Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Love on the Run (1979)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

7th Rewatch...Every time I watch this movie, it still feels like I'm watching it for the first time. Frank Pierson's Oscar-winning screenplay, Sidney Lumet's intense direction, and the amazing performances from Pacino and Cazale keep this masterpiece fresh.

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Don Juan DeMarco - (1995)

Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando - I don't think I ever got over the fact that I was watching these two notorious actors during the entirety of Don Juan DeMarco. It's a kind of "you can create your own reality" sort of film, as someone purporting to be Don Juan (Johnny Depp) in present-day America threatens to commit suicide because, despite having bedded 1,500 women, the woman he really loves won't marry him. Enter Dr. Jack Mickler (Marlon Brando) - because someone who thinks he's Don Juan is obviously crazy. An attempt at suicide kind of seals the deal. Slowly, this guy starts to convince the psychiatrist that he really is Don Juan - it's a complex web of contagious role-playing with added benefits in the bedroom. That's despite Brando really being as big as 12 men put together - but don't panic, because Brando's one sex scene is in a pitch dark bedroom. I don't really know what to make of Don Juan DeMarco - half of everything is the reawakening of the passion in Marlon Brando's character for his wife, but I keep thinking "Did this really big guy actually fish a frog out of his swimming pool and take a bite out of it?" Depp is no less eccentric, but at least here he's young and very attractive - holding his end of the bargain up. It's an interesting take on fantasy versus reality in any event.

6/10


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15 Minutes - (2001)

A detective (Robert De Niro), arson investigator (Edward Burns), two crazed Eastern European killers (Karel Roden and Oleg Taktarov) plus one smug crime show anchor (Kelsey Grammer) make up the prime movers in 15 Minutes - there's murder, stabbing, fire, much shooting and a whole lot of pontificating about the media and their role in subverting justice and exploiting victims. It's a pretty brutal film, although not at all too graphic in it's depiction of murder and mayhem. We've tried the media many, many times before in crime thrillers like this - so we don't get anything too unique or subtle here - but it's a relatively solid movie with a surprise or two up it's sleeve, moving to it's own unique dark and violent rhythms. Burns is giving us everything he has, while De Niro sleepwalks through a role that seems very easy for him. Like Harrison Ford, De Niro seemed to have his heart set on appearing in at least 20 or so films as a cop - but I love him more as a villain (his Max Cady in Cape Fear is amongst his best roles.) There's a lot of polish here, but it is what it is - a take it or leave it violent thriller.

6/10

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Home from the Hill (1960)

9 / 10 - excellent movie!

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Brilliant movie. As a Catholic my fave line is “I'm a Catholic. I don't wanna hurt anybody, understand?” Cracks me up every time.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

A couple years ago, legendary director Martin Scorsese made a controversial statement about comic book franchise movies not being true cinema. When pressed to elaborate, he would clarify that statement by saying something to the effect that those kinds of movies felt more like theme park rides rather than genuine cinematic storytelling. Granted, I'm not giving an exact quote here, but I think that's the gist of what Scorsese said.

However, if you think about it, the so-called "theme park principle" has been with us since the dawn of cinema itself. The movies have always been about entertainment and spectacle. They're capable of being so much more than that, of course. And when it does become more, we perhaps unreasonably measure everything else according to some yardstick of "Great Art." Granted, I certainly believe in the idea of Art, but I also am reasonable and pragmatic enough to accept that Great Art is often the exception to the rule. The movie lover needs to temper his or her expectations. The legendary critic Pauline Kael once said, "Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them."

And if there's one aspect of movie-making in which it truly pays to temper one's expectations, it's definitely sequels!

