127. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) - May 7th
The Nightmare on Elm Street sequels haven't really come close to attaining the quality of the original, but I've found them to be doing a damn sight better than most other horror franchises. They've typically run out of steam by the fourth movie: Friday the 13th sought to finish the Jason trilogy (the unfortunately titled Final Chapter), in the process making something that was only marginally better than Part III, and while Jaws made people afraid to go back in to the water, Jaws: The Revenge was bad it made people afraid to go back to the cinema. In contrast, The Dream Master managed to build on ideas presented in Dream Warriors and evoke a lot of the imagery that made the series effective while also creating a decent cutoff point without conclusively ending the series. It's a little forced at first, rushing through a re-introduction of Krueger and the passing of the torch to the new set of characters, but the kills are all well done, preying appropriately on each victim's greatest fear and reinforcing the film's themes of abuse and carrying the weight of it. It also carries a very strong finale, punishing Krueger fittingly with his own crimes and positively disgusting visuals. - 5.5/10
128. Final Destination 2 (2003) - May 8th
Final Destination 2 turns the premonition gimmick from the first film up to eleven and never looks back. The first several minutes of this are so hilariously unsubtle before being completely insane that no matter how bad it could get from here the films will always be in the 'campy' camp for me. These were always that way, of course, with the constant silly playing up of the dangers of everyday items, and regular verbal reminders such as 'death is always around the corner' and 'when your number's up, it's up', but the film's opener is so certifiable I can't help but delight in it. From here it's mostly working with the standard set by the first, combining a little carelessness and little improbability to make each escaped victim of death's grim ghoul get gruesomely gutted. The deaths are pretty inventive, with the filmmakers going to great lengths to either set up or subvert our expectations, and it proves a grim exercise that, while mindlessly enjoyable, honestly gets a bit tiresome. It's fine that this is the film's gimmick, but it falls in to the same trappings of a lot of other horror movies, where there's so little else on offer that the whole experience just becomes a sadistic waiting game; you end up rooting for death because it's the only 'character' in the film that's interesting for its creativity (except Tony Todd as the mortician, the guy's so perfectly hammy that his five minutes on screen elevate the movie, and the director plays to that well). The film even rolls back a lot of the minor philosophical stuff from the first film about fate and controlling your life's course, paying only a bit of lip service at best. However, every now and then when it starts to get boring, the film offers a reminder that it has a sense of humour at its gory centre, sick as it may be, and throws a funny curve ball now and then to show off its deprecating self-awareness. I almost like this more than the first, if only because the idea is so inherently gimmicky that being more intent on embracing that fact at least shows a commitment to appealing to its core audience; offering somehow less substance but upping the ante with what got people to see it in the first place, something that a lot of horror cash cows attempt but few I've actually seen succeed at. - 5/10
129. Not Another Teen Movie (2001) - May 9th
Before I started watching, I wasn't sure if I'd already seen it, or just every movie it referenced. I'll be honest, I still don't know for certain, but that's obviously by design; the movie is built on the familiar, every aspect from its costume design to its hair to its framing to its story beats are deliberately ripped from other movies. The references aren't terrible, either, even if they are sometimes incredibly blatant. The shots are fired, the cool new ideas that became tropes and then cliches are lampooned again and again, sometimes with a clever throwaway that warrants a laugh, sometimes forced and overdone or just plain lazy, but always at least trying and usually down to the energy or skill of the actor delivering the meta talk. Perhaps it's just because he's Captain America now and also perfect, but I quite like Chris Evans here; he gets away without having to deal with a lot of the film's puerile humour (with a couple of exceptions that are about as too much as they could be) and mostly just has fun with the role, over-acting with his eyebrows at every possible moment. Unfortunately, not everyone else gets away so cleanly, with the biggest drawback of the film being the awful toilet jokes (sometimes literally) the movie regularly sprays all over the characters and the audience, which significantly diminishes the appeal of an already mediocre movie. - 4/10
130. The Sting (1973) - May 10th
A little rag-time and I'm all in. The style, the tension, the way the film cheats as the players do, it's all so excellently crafted and a bundle of fun to boot. The movie is mean, but in a playful way, toying with audience expectation at every chance as the very point of its existence; even a getaway from gunmen feels wrought out of Chaplin. The whole thing is cons within cons, and each one feels like the visual equivalent of slap-fighting; with great performances from everyone including Redford and Newman, all stylised to fit the slightly silly tone of the movie, this was just great to watch so well made cinematic trickery in action. - 8/10
131. 12 Angry Men (1997) - May 10th
