect matchup of two actors who make it a point not to get along with people. Their chemistry is palpable and might very well have propelled a far less competent screenplay to be just as watchable. What we may all have missed in that is that a far less competent director than Oz would have had no hope at all of keeping this all together. He doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his work behind the camera, in favor of his work as a puppeteer.

*One might make the argument for the moment when he called Chevy Chase a “medium talent” back stage and then got into a physical altercation, but we mostly have to imagine how that one played out.

Somewhere in Time (1980)

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Cast: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright

Have I Seen it Before: I’m sure I had to have. It lies among that long list of movies which seemed perpetually on cable. I would have had to see it over the years, but I may have only seen clips.

Did I Like It: I’m going to double down on that assessment that I must have seen it before, because I found the whole affair—besides the last few minutes; we’ll get to that in a minute—thoroughly predictable. I had to be remembering it, right? Szwarc might be purveyor of films I can’t bring myself to watch all the way through (Jaws 2 (1978)) and films that feel like the studio barely decided to release (Supergirl (1984)), but Richard Matheson really doesn’t have it in him to miss.

The chemistry between Reeve and Seymour sells the movie, but maybe I’m just too inured to the charms of a time travel story to get engaged, especially when traveling across the 4th dimension is presented less a question of improbably physics, and more a question of philosophy, willpower, and the need to clean one’s pockets.

When the film isn’t being predictable, it’s going out of its way to be aggravating. How did Elise (Seymour) put it together that her love (Reeve) was from the future and had to go back there based on the available information. Even Christopher Lloyd and Malcolm McDowell had to level with Mary Steenburgen in order to move things along. There’s also the suddenness of the film’s final moments. It takes great pains to sell us on the romance of the early years of the 20th century, only to rip Richard Collier back to the present and have him miserable amongst some of the most depressing vies of the early 1980s (the film really did have a great casting director when it came to actual, literal garbage). He then dies in such a way that leads me to believe Reeve has to walk before Natalie Portman could run in Star Wars — Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Then their together in heaven. Hey, movie: Jim Cameron called, and he’s positively one submarine away from trying to sell us on the idea of one vacation ruining you from making another connection with a human being for the rest of your life.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DaManicor, Betsy Baker

Have I Seen it Before: No. I’m usually tempted to say at points like this “strangely, no” but I’m more tempted in this particular case to question whether most people have seen it.

Did I Like It: I’m going to try real hard not to blur the lines between my review for this and my eventual review for Evil Dead II (1987), even though Raimi and company didn’t feel much of a need to differentiate between the two films while making them. My memory of the sequel was that I didn’t see the big deal that everyone was going nuts over, and the same can be said here.

I’m all for horror. I’m all for Raimi’s other work*. There’s just something about the Deadites that always left me cold to varying degrees, and seeing them in their prototypical form doesn’t do much to dissuade that. You’ve got to wait for Army of Darkness (1992) or even Evil Dead Rise (2023) before my heart grows big enough to embrace the carnage.

The film isn’t entirely without charms. Seeing a horror movie made with the same kind of near-zero budget and in the same era as Halloween (1978) but that embraces the supernatural aspects of horror, even if the budget isn’t always there to back it up. It’s also worth glancing—if for only the jarring quality that may be my most lasting memory of the film—at a version of Bruce Campbell so youthful that it’s difficult to imagine the Bruce Campbell residing somewhere in his future.

*Drifting through some of the information on this film, I can’t help but be consumed by a desires—as we all must, from time to time—to watch Darkman (1990).

Dogma (1999)

Director: Kevin Smith

Cast: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman

Have I Seen It Before: I’m not sure how someone gets through the early aughts without taking in the film. I’m not sure how precisely my gang and I got to the film when most of them would go out and buy pearls to clutch at anything rougher than a hard PG-13, but we did. Most people didn’t like it. Some people threw some real temper tantrums about it.

I remember this exchange in particular:

Someone trying to make the peace about the whole affair. “I mean, it is a little Unitarian…”

Me, several years before actually becoming a Unitarian. “So?”

These are the moments that stick in your mind, along with, presumably, some moments from the film itself.

