Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

Director: Gore Verbinski

Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård

Have I Seen It Before: I remember it ending. I remember Keith Richards. I had to have been here.

Did I Like It: It’s the same plot-gorged drudgery that weighs down a lot of trilogy closers. So many people are switching sides, seemingly at the drop of a hat, that the screenwriters are seriously over-estimating our desire to keep up with these matters. That might be enough to treat simply as white noise, but the real let-down here is the complete surrender to CGI. Did any of us realize that the secret sauce of these movies up until this point was not Johnny Deep looking like a lunatic, but in fact that in a year beginning with the number 2 a major studio would have any interest in—or the negligence to—allowing a movie to shoot on the actual ocean. Those days are long since gone, even by the third movie. I mourn when I might actually watch the following films.

We’ve all spent some time re-evaluating Johnny Depp, and rightly so. He’s maybe/probably not guilty of everything he’s ever been accused of, but he does seem like a lot, and that he’s long since lost whatever spark made him unpredictable in these films, and legitimately great in stuff like Ed Wood (1994). You know who’s not talked about enough—especially since he was almost completely absent from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)—in these films? Geoffrey Rush. Even when things were far better than they had any right being—in the first Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), all the way through any future films with which we might be threatened by this series, he never looks like he is having anything less than fun. These movies might have always been a bit beneath him, but he will never, ever let us know. I admire that much at least.

Marty Supreme (2025)

Director: Josh Safdie

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary

Have I Seen It Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: I missed—and continue missing—the whole Uncut Gems (2019) thing, so there’s a part of me that felt like I missed the beginning of the Safdie party.

So I didn’t know what was getting into. I was probably going to be annoyed by Paltrow and Chalamet, who have annoyed me in the past*.

And as such, it winds up being the perfect vehicle for them. Their characters might be the worst people who were ever imagined. They are generally surrounded by a series of equally terrible people, except for Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), who is perfect pure, and in a simpler time would have warranted a film all his own. This terrible-by-design quality makes the ever-increasing series of awful events that befall them at least mildly satisfying. Its a well-shot, well-cast film that never makes me dis-believe its early-1950s setting. If somebody were to put this film above Sinners (2025) as their favorite movie of the year, I wouldn’t judge them too terribly harshly in their fundamental incorrectness.

But that miles of established behavior also makes the ending, where Marty’s (Chalamet) heart suddenly grows several sizes and he is moved to absolute tears by the fact that the child he denied the entire film winds up getting birthed. What am I supposed to feel at the end of the movie? Marty’s a good person now? He’s going to be a good father and husband, or even a somewhat competent one? Will he never pick up a ping-pong paddle again? Will he ever be able to make a dime doing anything? Will he spend the rest of his life in prison? All are possible, some are even plausible. I enjoyed the ride, but I still feel like everyone’s getting off a little light in a world that easily lets people off lightly.

*They don’t annoy me like Jared Leto annoys me, so don’t get too excited.

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Director: Tom Savini

Cast: Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles, McKee Anderson

Have I Seen it Before: Never. What with my well-known apathy towards the zed-word, it’s entirely possible I wasn’t even aware a remake of the original Night of the Living Dead (1968) existed, until it was put on the schedule of season-premiere for Beyond the Cabin in the Woods.

Did I Like It: While I felt like the last act of the film descended into the kind of zombie-sameness that works better than a horse tranquilizer* that keeps me from being a complete convert, the first half works far more effectively. Savini wastes no time just starting the action apace. This no-nonsense approach to the genre very nearly lulls me into a false sense of security that this will be a breathless chase against the forces of Judgment Day. If things had kept up with this pace, the characters might not have had any time to slow things down and slowly realize that the non-dead are just as much monsters as the undead.

But it was not meant to be. Had things stayed with just Todd and Tallman, we could have had an almost perfect minimalist entry in the genre. But there just had to be more people in the cellar…

And a group of rednecks who are just itching to domesticate the ghouls.

And a news broadcast that tells us about the unravelling of human society that can only be ebbed by destroying the reanimated’s brain.

And a beloved character who is turned before the end credits, followed immediately thereafter by another beloved character who is prepared to re-enter the world, unbitten but no less dehumanized.

