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May 3, 2025

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TCM Film Festival 2025 (Day 3)

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Our third day of the TCM Film Festival started off with a science fiction classic from the 1950s featuring Special Effects by the great Ray Harryhausen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this film before “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”. The morning’s presentation was introduced by Joe Dante a director that I’ve admired for almost 50 years. Just as a side note that behind him at the screening of the Bruce Willis film “Sunset” in the Cinerama Dome.

Earth versus the flying saucers is a straightforward fifties sci-fi film, which means that it features military types who are hysterical about contact with new species, and weapons that we have not encountered before which will require a sudden development of Technology that we haven’t used before. Many times the aliens in these movies are standings for communism, the idea that a totalitarian race wants to dominate us and control our resources and lives sounds like it’s a pretty straightforward interpretation of the Soviet Union, only with cool space suits.

I’m sure I’ve seen actor Hugh Marlow in something else but at the moment I can’t remember what it would be. Many of the actors portraying generals looked quite familiar, I suspect they probably worked regularly in the 1950s playing military types. The highlight of these films is usually the special effects and in this particular case it’s the flying saucers and the Damage they cause Washington DC. Ray Harryhausen he’s always been one of my favorite producers, who’s specialty is stop motion animation, that he did mostly on his own. The effects look really cool on the screen, although in this particular film they were a little repetitive until we got to the attack on DC.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Our second film of the day was one that I was looking forward to from the moment I first saw the schedule. In the decade Plus that I have attended the TCM Film Festival, I’ve made sure to see the presentations from Craig Barron and Ben Burtt. These two gentlemen have extensive background in sound and special effects, receiving multiple Academy Awards, and having a clear knowledge of the history of their own disciplines. The very first film I saw at one of these festivals was my favorite, “The Adventures of Robin Hood” with Errol Flynn. Barron and Burtt were the presenters for that screening and they had such interesting detail and background history on the movie that I resolved never to miss an opportunity when they were speaking again.

The film they were working on this day, was “Colossus: The Forbin Project”, from 1970. While not the most well-known science fiction film of its ilk, Colossus is a forerunner of some of the most prescient films of the last 50 years. James Cameron was clearly influenced by exposure to this movie because the whole concept of Skynet is stolen from this film. The premise of the film is simple, we have created an artificial intelligence to run our defense systems, and the worst things that can happen do.

I was a little surprised that this was the film that these two gentlemen were working on for the festival, because I didn’t remember that there were extensive effect shots. Of course I forget sometimes that matte paintings and sound design are a big part of how a movie like this manage to impress. The opening shots of Dr Forbin, walking through the Colossus computer as it is being booted up, require some difficult matte paintings that were done by the great Albert Whitlock. The descriptions that the speakers provided impressively explained why we should take note of this subtle work.

I also found it quite interesting, that the sound of colossus’s voice in the television interface that originated at the World’s Fair in 1939, was classified during World War II. The sound technology was used for the direct communication line between Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Winston Churchill. It was a nice simulation of what their call would have sounded like using the encryption sound technology that was later used for this movie. Once again one of my favorite things at the TCM Film Festival was a presentation by Craig Barron and Ben Bert. As an added bonus the star of the film Eric Braeden made an appearance. He did a brief introduction before the movie, and then participated in a little Q&A 

Brigadoon

The third film for the day had us returning to the Egyptian Theater for the first time since last year. Although I love the Chinese IMAX I have to say that the Egyptian is my favorite venue for the festival. When I lived in Southern California I was a member of the American Cinematique, who operated the Egyptian. It is since traded hands and is now a Netflix venue, and while that may not be something I think is great, they have done a fantastic job updating the theater while still maintaining it’s historical ambience. Such ambience seemed particularly important for this film, a 1950s Musical that I have never seen before Brigadoon.

I’m a fan of musicals and of Gene Kelly, so it’s a little surprising that I hadn’t seen this for myself at some point in the past. I don’t know that it has the best reputation in the world of musicals, after all I’m not sure there’s a song in it that was a hit. The film however it does have a number of charms, and it’s a good reminder of how the studio system of the golden age of Hollywood could produce a film on sound stages that made you feel like you were in Scotland. In case you are not aware Brigadoon is a village that is either cursed or blessed depending upon your point of view. It’s residents appear to be living nearly forever, because the village is only active for a few days every hundred years. Of course when Gene Kelly and Van Johnson stumble upon the village, complications ensue, but so do some wonderful dance sequences. I was not aware that Van Johnson danced in any films, but he did a pretty credible job with one number in this movie.

The real dancers in the film however were represented at the screening today by two of their own, Barrie Chase and George Chakiris. Both of these actors/dancers are well into their 80s, and they occasionally scratch their heads trying to remember some details about the particular film. They certainly gave us some insight into the way that dancers in those days found jobs or auditioned. I got the definite impression that Barry Chase lost a few opportunities because she would not submit to Arthur Freed . The casting couch was alive and well in those days.

While most of the film looked pretty good there were some sequences that probably needed to be remastered. I was happy to catch up on this classic and enjoy the look of the film even if the story is a little slight, and inconsistent on its own world building. After all it’s really a musical not a science fiction fantasy film interested in creating its own universe.

