Skizzerflake's Movie Ramblings - Reviews of the Stuff I See

→ in
Tools    





Jurassic World

It's hard to resolve the conflict between the part of me that rolls my eyes sarcastically at summer blockbusters, against the part that wanted to see the latest in the Jurassic series. Looks like the 9 year old won out this time. What do I need to say? You already know what happened. After all of the disaster, death and chaos that came from previous dino reboots…will somebody actually do it again? Is there somebody out there with enough scientific knowledge to re-create dinosaurs but who is also stupid enough to think that THEY can make a big enough fence? Stupid enough to think that the dinosaurs won’t escape and wish to feed upon thousands of also dumb-ass tourists who are naive enough to go there after the previous movies? Above all, are they stupid enough to make a bigger, badder version of T Rex through some sort of evil genetic engineering? As you have probably guessed from the trailers, the answer is to all of these questions is a resounding YES; there are dumb enough scientists to do this and dumb enough tourists to pay thousands to go to the Disneyworld of reptiles.

Not only that, but in one of those classic Spielberg conceits (families with complex issues), there’s also a mom with a troubled marriage who sends her kids to the island to be squired around by an estranged family member Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who works as an exec in the park, and is way to busy working to really spend any “quality time” with her nephews. Meantime, in another plot line, there’s an evil defense contractor Hoskins (a very rotund Vincent D’Onofrio) who wants to develop an assault squad of,,,guess what,,,trained dinosaurs, to clean out hot spots in the Middle East. Save American lives, he says, send velociraptors into Fallujah and they will just eat all the radicals and there will be no American body bags or weeping widows. And just WHO will be the likable character in this movie? Have you not guessed? None other than Owen, played by everybody’s favorite goofy, courageous, likable actor, Chris Pratt. Owen has trained some raptors (a little bit anyway) a he's a desirable property for the weapons guy.

You have probably guessed that the dinos get out, people are on the dinner menu, there’s lots or running, screaming and crashing (one of the staples of summer movies), some of the main characters will make it, some won’t. There will be a small (very small) amount of romantic spark between two of the characters (guess who…one is NOT D’Onofrio). There will also be some sort of reassuring ending, possibly with a hint of a sequel, lots of butts in theater seats and big $$$$ figures coming up on the box office. Nothing in the movie is a surprise. I don’t have to worry about spoilers because everybody already knows what happens.

Did I like it? The movie was directed by Colin Trevorrow, who was last seen in the very likable, small film Safety Not Guaranteed. He obviously watched a lot of Stephen Spielberg movies before taking on JW, Spielberg is one of the producers, and Trevarrow does a decent job carrying on the tradition. The movie moves quickly, not wasting much time on plot or character development, and goes right into what we all came to see, which is dino rampages. As for acting, does it really matter? As long as they can run and scream, they are good enough and this cast does that well.

I find Chris Pratt interesting. He’s sort of an old school Hollywood actor, not unlike John Wayne in the respect that he’s always the same character in all of his roles. Like it was with The Duke at the Alamo, Dodge City and the Chisum Trail, so it is with Chris Pratt in Parks and Rec, Zero Dark Thirty and now Jurassic World. When it was all over I did enjoy it, sort of. The FX are good, sounds are loud, there’s lots of dino carnage and when it’s over, it’s over and everything is OK for another day. I didn’t expect any more or less and I got what I thought it would be, so I walked out happy enough.






The Conspirator

Every now and again, I like seeing a movie that isn’t full of Hollywood BS, special effects and made up history. We saw The Conspirator a few years back (2010) in the movies and I liked it’s no BS approach to a very dramatic story in American history. I saw that is is available on Netflix and had to re-watch it. The story is set after the end of the Civil War, when President Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater in Washington DC. As any history fan knows, an intense manhunt resulted in the killing of the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, some days later, and the roundup of the band of misfit co-conspirators he assembled for other roles in his deed. In addition, the woman who owned the DC home that was used as a meeting place by the conspirators, Mary Surratt, was also arrested on capital conspiracy charges and a warrant issued for her son John, who had fled to Canada. This movie re-enacts the arrest, trial and execution of Mary and the three other men who were hung with her. This has always been a dubious chapter in American history, with different opinions on whether she was guilty, whether she deliberately sacrificed herself to save her son or whether she was just swept up in the need to hang a bunch of people, especially after Booth was killed and could not be put on trial. The trial of the 4 defendants was unique in American history, as it was a military court martial of civilians, not a jury trial. The trial would have stood no chance of standing up to any sort of legal appeal in any other time period.

The Conspirator was directed by Robert Redford, who, keeps a calm and somber atmosphere right from the beginning up to the end as Mary’s guilt and inevitable execution approaches. Surratt is played by a very somber, dour and calm Robin Wright who seems to keep all of her emotions to herself, revealing very little to either her jailers, her lawyer or the military tribunal charged with determining her fate. Her arranged lawyer Frederick Aiken, played by James McAvoy, is young, somewhat naive and eventually horrified at the kangaroo court proceeding that will hang his client, apparently for the sake of publicly enacted revenge. Other luminaries of the era, including Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline), Maryland Congressman Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) and tribunal judge David Hunter (Colm Meaney) are portrayed quite well, at least as I understand the characters from history. Among the other conspirators, the Lewis Payne (AKA Powell), the man who nearly gutted Secretary of State Seward, is the most menacing. Played by Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus, his role is small but his menace is big.

There’s not much sense in talking about spoilers since anybody who took American history in school knows how this story comes out; little dramatic license is taken. The movie is quite graphic about portraying the hangings of the conspirators, based on the numerous period photos that documented the event. The entire movie has an air of authenticity; it’s a carefully staged re-creation of those events. The acting, by all of the cast, is quite good, reminding me much more of a stage play than a movie. Redford’s role as director is completely invisible; there’s no style there at all except a straightforward telling of a story that is extremely dramatic itself. This chapter of history IS drama, if ANYTHING in the real world can be. Of course, it goes without saying that it’s highly recommended for Civil War buffs, but also for anybody that wants to spend a couple hours with a real story, done well. By the way, Mary’s actual house still sits on 604 H Street in DC, in a part of town that’s now a withering Chinatown, surrounded by encroaching offices and condos. It’s a restaurant called the Wok and Roll.