*It’s probably unfair to judge it too harshly for these sins. The Walking Dead may have completely killed in me the thing that allows people to like depictions of zombies, but Walking Dead was just aping Romero’s work in beating that undead horse.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Director: Armando Iannucci

Cast: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It feels like a film I’ve always been orbiting around watching, but kept missing it for one reason or another.

Did I Like It: I remember being very down on Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023) for a myriad of historical sins, the most egregious of them being that not only did every figure depicted speak English, they also appeared to be writing in English as well. Now, this film engages in a lot of the same chicanery as displayed in that film, with a cast that is blissfully content to either sound 100% American or British while they bicker their way to a post-Stalin politburo. Here, I’m fine with it.

Why? Because it’s a damn comedy is why. From all accounts, this is a fairly accurate depiction of a pointedly preposterous series of events. I don’t know what Ridley Scott’s excuse is, but Armando Iannucci is absolutely running laps around him with this one. My favorite gag in the entire film is when the politburo decides to pause mass executions, after which we cut to one final guy getting shot by a firing squad, and the next guy in line realizing he can just walk away. An absolutely perfect depiction, if ever there was one, of the insanity of a government out of control.

I don’t think the film would have hit the same as it did when it hit wider release in 2018. Applying the same sense of open-eyed cynicism Iannucci brought to American politics in Veep and British politics to the horrors of the peak of the Soviet system. We live in a time where it’s easy—and plenty rationale—to be afraid of the faceless horrors of our current system, but there’s more than a little bit of comfort to remember that it’s run by a bunch of childish fools who are just a few moments away from being completely removed from everything they reflexively hold dear.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

Director: Adam Marcus

Cast: John D. LeMay, Kari Keegan, Erin Gray, Allison Smith

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s definitely one of those horror movie posters that captures the imagination of a kid who didn’t know any better. Did Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) always have some kind of weird snake demon living behind his hockey mask? Why haven’t the films been more about the snake demon this whole time?

I guess that’s a pretty good poster, if there’s more mystery on display there than anywhere else in the film.

Did I Like It: Knowing that the fanbase of the series views this film with a great degree of suspicion, I had to catch myself before expecting something great, or even above average from the ninth in the series.

While the Friday the 13th series started as a cheap, calculated knockoff of the Halloween franchise, something simultaneously interesting and depressing happened as the series progressed. As its classier ancestor almost immediately weighed itself down in a glut of mythology and continuity, eschewing whatever made it unnerving in the first place, the purveyors of the semi-annual outings with Jason Voorhees were content to just give the people that would pay money to see a Friday the 13th movie exactly what they want. Pre-marital sex, and chopping. Continuity is meaningless. At one point I think Corey Feldman was meant to play the Jamie Lee Curtis of the series, but it never took. Jason could die in all sorts of pretty conclusive manners, and the next film isn’t even going to address what might have happened. I think any number of films began with him at the bottom of Crystal Lake several times over the course of these films, but I honestly don’t remember a single ending of a film that involved him being thrown in that lake.

And as this film opens up, things appear to be still on the the “who gives a shit” track. While Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) ends with hockey man melting in the nightly rush of toxic waste pumped under Times Square, he’s back to his whole self here. No explanations needed, offered, or particularly wanted.

But then things fly off the tracks. Jason isn’t Jason, he’s the evil that lives within him. That evil can be reborn fully with the help of a blood relative, or it can be destroyed forever with the help of that blood relative…

Now where have I heard that before?

Does he got to hell? Is this truly the final Friday? You can guess the answers to that with some accuracy. I’m just disappointed the snake demon thing is only arguably part of the film.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Director: Edgar Wright

Cast: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: There are two forces at work here in the film. The first is the creative force of Edgar Wright at the height of his cinematic inventiveness, amidst a Hollywood system that would still allow him to let loose those talents. He comes here as close as anyone will to translating any kind of non-superhero comic directly to the screen. The influences seep in through every moment of the film, from the 8-bit tweak to the Universal logo, to the floating tiles, all the way to using the coins that appear after defeating an enemy for the bus. One would have been forgiven for assuming a property like Scott Pilgrim was never going to be adapted with any kind of faithfulness, but we were all* pleasantly surprises.