JAWS

When we left the theater after Brigadoon we immediately got a new cue card and got in line to get back into the Egyptian for the most important film of our at TCM. This year is the 50th anniversary of the greatest film of the second half of the 20th century. Jaws is influential, groundbreaking, and once again in my opinion the best film that Steven Spielberg has ever made.

I am not sure that there is another movie that I have seen in a theater as often as I have Jaws. It made me very nostalgic to be seeing it here at TCM in the Egyptian Theater, since at least a half dozen of my earlier screenings also took place at this iconic venue. Anybody reading this can find more than a dozen posts about the movie Jaws on this blog site. I’m not going to recap the story or the significance of the movie on this day. Instead, main thing I want to talk about is the guest Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody in the film. 

She was married to Sid Steinberg, who at the time was the chief at Universal Studios and Steven Spielberg’s mentor. This is the part that she will be remembered for, all of her other roles were primarily supporting TV characters. Frankly she’s terrific in the movie, although she disappears from the film entirely in the third Act. Advanced age of 88 she had No Reservations about being honest concerning her co-workers. She was dismissive of Richard Dreyfuss, without giving any details of why she didn’t care for him. She also expressed the opinion that Roy Scheider was it somewhat mean co-star, and she didn’t have any warm memories of working with him. She did however confess to having a crush on Robert Shaw, which I find completely Charming and ironic given their parts in the film.

The print of the film that was screened for us came from the British Film Institute, and had been preserved since a 1981 presentation on the BBC. The color dyes in this print are probably as close to the original version of the film from 1975, as we are likely to ever see. The film looked magnificent. It was surprising when Ben Mankowitz ask for a show of hands of people who had never seen the movie, that there were dozens of hands in the air. Listening to the audience during the film I had no trouble believing that those people were being honest, because you could hear the intake of breath, the shots of surprise, and the Applause of delight for all those little things that make Jaws the quintessential Blockbuster in one of my favorite films.

Blade Runner

We repeated the process at the end of this film walking out of the theater getting in line immediately to get a new cue card to go back in and see our final film for the evening. Although it was not a financial success in 1982 when it was first released, Blade Runner has been a critical success and a cult favorite for more than 40 years. 

One of the first Criterion Collection laserdiscs that I purchased was Blade Runner, back in the 1990s. That version does not include the director’s cut in the Final Cut, but there is discussion of some of the things that would later be included in revised editions of the film. The version we saw appears to have been the Final Cut, so there is no narration in the ending is slightly different, although to be honest we only stayed through the first hour of the film. As I’ve already mentioned we were staying at the house in Glendora so we had a 45 minute ride home, if we stayed for the whole film we would not have been in bed until 1: 30, and we needed to get up at 5: 30 to make Sunday.

The special guests for this film was the female co-star Sean Young, who was only 19 when the film was made and who was making her debut as a film actress with this movie. Miss Young has always been known as an outspoken and opinionated actress and nothing has changed even if she is aged the way I have. She spoke about working with Harrison Ford, the rigors of the makeup chair, and generally working in Hollywood. Her talk was not limited to Blade Runner though, as she made brief comments about several films and actors that she had worked with. She seemed fond of the late Gene Hackman when she worked with in no way out, but never seem to get very close to Kevin Costner who was her leading man. She did say that Blade Runner was the favorite film that she made, but the bigger reaction from the audience was to her second favorite film which was Ace Ventura.

Watching Blade Runner at home on Blu-ray, streaming, or even my beloved LaserDisc, cannot do it justice. Seeing it on the big screen and listening to the score and the sound design of the film in the theater like the Egyptian is one of those things that everybody should experience. We only stayed through the scene where James Hong meets his demise, but I can tell you everything up to that point looked and sounded spectacular on the big screen.  

At one time it had been my hope to make a couple of the midnight movies, and “Wild at Heart” would have been another film at the Egyptian had we not been so tired. So we ended our day with the fun talk from Sean Young and the brilliant vision of Ridley Scott.

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May 2, 2025

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TCM Film Festival 2025 (Day 2)

Thunderball

For me personally I’m not sure the Day Two of the film festival could have started off any better. The first movie we were scheduled to see was a James Bond film, celebrating it’s 60th anniversary. It’s hard to believe that the James Bond films are almost as old as I am. I’ve been a lifelong fan of 007 and is a child of the 60s it’s easy for me to be nostalgic for one of the most significant cultural films of that decade. “Thunderball’ was a commercial earthquake that signaled the significance of action films, spy films, and general popular culture.

The 4th of the 007 films, “Thunderball” did everything bigger and more spectacularly than any film up to that time. The history of the film’s origin is well known, Fleming developed the original story with a couple of other writers for a TV series that never went anywhere. Authorship claims were resolved by agreeing to allow one of the claimants a producer credit on this film. Regardless of what happened behind the scenes what happens on the screen is over the top, beginning with the use of a jetpack to escape from the bad guys in the pre-title sequence. The slogan for the film was “He3re Comes the Biggest Bond of All.”. 