Did I Like It: Is it enough to say that it may still be my favorite Smith film? That may be damning with faint praise, as his later works have left me either mildly amused or resoundingly cold, but it has everything someone could possibly want from one of his films. It is funny. Yes, some of it still works. Most of that is in the performances. George Carlin is good as the hapless, self-absorbed priest who accidentally brings existence to the brink. Chris Rock may never have been better in the films (even if he always seemed more at home with in a sketch or with a microphone in his hands). Mewes—always a bit much to take depending on how susceptible one is to the charms of catchphrases—gets all the best lines, and manages to throw away more than a few of them.

It has that independent film spirit that tends to melt away there in the mid-2000s and has felt a little bit forced since Red State (2011).

But most importantly, it has something to say. Back in the day, there was more than a little pearl clutching about his other films, like Clerks (1994), but here you could judge your uptight friends and it actually might lead you to start contemplating more profound ideas about the universe… Like how John Hughes can both set Jay and Silent Bob (Smith) on their holy path by writing The Breakfast Club (1985), and then sell his soul to Satan by the 1990s.

Suspense (1946)

Director: Frank Tuttle

Cast: Barry Sullivan, Belita, Bonita Granville, Albert Dekker

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: The simplest version of the answer to that question can be summed up with the following statement: I have many, many objections to that title. There is very little suspense to be found in the film. That’s probably pretty damning for a film like this, when all you need to do to get the suspense cooking in a B Noir Thriller like this is establish a clock ticking down to zero or cut to cops slowly but surely closing in on the schemers. But perhaps I shouldn’t be critical without offering some constructive suggestions. Here are some alternate titles:

Kind of Noir, But Really Only In The Last Reel

Swordplay, But Not In The Way You’re Thinking

The Dame Sure Can Ice Skate

That’s probably enough.

But there’s something there in those titles, if only in that last one. Belita sure can skate, and the sequences in which she does so are done well. If you’re interested in ice skating, I’m hard pressed to recommend another film. The problem becomes in the lackadaisical way that a plot is just slapped on to some nice ice skating sequences. This material could have been wrapped up in any kind of story. A romantic comedy would have worked, if Barry Sullivan didn’t have the kind of angular face that ensures he’s up to no good the moment that he occupies the screen. Even a Western revolving around a good ice skater would have worked, although I’ll admit the re-working to a period piece might have broken the poor King Brothers’ bank. While I’m still pitching, a rags to riches showbiz movie could have worked.

Come to think of it, why didn’t they build a starring vehicle for Belita around that conceit. After all the dame sure can ice skate.

The Elephant Man (1980)

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, Freddie Jones

Have I Seen it Before: I think so? It would have to have been long enough ago that I spent most of my time watching it not remembering large swaths of what I was seeing.

Did I Like It: It may be a controversial opinion, but I tend to think that Lynch is at his best when he’s a little pinned in by the constraints of commercial filmmaking*. Eraserhead (1977) is—is admittedly intentionally—sort of hard to watch and love. The Straight Story (1999) is probably his best movie**.

So it is here that things are the best of all possible worlds, where Lynch is forced to make a movie a wide audience might see, but is allowed to indulge his instincts a little bit, as a treat. When I’m talking about Lynch’s instincts, I’m not even referring to the makeup job that transformed John Hurt*** into John Merrick. That’s the part that tries to relate to the audience on their own terms. The entire film is an empathy sandwich, real human emotions nestled in between two thin amounts of absurdism****. Where Eraserhead’s symphony of absurdism is directed toward discomfort, The Elephant Man is aimed towards our compassion.

And it works.

The weirdness comes in only at the beginning and the end, where we are treated to an abstract view of Merrick’s conception (I think; we are dealing with Lynch here) and his death. But even that last part is life-affirming.

*You and I both are immediately thinking of a notable exception in Dune (1984), but what is a hot take without an obvious, glaring exception?

**At this point, I should probably just launch a “hot takes about the career of David Lynch” blog, no?

***Completely off topic, but could you imagine what it would have been like if Hopkins had played the War Doctor? The things my mind will drift towards…

****Maybe it’s more of an emotional panini?

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Director: Curtis Hanson

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger

Have I Seen It Before: Yes. It felt like one of those negotiations I had to launch into in the 1990s to retrieve R-rated movies from the powers that B. As scandalous as the film presents itself to be, I’m imagining my 13-year-old self felt like he was sold a false bill of goods.

