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) 

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. 

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003/2004) Robert Rodriguez Presents Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

When it was announced over twenty years ago, that "Kill Bill" would be split into two parts, it was a disappointment to me. I was perfectly fine with a four plus hour epic from Quentin Tarantino. Fortunately, sounder heads were in charge of marketing in the early 2000s and the choice to divide the picture makes perfect sense. There is a clear demarcation point between the two films and audiences were not really as tolerant of long films as I might have been. Tarantino himself suggested that there were various ways that the film could be presented, but he was firm that it was all one big complete story. So to finish off the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, our local hero Robert Rodriguez, collaborator and friend of Quentin Tarantino, presented the whole bloody saga for us, with a introduction to each film. 

The house was packed with 1200 attendees and the crowd was raucous, maybe not "RRR" raucous, but still very lively

 

The first volume of "Kill Bill" has the most stylized elements of the story. After the brutal fight in a suburban home, that ends with an invitation to a child to seek vengeance when she gets older, we get more context about why this bloody tale of revenge is being told. There is a significant anime sequence that gives us an origin story of O-Ren, the first on the target list but the second one we see in the movie. First we got the killing of Vernita Green, including a breakfast cereal gunfight. Then we get the Bride's story of recovery and setting out on the path of revenge. There is a lot of grim humor in the story, which is characteristic of Tarantino, and all the people who insist that he has a foot fetish will find plenty of ammunition for that charge. As usual, Quentin is playing with his time line.

Audiences who had not been regular consumers of Eastern Martial Arts movies were about to get an extended lesson in how to do it. I reject to concept of cultural appropriation, I think everyone is entitled to use artistic styles that they are comfortable with. I am just surprised that there were not more charges of appropriation against Tarantino because he makes himself at home in a crime drama with samurai warriors that feels like it was created in Tokyo or Hong Kong. 

The Chapter labeled "Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves" is one of the most spectacular action sequences you will ever encounter. The colors are vivid, the music is a mix of pop and rock songs filtered through a nightclub vibe that is based in Japanese tropes. The overwhelming number of the "Crazy 88" that fall to the Bride's sword is preposterous but somehow we can accept it because Uma Thurman sells determination and skill with an amazing physical performance. When she finally faces off against Lucy Liu in the snow covered courtyard, it is an amazing visual conception. 

Richard Kirkham · Kill Bill Vol. 1 Intro Robert Rodriguez

This second introduction was full of information that I was not aware of before, and it was presented with the same cheerful demeanor that Rodriguez has always shown at these events. 

"Kill Bill Vol. 2" is more grounded than the first film. The stylized sets and musical segments are toned down in favor of a gritty environment. If the first fil was filled with the martial arts fantasies of the 1970s, the second film is set in the grimy styles of 70s grindhouse fare. Michael Madsen is not a glamourous killer looking at his art collection between assignments, he is a guilt ridden alcoholic working as a drone at the sleaziest and most disgusting strip bar imaginable, and living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. Unlike the first film, there is not a lot of variety in the locations in which Beatrice Kiddo gets her revenge on Bud and Elle Driver. Daryl Hannah shows up in Bud's dilapidated domicile, and the epic sword fight we might have expected gets truncated to a gruesome joke, a little aqueous humor, a nice visual punch.

Along the way we did get a montage of training under the tutelage of Pai Mei, a lesson in pimp business practices by Bill's surrogate father, and a lecture on comic book personas from Bill himself, all of which are entertaining to some degree or other. 

Richard Kirkham · Kill Bill Vol. 2 Introduction Robert Rodriguez

If you listen to the second introduction, you will get a nice story about the two credit sequences, including a surprise about the song.

Jaws (1975) 50th Anniversary Re-Release

 

Ok, I admit, I might have an addiction. It is not a problem however, since it never interferes with my life and it only enhances it. If I can see this movie on the big screen in a theater, I will do so, and conveniently, in celebration of it's 50th anniversary, it was widely re-released and I took advantage of the opportunity in all three of the subscription services I am enrolled in.

First up was an Cinemark showing on the first day of the re-release. It was a great presentation in a straight forward theater.

On Sunday, we went to a 3-D Screening at the AMC Theater, it was mid-day on a Sunday, and we were there with maybe five other people.