In the realm of the printed word, whenever a writer or novelist creates a sequel or follow-up to one of his or her previous stories, we don't necessarily expect the writer to go out of his or her way to remind us that we are in the same world as the one we had enjoyed in the previous story. Once we get absorbed in the world the author creates, and we get a feel for that author's individual prose style, we accept the fact that we are indeed in the same territory. We are dealing with characters that we've come to know and love in the past, because the author has given them very distinctive identities. And we accept that this is a legitimate continuation of a continuing story of a particular group of characters, or yet another scenario spun out in the same fictional world. Cinematic sequels, on the other hand, would appear to have an additional burden to contend with. To put it simply, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his continuing adventures of Sherlock Holmes, he probably didn't have to worry about callbacks or fan service!

To show what I mean by that, let me explain: I remember when I was a kid, in 1986, I saw the ads for David Cronenberg's The Fly on TV. And the thing I remember most from that TV ad was Brundlefly smashing through the plate glass window of the doctor's office. I mean, even before seeing the actual movie itself (not for a few more years), that moment got permanently imprinted on my psyche. Over two years later, audiences saw Chris Walas' sequel, The Fly II, and what did we see in the film's climax? Brundlefly Jr. smashing through a plate glass window and landing in the Bartok Industries science laboratory! This is an example of a callback, or a piece of fan service. And this is where the "theme park principle" comes back into play. The makers of the sequel are trying to replicate the "ride" based on what audiences had most strongly responded to in the previous film. And in the case of The Fly II, that's only one example. And The Fly II itself is yet one example of a cinematic sequel geared towards revisiting the triumphs of its predecessor. Does this make for a good film or a bad film? Well, that's kind of the wrong question. But it does demonstrate the sorts of limitations that the maker of a cinematic sequel is up against when creating a follow-up to a well-loved story. I guess it's worth asking whether these limitations are inherent in the medium of cinema itself as opposed to the printed word, or whether these are in fact artificial limitations imposed by studio concerns.

Tellingly enough, my favorite sequel - nay, my actual favorite film! - of all time is John Boorman's Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). The fact of the matter is, it is an abject failure in terms of functioning as a sequel in the "theme park ride" sense. For years, it has been derided as the worst cinematic sequel of all time, in spite of the fact that there has been a plethora of lousy and opportunistic follow-ups and cash-ins to all manner of films since then. To this day, and quite unaccountably, The Heretic remains one of cinema's All-Time Great Unforgivens. But in my humble opinion, its "failure" as a sequel is its artistic triumph and its ultimate salvation. The fact of the matter is, John Boorman was offered the job of directing the original The Exorcist (1973) before the job ultimately went to William Friedkin, and Boorman turned it down. He did so because he had young daughters who were the same age as the character of Regan MacNeil, and he found the horrific depiction of the phenomenon of possession to be extremely distasteful. But when he was given the opportunity to direct The Heretic, he was very much intrigued by William Goodhart's screenplay and saw the film as an opportunity. First of all, he somewhat presumptuously felt that he could "repair the damage" created by the original Exorcist, and that he'd have a ready-made audience who would be onboard right from the start, who would be familiar with the characters and the situation and would be prepared to leap into whatever great unknown Boorman would lead them. Wrong!! What audiences actually wanted (or thought they wanted) was for a spectacle even more horrific and shocking than that of the original Exorcist! In Boorman's words, he had created the equivalent of a huge Roman arena, and he had neglected to throw any Christians to the lions. When Boorman discussed the prospect of directing a sequel to The Exorcist with his friend Stanley Kubrick, Kubrick warned him that the only way he could possibly pull it off was by having Regan vomiting in rainbow colors! For a man who often had the unfair reputation for being an out-of-touch recluse, Kubrick definitely had a good grasp on certain uncomfortable realities about his chosen profession...