Did I Like It: This time I loved it. There’s probably not much more to say about the Hanson’s direction, Ellroy’s story designed to be an almost perfect tension-delivery machine, or even the performances. I’m perfectly fine to hear that the one takeaway people might have from this review that I never thought I’d watch a movie with Kevin Spacey and eventually forget that I’m having to watch Kevin Spacey. The man is probably deeply terrible, and I’m imagining that American Beauty (1999) is still made of nuclear levels of discomfort, but there was definitely a time where he had a watchable quality.

But what I would really like to talk about it Jerry Goldsmith’s score. I didn’t even need to see his name in the credits to know he was conducting. It might be his last great score*, and it seems to celebrate all of his disparate works. There’s more than a little bit of Chinatown (1974), and that seems to be a natural reference point. But there’s plenty of other Golsmith-esque flourishes in there, culminating in a celebration of his whole career. A bit of Alien (1979)** is thrown in there, along with some of his larger orchestral themes, and even a few notes from his later synth-heavy scores. The score album of this one is quickly going to be on regular rotation. That much is for certain.

*All due apologies to Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), a solid score that suffers from trying to copy Star Trek: First Contact (1996) a bit too closely, and no apologies to Star Trek Nemesis (2002), because you know what you did.

**When White (Crowe) digs around in the cellar, you’ll hear it, too.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Director: Tom McLoughlin

Cast: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Renee Jones

Have I Seen It Before: I’m reasonably sure that I haven’t. But a TNT marathon in the 90s might have drifted across my consciousness.

Did I Like It: Is there anything to say about this series this many movies in? It’s never been anything more than the poor-man’s slasher franchise*. It never attached to anything resembling a long-term story. Even Corey Feldman is a little bit ashamed of his association with the movies.

Is it enough that there’s a little humor injected into the proceedings? People groan about getting into another mix-em-up with the Man in the Mask**, and children ask each other what they thought they were going to be when they grew up… before it became clear they had parents content to send them to Camp Crystal Lake, by any other name. It is as if they were the first horror movie characters who have ever actually seen a horror movie. That might be revolutionary, but its far more likely giving the film too much credit. Anybody who insists that this was somehow a precursor to Scream (1996) or the far-better Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) are the same kind of people who have A Lot Of OpinionsTM about Jason.

The series is going to have to take a lot of big swings to get a reaction out of me. Thankfully or horrifyingly, I’ve still got Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) and Jason X (2001) by which I can get properly nauseated.

*That feels like the kind of incendiary that will get people Mad On The InternetTM but I don’t think I’m particularly frightened by anybody who has any kind of strong feelings for Jason Voorhees.

**“He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)” the… love theme…? from the movie is probably Alice Cooper’s worst song and sounds more like something that would form the basis of a sketch on “I Think You Should Leave.”

28 Years Later (2025)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Hell, I just recently got on board with 28 Days Later (2002).

Did I Like It: The movie being sold in this film’s trailers seemed like a fine one. Years after the initial onset of the Rage Virus, there’s a little island village in the United Kingdom that got spared the worst of it.

But for how long?

That’s a perfectly fine log line for a movie, and with Danny Boyle back in the mix* it feels like whatever was going to be on tap, it would be both elevated and do its level headed best to transcend the trappings of the genre.

But that’s not what the movie is about. At all. The island of Lindisfarme is just as secure from the Rage Virus as it has been since the beginning of both this movie and the early aughts. What the movie is really about is so much more poignant, genuine, relevant, and—I really can’t believe I’m going to say this about a zombie film—life-affirming.

I really don’t want to tell you what it really is about. If you want to hear my thoughts on the particulars, there’s an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods that is either already available, or will be soon.

Let me leave this then with the thought the film leaves us—when it isn’t setting up a sequel approaching faster than one of the film’s non-obese zombies—and I never thought would come from a Zombie film:

Memento Amori.

As I type this, the film’s opening weekend is still in full swing. It hasn’t nearly reached its full audience yet. I google “memento amori” now, and I get back a bunch of catamaran charters in the Caribbean.

I have a real feeling that the phrase will take on a new meaning very, very soon.

*Did anyone else think the movie would also have a return from a post-Oppenheimer (2023) Cillian Murphy? Did anyone else that one zombie in the trailer was Murphy? Just me? Okie doke!

