Sunday, November 8, 2020
Scream (1996)
The only true slasher franchises (stories built around mythical, unstoppable serial killers) are Halloween and Friday the 13th. All of the others have villains who are either too sympathetic or too impotent to rack up a real body count and make the audience jump. Scream falls into that large category of wannabe slasher films, more of a Scary Movie (2000) than an actual scary movie.
This is a horror-comedy that is too clever for its own good, satirizing rather than celebrating. Intentional comedy belongs in comedy films rather than horror films. The unintentional kind is funnier anyways. Not that Scream is a bad movie. It’s pretty enjoyable, but it could have been better in different hands.
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Tenet (2020)
It is impossible to watch Tenet without comparing it to Christopher Nolan’s previous works, especially Inception (2010). Tenet’s uniqueness comes from its reliance on science rather than fantasy, physics rather than dreams.
At minimum, sci-fi needs either believable science or compelling characters. Tenet delivers the bare minimum science to sell its time travel premise, with characters that exist only to advance the plot. Fortunately, the plot has the density and intensity to carry the film, with or without the stars. It also lacks the grating presumption of superheroes, making the film watchable by an adult audience.
Friday, September 11, 2020
Hellraiser (1987)
In romance fiction, there is very little that could be considered conflict. Therefore, S&M is sometimes used as seasoning for an otherwise bland dish. Take out everything but the seasoning and you have Hellraiser.
This is one of those movies I watched in my college apartment before I realized the value of headphones. If you had passed my door late one night, you might have heard a mix of screams, rattling chains, and raspy moaning. A neighbor complained of me playing World of Warcraft. (A less lascivious assumption than could have been made.)
Monday, August 24, 2020
Barbarella (1968)
Barbarella is an enchanting acid space opera and an icon of the 1960s. In the distant future when spacecraft are so advanced and so personal that they are almost literally powered by love, Jane Fonda saves the universe from Duran Duran’s doomsday machine.
The film was written as a lighthearted romp through space, a satire that never for one moment takes itself seriously. Though not emotionally impactful, watching the film gives a sense that the storytellers of the day were mildly optimistic about the future, with space liberation almost a certainty.
Monday, July 27, 2020
Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)
Funky Forest: The First Contact is not an easy film to discuss. While some films are off-color, this film is slightly out of its mind. It is difficult to describe a plot that precisely summarizes any of it, let alone draw conclusions of what the film is “about”.
The charm of Funky Fores is that, in its live-action Japanese multi-director anthology form, there are a lot of things that are hard to fully comprehend. Yet, at the film’s core there is genuine emotion and character. It is something you feel more than understand, at times tasting with your mind rather than seeing with your eyes.