Category Archives: Movies

A 40th Cinematic Anniversary

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2025 witnessed the 50th year of the cinematic experience of Jaws, the movie that in many ways invented the summer blockbuster. A decade later, studios chased those blockbuster dreams still, and 1985 saw the release of a number of box office-dominating and franchise-creating films such as Back to the Future and Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Warner Brothers

But today I want to remember a film that turned 40 this summer, got two thumbs down from Siskel and Ebert, performed modestly with audiences but became beloved by its fans and grew into cult status. Even four decades after its release, lines from this modestly budgeted absurdist comedy such as “Gee, Ricky, I’m sorry your mom blew up” or “When people be throwing away a perfectly good white boy like that!” still make us crack a smile and have the same import as more famous deliveries like “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

I’m talking about the debut feature film by director and writer Savage Steve Holland, Better Off Dead.

Better Off Dead is the story of Lane Meyer (John Cusack), a high school student dumped by his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss) and thrown into cycles of suicidal ideation and desperate plays to win back her attention and affection from her new boyfriend Roy Stalin. A parallel storyline follows the arrival of a French foreign exchange student Monique (Diane Franklin) to the home across the street from Lane’s and the hosting family’s attempts to create a romantic relationship between Monique and the son living there.

This brief and dry synopsis conveys none of the strange, bizarre, and inventive humor of the film. There’s Lane’s mother, whose cooking can create life; the paperboy whose demand to be paid what he’s owed strikes tones more akin to the mafia than a young boy’s first job; and the fact that the film breaks out into fantastic, animated segments drawn from Lane’s fertile imagination.

I watched Better Off Dead on its initial release, and I loved it wholly and completely. My friends and I still make references to this movie and quote its iconic lines to this day. Like Monty Python, it is not to everyone’s taste, but for those it matches, it is priceless.

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del Toro and Frankenstein

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Netflix

At the Venice Film Festival Guillermo del Toro premiered his latest film Frankenstein adapted from the classic early 19th century novel by Mary Shelley. One published review of the feature criticizes it for presenting Frankenstein’s creation as too sympathetic leaving Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) as the real villain of the work. There has been quite a bit of pushback from various sections online to this interpretation by the critic declaring loudly and in no uncertain terms that this is in fact the theme of Shelley’s novel.

Now, anyone who has seen much of del Toro’s fantastic work should be far from surprised that in any ‘monster’ movie that his sympathies lie with the monsters. This has been del Toro’s theme in most of his films including his Oscar-winning The Shape of Water. It is who the man and who the artist is.

I would wager dollars to donuts that in this adaptation of the novel some things are going to be changed to keep the sympathy with the creature and one of those elements is the murder of William, Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother, The creature then frames the family’s nurse, Justine, for killing William, leading to her lynching at the hands of an outraged mob.

In the film Doctor Sleep, the character of Rose the Hat, played to terrifying perfection by Rebecca Ferguson, tortures and murders a young boy to enhance the psychic energies she and her ‘family’ require. No one held Rose in any sympathy nor should they even though her motivations, survival, are more excusable than the creature’s, which were simply anger and vengeance. The audience, if forced to witness a child’s murder, on screen, will abandon all sympathy for the creature and his emotional trauma at being abandoned. If this event is in this adaptation, then it will take place suitably offscreen and as such will not really be real in the emotional context of the audience.

Here is where I tend to part ways with many people’s interpretation and sympathy for Frankenstein’s creation. Yes, being abandoned as essentially a child by his creator, his father, is a terrible thing to endure. Being shunned for one’s physical appearance is something that creates deep and terrible emotional scars. For that there are countless people already deserving of our sympathy because they have not turned that pain into murderous rage.

Some do.

Some people feel so isolated, hurt, tormented, and rejected by the people and society around them that they become vessels of pure, unrestrained rage. Sadly, it is not uncommon for these hurt and tormented souls to murder by the score. Like the creature they feel ‘justified’ in their acts of violence against those that they have rightly or wrongly concluded are the cause of their misery.