Anyway, the damage was done. Any future follow-up or sequel to The Exorcist would have to contend with - and get out from under - the shadow of The Heretic's (perceived) failure. And the films that followed, William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990) and Paul Schrader's Dominion (2004), would have to put up with a lot of corporate interference and second-guessing, as the heads of Morgan Creek Studios desperately attempted to resurrect the "ride" of William Friedkin's 1973 classic. To that end, they would order Blatty to film a climactic exorcism scene with Nicol Williamson for The Exorcist III (whereas there hadn't been an exorcism in his original source novel Legion) and Paul Schrader's original prequel would be scrapped entirely to make way for the over-the-top pandering of Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning. (Granted, there are a few things that I like about Harlin's film, but I ultimately prefer Schrader's by a very wide margin!)

Which brings us - in my usual roundabout fashion - to David Gordon Green and the present day!

I saw The Exorcist: Believer last Friday evening at 6:30 PM at my local theater - and on the UltraScreen, no less! When I went to see it, I decided I would temper my expectations and keep an open mind. I was hoping that David Gordon Green would at the very least make a decent film about yet other possession case 50 years later. I knew that Ellen Burstyn was in it, and even though I'd heard that her reprising the role of Chris MacNeil was motivated primarily by her desire to raise money for a pet project of hers, I hoped that her mere presence would lend the film a little class.

You know something? I thought that The Exorcist: Believer was actually rather good.

Granted, let's not lose our minds here! It isn't anywhere near as great as Friedkin's original The Exorcist, and I feel that almost all the other sequels and prequels are superior to it... with the exception of Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning from 2004. Yes, that's right! I felt like the film had one job, and that was to be better than the prequel remake! That's not a very big hurdle to jump, and I felt that Green's film had cleared it rather easily! Believer doesn't really go out of its way to take any major chances, and the plot developments are somewhat predictable. And just to let audiences know we're keeping on the safe side, the credits actually replicate the font of the original film's. Whenever the name of a particular location is given onscreen, such as "Haiti" or "Georgia," the words are in the same white font that was used in the original for the names of "Iraq" and "Georgetown." And of course, the end titles of the film are in red!

So what happens is this:

Photographer Victor Fielding (a very effective Leslie Odom Jr.) has a daughter named Angela (Lidya Jewett). Thirteen years before, Victor's pregnant wife had perished in an earthquake during a visit to Haiti. She didn't survive, but her child did. After his wife's death, Victor lost his faith in God. Anyway, Angela and her best friend from school Katherine (Olivia Marcum) go into the woods to perform a ritual ceremony to conjure up Angela's mother. However, the two of them disappear and are declared missing. They turn up three days later in a barn some thirty miles or so away. The parents are relieved to find their children in one piece and apparently unharmed. However, the two girls gradually show signs of an apparent mental illness, at first minor... and then quite horrifyingly major. If you've seen your share of films about exorcism and possession, you - and most audience members - will quickly figure out what's really going on!

First of all, the acting is solid all down the line. Leslie Odom Jr. turns in an effective performance as the father, and Jewett and Marcum are very good as the afflicted girls. Ann Dowd is also good in the role of Ann, a hospital nurse who had previously trained to be a nun and had ultimately broken her vows and gotten pregnant. She delivers a wonderful speech at the end which I feel quite effectively sums up the struggle we all have to maintain our sense of hope and optimism in the face of life's horrors. Even if you're not necessarily a believer in God or in organized religion, what she says truly does resonates - at least for me. And I would be remiss if I did not again mention the presence of Ellen Burstyn reprising the role of Chris MacNeil. At the risk of sounding very repetitive, she also turns in a very good performance as well. As the character that audiences and fans of the original film will be most familiar with, she is in effect our surrogate. She responds with sympathetic horror, reliving the trauma of her own daughter Regan's possession, and her feelings are ultimately ours. And not to give spoilers or anything, but something truly terrible happens to Chris in the movie which I did not see coming and which genuinely shocked me. And at the very end of the film, we get a cameo from another important character from Blatty's original story. No prizes for guessing who it is, but once again... No spoilers! I also like the fact that, while in the original Exorcist, Regan's possession was kept secret from the outside world and not involving anyone other than the exorcising priests, the attempt to liberate Angela and Katherine from the demon's grip is a communal effort, involving friends and family members and the local pastor. (The Star Trek fan in me was extremely gratified to see the pastor being portrayed by Raphael Sbarge, the traitorous Michael Jonas on Voyager!) And I also liked the idea that the two girls' heartbeats would be "in sync" during the possession. The very notion of synchronization is quite possibly a callback to The Heretic, and it was gratifying to see it used as a plot element.