What’s more, I wondered if Wright’s magic could be implemented outside of his collaboration with Simon Pegg, but I was pleasantly surprised, just as I continue to be.

Then there’s the matter of the material itself. Enjoyable, yes. But how much can we root for a hero like Scott Pilgrim? He’s insensitive to the point of psychopathy. He’s just barely on the right side of some statutory stuff for most of the film. His grand catharsis doesn’t really make him much of a better person, it just makes him slightly less of an asshole, no matter how many special swords he might get for his efforts.

It’s almost as if the film is more about the characters surrounding Scott than Scott himself. Some might complain that makes the story about a callow jerk, and refuse to engage with it.

I’m not bothered by those problems.

*At least, those of us who knew what we were doing and watched it during its theatrical run.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Director: James Cameron

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

Have I Seen It Before: Brand new.

Although…

Did I Like It: There are few directors who’ve had the track record that Cameron has. On a recent episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods I made the proclamation that even his worst film* was a cut above most films produced by most people.

Fire and Ash might test that assertion, but I tend to believe that it still holds up. It’s nice to look at, but I’m getting too much of a sense of deja vu here. Aside from the occasionally intriguing performance by Oona Chaplin as Varang**, the leader of the Ash People, there is almost nothing in this film that wasn’t covered already in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).

Is it possible that Cameron has spent too much time on Pandora, and unlike Jake Sully, gotten bored of the whole thing? The fact that I can’t honestly remember where that magnetic anomaly in the ocean comes from during the film’s climate is certainly a sign that he may have lost a step as a storyteller. The way he’s been talking on this press tour—semi-threatening us with a Schwarzenegger-less Terminator sequel—I do start to wonder. I’d like to see him create something new, if he has it within him. But as this film already drifts on momentum alone towards the 1 billion mark, I imagine I’m probably going to politely show up for Avatar 4 and 5***.

*I assumed everyone would be on board with his worst film being The Abyss (1989), but had to revise when I realized many people weren’t as eventually charmed by the original Avatar (2009) as I was.

**I will admit that I can drop the names Jake Sully (Worthington), Neytiri (Saldaña), and Pandora, but the rest of the Avatar mythology melts into a ball of blue-skinned noise for me. (I may not be as charmed by this series as I’ve been insisting up until this point in the review.)

***Are we taking bets yet on the titles? Avatar: Up In the Air? Avatar: More Water Because Uncle Jim Never Really Gotten Over Titanic (1997)? Avatar: You’ve Already Bought a Ticket For The 2:45 iMAX 3D Showing, So You might As Well Show Up?

Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

Director: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont

Cast: Ethan Embry, Charlie Korsmo, Lauren Ambrose, Jennifer Love Hewitt

Have I Seen It Before: Never. I was 14 when it came out, so the idea of graduating from High School seemed like a completely different planet. Which is weird, considering that 1998 was one of those summers (there have been a lot of them since) where I insisted on seeing everything I could get my eyes on. I looked up the box office figures from its opening weekend in search of a point I make later in the review, and realize without much doubt I opted to see Dirty Work that weekend, and remember enjoying it immensely.

Maybe I have seen it, and completely forgotten it.

Did I Like It: Which would explain a lot. Look at the film stacked against the great teen comedies, and it is left wanting. It reads like a shopping list of things one might want to include in a teen comedy. Throw in a soundtrack album someone might want to listen to, and you can make back your money as counter-programming to other summer fare (see above). That’s all that needs to happen, and that’s all the studio and the filmmakers are either capable of or interested in.

I’m left with questions after watching this film. No, not questions like one might have after finally seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on the big screen. There are more fundamental question that betray a film not terribly thought through.

If Denise (Ambrose)—the character I most identified with—never bothered to get her senior pictures taken, why is she showing up to the party? I once got into a verbal argument with a parent moments before my own graduation, when she wanted to stamp my hand for the official graduation party, and I insisted that I was not going, and that she really should not be grabbing my wrist*. I didn’t get my senior picture taken, and I wouldn’t have been caught dead at any party graduation night. One wonders why I didn’t watch the movie for nearly thirty years.

This one is more of a personal note. When X-File #1 (Joel Michaely) and X-File #2 (Jay Paulson) are eventually taken up in a flying saucer**, they should have offered a coda—as they did with other characters—saying that they are still missing, and that anyone with information as to their whereabouts should call the FBI. That at least would have been the right follow-through for that gag. Then again, had I graduated in 1998, I would have skipped the party and gone to see The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) instead.

Here’s the best question: For what precisely are these unable to hardly wait? You let me know, and maybe I’ll get turned around on the film.

*I really enjoy that story. If you’re out there, random helicopter mom: Thank you for one of those sterling examples of my own personality.

**Yes, that is how the characters are credited in the end-credits. Yes, it is the fate of the characters.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Director: Gore Verbinski

Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) was such a surprise experience, one couldn’t help but be far more curious about the sequel. Far more curious than anyone was about the original when it first came out. Throw in the decision to produce this and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) together, a la Back to the Future - Part II (1989) and Back to the Future - Part III (1990), I was certainly sold.

Did I Like It: Even at the time, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. There was just something missing, and it is only at this viewing that I am making any kind of effort to decide why. The simplest explanation is that, while most of the creative team is back, Hans Zimmer has replaced Klaus Badelt as composer. Zimmer is one of the all-time great film composers, but there was a special magic to Badelt’s score that only re-appears here as quotes of Badelt’s motif. It is a mercenary job, and a great example of just how important a film’s score can be to its total success.

But I think the problems will go deeper than that, and it goes back to that quality of anticipation. Not only was I anticipating another entry in the series, the directors and shareholders of the Walt Disney Company were, too. Verbinski and company could no longer fly under the radar, and so we’re left with a film that—like so many other sequels both before and after it—that echo moments that tested well from the original. It’s less a movie one might ever be surprised for, and more of a cinematic interpretation of a marketing report. Had Dead Man’s Chest been the first film, we might have been mildly entertained, but we would have been a very far distance from saying that a film based on a theme park ride has any right to be this good.

Nightfall (1956)

Director: Jacques Tourneur

Cast: Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Anne Bancroft, Jocelyn Brando

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Just another entry at Noir Nights. With me having cut the chord to Turner Classic Movies—this is the only opportunity I have to regularly be surprised by a movie, just because it is on*.

Did I Like It: Well, I can think an issue I have with that title. Noir lives in the night, so a noir film calling itself Nightfall is kind of like a science fiction film calling itself Space Ship. That alone might pose a problem, but very little of this film takes place at night! The climax not only takes place amidst the daytime, but out among the icy campgrounds of Wyoming, shining light that makes the proceedings anything but noir-ish.

But it is that bright white snowiness that actually recommends the film, if I can find my way clear of wanting the Columbia PR department to change the title**. With it’s frozen lake climax amidst a snow plow gone mad, one can easily see where the Coen Brothers got their inspiration for the grislier parts of <Fargo (1996)>. It’s sort of a revelation to realize the wood chipper in that later film is actually the far more subtle version of the chopping up of pesky criminals, when compared with the snow plow finding the inspiration to change direction half a dozen times before the essentially good guy (Ray) triumphs over the perfect bastard (Rudy Bond). Even so, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the ending, for all of its contrivance.

Without that ending, the film would have been just another pleasantly diverting, indistinguishable from the rest of the genre, noir picture. Now, at least, we’ll always have that snow plow.

*Yeah. I’m surprised, too, by how many of my reviews naturally drift to a eulogy for TCM. Maybe I need to bring that up in therapy…

**You can change the title of a novel adaptation if it no longer fits. You do know that, right, 1950s Columbia PR department?

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley

Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Haviland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains

Have I Seen it Before: I’m horrified beyond my normal capacity for horror that I haven’t.

Did I Like It: There’s a bit of a problem with Robin of Locksley (Flynn) as we venture further into the deeply cynical waters of the twenty-first century. We’re obsessed, pretty much from the first script meeting for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), with making Robin Hood some semi-real figure in British history*, and making that history reflect our own. Kevin Costner needed to be the spoiled rich kid who’s childishness is obliterated by the insanity of Vietnam**… er, the Crusades, while Russell Crowe was a world-weary soldier that…

When did Robin Hood become a monolithic commentary on the the horrors of the world after the Kennedy assassination? Even Cary Elwes is content to sit and be content to comment on the unravelling of the English myth. Why can’t a Robin Hood film just be about a guy in a cap and with green tights*** who laughs in the face of danger and is prepared with equal parts of archery and swordsmanship to entertain us for at least 90 minutes?