Tremendous emotional injury and hurt are never an excuse for wanton murder and violence, not in the real world and not in fiction. I can have no sympathy for the creature because it is intelligent enough and self-aware enough to know not only what it does but why it does it and yet it still chooses to murder.

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Movie Review: Weapons

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From writer/Director Zack Cregger, the man responsible for the highly praised horror film Barbarian, comes his latest horror film Weapons.

Now, while Barbarian was indeed highly praised within the horror and critical community, it was a movie that for me fell apart in the final act and for which I did not care. As such, when the marketing for Weapons touted Cregger’s writing and direction, it provoked very little for me to make the excursion to see this in the theater. However, as word of mouth grew and the film proved to have ‘legs’ at the box office, my curiosity became activated and Friday evening I went to see it.

Warner Bros Studios

Weapons is the mystery of Justine Grady’s (Julia Garner) 3rd grade class that, with the exception of a single student, Alex (Cary Christopher), rose from their beds in the middle of the night, running off into the dark vanishing without a trace. When the police investigation fails to produce answers, much of the town, including Archer Graf (Josh Brolin), father of one of the missing children, turn on Justine as it was her class and only her class that suffered the strange and traumatic event.

Justine is not a classically ‘likable’ protagonist, with a somewhat dodgy past and an issue with alcohol, she makes an easy target for the terrified and enraged community and a particular target of Archer, certain that Justine knows more than she is saying.

Weapons is presented in a chapter format, with the different sections of the film told with a focus on and from the point of view of various characters in the community, not all of whom were directly affected by the mass disappearance. Some subplots remain distinct and unconnected to the story’s central mystery, adding color and understanding of the characters. The chapters also present events in not wholly chronological order, so something strange, frightening, and mysterious becomes understandable when viewed from another character’s experiences.

Unlike Barbarian, I found Weapons a thoroughly engaging piece of cinema. The mystery’s resolution suffered none of the suspension of disbelief shattering action that plagued Cregger’s previous movie. The only weakness of the film is in the middle section where a couple of ‘jump scares’ seem to exist with the only purpose being to remind you that you are indeed watching a horror film and not trusting that the situation and characters are enough to keep your interest high.

Weapons works as a study of characters under stress and trauma and as a horror mystery that resolves nicely and neatly without loose ends of action too unbelievable to sustain. If horror films are your jam, it is well worth a trip to the theater.

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How to Know You are Actually in a Movie

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Characters in movies don’t know they are in a piece of projected fiction. This is often portrayed as “genre blindness,” where a particular genre of movies is never referenced in the story directly. This is often the case with zombie movies.

If you were trapped in a movie, a character in a piece of cinematic fiction, how could you tell?

Well, for one thing, parking would be a lot easier. Wherever you go, to a friend’s house, to a shop, or anywhere really, there will be a parking spot not only close by but very likely right in front of the place you are hurrying to. This is especially true in massive cities with crowded streets. No one in a movie set in San Francisco bats an eye at the magical parking available to them.

Another way to know that your actions are being played for someone else’s entertainment is through the radio and television news. When you turn on these devices, not only will the news be playing, but the story will have direct and important relevance to your particular situation. You will not have to wade through minutes of side stories, political posturing, or sports results to get to the vital piece of information that you didn’t know you required.

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Movie Review: The 4th Man

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While researching films that played, particularly in the art houses of San Diego, during the summer of 1984 for my work in progress, I came across a newspaper ad for Paul Verhoeven’s The 4th Man and became quite intrigued.

Searching all the online streamers yielded the result that no one had the film available, nor was it available for a Video on Demand rental or purchase. The fact that the movie seemed impossible to watch only enhanced my curiosity about it. Eventually I found a copy in the public domain section of the Internet Archive and after much toil and trouble got the subtitles working as the film is in Dutch. So, this past weekend my sweetie-wife and I watched The 4th Man.