To sum up, I guess you could say that The Exorcist: Believer is ultimately an effective sequel. Unfortunately, as I have pointed out in my comments above, being an "effective" cinematic sequel primarily consists in the ability to more or less replicate the "theme park ride" and to replay all the major beats from the original film. So the film is basically operating within a certain set of self-imposed limitations. There is absolutely nothing disgracefully awful about this film, but the film ultimately limits itself to doing what was expected of it, aside from a certain amount of variation which I've already gone into. And therein lies the ultimate "double-bind" of movie sequels: 1) We want to relive the experience - or the "theme park ride" - of the original film, but 2) We're ultimately disappointed when it's unable or unwilling to risk being anything more. It's the ultimate case of not being able to go home again.

But maybe that's being overly pessimistic of me. While Believer is not as good a sequel to The Exorcist as Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep is to Kubrick's original The Shining (and I personally feel that Doctor Sleep is the Gold Standard as far as long-delayed follow-ups to classic horror films go), I think its inevitable callbacks and fan service elements are integrated in a reasonably satisfying way that avoids being overly obvious, even if one can spot them with a little effort. Also, this is only the first in a trilogy, right? Maybe Believer is the one film that's meant to perform the Star Wars: The Force Awakens task of getting long-time fans "back in the saddle," and hopefully the two later films will take more interesting chances. I mean, we can always hope, right? (Apparently the second one is to be called Deceiver. And for the finale, how about... Redeemer? Just a thought...)

Anyway, great or not, you know that I'm definitely going to get The Exorcist: Believer when it comes out on 4K and Blu-ray. I mean, I've got to keep my collection complete, right?

P.S. I watched all the other Exorcist movies in a marathon viewing this past weekend. I kept to a chronological order, in terms of onscreen events:

1) Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (Paul Schrader / 2004)
2) The Exorcist (William Friedkin / 1973)
3) The Ninth Configuration (William Peter Blatty / 1980)
4) Exorcist II: The Heretic (John Boorman / 1977)
5) The Exorcist III: Legion (William Peter Blatty / 1990)

(The Ninth Configuration may not involve the subject of demonic possession or exorcism, but it absolutely takes place in the Exorcist Universe, for lack of a better way or putting it. Blatty wrote and directed it himself, adapting it from his own novel, and thematically it's very much of a piece with The Exorcist and Legion. The lead character is an astronaut named Billy Cutshaw, and he was apparently one of the guests at Chris MacNeil's party in The Exorcist - played by a different actor, of course. He's the one whom Regan addresses, saying "You're gonna die up there" to him just before urinating on the carpet. I guess you could make the argument that Cutshaw's frayed mental state in The Ninth Configuration is a kind of collateral damage from the events of The Exorcist.)

P.P.S. I thought that Dominion and Legion made for perfect bookends to this sequence. The reason for this is that in the horrific opening scene of Dominion, the Nazi lieutenant named Kessel forces Father Merrin to single out ten citizens from the Dutch village to be executed. As a frightened Merrin kneels down to pray, Kessel mocks him, saying "God is not here today!" Toward the very end of The Exorcist III: Legion, when Lieutenant Kinderman calls out to God, the demon inhabiting Father Karras mocks him, saying "You grow tiresome, Lieutenant. And foolish. Save your prayers. God is not here with us now. There is only the darkness here. And your death!" But of course, the very opposite is ultimately shown to be the truth. And, whether you're religious or not, that is the whole point of these stories...