Maybe the most thrilling moment I felt at the whole festival was when the titles for “Thunderball” came up and we got those great Maurice Binder titles with Tom Jones belting out the song on the big screen. This is a restoration of the film, and frankly I thought it looked great before. This is the movie where all of the tropes from Austin Powers originated. There are sharks however,  they don’t have any lasers on them. The spectacular underwater battle that takes place at the climax of the film still could use a little trimming, but it didn’t seem nearly as long to me today as it has in the past. Probably because I’m watching it on the big screen.

The guest for this morning’s presentation was actress Luciana Paluzzi, who played the SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe. She was 27 when the film was made which makes her 87 today. She still looks terrific and she was sharp as a tack with a great sense of humor. She talked about her long friendship with director Terrence Young, who made three of the first four James Bond films. In fact director Young gave her away at her wedding to her husband to whom she is still married. It was fun to listen to her share stories of being on the set with Sean Connery, and shooting the various scenes that she was in. I’m glad we got this opportunity well we still have some surviving members of the cast to talk about the film. Thank you TCM.

Because of the length of the film, and the fact that the talk took place after the movie, we were too late to queue up for either the films that we were planning on filling in the rest of our morning with. So we missed babe and The Time Machine. We did take a little break over in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, before making our way back to the big house for “The Fabulous Baker Boys”.

The Fabulous Baker Boys 

Michelle Pfeiffer was the guest for this presentation, and moments before the movie and the discussion she had participated in the traditional handprint and footprint in concrete in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. I hadn’t seen this film since it came out in 1989, but I remember being impressed with it and thinking it deserved some of the accolades that it received. Most especially Miss Pfeiffer’s performance being nominated by the Academy. I do remember it was a bit of a surprise that she didn’t win.

The story is a small one, focusing on the relationship between two brothers who have a piano lounge act that is moderately successful. The older brother played by actor Beau Bridges, is engaged and cheerful during their performances, and he takes the lead in trying to keep their act financially lucrative. The younger brother is played by Jeff Bridges, his real life brother, a piece of terrific casting. Jeff Bridges character is the more talented musician, who is resentful of his occupation and the playlist which the brothers usually perform. When they run into trouble keeping the act booked, they decide to hire a girl singer to join the show, enter Michelle Pfeiffer who plays Susie Diamond, an escort with a nice voice, who wants to make the transition legitimate performances.

There are basically two love stories in the film, the one between the brothers which is strained by sibling rivalry, and different views of what they ought to be doing. And of course the younger brother who is always been a philanderer begins a romantic relationship with Susie, which we can see is not going to end well for either of them. Susie Diamond is a hard case, but her heart is not as buried in concrete as is the younger Baker brother. All three leads are excellent, and they make the drama of the film feel quite real.

It is not a news flash to anyone, but Michelle Pfeiffer is a stunningly beautiful woman. She is the same
age I am and clearly looks a hell of a lot better than I do. She was friendly and Charming, and she tried to answer the questions what’s that Ben Mankiewicz tossed at her.  Sometimes the questions were a little awkward, and her answers would end up being more ambiguous than you might expect, but she was doing her best. This was also the first time I’ve noticed in the decade that I’ve been attending the festival, that the Stars security team was present on the sides of the platform where the guests in the host were seated. I’m sure security has been there for many presentations, but miss Pfeiffer security team had one individual standing on each side of the platform. That was a little surprising but completely understandable.

Misery

Our third film of the day, was also at the TCL IMAX theater, generally known as Grauman’s Chinese, and talk about a contrast in the way the actors are portrayed in the two movies, Michelle Pfeiffer is luminous beauty is now contrasted to the harsh persona and visage of Kathy Bates in “Misery”.

“Misery” is a Stephen King story translated to the screen by Rob Reiner, who did the same thing for another king story in the film “Stand By Me”. This is a drama that is actually a horror movie, and when you see how it plays out I don’t think there’s any doubt that it is a Fright Fest.

Kathy Bates won the Academy Award in 1990 as the character Annie Wilkes, a deranged fan of the romance novels that feature a character named misery. Author of those books from a car accident in the blizzard, and cares for him in her home. But of course talking about going from the frying pan Into the Fire, the danger to the author seems to get greater and greater the longer he stays in her care. For the most part the film features two actors, the aforementioned Kathy Bates, but also the great James Caan, who plays the injured author. It takes nothing away from Kathy Bates performance to point out that Caan is terrific in the more physical performance. His character does not have the emotional range that Bates did, but he has to do a lot more torturous crawling, climbing, and sweating. The two of them together were really good.

I’ll briefly mention the late Richard Farnsworth also, who plays the local sheriff, trying to figure out what happened to the missing author. Farnsworth was always a welcome presence in movies, and when I mentioned to my daughter that he was in a G-rated film from David Lynch she practically fell out of her chair.

The screening emphasizes for me once again how important the theatrical experience is. The theater full of people responded to the events taking place on screen with screams, laughs, and nervous tittering at times. You could hear that the audience was reacting to the movie exactly how the storytellers had intended. And it must have been very gratifying to the two guests to hear the way the audience responded to their work.

The guests for this film were the director Rob Reiner and the lead actress herself Kathy Bates. They talked about the process of rehearsing the picture, and they noted that James Caan had a different style of acting then Bates did. Rainer talked about how he had tried to manage their different styles in the film and use that as a way to reflect the characters that the two were playing. There were a few tidbits of information that came out about the screenplay that I thought were particularly interesting. It was written by the great William Goldman, the Reiner added several pieces to the film as they went along, including the dinner sequence which includes a great suspense sequence, and a twist that had the audience moaning with frustration.

The American President

Our fourth feature of the day, was also playing in the main house, so after leaving the theater, queuing up to wait for the next screening, we return to exactly the same position we were in for the previous two films to watch “The American President”. This is a film that was a precursor to the television series The West Wing, one of our favorites. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin, and once again it was directed by Rob Reiner. Frankly Reiner had a run from 1985 to 1995 that is pretty amazing in terms of quality. He made the following films: “The Sure Thing”, “Stand By Me”, “The Princess Bride”, “A Few Good Men”, and “The American President”. That’s a murderer’s row of great films from that decade.

We’ve seen the film dozens of times, it has been a go-to in the house ever since it came out. The story of widowed president who attempts to start dating again while a resident in the White House. There are of course a lot of political machinations, and the hysteria over guns and climate change is exactly the same 30 years ago as it is today. Regardless of whether those issues matter, the story is really about how personalities influence the political process. Everybody is faced with some ethical dilemmas in the story, but of course the good guys get the best speeches, thanks to Aaron Sorkin.

Screenwriter Sorkin and director Reiner where the guests for the presentation, and they talked about the Genesis of the film, and the way it transformed itself to some degree. Originally scheduled to Star Robert Redford, and be merely about the romance and comedy of a president trying to date, the film turned into something a little more weighty and probably better balanced when Sorkin and Reiner decided to inject some political elements to the film. Redford wasn’t interested in doing a political film, he’d already done that. So enter Michael Douglas and the rest is as they say history.

Ambitiously we had hoped to see Rocky Horror at a midnight screening, but are better judgment sent us home after this film and we didn’t attempt to do the time warp late into the evening. I would have enjoyed seeing Barry Bostwick is the guest, but after hearing that the screening went off half an hour late I was very grateful that we made the decision to stop at four films for the day.

During the break we went over to the TCM Lounge and found this on display. 
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April 20, 2025

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The Last Picture Show (1971) Revisit

For a period of time in the 1970s, film directors were given free reign to create some of the most personal and well acted films to ever come out of Hollywood. In an era that was filled with personalities like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and the young Steven Spielberg, maybe the director who got a foothold on the zeitgeist of the era the best, was Peter bogdanovich. Has a director he had a string of successes from 1971 to 1975 that are incredibly impressive. The first of those truly great films is this 1971 requiem for bygone era.

The Last Picture Show is known for the huge cast of future stars that made appearances in the film. Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Randy Quaid, Cybil Shepherd, Eileen Brennan, and Ellen Burstyn are all getting ready to have huge careers in the next two decades. The film also gives parts to older veterans Cinema, or give it a chance with the Fantastic script to write a little silver in the sky and help us remember what film dialogue is all about. Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson want Academy Awards for supporting actor and actress, and they did it on the strength of a script that treated them like real people, who deserve dignity even in the most undignified circumstances.

I’m not sure I can think of a film that has sadness more clearly as its theme Than The Last Picture Show. The social relations between the members of the senior class, or sometimes harsh and thoughtless, and at other times heartbreaking. Cybil Shepard plays Jacy, the headstrong popular girl, who uses sex to gain status and learns that she is simply repeating the mistakes of the past. In the wake of her Reckless Behavior she leaves two best friends who become estranged, one because he is a rejected lover, and the other because he rejected his one opportunity of love in this small town.

Everything in this movie screams of being depressing. The diner is shabby and the waitress who works there, although wise and surprisingly friendly, is also beat down by her existence. The pool hall is the social center of the town, and it is a dust filled ramshackle Hangout for men too old to do much and for boys too young to be doing anything. Ben Johnson plays the older man with enough gravitas to actually earn the respect of the youngsters. Although life is dealt him a pretty crappy hand he is not embittered by his fate, simply nostalgic for the good things that have long passed him by. Sam the lion is a character that we can all admire and he gets a sequence where he narrates part of his life in such an eloquent way that Johnson brings him to life and earns the accolades that were heaped upon him that year. And of course there’s not a happy ending when it comes to Sam.

Ruth Popper is a woman who is aware that the best parts of her life are long in the past, and for whom every day is a struggle against depression and potential Health catastrophes. When she becomes the unlikely lover of one of the two young men who are close friends, it feels dangerous, absurd, and also the most hopeful thing in the movie. And of course it also doesn’t end well either. Cloris Leachman, clenches her hands, walks with the faltering step, and dry cries through many of her scenes. Her performance is one of physicality, where she conveys a world weariness Beyond her years, and a rejuvenation it is unexpected when she discovers what she thinks is a new love. The conclusion of this film includes the death of a much younger character, and it turns out that that is not the saddest thing in the story. The way in which this will Lonely woman, is mistreated and embittered his heart-wrenching. What is also sad is that even after standing up for herself, she has enough Humanity to offer a drop of console, despite it not being earned.

The town is full of people who will never leave and as a result will likely bleed on Happy lives, or their people who are anxious to get out, but afraid to because they know they’ll never be able to come back to things the way they were. The closing of the movie theater in a small town like this maybe the saddest symbol of filmgoer like me is likely to see. The black and white photography in this film makes everything feel dusty and forlorn,  but it also makes the people look either incredibly beautiful or sadly unpleasant. I guess that’s the way the world is, or more precisely… Was. 

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April 14, 2025

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Ash (2025)

 Ash is a somewhat dystopian science fiction film set on another world that the human race is hoping to be able to terraform and relocate to. We get told all of that information about a quarter of the way into the story after the mystery of the horror has already begun. The way the Story begins is simple a young woman wakes up from a deep sleep and discovers that the ecosystem that she lives in is filled with dead bodies and signs of violence that she has basically no memory of.

The film is a hybrid version of Solaris, alien, and the thing. Ultimately there are about seven actors in the film but for 90% of the movie they’re only two that take up screen time. The woman named Reva, as flashbacks to some of the events, and begins to suspect that what happened might be her fault. File into her ruminations, another character shows up played by actor Aaron Paul, who clearly knows Reva, but was not at the station when whatever disaster befell it took place.

At First the movie looks fairly low budget. The sets are not much more complicated than a series of rooms that have been dolled up with some light fixtures and a few props to suggest something more futuristic. And the film is clearly something that was done on a budget. In the second half of the film though a few special effects show up that suggests that they were saving their money for a little bit more production value. A couple of models and some CGI add a little credibility to the situation. We also get a few special effects makeup sequences that are pretty good. 

The main problem with the film like this is that we are dealing with an unreliable narrator, and we all know why she’s unreliable. Also, nearly everything that we see at one point become suspect, and we wonder if we are looking at something that really happened or if it is just a projection of her consciousness. In the end it does turn out to be something of a monster movie, but it’s trying to do it in a way that is different and a little bit more cerebral. I think the ambitions outstrip the ability of the script to deliver this kind of story. The movie isn’t bad, but it isn’t very compelling either and by the time we get to the end it’s easy to feel detached from what’s going on. There is also attacked on conclusion that makes no sense but his design to create a sense of irony at the end of the story.

The director of the film is also responsible for the music, I get the impression that he is a music personality who is dabbling in the film world. It’s not that he’s on talented, but he’s not experienced enough to make this film more interesting than something to be consumed and almost immediately forgotten, in spite of the film’s ambitions. I suspect that this movie was largely made for streaming purposes, and it received a token release either because of the actors involved or to placate the director. Either way it turned out, it was a reasonable Monday evening, but again I’m not going to remember this very long.

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April 4, 2025

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Mulholland Drive (2001)

I am a David Lynch fan, but I am not a completist. The man directed over a hundred projects, including television episodes, shorts and music videos. His list of feature length films is relatively small, only 10 really. Of those ten I have seen eight, with “Mulholland Drive” being my most recent, and the one I have waited the longest to see. This is a film that came out 24 years ago, and up to last Saturday, I had not spent the time to watch it. If I had to venture a reason why, it might be that the plot sounded  a lot like “Lost Highway” with characters becoming completely different people in the course of the story. Lost Highway is the one movie my wife attended with me that she walked out on. I stayed and watched it to the end, but I know I was very confused and I have not returned to it. I think I also suffered from the misnomer that this was a Black and White film, and it would be murky. That set off hesitation and I never took the plunge. With the recent passing of Lynch, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Chain has been playing a number of retrospective films and I decided it was unfathomable for me to hold out any longer.

In the end, I think I made the right choice not trying to catch up with this on video, and seeing it for the first time in a theater. This movie is a masterpiece and probably sits in my top three Lynch films of all time. It does get typically murky and convoluted in the last twenty minutes, and I understand what is being attempted, but it really feels like a switch that was done for style more than story, which is a very David Lynch thing to do. I’m OK with the switch, but I wanted the mystery of the original story to keep playing out. Maybe the reason that I find this film so compelling is that it comes the closest in style and mood to the original first season of “Twin Peaks”. Every moment filled with portents, every scene visually unsettling, every music cue intriguing and confounding. This was originally a pilot for a TV series and I could easily see Lynch stringing out his mystery for several seasons if he could be freed from the demands that he solve it, like the demands that threw off the second season of “Twin Peaks”.  Although I guess there is a risk that it could turn out to be “”Lost”.

The sound design of the film is one of the main reasons that seeing this in a theater was the right thing to do. The music penetrates the brain and body differently in the ambience of a packed auditorium. When the singing sequences take place, their juxtaposition with the darker ambient sounds and haunting Angelo Badalamenti score are more powerful. There is a sense of danger when Justin Theroux’s character meets the Cowboy in a forgotten corral on Mulholland, the silence of the scene, the footsteps on the ground and the quiet voice that emanates from the ambiguous figure are all heightened by a theatrical presentation.  