Verenigde Nederlandsche Filmcompagnie

The story centers on Gerard Reve, a bisexual novelist and clearly on the path to severe alcoholism. After fantasizing about murdering his roommate and lover, Gerard takes a train to another city to give a lecture to a local literary society. Along the way he becomes fascinated by a strikingly handsome man he briefly sees in the carriage of a passing train and is also haunted by strange delusions or visions of a seemingly threatening woman.

After the lecture and experiencing seeming confirmation of his frightening visions, Gerard accepts an invitation from the society’s treasurer, Christine, to stay the night at her home and business. The pair become lovers, but Gerard continues to have disturbing dreams and visions, some of which present Christine as a murderous woman killing off her former lovers. When her current lover Herman returns from his business trip, Gerard is shocked to see it was the same handsome man that had fascinated him at the train station. Now with his sexual desire for both Christine and Herman burning strongly, Gerard’s visions or delusions also intensify and he must discover if they are truth and if he or Herman is destined to become the 4th man murdered by Christine.

Given the similarities in theme—a potentially murderous woman, bisexuality, and explicit sexual scenes—The 4th Manis often compared to another Verhoeven film, Basic Instinct, with the director himself calling The 4th Man a spiritual prequel.

The 4th Man is a stylish erotic thriller that is uninterested in providing the audience with any solid answers to the questions it raises. Gerard’s visions might be prophetic flashes of both future and past or they may be delusions of an alcohol-soaked brain. Christine may be a spider luring men into her parlor and their deaths or she may be a woman tragically unlucky who has suffered the loss of several lovers. It is for the viewer to determine which is the more likely scenario. While watching this film I turned to my sweetie-wife and commented that “David Lynch probably loved this movie.” My feelings were only intensified by the lush, lovely, and captivating cinematography of Jan de Bont. There is absolutely no doubt that The 4th Man is a masterpiece of photography, even with its limited budget.

I have no idea if the movie will make it to the pages of my work in progress—elements of it fit perfectly with my cast of characters—but whether or not it makes an appearance, it was worth the viewing.

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Movie Review: Honey Don’t

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The second in Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s planned trilogy of ‘lesbian B-Movies’ Honey Don’t is the story of Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) a private detective in sun-blasted Bakersfield California.

Focus Features

When a prospective client dies in a single car traffic accident, Honey begins investigating which brings her into the orbit of police evidence officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) and the pair begin a heated and powerful relationship, bonding over the shared trauma of terrible fathers. The investigation brings to Honey’s attention a Christian church of questionable morality led by the charismatic and corrupt preacher Drew Devlin (Chris Evans.) Things become more complicated when Honey’s niece, Corinne, (Talia Ryder) fails to return home after her closing shift at a local fast-food joint.

At a breezy 89 minutes Honey Don’t is a fast and easy watch but perhaps the film is a bit too breezy. In the resolution of the mystery and when revelations come to light Honey connects dots that I have no recollection of ever being presented to the audience. Now, this is not a terrible thing in a black comedy neo-noir, this is not the Agatha Christie movies of revealing the killer in a murder mystery with clues withheld from the reader, but it would have been nice to have had the same set of dots that Honey possessed.

That weakness noted, and this film has not been gathering great reviews, I enjoyed Honey Don’t with much of it dark and grisly humor working quite well for me. This movie is fairly explicit in the sex scenes, both the heterosexual encounters and the lesbian ones, so be aware of that when you watch it. Given that this is directed and co-written by half of the Coen Brothers team it has the collection of odd and offbeat characters one can expect from Ethan Coen but much more sexually explicit than the team tended to produce together.

This is not a film for everyone, its various plot threads do not eventually all resolve into a single narrative but rather appear more like ‘slice of life’ where life is criminal, corrupt and darkly comic. I do not consider it a waste of my time to have seen Honey Don’t in a theater but for many this may work perfectly well as a home experience.