Perhaps it can no longer be such because Errol Flynn mastered that image of England’s greatest archer so thoroughly, that we don’t even need to debate if there’s any point in doing a traditional interpretation of the hero anymore. Anything that follows this perfectly crafter adventure film would have to be content with dwelling in the arena of post-modern droning bores or parody.

*Accent optional.

**I might even be one of the few people who kind of like Prince of Thieves, and even my appreciation for that humdrum actioner is diminished when I realize for all of its straining attempts to bring Robin and his Merry Men into something relevant for a modern movie audience, it is stealing large chunks out of the plot this film created out of the legend.

***All right, Mel Brooks may have managed to cut through the sudden self-seriousness of the character, but the point still remains.

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: And that may be part of the—completely subjective, not at all the fault of the film’s—problem. I haven’t seen it in years. Lora and I were even talking about it while we were watching it, and I’m not entirely sure she and I have ever watched it together in the sixteen years we’ve known each other. Lora seems to think we have, but I’m really not that sure.

The film always seems like—with its trips to The Sharper Image where one can act like they invented karaoke, deep connections over the same movie playing on TV*, and a sweater or two—a time capsule.

It’s also an emotional time capsule, though. If you’re not trapped in a decade-long cycle of will-they/won’t-they, does it play the same? Say, if you’re somehow more like Marie (Fisher) and Jess (Kirby) and despite some troubles have largely settled that part of your life, does the dithering and navel gazing of Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Ryan) still hold any meaning after all these years?

It’s probably a better question than that old, hoary cliché of wondering whether or not Harry and Sally are still together in the ensuing years, but not an entirely unrelated one. I tend to think that if the two protagonists didn’t come to some kind of peace about themselves, the quirks that caused them to come together in a fit of romantic whimsy would probably come back around to make them run for the hills.

But then, if my mind can’t help but go to these kind of quibbles, is it possible the entire genre of the romantic comedy has completely lost its meaning? That’s possible, and would still allow this film to keep its crown as the superlative entry in the genre.

*Given that might, in fact, be a method of connecting over movies that has reached essential extinction, the moment where Harry and Sally disassemble the ending of Casablanca (1942)  hits a bit harder than anything else.

The War of the Roses (1989)

Director: Danny DeVito

Cast: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito, G.D. Spradlin

Have I Seen it Before: Several times. It’s one of my parents’ favorite films. Before you get to deeply concerned with how grim things were while growing up in the Boyle compound, dear old dad is a divorce lawyer…

Although he’s only ben doing divorce law for the last fifteen years or so…

Anyway.

I was so lukewarm on The Roses (2025) this year, that it absolutely stuck in my mind to come back around to the original. I never got the sense that Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman ever really hated each other.

Did I Like It: One never gets the sense that Douglas and Turner don’t hate each other, even when they’re supposed to be in love and can’t keep their hands off of each other. The Jewel of the Nile (1985) might have been rougher on them than we were led to believe.

DeVito is a tragically, perhaps even criminally undervalued maestro of the dark comedy, and this might be his greatest foray into the genre. A lesser director would have been content to let the chemistry of Douglas and Turner carry the film through, and probably would have gotten away with it, too. An above average director would have been able to take the material as it was presented and probably would have made an enjoyable enough movie. DeVito sees how much everyone enjoyed Romancing the Stone (1984) and thought it would be great if we got to see the two of them murder each other.

There’s a great amount of style on display here, as well. Far more than a relatively novice director might have been expected to use. The dark comedy is augmented by DeVito’s sense that this isn’t just a reframing of Douglas and Turner’s screen image, but an opera at its core. There’s moments where the production value is that of a stage production, with the backgrounds of Washington DC seeming less like locations and more like set design. I don’t think most people pick up on that when they first see the film. I certainly didn’t.

