Dracula and Frankenstein (1931) Panic! at the Paramount

 

Panic! at The Paramount this year is actually Panic! at the State Theater since our beloved Paramount is undergoing renovations for a year.  That does not mean that there's been a fall off in the programming however, and although the State Theater is not as magnificent as the Paramount, when the lights are off and the screen is lit up with a classic film, and you are surrounded by people who love those kinds of movies the way you do, it is still a great experience.

Both “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” came out 95 years ago. A Century Of Horror was established with these films, and even though they weren't the first horror films they created the template on which most of the films we see as being fright movies have followed.  Warner Brothers was famous for its gangster pictures, and MGM had musicals but in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Universal is where you went to if you wanted a scary movie.

“Dracula” is based more on the stage play than on the book from Bram Stroker. There's plenty of overlap, but the movie plays very much like a theatrical production. The actors have long bits of dialogue that they take turns saying in dramatic ways, with frequent pauses for the audience to process. It's true that some of the storytelling here is a little creaky. Rubber bats bouncing up and down on a string are not particularly convincing, but in 1931 that's how you did it, and I'm perfectly willing to go along with it.

The elaborate sets of Carfax Abby, are a nice in camera effect, that relies less on filters and backgrounds or animation, and more on production design with some spooky atmosphere provided by both the actors and the scenery. Speaking of scenery, I still think some of the painted backdrops used to create the roads and passes of Transylvania, are pretty impressive. The matte work of the castle in the mountains is equally strong. 

The most lasting physical contribution that Dracula has made to the cinema is the portrayal of the dark count by Bela Lugosi, who starred in the original stage production, and his look is forever imprinted  in our minds, this is what Count Dracula looks and acts like. I went as Dracula trick or treating as a kid, with the widow's peak, the cape and The Medallion around my neck. They all reinforced the look, but it's the fake accent that makes it work the best.

The other night I did notice an editing mistake in the film, or at least somebody screwed up on continuity. We learned that the lady in white who's been terrorizing the children in London was in fact the deceased Lucy Weston. However we never see a resolution to that situation. I suppose it's assumed that once Dracula himself has been disposed of his acolytes or Brides would fall by the wayside. In the Coppola version of Dracula, we got a gruesome resolution of that story. Maybe the audience is of 1931 we're not ready to have a young woman be decapitated on screen.

 

 As terrific as “Dracula” is, when it comes to production design, “Frankenstein" is how you really do it. The laboratory equipment sparks, snaps and flares with electricity. The interior of the abandoned watchtower, which serves as Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory, , is matched by the exterior Matte shots, which make the local scenery into one of those Universal Staples. A dark mountain side with a castle located on the top and a foreboding Forest around it. 

Just as “Dracula” had Bella Lugosi to anchor the story and give us an indelible villain, “Frankenstein” has Boris Karloff, playing a monster that is sometimes frightening and sometimes pitiful. The sequel does a much better job of building empathy for the monster, but in the moments where the monster is fearful of fire, all of us can relate to being intimidated by something scary.

The reels we saw the other night included the long missing segments with young Maria. She was always in the film, but the scene where she is flung into the lake by the monster, had been edited out back in the 1930s. The restored film stock is noticeably different in the film( although I'm pretty sure we saw a digital presentation).

Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, is certainly an example of screen acting styles of the era. He is frequently melodramatic and his voice exaggerates the emotional beats. Still, as I was watching it, I felt much more engaged with his character than I had in some of the previous screenings that I have attended. 

It's been more than 50 years since the movie “Young Frankenstein" came into my life, and I am still influenced by the fidelity to the production design of that movie, and the scenes from the original film that it parodies. The graveyard sequences and the bit about the brain being abnormal, only barely deviate from the original tone. Once again the style of the era has to be forgiven, but doing so is easy. 

If ever you get a chance to see either of these films in a real theater with other patrons don't miss out. They are fantastic time capsules that reflect how audiences could be shocked a century ago, but they also show how we are not that different from those audiences.  This was another terrific evening of Classic Cinema from the Austin theater group who managed both the Paramount and state theaters. 

Resident Evil (2026)

 

Here is a revelation that I didn't see coming, had no expectations for, and caught up with simply because it was convenient to do so. I may have seen the original film version of “Resident Evil” at some point, but I couldn't tell you anything about it. I've never been a gamer so I have no clue as to how the video game works and whether or not the premise was sustained through all of the iterations that came with the previous films. This appears to be a reboot, and from what I've seen online it doesn't sound like it's particularly faithful to the previous films or to the game. For me that is perfectly fine. This movie was a blast and I was entertained the whole time I was in my seat at a theater.

I have frequently complained about horror films that overuse CGI to produce the images that are supposed to terrify us. Too often the reveal of a monster at the end of a movie is the most disappointing part of the story instead of the most exciting part. And this film seems to set up that kind of disappointment. It starts off with a very creepy vibe, and practical makeup effects, and some great sequences shot in the snowy Woods and Fields. For almost the first hour of the film, we have one character, struggling against the unknown, and being felled by mishaps at every turn.  

The film takes its dramatic shift at a farmhouse that is more secured than most banks, and this is where the special effects start to be a part of the story. It is a great surprise that they don't screw up the goodwill created so far, instead they extend it.  Our protagonist continues to struggle, but with an even bigger slack Jawwed look than before. I'm not sure I've heard the “F”word used as much in a film since Scarface in 1983. Martin Scorsese and Samuel Jackson could take this a lesson from this character in the effectiveness of a brief ejaculation of that word, without any adjectives to go with it.

I won't understate the horror aspects of this film, but I do want to make sure that people understand, this is primarily a comedy. The character of Bryan, is played with a combination of Innocence and ineptitude and strength by Austin Abrams. This guy carries the movie on his back, although there are other characters in the film, they exist only in relationship to Bryan,  and he seems like a good guy just trying to do the right thing, but never being able to make the right thing work.

When the film setting reaches the big city, and we start to get an explanation of what the heck the plot is all about, the tone of the film doesn't really change, it's just the scale that changes. Horrible things continue to happen to poor Bryan,  but now they feel overwhelming, and you begin to get a sense of futility. These events make the second part of the film slightly less enjoyable, although it is still filled with a lot of laughs.