Theoretically pointless but not entirely in practice, and excellently crafted nonetheless, this remake of the modern classic is an excellent film in its own right, with mostly minor or nuanced differences. I went in to this believing it to be unnecessary, and it is in some ways, but the film takes the opportunity to elaborate or alter small details that allow it to exist within an altogether different context; it's 12 Angry Men in 1997 as opposed to 1957, and while the core of the story is timeless, the changes in this version feel even larger with subtext. This subtext hardly goes explored, however, the film enslaved to the structure of the original, and a good idea is ultimately lost to the redundancy of the film's existence. Beyond that, the performances are all very good, with Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott offering perfect counters to one another that both take inspiration from Fonda and Cobb's while forging their own identities. Possibly my favourite difference here is at the climax of the film; Cobb changed his decision in a blubbering wave of pure emotion, whereas Scott's emotion had subsided, giving his final verdict in a quiet moment of clarity. Only a small thing, but suggestive of how much Friedkin and Scott wanted to contrast Juror #3's final decision with his first by comparing emotion to clarity, rather than the original's comparison of two emotional extremes. - 7.5/10
132. Final Destination 3 (2006) - May 11th
This series is the very definition of camp. This pointless macabre exercise is more of the same, but for at least one more time around I get a kick out of its maniacal nature. The film is as engrossing as the other two in how detailed and absurd its elaborate death sequences are, and there's a good performance (within the film's parameters) from Mary Elizabeth Winstead. There's still the slightest sense of fate and controlling it as a theme in the main character, but it's as always largely lip service to remind you that these movies aren't entirely pointless, just mostly. - 5/10
133. Lake Placid 3 (2010) - May 12th
Ah, made for TV Syfy Channel Originals, always exactly as terrible as I expect them to be and yet I still give them a go. Lake Placid 3 is amateurish and awful, and I couldn't even grow to appreciate it in that "so bad it's good" sort of way. Not a single moment is effective as horror or campy comedy, and this was the TV cut so even the pointless titillation was all but removed, making this an entirely boring slog devoid of any value, ironic or otherwise. I don't want to go on about this, so I'll let the rating speak for itself. - 1/10
Re-watches
27. The Third Man (1949) - May 7th
Carol Reed's classic is one that I first got a look at in 2016 and have been meaning to get back to it ever since. It's a unique film for its time, with a really bizarre mix of noir stylings and music that is at once wonderful and also doesn't fit the movie at all, which given the sheer quality of the film is probably and intentional stylistic choice that re-frames the movie to be more of a mischievous commentary, which absolutely comes together when the film reveals Orson Welles' Harry Lime (sidenote: I actually sat down to watch this movie with a friend specifically because last week's Alligator had "HARRY LIME LIVES" graffiti-ed on a sewer wall, and it was such a neat Easter Egg that I simply had to find the time to re-watch the film when I was so suddenly reminded of all its awesomeness). Lime's reveal is possibly the greatest shot in all of cinema, and the combination of the serendipitous lighting with Welles' cheeky and crooked smile perfectly summarises the movie in just a single moment. With that in mind, one of the things that comes with subsequent watching is that a lot of the movie is amplified this time around, particularly the things you are looking for, and in this case Welles' performance was as absolutely captivating as it was disturbing, his 'dots' monologue hitting even harder, the realisation that a man you once knew could be so abhorrently transformed sinking that much deeper, and the lack of empathy wrought from that change is simply staggering. There's still a lot here I feel I need to go back to and consider further, but the film is magnificent. - 10/10
28. Some Like it Hot (1959) - May 7th
I already re-watched this earlier this year; this time it was to show a friend. I also appreciated Tony Curtis' performance much more this time around; the first two times I was so heavily focused on Jack Lemmon because, well, he's still the best thing about the movie, but I really have to give Curtis almost as much credit here; the 'Shell' joke is still one of the funniest things I've ever heard, the parody of the Transatlantic accent is hilarious on its own (it's made funnier by Lemmon's commentary, cementing the self-aware nature of the bit, also there's probably a multilayered joke about adopting a 'Trans'-atlantic accent), and his forth to Jack Lemmon's back is what gets them in so many of the hilarious situations in the first place (ok, that's more of a praise of the writing of his character, which deserves all the praise it can get, the writing is transcendentally hysterical, but Curtis does his damnedest to sell it). Of course, I think I focused so hard on Lemmon that I also ignored Marilyn Monroe, who's also great, with a lot of comedic talent (not the kind Lemmon's Jerry is talking about); her lines are all incredibly cheesy and she delivers them with the appropriate ham and excellent comedic timing. This film was always great to me, but at this point it's one of the greatest comedies, perhaps one of the greatest films of all time. - 10/10
29. Predators (2010) - May 8th
