Sometimes you just need shark movies to make your summer sing. I just saw “Deep Blue Sea" on the big screen a year ago and wrote about it then. I'm not sure that there's a lot to add. This Renny Harlan action film takes full advantage of an ocean location, and Genetically Enhanced sharks, to give us a few Frights, and suspense to sit through.
I can't wax poetically about the film the way my former co-host on the Lambcast can, but I can appreciate that this may be the second best Shark film ever put into theaters to make summer audiences happy that they paid their ticket price. The presence of Samuel L Jackson, makes the first half of the movie a lot more suspenseful than it really is. I do think that we could probably do with a prequel film that explores the Avalanche experience where Jackson's character survived. Spoiler alert: he doesn't have the same level of success with the sharks.
Thomas Jane as our hero Carter, does a great job looking well and acting frightened. When we get to the end of the film, it's a little bit more believable because this is the way he's been throughout the movie. LL Cool J makes a good impression as an actor, but they ran the rap song he did for the movie right before the film screened, I think moving into acting was the right choice. Maybe our favorite lines that we've quoted for years come from his advice that the perfect omelet is made with two eggs not three. I follow that advice whenever I'm making breakfast.
After having spent 2 hours in the presence of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, one may wonder how any stars in another film could compete for our attention. The second film in our Sunday double feature answers the question in the most obvious way, multiplying the number of stars. Magnificent Seven gives us a half dozen great actors in a meaty part in a western. That's the way you follow up with star power.
Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen may not match Kelly and Grant straight up, but that's okay because they're also supported by James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, and Eli Wallach. There are also a few secondary level Stars that make the movie worthwhile as well, and Elmer Bernstein score is a star in its own right.
You probably already know that this is a remake of Seven Samurai but set in the West. It works really well as a band of mercenaries help a local Village fight off marauding Bandidos for 2 hours. There are several clever moments in the film, but there is one glaring plot problem. Eli Wallach's character grants the seven their weapons back after having caught them by surprise through the betrayal of one of the villagers. This was a mistake on a massive scale by the supposed brains of the marauding bandits. The only justification for it, is to allow Our Heroes to come back and claim victory. It's a head scratching plot point.
Regardless of that fault, leads in this film provide plenty of fireworks for the movie. This film actually made Steve McQueen a star, but James Coburn was not too far behind him. Most people who think that Charles Bronson was merely a tough guy face on the screen, should pay attention to his character Ark in this film. He gives a pretty good speech to the kids who have attached themselves to his character.
The assembly of the band of Heroes that takes place in the first part of the film is more interesting than the conflicts in the village. In the long run most of the characters get a chance to reflect their reason for being included in the band. A lot of people might think that the Italian westerns of Sergio Leone were the start of the anti-western, but the depressing circumstances of Our Heroes here, very well could have been a precursor to those themes. It just doesn't seem that being a gunfighter paid very well, or provided a comfortable lifestyle. Everybody in this film, from the villagers to the bandits to The Mercenaries seems depressingly miserable.
Regardless of their misery however, we get some pretty good gun fights, some clever twists, and maybe not A Fistful of Dollars but A Fistful of Stars. This film is never going to be as perfect as Seven Samurai, but it is pretty damn good.
Another Hitchcock film for the Paramount classic summer film series 2025. I've seen To Catch a Thief before, but it has literally been decades since I last saw it and I remembered very little of it. I did remember a substantial amount of the Cary Grant Grace Kelly by play. And I did remember who the actual Thief was, but I'd forgotten the machinations that Grant's character had to go through to discover the truth.
The movie doesn't have the suspense of most of Hitchcock's films, but it does have a lot of romance and the spectacular location they probably made for a fantastic summer vacation for everybody involved. Just as a quick reminder Grant's character was a jewel thief before World War II, but became a resistance fighter for the French during the war, and was seemingly reformed. A new series of thefts from the resorts on the French Riviera point to him becoming active again as a criminal. He has to discover who is using his MO and try to vindicate himself.