Finally, I went by myself at the Alamo Drafthouse, also for a mid-day screening, and Mondays are a lonely time at a movie theater in the middle of the day. Still I loved it. You can find plenty of Jaws Content on the site. Come on in the water.

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) 50 Year Anniversary Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

It's hard to believe that it was 50 years ago that The Rocky Horror Picture Show landed in our laps. I have to admit I did not see it in that first year much to my chagrin. My friend Dan however had seen it and he recommended it to me, so when it started playing on the midnight circuits I was happy to join in the frivolity. In fact for the next 3 years, The Rocky Horror Picture Show took up a residence at midnight on any weekend that I wasn't traveling to a debate tournament.

So it's a pleasure to say I'm still here and still seeing Rocky Horror at least on an annual basis, because the Paramount Theater here in Austin knows it's community. I didn't dress up this year because we were coming from another screening, and normally my cosplay is very slight, just a t-shirt and a lab coat. So I didn't look much like the unconventional conventioneers, but I sang and danced in my seat as much as anyone and had a terrific time once more doing the Time Warp.

It's getting close to the closing of the summer classic film series, and that makes me a little sad but fortunately seeing this movie overcomes most of that. It's nice that I didn't have to stay up till midnight to see the movie, I suspect that a lot of the people in the audience for this movie are used to having an early bird dinner and being in bed by 9: 00.

Well prepare the transit beam, will be heading into the fall season soon and summer will be a memory. Damn it Janet I'll miss you.

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. 

 

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. 

Ghostbusters (1984)-Revisit/Alamo Drafthouse Movie Party

 

Whenever I get a chance to see one of my 1984 films on the big screen, I am going to take it. Last week the Alamo Drafthouse had a Movie Party Screening of "Ghostbusters". The Movie Party screenings include a theme hosted introduction with a contest for a prize, and props are distributed as you enter the theater. In the past, some of the props are clever, but not useful for the interactions of the Party Atmosphere. This event however did include some props that made the screening feel like a party. We were given two foot long glowstick streamers that allowed us to join in on the ghost hunts when the proton packs came out. 

Everyone in the half full theater would wave their proton streams whenever the Ghostbusters did. It was quite a sight. I did not record during the screening, that would still be a no no by Alamo standards, but you can imagine the effect by looking at the video above. 

No one used the slime in a jar during the movie, but I did see several people eat their marshmallow at the end of the film when the Stay Puft Man makes his appearance.  

Here is a link to a decade old post on one of my visits to see Ghostbuster in a theater. 

and here is a 30th Anniversary screening link as well. 

One more link for you, this is the post on my 30 Years On Project from 2014. 

I am always happy to revisit a film that I love in a theater. Getting to do so with other fans is one of the things that makes movie going special for me. Oh, by the way, I wone the ring toss Slimer game and got two passes for an Alamo Screening. Not to shabby for a 41 year old movie and an even older fan. 

Shampoo (1975) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

I wrote about this film just a couple of years ago on the 1975 Throwback Thursday Project that I did. You can read those comments here. I don’t know that my opinion has changed much on the film, it is still a mildly humorous look at mores of the era (set in 1968 but easily applicable to the 70s). Warren Beatty Produced, Co-Wrote and stars in this film from Director Hal Ashby. The events all take place on election day in 1968, but not a single character is shown to participate in the election process. There are a few news clips in the background, some of which are meant to carry irony, given the passage of time from when the film is set, to the time that the film was released.

George is a hairdresser in Beverly Hills, who styles himself as an artist, and not just a barber. From the very beginning, we know that he is straight, and it is clear from the number of women he beds, that he also wants to be Warren Beatty in real life. Near the end of the picture we learn that the main thing that drew him to the field was the target rich environment that the hairdressing industry would be. Whereas he might have been admired as a “player” fifty years ago, today he would be seen as a predator. He is not malicious but he is selfishly using his partners instead of developing a relationship with them. Julie Christie and Lee Grant are able to defend themselves to some degree, but they are hurt by George in spite of their insights about him. The character we are going to feel the most empathy for is Goldie Hawn’s Jill.

Jack Warden plays a powerful businessman, Lester, married to Grant, while carrying on an affair with Christie. George is a former lover of Christie’s Jackie, but Lester does not know that and thinks George is gay. George is sleeping with Felicia, Lee Grant’s character. So George is involved with two of the women that Lester is involved with, and the confusion over how they all play out the dance is the stem of the story. All of the events take place over a 48 hour period, so there are lots of awkward moments surrounding chance meetings, hair appointments, business deals and political events.

Both George and Lester are manipulators, and although he is sometimes harsh in assessing women, Lester may be the more honest and respectable of the two. George is a nicer guy to know, but he is callous in a way that is unexpected and wounds the women more deeply than the shallow hurts that Lester inflicts.

Everyone ends up at two different parties on the same night. The uptight election watching party forces everyone to deny their feelings for each other, while the second party that is hosted at a Playboy style mansion, seems freer but is just as deadly to true love as anything else in the film. Both parties give us glimpses of the cultural divide that was rising in the period. Race and the War are barely mentioned, this is a clash over ethics and how we manage our romantic feelings. The film does not have a clear answer, but it is clear that George ends up with the short end of the stick, and he has no one to blame but himself.

Legally Blonde (2001)/ Clueless (1995) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series Double Feature

A rare Wednesday double feature at the Paramount this week with a screening of "Legally Blonde" and "Clueless". Both films have elements of female empowerment in them, and both of them have completely silly components, which keep them firmly in the comedy category and diminish any social commentary. Not that that's a bad thing.

What both films have going for them are charming leads, and comic scenarios that get resolved with happy endings. In other words they are audience fantasies that deliver what people want from their entertainment

.

LEGALLY BLONDE

Legally Blonde was the Breakthrough movie for Reese Witherspoon, and it's success catapulted her to the ranks of Highly sought after actresses in the first decade of the century. Playing a high school senior who is pursuing her boyfriend to Harvard Law School, Witherspoon plays Elle Woods, a fashion merchandising 4. 0 student who manages to excel on the LSAT after cramming very hard. The fact that she's a cute blonde in a bikini in her video essay doesn't with the admissions committee either. So when the film makes a point about the importance of female accomplishments over appearance, that is going to be undermined by this plot point. Okay that's the last serious thing I'm going to say about Legally Blonde.

What I will say is that it is delightfully droll, Witherspoon is a blast playing a perky Fish Out of Water in an elitist cultural niche which judges you by your family in source of wealth more than your character or even income. Harvard I'm sure appreciates being portrayed as an exclusive Miley sought after admission, but the movie shows us some of the most stereotypical intellectual snobs that you can imagine, as being the sort of students that Elle will have to compete with.

The courtroom antics are fine, but you will actually get a better sense of legal procedure by watching My Cousin Vinny. Legally Blonde resorts to an old Perry Mason trick to finish off this Underdog Story. But no one will care because Elle Wood is a good person who wins out in the end, and all of the other good guys win as well. Cue the Applause from the overwhelmingly female audience that attended Wednesday's performance.

CLUELESS 

Cher, the heroine in this reimagined version of Emma, is played by Alicia Silverstone. This was another one of those films that established young actors as the Bedrock of '90s and early 2000 films. In fact we're still getting Paul Rudd, who looks pretty much like he did back in 1995, starring in movies. Silverstone is the quintessential spoiled dumb blonde of classic film. Although she sees herself as the authority in the story, the rest of us recognize quite early on that she is the one who is out of Step.

I can't tell you how authentic the relationships between teen girls in Beverly Hills are represented by this film. It is however easy to imagine Petty jealousies and misunderstandings creating broken friendships or lost romantic opportunities. The themes in Clueless are actually a little bit more serious than the legal drama of Legally Blonde. Everybody engages in some kind of manipulation, sometimes we have the best of intentions when doing so, but in the long run we should really reassess the choices we make. Like Jane Austen's Emma, Cher is manipulating others in what she sees is an altruistic attempt to help them out. The problem is she puts her own vision ahead of what is best when it comes to her friends.

Once again it all works out, and there are serious laughs to be had throughout the film. I've always liked Dan Hedaya who plays Cher's dad, and even in the small role that he has here he puts his grumpy but sympathetic persona to good use. Wallace Shawn shows up as the stern but naive debate coach, and I see too much of myself in this role, fortunately I can laugh at myself.

