Boston Strangler - Matt Ruskin - 2023

★★★- Zodiac lite with some shades of Spotlight. You can watch it right now on Hulu. One of their originals. It's pretty good, but not nearly as great as its obvious predecessors. Though the combo of Keira Knightly (what a talent) and Carrie Coon (Gone Girl, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) makes this an enjoyable watch; however, the film has some problems. 

Gist of the movie is reporter Loretta McLaughlin (Knightly) breaks the story of the Boston Strangler murders. As the killer's body count rises, she continues the investigation alongside colleague veteran investigative journalist Jean Cole (Coon). The film has a lot to say about how shitty it was to be a working woman in 1960s, how cops sometimes take the easiest narratives, and how powerful old-school journalism used to be.

In addition to Knightly and Coon, the film stars Robert John Burke (I think of him as the lead in Thinner), Rory Cochrane (Dazed and Confused, Freck in A Scanner Darkly), Chris Cooper (Adaptation, American Beauty), David Dastmalchian (The Dark Knight, Suicide Squad, Dune), and Alessandro Nivola (The Many Saints of Newark, American Hustle).

Moves a little fast and the story is all over the place. The beats keep coming at you. She's at a crime scene, now she's talking to a cop, now she's home, now she's at work, now she's talking to another cop, now she's at a bar with her writing partner, now she's getting chewed out by her editor, now she's arguing with her husband. Repeat like six or seven times. Listened to a podcast about this and the possible Ann Arbor connection called Stranglers. Not sure I would have been a follow all this without having a 12-part docuseries under my belt.

I sort of hate mine and everyone's fascination with serial killers. They disgust and repulse me to no end. Yet I consume a lot of media based on these sick fucks whom I loath for bringing so much suffering into the world. All the victims die bad. Every once in a while I watch something so disturbing that I have to stop. Such has been the case for the last couple months. But goddamn do I love an investigative journalism movie. 

More than anything I love how they show the life of a journalist living a story. I've been there. It's a tough grind. You put in an incredible amount of time for no money, but there is nothing like it. That buzz of election night, basketball sectionals, watching the cops bring in a murderer. Thinking hard about it. Pouring your soul out. You live for that shit. Like a lot of movies like this, the film does a great job of putting you in that world. Hesitantly recommend. 

Arnold - 2023

In The Last Dance territory for personal propaganda, but it doesn't shy away from Arnold's faults. Sort of nice to see people like this owning up to the mistakes they've made instead of denying and calling out fake news. However, it does paint these faults in the most flattering light possible. 

This is Arnold's victory lap, after all. It's a heavily produced miniseries that primarily caters to dedicated fans. One of my favorite takes, from one Simon Abrams on RogerEbert.com reads:

“Schwarzenegger cocks a schticky eyebrow and puffs on evenly-lit cigars while admiring coffee table-sized books filled with high-resolution photos of himself from over the years.”

Oof. 

So, yeah, while he shares PR-friendly perspectives on various aspects of his public life, including engaging in an extramarital affair, notable omissions include any mention of his abusive father's voluntary involvement with the Nazis or how he was something of a, uh, Hitler enthusiast himself for a time. 

I've dealt with enough rich, famous people to know that a lot of them can be quite unpleasant. Arnold seems like he'd be an alright hang, but I don't think you'd really be having a conversation, if you know what I mean.

You have to expect that a little with people like this, minus the Nazi stuff, who worked their way up to the top of the world. They all have a competition in them that drives them. Arnold probably more than most. And he stays charming, at least. Plus he likes animals and is mostly vegan now. Which is dope. But I'm sure he's still an asshole. 

Huesera: The Bone Woman - Michelle Garza Cervera - 2023

★★★★-Another movie that affirms my child-free status. Solid debut from director Michelle Garza Cervera available on Shudder. This is not my kind of movie though. Again, Rotten Tomato had it right there at the top that this maybe wasn't my cup of tea: 98% Critics Ranking, 63% Audience Score. However, I made it through, and I'm thankful I did as this was another thought-provoking horror flick that has something to say. Plus, the end gets totally cray. 

Never seen anyone in this film before in my life. Stars Natalia Solián as Valeria, the protagonist of the film. She is a really pretty lady. Like a combination of Rosario Dawson and Cristin Milioti of Palm Springs. Her husband is played by one Alfonso Dosal, who seems to be something of an up-and-comer. Others whom I don't know that are in this movie include Mayra Batalla in the role of Octavia, Sonia Couoh as the sister, Mercedes Hernández as the aunt, and Aida López as Valeria's mother. 

Gist is this woman Valeria finds out she is preggers. Her joy at becoming a first-time mother sours when she starts to realize she is cursed by a sinister demon or something. Danger closes in, most people think she is insane and definitely unfit to be a mother. Shit escalates until she turns to traditional ways to rid herself of this dark entity. 

Valeria is obviously under a lot of stress. Her husband is one of those, “what are you talking about, you crazy woman?” types that are some prevalent in horror movies. “You're just a hysterical woman!” So is her family. Her mom and her sister are fucking horrible. Her “spinster” aunt seems pretty cool, but the worst thing that could happen in this family is ending up like her. Then the sister tells her, “people like you shouldn't have children.” Thanks for the support. Of course the husband sides with the family. In general, everyone treats her like an insane person. 

Takes us on a weird side story suddenly that follows a female lover of the protagonist, I thought. This Octavia, the lover, is hanging out with this lesbian couple. One is leaving. The other is staying to go to college even though her brother was killed in the city they were planning on fleeing. “What is happening here,” my notes read. At some point I realized that this was her back in the day. It took me an embarrassingly long time to pick up on that. Anyway, they obviously had a good life, but it didn't work out. Now, Octavia has a pretty dope life in her non-child ways. She hangs out with lesbians, boxes, goes to rock shows and house parties, has casual sex. Her freedom is showed in contrast to Valeria, who keeps creeping back into Octavia's life. 