Infinitely Polar Bear

Our latest viewing, well outside the usual summer blockbuster fare, was Infinitely Polar Bear. This Sundance/Indie movie was written and directed by Maya Forbes, who also worked on Monsters and Aliens and The Rocker. I found myself in a quandary, having thought that the movie was well directed and excellently acted, but also not liking it very much, mainly because of the characters. The stars of the movie are Mark Ruffalo (Cameron) and Zoe Suldana (Maggie) and Imogene Wolodarsky and Ashley Alderheide (their young daughters).

It’s the late 70’s and Cameron is the offspring of a well connected and rich family in Boston. He’s a guy who devolved from a charismatic and mercurial hippie years before into a serious mani-depressive, complete with chemical habits. In 1978, he’s out of the hospital, after having spent some time as a near zombie due to over-medication. He has now been moved to lithium carbonate and is somewhat able to function in the world. Maggie is also a former part of his world, his ex-wife, who fell in love and married him when he was an impulsive hippie, but subsequently split from him as he became more dysfunctional. He wants to re-connect with her and their two energetic daughters. Maggie wants to go to grad school in the gnarly, scary New York of 1978 and thinks that a tiny apartment there would not be a good place for her daughters. The “obvious” solution to this (or at least it would be in a “feel good” movie) is for Cameron to take care of the kids while Maggie is in school; she will come home on weekends. Cameron has some very minimal support from his rich family and nothing else to do, so he sees this as a way to get back with Maggie. So…the kids move in and Maggie goes off to school.

Suffice to say, life with Cameron is a roller coaster. He’s not real good at sticking with his psych meds so he goes on marathon ups and downs. He might clean up and redecorate his entire apartment in a morning or he might stare at the walls for days. He loves his daughters, but his idea of parenthood is to get them all wound up or cuss at the top of his lungs at them and the world or god-only-knows what else. He begs his family for more money but they return icy indifference and disapproval. He correctly suspects that his patrician relatives disapprove of his mixed-race marriage and kids; he’s probably right; they have little interest. If you can get past all this drama, he’s a decent guy with good intentions, but he’s also like a big 5 year old with too much caffeine and sugar AND a driver’s license.

OK, you say, what did I NOT like? What I didn’t like and found not believable as a plot line, is that Maggie, who seems like a smart and good person, would EVER leave her daughters in the hands of this crazy, irresponsible guy. Cameron’s fossilized relatives are not far off when they remark, “is this about feminism?” Not only does she do it once for 18 months in grad school, but after that, this careerist woman, expecting bigotry in hide-bound Boston, wants to take a well paying job in New York that will leave her with not enough time for her daughters, so she does it again, even after being called by police and welfare officials about his behavior. She needs meds as much as he does. That very major plot element made the story not work very well for me; it’s hard to imagine her leaving her kids in that situation. A small gripe…about two years pass in the movie and the kids don’t grow. Elementary school kids grow and change on a monthly basis, these kids seem to have some sort of a growth hormone lock.

As for my ratings, it’s a solid 3, but not more. The acting by Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Suldana is excellent, rising way above what I have seen either of them do before. The kids were also excellent, full of cheerful energy, giving you some hope that their characters will rise above their parents’ dysfunction. Production was zero-FX minimal, but excellent for the story that is being filmed. Direction is spot-on, believable and seemingly real. Sound quality is nasty, but OK for a low budget movie that’s mainly dialog; no surround FX needed. My big reservation, as I said, is that I could not give credibility to the plot. It’s a seemingly realistic movie but not a realistic plot.






Save the Texas Prairie Chicken
I am happy when a history-based film (well, let's be honest - Civil War and/or Lincoln) comes out. I was looking forward to this one. I thought it was good. Very well-acted. Just not as good as I'd hoped. I don't know what I was expecting. I really don't. I wasn't overly fond of some of the casting choices (I thought Jonathan Groff as Weichmann was completely off - and do NOT get me started with the choice of Toby Kebbell as Booth - I know it was a minor role in here, but still.....). And I maybe interpreted it the wrong way, but the story leaned too much in favor of Surratt. I would've preferred something that would've allowed the viewer to make their own decision as to whether or not she really did it. I didn't really get that from this movie. It focused too much on what is thought of as the injustice that Surratt experienced rather than whether or not she was really guilty of something. And what I thought was odd was that it was based on the book The Assassin's Accomplice, which tends to do the opposite and lean more towards the possibility of Surratt being guilty of much more than people realize.

Now, I am not going to get into what I believe and don't believe. I just think Redford should have been a little less biased with the film. And if they used that book as inspiration, then they could have used any book - or basic history - out there and created the same thing.

Having said all of this, it is a good movie. Robin Wright is very, very good in the role of Mary Surratt. But she is one that is never even average, in my opinion. And I agree. It is a good movie for Civil War buffs, but it is also good for people just interested in general American history.

I passed by the boarding house on April 14th this year. I was driving out to the theater that night and I didn't even realize that I was in the neighborhood until I passed it. I never even gave it a thought to stop by there when I was there. Too bad when I think about it now. I was doing everything for the 150th this year.
__________________
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity - Edgar Allan Poe



I was OK with the way Mary was portrayed. The fact that she's so inscrutable for most of the movie worked. You could interpret it as guilt or that she was deflecting attention from her son or that she was a single mother hoping her kids would not get in trouble, but, in any event, the central drama is how pre-ordained the verdict was, in the spirit of "give them a fair trial and then hang them". Without John Surratt available to hang and with Booth dead, Mary had no chance, even though a woman had never before been hung on federal charges. I usually start rolling my eyes when a movie starts with "based on actual events", but this one was closer to real than most that make that claim. This story has a local resonance for me; most of the Booth family is buried close to where I live in Baltimore and I went to school with a Mudd who spent years in a quixotic quest to expunge the conviction of ancestor Samuel Mudd. You're right about the actor who played John Wilkes Booth; he didn't capture how charismatic Booth was, but that's another story. The story of the Booth family would make a great mini-series.



Save the Texas Prairie Chicken
I see what you are saying with how they portrayed Mary, but what I really want to see is a film showing how everyone was treated. I understand why people may get more worked up over her situation (for lack of a better word), but an awful lot of people weren't treated fairly either (I could even argue as to why, at least, two others shouldn't have been hanged that day). And then I would also like to see the creators of such a movie question why some were treated so unfairly while others were completely ignored. And I never have a problem with Stanton and/or Johnson being portrayed as men who use their "power" to their advantage. Again, though, I won't go into how I feel.