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A Prequel I’d Be Interested in Seeing

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Prequel films are tricky beasts to pull off and make work well. Usually, they are the product of a studio’s endless hunger for more cash and are stuffed with fan service bits that often are needless fixation on minor production details of the original movie. I couldn’t care less about exactly how Han Solo got his distinctive blaster in Star Wars; the pistol is not what made Solo an interesting character.

If it is not trivial details of props or settings, then another issue that faces prequels is that it is difficult to chart the growth of the character. We know who the character is in the original source material, if we give them a dynamic and interesting character arc in the prequel then for much of that prequel’s run time we are not in company of the character we grew to love but rather a different person who became that beloved individual.

There is one cinematic character who if written, produced, and acted well I think would be fascinating to watch as they transform into the one we originally met, William ‘Will’ Munny from 1992’s award-winning film Unforgiven.

Warner Brothers Studios

David Webb Peoples’ script introduces the audience to Will Munny long after his criminal and murdering days are behind him. A widowed pig farmer trying to raise a pair of children following the death of his beloved Claudia from smallpox, Will is pressed back into the role of assassin for reward money posted by sex workers seeking justice after one of their own survives a brutal assault.

Will repeatedly reminds the people he travels with and the audience that he is not the man he used to be. His drunkenness, his cruelty to animals, his wanton and unpredictable violent manner were all ‘cured’ by Claudia. ‘He ain’t like that no more.’ However, when the events of the film finally push Will beyond his new self the old Will Munny, a vicious and sociopathic killer reemerges for the movies climatic finish. A postscript card at the film’s end lets us know that Will once again returned to a peaceful life, the one Claudia brought him into, and not the one of murder and robbery she saved him from.

The prequel I want to see is the story of how Claudia changed Will Munny. The picture drawn of Will in days before her influence both by Will himself and those who knew him is one of such vast violence and bad temper it is hard to imagine the situation that brought Claudia and Will together much less how this apparently loving and peaceful woman induced such a powerful transformation.  I have no idea if Peoples ever worked out any sort of detailed backstory for Will and Claudia but man it fascinates me to no end.

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Movie Review: Siberian Lady Macbeth

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A Polish film from 1962, Siberian Lady Macbeth is an adaptation of the 1865 novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which has been adapted into an opera and films since 1962.

Kino Video

Katarina is an unhappy wife living on a large estate with many serfs, ruled by an overbearing “master” Boris, to whose son she is married. Childless and joyless, with her husband away dealing with some far-flung emergency, Katarina begins an affair with a recently hired serf, Sergei. Katarina and Sergei conspire and murder Boris when he returns so Sergei may become the “master” of the estate. Their idyllic future is threatened by the arrival of distant relatives with a claim on the estate. Burdened by guilt and with suspicion against the couple growing, their relationship frays, leading to the story’s inevitable tragic conclusion.

 

 

Siberian Lady Macbeth is not an adaptation of the classic play but rather takes its title from the central conceit of a woman manipulating the men around her into murder. The story is presented more as a film noir, with characters driven by their base desires and greed into inescapable situations. While this film was produced in Poland, it in many ways adheres to America’s Production Code, both in the depiction of onscreen sexuality and violence and the compelled moralistic ending.

The copy streaming on Kanopy is not restored and displays many scratches and blemishes due to its age but is still quite watchable.

Overall, I am glad to have seen this film, but I can’t say that it ranks very highly among my favorite noirs nor my favored adaptations of Macbeth. There are several shots, particularly of the windswept and foggy estate that serves as the story’s central location, that were reminiscent of 1957’s Throne of Blood, my favorite non-Macbeth adaptation of the tragedy.