Several pretty unsettling scenes of the body horror persuasion. Lots of bones poking through skin. There is also a poor chained up dog that barks like crazy and then ends up dead. If you do this to a dog, we are going to have problems. You and me. But one of the most subtly fucked up things I caught was a picture in the OBGYN's office of a baby coming out of a woman's stomach. I'm not sure if it is surgical or what, but it's just casually there to freak the patients out, I guess. Then, of course, there is this defenseless baby whose life gets played fast and loose with. I had to Google “does the baby die” to see if I could finish it. Just FYI, if that triggers you. 

Had myself a sort of feminist film triple feature with this, Unwelcome, and Lucky. The gist of all of them was when your wife or daughter is pregnant or going through some real shit and maybe having some mental health issues, maybe don't berate her. Crazy idea, right? But this is how we act as a society. Have compassion. Be cool and fucking care. 

Bringing Up Baby - Howard Hawks - 1938

★★-Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant screwball romcom. It's where the term “screwball comedy” originated, actually. Oof. Has not aged well. 

Gist of it is a paleontologist (Grant) gets himself into predicaments involving a scatterbrained heiress (Hepburn) and a leopard named Baby. Shenanigans ensue. 

Personally, I can't really get over how that poor leopard probably had a pretty terrible life. Really ruins the comedy of it if you give a shit about animals. It's like that Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence movie Life. How can people possibly think a movie about two wrongly convicted men who spend their entire lives in prison could in any way be funny? Some things I just can't get past. 

Hepburn and Grant are both a couple of bitches in this flick. Hepburn is exactly like the unflattering Cate Blanchett portrayal in The Aviator. Her character is what film critic Nathan Rabin coined as the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (MPDG) archetype in reference to Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown. Writing for the AV Club, he says the MPDG “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” 

The MPDG, along with other stock characters like the Magical Negro, pretty much has the sole function of offering mystical guidance to the protagonist (almost always a man). As in the case here, the MPDG lacks a distinctive inner life, as her primary role revolves around imparting crucial life lessons to the protagonist.

Grant, for his part, is the biggest weenie I've ever seen in my life. Grant based his performance on the forgotten Charlie Chaplin rival Harold Lloyd—a physical comedian of the silent era that was sadly ambitious and famous for his glasses. In turn, Grant's character here is what Christopher Reeve based his performance as Clark Kent in Superman on. So when Superman wanted to be a wimp, he acted like this idiot. 

I pretty much hated this movie. The speed and noise in this were terrible for two people with head trauma, so it was more or less unwatchable. The characters are horrible and remarkably unlikeable. Plus, the movie is not funny. Example. At one point Grant is wearing a woman's robe. A lady asks him why he is wearing that. He says, “I suddenly turned gay!” Hilarious!. I can't believe this is considered a classic. Fuck this movie. 

Batman Begins - Christopher Nolan - 2005

★★★★-When this came out, I thought it was the best Batman movie. Now, this being something like my fifth viewing, I've got it at third behind Burton's 1989 film and The Dark Knight. Have it just ahead of Batman Returns.Heavily influenced by two of the best Batman graphics, Year One and The Long Halloween, also Blade Runner. The look is all Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

In the summer of 2005, when this was released, my expectations were pretty low even though I was already a Nolan fan, and was pretty much all in on Christian Bale. However, I didn't see this in the theater. It took some word of mouth convincing, which was right on. Sort of a bummer that this remains the only Nolan movie I didn't see on the big screen save for Following.

Like that Nolan anchors this universe in something resembling reality. The dark aspect of it is one of its major strengths. Now, all DC movies are like this. On a related note, I'm so fucking over comic book movies... 

Storyline is pretty much perfect. Get an origin story that was actually good which then segues into his training, followed by his return to Gotham where there is a plot to throw the city into complete chaos. Mixed in there, I liked the way Wayne is portrayed as a bratty billionaire, as a persona, not actually the man he is. 

Casting is perfect. The villains are great. Liam Neeson as Ra's al Ghul and Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow are stellar. Also dig Tom Wilkinson as a realistic Carmine Falcone. Gary Oldman as James Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, all great. Only weak spot, in my opinion, is Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. She was pretty meh, milquetoast, a total soup sandwich, but it's not like she had a lot to work with. When she is replaced in the second movie, it's barely a blip on the radar. 

Oveall, a great flick. Nolan immerses us in this bleak world and makes it real, giving Gotham City a soul. It's edgy with solid effects that aged well. In the hands of Nolan, it's no wonder that the film transcends the superhero summer blockbuster genre. 

Unwelcome - Jon Wright - 2023

★★★★-Yet another reason I'm an anti-natalist and will never celebrate pregnancy. Little magical goblins that demand a blood sacrifice or they run amuck. Basically what it's like living with senior dogs.

Love an Irish folktale yarn, though it seems like most of the Irish movies I've seen are about a mythical creature known for stealing babies. This is an Interesting flick.  I really liked it. Basically two stories. Outsider married couple who are dealing with trauma get harassed by the yocals which culminates in a home invasion situation where the wife has to fight and give birth at the same time. 

The yocals are really something. A family of laborers the couple hires to fix the roof and renovate the kitchen start doing what dumb inbreds do. One of them, as soon as we meet him, goes through their drawers while taking a shit, which he doesn't flush, and finds a vibrator. Turns it on, smells it, licks it. Fucking sick. The patriarch insists everyone call him “Daddy.” Daddy is played by Colm Meaney from the John Huston movie The Dead, however, most probably know him from his role as Miles O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The daughter is violent and mean. Hodor is rapey. And it quickly escalates from there. 

The male lead, played by one Douglas Booth, is pretty much worthless and a piece of shit. Gets emasculated and takes it out on his pregnant wife, whom he thinks is breaking down mentally. Then it's time to fight or die, and dude basically chooses die. Wife ends up making a sacrifice for him that isn't worth it. You root for the home invaders a little bit when you realize how it's gonna end. And then the end comes around, and it is super weird. One of the weirder endings to a movie I've ever seen, and I have seen some shit. 

The pregnant wife is played by Hannah John-Kamen. She was in Ready Player One and Ant-Man and The Wasp. Nice strong female lead. I loved her in this movie. Got some talent, this one. 

Overall, I think the tone was a little all over the place, but it was still a solid flick. Not as good as the previous Jon Wright movie I watched, Grabbers, which was firmly in camp territory. But it was more than passable. Nothing too groundbreaking, but it is super memorable and I think more people will like this than not.

The Beyond - Lucio Fulci - 1981

★★★-Gateway to hell in the basement of a hotel movie. “Southern Gothic” as it takes place in New Orleans, though it is directed by an Italian with actors from fucking everywhere. 

Directed by the infamous Lucio Fulci, who was known for treating everyone on set, especially women, like shit. He worked in various genres in a career that spanned nearly five decades. You know, comedy, Spaghetti Westerns, action, so forth. But he garnered a cult following for his giallo and horror flicks, mainly remembered for his “Gates of Hell” trilogy, of which this film is the second. The other two are City of the Living Dead (1980) and The House by the Cemetery (1981). 

The film doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Dream logic flick. Voiceover makes it make even less sense. 

It's a pretty brutal movie. A child sees her mother killed by acid when going to identify the body of her father. There is a crucifixion, eye trauma (hes known for eye trauma), multiple deaths by acid, a woman whose seeing eye dog saves her from a zombie attack then turns into a zombie and rips out her throat, and a child, the one who watched her mom die, who gets her head blown off in graphic detail. Fulci apparently hated the child, accused her of being a drug addict, and maybe abused her. Harsh. The guy who does the deed had absolutely no hesitation in shooting her in the face, which I applaud. “She was a zombie?”

This male lead, played by one David Warbeck, is a good looking dude. Kind of a cross between Jack Nicholson and Sean Connery. British stage-trained actress Catriona MacColl stars. She is mostly remembered for this trilogy. The actress Cinzia Monreale plays the blind woman. She's remember for her work with Fulci and fellow Italian Joe D'Amato, notably in the film Beyond the Darkness. Her and Fulci famously did not get along. She is a really pretty lady. 

After treading on being a somewhat cerebral movie for the first three/fourths, the movie ends with a full on zombie attack out of nowhere. They go to the hospital which is overrun with zombies from the morgue or these are all patients, it does matter. Then they open a door, descend a staircase, and are back in the basement of the hotel. “Impossible,” they say. Dream logic. 

The end comes when the couple walk into Hell. What did they think would happen? Not great, but I was intrigued. It's grown on me since watching the other night, for sure. Still, not something I'd recommend to anyone off the street. 

Interstellar - Christopher Nolan - 2014

★★★★★-More Nolan. Hard rain today so I'm knocking out three of his flicks. Feels a little weird watching this one right after submarine disaster. But at least these adventurers have a noble goal in mind. This is an intensely captivating, stunning, thought-provoking film. I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. 

Gist of the film. It's 2067. Future: dystopian. Humanity is going extinct from a global famine caused by ecocide. Like we are starting to face now, really. 

A team of astronauts embark on a space mission to find a habitable planet for humanity as Earth faces an impending implosion. They traverse through a wormhole near Saturn to jump across the universe where they encounter mind-bending phenomena and race against time to ensure the survival of humanity. Thats the short of it. It also explores themes of love, time dilation, and the exploration of the unknown. 

Something I've thought long and hard about is this: How does one navigate a wormhole? I'd think you just get what you get. Best case scenario. You go in. It doesn't kill you or drive you mad. You get crapped out wherever you get crapped out in the universe. That seems to be the way it works in this flick. 

Anyway, dude loves his daughter. Barely remembers he has a son pretty much, but the son is sort of an asshole. Doesn't really listen to her or care about his opinion though. Goes on an obvious suicide mission, ignoring all the red flags and what not. So, I use the laughing/crying gif a lot for my sad laugh. But this movie is a gut punch. 

Stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway (my queen), Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn (the mom from The Exorcist), Matt Damon, and Michael Caine. This was the first thing I ever saw Jessica Chastain and Timothée Chalamet in.

At the start of the movie, for a minute, at least, it sounds like the government is actually figuring shit out in this future. But “freedom” and what not. Lot of books are banned. Moon landing was faked. Food is scarce because of the “wastefulness” and greed of the people in the 20th century. 

“This world is a treasure and it has been telling us to leave for a while now. Mankind was born here, it wasn't meant to die here,” McConaughey's character says. I agree with the first part, biology has determined the second part was a lie. 

Anyway, lot of sacrifice. Go to a planet where every hour is seven years. End up spending 23 Earth years. It's Nolan, so you gotta expect a little bit of time fuckery. Grandpa's dead. Kids have grown up. Poor guy left on the ship also experienced the time jump. Poor fucker. Requires a lot of faith for the people left behind. Plan A is to turn it around on Earth. Plan B is to go elsewhere. Decades go by and they are waiting to see if we have a place to go. How we get there is a good question, but you know. 

Speaking of, we aren't leaving this planet. We might get to Mars, but no where livable. Have about as much chance of that as time travel. Shit ain't happening. Once we finally fuck this planet up enough, that's it. Doubt it happens in my lifetime, but we're already seeing the beginning of the end.

Great wrist watch flick. Features the Hamilton Khaki Pilot Day Date and the Khaki Field (Murph). Both are great watches. Hamilton might not be as great as it was 50 years ago (mostly uses the ETA 2824 if you know anything about watches and is now Swiss owned), it is still a solid brand. My next watch will probably be a Hamilton. Maybe one of these. 

For me, this is a better, more accessible version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I hated. Ambitious, exceptionally beautiful, insanely complex, this is fucking cinema at its best. How people go to this and don''t fall in love, I have no idea. This film moved me. Nolan, again, is a master filmmaker. 

Insomnia - Christopher Nolan - 2002

★★★-“A good cop can't sleep because he's missing a piece of the puzzle. And a bad cop can't sleep because his conscience won't let him.” Yeah, not really my cup of tea. Saw this when it came out, dug that it was set in Alaska and liked the ambiance. However, wasn’t crazy about either Al Pacino or Robin Williams. Liked both of them more this time around, especially Williams, but it feels like an outlier for Christopher Nolan. It’s fine, but not genius like Memento.  