I was going to go to the cemetery when I was there in April (I've yet to visit Baltimore, anyway). I was also planning on going to Bel Air. But things just didn't work out as planned and it never happened. Oh, well. What can you do about it?

Well, not to go too much more into it (as this is your movie review thread ), but I, too, would love to see a miniseries of the Booth family. I would LOVE it. But do you really think it would ever happen? First of all, there were others to that family whose stories could be told. Second, they all had lives before that moment in history. Third, I would like to see the post-assassination lives of the family members. Fourth, I want to see the youth of JWB. I want to see how they would portray his life. I want to see if it would be honest and, yes, (dare I use the word?) fair. We all know he didn't end up completely "right" in his mind, but what triggered this? But I think any series about this family would be unlikely to happen. I know there was the film "Prince of Players", but that is, essentially, just about Edwin. Do you know if there ever was anything else filmed?



IMO, the early history is more interesting. JWB came from a very eccentric family background back to 18th century England. His father was quite a dose; one of the most celebrated actors of his era and an outrageous alcoholic. JWB was one of 10 kids, raised near Bel Air and in Baltimore in what's now Little Italy. 4 of his brothers and sisters died in childhood, and he had an intense rivalry with his more celebrated brother Edwin who used his influence to keep John out of northern theaters, hence his southern orientation. There is an excellent book on the family and John, My Thoughts Be Bloody, by Nora Titone. Most of the family (aside from Edwin) is buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, John's grave is unmarked but next to the others. It's frequently decorated with Lincoln pennies, head side up, a local tradition.



Terminator Genisys

Well, we broke down and did it…saw the latest installation of the Terminator franchise. At this point, it’s managed a 7.0 on IMDB but a miserable 27% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. In this installment, in 2029 John Connor (the savior/kid from the original movie) is still around. His mission in life is to prevent the launch of Skynet, a hugely massive iCloud on steroids and meth that actually possesses artificial intelligence which has decided that organic humans are no longer needed. Skynet is using a time machine to send back an Arnold Schwarzenegger clone to kill Sarah Connor before she bears Connor. Meanwhile future-Connor has sent back a friend and soldier, Kyle Reese, to protect Sarah. This is easy enough, however, until the time-travel demons intervene. Time has been altered, so now it turns out that Sarah has been protected since childhood by another Arnold, presumably the actual Arnold (who is showing his age), who has become rather paternal to Sarah. The overarching goal here is to eliminate Skynet, so the world can be safe until another sequel.

In case you have not guessed, who else would play the Terminator but Arnold. He is his usual Austrian accented monotone self (yes, he does say “I’ll be back” a few times), coming back from all sorts of dangerous situations, rescuing Sarah and Klye more times than you can count. Meanwhile we have those nasty T1000’s that are made out of something that looks like self-organizing mercury. Not matter how many bullets you shoot, how much you blow them up, burn them or reduce them to fragments, they always turn back into what they want to be. Now for the tough part. Sarah Connor is played by Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), an actress who looks NOTHING like the Sarah Connor of previous movies. I know that the prequel time line is supposed to be before the old movies and she’s younger, and yes, I know that Linda Hamilton doesn’t wear her age well and could not play the role, but really. Clarke isn’t the lean, buff Hamilton of 1984, she doesn’t bear any resemblance, doesn’t do anything that makes me think she’s the new/old Sarah…it just doesn’t work.

As you expect for a summer action movie, Genisys is dominated by running, shooting, stuff blowing up, and in this case, lots of careful animations of T1000 melting back into shape after being shot, eviscerated, decapitated or whatever. When it’s over, the past version of Sarah is safe for the moment, free to bear John, presumably with Kyle, so Skynet can be stopped in humanity pulled from the trash bin. The FX are great, action is continuous, you won’t be bored. That part is clear, but what is not clear, is anything else. This movie combines the Frankenstein theme of out-of-control technology with the logical absurdities of time travel. The writers laid it on really thick, trying to make clarity out of this mashup, trying to explain how the two timelines mesh, how all this makes sense, but they do not do that well. The plot and its machinations are a mess. Unless you are smarter than I am on time travel, you will have to get through the movie on the action and the resolution alone.

I did sort enjoy it, so it’s not a complete waste, but damn, what a mess. The acting isn’t any better or worse than you might expect but nobody there will be in contention for an Oscar. Arnold is Arnold, no more needs to be said. Jason Clarke is mostly pretty flat as John Connor; I don’t know why anybody would follow him as a leader. Jai Courtney is OK as Kyle Reese, but also a flat role. Emilia Clarke is OK, but nothing more as Sarah. I can think of a lot better reasons to be in a theater, but I’m guessing that reviving the Terminator once more for old time’s sake makes for a good box office.






Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

I guess I should give up now. I looked at IMDB reviews for Rogue Nation and see these “10” reviews - “Best Cinema Ever Anywhere”, etc, and I know that I’m outvoted. We saw it last night, and while I enjoyed it and was on the edge of the seat for 2 hours, I have to admit that “best movie ever” isn’t exactly how I would describe it. My quotable would be more like, “A little confusing, but not a bad roller coaster ride” or something like that. The damnation of being in the middle of the pack.

In case you’ve been hiding under a log, the IM force has been disbanded by a snarling crew of politicians who meet in a dark room with desk lamps shining on their faces, due to some minor blow back from previous missions, one of which left the Kremlin on fire. The CIA, led by nefarious Alec Baldwin (Alan Hunley) is going to subsume the IM force, including its superhero, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his wise-cracking crew William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames). When the flick begins, the IM force is about to become goons in a room full of goons staring at computer screens.

Fortunately, just in time we have a new super-villain - Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), who is compiling some sort of massive amount of cash, assassinating world leaders and who is the leader of The Syndicate, a shadowy group consisting of a number of spooks from around the world, all of whom are thought to be dead….but they’re in The Syndicate now. We also have a British agent, the ravishing and deadly Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who works for the Brits… or does she work for evil Solomon… or does she have her own agenda? We will find out. Most of the action centers around a super-advanced server farm in Morocco which plays host to critical information needed by the Syndicate, or whoever is about to defeat them. Needless to say, it will take a superhuman effort to stop this evil plot, but, even though the IM force is disbanded, you can’t keep a good bunch of pals from doing what’s right to save the world as we know it. You also can't keep Ethan from being superhuman.