The director Zach Cregger, made the film "Weapons" last year and that seems to be a critical breakthrough. His previous film "Barbarian" was 2/3 of a great movie, and this one is more like 7/8 of a good movie. The very end of the film is all set up for additional episodes rather than a conclusion that is satisfying to the story. Maybe that's all for the best, because I'm sure I could continue to enjoy it if they find some way out of the CGI manifestation and the steps on all the stuff that came before. It was still gross and interesting, that suddenly the film feels a little more conventional as a result. 

As Bryan would say, "F*#k".  I enjoyed this movie enough to do it again  immediately. 

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Ernie & Emma (2026)

 

Unfortunately I missed the four screenings at our local Alamo Drafthouse where Bruce Campbell appeared and talked about the movie in person.  They were all sold out and I was disappointed believing that I would never get a chance to see the film in a theater. Lucky for us our local Alamo chose to screen the film a couple of more times without Bruce and those screenings were not sold out. 

Ernie and Emma is a mediation on Grief, but done with the typical Bruce Campbell wit. Bruce wrote and directed this film, and has been promoting it by appearing at screenings throughout the Alamo franchises. The movie is really going to appeal to a specific audience. It is designed for an aging demographic, and it approaches one of the most difficult dilemmas elderly people face, through humor and honesty.

I won't pretend that the film is anything more than a slightly racier version of a Hallmark movie, but it wears its sincerity on its sleeve, and Bruce is giving it his all. The premise gives away the tone of the film immediately. The deceased Emma, has left a series of instructions for her husband, to distribute her ashes and bring closure to some of the events in their life. Along the way there are minor complications, a couple of reveals, and Bruce narrates as he drives through the idyllic town in Oregon where Ernie and Emma lived.

This is a self-financed film so we're not all surprised that the locations may in fact be Campbell's residence. The movie is shot well and edited competently, but it definitely feels like a modestly budgeted television production. Story is more important in the long run, and performances help sell the story quite a bit. 

I think everyone will quite enjoy the art studio owner who accompanies Ernie on some of his ventures in the second half of the movie. You can see what's coming a mile away but that doesn't make it any less pleasant. There are also a couple of security guards that appear in the film, and rather than having them be a*# holes, they instead are interesting characters that you appreciate for having sensitivity to Ernie in his journey.

One of the ways that you can tell that this is a homegrown project is that when you get the credits at the end of the movie, you not only get a photo of the actors who appeared on the screen but there are images of the production designer, the cinematographer, the best boy and the key grip, and a whole bunch of other behind the scenes contributors to the film. 

I wish Bruce all the luck in the world with this project, I know for him it is a labor of love. He is facing an unfortunate prognosis with his health , but he continues to be the shemp we have known him for over the past 50 years. If you get a chance to see Ernie and Emma, take it. It won't change your life but it will make you enjoy your life a little bit more.

It-Chapter 1 (2017) Revisit-Panic! at the Paramount

 

I remember when this film first came out, the trailer consisted primarily of those moments when little Georgie meets Pennywise in the sewer. It's a bold choice to take the best moment from your film and make it the trailer, but it certainly succeeded in getting people hyped for the movie and into Cinemas. I know I had a fairly positive reaction to the movie back when it came out and you can read about that here.

Our experience with "It" this last week was at the Bullock theater which is an IMAX screen, and claims to be the largest screen in the state of Texas. It's not hard for me to believe, having been seated in that theater a number of times this last summer. This is another film that is part of the Paramount Theaters programming which has had to move for the year while they are under renovation. Seeing the movie in IMAX doesn't hurt it at all, in fact I think it added quite a bit to my experience.

Of course I remembered the key scene that I mentioned above, but I was pleased to be reminded that it was not the only moment in the movie that “It” is effective. There are disturbing visualizations, a couple of very effective jump scares, and a sense of dread that runs throughout the movie. The sense of dread is not just dependent on our Supernatural monster, it is also present through human characters that threaten our group of young protagonists.

This film is only chapter 1 of the two part "It"  movie series. I do remember that this was the more effective of the two. I plan on following up, but that will be a home screening rather than a theatrical presentation. I was quite pleased to be able to experience this film again in a theater and this time when I say on the big screen, I mean on a big screen.

The Social Reckoning (2026)

 

16 years after the brilliant “The Social Network”,  Aaron Sorkin returns to the target rich field of social media to once again take on Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. This time he also takes on the responsibility of directing the film as well as writing it, and that may have just been a little out of his reach. This is not a bad film, in fact in some ways it's quite good, but for all of the supposed political impact that the subject matter is supposed to have,  Aaron Sorkin takes a swing, and misses. 

The whole point of this movie is to gin up outrage about the algorithms that lead to promoting hateful clickbait on the social media sites. Sorkin really wants to tie this into the January 6th riot at the Capitol. The problem is, for all of the work that goes into explaining the technical aspects of data analytics, there's almost no demonstration that the algorithm under criticism had anything to do with the events of that day. The only connection seems to be that  President Trump had a video available and that  Facebook took it down, but we never see what was in the video, and there's plenty of evidence to indicate that Trump kept advocating for a peaceful protest not the insurrection that the credentialed class keeps trying to validate.Opinions being treated like facts is the very thing that this movie is supposed to be about. 

“The Social Network” was a film about the origins of the most powerful social media platform in the world., that there was deception and betrayal along the way was what made it a fascinating story. Let's face it, origin stories can be quite interesting. “The Social Reckoning” on the other hand, takes us into an existing world and tries to show that that view of the world that is so negative is partially the fault of this new medium. That's a conclusion that probably everybody accepts before we even think about the film's content. I doubt that you will find many people who deny that the influence of social media can be extremely harmful, duh. That takes a lot of suspense out of the story even though it is a procedural about a whistleblower and a journalist trying to reveal insider knowledge about the mechanisms of Facebook.

Mickey Madison plays the part of a data engineer, Frances Haugen, at Facebook who is responsible for monitoring civic engagement. She's prompted to investigate after seeing a video shared online of a woman speaking extremist views and behaving abrasively while believing that she is in the right. The data that she pursues suggests a strong link between Facebook's meaningful social interaction index and attraction to extremist views. Of course nobody at the company listens to her, and Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed as an even more robotic automaton than he was in the previous film. 