Gist of the movie is that a pair of homicide detectives from Los Angeles go to Alaska, for some reason, to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. The sun doesn’t set and the cop played by Al Pacino, who’s a bastard, can’t sleep. While chasing the suspect, played by Robin Williams, he ends of shooting his partner, probably by accident, but covers it up because his partner was feeding information to internal affairs back home. Williams’s character sees all this, and holds it over Pacino’s head so as to try to help him frame the dead chick’s boyfriend. So, you know, a real uplifting type of flick. 

MVP is Hilary Swank who plays local detective Ellie Burr, who is a fangirl of Dormer (Pacino’s character). He is apparently something of a famous investigator. She is really solid in this as a up-and-coming detective who is wrestling with her hero being an asshole/bastard cop. Williams, who I remember not liking, was actually pretty stellar, too. Sort of like his Oliver Sacks from Awakens that fucking kills young girls. 

Memento - Christopher Nolan - 2000

★★★★★-"We all lie to ourselves to be happy." Wow. Still fucking genius. Maybe more so than I remember. Holds the fuck up, I tell you. Christopher Nolan is perhaps my third favorite living director, depending on the day. This is the film that put him on the map. Rightfully so. 

Gist is a dude with anterograde amnesia (the inability to form new memories), can't remember anything short-term after 15 minutes. He got this way from an injury resulting from an attack on him/his wife, who was raped and murdered. Having developed a system where he uses Polaroids and tattoos to track information, he is tracking down his wife's killer. 

The film is told through two sequences. The ones in color tell the story backwards in little chunklets. Basically, the audience sees shit the way he does, in these short increments with no idea how we got here until we get to the next chunk of time. The black-and-white scenes show what is happening chronologically. These sequences meet at the end of the film, producing the complete narrative. It is clever as fuck. 

Stars Guy Pearce as Lenny, the guy with the condition. I bought a shit ton of Guy Pearce stock after LA Confidential. Really paid off here. Some really good that guys in this film--you get Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) and Lieutenant Dangle (Thomas Lennon). Plus, total that guy Mark Boone Junior (most memorable part, for me, is as the pizza stealing FBI guy in Se7en). Jorja Fox, whom you might recognize from ER or CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, plays Lenny's wife. 

The only substantive female role is that of Carrie-Anne Moss's character. A lot going on with her. For a while, I thought she was just getting revenge on the guy that killed her person. She says some genuinely awful shit to Lenny and calls him a "retard." Even steals his pens so he can't write anything down before she tells him she is going to fuck him over (and fuck him) and that she will enjoy it more knowing that he's too stupid to remember. Ouch. But she ends up helping him. She might have figured out that the death of her dude was more the result of this other guy, played by Joe Pantoliano (the true villain of the movie), which is probably somewhat accurate. Still, I think she sees Lenny as a victim too, which is why she helps him. Her whole look and vibe are exactly like this girl I dated in 2002, who I watched this with. She thought that Lenny was the real villain, which I still think is insane. 

Nolan is the obvious MVP of the movie. Pearce is perfect but goddamn. It's hard to get over how great this film is or what it was like watching it for the first time. I've seen it roughly five times and like it more after every viewing. I still don't 100% get it, but I get closer with every watch. Multiple viewings are definitely a requirement. Crazy good.

Asteroid City - Wes Anderson - 2023

★★★★★-Since The Royal Tenenbaums, I've been all in on Wes Anderson, seeing every film opening weekend. He is one of maybe 10 directors who I'm going to make a spectacle of when they have a movie come out. Have I had a great seeing all of them? Fuck yeah, I have. Asteroid City is no exception, though I am not sure if I really understand it. 

The film is pretty complex in the way that The French Dispatch is complex. Where we get the story of a publication in The French Dispatch while we are also given some of the best stories to come out of that journalism, in this movie we are told about the production of a play, showing that play, and weaving other stories within them. 

This is what you call a metatextual approach, yeah, I went to grad school. First the movie gives us a broadcast of the story behind the play which segues into the first act which follows people as they arrive at a Junior Stargazer convention. Between acts, we are then given behind-the-scenes moments with the actors, director, writer, broadcaster, so forth, who are giving this production a life of its own while offering the audience (real [us viewing the movie] and imagined [the 1955 television viewer]) a glimpse into the creative process. Beyond this, not to give too much away, the film is really, deep down, a lighthearted search for meaning, complete with nuclear testing, alien encounters, and ray guns. And that is just within the play. 

Cast includes most of his usuals and some newcomers to his universe. They include: Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell (loved him in this, by the by), Hong Chau (she the front of house manager in The Menu), Margot Robbie, Matt Dillon, Hope Davis ( The Daytrippers, American Splendor), Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Rupert Friend (he's one of the stars of the show Homeland), Maya Hawke (nepo baby child of Ethan Hawke and Uma, she was in such flicks as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Fear Street Part One: 1994, Do Revenge, she also played the part of  Robin Buckley in Stranger Things), Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Liev Schreiber, Fisher Stevens (he's the white guy playing the Indian guy in Short Circuit, he's also in Succession), Tilda Swinton, Tony Revolori (he was the bellboy, the lead, in The Grand Budapest Hotel), Edward Norton (who looks pretty exactly like William Faulkner in this), Steve Park (he is probably most remembered for being the Asian guy on In Living Color, he was also in Do the Right Thing, Falling Down, Fargo, and The French Dispatch among other things. I suspect this might be a breakout role), and Jeffrey Wright. Also, a bunch of children, Anderson loves him some witty wiz kids. Among them, the main one, this kid Jake Ryan, is the most notable and is probably destined to be in all kinds of Wes Anderson future projects. Also, Sophia Lillis from It, and this Grace Edwards girl who plays ScarJo's daughter. 

I love a meta movie, and I love some Wes Anderson. This one is full of his signatures and feels like the culmination of his work. Not sure if I'll like it more or less with more viewings, but more viewings are definitely required. Didn't crack my top three Anderson movies, (The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums) but right now I'd put it at about four. We'll see if I feel better about it down the road. 

