Amadeus (1984) Hollywood Bowl

 

I had a special experience last week. I had a chance to see my favorite movie of the 1980s, which is also my seventh favorite movie of all time, on screen accompanied by a live Orchestra, and it just so happens that the movie is about classical composers and orchestral music. Isn't that perfect? The movie of course is “Amadeus”, the mystery / thriller / musical about the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Austrian Court composer Antonio Salieri.

As an extra bonus , the presentation was at my favorite place in Southern California, the Hollywood Bowl. This outdoor venue was my destination for a recent trip to Southern California. I made it to two shows at the bowl, as well as getting to celebrate my daughter's 40th birthday.  The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied the film along with a choir which sang sections of choral music presented in the film. And of course they were all consummate professionals who did an outstanding job.

The film version of this play has significant advantages over the stage presentation. The way the music can be visualized is more elaborate and creative, and the music can be edited into the film in a way which allows it to add more life and make the story more vivid. When it plays out on the scale that it does in the movie this is incredibly rich and memorable.

The greatest strengths of the film however are the two central performances. Tom Hulce, as Mozart, is delightful and frustrating simultaneously. Headstrong and egocentric, and a bit of an infant, Mozart can't see his own best interests, and continuously trips himself up with the Austrian musical hierarchy. Regardless, it is clear that he is a superior musician and composer to any of his contemporaries, he's just not a better man.

Salieri could be the better man, but his professional jealousy prevents him from finding a place in the musical hierarchy that is satisfying. F. Murray Abraham, is one of the greatest performances of the last half century, as a conniving rival who seems to be the only person of his era who recognizes that Mozart is not only talented but on a completely different level musically than anybody else. Salieri’s frustration at being able to recognize genius but not replicate it is conveyed by Abraham throughout the film, and his performance in the end is ultimately heartbreaking in spite of his uncharitable behavior.

Let me happily recommend you to a post I wrote a dozen years ago when I was covering the year 1984 on a different project. You will find a much more complete description of my thoughts about this film there. Meanwhile you can appreciate a couple of moments from the bowl experience, cuz I celebrated with my daughter and connected with one of my friends from the Lambcast.

The Dog Stars (2026)

 

I'm not sure why a Ridley Scott film, featuring some terrific action sequences, isn't hitting with audiences or why it's being released in late August. Theatrical presentation is a little uncertain these days, which is too bad because I think this film hits on most of the points that it's trying to make and many people would find it entertaining if they took the time to seek it out instead of seeing Spider-Man for the fourth or fifth time.

Maybe the reason the film isn't working for audiences is that it is repeating a dystopian future that seems less likely now than it did a few years ago. The world is still a screwed up place, but it doesn't seem as likely that we're going to get wiped out by a plague or nuclear war or chemical accident, which for all kinds of reasons seemed possible a decade ago. 

Jacob Elordi is the star of this film and he's good at quiet and mournful,  he still manages to to convey a sense of decency in spite of his PTSD. I am going to warn you right now Jasper, his canine companion, does not make it out of the First Act. That's probably a spoiler but it's a spoiler that people who are sensitive to these things probably should be aware of. Although I'm never a fan of seeing an animal being sacrificed in a story like this, it is better that it comes early in the film, so that the dread does not hang over the entire Enterprise.

Anybody unfamiliar with the three act structure that is often found in films is not going to have any trouble picking it out in this particular movie. The location literally changes twice, giving us a series of events in three different locations with occasional flashbacks to our original launching point. Josh Brolin is the co-star in the first third, and he basically plays the grumpy Josh Brolin version of himself, which seemed completely acceptable to me. Guy Pearce is in the second act along with Margaret Qualley, as a father and daughter trying to survive on their own in a completely different environment.  Elordi's ability to move from place to place because he has a plane and is a pilot, is what makes this dystopian movie a little more unique. 

The third section of the film reminded me a lot of the second half of “A Boy and his Dog” from 1975. As usual the point of the movie here is to show the different ways that people try to cope with disaster. Some become predators, some become isolates, and others try to remain as normal as possible. I thought there was enough creativity in the story to justify one more of these dystopian nightmares. It looks however from the reviews and box office returns that I am one of the isolates.

There are two or three very exciting sequences in the movie, and a couple of very satisfying outcomes to conflicts. There is however some sacrifice that comes along with this, which is only natural in a movie of this type. I did think there was a little bit of a cheat at one point, but in the long run I felt better about that and if it had played out the way I expected it to. This movie is not going to win any awards, and it won't take a place on the top shelf of all these kinds of films, but it's at least as good a movie as the Will Smith version of “I Am Legend”. If you wait to see it at home it won't destroy the experience for you, but I kind of like the idea of extending summer with a movie like this.

Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

 

As usual, I'm late to this because I've been so busy.  I have however done a podcast on it so I will include that at the end so that my comments here don't feel too brief.

“Coyote vs. Acme” is a completely delightful mixture of live action and animation, it's not as elaborate as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit "and I frankly can't compare it to the Looney Tunes Space Jam movies because I've never seen them. Not being a basketball fan I didn't care much about Michael Jordan against Daffy and Bugs.  I am however interested in a good argument and the idea of litigation by Wile E. Coyote against the Acme company was very intriguing.

We talked a bit on the show about why this film almost got canned for tax purposes, the people in charge of Warner Brothers don't seem to know what the hell they're doing. Maybe that's why they are ripe for acquisition by Paramount. Anyway this film was extremely well made and I frankly tell you, it was funny. I mean I really laughed quite a bit during the movie. Being an old school Looney Tunes guy, it fit my expectations perfectly.

There's a nice twist about halfway through the story, which helps maintain the consistency of our Title Character, and I appreciated that. I also appreciated the way they used all the other Looney Tunes characters by not treating them as if they are movie stars but rather they are just characters in the story. Even Bugs and Daffy, who do appear in the movie, are just secondary characters and not celebrities at all. For the most part the film avoids being too politically correct, all though Speedy Gonzales never gets an on-screen credit and Pepe Le Pew does get labeled as if he was being judged by 2020 standards . It doesn't matter because there was a good joke there.

Being a bit behind gives this film an opportunity for me to look at its box office returns. I think it is doing extremely well given the expectations and it demonstrates why sometimes the bean counters in the tax department should not be making the decisions about what films ultimately get distribution. I suspect the Batgirl film would have done perfectly fine, so it's disappointing that it didn't get a chance to escape the way this movie did. 

If you want to know more of my thoughts and what I appreciated in the film, take a listen to or watch the podcast. By the way, I was not alone in my appreciation. We had pretty much a unanimous opinion that this movie rocks.

The End of Oak Street (2026)

 

It's great when we get to the end of summer and there are still movies coming out that treat the summer as if it is an endless opportunity for fun. “The End of Oak Street” is one of those movies that makes August bearable in spite of the heat ( which by the way in Texas has been 103°) , and the pending gloom of fall, and for those who care, a return to school.