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jermaine Clement

Have I Seen it Before: I have a strong, unwavering belief that this was the last movie I ever saw in a hotel room pay-per-view. And I mean that as it was the most recent time that happened, and also the final time. Honestly, kids. Ask your parents.

Did I Like It: What is the smallest possible rationale for a movie to be made? Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) is what it is because Shatner had a favored-nations clause with Nimoy and thus, the crew of the Enterprise meets God. The Cat in the Hat (2003) was the minimum punishment Mike Myers was able to stomach after refusing to make a movie version of Sprockets. The less said about most adaptations of The Fantastic Four, the better.

Among all of those, the pitch “Josh Brolin can do a pretty good impression of Tommy Lee Jones” has got to be pretty thin. But Sonnenfeld and company make the best of it, for the most part. Trying to get Jones by telling him he maybe had to work for a week probably helped matters more than little.

I’m not entirely sure (pre 2022 Oscars, naturally) why Smith felt the need to come back, and could still around the same time turn his nose up at Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). A summer sci-fi extravaganza is just the same as any other. Maybe if Josh Brolin could do a young Robert Loggia impression…

Ultimately a third venture with Earth’s last line of defenses is about as good as the original and a fair sight better than the almost paint-by-numbers second film. I’m normally in favor of any series wanting to suddenly adopt time travel, but content to reach for the simplest of audiences, we’re not so much allowed to go along on the adventure with Agent J as having him occasionally mention aloud what is happening. It’s not my favorite thing to happen. But it’s all of a piece.

For Heaven's Sake (1926)

Director: Sam Taylor

Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Oscar Smith, Noah Young

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: There’s a moment in Modern Times (1936) where Chaplin as the Tramp roller skates through a remodeling department store. You’ve probably seen the shot. It looks like he’s about to die a horrible death about a half dozen times. To my mind, it was always one of the more daring slapstick stunts put on film.

And then somebody had to do a Youtube video explaining how he did it. Chaplin was never in danger, and it’s a simple illusion using an optical printer. I wished I hadn’t watched it, but now I have and the illusion is always going to be a little bit less. It’s a big reason I try not to engage in any extended conversation with a magician. It just leads to heartache.

That’s the beauty part about this film, as well. There are a great number of times I’m watching this film and I’m thinking, “Thank God John Landis wasn’t working in the 1920s*. Otherwise, a lot more people would have died.” Also, a perfectly reasonable complimentary reaction would be, “Imagine what Lloyd and Co. could do now/Imagine what Tom Cruise would have done had he been in the 1920s.” People dangle off cars in mid-chase. They jump off of said moving vehicles, only to jump back on them. People don’t fall, no matter how much my previous understanding of gravity makes me want to believe that they will. It’s thrilling, you know? To see people disregard their safety for my entertainment, regardless of the decade. It might be the most pure thrill that the cinema can pull off.

Please, please don’t tell me how they managed to pull it off here. It’ll bum me out.

*Or, for that matter, the 2020s, but that’s probably not pertinent to this discussion and more of a reflection of Blues Brothers 2000 (1998).

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Mia Therapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Brand new.

Did I Like It: At it’s basic level, each new Wes Anderson film—at least after he conclusively proved his mettle with The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)—feels like it could be something new. Animation? Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). An alien invasion story? Asteroid City (2023). A breezy journey through a highbrow magazine? The French Dispatch (2021). So, too, the thought of Anderson bringing his meticulous and distinctive visual style to an espionage story? It suddenly becomes appointment viewing for me.

And unfortunately, I may be of the mind that Anderson is stuck in particular themes and stories, no matter what genre with which a new film might have a tenuous relationship. The style is largely still there, although a few shots towards the end of the film embrace movement that isn’t a tracking shot. Every item—and especially every book—looks to be at least sixty years old (it helps here that the film is meant to take place in 1950). Right angles, quirky line readings, and plaid abound.

I’m not expecting Anderson to abandon everything he holds dear in favor of a new genre, but the themes are the same. A general storybook quality? Check. Awkward love story? Check. Some sort of redemption arc for a distant, larger than life father? Also, check.

I’m not necessarily mad or even disappointed that Anderson gave me exactly what I expected from the film. To the twee, indie film set, he’s as reliable as Michael Bay or McDonalds*. Can we not want more from a filmmaker who made his name initially making surprising choices? Does he not want more from the films he has yet to make?

*Yeah, I get it. That sounds like I’m mad and/or disappointed.