Doing away with a lot of (though not all, the film does re-tread some of the first's territory with it's look at what it means to be a predator/human/alive) subtext and trying to rely on simply being about the Predators as a concept worthy of exploring to do what it does, Predators is a far cry from the overtly 80s-90s schlock semi-satire of the first two. The value of the film seems entirely based upon how invested you are in exploring the idea of an alien culture built around hunting and how we as people are involved in it, which for me is quite a lot; the monsters fascinate me just as much as the films, and this idea of an alien species not actually intent on wiping out humanity by cause or instinct, instead simply using the human race as sport, is unique enough among alien sci-fi species to be worth giving more than one look. Of course, much like the more recent Alien movies, the movie's success at this goal for people who care enough about the monsters to want to know more about them is based on how they feel about the direction they took. Personally, I didn't like what they did with the new Super Predators. but it was mostly stuff that just bugged me, not anything that was actually badly made. As a concept, there didn't really need to be something more badass than the Predators, especially just bigger predators; it seems lazy to define something as better and then only use size as a factor, especially when the size difference isn't all that apparent. Were there something more there, it could've been really interesting, especially with mentions of a blood feud and the implications of what that means to the species, but with how little time there is devoted to it, the effort gone in to making a point about their differences feels a little wasted, save for some interesting behavioural ticks found in the lead Predator that suggest a considerable difference in culture or creed, not just between sub-species but also his comrades (stabbing in to Edwin to see if he's alive or blasting and unarmed Stans come to mind). It's a lot of potential that the film doesn't really live up to, but there's a few things going on that are implied or stated that keep the species interesting. Beyond that, the film's look at what makes someone a human is shallow as a puddle even at its deepest, but at least consistent across every one of its characters. Goggin's Stans goes from trying to kill Ali's Mombasa to almost mourning his unceremonious death after a couple of shared death-defying experiences, Taktarov's Nikolai and Grace's Edwin look out for each other, and Fishburne's Noland is the extreme conclusion to losing all value in that, while Brody's Royce goes through the arc of denying and then understanding that, with Braga's Isabelle challenging him all the way. On Noland specifically, Fishburne gives an excellent performance; quiet and paranoid and grimly humorous, his moments in the film are more engaging than the rest of it by a considerable margin, and his quick and easy death was undeserved just for how much fun he was to watch on-screen. The image of a man who has lost his humanity just to stay alive evokes a lot of tales, more specifically I like to think that this is what his character would have become had he survived Apocalypse Now long enough to stare in to the heart of darkness. This is also one thing that works better for his character than it does for the rest of the story: by being so vague and broad we can infer all that we want to about the character, the type that's intriguing simply because it's apparent there's so much there but we simply aren't made privy to what. It's much like the Predator in the first movie "what the hell are you?", as opposed to how it feels with the actual Predators in this movie, where playing coy with information about them for the third (or fifth, technically) time has gotten more tiresome than intriguing. Still, I'd ultimately call the film decent, mostly for what it tries to do and only a little for what it really succeeds at. - 6/10
30. The Sandlot (1993) - May 9th
This is solid "boys will be boys" stuff that is far less sweet in retrospect for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the idea that, unlike other prolific nostalgia-bait, like Stand By Me, a lot of stuff in The Sandlot feels far less earnest than it once did, despite (or maybe because of) a certain lack of self-awareness about is own nostalgia goggles. It's good, but as coming-of-age, friendships-that-last-a-lifetime movies go, I've seen better, more honest works. I don't blame you if you buy in to the movies ardent hopefulness about its own subject matter, though; everyone wants a moment to reflect on what was good, and movies like this create an avenue for that sort of exercise, and whether or not I felt anything real here, I'm glad that you did. - 7/10
31. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - May 12th
Re-watching this is one of the more beautiful experiences I've had with film lately. Everything about this film is so tightly packed and perfectly paced that even at its staggering length it was an absolute breeze to watch. Every scene in the Shire was like magic, every single time the Shire theme played I'd have to watched the movie through barely contained tears, it was storybook fantasy come to life, to then venture out and be grown and changed by the world. As the start to one of the most prolific trilogies of all time, The Fellowship of the Ring is the absolute best version of itself, regardless of whether you're watching the Theatrical or Extended Version. I'd like to leave a link here to a video essay by Lindsay Ellis, and I encourage you to watch all of her videos on the series, as well as the three-part documentary she did discussing the Hobbit trilogy; it's all really well written (far better than what I'm capable of) and deserves recognition for how well it discusses the saga as a whole. - 10/10
Published May 14th, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment