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December 13, 2025

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Hamnet (2025)

My immediate reaction to this film was to put it in the context of the award competing films for the year. It is of course a simple hyperbole to say that if “One Battle After Another” wins the Best picture award over this movie, I will burn Hollywood to the ground. This movie is so much more thoughtful, artful and well performed that it should be in it’s own category, to which the Paul Thomas Anderson movie is never given admission. I already said I did not care for that other movie in my review back in September, this film gives me another chance to diss that movie by making the unfavorable comparison.

Enough though of the movie I did not care for, let me sing the praises of this movie which I admire immensely. “Hamnet” tells us a two love stories and does so through a tragedy. Much like a Shakespearean work, the touching personal story of love is filtered through an event of tragic proportions. The screenplay divides the progress of the story into distinct acts, but they are not labeled that way in the film. Director Chloé Zhao, uses a simple black screen to transition from one segment to another, a technique that may seem alien to hyperkinetic films of this era, but one that keeps the focus on the characters and the story and not on the visual style of the director. There are plenty of other opportunities for Zhao to leave an impression elsewhere.

The first third of the film slowly introduces us to the two characters that form the center of the story. Paul Mescal plays William Shakespeare, who will one day be recognized as one of the most influential geniuses in history. The other is Agnes Hathaway, historically referred to as Anne and pronounced in the film as Annis. In a performance that defies the concept of  mere acting, Jesse Buckley inhabits this fierce woman, a healer from a woodsman background, who oozes supernatural maternal abilities and a romantic essence that far exceeds mere physical beauty.  I have been a fan of this actress since I saw her in “Wild Rose”, and although I have not cared much for some of the subsequent films she has appeared in, my qualms were never about her work. Here, she elevates the brilliant screenplay with a earthy personality and a strength of character that will live in you memory for a long time. That’s right, the spouse of the greatest playwright in history, is the character you will care the most about. That is not to diminish the performance of Mescal, who is also excellent, but to recognize that the character and the actress in this film are the core of the story. 

The love story between these two characters takes up the opening segments of the film. The second love story is the adoration that they have for their children and the love that the children have for them and one another. In spite of Will’s need to be in London for his profession, he maintains a strong relationship with the family he has left at home. That regular separation however becomes a keystone moment i the story when personal tragedy strikes. Will and Agnes are estranged by the bitterness that follows and the recrimination she bestows on him for his inability to be with them always. It is the hurtful expression of that failing that motivates the most well known and prolific plays, the tragedy of “Hamlet”. 

As usual, I don’t want to give too much away, but the two main characters have different coping mechanisms when facing death. Agnes has a naturalistic view of the afterlife that is not based in religion per say but in the folklore that she subscribes to.  There is a beautiful scene where the family commemorates the passing of her beloved hawk, a pet she has cared for over many years. That approach fails her when faced with an even larger loss. It is Shakespeare who finds a way for the two of them to remember their cherished loved one, in a way that keeps the promise that Agnes made to him. 

The story plays out slowly, with character details taking up more time than plot incidents. This is a film that is the antithesis of  action films these days, but also comedies and dramas. We have to understand the people in the story for the events to have their full weight. The methodical buildup of family relations, the measured pace of the life they lead, and the lingering moments of beauty in the film are not things that you will encounter very often in contemporary movies. Much to the detriment of the movie going experience. 

For more about this film, watch for this weeks episode of the LAMBcast.

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November 21, 2025

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The Running Man (2025)

The sense of relief I will have when this review gets posted is hard to explain. I have been as many as seven films behind in my goal to post on all my theatrical experiences. In addition to the number of films, there is the time delay from when I saw the movie to when a post finally went up, three weeks has been the longest I have ever fallen behind but now I am past that. This movie I saw two nights ago, and it will complete my most recent backlog of posts.

“The Running Man” was originally adapted for Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the 1980s. It was a pretty cheesy film, even for the times, but on a recent revisit, I thought it was much better than I remembered. The costumed killers that pursue Ben Richards were laughable, but they were fun. The themes of media manipulation and totalitarian control were however very nicely presented, and at least in the former, very prescient. This new version trods the same path, but with less wit and more complications than the original version had. It is however, still a lot of fun.

