Sorcerer (1977)-Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

One of the greatest films of the 1970s is also one that is largely forgotten. The reasons for this are complex but include the fact that this film came out in the wake of Star Wars, replaced that film on the Chinese Theater screen for only a week, and then was replaced itself by Star Wars. This was the film that no one knew what to do with, it's an action adventure film with protagonists who are all loathsome in some way. Their heroic actions are always mitigated by the fact that they are criminals, terrorists, fraudsters, and murderers. When your rooting interest is someone that you would avoid if you cross paths with them on the street, it's not hard to imagine that a film is going to struggle to find an audience.

“Sorcerer”, may be William Friedkin's best film, and he made “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection”. This sweat-laden, rain soaked, mud  encrusted thriller,  will not leave you with a warm feeling, but it will leave you with deep admiration for the director's skill at building tension and following characters through their true natures.

This was my first time seeing the film on the big screen. I only caught up with it on cable years later, and then finally when the remastered Blu-ray came out about a decade ago, I Revisited it andI appreciated the story. Seeing it in a theater however, is truly a great experience. There are sequences in this film that are so fraught with tension that I felt like sweating myself. Those of you not familiar, the main part of the story focuses on four displaced men, struggling in a poverty stricken Village in the nameless South American country, who take on the job of transporting volatile explosives 200 miles across the jungle.

The first half hour of the movie however, has nothing to do with the main adventure, it simply details what these four men were like before they came together in this anonymous part of the world. Each of their stories has a degree of vibrancy to it that makes their subsequent activities feel more important. Roy Scheider plays the displaced American, a gangster who is wanted by other gangsters for a crime back in the States. There is also a Palestinian terrorist, a French financier, guilty of a massive fraud, and a professional assassin as part of this team of drivers taking on this hellish task because they are desperate.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this film is that it was shot without CGI, or in a studio. The road that this group has to travel is filled with dangerous sinkholes, impossible to pass barriers, and a raging river with a rickety bridge that will give you nightmares. All of it is on screen and all of it is real to some degree. Of course some of the biggest threats come not from nature but from other men. There is revolution in the air, and there are criminal elements who take advantage of the Revolutionary impulses of others, to steal and kill.

Although we got backstories for all four of the drivers, Scheider remains our main protagonist, and our link to the civilization that seems largely out of reach In this jungle locale. As is typical in 1970s films, the ending of the story is downbeat, but not at all in a manner in which you expect. The inevitability of our guilt catching up with us is one of the main themes of the story. I'm not sure if that's a part of the original film  this movie is based on. I have seen that movie, but it has been a long time and I didn't have the context of this film to compare it to at the time.

So if you want to feel your sphincter tighten, and have your sympathies be conflicted, then you should make it a point to see this film. And of course if you get a chance to see it on the big screen you need to put your money down and go.

Deep Blue Sea (1999) Revisit -2025

 

Sometimes you just need shark movies to make your summer sing. I just saw “Deep Blue Sea" on the big screen a year ago and wrote about it then. I'm not sure that there's a lot to add. This Renny Harlan action film takes full advantage of an ocean location, and Genetically Enhanced sharks, to give us a few Frights, and suspense to sit through.

I can't wax poetically about the film the way my former co-host on the Lambcast can, but I can appreciate that this may be the second best Shark film ever put into theaters to make summer audiences happy that they paid their ticket price. The presence of Samuel L Jackson, makes the first half of the movie a lot more suspenseful than it really is. I do think that we could probably do with a prequel film that explores the Avalanche experience where Jackson's character survived. Spoiler alert: he doesn't have the same level of success with the sharks.

Thomas Jane as our hero Carter, does a great job looking well and acting frightened. When we get to the end of the film, it's a little bit more believable because this is the way he's been throughout the movie. LL Cool J makes a good impression as an actor, but they ran the rap song he did for the movie right before the film screened, I think moving into acting was the right choice. Maybe our favorite lines that we've quoted for years come from his advice that the perfect omelet is made with two eggs not three. I follow that advice whenever I'm making breakfast.

