Reaction Shots

...and Kong! Appetizers I promised myself that I wasn’t going write anything about “Justice League: the Snyder Cut”. I’ve discussed it and aired too many complaints, bile, and snark from Facebook to High Heaven. However, I did realize that another kind of loud and stupid was drawing me. I am and have been since a wee child, a huge fan of Godzilla and his simian rival. I first saw the 1933 original while eating a TV dinner, being baby sat, if memory serves by my brother and his first wife. By this time, I had already seen the Universal monster classics (my mother was surprisingly supportive of my fascination with film in general and monster movies in particular) but “King Kong” was something else. It wasn’t just the stop-motion special effects that grabbed me. One of my first movie going experiences was a re-release of “Jason and the Argonauts” and I was convinced that stop-motion is the way we should all move. Okay, I wasn’t but gee whiz, that was a swell flick. But “Kong” was more. I ...

One thing I don’t spend too much time on is how many dust-ups there are in film circles about stuff that really doesn’t matter.  Topics like how sequels to well-loved movies fall short and “ruin childhoods”, sound bites from directors weighing in on how comic book movies aren’t cinema, and the old, shopworn “Hollywood is out of ideas” trope all come up repeatedly over time. I don’t think the ruination of one’s childhood is really a thing. If you’re writing that, it means you survived childhood (though perhaps not adolescence). Memories are for going back to and if the thing you liked is reinterpreted or reimagined in the present, that’s fine. You didn’t like it? That’s fine, too. You thought that they could have done something more/better/else with the material? Great. Swell. Move along or write fan fiction or pitch a better idea to a producer and see if you can get your vision made. But Christ, your ruined childhood is tedious to hear about. My guess is that it was either a great ...

The Landmark River Oaks Theatre, Houston TX, photographer not known   I’ve often said that coming up in Houston, I had a year round film school. There was the Rice Media Center, the River Oaks Theatre, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and other venues that are no longer with us. The three I just mentioned still are, but one we are very close to losing. I’ve been going to the River Oaks Theatre since the mid-70s. I saw Fellini’s “Amarcord”, Bergman’s “Seventh Seal”, and far too many more to recall. We were, some of us anyway, scandalized when the River Oaks began emphasizing first run films (admittedly, I’d moved away by then, but kept tabs on the cinema scene); but what films they were (and continue to be). From Linklater’s “Slacker” to Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” lay decades of so-called art cinema, auteurist film, and frankly, the best from independent voices. Given the onslaught of the pandemic and the toll it has taken on local and small businesses, it feels inevitable that ...

  This is going to have to be an occasional series. More than any other person in my world, Tim Kozlowski has seen an immense number of films, many of which I haven’t. I will also argue that his taste is impeccable. And to be sure, we may not agree on the quality of a film. Chances are good, though, that if he has a recommendation, it’s worth following up on. In fact, he should be writing his own blog! This is the second movie I am taking a look at here that the esteemed Mr. K has suggested (the first being "Dodsworth" ). Sam Raimi’s a genius, for sure, and “The Gift” has him working from Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson’s script. It’s a solid piece of Southern Gothic mixed with well-rendered characters at the center of which is psychic Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett once again delivering a master class) who as one character tells her, is the heart of the small town in Georgia. Despite Raimi’s pedigree for horror, suspense, and general creepiness, this is Raimi the poe...

  I haven’t seen Tim Burton’s follow-up to “Batman” since it came out and I am remiss that it’s taken this long, but as impressed with it as I was then, I think I’m even more so now. It’s a darker movie and/but it’s pure Burton. The macabre goes hand in hand with questions of identity, themes of fetishism and being a misfit, and Burton’s retooling and reusing the film iconography and techniques of an earlier era (or two; he ticks off Weimar era expressionism through 1930s Warner Brothers and it’s glorious). It helps that his collaborators are all top-shelf and that they are working from a script by Daniel Waters whose “Heathers” set the template for dark comedy in the 80s. Burton’s best cinematographer, Stefan Czapsky, is back with those rich shadows and crane shots to die for. It adds up to one of those sequels that outdoes its predecessor. The cast is, of course, legendary across the board; Keaton is back and his scene partners are nothing to sneeze at. It’s hard to understan...