About a third of the audience left after Legally Blonde, but those who remained embraced Clueless almost as enthusiastically and we all shared a laugh as we left later in the night than we usually do during the week.

Nobody 2 (2025)

 

Weapons (2025)

 

While I was watching this movie, I was not sure if I liked it or not. There were a number of things about it that were intriguing, but it also seemed to be taking a long while to get to the point. I like a Slow Burn, after all I grew up on the films of the '70s, where everything was a Slow Burn. Weapons however, seem like every time it got to second gear it downshifted again. The reason for this is the storytelling structure of the film. In the end I've come down on the side that this is a terrific way to tell the story and I should get over my occasional sense of impatience.

I don't think it gives away too much to tell you that the story is told around six distinct characters. Also the narrative path is a little bit like memento, where the previous sequence means more after we've seen the follow-up sequence. Stories are interlocking, but they rarely repeat the same Beats. There might be a brief moment or two, that is repeated in each of the sequences, but for the most part they stand alone and give us the kind of context that make the events feel more real and a heck of a lot more interesting.

Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, and Benjamin Wong, are all terrific in their roles as players in this horror scenario. As an unjustly maligned teacher, Garner is sympathetic but she is also not perfect. Her flaws make her a better protagonist. The only character who doesn't have an obvious flaw is Benjamin Wong, as the school principal Marcus. He is the epitome of an effective principal would be like. That of course makes it particularly disturbing when we see the first truly horrific scene in the film. Up until the part where Marcus loses it, our main horror element was dread. When the turn here takes place, it is fear and revulsion that take over.

There is a major character in the story that I'm not going to talk about, because it feels like it would be a spoiler. Although seen around the edges of two or three of the opening sequences, it is only when this character steps into one of those stories openly, that we start to figure out what the hell is going on with the children who have vanished. 

Director Zach Cregger, who previously made the film Barbarian, has interesting ideas and fun Concepts in his stories. And well they are admirable I'm not going to buy into the hype that these films are exceptional. There are still narrative problems, and inconsistencies, but Cregger does have the ability to direct the film well enough to distract us from those flaws , and still deliver something highly entertaining to watch.

For the first two thirds of the film this feels like a melodrama, posing as a horror film. Once we get to the final character story, The Narrative plays itself out straight, and the usual horror elements do appear. The climax of the film does feature several deaths, and disturbing images, and surprisingly a little bit of Hope for some of the characters who are left. I do need to say however that the film starts off telling us a lie, which distracts us from what's really happening, and then ignores the lie at the end of the film. As long as you don't mind being Hoodwinked into seeing a film that is not what is advertised in the opening moments, weapons will satisfy your Jones for a summer horror flick. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn great.

Robert Rodriguez Presents: Double Feature Robocop and Starship Troopers-Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

Sunday was a double dose of Paul Verhoeven satire and action. The first movie was the perfection that is "Robocop". I don't know if I can count the number of times I have seen this film. I do know that I have seen it at least a half dozen times on the big screen, including a 2023 screening right here at the Paramount Theater. Quentin Tarantino apparently agrees with me that the script is perfect. What is also perfect are the performances from the main actors in the film. Dr. Peter Weller fully commits to the persona of the cyborg, but only after charming us as the eager to please Dad and new partner.

Kirkwood Smith, sneers his way thru the movie as the repulsive Clarence Boddicker, the crime boss of old Detroit. Although they don't all get as much time to display their horrendous sides to us, the four toadies that make up his crew are equally loathsome, with special emphasis on Paul McCrane as Emil, the one bad guy who gets a deservingly nasty end to his story.  

I have always loved stop motion animation when it is integrated into real life surroundings. Ray Harryhausen was a cinema hero to me. Phil Tippet and his crew do a great job with ED-209, with little touches everywhere that add to the humor and tension of the film.

Richard Kirkham · 2025_08_03_19_02_28

 

Robert Rodriguez Presented both films and his opening remarks are in the message above.

Starship Troopers came out a decade after "Robocop" but it contained a lot of the same bitter satire that the earlier movie did. The hostility to fascism is clear, but of course it is largely missed because we get engaged in Johnny Rico's story and we can admire his mentors in spite of their authoritarian tendencies. Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown are terrific as the older generation, trying to mold the youth of this world into soldiers and subsequently citizens.  It also doesn't help the anti-fascist theme to have Rico's parents be a couple of mealy mouthed characters that today might be revered to as woke.

The Special Effects in the film were pretty impressive for 1997. The vast numbers of bugs that the Mobile Infantry has to face is intimidating. Anyone who has dealt with an ant infestation will recognize how much we are outnumbered. In this world however, the bugs are not small and you can't just stomp on them. 

Our host is friends with the star of the film and got him on the phone when it was time to go to the second movie. 

Richard Kirkham · 2025_08_03_21_11_17

The Sound of Music (1965)-Revisit Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

You already know a few of my favorite things, so I will spare you my singing about them and instead praise Julie Andrews for singing about a few of her favorite things. The Sound of Music is one of those films that inspires both love and derision from film aficionados. Cynics object to the sugary take on the Von Trapp family story. They would say the children are too upbeat, the songs are treacle, and the pretty people facing Nazis is a misuse of History. I'm cynical about a lot of things, but "The Sound of Music" isn't one of them. This is just a joyful experience with Sweet Moments, terrific staging, and some of the best songs of the 20th century.

The movie is a love story, but it is not just a story about a love between a man and a woman. Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews portray the adults who fall in love in perilous times and difficult circumstances. There are however still seven children who also need to fall in love, at first with a governess and finally a new mother. The way in which Maria wins over all of the children, by exhibiting more patience  than is imaginable, and singing about their very needs, makes for a great story. Don't forget it's also a story about people who love their country, and see it being torn apart by the events of the day. I can understand if you don't like "The Sound of Music" because you don't care for musicals, or if Julie Andrews just isn't your cup of tea, but if you don't like this movie because of the themes or the story( which for the most part is true), then you are missing the point. And I feel sorry for you because you're going to lead a less fulfilling life.

The exuberance of some of the dancing sequences, which really aren't about dancing at all but just about children playing at being adults, is part of the fun. The world is full of people who don't like it when kids appear in movies, they should probably stay away from this as if it were the plague. I on the other hand am perfectly content to try to remember the names of each of the children, like Maria does when she says her prayers. By the way, I didn't forget Kurt. 

The synchronization between the helicopter shot and the introduction of Maria on the hillside is a miracle a filmmaking at the time. Today it would be accomplished with drones and computer adjusted shots. Yet it wouldn't be any better. A lot of sequences go on for a while, without the heavy editing of a director who is trying to hard to show off. Robert  Wise knows exactly what he is doing when telling this story. It may have moments of suspense in the Final Act, but it is not a thriller that requires Quick Cuts and close-ups of sweaty faces. This is a character piece with music, something that Wise has already shown he can handle.

Once again I cannot recommend highly enough seeing a film like this on the big screen with a receptive audience. This was one of the family films for the Paramount classic summer film series, and there were plenty of families there to experience this film on its 60th anniversary. The world is a better place for it.

Psycho (1960) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series-2025

 

One of the great masterpieces of Cinema played on the Paramount screen last Wednesday, and once again I was there to appreciate it. What I was really flabbergasted by though, was the fact that so many people in the audience were seeing "Psycho" for the first time. Our host, the programmer of the Paramount Classic Summer Film Series, asked for a show of hands for people who had never seen "Psycho". It was hard to believe that almost a third of the audience in attendance that night raised their hands.

The rest of us, who are seeing "Psycho" for the umpteenth time, waited in glee for the many twists and turns that take place during the story. In the long prologue to the violence, Marion Cranes transaction with the used car dealer got a lot of laughs, but you could also sense a great deal of tension in the audience. In fact the laughter that came from the audience almost certainly was generated by people who had seen the movie before and knew the irony of a particular statement, we're waiting for the turn that comes very quickly.

Once again I think the best scene in the movie takes place in the parlor as Norman Bates tries to relate to Marion, but marks himself as a strange fellow with every sentence he utters. We can still empathize with Norman at that moment, because of the brilliance of Anthony Perkins performance. We can also see the moment of redemption when Marion decides to face her mistakes and return to Phoenix and try and clear up the horrible decision she had made. This is the moment where the movie turns from being a mere thriller to a tragedy, and the two actors in the scene are both brilliant in the way they play their parts.

It must be nearly impossible in modern culture to be on the outside of the big twist in Psycho. 25 years ago I tried to keep my kids from knowing about Norman Bates and his mother, until they had a chance to see the film for themselves. Social media, YouTube, endless memes, all results in fewer surprises for film audiences. That's too bad. One of my friends on the Lambcast refuses to watch trailers for films, and I completely understand her perspective. I just wish trailers didn't give so much away. But I still need to have some sense of what a film is about if I'm going to decide to watch it. I think we could use more trailers like the one above, famous for Alfred Hitchcock walking us through the set of his movie.

Anytime you can watch "Psycho" from beginning to end, you should take advantage of it. Anytime you can see it with an audience in a real theater, the real crime would be skipping it.

The Shallows (2016)- Revisit

 

A lot of people when asked what it is the best shark movie after Jaws, might choose Deep Blue Sea. I saw DBS a week or two ago and was once again impressed with how much fun the movie is. Genetically altered sharks, hunting humans, in the middle of a natural disaster, is obviously a lot of fun. The story is filled with mayhem related to the cumulative destruction of the Marine Research Center where the sharks are housed. As entertaining as this film is however, I must say that it pales in comparison in regard to tension, anxiety, and reality, to the shallows.

This is practically a one-woman show, as Blake Lively plays a surfer, confronting a shark in a shallow bay, somewhere on the Mexican Coast. The setup for the film is very strong, there's a reason that nobody will miss her for a night, and there's a reason that the shark lingers in the area, which doesn't require it to have any particular emotional Arc that it is following. Unlike Jaws the Revenge, it's not really personal it's instinct.

Our protagonist is Nancy, a medical student who is uncertain that she wants to continue and become a doctor. She's retracing the steps of her deceased mother, to locate an isolated beach in a bay that was her mother's favorite place. She caught a ride with a local, while her traveling companion has been rendered incapable of going with her by inebriation and infatuation with man that she met near their hotel. So Nancy is on her own except for a couple of other surfers with whom she shares the secret of the perfect waves in this idyllic location.

The shark who becomes her nemesis, is there feasting on a whale that it has killed and which is floating into the bay. Perhaps even more harrowing than the shark, which is a consistent threat, is the shallow reef and rock formations, which have rendered Nancy injured, bleeding, and trapped on. After an initial attack, Nancy looks for refuge as she tries to figure out how to reach the shore while the shark doggedly pursues her and lingers in the area attracted by both the whale and her blood in the water.

The film builds a lot of tension, as others enter into this scenario, unaware of the danger that faces them as they interact with Nancy from her perch on a rock outcropping. Actually, Nancy has had three locations from which she tries to stay away from the shark. The first is on the floating dead whale, but as that is like seeking sanctuary on a a dinner plate, that location is not secure for long. The high and low tides exposed part of the reef and shallow rock bottom, at least enough to give Nancy a safe spot to contemplate her woes. Her injuries are significant, including a bite wound that threatens to leach the life away from her. It is convenient that as a budding physician, Nancy understands how to apply a tourniquet and create a pressure bandage out of part of her wetsuit. The Third location that she seeks protection on is it nearby buoy,  which becomes her final refuge in the extended confrontation with the shark.

They are desperate attempts to acquire materials that will help her in her fight, some of which work and some of which fail. Her hopes are raised by the arrival of others on the beach, but those hopes are often dashed by the motives of the beachcombers, or by the actions of the shark. As horrifying as a shark bite would be, the moments that caused me physical pain watching the film came from seeing her tumble on the rocks or crawl across the poisonous coral. There's also a painful interlude with jellyfish, all of which will give you plenty of reason to cringe in your seat.

Most shark movies have some goofy element to them , or a human conflict in the background. "The Shallows" takes an experience that is very serious, and treats it in a way that makes you share the pain and frustration of our protagonist. The only thing that might make this movie feel a little artificial, is the climax and the resolution with the shark. It is dramatically solid, although a little improbable. In the end though none of it matters because we've spent two hours living an incident completely through our senses, and hope never to have to share.

The Naked Gun (2025)

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The latest Episode of the LAMBcast covers the new Naked Gun Film. So Here is a timely post on the film.

It's nice sometimes when your expectations are overcome by actual accomplishments. When I saw the trailer for the new Naked Gun film I did not have a lot of Hope. I did think the casting of Liam Neeson was probably the right move, but the way they played him up as disguising himself is a 8 year old girl seemed inconsistent with the form of humor that I was expecting from a Naked Gun movie. And truth that scene is out of character for the most part, although there is one other sequence that mimics the same silliness. By the way I have nothing against silliness, I just think it works best if it is consistent.

I will most certainly return to the Naked Gun because I'm sure I missed a lot of the books in the background. I probably missed a number of jokes in the dialogue as well, because I laughed a lot and as a result lost some Focus. I can't say that it was as consistently funny as the original films were, but I can say I laughed a lot and I was surprised at how much satisfaction I took at the attempt to mimic the Zucker Abraham  Zucker touch.

Pamela Anderson appears in the film as the female protagonist, and she plays at age appropriate and it seems fitting that she and Neeson are matched on film. She can play the straight to the funny as well as he can. Kudos should also go to Danny Huston, who seems to make a career out of playing villains lately. In this film is sinisterly funny, and the final gag was one of my favorite moments in the movie. So in addition to a bit with the dog, a film also benefits from a bit with a jetpack.

You can listen to us talk about this on the Lambcast, where we try to avoid simply repeating all of the jokes, but fail to some degree. But we all do agree that the movie is funny.

Boogie Nights (1997)-Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

I could have sworn I'd written about this film before, but as I looked for any version of a review on the site I came up empty. It must simply be that I've talked about it with other people on a regular basis and so I thought I had actually written something about the movie. There are a couple reasons why this feels somewhat personal, but it has nothing to do with my drug use or participation in the adult film industry. Many of the reasons that I identify with this film have to do with the time and setting of the movie, which in some ways do parallel my own life.

The house that Eddie, our main character, lives in with his parents, before he becomes Dirk Diggler, is in Torrance California and it looks exactly like the home of my college debate partner who lived in Torrance. The interior layout and the exterior Frontage might very well have been filmed in his neighborhood. In 1981, which would be in the middle of the time that this film is set, I had a summer job making deliveries of photographic supplies to a variety of businesses, and one of my routes consisted of the San Fernando Valley. Famously, this was the home of the pornography industry at the time, much like it's depicted in the film. Some of the locations that I made deliveries to were in fact producing magazines that were largely pornographic. So I have a tangential connection to what was going on. The one element of the film however that most closely connects me to the story, is maybe the most compelling scene in the film, the drug deal that goes wrong. One of my closest friends in college took a wrong turn and ended up working as a low-level drug dealer, in the valley. By the time he was doing this I only saw him occasionally for lunch or to talk to on the phone just to check in. I was not immersed in his lifestyle, except that there was one experience when we met for lunch and I drove him to a location where he was making drop off of his supplies. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences I ever had with him. A year later he was murdered by his partners in the drug business. So although the experience is not exactly the same I can certainly share the perspective of how crazy and dangerous the times were.

My personal connections with the story aside, this is an incredibly watchable movie that is propulsive and uses needle drops and inserts to create a sense of verisimilitude. There are some truly great performances in the film, Mark Wahlberg gives us a desperate, insecure character in the last act, for whom you can feel surprising sympathy. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a minor character in the film, but he develops a sense of pity from us that feels quite realistic. Burt Reynolds notoriously disowned the film, but his performance in it, as the father figure / pornographic film director, is one of his career best. Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Robert Ridgely, John C Reilly, and a dozen other players all create characters with big faults that we still find ourselves empathizing with, to our surprise.

I was flying solo at this performance at the Paramount, and I got there a little bit later than I usually do. I had to sit near the back on the orchestra level because the theater was packed for this Thursday night screening. The audience was incredibly receptive, and Paul Thomas Anderson, who is not making his debut with this film but for whom this was my first exposure, impressed me and everybody else with how this movie was put together.