Zombie - Lucio Fulci - 1979

★★★★-Imagine The Island of Dr. Moreau except with zombies. That's this movie (released as Zombi 2), which served as a loose sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead in Italy (released under the title Zombi). Interestingly, there Dawn of the Dead was Dario Argento with a new score by Goblin, who did the truly awesome music for other Argento movies like Deep Red.

Watched this as part of the Lucio Fulci Night on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder. They had composer Fabio Frizzi to play with the house band and tell Fulci stories and give insights to his work on this and the second film in the double feature, The Beyond. They also had the male lead of the film, Ian McCulloch, on to talk about working with Fulci, the director. McCulloch was sort of an embarrassment, not knowing what kind of program he was on and taking himself too seriously. Fulci, from the stories they tell, seemed like a real piece of work. Semi-abusive to the actors and crew, he didn't think you were earning your money unless you getting beat up physically as an actor. But Frizzi had nothing but kind things to say, so there is that. 

The gist of it is that the boat of a scientist thought to be working on a Caribbean island shows up in New York Harbor empty save for a giant, bloated flesh eating zombie. A reporter and the scientist's daughter head down to figure out what is going on. Once there, they find the island plagued by a voodoo curse, which causes the deceased inhabitants to rise as zombies and prey upon the living. You know the drill. 

The movie stars Tisa Farrow (sister of Mia Farrow) plays the daughter, McCulloch the reporter, and Richard Johnson is the Moreau type figure. Didn't know any of them before watching this flick.

Remembered for a couple of things, the film was notorious put on the “video nasty” list in the United Kingdom for one scene in particular involving an actress getting her eye slowly forced into a wood shard. It's pretty brutal. There are several deaths by zombie that are pretty hard to watch, actually. Also a zombie wrestles a real, very large shark, which is just nuts. You can read more about that here.

While low budget with not the best acting, there is a lot of shock that kept me and my female companion on our toes. We squealed with schlocky delight on multiple occasions while watching this flick. Makes it pretty good in my book. 

The Shining Girls - 2023

I loved this mind-fuck of a show. A complex, time traveling murder mystery. My kind of shit. 

Elizabeth Moss stars. She is incredible in everything. Too bad she's a Scientologist.

Overall gist is a woman played Moss is attacked. We meet her years later and see her literal constantly changing reality as she investigates a series of murders spanning decades that might be related to her own attack. She eventually convinces a veteran reporter played by Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar in Narcos) and they try to stop this time-hopping serial killer. 

The killer, played by Jamie Bell (he was Bernie Taupin in Rocketman and Billy Elliot in Billy Elliot), is pretty terrifying as he can afford to be patient and has the ability to go back in time and correct his mistakes. Dude caused a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of peoples. You really want him to get put in this place. He looks exactly like this friend of mine, one Ronnie Vance. Good looking guy, but this show now makes me trust him less. I've got my eye on him in case he ever finds a magical house that lets him jump about the century to do unspeakable shit. 

I really fell in love with this at the end of episode four, “Attribution.” Previously, Moss's character experiences all this sudden shifts in her world. Her apartment changes, her hair, her job, she all the sudden has a husband, so forth. At the end of this installment, when her and the killer meet and get it on, as in fight for their lives, the place around them constantly changes. Moss get slammed into a wall that completely changes, then it becomes a mirror and they smash through it, then it becomes a bar that is a major piece to the puzzle. It's awesome and just gets better from there. 

Highly recommend this if you are into dark murder mysteries that way out of the ordinary. Definitely not like anything I've ever seen before. 

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre - Guy Ritchie - 2023

★★★★-Went in expecting a fun, humorous action movie featuring beautiful people in beautiful clothes having a great time. That was exactly what I got. Loved it.

Gist is Jason Statham plays a mercenary named Orson Fortune who is hired to stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology. The broker of the deal is billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds played by Hugh Grant. To help, Fortune assembles a reluctant team of the world’s greatest and most beautiful operatives including Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), Bugzy Malone (the rapper), and Aubrey Plaza. They end up recruiting Hollywood's biggest movie star, one Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to go undercover and save the world.

Gets a little convoluted, but I honestly didn't really care. All of Guy Ritchie garbage crime movies are fun as fuck and this is no exception. Also, love how he plugs the wood-burning grill/table he invented in all of his movies now. 

Grant and Hartnett are so fun. Both of them yuck it up and steal every scene they are in. Plaza was a little much at first with her weak sarcasm, but comes around and is pretty great. 

Overall, nothing new and isn't going to win any awards. One review said “It’s like someone doing Guy Ritchie doing Guy Ritchie.” Fair, but still loved it. Sort of reminds me of a movie like Beat the Devil when John Huston made a movie starring Humphrey Bogart that gently spoofed the other movies they made together just so they could go and do cool shit in cool places and get paid for it. Having a great time shows on camera in projects like this. 

So, yeah, humor, action, movie stars being movie stars, Guy Ritchie, Aubrey Plaza looking fine. I'm buying. 

Summoning Sylvia - Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse - 2023

★★★★-All camp and low budget, it's super fun, original, and good for some laughs. I actually LOLed even and it was female companion approved. However, one of my homosexual homies said the movie was "too gay" for him. For me, the gags are unpredictable and imaginative. Frankie Grande, brother of Ariana, is a sassy, scene-stealing delight. And it is a breezy 74 minutes.

Gist is a group of gay dudes host a bachelor party for their buddy at a haunted house in the sticks. They have a séance, as one does, and shit starts getting weird. Funniest scene is when Grande seduces the pizza man, thinking he was a ghost.

Cast of gays are Travis Coles, Grande, Troy Iwata, Noah J. Ricketts, and Michael Urie (Ugly Betty). The ghost Sylvia is played by Veanne Cox who was in Erin Brockovich, and Harrison, the asshole straight brother, by Nicholas Logan from I Care a Lot.

The film works as a social commentary as well as a while staying fun. The groom's straight ex-military soon to be brother in-law unexpectedly shows up and dumps cold water on the night, almost says the F-word at least once, acts completely disgusted, and other shit like that. It could have taken a darker turn, but doesn't, thank fuck. This guy is something of a homophobe with a history of substance abuse and violence. But don't let that worry you. It does a good job of showing how this dude is a wrong, but also how people like this can come around. 