It's easy to see how people in the 1950s, might not care very much about the plot of the film when they have these two exquisitely beautiful people to look at. Cary Grant and Grace Kelly may be the most magnetic couple on screen in that particular decade. The buy play between them is humorous, and if you've seen any of the Steven Soderberg oceans films, you'll have a good sense of where the humor in those films come from.
This was the first film of the double feature that we saw on a Sunday afternoon, and it was a delightful way to spend the late afternoon.
If you can get rid of most of the stupid things in the Jurassic Park Franchise, synthesize most of the best action beats, and cast it with a little flair, you will get a movie like this. It exists, it is fun while you watch it, but it is not essential, it does not say anything profound, and it still has plenty of stupidity that is fairly original.
I don't know that there's much to say about a new Jurassic World film. After all you get dinosaurs chasing people, eating people, and people making sacrifices or showing themselves to be scum. So it's pretty much the same story every time out. The main variations involve the actors people and how are the characters going to screw each other over. Oh and whether or not the dinosaurs are going to be interesting.
For the most part the dinosaurs in this particular Edition are interesting. The premise of the film has scientists in Pursuit of DNA from three specific varieties of dinosaur. One that is found in the ocean, one that is found on the land, and big surprise one that flies in the sky. That seems to set up a pretty straightforward path for our adventurers to travel.
Scarlett Johansson plays a mercenary who is tasked with getting the team there on to the island and then helping them secure the live DNA samples that they need. She has a team of Misfits, many of whom are really just food for the dinosaurs, an evil Overlord who is there to exploit nature, so we get some moral story included. And then there's a random family of shipwreck survivors who get included in the Expedition so that we can have kids and people who aren't used to carrying around heavy weaponry.
It's all creative enough fun to kill a Saturday afternoon in the summertime. There is a little bit of tie in to previous variations of the series. For instance we start off in Manhattan with a brachiosaur slowly expiring in a local park. There's a mild climate change theme, it mostly goes nowhere except to justify a trip to the equator. Marashala Ali is Johansson's Main support, and he's a good actor who is wasted in a largely thankless part. When we get to the climax of the film, we get the stupidest third act twist imaginable, and whatever suspension of disbelief we had up to this point is lost.
Anyway go ahead and turn off your brain, get yourself an extra large soda and don't worry if you have to run to the bathroom during the movie, you're not going to miss anything important. Because there's nothing really important here, just some fun watching dinosaurs chase and eat people.
It looks like a romantic comedy, it's cast like a romantic comedy and IMDB labels it as a romantic comedy, but at best it is a deconstruction of the genre. There are a couple of moments when I laughed at the uncomfortably frank expectations of the matchmaker clients. Both women and men have standards that seem impractical at times, although some of their criteria are also perfectly valid. Overall however, the film is more of a drama, highlighting the uncomfortable and overwhelming feeling of loneliness.
In a twist that perfectly illustrates the contrary nature of the film, the two male leads are the cardboard cutouts, and it if the female lead that has the real story arch. Dakota Johnson is solid as the matchmaker at the top of her game, who can't quite figure out her own life. Her clients have lists of boxes that they want checked off, but her character is not sure what her own boxes would be. She resists being put into any boxes herself, either from her former lover played by Chris Evans, or her new pursuer, the unicorn Pedro Pascal.
Two thirds of the way through the film, there is a pretty nasty turn which seems to undercut the comedy of the film entirely. The tone of the movie shifts rapidly and Lucy, the Johnson character, finds her confidence in her job completely shaken, and her commitment to her current relationship undermined. She wants to see herself as a friend to her clients, but clearly, the financial conditions of their relationships prevents her from giving the smack upside the head that so many of these people need.
The main actors are all quite good, Pascal has an easy charm for most of the movie, although the character feels a bit reconfigured by the third act. Evans plays anxious and disappointed well, and Johnson oozes sincerity, in spite of having to be a snake oil salesman in the long run. The resolution of the movie works on an entertainment level, but it does not really address the reservations that the script has been giving us for most of the story.