I am a big fan of a previous film from David Robert Mitchell ( although I'm not sure you should trust somebody who has three first names), "It Follows ".  That film would truly classify as a horror movie, I'm not so sure however if “The End of Oak Street” fits that category. In many ways it is a horror film because it is a Creature Feature and humans are being hunted by monsters in the story. However because the monsters in this story are dinosaurs, I may be inclined to call this an adventure story rather than a horror movie. This is a distinction I plan on talking about with my friends on the LAMBcast later this week.

There have probably been other people who have said it, but from my perspective this is the best sequel in the Jurassic Park series, since Jurassic World.  Technically of course it's not a Jurassic Park story at all, but its roots are clearly grounded in the same kind of Summer adventure and thrills that those movies have mined successfully for the last 30 years. This one sort of reverses the scenario, and instead of visiting a park with Dinosaurs, the Dinosaurs show up in your backyard.

Eventually we do get a discussion of how this whole thing happened, but that's the least interesting part of the film. What works best is the family dynamic, of two parents and two teen children struggling to survive in a clearly hostile environment, one in which many of their neighbors do not survive. The dinosaurs in this movie represent a wide variety of species, and many of them seem to have very aggressive tendencies, which I suppose is exactly what you want if you're creating a summer thriller.

Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway star as the parents, who are of course struggling with adult issues in the 1980s setting in which the film takes place. Hathaway is fully invested in the film and she is the focal point for the dramatic arc of the story. There are all sorts of moments that add a bit of humor to dire circumstances, but expect some gruesome deaths and PG-13 violence.  Some people will have an issue with the resolution, but don’t think too hard about it all. Just sit back and enjoy a fun family thriller with enough bite to keep it real. 

Lady Snowblood (1973) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

How I missed "Lady Snowblood" when it originally played back in the seventies is beyond me. It is the kind of exploitation film from the Far East that I would have loved. It's a Revenge story with a female protagonist and it involves martial arts and sword play, the nature of which inspired Quentin Tarantino when he made “Kill Bill”. I did finally catch up with the film on home video through a Criterion Edition that I bought at one of their annual sales. So I didn't go into this last evening screening completely blind.

The idea that makes this film work,  is that the woman in question was born into revenge.  She is supposedly a demi-demon incarnation of her mother's desire for Vengeance.  It takes a series of flashbacks to see how she got prepared during the  twenty years after being born and her mom dying.  Meanwhile we get to see her in action a bit before we go through the exposition. 

Copious amounts of stage blood are used in the film as katana swords are the weapon of choice for most people in the film.  Heads and hands get separated from the body on a regular basis,  and gushers occur as they do in these sorts of movies.  There seems to have been a whole subculture of criminal organizations in Japan at the time. Rival gangs rat each other out, fight for power, and generally get to the center of the Revenge plot in a variety of ways. 

Sometimes the storytelling in films like this is a little incomplete. It's not quite clear what the motivation of the first gang leader is, when helping Lady Snowblood track down her victims. It's also not quite clear how the sensationalist writer who starts publishing stories about this quest for vengeance, ends up being in an alliance with our heroine.  And maybe there's even a romance there, but again that remains relatively abstract.

The truth is that we don't really care about much of that stuff. What we want to see is Lady Snowblood go off on criminals who stand in her way, but we especially want to see the ones who destroyed her family be punished. We do get all of those things, along with a mournful song starting and ending the film. So you can sit back rest assured, that there will be bloodletting and revenge. There might even be a moment or two of contemplation but don't take it too seriously because there's a geyser of blood coming.

Hero (2002) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 I had owned this movie on Blu-ray for a dozen years before I finally watched it for an episode of the Lamb cast just a couple of years ago.  It is filled with the names of martial artists who have been acting in Asian films for 20 plus years, and with whom I only had passing familiarity. Many of my friends in the LAMB community would know all of these names in the films they've been in without thinking hard about it. So I'm coming in on this film underprepared. I will cautiously refrain from trying to be too familiar with their previous work, because after all, I'm not.

There are a few martial arts movies that I've seen over the years, three or four Bruce Lee films, Jackie Chan has been a regular, and the gloriously beautiful “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”. In no way would I diminish the work in these previous movies, but for scale and the frequency of combat, "Hero" seems to be the “Gone with the Wind” of martial arts films. It is epic and has a cast of thousands, and the leads are the biggest stars in martial arts movies in their generation. Looking at the film from a purely cinematic perspective , it can be a little overwhelming. The scale and grandeur of some of the sequences, comes pretty close to those things that we appreciate in films like the “Lord of the Rings”, or “The Odyssey”.. 

If I have any reservation about recommending this movie, it comes from the fact that it is clearly also a piece of propaganda about China's place in the world. The philosophy of the Chinese Communist Party that there is one China. Not too subtle a threat to Taiwan, and to the rest of the Pacific area, that China is an expansionist bully, that sees its mission as being righteous. Although the film appears to have the central character called Nameless, as its hero, the real heroes from the story's point of view are those who enabled the king to achieve his goal.

There are a dozen different fight sequences in the movie that could be the highlight in any other film. The battle between Nameless and Sky, at the Temple of chess, is choreographed furiously, with thrusts, strikes, and close escapes chilling in wide Master shots and  an occasional close up. It is filmed the way these kinds of movies should be done, giving us time to see the actors performing the martial arts in the context of the complete battle rather than just isolated close-ups with their hands or feet. The rain effects and the water dripping into containers around the temple add beautiful elements to the conflict, although I don't know that they signify anything of critical importance. Many of the same things can be said about the fight between Flying Snow and Moon. Their fight takes place in the daytime in a forest filled with Golden Leaves that swirl around them as the long sleeves of their clothes spin in the Wind and accentuate the fluid movements of their swords. 

Those are only two of the fight sequences that occur in the film and they may not even be the best ones. They are however the most visually stunning ones and therefore the easiest for me to remember. At first it appears that Nameless, in telling his tale To The King, is presenting the story in flashback, but in reality he is sharing a narrative that is designed with an ulterior purpose. And we are going to see the same story told more accurately from a different perspective. What looked originally like it was going to be a straightforward tale of martial arts combat,  becomes an entangled conspiracy between the combatants, and the surrounding environments, including surprisingly enough, a strong influence from calligraphy.

This was a double feature in the Paramount classic film series for this summer. I'm going to include a link to the podcast episode for you, if you'd like to hear us talk about this in more detail.

Whiplash (2014) Re-Visit Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

Back in 2014 I declared this the best film of that year. There hasn't been anything to change my mind since, and after watching it again on the big screen, I might easily think it's the best film not only of that year but of the last 10 years. At its core is the most confounding character you were likely to see on screen. Terence Fletcher is simultaneously a monster and an icon that we might admire. His demand for excellence is truly admirable but his means of achieving it are horrific.

Those of you not familiar with the story, let me briefly explain that it involves a student at the most prestigious musical Institution in the country, pursuing excellence in his instrument. Miles Teller plays the striving young man, and he encounters a teacher that pushes him to reach the excellence that he aspires to. All is not well however, because the path to excellence according to both of these people involves sacrificing the human decency that the rest of us take for granted.

JK Simmons won the Academy Award for supporting actor for this year, in what is probably the most deserved bestowing of the award in the last 20 years. His portrayal of Fletcher, as a precision driven taskmaster, is incredibly absorbing. At times he wears the mask of civility, and seems to genuinely be invested in the music culture. Yet when he stands up to his lectern to take over directing his musical ensemble, he's the personification of the most controlling, ill-tempered, unpleasant boss that anyone has ever had. The drill sergeant in “Full Metal Jacket" could take a few lessons from Terrance Fletcher in breaking down a young protege.

Writer/director Damien Chazelle, creates a story that crackles like a thriller, in spite of the fact that it has all of the accoutrements of a classroom drama. There is tension in 80% of the film that Fletcher appears on screen, and in about 50% of the time that he is not there. Aspiring Jazz drummer Andrew Neiman, is incredibly talented, but don't tell him that, because that would lead him to be satisfied with mediocrity. The recurring story about Charlie Parker having a cymbal thrown at his head, becomes the blueprint for how Fletcher is trying to teach his students. “Good job”, is a filthy phrase in his vocabulary. “Not my tempo”, is the cattle prod that he uses on Teller's Niemann. 

Both these personalities have something wrong with them. They both are addicted to the concept that suffering beyond human capacity both by yourself and by others , is the only way to achieve greatness. Neither of them has the kind of humility that will allow for a satisfying social life. And in the end, the film actually seems to be endorsing the terrorist method of instruction that Fletcher inflicts and Neiman endures. I'm sure there are plenty of successful artists, who have struggled to overcome adversity and achieve great things, without becoming insufferable a-holes. The problem is, their stories are never going to be as compelling as this one is.

The Brink of War (2026)

 

If there were a way to create a hybrid version of this film with the biographic presentation from a couple of years ago starring Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan, we'd have a complete winner. Even though that is not possible, I'd still say we have a pretty solid film in “The Brink of War”. Jeff Daniels is just good enough not to kill the movie, and that means something given that Hollywood has tried for years to use Reagan as the butt of a joke,

What this Angel Studios film does is give a story of Ronald Reagan in the style used in  Steven Spielberg's version of “Lincoln”. Instead of a comprehensive look at the life of one of our great leaders, it focuses on a specific time and event, one which helped change the world because of the man that Ronald Reagan was. There's been plenty of retconning of Reagan's story in the last 30 years, but “The Brink of War" does a good job sticking to the history, and minimizing the politics of these events.

The meeting between Reagan and Michael Gorbachev, in 1986, was viewed at the time as a failure because it did not produce an arms control agreement. In the end though, the meeting appears to have been significant, not the least of which was because the Soviet leaders recognized that the Soviet policies of the era were not really working. The eventual collapse of the Soviet Union is a direct result of the Kremlin recognizing that the Soviets did not have the resources  to fight back in the face of American economic power and the will power of the 40th President to keep to his course of action. 

Most of the movie consists of a recreation of the meetings between the two leaders. Reagan is shown to be engaged, thoughtful and with the sense of humor that he was known for. His disarming persona contrasts with the more formal Gorbachev, and Daniels, while not inhabiting the President, does a solid job conveying his real earthiness and desire for peace. The segments featuring Mrs. Gorbachev and Nancy Reagan, who were not together at all during the event, provide us with some appropriate humor as well. 

JK Simmons is another Hero of the Day, playing Secretary of State George Schultz, the patrician old school elitist, who recognizes the wisdom of playing it according to Reagan's plan. Simmons becomes the level headed narrator that we needed. This film is a reminder that grown ups once thought out their policies and worked to accomplish them. They did not just dream big, they dared to try.

Ice Cream Man (2026)

 I'd say this movie was a disappointment but I didn't really have high expectations for it in the first place so it's hard to reach that conclusion. Basically this is a rip off of the concept from "Weapons" ,  and not a very good one at that. The idea of creepy kids being used to take retribution is a cross between a “Nightmare on Elm Street” and the film from last year where Amy Madigan played the part of an ice cream man, sorry I mean witch.

This film is told from the perspective of the young protagonist, a lactose intolerant lad who has been bullied by classmates and even a little bit by his friends,  but in the end, he stands up the firmest against the evil that is encroaching on his small town. The story doesn't make much sense until we get a data dump in exposition from a local priest about 2/3 of the way through the movie. And if by any chance you're suspicious of the priest and what he has to say, you will not be at all surprised at the twist that comes near the end.

This is an Eli Roth film, so no one's expecting much subtlety. When the vicious killings occur, there's not really a lot of cutting away, we're going to see heads separated from bodies, faces smashed to smithereens, and dismemberment galore . Once in a while we get a sly joke inserted into the mayhem, unfortunately they don't always land. I can say however, that there was one bit that landed for me. There is a very funny scene which is basically a takeoff on the playground scene from Alfred Hitchcock's the birds. It builds in a form that mimics Hitchcock's style of shooting in that scene, and the juxtaposition of antagonists is what makes it work.

The Ice Cream man depicted in the film never really talks. And in spite of the horrible things that occur, there is even a slight effort to make his character somewhat sympathetic. That doesn't work, for the obvious reasons that innocent people are harmed in the process and that in the absence of any words of contrition from the victims, the Ice Cream man just continues to smile maliciously.

So the movie plays like the gore version of The Pied Piper of Hamlin, with indiscriminate victims, and innocent children turned into murderers. Ho hum. I guess I should have known when I saw that Osgood Perkins was a producer on the film. Let's just say he's gone zero for three with me, and I'm someone who appreciated that Eli Roth was directing this film,

Thief (1981) Re-visit Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

It felt a little like I was going to a James Caan Film Festival this last weekend, since he appeared in both the Saturday night and Sunday night films. His part in “Bottle Rocket" was barely more than a cameo, but he is clearly the star of Michael Mann's “Thief", the Sunday night experience and one of the best performances of Caan's career. I saw this film when it was originally in theaters back in 1981. I think I may have seen it one more time on cable sometime in the late 80s. 

For a film that I hadn't seen in more than 30 years and saw only a couple of times before that I remembered quite a bit. I also misremembered a few things, it seemed to me that Willie Nelson had a bigger part in the movie, but that was not true. He had two very brief scenes. Nevertheless the crime component is the main element of the movie and that I did remember. 

Caan plays a master Thief who's used to operating on his own, but in a bid to rush his exit from the criminal world, he agrees to pull a job for a syndicate, and of course that leads to trouble. The movie is drenched in atmosphere, lit with the blues and blacks that characterize a lot of Michael Mann films. Once in a while there are splashes of color like the neon that would become emblematic of Miami Vice, but it was all a lot more subdued in this particular film. A layer of dread also hangs over the enterprise, created by the haunting music score from Tangerine Dream. It suggests constant suspense and danger, even when people are just sitting in a diner arguing over coffee. 

The central premise is that our Master Thief, Frank, is so autonomous that no one can control him. I find it frankly easy to believe that he might be the same character played by Robert De Niro in Michael Mann's Heat 15 years later. Frank stands up to a brutal beating by corrupt cops who want a slice of the action, and he cleverly beats them at their own game so that he can carry out the main crime. As in most heist films, for some reason the audience usually identifies with the criminal, we want them to succeed and not be caught. It's great when a plan plays out the way it's supposed to, and no one gets hurt.

Of course if no one got hurt in the plan, and it was perfect, there wouldn't be any drama in the story. That's where the boss of the crime syndicate comes into play. Robert Protsky, plays a avuncular, seemingly reasonable gangster, who makes big promises, and comes through on some of them, but breaks the one rule that Frank sees as a red line. 

The conclusion of the film is really a test of Frank's Independence. His willingness to fight back against the intrusion on his autonomy, is the main focus of the third act. Once again we may want Frank to succeed, but we're not going to see him as a very good person, because of the sacrifices he's willing to make in order to stay his own self. I don't think however it could have gone any other way and felt authentic.

Bottle Rocket (1996) Re-Visit Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

Over the years I've become a fan of Wes Anderson films, “Bottle Rocket" was his first film, but it was not the first one that I saw. I'm pretty sure that “Rushmore” was my Gateway into Wiss Anderson filmography. It was after that film that I went and rented "Bottle Rocket” and watched it at home. I had virtually no memory of seeing it other than the memory of going to Blockbuster, putting it in the VCR,  and being done with it later and thinking that was a nice bit of nothing.

30 years later I'm pretty much in the same place. “Bottle Rocket” is a shaggy dog story, with the two brothers Owen and Luke Wilson playing off of one another as dimbulb characters whose lofty goal is to become master thieves. Or maybe that's just the goal of Dignan, the delusional character played by Owen Wilson in full stoner mode. For some reason he's the character who hasn't been in a mental institution but clearly should have been. Anthony is the friend who has been self-committed for a time, played by Luke Wilson, as a character who's only guile is fooling his friend and indulging his delusions. Otherwise he's a pretty stand-up fellow.

The ridiculous 75-year plan to become Master criminals and live a life of ease is Dignan's fantasy. It is however clear from the very beginning that these two guys, along with their friend Bob, are too inept to be successful as criminals. At best they would be small timers forever at worst they might get killed pulling off a job that would hardly be worth it. What pleasure is found in the movie is in seeing Anthony trying to make a connection with the maid at the hotel that they're staying at, in spite of his inability to speak a language she understands. 

The sincerity of this Romance is put as a backdrop to Dignan's plan to connect with Mr Henry, his former boss at Landscaping Company, who also happens to be a low-level criminal. If crime were all in the planning, then Dignan and Anthony would be at the top of the game. For them the problem is that crime is really in the execution, and they are frankly not capable of executing anything more complicated than opening a can of beer.

The story here is not deep, we kind of want the best for these idiots, but we also recognize that they deserve to go to jail for the activities that they are engaged in. At the same time we want Anthony and Inez to work it out. I did think there was one clever twist along the way concerning their plot, but it's not one that benefits them at all. Mr Henry is the one who's capable of planning and executing a crime, not these three dimwits. 

The offbeat humor and the thickness of the main characters are the traits that mark this as a Wes Anderson film. He will continue to mine these tropes for all of his future movies, but he will add a plot and additional characters to make those a little bit more absorbing. Meanwhile “Bottle Rocket” is a pleasant enough couple of hours, that you won't mind having spent some time watching. You may however have trouble remembering why I was so pleasant.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) Re-Visit Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

My daughter and I are already in the middle of a rewatch of Quentin Tarantino's filmography. The fact that “Reservoir Dogs" was playing at the summer classic film series is just pure coincidence, but a happy one, because I haven't been able to see this film on the big screen since the first time I saw it at the Colorado theater in Pasadena in 1992.

This story is going to repeat itself on my page chronicling some movie visits with my late wife. I've been trying to do that sequentially, so this is a little out of order. This was Tarantino's first film, and I had read about it in one of the national magazines and the splash that it was making at Sundance. I was anxious to see it and I brought my wife with me, and neither of us had any idea of what we were getting into. The film is pretty brutal, and the language is coarse, but for the most part that did not seem to be bothering her. Until the scene where Michael Madsen, while dancing to Steelers Wheels , cuts the ear off of a cop that he is torturing. It's at that point that my wife leaned over to me and said in my ear “you owe me big time".  She was apparently a little miffed that I had exposed her to something so savage.

Anyway the rest of the movie is almost as savage, the fact that Tim Roth spends the majority of his performance laying on his back screaming and moaning from a gunshot wound is only part of it. The characters, famously named after colors, which was inspired by “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three”, are all reprobates, that may have a gift for gab, but with whom you wouldn't really want to be involved in a conversation. 

Speaking of conversations, it's hard for me to believe that I actually showed the opening diner scene with  criminals sitting around the breakfast table arguing about tipping, in my argumentation classes. The vocabulary they use and the graphic way in which they describe their opinions, was not my focus, but rather the way they tried to parry one another's points, and refute the claims being presented, while talking about an opinion that they differed on. I'm pretty sure that if I was showing this in my classes today, I wouldn't be retired, I'd be unemployed.

Although there are a few scenes set outdoors, and a few other locations, this movie is the perfect scenario for a first-time screenwriter /director who has a limited budget. It's almost like a piece set in a single scene, because so much of what is going on occurs in the warehouse, and everything else is just a flashback. This was our first opportunity to fully absorb the way Tarantino's characters spoke. For the most part they are articulate, forceful, and vulgar. Actors exchanging his dialogue is nearly hypnotic, and this will be a trademark of all of Tarantino's subsequent movies.

The pop soundtrack is another giveaway of future Tarantino trademarks. Heavy on '70s film references, and the soul and pop songs of the era, it makes the squeamish elements more tolerable for those of us who know the tunes. The theater was packed, and everybody seemed to appreciate it when Mr Pink rubs his thumb and index finger together, playing the world's smallest violin for all the waitresses in the world.

Fargo (1996) Re-Visit Paramount Suimmer Classic Film Series

 

Like a lot of film fans, if you ask me on any given day what my favorite movie is from a given director or actor, my opinion is likely to be influenced by the most recent film I've seen of theirs. For me I don't think that's the case with the Coen brothers. I really enjoy and love most of their films, but “Fargo” has always been my favorite. It features one of the greatest characters that they ever created in Marge Gunderson, the police chief of Brainerd, MN,  who heroically pursues malfeasance in her community. Frances McDormand has been a fixture in the Academy Awards process ever since Mississippi Burning, but this is the film that cemented her as the leading actress of our era.

“Fargo” starts off with a lie, one that most people don't even realize has been passed off on them. An opening card says that the movie is based on true events. No it is not. The mischief that is created by this line is continued in the ongoing Fargo TV series which uses the same conceit, and tagline about how only the names have been changed in respect to the dead and to protect the living. Joel and Ethan Cohen created a mythos with that line which works to make the film that follows more epic than it really is

Francis McDormand is not the only outstanding performance in the film. There are two other actors whose contributions to Fargo make it one of the great dark comedies of all time, while simultaneously being a grim crime story. William H Macy plays Jerry Lundergaard, the hapless car salesman who has taken out a loan against the inventory on his Father-In-Laws car lot, in order to invest in a piece of property he thinks is going to turn a tidy profit down the road. Of course the problem is he needs more money than he can get, and his solution is to kidnap his own wife and to ransom her using his father-in-law’s money.  Macy presents a guileless persona in  Jerry, he's a character so conniving and reprehensible, while at the same time being a simpleton and a pushover. You get a good example of his feckless success in the scene where he passively aggressively bullies a customer into paying for an undercoat for the new car he is buying. We get a chance to see how capable Jerry is of lying while still trying to look like a powerless fool. The fact that he is a powerless fool doesn't hurt.

The third Ace in this hand is Steve Buscemi's Carl Shoalwalter, a professional criminal nearly as feckless as Jerry is. His frustration with his lot in life builds up to a crescendo of violence rather than a shrug of powerlessness. Buscemi is smarmy and  belligerent, dangerously so when he confronts his own partner. No one in the story is reliable, but we can count on Buscemi to always make the worst choice possible and act as if he is the victim instead of the victimizer. Along with Mr Pink, his character and “Reservoir Dogs”, ShowWalter, establishes Buscemi as the weaseliest character actor of the 90s.

Just like Tarantino does, the Coen's turned violence into grim humor, but unlike Tarantino, whose joke usually depends on the visual explosion of a handgun in someone's face, the Coen’s make the situation the source of the humor. The violence is just the consequence of a particular situation. We don't need to see Buscemi shoot the face off of an innocent ticket clerk in a parking structure, his frustration has already been set up, all we need is to see the consequence.

Chief Gunderson, has a couple of great scenes where her real sincerity is contrasted with the deceptiveness of the people she's interacting with. Her kindness in regard to a former classmate, who clearly has emotional problems, and seems incapable of telling the truth, makes us see Marge as the decent woman she is in a tough job. In the two times she confronts the duplicitous Jerry Lundergaard, she is authoritative and polite up to the point, where Lundergaard's rudeness demands that she step up. Her voiceless confrontation with Peter Stormare's character, as he is disposing of his partner in the wood chipper, shows that she is also fearless, under that veneer of Minnesota nice. 

Even though the film plays out as a tragedy, with several senseless deaths, which occur under uncomfortably amusing circumstances, there's still some hope. As Marge and her adoring husband lay in bed contemplating the future and their soon to be born child, we get a sense that the normal people in the world still have a chance. That's about as hopeful as it gets.

Speed Racer (2008) Revisit

 

27 years ago a cult grew up around the films of the Wachowski Brothers / sisters, with the release of"The Matrix”. It was a groundbreaking film that utilized special effects, clever camera tools and frankly brilliant framing and staging, to make a science fiction film a classic. The two sequels never lived up to the promise of that first film, because they got bogged down in a series of philosophical and existential musings.

How could they redeem the promise that they showed with that first Matrix film? For my money the answer is apparently the gloriously overstuffed “Speed Racer”. When this film came out it didn't do any business that is worth writing home about, which always amazed me because it looks spectacular. It may be that I am just one of those people who's willing to go along with the conceit of a filmmaker if it strikes me as being appropriate in the moment. For example, I love films like “Snakes on a Plane", “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th dimension”, and “Swiss Army Man”. “Big Trouble in Little China” may be the most enjoyable film that John Carpenter ever made but I know there are people who just can't get into it, well I can. And “Speed Racer” is a movie that I'm willing to do the same for.

This movie looks like a cartoon, moves like a cartoon, and is acted like a cartoon, and that's one of the things that makes it so much fun. When Warren Beatty made “Dick Tracy" back in 1990, he used a very specific color palette and lighting strategy to evoke the comics of the era that the character came from. The Wachowskis are doing the same thing with this movie. The colors are dazzling, oversaturated Neon hued, and they whack you over the head. 

If you've never seen the movie it's hard to describe what the experience is like. It's very immersive, and very loud, and I'm surprised that anybody who suffers from motion sickness can get through a screening of this film without passing out or vomiting. I guess I'm lucky because mostly what I get is an Adrenaline Rush and the kind of brain stimulation that occurs when I drive down the strip in Las Vegas.  This particular screening was even more so, because it featured a new 4D presentation of the film on the largest IMAX screen in the state of Texas. It was an assault on your senses that you voluntarily take on, in the hopes that it will get you a kind of psychedelic High without actually having to drop acid.

In the nearly 20 years since the film came out, it has acquired a cult status, which overcomes its initial failings.  When I see people criticize the film because they object to the little brother and the chimpanzee, I know they have completely missed the vibe that I experience when I see the movie. Sure the kid is corny, and some of the jokes are obvious, but if you take a look around you'll see that that's true everywhere in the movie. That's one of the pleasures of this film, it is exactly what it wants to be. This movie wants you to give in to the sensory stimulation and the artificial nature of the visuals. If you can accept the little boy and his chimpanzee smuggling themselves in the back of a race car, or engaging in hijinks on a private plane, or simply just being a nuisance, then it's easy for you to accept the ridiculous car chases, race sequences, and comic book villains.

As a kid I never really watched Speed Racer, so I don't have that nostalgia to fall back on as a reason for my love of this movie. My embrace of it is clearly based on the audacity of the concept and its execution. I have not been enthusiastic about other films from this duo, but along with “The Matrix”, “Speed Racer” has my respect for them as filmmakers. 

Grease (1978) and High School Musical (2006)

 

Grease

I'm not sure it would ever feel like summer without a film like Greece on the big screen. For a Nostalgia junkie like me, seeing John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John sing and dance across the picnic tables and bleachers at Rydell High, is just the ticket to enjoying an afternoon in the theater on a bright summer day.

As usual it continues to amaze me how the many more adult references in the song lyrics and story moments get pushed into the subtext. This allows families to enjoy the movie in spite of the references to heavy petting, oral sex, and assorted deviant behaviors. Most of that gets lost between the songs which are bouncy and fun, and even when they slow down are more about teenage angst than just doing it.

We lost Olivia Newton John a few years ago, and watching this film it's easy to remember how great she was, in spite of being cast outside of the age range for the character. She had a purity of voice, and a general innocent demeanor, which sold as a high school senior, in spite of the fact that she was nearly 30. The split screen duet near the beginning of the film, “Summer Loving”, was so cleverly choreographed and shot, that it feels almost as if Travolta and Newton-John were actually singing together.

The higher energy “Greased Lightning” sequence glosses over some crude references, with energy and visuals that distract from some of the language and implications. I know there's still families out there that share this film with their pre-adolescent children, and don't worry about the subtext because nobody's going to see it with all of the dazzling pretty things moving on the screen. Let's face it, it's just fun.

High School Musical

At the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, “Grease” was paired with the Disney Channel Original film, “High School Musical”. I know I saw this when it was first shown on the Disney Channel, my kids watched it and I spent some time watching it with them, but I remembered almost nothing about the movie. Apparently I'm alone however, because the State Theater, where all the films are being screened this summer because the Paramount is under renovation, was filled with fans of this teenage film. You could hear them singing along with some of the songs and there were several adults, in their 30s, who were cheering and wooing at moments that they clearly recalled from their youth. The fact that some of it seemed coordinated, amused me to no end. I'm afraid I got more laughs from the audience's reaction to the film than from anything that happened on screen.

There's nothing wrong with High School Musical, it's just that to me, pairing it with this '70s film with two major Stars and a long history of nostalgia, it just doesn't match up. Probably just an old man's perspective on the thing, obviously the younger adults were pretty happy to be in a movie theater seeing something that they saw screening on their cable channels 20 to 25 years ago. 

I did appreciate the choreography of the basketball dancing scenes, I thought that the cheerleaders and players all did a fantastic job in working it out. But for me there wasn't any song that stood out, any line that I would be quoting for years and years, and the comedic references just don't have the same resonance.

Still I had a good time, and seeing both of the films in a double feature, on a Sunday afternoon evening in the summer, seemed like a good way to enjoy the season.

The Untouchables (1987) -2026 Re-Visit

 

This will be a perfunctory entry since I've written about seeing the film three times in the last 3 years. This is the fourth year in a row that we've had an opportunity to see The Untouchables on the big screen, like several other films that I love. I never miss an opportunity to see these movies in a theater with an audience. So much of this film works so well because it is designed as a crowd pleaser. The combination of the cast, the director and the screenwriter pretty much ensures that the movie is going to be solid.

Famously this was Sean Connery's Academy award-winning performance, and every time I watch the movie I remember why. He's great in this film. Connery however is not the only one who is terrific, Robert De Niro chews the scenery as Al Capone, Kevin Costner is in the process of turning himself into a movie star with this film, and Charles Martin Smith steals every scene that he is in. It really is a delightful film if you can use the word delightful to describe a gangster film featuring a variety of murders. In addition to the scene stealing Smith, Billy Drago plays Frank Nitty as a stone cold zombie murderer that everybody will be happy to see take a dive off the roof.

Obviously inspired by true events and just as obviously plotted by a screenwriter who needed to tell a story without being true to those events, David Mamet gives us a diverting buddy cop movie, with over the top bad guys, and a clever plot, that doesn't quite hit the ending but at that point nobody cares. Ennio Morricone, delivers one of his best scores for an American-made film. 

I appreciate the fact that the high living gangsters could all afford Armani suits. The period detail when it comes to the automobiles is also quite excellent, and the production design of Eliot Ness's home and the hotel rooms that Al Capone occupies is exquisite. 

There are three fantastic action set pieces that illustrate mastery of the cinema. DePalma stages a western style raid on the border between Canada and the US, with Mounties and gangsters on either side of a bridge. All of our four protagonists get an opportunity to shine in this sequence. The most famous scene in the movie, inspired by the “Battleship Potemkin”, is the shootout on the stairs of the train station. The tension builds with the woman trying to move her luggage and pram up the staircase as Eliot Ness looks on watching for his targets. DePalma goes into slow motion for the actual shootout, and that allows us to see how it all comes together brilliantly. Elliott Ness’s command to Stone" take him", lets us know that the evolution of the crime fighter is complete. We get one last great piece with Ness chasing Frank Nitty up to the courthouse roof finally, apprehending him and then the dispensing Justice with a great quip that evokes a horrifying laugh.

Let's face it, this movie is just terrific.

Spider-Man Brad New Day (2026) 2

 

We are well past the point where any of my opinions are going to matter on a film like this. I am completely aware that my suggestions will be superfluous, after all the movie has already made over a billion dollars and it's part of a long-standing franchise that is going to continue regardless of what I think. Nevertheless I consider it my responsibility to let people know what I thought of a movie that I saw in the theater, and I'm happy to say that I generally enjoyed the heck out of this movie. It's not quite as fun filled with the fan service that we got in the last Spider-Man film 5 years ago, but it is plenty entertaining and doesn't screw up our main characters too much.

Tom Holland may however be growing out of the role since he is much less boyish than he was when he first appeared on the scene as Spiderman in “ Captain America Civil Wars" more than a decade ago. The plot does have him growing older however, so it's not as if the filmmakers are denying the existence of time, but rather they're just trying to minimize it. 

You can get a recap of the plot from a number of other sources, let's just say that the film picks up pretty much where it needed to after the whole planet has been wiped with the memory of Peter Parker. Peter himself of course. still has his memories, which is what is torturing him a bit, because he still loves MJ and misses his best friend Ned. Having made the decision not to reconnect with them at the end of the film last time, he's had to go it on his own. There's a great sequence at the beginning of the film that reminded me of a similar sequence in “Fantastic Four First Steps”, where we see a quick montage of Spider-Man defeating a variety of his comic villains. On the Lambcast my friend Jeanette used the term “cold open villain”, to describe the secondary nature of these characters. They exist just long enough to demonstrate Spider-Man skill but they aren't worthy of an entire film. 

The lone police detective that Spider-Man has connected with, forming a relationship similar to that between Batman and Commissioner Gordon, is professionally effective but emotionally empty. This means Peter is spending a lot of time wallowing in his existential crisis. He watches Instagram posts from Ned about the lives of he and MJ as they go through MIT without him. It's only the presence of a new supervillain, a mysterious psychic, who LeapFrogs from person to person, that causes Peter to try to reconnect with his old friends.

Meanwhile Spider-Man  is also undergoing some changes as a result of his isolation. Apparently the spider DNA that is coursing through his body is following an evolutionary pattern for spiders who do end up in a solitary existence. The changes frightened Peter and move him to try to consult with somebody else who is fighting the DNA in their own body. It's not really a spoiler to tell you that this person is Dr Bruce Banner, since the character is featured in most of the promotional material for this movie.

Bruce has sound advice but it comes with a warning and as usual, Peter can't really listen to a warning, he dives right into trying to make a solution that will work. As it turns out the solution would also potentially stop the new super threat that the psychic presents. In case you haven't guessed it, that solution is a double-edged sword which may in fact hurt Peter, and can definitely be weaponized by the Department of Damage Control, the agency that is under attack from the psychic, and which has been responsible for cleaning up after alien and enhanced human confrontations. 

There are two very emotional scenes in the film, each of which is worth talking about a little bit. Peter gets two chances to confront the situation between him and MJ, one turns out to be a ruse, and the other is a quite affecting moment between the two actors on the screen. The filmmakers do a nice job confronting the situation that Peter has put himself in in relationship to MJ.  They don't have an easy answer, but they do seem to have an honest one. And if you have any romance in your heart for their relationship, it may provoke a moment where you choke up.

Even more emotional however, the clever way Peter tries to resolve the issue with our mysterious psychic. It involves a memory of a conversation that he had with his deceased aunt. Marisa Tomei returns as Aunt May and what might have been flashbacks but are really extended visions in Peter's head. The conversation that Aunt May has with the Peter possessed psychic, is likely to invoke some tears in those of us who are pretty sentimental.