I have been a fan of Edgar Wright as a director for a while, the “Cornetto Trilogy” is a go to whenever I want to be entertained. I was disappointed when he walked away from “Ant-Man”, but I can still see the influence that he had on that film. I am a little surprised to say that the new version of the “Running Man” while certainly quite good, does not feel particularly like a Wright film. There are some particularly good stunt sequences in the film, but I did not find them as manically amusing as the chases in “Baby Driver” or the combat in “Scott Pilgrim”. They felt for the most part as if they could have been created by any of the talented action directors that churn out so many other films. My sense of heightened enjoyment was muted as a result.

Of the advantages that Wright’s film has over it’s predecessor, I would say the acting and the effects are the things that make this movie something you should see. I think Glen Powell is a solid actor, but his part here is too straight for the humor I was hoping for. Colman Domingo however leans into his role as the Network Host who can hype up an audience, bend the truth to stir emotions, and take what he is given and turn it into ratings. It was clear he was enjoying the part. The same can also be said for the most part for Josh Brolin, who as the network head with all the power, is venal, manipulative and gleeful while being so. Powell is not a weak link, his role is just not as strong during the chase sequences as it was in the first act of the film. 

The scale of the chase is vastly broader in this version of the story, and that helps quite a bit in making the film feel fresh. The special effects and video surveillance elements of the story are even stronger. While it does go over the top in the plane sequence in the third act, it was easy to believe a lot of the process of the chase in the main part of the film. The vehicles, weapons and media all project a near future that is believable.  The A.I. part of the story is to me, the most frightening element of the themes. Someone else can manipulate your persona with some technological wizardry. Unfortunately, that sort of technology is mostly available now and it is easily accessible. I see posts on Facebook that look like they could be Network Promos from this film. Reality is the victim in both the fiction of this story and in the contemporary world.

Because it lacks the outlandish characters of the 1980s film, this movie does not stand out from a bunch of other sci fi action films that have proliferated in the past couple of years. They are fine, but lack enough uniqueness to make them essential. This film is solid but you will find lots of films in the same milieu without even looking hard. 

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November 8, 2025

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An American Werewolf in London (1981) Panic at the Paramount

The “Panic! at the Paramount” series this year has featured several special presentations that required an additional admission fee past our membership subscription. That has been perfectly reasonable given the quality of the programming. This presentation of the John Landis classic, featured a Q and A after the movie with the film’s star David Naughton, who turned out to be quite the raconteur.  He told us a number of funny stories about the production and working with the special effects make-up of Rick Baker

This is another of the great 1980s horror films that initiated the practice of mixing humor in with the frights. Landis was the right guy to do this having a great background in comedy, having made both “Animal House” and “the Blues Brothers”. This film came out the summer I was working as a delivery driver for a photo supply company in Los Angeles.  One of the places I delivered to, printed movie posters, and I just could not manage to snag one for this movie from the stacks of them I had to walk by when making a delivery to the printing company. 

Jack and David are two college students, traveling through Europe on a summer excursion. They end up in a remote part of England, walking through a rural area, that is populated by a community living with a secret that casts fear over them. They are not particularly friendly natives and the boys are sent packing into the dark with a warning to stick to the road and stay off the moors. The humor had already started with the kibbitzing between the two young men, but it get more intensely humorous when they realize they have wandered off the road and they hear a howling animal near them. The tone shifts suddenly, and a horrifying bloody attack ensues. That is the pattern for the rest of the movie. A moment of levity is suddenly dashed by some horror, or a moment of terror becomes a joke in the hands of the actors and director. 

Rick Baker famously won the first Academy Award for the new make-up category, for the combination of prosthetics, puppetry and hair and make-up moments. The scene where David’s hand extends as it becomes a paw was shot one time. Landis called cut and print and was ready to go to the next shot, but Baker had spent months getting the effect ready and was not prepared to be done so quickly. As Naughton told it, Landis looked at Baker and asked, “Does it do something else” and the flummoxed make up master had to say no, and Landis simply said, “Let’s move on then.”

The use of pop tunes that evoked the moon was another early innovation. Tons of movies use “needle drops” these days, but in 1981, most films relied on original music for their cues. I can’t say that “America Werewolf in London” was the first to use them, but it is the earliest film I can remember that used previous record hits for the distinct purpose of highlighting a scene in the movie. Other films may have used popular songs as background, but this movie was using them as punchlines and energy points.

It might be fair to classify the movie as a romance as well as a horror-comedy. The lovely Jenny Agutter plays the nurse who takes a special interest in David after he is discharged from the hospital. Their love affair is a touching counter-point to the horror story that David is living through. His friend Jack makes frequent appearances in the film, after his character has died, and there are great visual jokes that go along with some gruesome imagery. This is another example of how gallows humor is injected into the story.

I have heard it said that the 1980s were the golden age of horror films. I think that may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but having experienced “Re-Animator”, Fright Night”, “The Fog” and this movie, all in the last month, I might be convinced. 

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October 24, 2025

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Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025)

I will tell you up front, especially if you are new to this site, I love musicals. The form is not as popular as it once was, but the ones that manage to make it to the screen are usually going to get some attention from me, even if I have reservations about the subject or director. Hell, if Ari Aster or Robert Eggers did a musical, I’d bother to see it. Fortunately, I don’t have those reservations about this particular film. I generally trust Bill Condon as a director and, although I never read the original novel, I am a big fan of the 1985 film that was based on it. William Hurt won the Academy Award for his performance as Luis Molina, and the film played the story straight as a political drama, with tragic outcomes. 

When the story was converted to a Broadway Musical, I was frankly confused. I could not quite imagine how this bleak story of two prisoners in a South American hellhole, would work as fodder for tourists visiting New York City. Even with the fantasy sequences extended, it seemed like a longshot at best. I never saw the musical version, which was quite successful, until now. It works really well as a film, and I would be interested in seeing a stage production so I could compare the way they transition between the two worlds presented in the story. 

There will be some comparisons here to the 1985 film, since that is my original experience. I actually purchased a Laser Disc copy in the last year because I did not own it in any other form, and the cover art is really nice. I rewatched the film and confirmed my impression from 1985, this was one of the best films of the year. So now it comes time to see the musical version in a screen format, and I have to say I was nicely impressed. The tone is a little old fashioned, but that’s ok, so am I. 

There are three things that are important to talk about here, the music sequences, the original story premise and the performances. The thing that I liked the most about the musical sequences is that they remind me of the dance numbers and songs from the 30s and 40s era films that inspired them. The camerawork is not ostentatious, it is just clever enough to give us some interesting views of the action taking place. For the most part, the scenes are shown in full screen shots with very limited edits. I’m not an expert, but I would be willing to believe that some of them were done in single takes from start to finish 9if not, then a nod to the editors who made it appear seamless). The settings are often elaborate in the way a musical from bygone times would be. There are extravagant costumes, interesting backgrounds, and colors that pop every time we go to the musical fantasies. Unlike some contemporary music, you could actually follow a melody in most of the songs. This was not a Sondheim tonal fest, but a throwback to films like “Cabaret” or “Chicago”. I wasn’t humming the tunes as I left the theater, but I could if I listened to them a little more. 

Bill Condon has stayed true to the political story, but there is one significant change. Molina, the persecuted homosexual that is cellmates with Valentin, the political prisoner, is revealed much earlier in the story as an informer for the warden. That limited my ability to build the requisite sympathy for the character for a lot longer time than in the 1985 film. The prison sequences are fairly grueling, and I was happy there there was no dance number to accompany the food poisoning diarrhea scene. The story is also set more clearly in the Argentina of the 1970s. The timing of events in Argentina are closely tied to the ending of the musical, where they were not as important in the 85 film. 

A Crappy Movie Poster Does Not Help

There are several changes in the story of the old film that Molina is recounting from his memory. Those allow the fantasy character played by Jennifer Lopez, much more of a role than Sonia Braga got. Lopez continues to be beautiful on screen and her singing performance is very good, with eight or so songs to perform, including the climax title song. She has the most impressive of the musical elements in the film. Her two costars, get something that the two stars of the 1985 movie don’t get, they have dual roles not only as the prisoners but as characters in the fantasy of the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman” as Molina is telling it. Diego Luna has the heavier role in the musical sequences as the romantic interest of the star Ingrid Luna (Lopez). Tonatiuh, the actor playing Molina, has the stronger role in the prison scenes. Both of the men are quite good in the jail set scenes. Tonatiuh plays Molina with less obvious femininity than Hurt did, and the more subdued reading of the character might be better for the story, but it will probably not sustain the attention that Hurt’s performance did. This may be a case where the authentic casting works against the need for the audience to suspend it’s disbelief.

So, the movie is old fashioned, put together professionally, does right by it’s socially important political story and the music scenes all work. So why is this film going nowhere fast with audiences? I guess it is just a different world. This movie could have been platform released thirty years ago, starting in prestige locations and then getting a wider release as interest grew. That is not the world we live in anymore, and the success of the movie suffers for it. If you can find it on the big screen, go for it, but my guess is that it will be PPV this week and streaming on a service next month. Too bad, because it would bring back some old fashioned glamour to a movie going experience. 

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October 10, 2025

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Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Apparently not everybody treasures Spinal Tap the way I do. “Spinal Tap 2:The End Continues” should have had a nice moderate run at the box office and been beloved by fans of the band. Instead it’s a neglected pebble on the beach, kicked out of the way by people who should be embracing it and ignored by the people who created it except for the four main stars, who are doing their best to try and sell the film in the face of public indifference.

Spinal Tap is a fictional band, but the music is real and the performances are live. Famously the structure of these movies is the framework that existed before the movie started but most of the material that fills it in is improvised by the stars themselves. Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest are joined by Rob Reiner returning as his fictional director Marty de Bergey. They all improvise and kibitz their way through a reunion concert that is filled with intrigue, and the usual antics of narcissistic rock artists.

The 41 years that have passed since the original film, have seen changes in the music industry, and the way films are made and marketed. Those changes must have been significant enough to render this film impotent in the face of the new World Order. I say that because I completely enjoyed this movie, and I laughed a lot. The only thing that I thought was missing were new original songs that might match up to the brilliance of the original soundtrack album. To compensate we get Cameo appearances by some big rock stars who sing some of the Spinal Tap Originals. Paul McCartney comes in during rehearsals and with his quiet respectful comments, he manages to antagonize David St, Hubbins. A perfect example of Rockstar megalomania gone to the extreme.

A much longer insertion into the story is Elton John, who not only appears in the rehearsal stages but shows up for the performance of the climactic song of Spinal Taps reunion concert, “Stonehenge”. Fans of the original will be anticipating disaster and they won’t be disappointed, although it’s an exact reversal of what happened in the first film. In between these appearances we had a series of drummers who rejected the idea of joining Tap for a one-off performance, which is understandable given the history of Spinal Tap drummers.

I talked about this movie a couple of weeks ago with some of the other Lambs on the LAMBcast, one of whom enjoyed it almost as much as I did, and the other found a few things to be entertained by but he was not as nostalgic as we were for the return of Tap. I guess his attitude reflects the modern world more than my own. It’s a complete shame to me that this movie managed to have such a minuscule box office weekend, and some other crap is going to pull in more simply because it fits into a genre that is popular in September. Oh well it’s a fine line between clever and stupid, the stars and director of this film fall on the clever side of the line, the audience falls on the other.

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October 8, 2025

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The Long Walk (2025)

I am a little tempted to let the trailer speak for itself. The vast majority of what is great about this movie is contained in this set up and concept. Stephen King came up with the idea when he was 19, and the youth of the cast and the premise show how a young man’s mind can work when it gets a good idea. The close of the trailer “There’s no finish line” is pretty great at setting up the sense of dred a film like this calls for. But, in spite of the fact that it is a King story, and that there is an overall sense of doom, the movie is less a horror film than an existential mediation on friendship, with a lot of death thrown in.

Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are the leads. Hoffman, who was great in “Licorice Pizza”, plays the outgoing avuncular young man who signs up for this brutal contest, with a hidden agenda. While he is friendly with everyone, he does keep his deepest thoughts to himself. Jonsson, who was the best thing about “Alien Romulus”, is equally friendly, and more forthcoming about his motivations. As a much more surface level character at first, he reveals greater complexity the longer they are on the road. The friendship that grows between Ray and Peter is at the heart of the film. How much of our hidden selves are we willing to disclose to another human being, when they may very well be the last person we ever talk to? 

There is a whole cadre of other character types, some heroic, some nefarious but all with a sense of desperation on them that may be off putting to some audiences. The other thing that may be a problem is that the film is a nearly two hour walk and talk. Literally ninety percent of the film is watching the kids walk down a road. You may not want the episodes of brutality that accompany each contestants fate, but it is a welcome change in perspective when they arrive. 

Conversation, if it is interesting, can be a perfectly entertaining acceptable form of film making, although it is a rare audience that will be patient enough for a movie where people just talk. As these boys walk the long march of death, they argue, joke, bond, reminisce, and otherwise find ways of moving forward. The idea of sleepwalking is brushed by quickly, so there may be legitimate questions about how this long trek works. There are some times when it is clear that King is attempting some sort of allegory about totalitarian societies. These mostly go nowhere and the flashbacks to earlier events do not feel as organic as they might. 

Two performances that will draw your sympathy and deserve a bit of notice are from Ben Wang and Judy Greer. Wang plays Hank, one of the contestants. He is incredibly confident and cocky, but otherwise appealing enough to become part of the core group of walkers. His desperation near the end of his screen time is a thing that will provoke pain and pity. Greer plays Ray’s Mother, the only parent we get to see since she lives in the state where the walk is taking place. Her two brief scenes connect the audience to the reality of the contest, much more than the other crowds or spectators that the walk draws.

Be forewarned that one of the most gruesome scenes in the film, involves a bodily function that is not normally engaged in while walking. The vividness of the moment and it’s unpleasant outcome will turn your stomach more than the fascism theme that is presented by Mark Hamill as the Major, who oversees the event. The film is quite thoughtful, but it is not as deep and meaningful about the world it takes place in, rather it plows the field of friendship and sacrifice, which all of us can understand. 

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September 26, 2025

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One Battle After Another (2025)

It is pretty clear that I am going to be on the opposite side of the canyon on this film. The echoes from the other side are likely to drown out my dissent, but I am used to that. In the past I have been on the minority side of “The Wolf of Wall Street”, The Shape of Water”, “Hereditary” and a half dozen more.  Being the lone voice of objection does not mean I am wrong, but it does mean that people I respect will be looking at my opinion askance, and wondering what is wrong with me. So let me provide a brief rationale before going into the specifics. 

Most of the time, I am a story guy. I care about the plot and want it to pull me in so I can connect with the characters and travel with them on their journey. Sometimes I can let a tone/attitude carry me, but that is a delicate task that requires truly hitting on something compelling. Another thing about me is that I like a rooting interest. There does not always have to be a hero, but I want someone in the film that I care enough about to hope they come out on top. I have enjoyed plenty of movies with anti-heroes, including Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Kruger and gangster pictures galore (Martin Scorsese provides plenty of these). Finally, I have some ethical/moral values that pop up from time to time. I may feel guilty about enjoying people die in the “Final Destination” films, but if the path there is interesting, I will live with the guilt.

“One Battle After Another” left me cold most of the time, angry in a few spots, and bored far more often than I ever expected to feel in a movie from Paul Thomas Anderson. I have seen seven of his previous nine films and two of those, “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” would easily make a top 100 list if I were doing one. That said, “One Battle after Another” is the first film from Anderson that I have loathed. It never is consistent in it’s tone, there is not a very interesting story, and the cartoon characters that are on the screen make Dirk Diggler seem like an intellectual. 

This movie contains enough provocative material to fuel the nightmares of both left wing nutjobs and their right wing counterparts. It seems at times to champion the unfettered immigration of one group of people into the country, and makes some of the presumptuous claims of intersectional narcissists the starting point for a conversation on the issue. When people on the right worry about forces that are trying to destroy the culture here, this would be the movie to feed their paranoia. Benicio Del Toro as a benevolent human trafficker has plenty of charm, but the comic book attitude he strides through the film with, does not work as the comedy that I think it was intended as. Meanwhile, for the people on the left, there is a deep state white supremacy group, not made up of drooling hillbillies and Nazi fascists but rather polite bigots who have meetings in secret board rooms and eat pancakes when they are offered. Anderson has constructed a group of facile racists, who look like and act like everyday people, except for their murderous commitment to racial purity. It is only at the end of the film that we get the usual trope of the shirtless, bearded gunman, drinking beer on the porch while a person of mixed heritage is handcuffed to a bench. Like I said, there is something for everyone in the political spectrum to see as the enemy and to feel mocked by as well.

Early trailers suggested this might be a comedy, but if that was Anderson’s intent, he forgot to bring the funny. The scene where DiCaprio’s character corrects his daughter on the metaphor of cards versus dice, is cut to a joke in the trailer, but in the film it just lays flat. It is another annoying point that “Bob” is making, which is too spot on to be clever. Leonardo DiCaprio playing a burnout is hardly new material. The stoner humor here is undercut by the character’s recognition of what he has done to himself. Is it supposed to be amusing or pathetic? Anderson bounces between both tones without much grace.  I will say the the scenes of him trying to clear a phone call without being able to recall the passwords, were one of the few times in the film that I could relate to his character. 