I won’t tell much about how this works out but because it would be a spoiler and, because there are so many twists, double crosses, triple crosses, quadruple and quintuple crosses, that I’d need to fill many pages. I will say that, even if you don’t get all of the twists and turns, you always know that you should root for Ethan…he’s always the good guy, so forget all the rest. Will there be some romantic friction between Ethan and Ilsa? Maybe, but I could not get past either how robotic Ethan is and how deadly Ilsa is…that would make a strange bed scene. As for acting - really, what do you expect…no better or worse than it has to be to deliver the short lines. Not much acting goes on here, especially the Android known as Tom Cruise…just the usual clipped lines in an action movie. As for action - quite excellent, edge of the seat stuff, not as digital as it might have been, a lot of it looking like more traditional and dangerous FX and, quite good. As for plot, as I said, confusing, but really, all you need to know is that Ethan is good and Lane is bad. The rest is just there to confuse you. If you’re in the mood for a summer action movie, this will probably make you happy. I’m not one of the fan boys who will pronounce it to be the new Citizen Kane, but you could do worse, in fact, many summer movies have been much worse. I’ll give this one a solid 3.5. To be a 4, it would have to have some content, but the hyperkinetic relentless action keeps reminding you that you’re not in the theater for content. It does have at least one rubber mask scene, and it still has the great 10/8 beat Lalo Schrifin musical theme (recite to yourself quickly, over and over, 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 1-2 1-2). Writing and direction is by Christopher McQuarrie, who must have been a very busy man making this movie. Go and enjoy it.






Mr. Holmes

Feeling overdone on “Summer Blockbusters”, this was the week to take in something different. Our local art house was showing Mr. Holmes, a new sequel to the old Holmes movies, featuring Sherlock at an advanced age, tying up the loose ends of his life and suffering from progressive memory loss. It’s 1947 and the 93 year old Holmes (Ian McKellen) has been retired for a while, is living a quiet, rural life, is trying to sum up his last case, but has memory lapses. He is living with a housekeeper, Ms Munro (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker).

This is a complex story, taking place in several different times; the movie cuts back and forth between them. When the movie begins, Holmes has returned from Japan where he was in search of a special prickly ash concoction that might help his memory and vitality, after previous potions have failed. That trip had complex origins, based on events that happened years ago, before WWII between Holmes and a Japanese man. His quest takes him to what remains of Hiroshima, where Holmes is horrified at what he sees.

Holmes is also very concerned about wanting to set the facts straight about his last case, which had been written up by Dr Watson (now deceased) with incorrect facts. Holmes also spends much of his time beekeeping, a pursuit that creates a bond between him and Roger.

In his last case, Holmes was contacted by a concerned husband who suspects something that is strange about his wife’s behavior. When Holmes shadows her, sees her buying poison, forging checks that allow her access to her husband’s money and generally appearing to be in preparation for murdering her husband. Seeing what she seems to be up to, Holmes urges the woman to patch things up with her husband, but this is not to be.

Back in the present, Ms Munro, seeing the approach of Holmes death, is planning to move to another situation, leaving Holmes and ending her son’s grandfatherly relationship with him. An accident intervenes, however, when Roger is found collapsed, having been stung many times and being near death. Holmes’ is also in obvious decline too, putting Ms Munro in a difficult situation. How do all of these plot elements resolve? Suffice to say, they do, in the style of a meticulous Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Mr. Holmes really is the antithesis of the summer FX blockbuster. It’s a quiet, methodical story that is just SO English. The English countryside where Holmes lives is beautiful in a quiet way that befits the style of the story and the movie. The director is American, however, Bill Condon. The only other film of his I have seen was the equally interesting and very English Gods and Monsters, the story of the last days of Frankenstein director James Whale. Cinematography (Tobias Schliessler) is also terrific in a low-key way. It’s beautifully lush but never distracts from the focus of the movie, which is the story. The same goes for the music (Carter Burwell), which fits so seamlessly into the film that you hardly notice it (meant as a compliment). There’s a lot to like in this film, if you ever liked anything about Sherlock Holmes. It’s a fine end to his sort of deductive detective work; a case where Holmes is the detective for the events of his own life. If you’re not quite ready to dive into Ant Man, if you’ve had enough of Mission Impossible and Tom Cruise, and are not optimistic about the Fantastic Four, if you need a break from all of that FX and fast-cut action, this could be the movie to give you a break. Based on my observation and the credits, it appears that Mr. Holmes had NO (repeat NO) digital rendering anywhere. Ian McKellen is terrific as the ancient Sherlock, made up to look even older and more wrinkly than he is in real life. Laura Linney, as usual, is excellent in an invisible sort of way; she’s an actor that you see but often can’t recall who she is; she disappears into a role. Milo Parker (Roger) is also amazing, a kid actor who really a seems to have absorbed a rather complex and subtle role. Mr. Holmes is a film based on a complex script, well acted, simple props, and basic theatrical make-up, as I said, the antithesis of a summer movie. I enjoyed it.






The Man From U.N.C.L.E

The latest chapter of the 60’s revival - summer movies - The Man From U.N.C.L.E is now showing in a theater near you. Hold on to your patooties, it’s time for another trip to the time of mod clothes, no personal electronics, cold war spies and big conspiracies. In this one, we have a prequel to the TV series of the same name, the setup of the two main characters, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) and the introduction of a third, Gabby Teller (Alicia Vikander), presumably for some gender balance. Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, TMU holds to the tradition of that time, having larger-than-life villains with world-threatening schemes.

In this case, the latest threat to the world is some post-Nazi bad guys who have a lot of smuggled Nazi gold and a scientist (Gabby’s father in fact) who have cooked up a recipe to make quick, cheap nuclear weapons. The CIA and the KGB are not on speaking terms, but both are scared sh*tless about this. They have arranged to have a link-up between the CIA’s soldier-turned-superart-thief Napoleon Solo and the KGB’s super-soldier Illya Kuryakin. Both want plausible deniability so the plan to have them work together is an even bigger secret. Gabby (from British Intelligence) is the link between the two of them.

The villain, in this case is, Victoria (Elizabeth Debicki), a slinky, well dressed viper of a woman, who is using everybody else to get her evil clutches on the plan for the bomb. As you probably expect, there is a big chase scene, people are knocked on the head or drugged and the most high tech gadget is a device with an antenna that makes funny noises. Oh, and by the way, in a major blooper, the cast keeps referring to the plans for the bomb as being on a “computer disk”, while it’s plainly visible that the object being referred to is a tape reel, but, I’m guessing that the writers assumed that younger viewers would not know what a tape reel is….right? It’s a strange blooper…I’m not old enough to have direct experience, but I know what a horse and buggy is so I’m guessing that a 16 year old would know what a tape reel is, especially in a movie that’s so full of retro-references. Another curiosity is the choice of a Nazi named Teller (father of Victoria) as the inventor of this bomb. As we know, one of the most well known defected scientists on the American bomb project was Hungarian Edward Teller, who definitely was NOT a post Nazi criminal. Why they chose this name when they could have picked something suitably German and neutral like Schmidt baffled me.

As you probably expect in a summer movie, characters are of the sort that can be fleshed out in a MacDonald’s commercial, dialog is minimal and clipped and the plot is predictable. The world has to continue at the end, otherwise how could there ever have been the TV series that this movie sets up? That’s always the problem with a prequel…you know right up front how it will end, in this case with a partnership between Solo and Kuryakin AND, the organization known as U.N.C.L.E.

Nevertheless, the movie is fairly entertaining. It drags sometimes, but it keeps moving fast enough to remind you that it’s summer. The amount of digital rendering is relatively small, since all of the cloak and dagger stuff is 60’s stye…no technology more advanced that a walkie-talkie and a tape reel (not a disk); no spacecraft or resurrected dinosaurs, but with plenty of car chases, even a slow-motion one with with the dreaded East German Trabants. My favorite part was the 60’s clothing and decor re-creation, women wearing those mod dresses with plastic mushroom shaped hats with little visors and guys with perfect “Mad Men” suits and hair. My other favorite re-creation is a race track scene with 60’s formula one cars. One car that passes by (not a formula one) is the current most expensive car in the world, a Ferrari GTO from the mid-sixties, which makes a cameo. These things are worth more than the budget of this movie, about 150 million. Nobody is going to take home any acting Oscars for this and the direction is pretty much by-the-numbers, but it’s not too bad for what it is, a retro exercise, well populated with period elements and a plot that makes you nostalgic for the good old days of the Cold War.






The Gift - Suspense, Old Style

Last night’s flick was The Gift, written and directed by co-star Joel Edgerton. The Gift is on old-style Hitchcock meets Film Noir sort of story, the kind where, within a couple minutes, you know that this story is not going to end well for someone. Just who it won’t end well for, and why, makes for an interesting, edge of the seat, low tech film that revels itself in tiny clues, suspicion and half revealed facts. If it were not set in contemporary Los Angeles, it would seem almost retro.

The story begins innocently enough, with cute couple Simon (Jason Bateman) and his wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) relocating from Chicago to LA to advance Simon’s ambitious climb up the career ladder. Simon grew up in LA, so it’s a return to his old turf. They also seem to be leaving Chicago to get to a new environment and get a fresh start. Simon and Robyn’s recent past includes a lost pregnancy, a sensitive fact that is not mentioned at length, but which is important for her. While on a shopping trip to outfit the new house, the couple runs into Gordo (Joel Edgerton), an old friend from Simon’s high school who seems to appear out of nowhere. Simon seems reluctant to meet the ingratiating Gordo and seems to be covering up something about the past. Gordo, however, is bringing gifts, showing up at their house, being evasive about his life, impressing Robyn but generally making both Simon and the audience feel like there’ s a rising creep factor. Simon relates to Robyn that Gordo was referred to as the Weirdo in school and that it would probably be better if they kept some distance. Things get tense again when Gordo invites Simon and Robyn to a dinner party at his large, expensively decorated home. The other guests do not show up and subsequent events reveal that the home does not even belong to Gordo.

Months pass, Robyn is pregnant again, Simon has been promoted and Gordo is mainly out of the scene, apologizing in letters about the dinner party deception, but…he’s back again. Fish for an outdoor pond, given to Robyn and Simon by Gordo, die and their dog disappears. This is where it gets complicated. Gordon does seem to be very high on the creep scale, but then Simon is also evasive about what happened years ago. The more Gordo cranks up the tension, the more it’s clear that Simon has secrets. I won’t go any further than what’s in the trailer.

I thought this was an excellent, edge-of-the-seat thriller, well rooted in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock. Your suspicion starts early, builds as the plot thickens and doesn’t relent until the credits roll. It’s Edgerton’s first try at full length directing and a fine one. Jason Bateman, as Simon, seems to share a lot of mannerisms and attitudes with his great TV character, Michael Bluth (Arrested Development), except that he’s not funny and his dark side is much more in evidence. Rebecca Hall, as the initially happy and progressively terrified Robyn, brings a lot of believability into both parts of her role…the happy wife and the scared, pregnant mother-to-be. Egerton really dives into Gordo the Weirdo, being at different moments, innocent, pathetic, scary and calculating. Having grown up as a fan of the Hitchcock brand of suspense as well as being a Noir film lover, this movie was really right up my alley. The action is slow, calculating and relentless, full of clues and false leads, violence and FX is minimal and the Hitchcockean end leaves you with questions that may or may not be answered. One of my tactics in watching a movie like that is to think that, in that situation, I would have behaved better than the characters and hence avoided all of this turmoil. I don’t know if that’s true, but I kept telling myself that until the guys came by to sweep up the popcorn.






I'm really looking forward to The Gift; it looks like something right up my alley.

On the other hand, I have no interest in a PG-13 movie from Guy Ritchie so I'll skip The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Nice reviews!



Save the Texas Prairie Chicken
I like seeing that you've given "The Gift" such a high rating. I was afraid that it might be one of those movies that look really good, but then all the good scenes are in the trailer/commercials and the movie is actually very mediocre. So this makes me look forward to seeing it even more now.