It seems like there were dozens of "Jaws" rip-offs in the late seventies. Killer Orcas, Grizzlies, and in this film, genetically modified piranha that can strip a man to the bone in minutes. This was an exploitation picture that launched the career of director Joe Dante. It has only a little of the sideways humor that characterizes his best films, but it does try to keep the audience engaged with frequent piranha victims every few minutes.
The formula is a clear set of beats stolen from "Jaws". We start with a titillating experience that results in death, followed up by a slow discovery of what is happening, and then a series of denials of reality by officials. One of the main differences is that the obnoxious character who is trying to dismiss the whole thing, gets a comeuppance, unlike the mayor in the shark movie.
Bradford Dillman was a seventies staple as a suspicious official or businessman, and he was in a ton of TV shows of the era. Here he plays a drunk hermit like loser, who hets turned into an action hero for no particular reason. Heather Menzies, who played one of the Von Trapp children in "The Sound of Music" and Strother Martin's daughter in Sssssss, is a bounty hunter who gets caught up in the action, and veteran horror icon Kevin McCarthy starts a long association with director Dante, playing a crazed scientist. Don't ask why there is a small lizard man walking around the laboratory in the early part of the film. It never becomes important and it is simply a loose thread.
"Piranha" is an efficient, low budget fright film. The film makers do the best they can with their resources and imaginations. Although many consider it a cult classic, it simply feels standard for the times. But of course those were my times so I loved it.
I have to admit something here that is a repeat of a prior realization. I really like sports movies about sports that I have no interest in otherwise. My favorite sports films over the years have been hockey films, but I have never been to a hockey game and I think I may only have watched a complete one, once on television. Auto racing will take a close second place. I have no desire to spend a day in the stands watching cars drive by at high speeds, but I am more than willing to spend a couple of hours in a movie theater doing the same thing. In the last decade I have seen, "Ford vs. Ferrari", "Rush" and "Gran Turismo", and enjoyed them far more than I would expect given my disinterest in motor sports. You can now add "F 1" to the list.
This movie is pretty conventional from a plot point of view. A talented driver, who missed a shot at the biggest prize in his field, gets a chance at redemption, but must compete with a younger version of himself to succeed. It helps that the star is charismatic and Brad Pitt fills the bill on all counts. He is incredibly watchable, even in a helmet that hides eighty percent of his face. I have seen this movie compared to "Days of Thunder", largely because the plot points are not dissimilar and that film also relied on star power to give the audiences what they want.
The biggest success of this movie however is making the technology behind Formula One racing, feel accessible to outsiders and novices like me. I have known plenty of gearheads in my life, but I have never been one of them. You add a layer of mechanical engineering and physics to the mix, and suddenly the garage is more of a laboratory and a lot more interesting. Director Joseph Kosinski made "Top Gun Maverick" a couple of years ago, and it is clear he knows how to get the best out of action scenes in vehicles. The camera work and editing of the races is thrilling and envelops you with tension and excitement. This is one of the most entertaining films of the year.
It is not my intention to slight the other actors in the movie, they are fine. I think Damson Idris has a bright future in films, but Pitt is the show here and if you are not a fan, you could easily become one. This is a movie star, action driven, summer blockbuster that pushes all the right buttons and fives us the thrills tha we want for a couple of hours, without having to sit through a whole race. Like hockey films, these racing movies cut out all the stuff that non-fans don't care about, and feeds us the dessert served with a little movie star sauce on the top.
Most of the entries coming up will be brief, I am still trying to catch up on posts for all the theatrical screenings in the last couple of weeks. I cannot however, skimp on my opinions about this particular film. "Zodiac" has been one of our family favorites since we saw it in it's original theatrical release. Over the years, it has become a default movie for us. Whenever we have trouble deciding what we should watch , someone inevitably suggests "Zodiac" as an alternative and nine times out of ten, we are watching it again. This screening at the Paramount Theater was the first time I have seen it in a theater since 2007, and it is the first time since I started blogging, that it gets included on this project.