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Movie Review: Fantastic Four: First Steps

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After three previous attempts and a merger of studios to bring the film rights back to Marvel Studios, there is yet another shot at bringing the exploits of comics’ first family to the larger-than-life screen. The Fantastic Four is this time titled Fantastic Four: First Steps.

First published in 1961, The Fantastic Four is a quartet of heroes with very public identities and celebrity status in the comic book continuum. Though a popular franchise for over 60 years, the group has struggled to find a successful silver screen adaptation. The filmmakers with this reboot have elected to jettison more conventional approaches for a bold vision.

Marvel Studios

Fantastic Four: First Steps drops the audience into a parallel universe where the family of superheroes are already not only known but honored globally for their exploits and bravery. It is an alternate 1960s, and the production is drenched in retro-futurism—a future that people of the 60s envisioned but never came to pass, colorful and optimistic. The team’s ‘origin’ is quickly recounted as backstory for a television special. How scientist Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), pilot Ben Grimm (Eben Moss-Bachrach), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), and her brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn) ventured into space and returned changed, imbued with amazing powers. In addition to eschewing recreating their origin, the filmmakers also steered clear of the team’s most notorious opponent, Dr. Doom. Instead, they are confronted by the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), Herald to the god-like being Galactus (Ralph Ineson), whose insatiable hunger drives him to consume planets teeming with life. Galactus is presented in the film as he was in the source material—a kaiju-sized humanoid in fantastic armor. The Silver Surfer has selected Earth as Galactus’ next victim, and the Fantastic Four attempt to negotiate with the god-like being. But when Galactus demands a price too high for the team to personally pay, Earth is set as his next target, and the world turns on its former heroes.

Fantastic Four: First Steps, in my opinion, is a mid-tier Marvel Cinematic Universe entry. Not as weak as some of the franchise films, but also nowhere near the excellence of its best. The script has four credited writers for both screenplay and story, and the final product is a bit muddled, showing what was likely a turbulent development and production. The cast is good, with Pascal and Kirby being outright terrific. Julia Garner plays enigmatic well and has one of the best ‘cheer’ moments in the feature. I think most of my issues—and why this film did not enthrall me completely—stem from the world-building of the alternate Earth failing to convince. It is not the retro-futurism that I found unconvincing (that I looked forward to), but some of the human aspects that were baked into the world that I found beyond my ability to accept. In Iron Man 2, it was stated that Stark ‘privatized world peace’—one moment of hyperbole that could be and should be ignored. Here, a similar concept is baked into this world’s canon.

Still, I did not regret venturing out to the theater for a fun, bright, and optimistic superhero film far from the dark and grounded miasma of cynicism.

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Things to Look Forward To

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After two days of dental surgery, chiropractic, and pulmonary medical appointments, Amazon drivers taking a reserved parking space, and my front passenger tire going flat due to a tiny screw, I can finally start to relax and look forward to a few weeks of hopefully nice events and activities.

First off is this weekend’s opening for Fantastic Four: First Steps. I am quite happy with the trailers and the interesting approach to produce the film in a retro-futurism style that echoes the comic book’s 60’s origins. So far, there haven’t been any decent Fantastic Four movies, but this one is the first to be produced under the Marvels Studios’ guidance following that studio’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

Next on the things that are making me happy is the next 7-8 weeks of televised science-fiction with the third seasons of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Foundation. Full disclosure, while I have read a lot of classic SF, I never managed to get into Asimov’s Foundation series. His fiction often struck me as dry and with characters created to solve puzzles rather than experience emotional lives. So, I know that this show is deviating wildly from the source material, but it doesn’t bother me. Strange New Worlds is of course as I have previously written about is breaking ‘canon’ with Treklore, but it is doing so while giving us more realized and fleshed out characters so that’s a trade I am perfectly willing to make.

And finally, next month is the World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle, Washington. It has been a number of years since I have been able to make a WorldCon and this I hope will be the restorative vacation/holiday I need just before the really busy period at the day-job commences.

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