Trainwreck - A Judd Apatow Comedy

A distinct change from summer action and superhero fare, our last cinematic voyage was Trainwreck, starring and written by Amy Schumer with co-star Bill Hader. It was produced and directed by Judd Apatow, so if you are guessing that the raunch coefficient was fairly high, you’d be right. It’s sort of a Romantic Comedy/Horror movie, at least in my opinion. Anyway, “Amy” (played by Amy) has been convinced from an early age by her father’s philandering behavior, that monogamy sucks and has been out to bed-hop her way through life, being sure that monogamy will never entrap her. Her behavior is getting old, as you would suspect in a Rom-Com. She’s a journalist, writing for a fairly trashy but high-profile magazine, run by an insane bitch Dianna (Tilda Swinton), and her latest sink or swim project is to interview a prominent surgeon Aaron (Bill Hader), a celebrity with a scalpel who fixes the knees of half of the NBA and NFL.

As it turns out, Aaron is really a nice guy in addition to being a good surgeon. He’s the favorite of LeBron James (playing himself) and other sports stars. He doesn’t have a celebrity personality and genuinely wants to do a good job, a big surprise to Amy. Some sparks start to fly, and before long Amy is adding Aaron to her long list of bed partners….but this one’s sorta different. Unlike most of her partners, Aaron likes her as a person and doesn’t seem to be just exploiting her for utilitarian, impersonal sex. Amy doesn’t understand that very well, since she’s used to sex being quick and dirty, with nothing additional to complicate her cynicism. As you probably expect in a Rom-Com, the relationship has to get complicated before anything can be resolved; this Rom-Com doesn’t change that convention. Amy’s conventional sister is encouraging her to settle down and Aaron wants more commitment. Amy doesn’t know how to deal with that. You probably already know that these sort of formulaic movies have one of several predictable outcomes, but in the name of not spoiling, I won’t say which one it is.

Did I like it? Well, sorta yes, sorta no. When I said that it’s a Rom-Com/Horror movie, what I meant is that, if you did date or like Amy, your life would become a horror. She’s such a destructive and self destructive character that, all through the movie, I wanted to run up on screen, grab Aaron by the elbow, and drag him off screen, away from Amy…send him back to fixing sports knees. I don’t know much about Amy Schumer personally, don’t know if she’s doing the time-honored thing of writing a character who’s like her, but damn….if she is, I wouldn’t put it out in public. She’s not a serial killer or anything like that, but she IS about the last person I would want to date. Life would be a perpetual drama. Characters like that populate the world of Judd Apatow, who seems to run a University of Dysfunction, but Amy IS quite a dose. I enjoyed the laughs in the film, Amy plays “herself” quite well, and, as usual, Bill Hader does an excellent job of creating a character, although I do miss him as Stefon and Vincent Price on SNL. The rest of the cast is OK and I can forgive the wooden acting of the sports guys playing themselves. I would not rush to the theater to see this, but it’s amusing enough if your expectations are not too high. It’s a solid 2.5 on my scale, if that ambivalence makes any sense at all. Rotten Tomatoes has it as an 85 for critics and 74 for users but that seems like quite a stretch to me. I’d be somewhere in the 50’s.






The Visit - Is M. Night Shyamalan really back?

It’s been a while since the auteur sometimes known as “Midnight Shyamalan” has been present and accounted for. Way back in the early 2000’s, he scored several big hits, especially with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, all movies laden with strangeness, clues, foreshadowing and twisty endings. After those hits, things started to turn sour and subsequent movies didn’t do so well. His latest, The Visit, gets off to a strange start when a single mom, abandoned suddenly by her “loving husband” several years ago, sends her kids packing, with cameras computers and Amtrak tickets, to spend a week with her parents while she parties on a cruise ship. They are to spend a week with her parents in Nowhere, Pennsylvania, way out on the farm in an old house, in the winter and fog. “Mom” (Kathlyn Hahn) has not spoken to her parents in 15 years after some sort of mysterious, acrimonious break, but thinks that her kids need to get to know them. Hmmmmm. Her kids are amateur videographers, making a movie about their trip, somewhat like what Shyamalan did when he was a kid. The grand parents are well regarded people who do volunteer counseling in a local hospital.

Being a “Midnight” film, you probably already know that things are not going to go well. The old folks are welcoming, cookie baking, wood chopping retirees, with a nice old historic house in the woods, no TV, no cable, no cell phone reception, but somehow there is internet in the house so the kids can Skype their partying mom. Well….things just go downhill from there. There’s nothing to do and the house rules are lights out at 9:30, doors locked, no going outside your room. It quickly becomes apparent to the kids (who are documenting all this in their movie) that the old folks are really strange. “Nana” creeps around on all fours, runs naked around the house after dark and Pop-Pop saves his poopy diapers in a pile in the barn. It only gets worse from there as the fiction that they are well adjusted retirees evaporates while the kids still have 6 days to go. Some discussions between the kids and the grandparents reveal that Grandma is in early dementia, suffering from “sundowning”, which causes her to get weird at night (hence the 9:30 lights out rule). Pop-Pop is incontinent, and somewhat obsessive. Yeah, but….that’s only the beginning. Crazy grandparents, out in the country, nobody knows you’re there, Mom’s on the party cruise…the kid’s movie is not going to be fun. As you might expect from a Shyamalan movie, there will be a twisty ending that resolves all of the strange clues that you’ve been trying to figure out.

Is Shymalan back? Did you ever like his old movies? Well, I did like Sixth Sense for one viewing (once I knew the end, there was no need to see the movie again) and enjoyed Signs. Those and The Village were filmed partially around Doylestown, PA and Delaware Valley College, a place that’s familiar to me, so I had some interest there. Today’s question, however, is whether I liked The Visit. No that much really. It’s sorta tense, but the thrills are mainly of the cheap bump-in-the-night sort. The plot had very little credibility, like what mom would really send her kids off like that after a 15 year break, to parents she hasn’t even spoken to? The grandmom’s problem, sundowning, is a real problem for people with dementia, but it begins at sundown, which comes about 6:00 in southern PA in the dead of winter, not at 9:30. The house is completely off the grid, but the kids are Skyping their mom. When it does become clear what’s going on, that’s just a cheap horror movie device too. I expected better, but didn’t get it. The horror component just isn’t that scary and the plot is full of holes. Acting by the kids (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) is the best part of the movie; they are good at being terrified. The old folks, Nana and Pop-Pop are competent in their creepy decay and Mom is adequate at being a jerk. I found a lot of the super close-up, first person, shaky-cam cinematography (presumably the kid’s video footage) to be really annoying, without any benefit to the story. A more solid, conventional approach to the story, with conventional cinematography would have made a better movie. The movie got many more audience laughs than it did screams. Oh well, not this time for Midnight. I’m giving this one a 1.5. I’ve seen worse, but not this year.