Yeah....I recall seeing it some years after it's release, accompanied by lots of "weirdest movie ever" hype, after hearing about it for a while before that. It was definitely weird, but there didn't seem to be much of a point to the weirdness. I was less creeped-out than bored.

The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)

it was okay but it was boring but glad they bought back the 2 original cast back from original the exorcist**

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Sick of Myself - (2022)

Sick of Myself is one very dark comedy - and although it exposes the heart of a woman, Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp), who's clearly very mentally ill, it's a movie I couldn't look away from for a second - and one I found extremely funny. It's also one that had me putting away my cinema snacks - you need a very strong stomach to watch it. Signe is, for the most part, an attention seeker of the worst kind. She feigns allergies and fits, tortures a dog in the hopes it'll lose it and bite her (after witnessing a similar incident) and mutilates herself. Her boyfriend, Thomas (Eirik Sæther) is a kindred spirit of a sort, an artist, he seeks attention in more normal kinds of ways - but he still constantly seeks adulation. The road they travel down is tragic, but framed in such a way that'll exasperate anyone who might sympathise with it's protagonist. Signe hurts people along the way, and lives in a fantasy world hopelessly removed from friends and family. Kristoffer Borgli's movie, though, is extraordinary - one of the funniest original films I've watched this year, and one of the most straightforward and painful. As bizarre as the events are in it, I can see all of this happening to a real person - although I'd expect they'd be stopped and saved from themselves at some point. I don't know if it reflects on me, liking these really sick dark movies - but wow. It's the best time I've had at the movies in 2023.

9/10


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Cop Land - (1997)

James Mangold's Cop Land is a measure above most crime films - and not only because it has a dream cast of actors you'd rarely see in the same film together. It's sets up a real Goliath - a whole precinct full of dirty cops in league with the mob - and gives us one placid, timid, cop-worshipping sheriff, Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone), who initially protects and shields his buddies from any law-breaking consequences. When the murder of one of their own makes this a bridge too far, he's going to be alone against the likes of bad boys Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel), Jack Rucker (Robert Patrick) and the mafia. In the meantime there's a coke-snorting officer who burns his own house down for the insurance money (and accidentally fries his own girlfriend), Figgsy (Ray Liotta) and an Internal Affairs investigator who's just about had enough of the whole sorry saga, Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro). Every scene really hammers home the hopelessness, plus the size and strength of the boys club - cops looking after each other. Who's going to police the police? Makes for an interesting and exciting noir thriller with no end of enjoyable performances. Really great entertainment.

8/10


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Labor Day - (2013)

I've read comments on this film - it irks some that the main female character in it, Adele Wheeler (Kate Winslet), is very fragile and weak, while the male love interest, Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin) just barges his way into her life (a macho, masculine escapee from prison) and fixes everything as if that's all she needed. I don't look at it as being quite so representative about everyone. I kinda like it - it's a fraught love story from the perspective of Adele's son Henry (Gattlin Griffith) who never had much of a role model growing up, and wanted to be his mother's strong support. The fact that his mother's ideal man just arrives out of nowhere, in such a terrifying way - well, that's much like life in general. How random it is, meeting those people in our lives - and how often the quiet ones that look nice turn out awful as much as the inverse. I like Labor Day, and I don't read too much into it. I'd be equally charmed by a film where a fragile guy meets a strong supportive woman. Or all the other combinations. The people that complete us and our family are never (or rarely) recognized on first contact.

7/10


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Without Limits - (1998)

I have to give this to Without Limits - it straddles a couple of genres that are usually pretty predictable, but it's really not predictable. It's a biographical sports movie - and I'd never heard of Steve Prefontaine, so I really didn't know anything about his life or career. Therefore, I was in for some pretty big "knock-me-down-with-a-feather" surprises. The content itself is a little 'midday movie' in feel and quality - I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but I do feel just slightly richer knowing about this particular athlete, and his story. Billy Crudup looks just like him, and acquits himself well. Donald Sutherland fills his role very easily. It got me in the end, but oh boy - this is as slow as a slug getting going.

