reviews – Page 2 – 2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!!

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton
CAST: Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Vidal Peterson, Shawn Carson, Royal Dano, Diane Ladd, Pam Grier(!)
MY RATING: 5/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 62%

PLOT: In a small American town, a diabolical circus and its demonic proprietor grant wishes to the townsfolk…for a price.

Something Wicked This Way Comes answers the question: What would the Disney version of Needful Things (1993) look like? Instead of the Devil opening a curio shop in the middle of town, we get a malevolent carnival impresario, Mr. Dark, and his devilish carnival that promises delights beyond your wildest dreams. But beware, for the price of having your wish granted comes straight out of The Twilight Zone.

And no wonder, the screenplay was written by Ray Bradbury, based on his novel. Too bad the movie fell victim to studio interference, resulting in jarring tonal shifts, some awkward edits, and two re-shot scenes where the two child stars are clearly a year older and a year taller than they appear elsewhere in the film.

The movie starts out as feel-good Americana, right out of Normal Rockwell: a small midwestern town in what looks like the late 19-teens or early ‘20s, complete with a town square, a general store with the obligatory cigar-store Indian out front, and a friendly bartender with one arm and one leg. We are introduced to Will and Jim, our two child protagonists, and Will’s father, Charles (Jason Robards), who looked to old to have an 11-year-old son in 1968, let alone 1983, but whatever.

So, there’s that part of the movie, where it looks like it’s going to be a gentle fantasy like Field of Dreams (1989) or something, with the background score to match…but then really weird things start happening. A local eccentric vanishes after seeing a ghostly woman inside a funeral parlor. Mister Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival opens just outside of town. We watch as the local miser takes a ride on the Ferris Wheel with a beautiful woman…but she’s the only one who gets off the ride at the end. The disabled bartender sees a marvelous reflection in the House of Mirrors and walks in…but never comes out. Our two heroes, Will and Jim, witness something incredible when they peek under the big top at a broken-down carousel that only runs in reverse…

And so on. I’ve seen umpteen versions of this story, and so have you. It can be done well, but it takes a singular vision. Watching this movie felt like someone spliced two films together and hoped no one would notice. First of all, who in their right minds casts Pam Grier as a non-speaking character called The Dust Witch? Granted, she’s a looker, but you don’t cast Pam Grier in a movie just because she’s beautiful. You gotta give her something to do besides seduce men and stare menacingly, which, granted, she does better than most, but what a waste! I wanted to hear her vow to bring the powers of darkness down upon your village in a fiery rage, or something, I dunno, anything.

But that’s a side point compared to the horrors awaiting our heroes. In a scene right out of your nightmares, our two heroes are faced with an army of tarantulas in their bedrooms in the middle of the night. So many tarantulas, in fact, that in one horrifying moment, you can see the bedsheets moving from the sheer numbers of arachnids under the covers. (This was one of those re-shot scenes where the kids are a year older.) Much later in the film, Mr. Dark grips someone’s hand so hard that we see the victim’s hand literally splitting open – in a VERY brief shot, mind you, but there is no question of what has happened, as the victim wears a bandage on that hand for the rest of the movie.

What is this horrific material doing in a Disney movie, for crying out loud? Something Wicked This Way Comes arrived during a transitional period for Disney, when they were testing the waters with more adult-themed fare – The Watcher in the Woods had been released a few years earlier, and Touchstone Pictures was on the brink of breaking out with Splash (1984). But when it came to this weird hybrid family/horror movie, they got a little gun shy.

According to the invaluable IMDb, after a poorly-received test screening, Disney execs delayed the film’s release for a year so the film could be re-edited, an opening narration could be added, additional scenes could be shot and old ones replaced, and an entirely new score could be composed by maestro James Horner. In their attempts to make the movie more family-friendly, they were the embodiment of the axiom “too many cooks in the kitchen.” On an early laserdisc commentary, Ray Bradbury stated that much of his original intention for the film was destroyed as a result of these after-market edits.

There is a really, REALLY good movie trapped inside the existing version of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Watch the movie, and you can see that really good version peeking through here and there (it feels like there was a LOT more that could’ve been done with Jonathan Pryce’s rendition of Mr. Dark). As it is now, the movie is little more than an object lesson on why so many directors dream of getting “final cut” in their contract…so something like THIS doesn’t happen.

TRON: ARES (2025)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Joachim Rønning
CAST: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Jeff Bridges, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Gillian Anderson
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 56%

PLOT: A highly sophisticated AI program goes rogue against its programmers to defend a scientist who may hold the key to something called “permanence.”

For those who are not fans of the original Tron (1982) or its high-tech sequel Tron: Legacy (2010), let’s clear the air right away: Tron: Ares is not likely to convert you. Period. I see you and I understand you. No hard feelings. Heck, I’m a fan of both movies, and I heard the terrible advance buzz for Ares and saw the low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb and thought, well, the franchise had a good run. If it’s gonna suck, it might as well suck on the biggest screen I can find, in Dolby 3D, sixth-row center, to make the most of that Nine Inch Nails soundtrack/score and the slick CGI.

And…I gotta be honest. Tron: Ares surprised me. Admittedly, my opinion may be slightly influenced by the Dolby sound system that turned the synth- and bass-heavy score into a near-religious experience. But Ares seems to have learned from the mistakes of its predecessors (earlier builds?), even going back to the original film.

First, the story is not nearly as cluttered as Tron: Legacy. The first sequel threw in metaphysical content about spontaneously generated AI programs (the so-called ISOs), long conversations about the responsibilities of a creator/father to his creation/children, and duplicitous club owners (yep), and so on. Tron: Ares, by comparison, is as straightforward as they come. A MacGuffin is established early, as are the ground rules for how and why computer programs can exist as tangible entities in the real world, the bad guys are clearly identified (not all of them are in red), and once the pieces are set in motion, the movie only pauses the action when absolutely necessary. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s efficient.

Second, Tron: Ares makes a significant departure by moving the story between the “grid” and the real world multiple times. The first two films, as you may remember, started with an expositional prologue in the real world, after which the hero is zapped into the grid for most of the rest of the film. Ares starts in the grid, moves to the real world, gets its human hero into the grid, gets her AND Ares back out, then goes back into the grid again, and so on. It introduced a rhythm that was missing from the first two films, and it broke up the visual palette so that neither one became boring. Pretty slick.

Third…and this is something I just wrote about Brian Blessed’s character in Flash Gordon (1980)…Tron: Ares reintroduces an element from the first film that was virtually absent from the second film: a sense of fun. It doesn’t introduce a wise-ass Kevin Flynn character or anything like that, but Jared Leto as Ares is given some genuinely funny dialogue that brought some much-needed laughs to the film. Particularly when it comes to his preference for ‘80s synth-pop with catchy hooks. Note: I’m not claiming it’s a laugh riot. But the humor is very welcome when it arrives.

Another big factor in this movie’s favor is the huge Easter Egg that has not even been hinted at in the trailers, and thank God for that. No, I’m not talking about the presence of Jeff Bridges, smart guy. It’s so big (in my opinion) that the less said about it the better. But I’m here to tell you, I haven’t geeked out that much in a movie theater since Ready Player One (2018). Moving on…

And the score…! I learned that Disney apparently insisted that the score be credited to “Nine Inch Nails” instead of “Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.” Good choice. Their booming bass and synthesized soundscapes are the equal to the other two films in every way, if not superior. (And I LOVED the Daft Punk music from Legacy.) There’s even a song or two with vocals from Reznor! What?! Not content with nostalgia bombing us with random easter eggs from 40 years ago, Ares throws in a musical bomb from 30 years ago. And it really, really fits the story. Hand to God.

Overall, there is a nostalgic sheen to Tron: Ares that made it feel like I was watching a souped-up version of a really good ‘80s film. That might be the highest praise I can give it.

If you’re a sucker for well-crafted nostalgia, you could do a lot worse than picking up a ticket for this movie before it gets pushed out of the cineplex by the Wicked sequel, if not sooner. Bad buzz? Whatever. I had a good time.

FLASH GORDON (1980)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Mike Hodges
CAST: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Topol, Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed
MY RATING: 2/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 83% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A hotshot quarterback for the New York Jets, an aviophobic travel agent, and a borderline-mad scientist try to save the Earth from the evil cosmic emperor Ming the Merciless.

I could try to intellectualize myself into analytical knots to explain why Flash Gordon is not a good film, but that’s not really in question, even to its fans. Aficionados readily affirm its badness, its cheesiness, its willingness to go so far over the top it’s on its way up the other side. That’s WHY they like it. “I enjoy it for what it is,” a fan told me recently.

Well, after watching it for a third time, mildly against my will, I can easily say that I know and understand what Flash Gordon is, but I still can’t find it in myself to enjoy it the way so many others do. I remember being amazed by it when I was 10 or 11, but that was a very long time ago, and watching it now gives me no more enjoyment than what I might get from eating a stick of Fruit Stripe® chewing gum. I get a burst of flavor when I hear the iconic Queen score and/or theme song, but the rest is like chewing on a wad of overdone steak. That this movie came from the same director as the gritty Get Carter (1971) is flabbergasting.

Do I really need to summarize the story? No. I’m sure anyone who’s taking the time to read this has already seen the movie, so I’ll just assume we all know how cheesy the plot is. I was informed by a fellow Cinemaniac that what we see on film is all taken from the first, and only, draft of the screenplay. Brother, I believe it.

The only thing worse than the so-called dialogue is the quality of the so-called visual effects. Now, I’m prepared to forgive low-quality VFX from older films when there’s a story I can care about, but when Flash Gordon’s filmmakers ask the audience to suspend their disbelief when a supposedly distant city is being bombarded by what looks like Roman candles, or any number of equally absurd VFX shots…I can’t do it. I laugh, and not in a “I’m-having-fun” kind of way.

Before you ask, yes, there ARE bad movies that are SO bad that I actually recommend them to people simply BECAUSE of their badness. Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010), for example, which features a scene where the heroes are being attacked by a huge number of Windows Clip-Art. Or the uber-terrible Troll 2 (1990), which gives new meaning to the word I just made up, “corn-ography.” However, some films either cross an invisible line or fall short of it, I don’t know which, and are so bad that I can’t enjoy or recommend them. For example, the infamous The Room (2003), which was such an unpleasant viewing experience that I didn’t even enjoy the movie about its making, The Disaster Artist (2017).

That’s where Flash Gordon sits for me. It’s terribly cheesy and campy, but it’s either not cheesy enough, or it’s TOO cheesy, for me to enjoy myself while watching it. There may be a cerebral, intellectual way for me to try to parse the reaction I have to it, but if there is, I can’t think of it.

I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching one actor out of the entire cast, who seemed to be having way more fun than was needed or expected. No, not Max von Sydow, whose sneering turn as Ming the Merciless is a master-class in remaining professional in the face of lunacy. (Timothy Dalton deserves kudos for doing the same as the stoic Prince Barin.) No, I’m referring to Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan, whose screeching battle cry will forever be stored in my memory banks: “Hawkmen…DIIIIIIIIVE!!!” Examine his performance next time you watch the movie. Look at his face, his eyes, the canyon of his mouth when he laughs. There is a sparkle of delight that, to me, reveals someone who has realized the only way to stop himself from firing his agent is to go completely, full-blown, bull-moose gonzo. Everyone else is playing it straight, or attempting to. Brian Blessed is the only one who seems to be having any fun. What a different movie this might have been if EVERYONE had taken his cue. Alas.

To the fans of this film, I don’t apologize for my point of view, but I do admit to a tiny, VERY tiny, twinge of regret that I can’t see past its shortcomings enough to enjoy it the way its fan base does. For me, it’s two hours of tedium enlivened only occasionally by a random chuckle or a smile when Queen’s music makes an appearance. And by Brian Blessed’s manic smile. DIIIIIIIIIVE!!!

[editor’s note: this review appears only by special request from the author’s best friend. You’re welcome, Marc.]

WINGS (1927)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William A. Wellman
CAST: Clara Bow, Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Richard Arlen, Gary Cooper
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Two young men, one rich, one middle class, who are in love with the same woman, become fighter pilots in World War I.

Not long ago, I purchased a copy of the 1927 classic Wings, based mostly on the favorable review by my friend and colleague, Marc Sanders. I was more or less aware of its place in cinema history: the very first winner of the Best Picture Oscar, essentially the birthplace of Gary Cooper’s career (despite appearing in the film for just over 2 minutes), legendary aerial footage, and so on. But I never felt compelled to seek it out.

Having finally watched it, I am very glad I did, and you should, too. Wings is pure entertainment from start to finish. Unexpectedly engrossing, captivating, thrilling, the whole enchilada. High melodrama, comedy (borderline slapstick, what are you gonna do, it was 1927), romance, comic misunderstandings – and some not-so-comic – and eye-popping aerial footage, true to its reputation. A neat camera move gliding over several cabaret tables even showcases director William A. Wellman’s desire to push the boundaries of what was possible with the massive cameras of his day. I once wrote that Sunrise (1927) was my favorite silent film of all time. If I ever make another 100-Favorite-Films list, Wings and Sunrise are going to have to duke it out…

Wings sets a surprisingly modern tone from the start. In the very first sequences of the film, Jack Powell (Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers) does not “ham it up” like some of the more typical Hollywood actors of that era. Obviously, his mannerisms are exaggerated, but there is a restraint to his face and body that seems at odds (in a good way) with nearly everyone else in the film…except Gary Cooper, who, if he underplayed his role any further, would have become a still painting. That restraint is also evident in Jack’s foil/nemesis, David Armstrong (Richard Arlen), the rich aristocrat to contrast Jack’s more humble background. This moderation lends a very contemporary feel to a movie that’s nearly a century old – quite a feat.

In sharp contrast to the two male leads, the fabled Clara Bow plays her role, Mary Preston, with complete abandon. She never truly overacts, exactly, but she throws herself into her supporting role with abandon. Mary is hopelessly infatuated with Jack, who is actually in love with the debonair Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston), who is already involved with David, though they haven’t made anything official. (If Facebook had been a thing back then, their relationship status would have been “It’s Complicated”.) So, when Jack makes eyes at Sylvia, poor Mary is in the background as her hopeful smile deteriorates into sobs. She may not be subtle, but Clara Bow makes sure you know EXACTLY what is on Mary’s mind at any given moment.

In the middle of this would-be soap opera, World War I intervenes. Jack and David both enlist to become aviators. A crucial scene shows Jack asking for Sylvia’s picture to keep as a good luck charm, a picture that has already been signed over to David. Then, as he says his farewells to the lovelorn Mary, she offers him her picture. How this scene plays out, and how it comes to bear much later, is one of the high points of the film’s ground-based drama.

But the real marquee attraction Wings comes during the aerial training and combat scenes. Watching this movie, you understand why modern filmmakers today strive for realism as much as possible. Ron Howard wanted to show weightless environments for Apollo 13, so sets were constructed inside a military jet tanker that flew parabolic arcs to simulate weightlessness…for real. The makers of Top Gun: Maverick wanted to draw audiences into the film, so they had their actors train for weeks and months so they could be filmed inside the actual cockpits of F-18 fighters as they performed simulated combat maneuvers…for real. Those filmmakers knew what had already been demonstrated decades earlier by Wings: nothing beats reality.

(Almost nothing…Ready Player One was pretty damn cool…BUT I DIGRESS…)

For Wings, director Wellman, a combat pilot himself during the war, knew that the best way to grab the audience by the lapels would be to get his actors up in the air for real. To put it very briefly, he got his two lead actors to become certified pilots, got them into the air with small cameras strapped to the front of their planes, and had them act, fly their own planes, and be their own camera operators, all at the same time, while other stunt pilots flew around them, sometimes in VERY close quarters, simulating aerial combat.

The results are staggering. There is a visceral mojo to these scenes that cannot be overstated. Sure, it looks “old” because it’s black and white and grainy, but it is also undeniably real, and when you see long shots of a biplane going into a death spiral after being shot out of the sky, your intellect tells you there’s a real pilot flying a real plane hurtling at high speed towards the real ground, and you either sit back in awe or you lean forward with excitement. There are a few scenes where real planes crash to the ground in various ways; one of them crashes into the side of a freaking HOUSE…for REAL. IMDb mentions one staged crash where the plane didn’t do exactly what it was SUPPOSED to do, and the stunt pilot literally broke his neck…but survived and returned to his job six weeks later. And it was all done in camera with no trickery or fake dummies in the cockpit. It is literally mindboggling.

However, it should be noted that these accomplishments by themselves would mean very little if they weren’t hitched to a compelling story. The love story among Jack, David, and Mary is a constant thread through the whole film. Mary, having volunteered as an ambulance driver in the Army, miraculously finds herself stationed overseas…right next to Jack and David’s unit, wouldn’t you know it! Contrivances aside, Wings expertly balances the exciting elements with the melodramatic flourishes. The melodrama comes to a head when Mary finds herself alone in a hotel room with Jack, who is so drunk on champagne he doesn’t recognize her. (She is dressed as a cabaret dancer, but that’s a long story…) This movie truly contains the best of both worlds, genre-wise.