This was the breakthrough role in Naomi Watts career and it is understandable. By the end of the film, she plays two distinct personalities and the range she shows is impressive. Like all Lynch films, the contrast between the world we dream about and the one we live in takes up a major portion of the themes in the film. The jubilant Betty, full of hope and promise is certainly appealing, and the way she absorbs the mystery of  Rita into her life is fascinating. When they cross paths with the missing actress Diane Selwyn,  the facade of hopefulness turns into fear and the twist of identity suddenly makes a little sense. Even if we don’t understand how it all happens and why we are able to observe it, it works.

There are a string of clues that lead to the resolution, if you can call it that, and they are woven into the story effectively, but we are left with a dangling set of story threads that don’t seem to pay off. If Rita is a complete invention in the mind of Diane, as a stand in for the lover who has jilted her, then I suppose it will just be that we came in the middle of someone else’s dream, and we can’t really expect any answers. This though would have been the flow line of the TV series that I now wish had been produced. The surreal plot twists at the end extricate Lynch from having to deal with these points, and they do so in a way that will make analyzing the film fun for eternity. 

As is usual, the ambiguity at the end will delight some and frustrate others. I can appreciate both points of view, and I am just a little surprised that I find myself late to the conversation. I hope all the good speculative discussion has room for one more chattering head. I’m in.  

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Death of a Unicorn (2025)

So far my favorite horror film of the year is this entry starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega along with some other veterans, in a tale that mixes fantasy and science. The easiest way to summarize this film is that it is a cross between science gone wrong movies and creature features. Think of it as Jurassic Park only with unicorns instead of dinosaurs.

An estranged father and daughter are traveling to a remote luxury retreat for a weekend so that he can be evaluated as a potential executor of a will for a dying millionaire. He already works for the company at a high level, but hopes to be entrusted with managing the heirs when they take over the company after the death of the patriarch. Rudd’s character has brought his daughter, because he believes that the family that is about to lose its founder, values family above so many other things, that a demonstration of his own family values is necessary.

As usual I try to avoid giving away too much in the movie, if not entirely spoiler free, I certainly try to avoid things that make the movie distinct or valuable. Let’s say that through a confluence of events, the patriarch, his family, they’re small coterie of servants and the perspective executive are all soon threatened by some animals that are angry about the events taking place in the story. It is a little hard to warm up to most of these characters as they are either narcissistic or greedy and come off as entitled a holes, that or they are sniveling sycophants unable to take an action that they know is right but which might be perceived as weak by the others.

Richard Grant, Tea’ Leoni, and Will Pouter managed to make privilege one of the most unappealing characteristics shown on screen this year. Pouter’s character’s amazing superpower is the ability to rationalize any stupid decision that he wants to make. It’s fun listening to him talk and try to convince both the willing and the unwilling to accept his delusions. Leoni plays his mother, not as a nurturing parent but as an enabler willing to put up with his whining. Grant, as the dying patriarch, manages to create a transformation of selfishness so quickly that we are perfectly willing to let his character die, even though the Fates seem to be in his favor at times.

I can’t make it a secret that there are unicorns in the movie, there are. The creatures depicted here are a nightmares version of the traditional mythology of the Unicorn. That is at least to some degree, because it is the failure of the humans that produces eventual mythological creature. The movie has very funny moments but it never reduces itself to a slapstick or parody of more serious movies. If we can accept the fantasy premise in Jurassic Park, we should be able to accept the fantasy in this film, and treat the threat with the same degree of seriousness that we did the Rogue dinosaurs.

The story does take a few shortcuts, and there is one huge inferential leap that is required in order for us to understand the nature the unicorns. Once we passed that point however, I think the film plays it straight with the story that it is set up. There are a couple of ex machina moments near the end of the movie that might undermine the credibility of its premises, but let’s face it, we are talking about a movie about unicorns, let’s not get carried away with story verisimilitude.

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March 31, 2025

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Hell of a Summer (2025)

We got a chance to see this fun little horror film, a little early, as it was being presented in a promotional screening that included streaming Q&A from two of the Stars who also happen to be the writers and directors of the film. Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, are our young actors who have come up with a script and somehow got the green light to make the movie. Wolfhard would be familiar to most of you as Mike from “Stranger Things”. The youngsters have been watching their ’80s horror movies and they have a pretty good grasp of the tropes that they want to take advantage of in their little concoction.

The movie is set at a summer camp, had a remote location, with the camp counselors arriving early in preparation for this season’s Camp session. One of the counselors is returning for the 6th time as a counselor, at the age of 24 is a little old be working this as a summer job, but it appears to be his dream, and he loves what he’s doing. The character is Jason, as if that is not a tribute to earlier horror films, and he is a nebbish but sincere guy who just wants to have the best summer ever. The younger counselors, come from a slightly different generation, and they have a hard time understanding Jason and his enthusiasm for outdoor activities.

The film is a comedy, but it takes the murders fairly seriously. The only time one of the deaths has a cartoon quality to it is in the opening scene, when a guitar is used as a grizzly marker for murder. Other than that tuneful moment, the deaths themselves, even as they pile up, are treated as real murders and not as the punchline to an elaborate joke where the death of a teenager is supposed to be laughed at. So the film is very much in keeping with the tone of the early Friday the 13th or Halloween movies.