6/10


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Stone - (2010)

Sometimes I feel an urge to go out to bat for a film that got through much of the audition okay, but flubbed it's lines two-thirds of the way through and froze. Stone sets up it's four main characters marvelously, along with the situations they're in, but then proceeds to go absolutely nowhere. Two bookends, grand empty threats by main character, parole officer and SOB Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro), aren't enough to provide us with any catharsis or closure to the drama that goes between. There's nothing worse than a film that raises your hopes and then lets them freefall all the way to the ground - and with two interesting characters being played with conviction by De Niro and Edward Norton, I'd think we'd see something a little more powerful. Originally this was going to be a play, written by Angus MacLachlan - and considering all of what happens outside the prison parole officer's office is flat, I reckon it was simply expanded when it looked set to become a film. An expansion devoid of any reason or need - just to fill a picture.

5/10

The Meg follows Jonas Taylor (Statham), a rescue diver that has gone into exile after a previous mission resulted in the death of two crew members. But when a team of researchers led by some of Taylor's former co-workers stumble upon a living megalodon, Taylor has to jump back into action mode to kick some shark's ass.

That's more or less the amount of thought you can expect was put into the film. Just a bunch of people trying to stop a big shark from eating a bunch of people. Sadly, the film doesn't seem to fully commit neither to the serious biological aspects of the premise, nor to the chomp-chomp, silly angle it could've gone with, which leaves the film in a weird middle ground that's not very satisfying.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

What a ride. It finds right balance between incredible action, emotionality and jokes. One of the best, if not the best, of the franchise. I hope part two succeeds too.

Just a few more thoughts regarding my recent UltraScreen viewing of The Exorcist: Believer last Friday:

To sum up: I liked it, thought it was decent, but wasn't exactly bowled over by it. It managed to be better than Renny Harlin's prequel remake Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) by a very wide margin, but other than that it was what I would call a dutiful sequel, one that ticked off all the right boxes and fulfilled its commercial mandate, but didn't really do anything particularly daring. (Not that I won't get the Blu-ray/4K pack to complete my collection... )

But what really can be done?

I mean, out of all the possible films that could serve as the basis for a franchise, The Exorcist (1973) quite possibly qualifies as the least likely. Because it's not like James Bond or Indiana Jones, where you've got an ongoing series of adventures. William Peter Blatty's original novel is a very self-contained story about a very particular group of characters in a very particular set of circumstances dealing with a very particular series of inexplicable and horrific events, as follows:

An elderly priest working in Iraq prepares for his final battle with an evil adversary. A famous actress works on a film in Georgetown. A younger priest working as a psychologist on the campus at Georgetown University experiences grief, loss and guilt after the death of his mother. The actress' young daughter manifests violent symptoms of what first appears to be a physiological, and then psychological, disturbance. The actress' director is killed in or near her house in what initially looks like a violent freak accident, but a local detective suspects foul play, and further suspects the disturbed young child. Meanwhile, doctors are at a loss to explain the girl's illness, so the mother enlists the aid of the troubled young priest / psychologist. Eventually, the elder priest arrives and the two clerics attempt to exorcise an evil spirit from the body of the girl. The older one dies, while the younger gets into a physical struggle with the possessed child, after which he jumps out the bedroom window and plunges to his death. The younger man's best friend arrives on the scene to perform the last rites. The family moves out of the house, while the detective and the friend of the younger priest begin to establish a close friendship. [That last part is in the novel and the Extended Version of the film only.]