This might be crass of me to mention, but I’m going to anyway…Wings is also notable for some of the earliest on-screen nudity (in an AMERICAN film, anyway) that I can recall seeing. There is a scene in a recruitment office where a line of bare male bums are lined up in the background, awaiting health inspection. Then later, we see a woman’s bare breasts…just a brief glimpse, but it’s there. Not only THAT, but during a fancy camera move in a French cabaret, we see a woman caressing another woman’s face…are they a couple? Scandalous! Who needs the Hays Code? Not this guy!

(I could also mention the homo-erotic overtones during a pivotal scene towards the end of the film, but they pretty much speak for themselves [like the volleyball scene in Top Gun], so I’m just gonna move on…)

To sum up: Wings ranks as one of the greatest pure entertainments that Hollywood has ever served up. Marc mentioned that it perhaps doesn’t get the love it deserves. He’s probably right. I’m sure it’s revered among cinephiles, but it is certainly not in the general public consciousness when it comes to silent films. Regardless, it is exceptionally well-made and uncommonly effective. If ever an old film deserved to be rediscovered by the general public, Wings is it.

A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: George Stevens
CAST: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Raymond Burr
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 82% Fresh

PLOT: A struggling young man gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women, one rich and one poor.

I first saw A Place in the Sun many moons ago at a friend’s house. I remember enjoying it but thinking it was too soapy for my taste. Years went by. I finally got around to watching Woody Allen’s Match Point and was stunned at how much Allen’s film borrowed from George Stevens’ celebrated melodrama. Having just re-watched A Place in the Sun, my opinion of it has warmed considerably, without diminishing my admiration for Match Point, which remains one of my favorite films of all time.

A Place in the Sun tells the story of young George Eastman, played by Montgomery Clift at or near the height of his powers. He’s a bit of a layabout who wrangles a job at his rich uncle’s swimsuit factory. When George meets his rich relatives, I was reminded of a George Gobel quip: “Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?” That’s George Eastman to a T, a ne’er-do-well in a sea of the well-to-do.

Against company policy, George falls in love (or at least in lust) with a rather plain girl, Alice, played by Shelley Winters in a de-glamorized role that went completely against type at that point in her career, winning her a Best Actress nomination. Alice and George flirt and hold hands and occasionally neck (mildly scandalous for a 1951 film), but George can’t help but stare at another girl who pops up occasionally: Angela Vickers. Angela is played by a ravishing Elizabeth Taylor, who was only 17 at the time of filming and empirically one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, if not the world. It’s not too hard to imagine any man, let alone poor George Eastman, falling in love with her instantly.

But George is still connected to Alice, especially because he’s already slept with her. When George learns Alice is pregnant, he despairs because he had been planning to end things with Alice to pursue Angela. Alice even visits a doctor who might possibly provide an abortion. Of course, this being 1951, “abortion” is never mentioned out loud, nor is the word “pregnant.” But Alice’s visit to the doctor is handled with incredible intelligence and brilliant screenwriting that manages to say everything it needs to say without ever uttering those forbidden words.

The rest of the film examines what George may or may not be willing to do for the sake of his love for Angela, who loves him back, it turns out…but she doesn’t know about Alice. Since this is based on a then-famous novel called An American Tragedy (by Theodore Dreiser), it may not be too hard to divine what is in store for George before the final credits roll, but getting there is the fun part. By casting heartthrobs as the hero/anti-hero and the rich girl he loves, the film cleverly gets us to root for them a little bit, even when George is considering murder.

While Elizabeth Taylor dominates every scene she’s in just by standing there, the Academy made sure Shelley Winters was recognized for her incredibly difficult performance as Alice. There are some movies where, if a character is an emotional yo-yo, it can be frustrating. With Alice, Winters never crossed a line into unlikability, even when she calls George at a fancy dinner party demanding he marry her tomorrow, “or else.” It’s clear she has no options left to her if she wants to have any semblance of a life in polite society (by 1950s standards, anyway). I felt bad for her. But I also felt bad for George – to a degree – when he demonstrates how sincerely he has fallen head over heels for Angela. Not just because she’s stunningly beautiful, but also because she really seems to have fallen for him, too.

Lately, my movie-watching itinerary of classic films has involved a fair share of outstanding melodramas (Leave Her to Heaven, 1945; The Heiress, 1949; Dodsworth, 1936). A Place in the Sun fits right into that mold. It doesn’t quite achieve the perfection of The Heiress, but it is a fantastic example of its genre, good enough for Woody Allen to “reimagine” its basic story for Match Point, so it’s definitely worth a look if you’re into that kind of thing.

BRING HER BACK (2025)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTORS: Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou
CAST: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sora Wong
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.

Bring Her Back is a supremely disturbing modern horror film from the two directors of 2022’s celebrated debut film Talk to Me; it’s right up there with Hereditary [2018] and The Babadook [2014]. It brazenly opens with creepy black and white footage of…something…then appears to drop into “Lifetime-movie” mode, lulling us along until WHAM, something truly unbelievable occurs, and it’s just a roller-coaster ride the rest of the way. It’s bloody ingenious. (Emphasis on the “bloody.”)

Andy (Billy Barratt) and the visually-impaired Piper (Sora Wong) are step-siblings who experience an early tragedy, resulting in the two of them being assigned as foster children to Laura (Sally Hawkins), a single mother who has experienced a tragedy of her own. Her child is Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a 10-year-old boy who has been voluntarily mute since his sister, Laura’s daughter, drowned in their pool, now kept empty.

Ominous signs abound. Laura’s house is completely encircled by a strip of white paint. She locks Oliver in his room whenever she leaves the house. At a funeral, Laura surreptitiously clips some hairs from the body in the casket. Andy discovers he has started wetting the bed, but he’s 17 years old; Laura ascribes it to stress, but the real reason is far more…invasive. And over everything is the mute Oliver, lurking in the background, occasionally banging on doors and windows, and more.