I was eleven years old when the Zodiac killings started drawing press attention across the state of California. So I was old enough to be aware of the story, but still young enough that it did not obsess me the way that it did the characters portrayed in the story. Robert Graysmith , as portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, is a cartoonist for a San Francisco newspaper, one that received messages from the killer. His tangential connection lead to an intense desire to know who the killer was, and he wrote the book this movie is based on. Director David Fincher, portrays the writer as an innocent bystander, watching the horror play out around him. Gyllenhaal looks like a baby-faced kid among the police and newspaper professionals that surround the case. His sincerity is achingly displayed on his face as he asks questions of his colleague Paul Avery, who is covering the Zodiac for the paper. Avery is played by a pre-Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. Avery is also presented as an obsessive, but his pursuit is more professional and it consumes him in a different way than Graysmith.
The third leg of the tripod that the story of the investigation rests on is Dave Toschi, a police inspector in charge of the S.F. part of the investigation. Mark Ruffalo plays Toschi as an overwhelmed professional, frustrated by jurisdictional impediments and inconsistent evidence. The two newspaper guys supplement and interfere with his task, but ultimately, it is Toschi who gets to chillingly interrogate a suspect that seems to fit the information that they have. All three of these men get moments of horror as they confront individuals or places that may be a key to solving the crimes. Downey Jr. is playing a character who descends into alcohol and drug use as his paranoia and professional life collide. There is an honesty about those destructive forces that may be a reflection of his real life struggles in the years that preceded this film. Ruffalo seems to be calmly frustrated reacting to both the killer and his amateur pair of Zodiac hunters.
Everyone in the movie is top notch in their performances, but I will single out two of the supporting players to show how well the movie is put together. Toschi has a partner, Bill Armstrong, played by Antony Edwards. Armstrong is a dedicated professional but he remains more impartial than Toschi. He is analytical but not obsessive. Edwards exudes competence with an aura of detachment. He wants to solve the case as much as his partner, but he doesn't let the frustrations of the case overwhelm him. Edwards is the cool straight man to Ruffalo's, only slightly warmer counterpart. They make a great team.
The second outstanding secondary performance is by John Carrol Lynch, who plays the eventual main suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen. We only see Allen in the context of the investigations. There are no scenes where he is depicted as the killer engaged in the crimes. We learn about his character in interviews with his former friends and family. When Toschi, Armstrong and two other law enforcement personnel question him at work in the break room of the facility he works at, all sorts of alarms are going off in our heads as the cops listen with gapped mouths to the explanations and information that Allen shares. Lynch is calmly aloof as he spills suspicious conduct and details to the investigators. His face never reveals a fear that he is trapped, or that he is on alert in the face of the questions he is getting. His quiet comment "I am not the Zodiac. And if I was, I certainly wouldn't tell you." is as chilling as some of the murders that we see depicted in the film.
The verisimilitude of the film is found in a thousand places in the movie. The location shots are all consistent with the era. There is a sequence with Melvin Belli, a famous attorney who was a celebrity because of the lawsuits and clients he was involved with His depiction reflects the commercial television practices of the time. Toschi is shown attending a special screening of "Dirty Harry" which is a film that has a character inspired by the real life criminal he is pursuing. One of the most haunting and realistic uses of music of the time occurs in the attack on the couple in a car at the start of the film. Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy" man plays out over the scene, and you can almost smell the aura of the 1960 descending on the moment.
I would not classify this as a horror film, just as I would not say "The Silence of the Lambs" is a horror film. There are certainly frightening moments but the key is realistic suspense. These are thrillers with horror elements. The creepiest scene takes place in a basement, and there is no blood, weapon or violence shown, but the hair on the back of your neck will certainly stand up at the moment. Charles Fleisher, who is best known as the voice of "Roger Rabbit", provides an additional supporting character to make this movie the masterpiece that it is.
"Zodiac" was not a huge success when it was first released, but there has been a lot of reassessment in the last two decades and I think you will find that this movie will hold your attention, frighten you and haunt you for a long time. I am happy to have had a chance to see it again in it's natural habitat and I encourage everyone to spend some time with this excellent film.