As it turns out, there are other characters from the MCU that show up in the film as well. One is there for a bit of comic relief and for some narrative, but mostly just to remind us that the Avengers is still a thing. The other MCU character is providing a transition to a new set of possibilities in the Marvel Universe. Those comic book fans who know the history of the rights dispersal of MCU characters, will be salivating at the chance to maybe reconnect some formally disconnected Heroes.

There's a lot more to talk about here, and if you want to hear more from me, you can visit the Lambcast episode that I have shared, where Jeanette Ward and I spent an hour debriefing each other on our opinions and theories.

Spider-Man Brand New Day (2026)

 

For now, the Podcast is going to be my post on this film. 

Snake Eyes (1998)

 

I've said it in the past and I'll say it again now, for a period of 20 years Brian DePalma was my favorite film director. I saw all of his movies and thought they were great, even the ones that flopped at the box office. If you were ever in the mood you can visit my post on the 1984 film “Body Double" and see how I'm willing to commit to DePalma, even at his most lured and financially disappointing point.

“Snake Eyes” probably marks the beginning of the end of my DePalma era. The films that came after hardly seemed interesting, and never drew my attention in the same way. This 1998 film, with an over-the-top Nicolas Cage, and a fabulously understated Gary Sinise, shows the director's talents at staging, framing, and editing a film in a way that few others have managed to succeed at. Structurally the screenplay starts well past the real start of the story, nowadays that's fairly typical, but in 1998 it was pure DePalma.

The vast majority of the film takes place on a single night at a prize fight in Atlantic City. The former Resort town transitioned into a casino based economy, which struggles to survive while also trying to mimic Vegas. Nick Cage plays Rick Santoro, a corrupt local detective who's old friend is a naval Commander in charge of security for the visiting Secretary of Defense. Of course the string of unrelated events creates a confluence of narrative around the assassination of the secretary. The heavyweight fighter, a mysterious blonde, a local newscaster, and some low-life bookies, all are connected to Santoro and the investigation of this crime.  Everyone in attendance at the prize fight is a suspect so they are all contained inside of the Arena and the adjoining Casino. This sets up a cat and mouse scenario with Santoro trying to figure out what happened, who to trust, and of course most importantly, whether to take a payoff.

The film is full of long single shot takes, a well-known characteristic of Brian DePalma films. There are also interesting angles, shot from above, clearly inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock films that DePalma has always mined for ideas. The movie feels kinetic without ever losing its coherence. It's terrific to watch, with 90s style, and an indie attitude, in spite of its big budget and stars. It's a different kind of dirt then you'd find under the fingernails of a Tarantino film, but the styles are very similar and equally compelling on the screen.

As always, there's a conspiracy, and the principles have difficulty containing the situation when Detective Santoro becomes the fly in the ointment. Whether or not Rick is supposed to be high on cocaine, he certainly conveys such a personality. Cage has the ebullient voice, grandiose hand and arm gestures, and bug-eyed smirks, which characterize some of his most memorable characters. Gary Sinise looks great in his Naval dress uniform, but it doesn't take long for us to suss out that there is something not quite right there.

After this film was originally released it showed up regularly on pay channels that we subscribed to on our Dish TV satellite. It felt like it was on a regular rotation at the house, and my kids who were still too young to really be seeing this kind of stuff, watched it anyways, and fell in love with both Gary Sinise and Nicholas Cage. So when a chance to see this film on the big screen showed up, inevitably we were going to go and I'm so glad we did. 

This movie is wild, well shot, and a little complex. It is also vastly entertaining. I probably haven't seen it for 15 years, and I can't really understand why. The truth is I'll probably be watching it again in the next few days, because it's just that addicting. It reminds me in every shot why I loved De Palma of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Strangers on a Train (1951)

 

Years ago I said it but I don't remember exactly who I said it to. Steven Spielberg learned all he knows about building an action scene by watching Hitchcock's “Strangers on a Train”. The movie is a slow burn with a lot of exposition but the climax is filled with the dramatic carousel chase that ends up being both humorous and truly frightening simultaneously. Hitchcock mixes close-ups with master shots and movement, along with editing to make the scene really sing. It's exactly the kind of thing that Spielberg has done in Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and the Lost World.

This 1951 Thriller begins Hitchcock's most epic period of filmmaking.  The black and white cinematography was nominated for an Academy Award and it's almost impossible for me to believe but the truly psychotic Bruno played by Robert Walker was not nominated. Those of you not familiar with the story, it involves a chance meeting between a privileged, spoiled sociopath, and a tennis star that he admires. Bruno has an interesting theory, that the perfect way to commit a murder would be by trading murders with somebody else. That way  you could establish an alibi and there would be no way to trace back who the killer of your victim who would have no motive.. 

Farley Granger plays Guy Haynes. who has a deep resentment to the wife that he thinks he's about to divorce, but who turns out to be manipulating him simply to keep him paying for her lifestyle in spite of her infidelities. He does lash out at her in one scene but it's not murderous, it's simply frustration. Bruno however insists on carrying out his part of the plan, and once he has committed an atrocity, expects Guy to reciprocate. Guy, who is afraid of being implicated in the murder of his wife, tries to avoid Bruno and stay out of his way. But like a gracious Terminator, Walker keeps coming back into the scene. At times convivial, at other times psychotically out of control.

In a continuation of Hitchcock's habit of focusing on the wrong man, Guy looks like he could be implicated in the crime by some evidence that Bruno has kept. It's a little complicated, but the woman that Guy wants to marry, helps him plan an opportunity to catch Bruno in the act of planting evidence, thus freeing himself from the threat of a false prosecution. The tension in the third act all starts with a tennis match that needs to finish as quickly as possible. Every serve and every long volley, builds up the tension as we wonder whether or not Guy will be able to intercept Bruno in time.

Along the way in the film there are some fantastic shots, typical of Hitchcock's cleverness in framing the story. One of the most Eerie visual moments involves watching a murderer approach his victim in the lens of a pair of eyeglasses. Later in the film, there is another moment where Bruno, when demonstrating to some Society ladies,  the ease with which a person could take a life, while having a rather Twisted discussion about murder at a cocktail party, loses control and begins to  relive his moment and actually starts to strangle one of the elderly women.

Of course the plot is a little exaggerated, and there are some things that the police probably wouldn't be doing in the way we see it being done on screen. Nevertheless the story holds up and we want Guy to exonerate himself and Bruno to be punished. Since this film was made in the 1950s by an established director with a major Studio you can probably guess that it all turns out all right.

I first watched this film back in the 1980s on one of my cable channels and became fascinated with it. I've seen it several times since but always on television . It was great getting a chance to go down to the State Theater and see it on the big screen. I was a little surprised at how jovial some of the audience members were about the threats presented by the antagonist, as if they were not serious and were only comically created. I, on the other hand , watch the way an audience might have back in 1951. Horrified by the suggestion and terrified by the circumstances. But most of all ultimately thrilled by the Mastery of Alfred Hitchcock.