Another superb element to the story is the character of Piper, Andy’s visually-impaired sister. I mention this because the filmmakers deliberately held a casting call for actual visually-impaired actresses, settling on the completely non-professional Sora Wong. This aspect of her character is utilized to the hilt throughout the movie, in ways I can’t even hint at without spoiling any surprises. (Okay, I’ll mention one moment…where she knows someone is front of her, feels their head, then turns and asks someone else, “Who is this?” BRRRRR…)

When the Philippou brothers do drop the hammer and get started with the real horror elements, they do not hold back. There are scenes here as terrifying and as off-putting (in a good way, I guess?) as anything in [insert your favorite horror film here]. There are images here that I will not soon forget. In a perfect world, this movie would become so popular among horror fans that those scenes would become part of a pop-culture shorthand. “The knife scene.” “The table scene.” “The Russian videos.” “The ‘self-snacking’ shot.”

I initially had an issue with the very ending, which felt more, shall we say, heartfelt than the rest of the movie implied was coming. However, I learn from IMDb that the Philippous had a much grander ending planned. But everything changed when a close friend of theirs passed away unexpectedly during production; the film is dedicated to him in the closing credits. Danny Philippou is quoted: “[The film’s ending] goes against the conventions a little bit, but it feels more true to life.” Watch the film and judge for yourself if he’s right. As for me, now that I know that piece of trivia, the film’s ending is easier for me to accept.

Here’s hoping that Bring Her Back becomes at least a cult classic. For someone like me, who’s a bit picky with this genre, it’s an easy pick for a new movie to throw into my annual Halloween rotation. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A young wife breaks her husband out of prison in 1969 Texas so he can help reclaim their infant from a foster family. The ensuing media circus takes everyone by surprise.

Watching Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express is like looking at one of those historical medieval tapestries of fierce battles, created by artists who didn’t yet know how to depict perspective. There is plenty of action on display, but everything looks and feels flat. The film took an award at Cannes that year for Best Screenplay, probably (at least partly) in recognition of how it shies away from a traditional Hollywood resolution, but even its downbeat ending is reminiscent of earlier, more resonant films like Bonnie and Clyde [1967] or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969]. As a stepping stone in the career of an eventual legend, it’s worth a view. As a stand-alone film, it never quite achieves liftoff.

Based on real events, The Sugarland Express tells the story of Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn at her irrepressible, bubbly best), the young wife of prison inmate Clovis Poplin (William Atherton). During a conjugal visit, just four months before Clovis is to be released, Lou Jean boldly busts him out because she needs his help to reclaim their infant, Langston, from a foster home. Lou Jean herself has just finished serving time at a women’s prison, and the state, probably very wisely, determined Langston was better off with a foster family. But they need to hurry because “I bet those Methodists are gettin’ ready to move out of state.” Lou Jean’s delivery of “Methodists” tells you all you need to know about her feelings on the matter.

After Lou Jean breaks him out, a comedy of errors ends up in a situation where she and Clovis have hijacked a police cruiser and are holding a police officer at gunpoint. They demand to be left alone while they drive to Sugarland, Texas, and retrieve their son, at which point they’ll release their hostage.

Now, this has all the makings of a smart, character-driven “road” movie, instigated by desperate people with no real plans for their end-game. But for reasons I can’t put a finger on, nothing ever happens in the film that got me on the edge of my seat, figuratively speaking. I fully comprehended the situation intellectually, but the film never got to me at an emotional level.

Could it be because we never really learn a lot about Lou Jean and Clovis in order to make them more empathetic? No, I don’t think so, because over the course of the film, we’ll hear all about their past histories and previous brushes with the law. The very fact they’re executing this plan to essentially kidnap Langston is proof of how unfit they are as parents.

I think part of the problem with the movie is…

…I’ve been sitting here for the last fifteen minutes trying to finish that sentence. I can report that the film didn’t get to me emotionally, but I am struggling to explain why. Could it be as simple as I think they’re not such great people, but the film seems to be siding with them as the movie progresses? I mean, the movie HAS to side with them at least partially in order to make their journey mean anything. Look at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Bank robbers, lawbreakers, but clearly the good guys because, duh, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are playing them.

So, maybe it has to do with the casting? The Sugarland Express had one of America’s sweethearts as a woman willing to resort to kidnapping just to commit another kidnapping in the name of maternal love. So, we’ve gotta root for her, right? But then we see her behaving in the most inane, brainless way for so much of the movie. I found it difficult to side with her when I just wanted to, forgive the expression, slap some sense into her.

What about Clovis? I could side with him. He appears to have misgivings throughout the entire film, right up to the point of no return. But the way he willingly goes along with the scheme because, dammit, it’s his wife…something about that also turned me off on him. There are moments I felt sorry for him, for them both, because I could see where this movie was headed early on. But that empathy wasn’t enough to make me feel a catharsis of tragic energy at the film’s finale. There’s just something about Clovis and Lou Jean that wouldn’t allow me to get too worked up over their fate.

I guess I identified most with the kidnapped police officer, Slide (Michael Sacks). Maybe too much. From the beginning, Slide is begging them to drop their weapons and turn themselves over to the police. At first, he looks like he’s just following his training. But then the movie progresses, and doggone it, he starts to like these two loonies, even though Clovis handcuffs him and even shoots at him a couple of times in the heat of the moment. He can see where this road ends, and he pleads with them not to do exactly what the Texas state troopers expect them to do, because he doesn’t want to see them dead. Because Slide never stops imploring the Poplins to see sense and do the smart thing, I guess he’s who I sided with for the entire movie. (Well, him and his superior, Captain Tanner [Ben Johnson], who also doesn’t want to see them die.)