The Magnificent Seven (1960) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

After having spent 2 hours in the presence of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, one may wonder how any stars in another film could compete for our attention. The second film in our Sunday double feature answers the question in the most obvious way, multiplying the number of stars. Magnificent Seven gives us a half dozen great actors in a meaty part in a western. That's the way you follow up with star power.

Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen may not match Kelly and Grant straight up, but that's okay because they're also supported by James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, and Eli Wallach. There are also a few secondary level Stars that make the movie worthwhile as well, and Elmer Bernstein score is a star in its own right.

You probably already know that this is a remake of Seven Samurai but set in the West. It works really well as a band of mercenaries help a local Village fight off marauding Bandidos for 2 hours. There are several clever moments in the film, but there is one glaring plot problem. Eli Wallach's character grants the seven their weapons back after having caught them by surprise through the betrayal of one of the villagers. This was a mistake on a massive scale by the supposed brains of the marauding bandits. The only justification for it, is to allow Our Heroes to come back and claim victory. It's a head scratching plot point.

Regardless of that fault, leads in this film provide plenty of fireworks for the movie. This film actually made Steve McQueen a star, but James Coburn was not too far behind him. Most people who think that Charles Bronson was merely a tough guy face on the screen, should pay attention to his character Ark in this film. He gives a pretty good speech to the kids who have attached themselves to his character.

The assembly of the band of Heroes that takes place in the first part of the film is more interesting than the conflicts in the village. In the long run most of the characters get a chance to reflect their reason for being included in the band. A lot of people might think that the Italian westerns of Sergio Leone were the start of the anti-western, but the depressing circumstances of Our Heroes here, very well could have been a precursor to those themes. It just doesn't seem that being a gunfighter paid very well, or provided a comfortable lifestyle. Everybody in this film, from the villagers to the bandits to The Mercenaries seems depressingly miserable.

Regardless of their misery however, we get some pretty good gun fights, some clever twists, and maybe not A Fistful of Dollars but A Fistful of Stars. This film is never going to be as perfect as Seven Samurai, but it is pretty damn good.

To Catch a Thief (1955) Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

Another Hitchcock film for the Paramount classic summer film series 2025. I've seen To Catch a Thief before, but it has literally been decades since I last saw it and I remembered very little of it. I did remember a substantial amount of the Cary Grant Grace Kelly by play. And I did remember who the actual Thief was, but I'd forgotten the machinations that Grant's character had to go through to discover the truth.

The movie doesn't have the suspense of most of Hitchcock's films, but it does have a lot of romance and the spectacular location they probably made for a fantastic summer vacation for everybody involved. Just as a quick reminder Grant's character was a jewel thief before World War II, but became a resistance fighter for the French during the war, and was seemingly reformed. A new series of thefts from the resorts on the French Riviera point to him becoming active again as a criminal. He has to discover who is using his MO and try to vindicate himself.

It's easy to see how people in the 1950s, might not care very much about the plot of the film when they have these two exquisitely beautiful people to look at. Cary Grant and Grace Kelly may be the most magnetic couple on screen in that particular decade. The buy play between them is humorous, and if you've seen any of the Steven Soderberg oceans films, you'll have a good sense of where the humor in those films come from.

This was the first film of the double feature that we saw on a Sunday afternoon, and it was a delightful way to spend the late afternoon.

Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

 

If you can get rid of most of the stupid things in the Jurassic Park Franchise, synthesize most of the best action beats, and cast it with a little flair, you will get a movie like this. It exists, it is fun while you watch it, but it is not essential, it does not say anything profound, and it still has plenty of stupidity that is fairly original. 

I don't know that there's much to say about a new Jurassic World film. After all you get dinosaurs chasing people, eating people, and people making sacrifices or showing themselves to be scum. So it's pretty much the same story every time out. The main variations involve the actors people and how are the characters  going to screw each other over. Oh and whether or not the dinosaurs are going to be interesting.

For the most part the dinosaurs in this particular Edition are interesting. The premise of the film has scientists in Pursuit of DNA from three specific varieties of dinosaur. One that is found in the ocean, one that is found on the land, and big surprise one that flies in the sky. That seems to set up a pretty straightforward path for our adventurers to travel.

Scarlett Johansson plays a mercenary who is tasked with getting the team there on to the island and then helping them secure the live DNA samples that they need. She has a team of Misfits, many of whom are really just food for the dinosaurs, an evil Overlord who is there to exploit nature, so we get some moral story included. And then there's a random family of shipwreck survivors who get included in the Expedition so that we can have kids and people who aren't used to carrying around heavy weaponry.

It's all creative enough fun to kill a Saturday afternoon in the summertime. There is a little bit of tie in to previous variations of the series. For instance we start off in Manhattan with a brachiosaur slowly expiring in a local park. There's a mild climate change theme, it mostly goes nowhere except to justify a trip to the equator. Marashala Ali is Johansson's Main support, and he's a good actor who is wasted in a largely thankless part. When we get to the climax of the film, we get the stupidest third act twist imaginable, and whatever suspension of disbelief we had up to this point is lost.

Anyway go ahead and turn off your brain, get yourself an extra large soda and don't worry if you have to run to the bathroom during the movie, you're not going to miss anything important. Because there's nothing really important here, just some fun watching dinosaurs chase and eat people.

Materialists (2025)

 

It looks like a romantic comedy, it's cast like a romantic comedy and IMDB labels it as a romantic comedy, but at best it is a deconstruction of the genre. There are a couple of moments when I laughed at the uncomfortably frank expectations of the matchmaker clients. Both women and men have standards that seem impractical at times, although some of their criteria are also perfectly valid. Overall however, the film is more of a drama, highlighting the uncomfortable and overwhelming feeling of loneliness. 

In a twist that perfectly illustrates the contrary nature of the film, the two male leads are the cardboard cutouts, and it if the female lead that has the real story arch. Dakota Johnson is solid as the matchmaker at the top of her game, who can't quite figure out her own life. Her clients have lists of boxes that they want checked off, but her character is not sure what her own boxes would be. She resists being put into any boxes herself, either from her former lover played by Chris Evans, or her new pursuer, the unicorn Pedro Pascal. 

Two thirds of the way through the film, there is a pretty nasty turn which seems to undercut the comedy of the film entirely. The tone of the movie shifts rapidly and Lucy, the Johnson character, finds her confidence in her job completely shaken, and her commitment to her current relationship undermined. She wants to see herself as a friend to her clients, but clearly, the financial conditions of their relationships prevents her from giving the smack upside the head that so many of these people need. 

The main actors are all quite good, Pascal has an easy charm for most of the movie, although the character feels a bit reconfigured by the third act. Evans plays anxious and disappointed well, and Johnson oozes sincerity, in spite of having to be a snake oil salesman in the long run. The resolution of the movie works on an entertainment level, but it does not really address the reservations that the script has been giving us for most of the story.

Piranha (1978)

 

It seems like there were dozens of "Jaws" rip-offs in the late seventies. Killer Orcas, Grizzlies, and in this film, genetically modified piranha that can strip a man to the bone in minutes. This was an exploitation picture that launched the career of director Joe Dante. It has only a little of the sideways humor that characterizes his best films, but it does try to keep the audience engaged with frequent piranha victims every few minutes.

The formula is a clear set of beats stolen from "Jaws". We start with a titillating experience that results in death, followed up by a slow discovery of what is happening, and then a series of denials of reality by officials. One of the main differences is that the obnoxious character who is trying to dismiss the whole thing, gets a comeuppance, unlike the mayor in the shark movie.

Bradford Dillman was a seventies staple as a suspicious official or businessman, and he was in a ton of TV shows of the era. Here he plays a drunk hermit like loser, who hets turned into an action hero for no particular reason. Heather Menzies, who played one of the Von Trapp children in "The Sound of Music" and Strother Martin's daughter in Sssssss, is a bounty hunter who gets caught up in the action, and veteran horror icon Kevin McCarthy starts a long association with director Dante, playing a crazed scientist. Don't ask why there is a small lizard man walking around the laboratory in the early part of the film. It never becomes important and it is simply a loose thread.   

"Piranha" is an efficient, low budget fright film. The film makers do the best they can with their resources and imaginations. Although many consider it a cult classic, it simply feels standard for the times. But of course those were my times so I loved it.