Black Mass - Is Johnny Depp back?

In recent times, I have seen several of those web sites that draw you in from Facebook, and a couple of them have had lists of Hollywood actors who have become box office poison. Johnny Depp had entered those lists, so he needs a movie that can be a comeback. If I’m right, Black Mass might be the beginning of a comeback…probably not the whole thing, but a good start. In Black Mass, Depp plays real-life South Boston Irish gangster Whitey Bulger, a guy who challenged the Italian mob for control of various vices in Boston several decades ago. Bulger not only challenged them on the street, but also became an FBI informer, feeding them information they could use to bring down the Mafia. In addition, Bulger’s brother was a leading Massachusetts politician, a respectable, Kennedy-esque guy who shares meals with Whitey on holidays but does not share any of his behaviors or “friends”. At this point in real life, Bulger is serving multiple life sentences, having been convicted on several of his many murders.

Johnny Depp plays a cold-eyed Whitey, Benedict Cumberback is his respectable brother Billy, Joel Edgerton is John Connolly, a fellow “Southie” and FBI agent who recruits Whitey as an informer. Kevin Bacon also appears as supervising FBI agent Charles McGuire. The film was directed by Scott Cooper. My other experience with his films was Crazy Heart, from 2009 which I really liked. As gangster movies go, Black Mass avoids the whole Godfather thing, which placed these guys as operatic characters in an epic drama and tends toward something more like Goodfellas, namely gangsters as sociopaths. Way back, when I was studying clinical psychology, I recall that there was a distinction made between ordinary sociopaths, who are simply malignantly narcissistic, and have no normal human relations and gangsters. Murderous gangsters sometimes are a variation on “regular” sociopathy in that they have loyalty to family, the people they see as friends and often to a social group, in the case of Bulger, the Irish-descended people of South Boston. Bulger mostly confines his murders mainly to outsiders, gang opponents or associates that he sees as having betrayed him.

Black Mass is a fairly slow, tense, personal movie, with some brutal violence, but not an action film. The film focuses on Bulger’s relationships with family, his brutal business dealings, the slow and methodical investigation that brought down some of the organized crime that plagued Boston in the 1970s and 1980s and the very slippery slope that connected Bulger, and the FBI investigation that used him as an asset and that wanted to slam him too. Throughout the investigation, the FBI thought that Italian mob was a higher priority, but ultimately, they wanted to bring down the Irish once they were finished with the Italians. Bulger cooperated in order to rub out his opponents, while hoping to use the shady investigation to protect himself. The tension this breeds in the film is relentless, as is the malignant coldness of Bulger himself…violence is always just an instant away. That said, as gangster movies go, it’s not excessive on action or violence; most of the tension comes from the constant threat.

Because Bulger is an actual person who is still alive, it’s hard to judge Depp’s portrayal without knowing more about Bulger than I do. As a character in a movie, Depp’s version of him is cold, calculating, manipulative and scary. He’s not physically impressive but Depp’s Bulger has that fearless, unblinking and uninhibited attitude that can often intimidate people much larger and conventionally threatening. Every time he walks into a scene, you fear that something is about to happen, you don’t take your eyes off him and you breathe easier when he’s gone. As for co-stars, Cumberbatch and Edgerton tried to shed their British accents and act like Southies, with some success. In the authenticity department, none of the main characters seemed to have the right accent and all of them were somewhat different. Fortunately, I didn’t see the movie for the authentic accents. The narrative timeline is confusing sometimes as the film spans a number of years and includes flashbacks. At 2 hours and 2 minutes, the movie feels longer than it is, mainly because I was anticipating being out of the presence of Whitey…such a creepy character. I give this one a solid 4, and excellent crime story that avoids excessive reliance on action and car chases. It’s mainly an actors’ film, done quite well. I don’t know that I exactly enjoyed it as much as I thought it was excellently done. I was somewhat surprised to find see that our local cineplex had it on two screens simultaneously, that one screen was sold out and the one we got into was nearly full. I’m guessing that this movie will be a big hit and a relief to fans of Johnny Depp. Don’t miss if if you like these sort of stories.






The Intern - Not too bad for comedic fluff

We have been seeing the trailer for this for several weeks and thought, maybe…time for a silly comedy. The Intern seemed to fit the bill. In this flick, Ben (Robert De Niro) is a retired guy who used to be VP of a New York company that printed telephone books. He retired well off, seems healthy and fit, but his wife died a few years ago, his kids grew up and moved and his carefully structured life just doesn’t work that well for him, so he looks for something else to do. Surprisingly, a new, hip company in Brooklyn that sells women’s fashions on the web is looking for some interns, with an eye to older applicants who can make them look less “agist”. Ben gets the job, finds himself in a rapid paced, web based environment, working for Jules (Anne Hathaway), the founder and owner of the company. Ben sticks out in this environment like a sore thumb. Circumstances intervene, however, and he ends up being not only an intern, but the driver for Jules. She is stretched to the limit, trying to keep the company going, and trying to somehow fit in time for her house-husband Matt (Anders Holm) and their young daughter Paige (JoJo Kushner).

In spite of her initial reservations, she finds Ben’s fatherly suggestions to be helpful. After all, the guy does have a lot of experience in life, is a really nice guy who supports her aspirations and his attitude helps her. The situation comes to a crisis, however, when Jules is pressured by her partners to hire a CEO who can run the nuts and bolts of the business. She really doesn’t want to share the running of the company, burned out or not. Increasingly, the surprising friendship of Ben and Jules helps her to keep her balance. When things get more stressful for Jules due to a family situation, Ben is there to help. In a side plot, the office masseuse also finds Ben and there are some sparks going on there.

A movie like this is somewhat like an old Chinese restaurant menu…pick one item from column A, one from the column B and select an ending….nothing very surprising in the plot, so it depends a lot on the characters and whether you like or identify with them. In this case, it works pretty well. Basically, Ben and Jules are both really nice people with good intentions. A lot of jokes center around just how culturally antiquated Ben is in this environment, but he’s also smart, likable and guileless so none of it seems mean spirited. The supporting characters are also good natured, so the whole story is fairly light, no big moral quandaries, imminent threats, death or destruction.