Speaking of characters, let me say the thing out loud that will probably get me the most criticized. There were plenty of characters that I wanted to see killed, pretty early on. By the end of the film, I was not sure that there was anyone left that I was glad had survived to the conclusion. Perfidia, Lockjaw and Jungle Pussy were characters that I wished into the cornfield ten minutes into the film. Only one of those characters got the onscreen death I was hoping for, but at least it happened twice (for no apparent reason). 

Anderson is usually a compelling storyteller, but there was nothing compelling about this story. It pretends to be about something and then it throws in a sexual kink for no particular reason. Sean Penn plays a malevolent character who has one distinct character feature, he can make himself get a hard on when he sees Perfidia. Otherwise, he is a Snidely Whiplash caricature who is hateful to both sides in the story. His slathering delivery of lines in his confrontation with Willa, the daughter of Bob ( or so we are lead to believe at first), is a hash of emotional overkill. He is better when he plays the fabulist who is a victim to a “semen demon” as he tries to finish off his interview to join the “Christmas Adventurers Club”, which has the one consistent joke of the members greeting each other with a ridiculous salutation meant to mock right wing Christmas conspiracy nuts. 

The best visualized scene is an escape made by Willa as she is pursued by two other cars across the deserts of California. The smartest thing anyone in the three hours of the movie run time does, takes place when Willa takes advantage of the road terrain that she is being pursued on. Anderson has the camera following the action as if from the front seat of a car, speeding up and down the bumps in a desert road. It is the only time that any of the many chase scenes in the film feels immediate and tense. There are a thousand other movies that have done this stuff more effectively and entertainingly (Crank/The Italian Job/Silent Night/28 Days/Weeks/Years) Anderson does not seem to be an action director, at least not by the evidence of this snooze fest. 

I was happy to see nuns handcuffed and on their knees. What does that tell you about the quality of the characters in the movie? The vicious sex pervert who is a revolutionary nut, also murders people and gets away with it by ratting out her compadres and then taking a powder on the authorities. Her burnout husband has been living guilt free of the numerous bombing that took place, and unlike Bill Ayers, has medicated himself to the point of incoherence. Frankly, the timing of this film is also a little problematic, given the recent attack on an ICE detention center in Dallas. This movie may be cursed. The positive notices that the film is receiving are largely projections of people’s political opinions. This may win a bunch of awards, but it will not come close to being popular with a wide audience, in-spite of the presence of DiCaprio. 

That’s my opinion, but I could be wrong. (No, I’m not) 

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September 20, 2025

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Him (2025)

I should have known from the trailer that I was not going to be a fan of this film. Everything in the movie is the antitheses of what football fans care about in the game. This film takes the fever dream rantings of a person like Colin Kaepernick, and turns them into an incoherent horror film that lacks any narrative and ignores the majority of the aspects of the game. It attempts to send a message about obsessive devotion to the game, through a vaguely supernatural Faustian myth. Although it succeeded at creating a tense atmosphere for the first half of the film, it undercuts those moments repeatedly by the usual trope of it being a dream sequence or hallucination. When the end of the film comes up, I wanted to laugh at the whole thing, and dismiss the elements of the movie that might have made it worth watching to start with.

So in fairness, let me say that the two stars, Marlon Wayans and Tyriq Withers are excellent. Withers is Cameron Cade, a college quarterback, getting ready to transition to the pros. Early on we see his childish hero worship of the game and it’s leading star, nurtured and mirrored by his father, who has passed on. It is never explicitly stated, but there is an implication that his father was killed in action while serving as a Marine. The background stereotypes of a nurturing mother, passed over brother and clinging agent, would be eyerolling if they were any larger part of the film. Everything outside of the scenario that makes up the main part of the story, is simply filler for the main event. Cam has the talent and skills needed to supplant his hero as the new hope of the Saviors, his favorite team, that is until a moment that could be the set up for a much better movie but is wasted on this.

 Isaiah White is the reigning G.O.A.T. of the football league in the film. White has won the league championship eight times and has a cult of worshippers. Cam could have been one of those fans if he did not have the enthusiasm of his youth and the drive of his father behind him. Marlon Wayans is the quarterback that seems to have recovered from a devastating injury, but at what price?  Isaiah is intense and takes Cam into his home training facility, to help him recover the edge that he seems to have lost from the earlier incident. Wayans plays the intensity with humor at times, and with ferocious antagonism at other points. Is he a mentor, a competitor or a predator? This was a good dramatic performance from an actor who is usually known for his comedic roles. His physique is also a key player in the movie, being pushed in Cam’s face as a standard to measure himself by.