I have not studied extensive film of Zuckerberg, so I can't say authoritatively that this portrayal is inaccurate, it just feels a little over the top. Jeremy Strong replaces Jesse Eisenberg as the CEO of Meta. His main strength as an actor in this film is an inability to express anything on his face. So that is apparently a characteristic of the real Zuckerberg. We see several scenes where PR experts are trying to turn Zuckerberg into a human being for public hearings. The idea that they are struggling to make him appear human is funny, but it's a sidetrack from the main purpose of the film which is to explain how Facebook's algorithm is screwing up the world, oh and it's Zuckerberg's fault.

Jeremy Allen White plays the journalist from The Wall Street Journal who is working on the story, but is not really a tech writer. Regardless of whether it is true in real life, this does allow our two main protagonists to engage in frequent exposition which explains things to those of us in the audience who are not used to doing a deep data dive online. This is also an old trick of Sorkin from his days on The West Wing, where a character would plead ignorance in regard to a subject, typically it was CJ the character played by Alison Janney, who then has to have somebody explain what the hell is happening. You don't really get the walk and talk in this film like we got in the TV series, we just get the talk.

One of the things that's missing from this film that made its predecessor so effective is a score from Trent Reznor. The music of “The Social Network" was designed to set a mood and it was nearly another character in the film. Alexandre Desplat , has created a score that feels like it's transition material between exposition rather than setting the mood for the exposition. There's nothing wrong with the music, it's just that it doesn't work in the same way, and it's noticeable.

I think there are certainly issues with how social media works that deserves attention, but our screenwriter here is so concerned with the political ramifications that he ignores the everyday consequences of this sort of negative reinforcement. There are a couple of times when those effects are mentioned, but we never follow up on them, we just keep coming back to the same statistical point that our whistleblower character has been emphasizing from the beginning. We could use a little bit more context for that 64% figure that she keeps throwing around. And does anybody really find it surprising that people who watch a media post that is hate based follow up by looking at hate based groups? Here's a big reveal, water is wet.

The movie plays like a detective story told out of sequence and that structure is so ubiquitous nowadays I'm not sure it helped with this story. For example there are several references made to misinformation or outright lies being told during covid period.  But because of the agenda of the screenwriter, we ignore the fact that the checks that were in place largely suppressed not bad information, but valid criticisms covid policy. Outright lies were told by the medical establishment in order to get people to comply with what they thought was the best advice, and then we were ignoring criticism of that advice. 

The movie wants to have it both ways, it wants to defend free speech but it wants to do so by suggesting that somebody should be regulating that speech. There is an analogy concerning a crossing guard in the story, but this is a weak comparison. Information on Facebook is not like a traffic pattern that threatens to run over kids, it's more like a form of consumer reports being used by shoppers as they make their choices in the grocery store.  The hyperbole suggests that somebody's going to die because of this misinformation, but that's not where the story is. Where is the data that proves that?  Instead we get scenes of the melee at the Capitol back in 2021, without any connection to a media post or group which were the things that this film was criticizing in the first place. 

This is a well-made piece of agitprop, but since it contains misleading information itself, it feels a little bit hypocritical. As an example, the film passes on an apocryphal story about changing the rugs in the capital because of blood stains from Capital police officers who were injured on January 6th. That story has been debunked, but apparently it makes a good point for the plot, so we're going to ignore the fact that it is as dubious as the things that are suggested by the screenwriter. I'm not buying it, and it doesn't look like anybody else is either.

Heart of the Beast (2026)

 

Let me be upfront with you, I'm pretty much going to enjoy a movie where the co-star is a dog. It's my plan to do an episode of the Lambcast featuring movies where the leading character is a canine. “Heart of the Beast”, starring Brad Pitt, is an example of one of those stories about soldiers and their canine partners. “Dog” , that movie from a couple of years ago with Channing Tatum, working with the dog who had PTSD, is a good example of these films. This one however is working on the survival story, and that gives us a chance for a lot more suspense and action.

About 93% of the film consists of Brad Pitt and the dog. There are a couple of other characters that appear on screen and have some dialogue, but those are very small components of the movie. The story is about how this special combat operations officer and the dog that has retired with him, are facing their future by visiting the wilderness, and accidentally getting stranded. 

As a wilderness survival story, “Heart of the Beast” checks a lot of boxes when it comes to action and suspense.  There are confrontations with wildlife which are life-threatening, there are insurmountable physical obstacles the two have to overcome. And there is the fact that Odie, the German Shepherd named Odin, has an artificial paw so he is already handicapped, and Brad Pitt's character is suffering from severe heart problems which led to their crash in the wilderness in the first place.

The survival moments are fine, but it is the relationship between man and Beast which makes up the most important part of the story. We get some of the backstory of our special operations Soldier, and we learned that he has suffered plenty when it comes to loss. Odin may be the one thing that is holding him together, which helps account for the extreme measures that he goes through to make sure that the dog stays with him. A variety of things will make you  think that the dog is incredibly loyal to the man as well. You would expect nothing less than that in a movie like this.

I wouldn't say that the movie is by the numbers, but it does seem that it is checking off a variety of events that the two are faced with. Even the encounter with a character played by JK Simmons, feels a little conventional, in spite of the fact that it is nicely written and performed. Everything is shot in a way that emphasizes the beauty of the environment but also its hazards. As I said before, I'm a sucker for dog stories, and this one was just fine, it's just not the best one I've seen.

Digger (2026)

 

If ever a movie deserves to lose 170 million dollars at the box office it's this misbegotten piece of crap from Academy award-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and actor Tom Cruise. I've said it up front a number of times. I'm a Tom Cruise fan, the idea that this part might be the one that gets Tom an Academy Award for his acting was quite appealing  to me. The director Iñárritu,  created an interesting film that previously won an Academy Award, not my favorite but I could see artistically why it was so important, but “Birdman” and “The Revenant” are a long way from this self-important attempt at satire, which has one maybe funny moment in it, and pretends to be hilarious the rest of the time.

You know your movies are in trouble when 2/3 the way through we have to have a character engage in a long diatribe of exposition about why the thing they are doing is so meaningful. There are going to be plenty of people out there who will try to tell you that this is an Artful film, that it is simply misunderstood by the stupid masses. Don't let them get away with that. A movie can be artistic and crappy, and just because you find it boring or ridiculous or annoying, doesn't mean that you're an idiot who can't appreciate art, it means your taste does not include the choices that the artist made which in this case are obnoxious.