In all, the movie is a complete success, though I was surprised to see it has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's not perfect but it's really good. Plus, I would have thought some bigots would have brought that down. It's also cool to see a raunchy gay horror comedy that has mass appeal. I'm all in for a sequel. Totally great and worth your time. 

Brooklyn 45 - Ted Geoghegan - 2023

★★-Pretty much completely takes place in the same room. Could have been a play , really. Don't see many high schools putting it on though, if you know what I mean. 

Something I always pay attention to is the difference between the Critic Score and the Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes. This is one of those major discrepancy movies. Critics Score: 89%; Audience Score: 56%. For horror, it often means its good but insanely fucked up. Almost always means that the movie isn't fun. This was indeed disturbing, and it was indeed not fun. 

Movie takes place on the night of Friday, December 27, 1945. Gist is five World War II veterans gather in the parlor of a Brooklyn brownstone owned by one Lt. Col. Clive Hockstatter who just lost his wife Suzy to suicide. They decide to have themselves a nice little post-Christmas séance to conjure up the vengeful spirit of the dead wife. Sounds like my kind of party. 

After the host makes contact with his wife, he blows his brains out in front of everyone. Just before he eliminates his map, he says “before you leave, you have to do something for me,” or something like that .Soon after, a German woman tumbles out of the closet. Turns out, Suzy, the dead wife, suspected this lady was a Nazi spy. “Hock” now won't let anyone leave until she's dead. 

I suspected the parlor was a personal Hell or something. Can't leave the room, possibly supernaturally stuck their with their demons with a potential real demon or ghost on the loose. Even say, “this is Hell, this room, and none of us are leaving until this Kraut is dead.” Everyone just does what they have to to survive and get out. That's the message of this one. Great. Just what I needed at this juncture.

Director, for his part, one Ted Geoghegan, also did the horror flicks We Are Still Here and Mohawk. Everyone in the movie is recognizable but not famous. See them pop up a lot in these Shudder movies, like this guy Larry Fessenden, who plays the guy who kills himself. He was also in Summoners, Offseason, Dashcam, Jakob's Wife, The Ranger, The Dead Don't Die, You're Next, and The Innkeepers. Dude does pretty much exclusively this type of horror. Others in the movie are Anne Ramsay who I recognize solely from A League of Their Own, Kristina Klebe who was one of the murdered girls in Rob Zombie's Halloween, and Jeremy Holm, who was the ranger in the horror flick The Ranger.The other two are Ezra Buzzington and Ron E. Rains who are familiar but unplaceable. 

All the characters are terrible and unlikeable, which is kind of the point. For example, one guy calls his “friend” a “faggot” and then tells everyone the guy was a “baby butcher.” Dude killed children, so, you know, he's a monster. The accused Nazi woman consoles him though, so it's fine. “You're not a bad man for following orders.” Yeah, she seems totally innocent. The Greatest Generation my ass. Also known as the “Me Generation,” they gave birth to the Boomers, a run that fucked up the country. 

Watch a lot of turds on Shudder, but occasionally I get one that is stellar. This was fine, I guess. But I wouldn't recommend it. 

Fool's Paradise - Charlie Day - 2023

★-Not good. In fact, very bad. It's there with Pootie Tang on the bell-curve of cinema. At least movies like that and Freddy Got Fingered have cult value. “Sepatow!” 

Seems like it's supposed to be an ode to silent film actors as well as a Hollywood satire, but it really doesn't work. The gist is a mute mental patient played by Charlie Day happens to look like this pain in the ass star and gets thrown into stardom after the other guy dies while autoerotic asphyxiating himself. We then follow this still silent, non-actor guy's rise to fame and fortune. 

Movie sort of relies on cameos to provide humor. It feels like one of those, dude calls in every big name he knows, and they come out and phone in a day of shooting. People you'll see in this flick: Jason Bateman, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Common, Edie Falco, Glenn Howerton, Ken Jeong, Ray Liotta in his last role, John Malkovich, and Jason Sudeikis, among others. Something like Santa's Slay, for example, which also has cult appeal. 

More than anything, it was an unfunny satire about the type of douche bags that we hear about in these Hollywood inside baseball movies that become hot every few years. These have been coming out forever. Examples off the top of my head: The Player, Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Hail Caesar!, Barton Fink, The Aviator, Bowfinger, Ed Wood, the Eddie Murphy Dolemite movie, The Artist, The Disaster Artist, Movie 43, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (a must-see), Get Shorty, Sullivan's Travels, The Bad and the Beautiful, Singin' in the Rain, Babylon (which I thought was underrated)... All of those movies are infinitely better than Fool's Paradise, which bummed me out. 

So, yeah, unfortunately a shockingly bad movie, Fool's Paradise was pretty much unwatchable. Dull-witted, unfunny, aimless. Avoid. 

Alien: Resurrection - Jean-Pierre Jeunet - 1997

★★-Pretty incredible cast is somewhat wasted on this installment. Not as horrible as I remembered, but pretty not great. 

Gist of this is 200 or so years after Ripley died, she and the queen Xenomorph that was inside her in Alien3 are brought back to life to harvest this bioweapon. Yeah, again with the bioweapon stuff. Now Ripley is upgraded to human/alien hybrid clone status. She basically has Matrix powers. She and a group of space pirates are trapped on a spacecraft with 12 aliens. They are trying to kill everyone so the queen can make it to Earth and do her thing down there. 

Love a good basketball scene out of nowhere, which this film has. Ripley has some fundamentals, can dunk, and has acid blood. At 5'11, I'd take take her in the first round if I were a WNBA GM. I remember seeing an interview with Sigourney Weaver and she claimed she made that shot she threw behind her head from 30 feet out on the first take. Looked it up and apparently true, which shocked Ron Perlman, causing him to lose it. 

From Bloody Disgusting: “I watched her training for this sequence, and they were rehearsing this little thing for a month. She never made it once. The camera’s rolling. I’m in the shot where she’s walking away and it goes in.” It indeed would be shocking, I'm sure. However, they were able to cut his reaction out and the shot was able to stay in the movie without being faked. 

Here's the cast...  We've got Sigourney Weaver back from the dead as Ripley. Winona Ryder as the smaller, whinier droid version of Ripley (more or less). The always fantastic Ron Perlman. Perlman plays a great pervy creep. This was sort of his modus operandi back then. One-on-one banter during basketball, then, at one point, Ripley asks, “Who do I have to fuck to get off this boat?” He replies, “I'll get you off... maybe not the boat.” So naughty!

Others include Brad Dourif (you know, Chucky), one Kim Flowers who is there to show off her remarkable ass (I think), the guy that played Tuco Salamanca, Leland Orser who I mostly think of from this and Se7en as the guy that kills a prostitute with a switchblade dildo, Dan Hedaya (Nick Tortelli from Cheers), and Michael Wincott who is sort of having a moment after Nope. Also, Gary Dourdan who looks like this buddy of mine I went to high school with. He's mostly known for the role Warrick Brown on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Finally, one J. E. Freeman as the main evil scientist. He was often a bastard, notably like in the role of mobster Marcello Santos in the David Lynch movie Wild at Heart with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern and as a henchman in the Coen bros dope flick Miller's Crossing. 1990 was a big year for him. 

This movie has a few feels, believe it or not. First we have this horrible bit where the scientists put the eggs in front of these miners to impregnate them with the Xenomorph embryos. Cold blooded. 

This flick also features the saddest of the aliens. Again, they aren't asking for any of this. Born into this bullshit like livestock. Smarter than your average Xenomorph because of the human intelligence it has. Plus it feels a little emotion. It doesn't just want to kill. Then it dies horribly and slowly in excruciating pain after being betrayed during a tender moment with it's chosen mother. Fuck, man. 

This version of Ripley, by the by, is completely different from previous portrayals and is pretty interesting. Sigourney Weaver's performance was widely praised. Her allegiance is questioned because she birthed the queen when they brought her back. Has a connection or whatever. Do you fucking know who she is? Exterminating Xenomorphs is all she does!

When she sees the failed clones is another one of those shockingly moving bits from this franchise. It's kind of surprising that Sigourney Weaver came back for this and put in such a stellar performance. She is a great actress and all. Criminally underrated even. This is sort of trash, yeah, but without her would have been embarrassing, probably. 

In the bad column we've got some “hacking the mainframe” bullshit. They even say it at one point. “I have to hack the mainframe manually. I destroyed my modem.” “I have a neuro-processor that allows me to dream.” Little of that shit. We also get more lazy anti-corporation stuff. The corporate guys, of course, are comically terrible. They are always worse than the aliens, ya know. I think this series did more to hate corporate empires than anything else really, other than what they do in real life, of course. 

The film also ends on a weak note with Ripley finally getting back to Earth. This should have been cool after four movies, a Christ-like death with resurrection, and countless dead aliens, but is sort of like, look at that, Earth, cool, I guess. See what this is about, why not. Bill Bryson must have had this scene in mind when he wrote I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes from a Big Country in 1998. 

The film also has a lot of potential that wasn't fully realized. 

Like Ripley, the queen too is an alien/human mismash and at the end starts giving birth to more hybrids instead of eggs. Cutting out the middleman. An exceptional cool concept that does not deliver in the end. 

This is probably something that has potential to explore, the birthed hybrid killing the queen, it's mother, then taking to Ripley, it's grandmother, who ultimately kills it. But this is too crazy to put that much thought into. 

Overall, it had good pacing and was pretty entertaining. Larger cast than most of the Alien movies, these extras are mostly there to raise the body count. There are some good moments like the underwater alien chase scene that goes on for like several minutes and nearly resulted in actors actually drowning. Then when they finally get out, the facehuggers are there waiting for them. The Xenomorphs look like they would be great in water. The biggest problem with the movie, IMO, is that the tone is all over the place. You have Nick Tortelli here and Chucky yucking it up, then Ripley damn near makes you cry. Likely more too many people giving too much input, like with Alien3. I feel like it could have been really good, but it tries to do too much and fails. 

Alien3 – David Fincher - 1992

★★★-“The Bitch is Back.” Another kick ass tagline. Saw this in the theater with my dad and brother while my sister and mom watched Sister Act. At the time, I thought this movie was pretty great. Rewatched in junior high school and changed my opinion to meh. This viewing I'm watching the Special Edition also known as the Assembly Cut (which David Fincher refused to be involved in [more on that later]). It's 30 minutes longer than the theatrical version. I'll call it a mixed bag. Kind of dumb, but has some potential. Feel like it was a good flick for director David Fincher to get his start and figure out what he wanted from the rest of his career. This, obviously, wasn't it. 

One change of note in this version, I had always been reluctant to rewatch this because it's a dog in the theatrical cut that get implanted by the facehugger. A brutal animal in pain scene I wasn't about. In this version, the alien burst out of a yak like animal that they farm for meat outside of the prison. The dog was part of the studios considerable recutting, which was a weird one. Thankfully, didn't have to watch that shit. 

Back to the basics on this one. One solitary Xenomorph picking off unarmed prisoners that don't stand a chance. In this installment, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor from Aliens after the ship crash lands on Fiorina 161, a wasteland inhabited by former inmates housed on this maximum security prison planet. After, again facing skepticism, Ripley leads the men into battle against the alien. 

Cast includes Holt McCallany who plays Bill Tench in Fincher's incredible Netflix show Mindhunter, Charles Dance who was Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, Charles S. Dutton (title character from the show Roc among other things [bought a lot of stock in that guy]), Paul McGann from Withnail and I, Lance Henriksen (again), and Pete Postlethwaite (Keyser Söze's lawyer, Mr. Kobayashi, in The Usual Suspects). Ripley and the eldest Lannister go to pound town, which is a weird way to introduce sexual encounters into the universe. 

Ripley, among all these rapist and murderers (who have all taken a religious vow of celibacy), is repeatedly told not to go around the prisoners. The warden guy basically says that she will be raped and murdered if she goes around these guys. First chance she gets, she waltzes into the mess hall, trying to show them she's not afraid, I guess, maybe that she is just one of the guys, I don't know. Not a good situation for her or the prison, ya know. When she walks in, the first guy she engages with says, “You don't want to know me, lady. I'm a murderer and rapist of women.” She's like, “alright, well, I'm just going to sit here with you and the other sexual deviants and enjoy my meal like one of the guys.” It's never a woman's fault, but maybe in this very dangerous situation, try to be chill is all I'm saying. 

Which brings me to this fucked up attempted rape scene. This is by far the darkest of all of the films in the series and like all Fincher's work with a few exceptions features psychopaths capable of anything. Though fucked up, I sort liked this aspect of the film. I was all in early... but the movie starts to fall apart in the last third. 

It all starts when Ripley is all, we have to kill it, they can't take the alien and use it as a weapon. You know this speech because she makes it in every movie. Charles Dutton is like, why not? Fuck them, but really, why should we should we volunteer to die here when there is a lot worse shit out there already. He has a point, but then the point is mute because some idiot lets it out because he thinks it's cool or whatever which is my biggest beef with the movie. Really, it's not terrible. At times it's nearly great. But this is so unforgivably dumb. They have it trapped, neutralized. And then no. I don't recall if it is the same in the theatrical version. But I would have really hated this in junior high and it would have ruined the movie. 

Also, dumb and irritating is after Ripley finds out that she has an alien in her chest, she is like everyone has to die now. Call off the medivac team and nuke the bitch. You know, Ripley, this is her one plan for every situation. Now that she is going to die, might as well take everyone else with me. The guy in charge is like, uh, fuck that. Sorry you're going to die, but no. Pretty fucked up on Ripley's part, to be honest.

Then after this weird scene where Ripley goes to kill it and mistakes a pipe for the alien head, she asks Dutton to kill her. But Dutton is like, fuck you, how about you help. She goes, makes her speech again and rallies the troops with an anti-corporate rant with Dutton throwing out some god stuff and they're all on board. 

It kind of comes back around and is exciting at least with a lot of chasing and murdering which culminates in an alien covered in molten lead. When they turn the sprinklers on it, it dies in a satisfying explosion. Spoiler. 

But then it ends on some dumb shit with the return of Lance Henriksen, the designer of the droid that looks like him, who spouts some corporate nonsense and tries to convince Ripley to let them take the queen out of her. It then descends into self-sacrificing nonsense and Henriksen saying shit like “it's a beautiful specimen! You're throwing away the chance of a lifetime.” And Ripley Christ's herself into the fire. The end. I remember the chestburster popping out as she fell, but that doesn't happen in this version. 

So let's get into the production... 

Can't really talk about this movie without acknowledging the legendarily troubled production. Fox, the studio behind the flick, kept pushing the film back and making changes. Supposedly there were something like ten different writers for the film and Fincher was not the first director. Then at some point in1991 they released a teaser that simply stated “In 1979, we discovered, in space, no one can hear you scream. In 1992, we will discover, on Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” Incredible teaser. 

I remember being more than a little intrigued, hence seeing it in the theater at age 10 (my parents didn't discourage the horror/film stuff my brother and I were into and now I'm a sort of successful, sort of well adjusted adult, love you mom and dad). If you haven't seen it, uh, don't get too excited. This trailer came out before the script was finished and as anyone who's seen the movie knows, this shit ain't on Earth. 

Almost immediately Fincher started distancing himself, leaving the project before the final edit was in the can. That summer he said “If I go on to make 10 great ones, this'll probably be looked upon as my first bungled masterpiece.” In 2009 he told The Guardian that “no one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me.” When he made the film he was 29-year-old music video director getting his first picture. Fox more or less had no faith in him and breathed down his neck the whole time, demanding recuts and reshoots throughout. You can read more about it on Film Stories. 

The 10 great ones/bungled masterpiece thing is pretty much exactly what happened as he has 10 more under his belt here in 2023 and most of them are indeed considered great. 

What's nuts is Fincher nearly left the industry after this experience, going back to music videos and refusing to read scripts until Se7en wound up in his lap. Thank fuck he stuck with that shit as he is one of the all-time greats. In my opinion he has three movies in the top 10 of this century in The Social Network (behind only There Will Be Blood for best movies of my lifetime), Zodiac, and Gone Girl. Mank and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ain't bad either. I haven't even mentioned his best two either in Se7en and Fight Club. I wrote papers in college about both of those. Hell, Fight Clubbasically turned me woke when I saw it 1999. It completely changed the ways I look at consumerism and contemporary masculinity. 

Despite all the issues between Fincher and the studio, a lot of the actors working on the film were impressed enough to keep working with him. 

Dance, the love interest in the film, said that while it wasn't the nightmare it's been characterized as, it still wasn't an easy shoot. He explained that the executives back in Hollywood, the film was shot in England, phoned Fincher at all hours of the night, ignoring the time change, just basically fucking with him. For what it's worth, Dance said doesn't regret that he was a part of it and that he'd like to work with Fincher again, whom he considers a genius. “The minute David Fincher first walked onto the set I thought, 'My god, this guy is going to go far.' He was fantastic,” he said. Talk all that for what you will. He later did work on another Fincher film with Mank, playing William Randolph Hurst. 

One of the prisoners (a lot of them sort of blend together) Christopher John Fields is in four Fincher films, Holt McCallany was a henchman in Fight Club and has since gone on to star in Fincher's Netflix show Mindhunter, and Charles S. Dutton also appeared in Se7en. Then again, there are several actors who won't work with him again for what sounds like pretty good reasons. Notably Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, and maybe Mark Ruffalo. Dude is tough to work for, for sure. 

Final thoughts...

My parting words here. This is easily the cutest little alien of the series. Nicknamed it “Bambi”. Running around on all fours. They used a dog in a suit at one point. Not sure it it made it into this cut, but it's pretty adorbs. Just a little guy. Aw. People went wild when Sigourney Weaver buzzed her head. Good look on her. I've historically been kind of into that. And, finally, while not perfect and near the bottom of his films, it does have it's moments, and shows more than a few glimpses of the promise of Fincher's later work. Overall, highly underrated.