The training field, recovery rooms and therapy locations, all feel real but they are set in a building constructed to look like a vaginal opening to enter, and then a series of fallopian tube hallways to navigate. The house feels like it was hewn from the stone that it sets on rather than being constructed on that isolated location. The lighting in every area except the field is mood lighting with a heavy accent on dark shadows. Earlier in the film, there was a similar sort of lighting on the practice field where Cam encounters the starting point of the strange journey. 

That’s it for the things to recommend the film (with the exception of s spinning football). The story that exists in this world is unfocused and relies on ambiguity to such a degree that you will feel as lost as Cam does on occasion. I have seen plenty of horror films that rely an ambiguity as part of the storytelling. From the 1970s, two films fit that mode perfectly, “Phantasm” and “The Brotherhood of Satan”. Ultimately, the lack of clarity in those films is cleared up by the way the stories play out. “Him” feels no need to clarify what is going on, in fact it doubles down on the murkiness of what is happening with a climax that contains things that would fit easily into the first parts of those old movies. There is a lot of mumbo jumbo about gladiators and earning your spot rather than buying it with a sacrifice that gets you there. Cam is supposed to spend a week with Isaiah, and for some reason, the film is structured with a label for each day. Unfortunately, the labels have nothing to do with what unfolds during the day. It feels like an attempt to dress the events in some profundity that is just not there. 

The last horror film that I laughed at, not for it’s intend humor but for it’s stupidity, was “Us”, a Jordan Peele film. Peele produced this movie, so maybe his sensibilities are occasionally suspect. I loved “Get Out” and “Nope”, but there is a flaw in the reasoning of the producer here.  Zack Akers,Skip Bronkie, and Justin Tipping are the credited screenwriters, so they are to blame for most of the boring story line that builds no tension and tries to let the production design do all the heavy lifting. Tipping is the director so he gets credit for the look of the film but also the blame for it’s lack of energy. Mood itself is not enough to create something interesting. 

I suppose this film might appeal to critics of football as a sport. The violent nature of the game and the risk of injury are lampooned with a sneer that will put off most people who care about the game. The satanic plantation mentality of the writers will also please those who see a game that is so economically successful, that it must be run by the devil. The owner of the team could play Lucifer in a Faustian story if this film were clearer on what it is saying. The closer we got to the end of the movie, the less I cared about the outcome. That is not the sign of a well written script. You will read about this film again on this site when I put together a list of the worst films of the year. There have been plenty of dogs in theaters in 2025, this one may be the biggest in the kennel. 

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You’ve Got Mail (1998) / Empire Records (1995) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series Double Feature

You’ve Got Mail

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were the epitome of screen couples in the 1990s. They made three romantic comedies together and all of them are worth a look, but my personal favorite is their last one, the Nora Ephron directed and co-written “You’ve Got Mail.” The film is a remake and update of the 1940 Classic, “The Shop Around the Corner”. It is extensively inspired by the then new phenomena of electronic communication. America On-Line (AOL) was the portal that most users of the internet in the mid to late 90s were found on. Instant messaging and e-mail were sparkling new toys that enticed people into communities, chat rooms and ultimately on-line relationships. 

Although the movie holds up pretty well when it comes to story, the technology has developed so much in the last thirty years that several things seem incredibly quaint to older viewers and foreign to younger audiences. The dial up tones for connecting to the internet have vanished and they are only a memory for early users of the internet. The notification in the mailbox that there were new messages, was probably useful in 1998. I recently covered “Eurotrip” on the LAMBcast, and the audio notification on e-mail there is quite different, just six years later. Of course today, if I had an audio notification for every new email, my phone would never shut up. 

The original film featured Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Hanks has frequently been compared to Stewart for his aw shucks personable style and open faced handsomeness. Of course he has a quick wit and can dash off a line with flare, which is different than Stewart’s deliberate and often halting delivery of lines. The two actors have different styles regardless of personality or physical similarities. Meg Ryan is completely different in her character than Sullavan was in the 1940 film. Kathleen is quiet and deferential at the start of the film, it is only after she gets advice from Joe Fox that she is able to actually confront Joe Fox. The realization that her words might be cruel, is a lesson that most people on the internet should learn.