Everything from the beginning of this movie is played in a loud overbearing and preposterous performance. No one, including our main character played by Tom Cruise, is portrayed as believable. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to tell you that that is intentional. As the story plays out you will discover why the characters act in such mannered and over the top ways. There is a plot device here that is being used to justify manic bellicose shouting, on a permanent basis. Some people will find this to be clever, I thought it was contrived. I did think it was handled as an element of the film very effectively, but the way that clues are dribbled out can be a little frustrating. I know the filmmakers want you to be frustrated about climate change, but what I was frustrated about was the inane approach to the story. I'll give you a spoiler warning in a paragraph or two so you can stop reading if you are worried that I'm giving away too much.

The director is making a bold choice, it certainly seems original on its face. The idea is not without Merit, but the execution is so heavy-handed and self-congratulatory that it is irritating. The fever dream of climate collapse that this movie is projecting is nowhere near a reality. All the climate models are speculation at best, and a lot of them are presented as nightmares to drive a political agenda. That's what this film seems to be doing, this is an attempt to legitimize the wildest fears of climate doomsdayers.  It's also an attempt to poison the Well against anybody who has legitimate questions about whether or not our attempts to alter the weather are worthwhile. Digger Rockwell, is the Boogeyman of every enthusiast of carbon trading, alternative fuels, and the idea of shutting down fossil fuels for the benefit of the planet. It takes a piece of Science Fiction to create a threat that will kill people to stampede folks into accepting the extremes of these cultists. Once again I'm going to hesitate to say too much here until I give you a spoiler warning.

This is supposed to be a satire, and there are people out there who have the audacity to make comparisons to "Doctor Strange Love : or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb". Stanley Kubrick's farce of military and political systems is funny because it's believable. Although there are moments when things are said that are absurdist, they're said by serious people among a variety of other reasonable things that they believe. At no time in “Digger”, does anybody come across as a serious person. Riz Amed is supposed to be a scientist that is the voice of reason, but his characterization is so shallow that you wonder how anybody with his credentials could be so weak-willed and cowed so easily. 

Digger Rockwell himself, as played by Tom Cruise, is the least believable character in the story. His obsession with his pet cat, his fairly cloistered lifestyle, and his physical mannerisms, all give Cruise a chance to flex his acting muscles. Which, by the way, the character can't do because he is so flabby with make up,CGI and costuming the same to emphasize.  We are supposed to laugh, it is outrageous behavior, but he doesn't really exist in contrast to anybody who isn't equally outrageous, except for the occasional video call. Even then those callers are usually dispatched from the story so quickly that they seem like cartoon characters themselves. Besides, the only way Diggers seems able to communicate with anybody is at a hundred and ten decibels. 

Spoiler warning,  spoiler warning, spoiler warning. I'm about to tell you something that is supposed to be a secret in the film, but for which there are hints a half dozen times before the final reveal. If you are quick on the uptake, you will probably figure it out by the second or third break between scenes. So this is only a spoiler for people who don't want to guess what's coming. This is actually a dystopian movie, set 30 years in the future, and what you're seeing is the tech rehearsal of a play. The original version of the play was made 25 years earlier and depicts events that supposedly happened three decades in the past. Cruise is an actor playing an actor playing the part of a megalomaniac billionaire. All the other characters are really caricatures of historical figures that are being mocked in the play. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu has contrived to create a Wes Anderson film, without any of the charm. We aren't let in on what the hell is going on except occasionally when we see The black out breaks When the theater actors Are changing scenes. Is it technically efficient? Yes. Are the production values Interesting.? Yes. Do the actors sell themselves out as bloviating actors playing to the far back of the theater in a character designed to ridicule the past? Yes they're all doing a good job. But doing a good job that isn't really something worth doing in the first place feels like a waste of talent and time.

There's a moment when Digger Rockwell, supposedly is addressing a gathering of international political figures, and he confesses his crime and offers a rationalization. Except it isn't a rationalization, it's a very legitimate argument about balancing environmental concerns with human welfare. By putting it in the mouth of a preposterous character, and having him shout it while everybody in the background is screaming, is a way of trying to win the argument by making it a joke. This is one of the reasons why I really can't take the film seriously. It never takes itself seriously. It's self-important, but that's not the same thing as being serious. 

I've read a number of people who say that in the future this film will be considered masterful. I doubt that that will be the case. The only people who will find this to be an important and critically deserving film, are those who see “An Inconvenient Truth" as a pressing documentary, instead of a swing at a bad pitch, by those devoted to climate destruction nightmares. 

Those people who are shouting that originality and creativity have been called for by the public, and we are now all hypocrites for ignoring this film, are missing the point. We want originality that will entertain, inform, and move us. What we don't want is to be hectored and demeaned by the artists who are asking us to support them. 

I don't expect anybody to learn any lessons from this movie, One Way or Another. People who are afraid of climate change will continue to be afraid of climate change. People who are worried about what will happen to the world if we start running out of energy, are not going to be convinced to give up their cars, their conditioning, everyday lets us enjoy life, as a result of widespread access to energy. They are just going to feel browbeat by this movie, that's of course if any of them bother to see it. Which apparently they're not going to.

Lambcast Franchise Draft Poll

 I could use some support for my slate of Franchises in this Draft Episode of the Lambcast. Clicking on the image should take you to the poll where you an cast your vote for me. 

https://poll.fm/17544786

Avengers Endgame (2019) Encore

 

An amazing thing happened this last weekend, a movie that came out 7 years ago was re-released into theaters and took the number one position in the box office for the weekend. You might ask yourself how that was the case, in truth it's not really that hard to understand. The film in question is “Avengers Endgame" and the re-release is part of the build up to a new MCU film that is meant to reestablish the dominance that the franchise once had. I hadn't realized when I scheduled a trip to the theater to rewatch the film that it was going to include four stingers that didn't play in the original movie and were specifically designed to promote the upcoming version “Doomsday”.

When I first posted on “Endgame" back in 2019 I was enthusiastic but I was not of the opinion that this was the best film of the MCU franchise. It is a very solid follow-up to “Infinity War”, and it has a lot of emotional beats to it which should work for the faithful comic book audience. When I originally reviewed the film I thought it was a little bit slow in it's build up. As I watch it these days, I appreciate that more deliberate approach vastly more than I did in 2019. The events of the previous film needed time to settle, and we need to absorb the impact of what ultimately gets called the blip. And that's what takes place in the first hour of the film. My reappraisal of the movie has to do with this part of the film more than any other. The emotional defeat that the Avengers are trying to live with, it creates the emotional foundation for what is to follow. If we didn't get to experience the low, then the high that we get at the end of the film would not be as meaningful. 

Obviously there's a lot of fan service built into the movie, and since I'm a fan I don't really object to that. Let me just share with you a couple of my favorite moments from the film. When Scott Lang waves at the camera at the entrance of the Avengers compound, announcing himself and trying to remind the people inside of who he is, I both laughed and smiled. I had known from the end of “Ant-Man and the Wasp" that Scott was going to play a big part in trying to restore the Galaxy after the Thanos decimation. 

Of course the moment that I most remember, and that so many people who are fans of the MCU hold in their heart, is one of the greatest shots in the whole film series. It is the point at which Captain America picks up Thor's hammer during the battle with Thanos and we all cheer because we know he is worthy. In a film loaded with shots that are designed to provoke a cheer from the faithful audience, this is probably the one that is most satisfying. Another moment from the final battle sequence which is clearly fan service for the girls, the key female superheroes line up to support Wanda as she is confronting Thanos himself. It's probably a little bit more “woke" than we need, but it is a fun shot so I'm not going to dump on it. One more moment from the final battle that deserves to be called out, is the reunion between Spider-Man and Iron Man. We know that Tony Stark  felt the weight of the loss of Peter Parker, and we get a chance to enjoy an emotional connection that we knew existed and was part of Tony’s defeat.

Probably the things that I should be speaking about the most in regard to this revisit are the “Encore” stingers. It's probably not fair to rank them in order of their emotional impact, but that's the only way I can respond to them until I see Doomsday at Christmas time. From my point of view the strongest one, which evoked the best response from the audience including me, was the appearance of Loki in the Captain America wrap up story from the original version of “Endgame”. A knock on the door and then Loki stepping through the door produced a collective gasp and laughter simultaneously.

In one of two mid credit clips, we see Bruce Banner sequestered in what looks like an underground Atomic bunker, and he is providing exposition for story elements that we are not yet aware of. I suppose it's designed to provoke questions about the upcoming film. And also let us know that some of the characters that we have loved are going to return for this next episode. I found it mildly interesting but it didn't really have any emotional impact for me, it's simply a sequence from the upcoming film that's been inserted for a reason that I cannot yet fathom.

A second mid credit clip reminds us that the Time Variance Authority is a thing, and that it will be playing a role in this story. It's not clear how big an impact the TVA will have, but what is shown to us is designed to give us a sense of the significance of Dr Doom on the universe. It's an example of raising the stakes, because after all, we've already had Thanos wipe out half of life in the universe, we need something bigger than scale to make the next episode feel important. 

Finally there's just a short image at the end of the credits, which shows a metal mask being forged in the Darkness, backlit by flames and enhanced by the sound of a pounding hammer. I'm not sure which way this is supposed to be going, but it was a nice little period at the end of the film.

I completely understand the criticism that the MCU films have had over the years. Frankly because the material is all comic book based, I don't understand why anybody would expect something different. People who have enjoyed the pulp entertainment of comic books are being given something that they can enjoy on screen, and the films have been well produced, spectacularly shot and staged. They have enough emotional beats both humorous and dramatic, to make the stories acceptable. There may be occasional retconning of some of the plot lines, but for the most part it feels to me like there was also elaborate planning. I do know that the Doomsday approach is in part a reaction to another plot line blowing up due to an actor in an earlier film getting into some trouble. The diversion to Doomsday, will probably result in creativity that we might not have gotten otherwise. I hope it all works out, regardless I was happy to see “Avengers Endgame" again.

Zodiac (2007) Revisit (2026)

 

I saw this film a year ago on the big screen at the Paramount summer classic film series,  and then as before, it impressed me with how well it worked. I've said this a number of times on my podcast and probably here on the blog, “Zodiac” is black hole film, one whose gravitational pull I can never escape. We recently had another opportunity to see it on the big screen and I think I can safely now say something that I should have said 19 years ago, this is the best movie of 2007.  I love “No Country for Old Men" like most film fans do and I respect "There Will Be Blood” even though it is not a movie I embrace. Those are the two films that people usually think of when the Year 2007 comes up, but in all honesty I've watched “Zodiac" dozens of times for a reason, it juggles so many stories clearly and in a compelling way, so that every viewing feels like it is fresh.

To begin with, For me it is obviously a bit of a Nostalgia trip. I lived through that era from 1969 till the date at the end of this film. I remember news reports on television about the Zodiac Killer and the fear engendered in the state of California which is where I lived. The opening scenes of the film have a camera moving through a Suburban neighborhood on the 4th of July. This could easily have been one of the neighborhoods that I lived in. People were celebrating on their lawns setting off fireworks going to the drive-in to get a hamburger, and although they were tumultuous times politically, from the perspective of a kid they were great times.

Listening to the Donovan song Hurdy Gurdy Man will never be the same after this movie. It always had a hunting melody and a mysterious vocal performance, but when you add in the context of what happens while the song is playing in the film, it will stay with you in a way that is rather grim.  The depiction of the murder that takes place on the 4th of July is frightening and it draws you immediately to the sense of fear that was about to enfold the entire state. Director David Fincher moves us to the city desk of the San Francisco Chronicle by following a piece of mail that is laden with doom. He also manages to weave in the character of Robert Graysmith as played by Jake Gyllenhaal, so that we understand his curiosity and begin to see the compulsion that drives him for the rest of the film.

This movie came out a year before “Iron Man" and Robert Downey Jr was still in the process of recovering his reputation and career after having had a fallow period as a result of his drug problems. His appearance in this film is completely solid and probably gave a great deal of confidence to the people making the Marvel movies that they had made the right choice in a leading man. Downey Jr is not the star of the film but he often steals scenes and is one of the three most important characters for the majority of the film. Another central performance is from another future MCU fixture Mark Ruffalo, who plays the lead Detective in San Francisco, trying to solve the Zodiac case.

This movie is a thriller, a mystery, a police procedural, a domestic drama, and an illustration of bureaucratic political nightmares. Amazingly, all of those themes get a reasonable workout in the story. I forget that this is a nearly 3-hour movie when I'm watching it, because it never feels like it is too long or that it is wasting time. Each of the characters that we follow has important things to show us about how we confront horror. We get to see the wounds that the main characters inflict on themselves as a result of their contact with the crimes of the Zodiac Killer.