Modern Times (1936)

 

It's always great to see a Charlie Chaplin film but it's especially so when you get a chance to see it on the big screen. “Modern Times” isn't strictly a silent film, but there is so little dialogue that it might as well be. It contains some of the well-known visual gags of Chaplin's career. The story includes his insertion into a large manufacturing tool, and the moments when he's fed automatically by a machine designed to speed up the workplace lunch break.

The story is very episodic, and that tends to be a feature of silent films, but nevertheless it is still engaging and the presence of Paulette Goddard adds the romantic element that this type of film needs. The production design on this film is on a level equivalent to the performance of the star / director himself. The famous conveyor belt job requires the substantial movement of men, machinery, and equipment, in a sequence that requires expert timing. Today all of this would be accomplished with AI and computer graphics. To see this accomplished back in the 1930s with just human endeavor is pretty awesome.

There's plenty to laugh at in the movie, but they're also a couple of spots where your heartstrings will be tugged. There's a sequence on roller skates that is pretty phenomenal, and hysterical at the same time. I kick myself every time I see a silent film, because I, like a lot of other  people, hesitate to commit to those movies. The truth is I haven't been disappointed in a single one that I've seen, so let's make the effort to get out there more often. Charlie Chaplin was a hero of the movie industry, and everybody should see those films. 

The Odyssey (2026)

 

At this point there's probably little that I could say about the Odyssey that would change your mind one way or the other. I have seen the most diverse opinions on this film that I can think of in the last 5 years or so. On the Lambcast we had one or two people who were enthusiastic, one person who is moderately positive on the film and one person who outright thought it was terrible. These are generally well informed people and so the wide variety of opinions seems to suggest that a lot of what influences people about this movie has less to do with the filmmaking and everything to do with personal perspective.

Myself I was only vaguely familiar with the story of Odysseus and his journey back from the Trojan War. I must have watched an earlier version somewhere because so much of the story is familiar, and I doubt that that is simply because I remembered it from my sophomore year in high school. My point of view is probably strongly influenced by the fact that I respect Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker and I have been enthusiastic about every other film that he's made so far in his career. I can't say that the Odyssey is his best film, I'm not even sure it's his most ambitious, but it does have a broader scope than most of his other movies and has a lot of those elements of a travelog that makes historical epics seem so interesting.

I'll start with what I think is the best thought out segment of the movie, and that's the insertion of the Greek soldiers inside the walls of Troy through the subterfuge of a gift horse statue. Even people who have never read The Odyssey or unfamiliar with its companion piece The Iliad, are likely to know the story of the Trojan Horse in which a small platoon of Greek soldiers hides inside a massive figure of a horse left for the Trojans as a gift by seemingly departing Greek troops. Once inside the walls of Troy the soldiers come out, open the gates and let in the host of Greek soldiers who have returned to the city under the cover of a moonless night. The horse in this movie looks like something the Trojans would actually want to have in their Temple to commemorate the end of the war. It's actually a sculpted wooden figure assembled from the Timbers of the ships that the Greeks left in pieces on the shores of the Trojan Empire. It doesn't look like a creaky piece of junk furniture but rather a statue put together by artisans that looks beautiful and has been polished to a degree that it will reflect the sunlight or the moonlight. The thing that makes Nolan's telling of the story so much better is that we see inside the horse as Odysseus and his fellow Warriors struggle not to drown in the high tide, crush one another as they await their chance to strike, and try to remain silent when the horse is being moved or probed with swords. The Trojans are portrayed as being much less naive and simply not as thorough as they might have been. The trick is accomplished but it requires the pack of soldiers to endure close quarters with human waste, no real supplies, and only a hope that their trick will work.

One of the ways the Greeks try to ensure that the trick is accepted as a gift is by leaving a soldier behind to explain the purpose to the Trojans when they discover the statue. Sinon has not been told what the figure is, and dies for having the audacity to have remained behind to tell the tale. Here is one of the points of disagreement that we had in our discussion on the film: this Soldier is played by the transgendered actor / actress Elliott / Ellen Page. One of the guests on the show said that it was the best performance in the film, but Paige looks like a hundred pounds of nothing in comparison to the other soldiers / actors in the scenes. The bravery that is conveyed on the screen has more to do with the willingness of somebody of that stature to appear in this role when they are dwarfed by the other performers on the screen. Nolan has loyalty to his cast of actors, and having used Page before seems to have felt obligated to cast the performer in the film in spite of the obvious misplacement.

In my mind the best performance was by Robert Pattinson, playing Antonius, the lead suitor of Odysseus's wife Penelope. He is an unctuous , condescending youth who takes advantage of Zeus's law about courtesy and treatment of strangers. He along with dozens of other suitors treat Odysseus' home as their own while mocking the son of their host, in order to provoke a fight that would justify their own violence. I'm not sure how the structure of the original Odyssey works but here we continuously move back and forth between the Journey of Odysseus and his men and the travails of his family. 

In the adventure where Odysseus and his men are captured by the Cyclops, we are denied the dialogue that is featured in the original story. This Cyclops is portrayed as nearly silent, speaking only near the end of the episode when the sailors and soldiers are making good their escape. The visualization of the single eye makes it look more like this is a birth defect rather than a creature who evolved with a single eye. I found that a little distracting, although the image is creative and frankly quite disturbing. It is however not as disturbing as the episode when Circe the witch on her own private island, turns Odysseus's troop into a herd of pigs. This was visually the most creative moment in the movie, and the one most likely to give you nightmares. Samantha Morton plays Circe and she is a sympathetic figure in spite of her malevolent acts toward the soldiers.

Calypso is represented on screen by Charlize Theron, who is largely wasted providing exposition but not much more. Matt Damon plays our central figure Odysseus, who doubts his own heroism and as presented seems much less the leader than has been seen in previous versions of the story. Still he is a stalwart presence and he has several emotional scenes that have the appropriate impact on the story and the audience. Again for context, people on the podcast seem to dismiss his performance, but I'm willing to bet that he'll be nominated and maybe even be the favorite for the Oscars next year.

Tom Holland plays the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and at first he appears to be feckless, but as the story goes on his performance gets more authentic. John Leguizamo is the wise herdsman left by Odysseus in charge of the livestock,  and 20 years later nearly blind, is another standout in a supporting role. Maybe it's just the fact that he cares for the dog that is holding on to its life and in the hopes of his master's return, that makes him an incredibly sympathetic character.  The fact that Antonias kicks the dog, reinforces the notion that we should hate him. Anne Hathaway is very sympathetic as Penelope who has to convey her distraught in concealment while seeming to be strong on the outside.

The film is 3 hours long but I never felt its length and that's another testament to the work of Christopher Nolan. The movie is spectacularly shot in IMAX and I saw a presentation on an IMAX screen as well as a 70 mm screening. It's clear that the film wants to be a contemporary epic like Lawrence of Arabia. However great it looks though, it never reaches the emotional depths of that 1960s Epic, and although I think there is a very good theme about the morality of how we treat our enemies, it never leaves the same impression that a film like Lawrence did