But…isn’t that the wrong way to approach this movie? I shouldn’t be siding with the cops, for cryin’ out loud, should I? At least, not in this movie. Discuss.

From a technical standpoint, it is pretty cool to see how Spielberg, in only his second film, was able to marshal vast resources to create some arresting imagery. The sight of what looks like literally hundreds of cop cars following the Poplins is a deceptively difficult feat, logistically speaking. There’s a tense shootout in a used car lot that would have been right at home in The French Connection. And everywhere, there’s bits of humor that made me smile. From the elderly couple abandoned on the road (long story) to the solution of how to get Lou Jean to a toilet while in the middle of an extended police chase, Spielberg constantly pokes us in the ribs. If this had gotten to the hands of someone like John Landis, it’s easy to see how this could have been turned into an out-and-out comedy with thriller elements, instead of the other way around.

One other aspect I did like was the media circus that blew up around the Poplins’ plight. I’m sure it is yet another link to previous anti-heroic films, but while I was watching it, I was reminded of only one film: Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers [1994]. The outpouring of affection from the general public for these two, let’s face it, outlaws was both funny and sobering at the same time. It would have been interesting to see a scene or two at the end of the film as an epilogue, so we could get a reading on what the public thought about how the police should have handled the situation.

If comparing The Sugarland Express to most of Spielberg’s later films, it certainly comes up lacking, no question. As a lifelong Spielberg fan, I am compelled to say it SHOULDN’T be compared to his later films because it was made before he’d had a chance to hone his skills and become the populist/mainstream film icon he is today. Look carefully at the two-dimensional storytelling and you can see the outlines of what was coming around the bend for this modern-day master.

SHANE (1953)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: George Stevens
CAST: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Fresh

PLOT: A drifter (who may or may not be a retired gunfighter) comes to the assistance of a homestead family terrorized by a wealthy cattleman and his hired gun.

Shane affords me the opportunity to use a word I never get to use in daily conversation: archetypal. John Ford’s Stagecoach [1939] may be the granddaddy of the modern Western, but Shane taps into something even more primal.

Alan Ladd as Shane is the archetype of the mysterious stranger riding out of the mountains, either coming to the aid of a community who has lost hope (Pale Rider, 1985) or wreaking havoc as an avenging angel (High Plains Drifter, 1973), and then disappearing into the sunset or riding back into the distant mountains. This formula was probably already old when Shane was made, and the film does little to dress it up or add any kind of pretentious spin to the story. But by sticking to the formula and really nailing it home, director George Stevens achieved a weird kind of clarity that elevates Shane into a mythical realm. If it’s not terribly realistic, well…who wants realism mixed in with their magic? Not me.

Shane is set in the high plains of Wyoming in 1889. (I don’t remember the exact year being mentioned in the film – I pulled it off IMDb – but we can tell it’s after the war because a running gag involves a harmonica player who always starts playing a Union song whenever a homesteader called Stonewall, who fought for the South, walks into a meeting. It’s a mark of faith in the intelligence of the average viewer that the screenplay never comes out and explains that’s what’s happening; we just see it and have to put two and two together. Nice.)

ANYWAY…it’s 1889, and a land baron named Rufus Ryker is trying to run homesteaders off some land that they rightfully own, but which is preventing Ryker from expanding his cattle ranch. Among these homesteaders is Joe Starrett (Van Heflin); his wife, Marian (Jean Arthur); and his little boy, Joey (Brandon De Wilde, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but don’t ask my opinion of his performance…just don’t).

One day, true to mythical form, a lone figure rides out of the mountains and up to Starrett’s patch of land. He is improbably good looking, wears a fringed buckskin jacket, two ivory-handled revolvers, and identifies himself only as Shane. After earning Starrett’s trust, he agrees to stay on as a hired hand and possibly help with the struggle against Ryker…

…and if you’ve been watching movies as long as I have, you could practically write your own screenplay for the rest of the film, because you’ve seen it before, many times. The stranger proves his worth, defends his new friends, makes friends with the wife (but not TOO friendly), gets hero-worshipped by the little boy, and eventually runs them cattle barons plumb out of business. But I’ve never seen it done quite like Shane.

For example, there’s a bar fight that ought to be in the Bar Fight Hall of Fame. Shane, in what HAS to be a deliberate move to goad the bad guys into action, walks into a saloon filled with Ryker’s men to return a soda-pop bottle for the deposit. A fight predictably breaks out, first one-on-one, then 1-on-2, then 3, then 4. (Who does this guy think he is? John Wick?) The fight gets to a point when it’s winding down…then it picks right up again. Then they get Shane on the ropes and start waling on him…until Starrett sees what’s happening, grabs an axe handle, and cracks it over someone’s head. That may not sound like much in writing, but it’s pretty impressive visually, especially from a 1953 Western that feels at times like a Disney product.

(It almost feels like what Tarantino did with the fight between the Bride and the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003). George Stevens said, “Okay, these people want a bar fight? I’ll give you a damn bar fight.”)

But while I was watching it, I started to analyze it a little bit. Bar fights…seen one, seen a thousand. But Shane felt to me like it was embracing the cliché, making friends with a trope, and in so doing the fight became a myth of a bar fight, a fever dream of itself. It’s not just a bar fight. It’s THE bar fight.

A lot of Shane works that way. Shane isn’t just a mysterious stranger, he’s THE mysterious stranger. An argument could be made for Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” as the archetype of this character, at least in the Western genre, but it’s clear that Eastwood took a lot of cues from Shane when writing and directing his own films. I’m not suggesting that Eastwood plagiarized Shane. I’m suggesting that Eastwood’s creations are infused with Shane’s DNA in all the best ways. (I wouldn’t presume to speculate how much of Shane is in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns starring Eastwood, though I would say those have more of Kurosawa in them than George Stevens.)

There are just two items that bugged me while watching Shane. One, the editing was occasionally erratic, using a lot of fades or cuts to virtually empty frames in the middle of the action. I don’t normally pick that kind of thing apart in a review, but it was glaringly apparent in a lot of places.

Two…the tragic waste of talent by casting Jean Arthur as Mrs. Starrett. Jean Arthur is the fast-talking, quick-thinking actress who appeared in such classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [1936], Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Only Angels Have Wings [both 1939]. She goes (or OUGHT to go) on the list of intelligent female actors like Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell. By 1953, she was semi-retired and only appeared in Shane as a favor to her friend, director George Stevens. When I saw her name in the credits, I had visions of her delivering fiery speeches, shaming and out-thinking the menfolk, declaring her admiration for Shane without exactly laying out her TRUE feelings for him, and so on. Instead, she is reduced to spending the majority of her screen time fretting over her husband’s safety, casting loaded glances at Shane while her husband isn’t around, baking pies, and reading bedtime stories to Joey. I know I just got done writing about how the movie embraces clichés and becomes mythological, and there’s nothing more clichéd than the “little woman” supporting her husband, etc., but something about her role just rubbed me the wrong way. After this film, Arthur retired from film completely, and although Shane was a massive popular and critical hit, I can’t help but wish she had been given more to do in her last film.

By the time Shane reaches its famous finale (“Shaaane! Come baaack!”), justice has been meted out and the little guys have won…all is right with the world. Echoes of Shane still linger today, because who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned bad-guy beatdown, administered by the archetypal mysterious stranger? This may not be my favorite Western of all time, but from now on, whenever I do watch my favorite Westerns, I’ll keep an eye out for Shane’s shadow, looming large over all who came after it.

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock
CAST: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams [no, not THAT John Williams]
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A retired jewel thief in the French Riviera sets out to prove his innocence after being suspected of returning to his former occupation.

Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief is somewhat of a paradox. It contains all the hallmarks of the master’s touch during what was arguably his most fruitful decade of work: exotic location shoots, a breathless romance, sly comedy, daring innuendo, and, of course, a vivacious blonde. But there is little to no suspense. There’s an intriguing mystery that admittedly left me guessing until almost the very end, but I never felt invested in the hero’s predicament. I cared way more about L.B. Jefferies [Rear Window] or Roger O. Thornhill [North by Northwest] or even “Scottie” Ferguson [Vertigo] than I did for John Robie.

The story opens right away with a typical Hitchcock wink-and-nod. The camera pushes in to an inviting travel brochure for the south of France, then there’s an immediate smash cut to a woman screaming. Is she being murdered?! This is a Hitchcock movie, after all! No, she’s distraught because someone has stolen her precious jewelry. There has been a rash of burglaries, in fact, perpetrated by a shadowy, unseen figure whom French authorities believe is none other than the infamous John Robie (Cary Grant), aka “The Cat.” But Robie has retired comfortably to a stunning villa and claims he’s innocent of this new string of daring crimes. To clear his name, he must do what the police can’t: identify and capture the burglar himself.

There’s a subplot about how Robie was involved in the French Resistance during the war, but his former comrades, who now all work at the same restaurant (!), are distrustful of him. I was never quite clear on why. Something about how the law could catch up to them if Robie was ever arrested? But if they were Resistance, why would they be considered criminals? Did they help him with his previous string of burglaries? The screenplay is not 100% clear on this, unless my attention wandered at some point.

Anyway, in the course of Robie’s investigation, he meets (by chance?) the stunning Frances Stevens, played by the inimitable Grace Kelly in one of her three films for Hitchcock. At first, she is aloof towards Robie, but when he escorts her to her hotel room after rebuffing him all night, she boldly plants a firm kiss on his lips before closing the door on him. Not only that, she reveals the next day she knows exactly who Robie is and practically dares him to steal the fabulous diamond necklace she’s wearing.

While Frances is certainly no shrinking violet, her attitude and character felt…forced. The screenplay explains (in a roundabout way) that she is a bit of a thrill-seeker, so she’s getting her kicks by tweaking a known criminal. Okay, fair enough, I guess, but later in the film, she abruptly declares she’s in love with Robie, almost out of the blue. This and other incidents, too numerous to mention, had me thinking that the new burglar was actually…Frances herself? Watch the movie and tell me I’m wrong for thinking that way. She throws herself at him in a male-fantasy kind of way because, duh, it’s a Hitchcock movie, but this aspect kept me locked in to my theory of her as the burglar, because what other motive could she possibly have?

Without giving TOO much away, let it be said that the mystery of the new burglar’s identity is cleverly hidden until the final scenes which demonstrate Roger Ebert’s Law of Economy of Characters. This law posits that a character introduced with no clear role will turn out to be important to the plot. In hindsight, it’s an obvious choice, but I must admit, it did keep me guessing.

But, again, while there was mystery, there was no genuine suspense. The whole film is so light-hearted and airy that to introduce real danger might have ruined the atmosphere. It’s not just comic, it’s downright slapstick, exemplified in a scene where Robie runs from the police only to fall into a bunch of flowers at a market and the elderly flower-seller starts beating him with a bunch of lilies. In an earlier scene set in a hotel casino, Robie drops a 10,000-franc chip down the cleavage of a female guest as part of a ruse. These and other instances almost make me want to classify this film as a romantic comedy rather than a suspense thriller.

Which brings up another point. To Catch a Thief might be the most unwittingly prophetic film in Hitchcock’s filmography. Consider:

There is an early scene when Robie gets on a bus and sits next to a woman who is holding small birdcage. Shades of The Birds, released eight years after To Catch a Thief.
One scene features Robie in a motorboat, running from the police who are chasing him in…an airplane. Four years later, Cary Grant would be running from another airplane in North by Northwest.
A late scene features a key character dangling from a rooftop, which immediately reminded me of Vertigo, released five years later.
The scene at the flower market takes place at an outdoor market that looks uncannily like the same one Cary Grant visits while looking for some rare stamps in Stanley Donen’s Charade, released TEN years later. (Not a Hitchcock movie, but one featuring a very similar romantic relationship, this time with Audrey Hepburn.)

Having said all of that, I still must confess that this movie did not exactly stir up my emotions the way many other Hitchcock films do, even after repeated viewings. To Catch a Thief is beautiful to look at, not least because of its sensational location photography and, of course, Grace Kelly. The mystery at the center of the plot is sound, and I appreciate Hitchcock’s sense of humor, which occupies front and center as opposed to his other films where it lurks at the edges of the danger. But I was never on the edge of my seat. I know, I know, this isn’t Psycho or The Birds, but…there you have it.

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)

DIRECTOR: John M. Stahl
CAST: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 85% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A writer falls in love with a young socialite, and they quickly marry, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.

Leave Her to Heaven is one of the earliest examples in my movie collection of what I call a “head-fake” movie. There is a tiny bit of foreshadowing in its opening moments, but after that, it appears to fall into the traditional pattern of an old-fashioned, melodramatic potboiler, with a spurned fiancé, lovers in a whirlwind romance, and glorious three-strip Technicolor production design and cinematography that makes everything feel like a Douglas Sirk soap opera. When it makes its left turn into unanticipated territory, I was on tenterhooks.

Author Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) has a classic, almost clichéd meet-cute with the ravishing Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney, who has never looked more beautiful) during a train trip to New Mexico. He’s visiting friends, she’s there for a funeral, and their circles of friends unexpectedly mesh. He winds up staying with her family at their ranch house. She and her family remark how much Richard resembles Ellen’s late father. He notices her engagement ring, but a few days later he also notices its absence along with her declaration that she’s removed it “forever.” (I’m REALLY condensing here to get to the point…)

Her fiancé, Russell Quinton (a very young Vincent Price), arrives upon hearing she’s broken off their engagement. He leaves after a brief conversation, and a few minutes later she literally proposes to Richard. They marry and enjoy a few scenes of wedded bliss (in separate beds, of course, this is the ‘40s), during which Ellen makes some red-flag-raising statements to the effect of, “I’ll never let you go” and “I want you all to myself.”

During all of this, the filmmakers exhibit terrific restraint. In some high-tension scenes, there is a notable lack of background score, which is a bit unusual for these kinds of pictures. You usually get ominous for tension, or pastoral for outdoor scenes, etc. But Stahl seems determined not to cue the audience for what they’re supposed to feel at any given moment, with one or two exceptions. This method contributes greatly to not giving away what’s coming. Ellen’s own words do that all by themselves.

There are other plot developments I could mention: Richard’s brother, Danny, who is disabled and comes to live with them for a while…Ellen’s fixation on how much time Richard spends with her sister, Ruth…Ellen’s attempt to get Danny’s doctor to prescribe more bedrest…these and other signal markers start to twist this apparent soap opera into something else entirely. It reminded me of the great head-fakery in Woody Allen’s ingenious Match Point [2005], which also started out in soap opera territory and wound up somewhere altogether more sinister.

Much is made of the film’s Oscar-winning cinematography, and rightly so. In an era when color films were an extravagance for a movie studio, they made the right choice here. Cinematographer Leon Shamroy and production designer/art director Lyle R. Wheeler create picture-postcard images of a bygone era, lending an air of “vintageness” to the rooms, wardrobe, and makeup of the actors. Look at Gene Tierney’s marvelous red lips, or the gaudy red of her swimsuit, worn at a time in the film when she probably shouldn’t have been so extravagant.

But I particularly love the music choices, or rather the choices to NOT use music during key sequences. One in particular stands out. If you’ve never seen Leave Her to Heaven, I won’t spoil it for you. It’s the scene with a rowboat and one character’s attempt to swim across a lake. In many other films of the time, there would almost certainly have been tense strings, low cellos and brass in the background. For some reason, my mind goes to Miklós Rózsa’s magnificent score for Double Indemnity [1944]. That’s the kind of music normally heard in scenes like this. But the filmmakers made the canny decision to let us merely listen to the actors and watch as Ellen makes a crucial decision. That dread silence fairly SCREAMS as the scene progresses.

It’s tempting to look at this movie as a kind of Fatal Attraction [1987] prototype, but that’s not giving either movie its due. Fatal Attraction is a straight up thriller, and it’s about an unfaithful husband getting what he deserves. Leave Her to Heaven is also a cautionary tale, but not because the husband did anything wrong, aside from choosing to ignore a lot of red flags in Ellen’s behavior until it was far too late. It might also be possible to interpret the film as a warning to men against women who think for themselves too much, who are too “take charge”, or would be considered such in the 1940s. But I would disagree with that interpretation, too.

Look at Leave Her to Heaven as a whole, and I think it most closely resembles Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat [1981], or vice versa. Both feature femme fatales who are not shy about doing what’s necessary to get their way. The film’s ending even seems about to resemble Body Heat’s ending, but it veers away at the last second from the later film’s bleakness, providing an ending that seems just a little too pat. I have a sneaking suspicion the filmmakers had a different ending in mind, but were forced to make changes to please the censors. If there’s anyone out there who knows how the book on which the film is based ends, sing out.

Leave Her to Heaven is a singular experience. I even knew about the famous boat scene, and I was still on the edge of my seat. I simply couldn’t believe she was going to go through with it. That’s the sign of a great film: you know what’s coming, it’s inevitable, but instead of feeling predestined, there is real suspense, a desire to know why this is happening, and what’s going to happen next.

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