Eternity (2025)

Director: David Freyne

Cast: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. The thought of getting away from the White Christmas (1954) of it all from a few hours to take in a new movie feels like the peak of luxury.

Did I Like It: The films flaws and strengths appear to be divisible from one another, so I suppose that adds up to something of a recommendation.

While having Larry (Teller, but Barry Primus as an old man) die by choking on a pretzel feels relatable to the point of panic, Joan’s (Olsen, but Betty Buckley as an old woman) situation is murky to the point of needing to be the way that it is simply so the story won’t wallow in its first act. She is clearly sick, doesn’t want to tell her family, but is apparently so sick that she’s destined to die within a week of the film’s beginning. I spent far too much time trying to work that out in my head, so much so that I fear some of the film’s other pleasures might have passed me by. I’m struck by the realization that this found early life of The Black List, and while it is quite a bit better than the roughly similar A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) I start to wonder if that’s the mark of a quality scrip that it once was.

The film follows all of the modern rules of drama, where the solution or mechanism for the solution to the plot are tagged so thoroughly in the first half of the film, I had everything pretty much figured out. Add to that the fact that it is, at its core, a romantic comedy, and the film may never have had a chance to surprise me with its story.

But enough about what didn’t work. While the conceit of a recognizably earth-bound afterlife has been played through in Defending Your Life (1991) and The Good Place, the film manages to mine a goodly amount of humor out of its barrage of advertisements for potential eternal choices. Something about “Weimar World” (now with 100% fewer Nazis!) had me howling in a way I’d prefer not to analyze in the winter of 2025. I even found myself isolating what choices I might make, with early favorites being Spy World or Space World, assuming I have the option to me among the less corny iterations of such a fantasy.

The performances raise the entire film to an enjoyable time, though. Randolph knows how to play this type of role, and could do so in her sleep. She can also stretch her talents, like she did  in The Holdovers (2023), but there’s nothing wrong with her batting one out that’s a gimme. Olsen is the film’s not-so-secret-weapon, though. She plays Joan always as someone who’s genuinely bedraggled by the impossible choice at the film’s core, but she always feels like an older woman inhabiting a younger form. Had neither of those qualities been pulled off, the script may have unravelled under its own weaknesses.

Rocky Balboa (2006)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Milo Ventimiglia

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. The thought that Stallone had one more good Rocky film in him was too tantalizing to pass up. Something about the film stuck with me after it was first released, and I might have been tempted to put it as the second-best film in the original, just ever-so-slightly chasing after the heels of the original Rocky (1976).

Did I Like It: And he did! While it’s at best a fraction of the movie that Creed (2015) eventually became, that’s only because Ryan Coogler is one of the greatest filmmakers to come to prominence in the last twenty years, whereas Stallone is an—often underrated—journeyman behind the camera.

Gone are the increasingly thin justifications to put Balboa back in the ring that increasingly dogged the previous three sequels, and the on-spec silly idea of an over-60 Balboa climbing into the ring one final, final time almost makes sense. It also helps—or at least improves things in comparison with Rocky V (1990)—that while Antonio Tarver isn’t the greatest actor who ever lived, he’s a more engaging screen presence than poor Tommy Morrison could ever hope to be.

Everything this improved here. If there’s a movie that can make me forget, if only for a moment, that I find Stallone on average to be a bit irritating, that’s an automatic recommendation. Had the out-of-focus image of Balboa waving to Adrian’s (Talia Shire; she might not have gotten a paycheck, but she sure as hell is all over the film), that might have been fine. Stallone had managed to get back to basics, not just in featuring a movie that doesn’t resort to comic-book contrivances*, but in making us feel for the underdog again. We may not be able to punch like the Stallion, but we’ve all got steps we’ve got to climb when conventional wisdom says we cannot or should not.

I may not care for Stallone very much, but I have a tremendous amount of affection for Rocky Balboa, and Rocky Balboa. I mean, it paved the way for Creed, so there’s at least something there.

*I’m not saying I’m not a fan of comic-book contrivances. I’m only saying that they feel more at home with Rambo, not Rocky.

Rocky V (1990)

Director: John G. Avildsen

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Sage Stallone

Have I Seen it Before: I’ve seen it less than all of the other Rocky films. That much I’m damn sure of.