Most of the humor occurs when the counselors panic about how to respond to all of the death, and they false the accused Jason of being the murderer. They’re attempted solution to the problem offers lots of opportunities for us to laugh at the callousness and the cluelessness of this new generation of campers. The two step brothers, who also happen to be the writers and directors of the film, also offer us a lot of humorous moments as they bicker like siblings might, over little things such as who gets to sit in the front seat of the car. They did a pretty good job letting us know something about the characters in the film, so that we care a bit about the outcome. There are one or two small Clues as to who is responsible for the killings, those come early on and if you are not paying attention it would be easy to miss them and have to wait for the reveal when it shows up. I’m perfectly willing to say that I miss them the first time around, but I appreciate it that the screenwriters made an effort to give us a chance to honestly solve the puzzle before they do.

In addition to the humor, the main draw of the film will be the Practical effects that are used to present the deaths. There is solid work done by the makeup team, but they don’t go overboard and try to make things so gross that we are reacting to just the physical image more than the concept of what’s been done to these poor kids. The character of Jason is also a rich source of humor in the film, since he wants to be at the camp at all, and eventually wants to take on the role of hero, in spite of being accused by and tied up by the other counselors.

Maybe it takes a while to get things started after we had those initial kills, but I just thought that that was good storytelling. I have no objection to a slow burn as long as it pays off, and I think hell of a summer paid off pretty well. It’s a solid first part of the Apple for the two aspiring filmmakers, and it should satisfy people who have a love for horror movies rooted in the 1980s.

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March 30, 2025

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Locked (2025)

Here’s a simple premise for a film that should be able to be shot on a budget with the exception of salaries for the two main stars. We have been on a bit of a Bill Skarsgård kick for the last year or so, and this film features him in every scene, and he doesn’t have to share the screen with anybody for any 80% of the movie. He does have a co-star, Sir Anthony Hopkins, who only appears by voice for the first two acts of the film, and shows up in the last third for an extended sequence with a more direct confrontation between antagonists.

Skarsgård’s character plays a petty Thief, who’s trying to get enough money together to pay for repairs to his van. He professes a desire to stick to the straight and narrow, in a job is a delivery driver. It is clear however from the cold shoulder he gets from former acquaintances, that he is used up any Goodwill and Trust he might have had, as they all refuse to assist him. He attempts a few minor crimes before encountering I’m unlocked luxury SUV. Thinking he’s hit the jackpot he jumps in and discovers that it is an elaborate trap by frequently vandalized and victimized wealthy doctor, who is decided to take some justice individuality form by imprisoning any car thief who deems to try and Rob him again.

We have to suspend our disbelief a little bit, because the technology involved here, well it is all possible, seems very complicated to utilize intervene plot like this. We do however discover that the doctor is motivated by Deep resentment against criminals who have taken the life of his daughter, a promising college student. Scarsgard finds himself locked in the car unable to escape and subject to tortures imposed by his invisible Captor. The actor manages to convey appropriate degrees of panic, resentment, and remorse. They’re also frequent outbursts of anger that give an actor the opportunity to stretch those skills that are so often prized by directors. Although at some point we are supposed to pity the thief, there is plenty such to suggest that what he’s getting up to a certain point is not undeserved.

The high point of the film occurs when Hopkins takes remote control of the vehicle and drives it to a location that he is found. He gets in and takes physical control not just virtual control of the situation. The film does suggest some political themes, most of which have been around for at least 50 years. Echoing the problems confronted by Dirty Harry or by Paul Kersey in the death wish films, Hopkins is enraged by a system that seems to tolerate criminal Behavior, and value the rights of repeat offenders over the need for justice for victims. Up to the point where he makes clear that he’s going to take skarsgard’s life, he has a very rational philosophy. When however he oversteps his bounds, Hopkins himself becomes a similar kind of monster, and we are left with rooting for one monster or the other. Because Skarsgård’s characters daughter is still alive, it becomes apparent that that is where our sympathy is supposed to lie.

The petty tortures and monologuing provided by Hopkins are the primary reasons that this film is interesting. Most of us would try to identify with the captured Thief and figure out how to survive for the circumstances we find ourselves in. The sense of powerlessness is overwhelming at times, especially when Skarsgård is tortured by lack of water or food. But of course that powerlessness is exactly what Hopkins character felt when nothing was done in regard to the murder of his daughter, or the multiple robberies of his vehicles.

So it is a one-man show for the most part, but when Hopkins shows up in person, it is clear he is having way too much fun playing another villain and savoring the chaos he’s imposing on his victim. The climax of the film does involve a lot more action than we’ve gotten in the previous 80 minutes, so the film is a Slow Burn but with a fairly satisfying conclusion. I can recommend it as an actor’s piece, and as a mediation on the injustice of our own justice system.

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March 13, 2025

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The Social Network (2010) Revisit

This movie was released the year I started blogging. I did not cover it then, because for most of my posts in 2010, I was devoted to the Summers of the 70s project I was working on. At the end of the year however, I did post a top ten list for 2010 releases and this movie was listed there. The quality of the picture could hardly be in doubt when it is written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. Fifteen years later, and twenty years after it became the ubiquitous presence in our lives, the story of the creation of Facebook remains compelling. The technical skills of the engineers is really just a side part of the story, the real driving force is the willful personalities of the founders and the motivations they had for their project.