This is a big spoonful of nostalgia for me. Like “Sleepless in Seattle” from a few years earlier, I experienced this movie with my late wife who adored it. The DVD was one of the first DVD purchases after we acquired a player late in 1998.  There was a promotional sale at “Comp USA” an long defunct computer store, which had a location about ten miles from our home and I remember driving over there on a Saturday, with the kids in the minivan, to buy the movie for the low price of $14.99. It has some Christmas sequences, but I have never thought of it as a Christmas movie. This is a romanticized view of New York Movie. It’s sort of funny that there is a joke about Rudy Giuliani as mayor because it was largely his policies that allowed the idealized view of New York to flourish in the 1990s. If this film had been made in the seventies, it would have been set in San Francisco rather than NYC.

Empire Records

This was a strange pairing for the double feature. The tone of the two films is very different, and although they came out in the same era, it is very clear that they were seeking very different audiences. “Empire Records” is the antithesis of “You’ve Got Mail” in a number of ways. Both films feature a ton of needle drop musical moments, but “Mail” is all about established and well worn songs and moods, “Empire” is contemporary and focused on clashing subcultures of music. The former is all about polish and smooth story telling, the later is chaotic and frenetic. 

A dozen characters are featured with storylines in the film. They are not background but main arcs of the movie. The film bounces around all of those stories and barely lets us know the characters, much less develop any affinity for them. The cliched stereotypes are the short hand way in which we are expected to connect with these young people. The store appears to have more employees than customers and all of the employees have quirks that are off putting to some degree, regardless of whether they have other traits that might endear them to us. 

I suppose it is the retail workplace setting that makes this combination of films feel any sort of theme between them. Both the “Shop Around the Corner” and “Empire Records” are businesses on the brink of collapse due to competition from newer business models. It is a little ironic that youth lead internet culture subsequently consumed both industries to a large degree. Books and  Music were first, but movies are in the same buffet, and will soon be swallowed up by on-line users who will be soulless and will crush the individuality of all of us.

This movie was not a success when it was released but it has become something of a cult film as a result of cable exposure over the years. I can see why. Watching this in a theater reveals all of the films flaws, and makes it a chore to get through. This is one of the few films I think works better on a small screen and at home viewing. You can tune in and out of the dialogue without losing anything because most of the dialogue is not very good. The sequences don’t really build on one another, so if you miss something while answering the door, going to the bathroom or getting a snack, it won’t matter. This is not a film that was mad for my generation, but it tries to take the attitude of a touchstone film from my era like “Caddyshack” or “Animal House” and apply it to the millennial audience.   Unfortunately, from my point of view, that is a fail. 

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The Outsiders (1983) Alamo Drafthouse Movie Party

In spite of the fact that “The Outsiders” was released in 1983 and was made by one of my favorite directors, it has only just dawned on me that I had never seen it. I have been to NYC twice to see the musical stage adaptation, and I own the Complete Novel Version DVD/Blu-ray of the film, so I thought I’d had this as part of my history, but while watching it, I came to the realization that this was a completely new experience for me. Knowing the story is not the same as seeing actors play out the roles on screen or watching a director make choices to emphasize one visual element over another.

I have been lax this summer in keeping up with my blog and the films that I have seen. Some of this passivity is a result of the large number of retrospective films I have been seeing, but an even bigger influence has been my devotion to the LAMBcast episodes and the videos, which take up a lot of my time and reprioritize my efforts. Which is why this post is both late and not as complete as I had originally intended. in the first few years of this blog, I wrote about the films I saw immediately after seeing the movie. Sometimes I would stay up into the next morning to get my thoughts down completely. That has not been the case for the last couple of years and since I don’t take notes, when a post goes up days or even weeks after a screening, I have forgotten many of the things I wanted to write about while watching the film. That has happened with this movie.

I know there were performance moments that I thought were great, but I cannot recall the images or nuances that struck me at the time. I do know that I thought the church fire scene worked much more effectively in this film than I was expecting. C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio were really strong in the film and this sequence was a standout. 

Francis Ford Coppola and his cinematographer Stephen Buram, captured the golden hue of the evening that matches the poem and the theme for Ponyboy at the end of the movie. In fact, the whole film does a nice job of creating the 60s era without over doing cultural images that give us a shorthand way of seeing the time period.  

The rest of the cast was also great, with Matt Dillon and Rob Lowe the standouts. Tom Cruise is in the edges of the film and his breakout role in “Risky Business” came this same year. Many of the cast members were reunited for “Red Dawn” the John Milius film of 12984, and they all seemed to play off of each other pretty well. 

If I see the film again, I will try to be quicker in writing about it so that you get a more complete picture of my experience. Until them Stay Golden.