Did I Like It: Does anyone? Even Stallone, and he wrote it?

There’s any number of things one might fixate on to reckon with the film, and while I’m tempted, I’ll avoid dwelling on Stallone recently calling a certain someone the second George Washington. That whole bit had put me off re-watching any of the Rocky films as of late, before I remembered that the lion’s share of the rights had been wrested from Stallone’s hands, an watching the series is not an act of support for House Stallone.

In re-watching the series, I’m struck again by how likable Balboa is. Never one to take a cheap shot, I have a hard time imagining he would hardly make such brain-dead comparisons. But, as all series re-watches must, one must hit the nadir. And so, in this uniformly accepted worst of the franchise, Rocky becomes a gibbering fool.

That’s the first problem. The second problem is nothing happens in this film. The Balboas lose all of their money, move back into the old neighborhood, meet a guy from Oklahoma* (Tommy Morrison, who makes other athletes turned actors seem like Brando in comparison), before Rocky gets into a brawl with that same Okie.

That’s it. That’s the whole movie. I’ve now saved you the trouble. You’re welcome. This is certainly a series that struggled with coming up for any kind of rationale for further entries, but this is the only film in the series that seems to exist for the sole reason than United Artists decided it had been a while since anyone made a Rocky film, and it was already way too late to get particularly bothered as to whether or not the story made any sense, especially since communism was once brought into the scenario.

No, I don’t really want to take on those subjects. The thing that really sticks in my mind is not any of the above mention plots, or lacktherof. It’s that apparently Rocky and Adrian (Shire; between this and The Godfather - Part III (1990), she wasn’t having the best winter possible) spent five Christmases in a row in Russia, thereby allowing Rocky Jr. (Sage Stallone, not nearly as bad as one would assume) to become the main source of a hopeful future for the family.

Brain damage, indeed. Oh, well. They can’t all be winners. At least I now get to re-watch Rocky Balboa (2006) again now.

*Thanks for that, Sly.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Director: Henry Selick

Cast: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. It’s one of the clearer memories I have of being excited about a movie as a kid, being a little disappointed by it at the time*, and then realizing within a few short years that I was a fool.

Did I Like It: Just as the Star Wars prequels might be the most cogent argument for the auteur theory in semi-modern moviemaking, this film is its antithesis. If the director is the author of the film, then this should be thought of as Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

But it really, really isn’t.

It makes Tim Burton such a fascinating filmmaker. He can have such a singular, easily identifiable point of view. In some films (Batman Returns (1992), Edward Scissorhands (1990)) that vision comes through. In others, (Batman (1989), Planet of The Apes (2001)) he’s a hired hand, meant only to offer his name, and almost no artistic vision to the the proceedings.

And then there’s this film, which might be the most fully realized manifestation of the Tim Burton image, and he wasn’t the director.

I’m not going to say that this is my favorite movie of all time, or even that it ranks in the top twenty. Ultimately pure Burtonianism might work in small doses, but it is one of the most successful mastering of a film succeeding on its own terms. There is never a moment of doubt—unlike Jack Skellington’s (Elfman singing, Sarandon for everything else) arc—as to what this film wants to be. Every single decision serves the mise en scene.

And if that wasn’t enough to recommend the film: I’ve even started to like the songs. Amazing what thirty years can accomplish.

*Not one commercial made it clear that I was walking into a musical. Nine-year-olds really need to be warned about such things.

Hamnet (2025)

Director: Chloé Zhao

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn

Have I Seen It Before: Never. This year has run so completely away from me that, to my horror, I’m getting to see very few new release this fall. I’m almost tempted to give the film a positive review only on the fact that I could fit in a screening, not go to a theater I don’t care for, and I could get everything else done I wanted to that day.

Did I Like It: Back to the question at hand. One might be tempted to say that, for all its unflinching view of the worst possible moments in a person’s life, the entire affair ends on too happy of a note. That happiness further undercuts the film’s greatest surface strengths. Centering a film on the Agnes* Hathaway (Buckley) and Hamnet** Shakespeare

(Jacobi Jupe), figures only remembered by history for their accidental association to certain playwrights*** tells their stories for the first time is a thrilling choice. They are given dimension and vibrant life all of their own, and exist beyond the tragic footnote or the frustrating anchor that history’s hero had to overcome to become William ShakespeareTM (Mescal).