Robert Graysmith wrote the book that the film is based on, so of course the conclusion is the one that his book drew and it is the one that seems most plausible in the film. Gyllenhaal shows us a character who gets lost in a puzzle that he can't seem to find the key piece for. His compulsive nature in following the case despite the fact that he's not a police officer or an investigative journalist, draws in a romantic interest and ultimately drives it away..Chloë Sevigny  plays the woman who eventually becomes his wife and she is terrific as the bystander who gets flattened by the freight train of Graysmith's Investigation.  

Robert Downey Jr's character does ultimately vanish from the film, but his presence is felt throughout the movie. The theme of the film,  that there is more than one way to lose your life to a killer, is exemplified by the journalist Paul Avery, the character Downey Jr plays. His contact and connection with the Killer becomes an excuse for him to travel down the rabbit hole of pain management, which leads to the end of his career. Similarly, Ruffalo's character of Dave Toschi,, succumbs to the frustration that every path has been a dead end, and he loses his way professionally for a period of time. And finally, cartoonist Robert Graysmith, alienates his wife and ruins his personal life, in pursuit of his need to know the truth. 

Fincher keeps the story compelling by giving us visualizations of the crimes that the Zodiac committed or claimed to have committed. The scene of the woman motorist on the road with her baby is particularly frightening. Fincher manages to show all of these events without revealing exactly who the zodiac is, and thus makes the movie continuously compelling. When the key suspect played by John Carroll Lynch,  shows up in the story, we are both fascinated and repelled by his character. They are red flags waving everywhere, but none of them seems to be the Smoking Gun which would lead us to the ultimate conclusion. While we were trying to piece everything together at the end of the film, Fincher gives us one more brilliant scene of suspense as Charles Fleisher gives us a guided tour of that rare California artifact, a basement.

The film looks fantastic, and the locations are great, as is every secondary character who shows up in the movie. We get police chiefs from different jurisdictions, who were played by very solid actors. There are two major roles filled by Philip Baker Hall and Brian Cox, who both add gravitas to the film. Anthony Edwards is probably an overlooked MVP as Ruffalo's partner for most of the investigation. Let me just say I thought everybody in this movie was terrific. There are no weak performances to be found in the 2 hours and 40 minutes of this movie on screen.

Even if you're not confident in the conclusions that the film makes about who the Zodiac was, you will be able to understand why the characters end up with the beliefs that they hold. Fincher’s selection of locales, filming techniques and lighting are all masterful. I've already said it, this film holds up over repeated viewings, and the only reason I can think that Fincher and the film were not in contention for the big awards from the Academy was because the movie open too early in the year for people to remember it, I'm not making that mistake, I'm going to remember this film for a long time, believe me, if there's another screening in a theater somewhere within 50 miles I'll probably be there.

Practical Magic 2 (2026)

 

I had hoped to do a Lamcast with my two daughters where we discussed this movie. I had chosen it as the subject of one of our weekly discussions because it was my memory that “Practical Magic” had an almost cult-like following among people of that generation, and I had hoped then my fellow Lambs who grew up in the 90s would have rushed to join in on the conversation. They did not.

As it is, it is just as well, because although the movie is doing very well at the box office, from a critical point of view it's sort of a mess. In the story they basically trashed the conclusion of the original film, and deny that a curse has been lifted, the main reason for this is to make it possible to make the two children of Sandra Bullock's character, have to endure the same situation that both Bullock and Nicole Kidman faced in the first film. Much like the ffatal flaw of “Alien 3”, where everything that had been accomplished in the second movie is erased in the first 5 minutes, completely undermining our desire to see the story followed through on, “Practical Magic 2” destroys the Goodwill that was left over from the first film.  28 years later in attempting to create a legacy sequel, the film hopes that we forgot everything that happened in the original movie.

It's not too big a surprise to recognize that this film is going to skew heavily toward female audiences of the Gen X and millennial categories. I'm glad that they are all coming out to the movies still, even if it is to see something as mediocre as “Practical Magic 2”. The movie repeats certain beats almost exactly as they were created in the first film. Apparently dancing with Margaritas in your hand and the Stevie Nicks song on the soundtrack is sufficient to get your Nostalgia feels up, and let you accept what's going on on the screen.

I did appreciate that Diane Wiest and Stockard Channing have parts in the movie, and they do a pretty good job maintaining the original characters' tone. It's pretty obvious but the emotions of the audience are being manipulated at the start of the movie and at the end of the movie with the arcs of their two characters. I guess however when your movie consists of nostalgic memories being forced into a contemporary story, you take what you can get.

Sandra Bullock is 62 years old and as far as I'm concerned she still looks great, the work that she's had done has not destroyed her face but it is somewhat apparent. Nicole Kidman is also of a certain age and she looks good too but it's a little bit more obvious that she's had work done and in contrast to the two older actresses and their willingness to appear on screen in realistic age appropriate characters, this is perhaps another thing that undermines any sense that this is a movie that cares about making sense.

Actor Lee Pace shows up about halfway through, and I thought he was very well cast and looks great on the screen . To be honest I'm only familiar with him through a couple of the Marvel movies and the remake of “The Running Man”. The idea that he might be a romantic lead had never occurred to me, but that it actually works pretty well. I haven't checked his age but he looked appropriately matched with Sandra Bullock.

The two younger actresses who play Sally's children, who have now grown up into adulthood, are both accomplished performers, who are largely wasted in the film. Maisie Williams, especially, gets left aside for the vast majority of the second and third Acts. There were probably other ways that they could have gone with this film story and then been successful at keeping the audience that they had but also expanding it. As it is, this movie will probably stall out after a couple of weeks because all those millennials have gotten used to seeing their movie fixes on streaming, and this movie really feels like a film that was made for streaming. Relatively low cost, well photographed, and full of nostalgia bits that will satisfy the original audience.

Hope (2026)

 

This is a South Korean action, science fiction, horror film that is apparently the most expensive South Korean movie ever made. I can say that it is a pretty handsome movie, and makes the locale look more appealing than I had expected. It also has quite a bit of humor in it which makes it go down a lot more easily than otherwise might have at almost 3 hours in length. What the hell is a movie like this doing running for 3 hours? It makes no sense. 

Speaking of making no sense, the second half of the movie serves up a variety of moments that can be fun to watch but will be difficult to justify from a story point of view. But I will get to that in a moment. Let me start off by talking about the thing that works best concerning the movie, and that's the first 45 minutes. As usual when there's a monster, the frightening moments all take place before we actually see the monster. In this case, although they were heavy action moments as we were getting set up, the movie does shift from a horror film to a straight action movie. And that's because the horror of the unknown is undone by the horror of the CGI that is used to create the antagonists.

My description of the plot is very brief. The police chief of a small South Korean fishing Village, is confronted by destruction that seems to suggest a massive monster is loose and at first he assumes it is a bear or a tiger. The size of the damage created in the wake of the monsters movement through the village tells us that this is no Earth-like mammal but rather something of enormous size and Power, and as we ultimately discover it originates someplace else in the universe. Yes it is an alien movie, I don't think that's the biggest spoiler. 

The thing that spoils the movie is not the reveal of the origin of the monster, but rather it is the abandoning of the mystery around the monster and what it looks like and what it is after. The story is a little confusing, because it turns out that there may be two different alien species that are involved. At least that's the way it seemed to me when we get a more extensive look and a set of alien creatures that are not in the village but rather are in the nearby Woods. They look distinctly different from the creature that created all the havoc in the village and at the conclusion of the film there's reason to believe that more than one set of visitors is present.

I think the movie is supposed to also play as a comedy, there are simply too many ridiculous things that happen in the story to take it seriously all of the time. One of the characters is tossed about, slapped and squashed in so many ways that it's impossible to believe that he survived. Like the Energizer Bunny however, he keeps showing up and fighting on. Improbably he starts out as a somewhat unsavory character, but morphs through sheer survival into a heroic figure.

The Village police chief is a reluctant hero, and sometimes he is a little feckless, but that doesn't mean that he is unsympathetic. I don't have a huge amount of experience with Korean filmmaking , but I have noticed there's a tendency to have some slapstick moments and annoyingly over the top characters appear in awkward situations. The chief runs into several locals, and some members of his own Department, that are laughably annoying. His character however is required to be annoying without the humor, and that makes the story frustrating at times because if anyone would  listen to somebody, maybe we would get to the point a little quicker.

There are two extremely long Chase scenes that take place in the film. In the First Act you have the excellent one, which follows the police officer in Pursuit of the monster as it smashes through the village with impunity, and kills dozens residents in the process. We see the Mayhem from his perspective as the monster stays just out of his view, around corners, below the horizon or on the other side of a wall. There's some horrifying visual images which also provoke some laughter because they are so over the top. This is a pretty gruesome film. Once the target of the monster, the police chase reverses itself, and continues on for another long sequence.  These scenes are shot with great clarity and occasionally with lenses that make the edges of the film feel like they're bending in scope, which influences  the way the audience is watching the action. In the last Act of the film there's an equally long Chase and the police chief is again involved, but here it doesn't feel original or is interesting because they repeat the same moment a dozen times. The monster chasing them gets close, they shoot something at it or it misses a turn and it falls back a little but then we repeat the process. It got a little redundant.

Consider this a spoiler warning, which I usually try to avoid but which I think is essential in talking about this movie and letting you decide whether or not you want to see it. In the last 15 minutes, the focus changes and the aliens begin to be our protagonists as opposed to our antagonists. It feels like a completely different movie has started, and there is not really a very clear transition to it. My guess is that this film is supposed to be the first in a series of movies portraying what is essentially an alien invasion. The trouble is we don't quite know why they're here, and we certainly don't know why there are more than one of them, including crashing spaceships. It's as if we're repeating the mystery of the second set of aliens but they're not recognizing and showing them. I don't think you can do that trick twice and get away with it. 

I was not unhappy that I saw the movie, but I was surprised how long it ran. Both of the chase sequences I mentioned could have been cut in half in the film would be just fine. Just be glad that we're not in charge of deciding whether to make the second film a sequel to this movie. I don't have a strong desire to see what happens next, and if you're going to end on a cliffhanger that really feels like something that you want to do, make us care. This movie seems to think that by putting words in the mouths of the aliens we will change our perspective and want to see it resolved. I think they're wrong. 

Jerry Maguire (1996) Re-visit

 

How I almost completely forgot that I saw this movie at the State Theater this summer is beyond me. It was actually a very pleasant screening and my memories of the movie were validated by how much I enjoyed it and admired the writing. There are times when Tom Cruise comes in for heavy criticism, but this movie was an example of one of the few times that people seem pretty confident that he had done a good job and deserved some recognition for it.

The story of a sports agent who grows a conscience and tries to find a way to make his life work within the confines of those guidelines is a surprising one. Cutthroat operations around him and the competition he gets from his former colleagues it's easy to despair and feel that people are only out for a buck and will stab each other in the back regardless of what they say. Of course it should have raised a red flag, when the number one draft pick prospect agrees to be represented by Jerry but his father refuses to offer a written statement of such an agreement. Fortunately it's not our agent character who breaks his word, and it's an example of one of the things that forces Jerry to confront his own unwillingness to commit fully.

Renee Zellweger practically steals the movie as the assistant who has a heart of gold and is willing to give it to Jerry both personally and professionally. The fact that Jerry is unable at first to recognize that he has in fact fallen in love is one of the most frustrating things in the story. The thing that makes it so satisfying at the end is that Jerry's realization comes before he has made the crucial decision to end his marriage. He really did commit to the relationship because of his love of the little boy and the feeling that it gave him, but the more he struggled to succeed with his lone client, the more he begins to recognize how a commitment such as he is made professionally really is comparable to the one that he has in his personal life. When people give romantic comedies a bad name, I think all you have to do is throw this movie down on the table and challenge their presumptions. 

The reconciliation scene is often mocked because of the two great lines that make it work so well. * you complete me" is one of the best expressions of love that I've heard in a screenplay.. The only reason people can continue to joke about it, is because it is a true statement of love which stands up to any mocking they might try. The follow-up from Dorothy's character is also parodied, " you had me at hello", is the release of a pressure valve in Dorothy and Jerry's relationship that makes us feel great. It's another one of those lines that Cameron Crowe deserved all the credit for and earned the award he did not get. (He had to wait until “Almost Famous”).

Cuba Gooding Jr. steals whatever movie Renee Zellweger didn't get, with his egotistical self-centered receiver, who also learns that commitment goes two ways. He always had it at the personal level, but not so much at the professional level. After all, the key line that everybody remembers from the movie, is" show me the money", and it takes a moment on the field connecting with the crowd to make him realize that he needs a commitment to the audience as well as his family. This movie may seem light on the outside but then on the inside it's pretty deep. I'm not sure you can ever go wrong recommending “Jerry Maguire" to anybody..

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) Star Trek Anniversary

 

Since I have clearly been on a nostalgic kick, traveling back to my hometown in Alhambra and visiting my houses in South Pasadena and El Sereno as well, it is an interesting coincidence that this is the 60th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek the television series. Star Trek was one of the first TV shows I saw in color after we got a color TV and connected it to the antenna on the roof. My brothers and I had watched TV upstairs in our house on Kendall Avenue on an old black and white, and I remember my dad struggling with one of his friends, I think it was Lou Lancaster, putting up a new antenna on the roof and trying to get the color TV to have clear reception.

Although I know I saw an episode or two in our house on Kendall it wasn't until the show went into syndication and we had moved to Alhambra that I became a regular viewer of the TV series. It played in the afternoons after I got home from school and we watched it right before dinner time. I was excited when I heard but they were going to make a new series and then they turned it into a movie instead with the success of Star Wars. 

For a lot of years people believed that the best Star Trek movies were the ones that were even numbered. In spite of the success of the first film, it's often criticized for how slow paced it is. I however have always thought it was great but it is true that the second film “The Wrath of Khan" really captured the spirit of Trek effectively. Apparently the first six films were played in local theaters last weekend, and I just happened to find a chance to see “Star Trek III:The Search for Spock”. I've said it before, as far as I'm concerned this is an excellent film in the series and does little to say that the odd numbered films are weaker than the even numbered ones. This also has the advantage of coming out in 1984 , perhaps the greatest year of movies in my lifetime.

In spite of his absence on screen for 90% of the movie Spock continues to be a central character in the story. This movie gave Dr McCoy a chance to have a bigger role and explore the depth of his friendship with Mr Spock. Maybe there is a slight disadvantage in having to replace Kirstie Alley in the role of Lt. Saavik, but that character was not as clearly prevalent in this film. There is also a melancholy which hangs over the movie because the character of David, who is Captain Kirk's son, disappears from the storyline in a dramatic fashion. Also, the Enterprise itself is destroyed, so maybe the bummer of losing the captain's son and ship in the same movie is what gives many people a negative vision of this film.

While there are several dramatic and tragic points in the film there are also a few quite humorous moments. The other main characters in The Star Trek story all get a minute or two to shine. I love the moment when Mr Scott smirks as the Excelsior fails to even get out of the space dock to pursue the Enterprise when the crew hijacks it. If we were to make a list for the villain characters played by Christopher Lloyd in the 1980s, Commander Kruge would certainly be somewhere near the top. His dispassionate murder of David, and his feigned language of Honor make his character memorably loathsome.

The visual effects are very effective although they don’t stand up against some of the more advanced images in the Star Wars saga, they certainly did the job. The Practical effects on the Genesis planet are rendered very effectively. The battle between Kirk and Kruge, which takes place when the planet is destroying itself, looks terrific as they Teeter on the edge of a cliff, and part of the edifice is breaking off. 

Because the screening was connected to the 60th anniversary of the TV show, it was accompanied by an episode of the show which had a connection to the events of this story. “Amok Time" was the episode where we visited Spock's home planet of Vulcan, and circumstances led to a battle between Kirk and Spock. I suspected it was the fact that we had returned to Vulcan in Star Trek 3 that led to this being the episode which was featured. It looked terrific on the big screen too.

There were maybe two dozen people in the theater with me for a Sunday afternoon screening of A 42-year-old film. I happened on the screening by accident, so I was a little surprised at how many people showed up. But I was also quite happy to know that my childhood Heroes continued to live long and prosper on the Silver Screen.

Cars (2006) 20th Anniversary Screening

 

For some reason among the fans of Pixar, “Cars” appears to be a project that is widely dismissed. It may be because the movie was so successful at marketing toys that it was not taken seriously as a drama or a comedy. I frankly love the movie and my daughter Amanda marks it as her favorite Pixar film. So there, take that internet!

This revisit was a pleasant experience because I got a chance to go with my niece and her family and they all enjoyed the experience immensely , in large part because we were seeing it at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood. This venue is Disney's premiere theatrical location where all of their films get a special launch or in this case return visit. I have a little video to include to show you how cool the display is when they show a movie at the El Capitan.

I know that “Cars” creeps out some people because the idea of a car being alive is just alien to them, and let's face it if you think about it too hard there are some weird things that would be required. Fortunately for me I never think about it that hard, I just go with the flow and enjoy the experience that I'm watching. The song soundtrack is a blast, featuring a combination of soft rock and country music that works perfectly for the aesthetic of a Southwestern town being confronted by the NASCAR aesthetic.

It's so fitting that Paul Newman voices the veteran Hudson automobile which we discover late in the film was a champion from a bygone era. Newman of course was known as a racing enthusiast, and at this point in his life his voice conveyed not only confidence but an authority of age which worked perfectly for the character. I know there are people who are put off by the laid-back Surfer / stoner quality of Owen Wilson's persona, but I have always found him quite entertaining, and in the role of Lightning McQueen he seems to have found a niche that fits him quite well.

Maybe the reason that I appreciate the film so much is that I remember traveling with my family on Route 66 when we would go back to Battle Creek each year in the Summers. I think we did four or five trips in the early 60s before the interstates wiped out the old Route 66 Mother Road. Frankly for me, the magic hour is that Twilight moment in the summer when the sun has gone down but it is still light outside and the sky is a combination of Orange, purple and pink. In the desert of the Southwest it is phenomenally beautiful. This film takes advantage of the desert locale in the evening lighting. When the neon lights went on at the start of the third Act I was just delighted.

I can recognize  “Cars 2” is an abomination. It gives us too much of a secondary character and misses the spirit of the first film. It may also be that people resent the fact that “Cars” got two sequels and even though the third one restored the quality of the film story, there are other pics that people might have liked to have seen a sequel to First.

The look of the film, The Music, and the voice cast are enough to sell me when I was glad to revisit the movie in such a spectacular location.

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.