It works as well as it does due to the good chemistry between Hathaway and De Niro. Both seem like they are made for their characters and the fact that the acting doesn’t seem like much of a stretch doesn’t diminish the fact that it works. The supporting cast are as good as they need to be…no gravitas needed or given. The movie was written and directed by Nancy Meyers, also known for Something’s Got To Give, It’s Complicated, Father of the Bride and other similar light comedies. The writing and direction are both crisp, economical, to the point and work well in this genre. In spite of the fact that it’s not my genre of movie, once I decided to just sit back and relax, I liked it. It’s simple fluff, nothing very challenging, most of the plot is completely predictable, but it’s likable fluff. Being a movie with light aspirations and little originality but that completely hits its mark, I will give it a solid 3. I’d give it a 3.5 but for the sudden and (to me) not well fleshed out ending. I’ve seen other movies that attempted this sort of story and completely flopped…this one works. It ain’t D Day or Citizen Caine, but it is an enjoyable, light comedy.





The Martian - It has the look of a big hit

We saw The Martian last night, and, as popcorn movies, go, I thought it was really quite good. The theater was busy and the audience even applauded a couple times, so I’d say that it’s going to be a big hit. The story is fictional, taken from the novel of the same name (by Andy Weir) and directed by one of my favorite makers of blockbusters, Ridley Scott. While I have not liked all of Scott’s movies, some of them, notably Blade Runner, Alien, Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus, are all time favorites of mine, so I went with high hopes that Scott, as old as he is, still had the stuff to make another big one.

In case you have been hiding under the proverbial rock and have not seen a trailer, the story is about a Mars expedition in the not-too-distant future that goes bad. Matt Damon, the James Stewart of our era, plays Mark Watney, part of a team of astronauts on a Mars expedition. Unfortunately, he is blasted out of sight when a major malfunction happens on part of the installation during a storm, causing a large explosion. Thinking that Watney is dead and gone, the rest of the crew flees back to their ship and prepares for an emergency return to Earth. Only after they have left does Watney return to consciousness, dig himself out of the Martian sand, make his way back to the installation and realize that he’s really in a bad situation. He has no communication with Earth, not enough food and water to survive until the next expedition arrives four years in the future, and nobody even knows that he’s alive. His funeral has been broadcast on the media and the returning spacecraft can’t be turned around. Even if NASA knew that he was alive and got right on top of a rescue, it would still take too long. It’s obvious to Watney that he has to “science the sh*t out of this”. The first task is to communicate and let the world know that he is still alive, then to find a way to stretch a month’s worth of food into years.

This movie is a sort of Apollo13 on steroids….the situation is worse, the distance home is much greater and nobody knows that you are alive. Like Apollo 13, it’s also a movie that lends it self to that theme of all those eccentric technical experts in NASA pitching in, setting aside their differences, and finding a way to make the sort of innovation that turns copper wire and dried beans into lemonade…the great American talent for improvising in a crisis. NASA seems very dry and bureaucratic until they shift into this mindset. Then everybody is on their side. The story plays out, like most NASA missions, in the public forum. Everybody in the world soon knows about this and is rooting for Watney. If Watney gets back, everybody is a hero; if he doesn’t, NASA looks callous and inept. The Chinese government wants to get in on the rescue.

This is one of those movies that’s just made for Matt Damon. As I mentioned, as an actor, he is like the James Stewart of our era. When he plays an everyman, a nice guy who tries hard and just wants the simple things, he’s hard to beat in that role. Watney was made for Damon. The rest of the cast, notably Jessica Chasten, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Sean Bean and Kate Mara, are as good as they need to be, but this isn’t that much of an actor’s film. What it IS, is a gadget and effects film. The Martian landscape seems believable, the sets and props all have that crystal-clear spacecraft look and the big scenes of lift-offs, passing space vehicles, etc, are all really done well. It is a visually excellent movie and since it’s those outer space visuals that make the story work, that spells success in my book. Dialog is dense, full of techie jargon, orbital mechanics, and space craft system talk…. a lot of that “the camiflex has to interface with the blubloggon cortex” sort of talk. I don’t know whether any of it was technically correct or just made up, but it goes past you so quick that it won’t really matter whether the math is right. Both I and the audience seemed to enjoy the movie, suspense takes you right up to the end, and the FX are excellent. If you’re looking for a right-stuff sort of adventure, this is just fine.






The Fog - The old 1980 version, not the 2005 do-over

One of my old favorite horror movies is The Fog (1980). Written and directed by John Carpenter in his early days, it featured scream two scream queens, Adrienne Barbeau and a newcomer (then) Jamie Lee Curtis. In addition Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh is in there, as is Hal Holbrook as a haunted minister and John Houseman as an old sailer telling scary stories to kids in the dark. Carpenter wrote the excellent, minimalist, creepy piano music (the entire soundtrack) himself and only used about 10 notes and a couple chords. It’s a fine ghost story about a small town in northern California, that’s being haunted by ghosts of a ship crew from a century before. The story is loosely (very loosely) based on a true event when town people in Salinas lured a fog bound ship onto rocks so they could steal the gold it was carrying. The movie version of the story was filmed around Point Reyes and its terrific lighthouse, a “dark and stormy” place that lends itself to a spooky story. It draws inspiration from Poe and Lovecraft and features mainly unseen evil.

Lacking anything particularly interesting to watch tonight, I noticed that SyFy was showing the 2005 remake of The Fog. I’m generally wary of remakes, which often add characters, change plot lines, but try to cash in on the fame of an old movie. In this case, the crew of the remake stayed quite close to the original, being a nearly shot by shot do-over, using similar dialog and better special effects. It’s amazing, however, how someone can do that and still make such a worse movie.

The old one is low budget, simple FX (mainly fog machines and old-timey “trick photography”), dicey production values….a home-made movie that succeeds because, generally a ghost movie is better when you never see the ghost. The camera work is delightfully simple and to the point but it uses a wide screen to dwarf the characters and create this windy, foggy place that’s just right for ghosts. The newer one has better effects, more production values, more creeps and a larger cast but it's just awful in spite of that. It also wasn’t filmed at the Point Reyes Lighthouse, which is practically a character in the old version.

My hat’s off to John Carpenter, who didn’t know he was competing with a later version of his own movie, but still beat it by a long margin. We don’t generally think of horror movie directors as auteurs, but, in this case it works.