But constructing the story so that they can only come to some sort of peace via the genius of their husband/father puts both characters back on the shelf where they’ve before the credits roll. This is a well-made film, with performances at the center that should receive attention at awards time.

I just wish it didn’t feel the need to put everything back the way it has been this whole time. Maybe I can move on from the ending. It helps to remember that William and Agnes hardly lived happily-ever after. But that means I have to meet the film more than halfway.

*You might know her as Anne.

**One of the big theses of the film is that spelling was less of a science and more of a moment-to-moment experience in the late-Tudor/early-Jacobean period, and it kind of all adds up, I suppose.

***Why can’t my own era be a little looser with the spelling? Because I have real opinions about how that word should be spelled.

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Director: Tony Scott

Cast: Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Chelsea Field, Noble Willingham

Have I Seen It Before: Never. It’s been sitting on my to-be-watched disc shelf for over a year, but then Circle’s Graveyard shift decided to close out the year with a Tony Scott double feature, and here we are.

Did I Like It: I’m reasonably sure I was over-hyped on this. Everyone talked to made it seem like it was such an insane example of a 1990s action movie, that by all rights it should have no business even existing.

It isn’t. It’s a pretty basic 90s action movie. Parts of it are funny, never less so than when I realized in the film’s opening minutes that we’re looking at what a Brit thinks of the American fascination with American Helmeted Rugby. Other parts of it don’t age so great, but no less. There are moments where the Michael Kamen score starts to get going, and I can almost imagine that this is a lost Die Hard film.

But it is, ultimately, just a movie, and another in a long line of similarly paced buddy action films written by Shane Black. The essential quality of this genre is accomplished, as Willis and Wayans have good chemistry, made all the more impressive—and unsurprising—that they didn’t get along. Did either of these two guys ever get along with their co-stars?

The moments where it is more a neo-noir piece centered on Bruce Willis’ private detective character, are intermittently clever. It’s not enough that an old friend (Bruce McGill) sets him on a routine job that turns out to be a massive case, but the old friend was hoping he’d get killed in the process, so that he can keep sleeping with Willis’ wife. The old friend promptly explodes.

I enjoyed myself, but make no mistake: you’re just watching a film. It won’t re-wrinkle your brain. What’s more, it’s not terribly interested in trying to do so, nor should it be.

Friday the 13th - Part VIII: Jason Take Manhattan (1989)

Director: Rob Hedden

Cast: Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, Barbara Bingham, Kane Hodder

Have I Seen It Before: Never. For some reason, I felt like I had to subject myself to the rest of the films in the series before I could finally fulfill the ambitions of a five-year-old.

I remember the ad campaign for the film in that heady age of the summer of 1989, helped considerably by the fact that I captured—while recording Batman (1966) on VHS—the 30 second spot that opened with “New York, New York”* before becoming about Jason Voorhees (Hodder, returning from the last film). That thing so captured my imagination as the kind of scary movie that true grown ups, sophisticates that they are, go to the cinema to experience.

Did I Like It: I’m a man now. I guess. I’ve seen it.

This film is reviled by the fanbase of the series. Never mind that there is a fanbase for this series, and they almost certainly have to be populated by the kind of people you never hope to encounter down a dark alleyway. I submit this question to you: Aside from possibly being in search for a more accurate title, is the film really any worse than the rest of the series? I’m serious, I think most complaints would vanish in vapor if the film was called Friday the 13th - Part VIII: Jason Goes On A Cruise, After Which He Spends An Abbreviated Third Act, Mostly In Times Square, Which Nobody Really Counts As Manhattan Anyway, Oh. Yeah. Also, Jason Melts In The Daily Midnight Flood Of Toxic Waste That Flows Under Times Square In The Days Before Giuliani.

But that would lack poetry, wouldn’t it?

*At least, I think it had that. It very well could have been “Rhapsody in Blue”, but it feels like that would be just a hair to esoteric for the audience who might be into seeing an eighth film in this series. Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it?