The complex relationships and implied legal commitments are a fascinating history in how start ups come into being and people get rich or go broke in the process. The one factor that I want to focus on for a moment is not really related to the Facebook story per se. The setting of the foundations of Facebook is the Harvard University Campus. Obviously a prestigious institution with a well deserved reputation for producing excellence. It also has another reputation that is less flattering, that of a privileged class of entitled snobs who view others as beneath their consideration. Mark Zuckerberg as portrayed in the film by Jesse Eisenberg, is a great example of this in the opening scene. He snarkly  condescends to his girlfriend who is only enrolled at Boston University. You might think that this is just a personal failing of a brilliant student with social limitations that might put him on the Asperger’s spectrum, that is until you encounter all the other elitist behaviors depicted at the University. Elite clubs that engage in juvenile fraternity hazing rituals, parties filled with attractive girls from local schools who are interested in trading sexual favors for contact with the special elites at Harvard, and the entitled whining of  the children of privilege  when they don’t get their way. Maybe one of the reasons that some many people in this country have developed a distaste for the elites is that they have seen this movie.

Zuckerberg is a much more well known figure these days, and his time in the spotlight has probably tamed some of the quirks that are depicted in the film (real or imagined). The lawyers shown in the film are mostly despised by the character, who unwisely shows that distain in answering questions and conveying the kind of attitude that a jury in a civil case would punish like crazy. Trump got whacked by juries without ever having testified, imagine what would have happened had Zuckerberg out did the impervious Donald in front of a jury. As was made clear at the end of the film, his case was mostly damage control, and it was self inflicted. 

The film structure is primarily chronological with occasional inserts of later legal proceedings to add context and weight to the things that Sorkin and Fincher chose to emphasize. Eisenberg is terrific as the pig headed genius without the social skills needed to survive outside of the virtual world he lives in. Andrew Garfield as the best friend that Zuckerberg betrays was extremely convincing. Armie hammer plays the twin Winklevoss rival is believable as two distinct individuals. Justin Timberlake steals most of the scenes he is in as the repulsive Sean Parker. who created Napster and became a parasite member of the Facebook team. 

Seeing an older film in a theater reminds me of the original experience when I saw the movie the first time. It’s good to be impressed by a cinematic accomplishment in the cinema, rather than on TV. 

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February 27, 2025

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The Monkey (2025)

Okay, I have given writer/director Osgood Perkins two chances now, to show me something worthwhile  in his horror films, he has not passed my smell test. I could tell ten minutes into this film that it was a stinker, but that some people were going to like it. I had almost the exact same reaction to it that I had with “Longlegs”. The longer the movie went on, the less I cared about anything that was happening. The only element of this that I can say might work, are the gory deaths, which are shown in plenty of detail to satisfy anyone who only cares about how gruesome something can be. 

Horror movies ought to build suspense or dread. At the very least there should be a couple of jump scares to goose us into paying attention. “The Monkey” has none of those things. The main thing driving this story is the cynicism of the characters, and the depression that every one of the main figures seems to be suffering from. Twin brothers, abandoned by their father, inherit a  wind up toy monkey that appears to be cursed. That appearance is because every time the toy is wound up, when it finishes it’s musical performance, someone dies a horrible and grizzly death. No one cares why, no one really talks about it, and the fact that the dad ran away from it seems to suggest that the damage could be controlled is the toy is just left alone. There is a supernatural addendum as well, the toy can reconstruct itself. Whatever.

When the twins are younger, in their early teens, one is a bully and the other is a morose wimp who is bullied not only by his brothers but by a gang of girls, for no reason whatsoever. Once they realize the danger of the toy, it gets used once in an act of revenge that backfires, and subsequently, it randomly kills some others around them. The tone of the film is supposed to be nihilistically comic, but the laughs stopped coming for me early on. I can clearly see where the turning point for me was. A minister, delivering a sermon at a funeral is shown to be a naïf  idiot, for no reason except for an audience reaction, but not the audience in the church, the one in the theater. I was not amused and then spent the rest of the time continuing to be unamused. 

Theo James plays the grown up brothers in the second two thirds of the film. Timid Hal has inexplicably been married, had a child and continued to be a miserable trod upon person. The intervening twenty five years are not explained and what pushes the estrangement of Hal from his son is left up to us to imagine. Supposedly, it was to keep his son free of the curse, but why would he think he needed to do that since they were curse free for two plus decades? Bad Bill seems to want revenge, but why twenty five years go by before he seeks to extract it is also unexplained. All we know is that Bill seems to have started the Monkey curse again, and the people from their small hometown are the ones randomly paying for it. The climax of the film creates a series of grim deaths for multiple random people. In concept, some of those should be funny, but in execution, they just are there without an emotional payoff of any type. 

It is clearly the directors deadpan style that does not work for me. Fans of Jim Jarmusch may like this. It reminded me of his “The Dead Don’t Die“. Which by the way I also did not care for, but at least it had a point of view. This is an exploitation of cynical gore effects, without a story to back them up. The main characters were unpleasant, the deaths while inventive, were not shocking or scary, they just exist in this snow globe of body parts and viscera.