And that's it, really! If you think about it, there are not many viable avenues of expanding or extrapolating upon those very basic story elements. At least not in such a way as would function as a successful "theme park ride" replicating the thrills of the original, while simultaneously taking things in a different direction. Director John Boorman and screenwriter William Goodhart thought that they could take Blatty's basic premise into a very different direction with the wildly underrated Exorcist II: The Heretic, but by and large audiences rejected the vision. Blatty himself wrote a follow-up novel called Legion which dealt primarily with events connected with the original story, but was unable to get a movie version produced unless he compromised and reworked the story into something more strongly resembling the original Exorcist. Director Paul Schrader and screenwriters William Wisher and Caleb Carr told a very unique tale dealing with events which took place decades before the original The Exorcist, but again... since the studio didn't perceive it as being enough like the original film, they rejected the vision and brought in Renny Harlin to deliver a more conventional shockfest.

I remember something that the writer Kim Newman said in his book Nightmare Movies. I'm kind of paraphrasing here, but I'll try to sum up what he said. He felt that for all its success, The Exorcist represented a kind of dead end in terms of being a viable influence on other films. He felt that most cash-ins and clones of The Exorcist such as Abby (1974) and Italian knockoffs such as The Antichrist and Beyond the Door (also 1974) could not develop or expand on the ideas of the original in the fruitful way that John Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971), David Cronenberg's Shivers (1974) or John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) all managed to expand upon and develop the ideas of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). As a result of this, he feels that Romero's film has had the more positive influence overall. He also adds that big-budget Hollywood Exorcist cash-ins such as The Omen (1976), The Sentinel (1977) and The Manitou (1978) ultimately find so little worth stealing from the Friedkin / Blatty film that they go back to Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and pilfer elements of its plot instead!

All of which does not mean that The Exorcist - novel or film - is a bad story. It's just that it doesn't seem to make for a very viable template in terms of influencing other films or serving as something to build a franchise upon. As I've stated before, the whole process of trying to exploit the success of the original classic has been a very fitful and painful tug-of-war between the forces of art and commerce. Between giving the people what (they think) they want and giving them what the writer and director wants, which is something new and which fails the "theme park ride" test.

Like I said in my previous post, I'm hoping that David Gordon Green and the producers manage to do something much more interesting with the next two installments. I hope a good balance can be struck between taking the franchise into new territory (such as the whole process of spiritual synchronization and the Teilhard de Chardin "world mind" theory that was touched upon in The Heretic) and maintaining the fright factor and sense of fearful confrontation with unknown forces which made the original film so effective.

We can only hope, right...?

In the tall grass
7.5/10.
A bizarre and terrifying movie based on a novella by father-son duo Stephen King and Joe Hill.

__________________
Boldly going.

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Ghost in the Shell - (2017)

I didn't want to bother too much with being outraged about whitewashing, or even the fact that there will be inevitable criticism about this compared to the original source (which I haven't read/seen yet.) I just wanted to see if I could enjoy this on it's own merits, those two factors put aside for now. This was a a huge production for Paramount, with a budget alone of over $100 million, and as such was thought of as being a big deal - but the original animated version of the 1989-1991 Manga, which came out in 1995, is still thought of as the true touchstone. I actually really liked the visuals in this, but I don't exactly know where credit goes to in such a case as this - I figure half to the original for providing inspiration and half to the talented artists that worked on this version. It provided me the amount of escapism I demand from my movies and no more - I've seen so much science-fiction which deals with stolen identities (Total Recall), cyborg advancement (Robocop) and virtual worlds (The Matrix) - this is where it mixes with the big themes of 1980s/1990s sci-fi, so once it is adapted in this era, it doesn't feel as original as it used to be. The pretty sights are something to behold though - and that's what kept me going to the end.

6/10


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Mirrors - (2008)

So, every now and then I poke my head into the trash can and watch a grubby horror movie for my inner child - Mirrors is pretty bad, but it gets an extra point on my rating just for delivering the goods as far as gory shocks go (even though I have to repress my rage when it comes to lazy CGI horror effects in one instance, which look absolutely fake - way faker than practical effects.) You should be able to guess what it's about by it's one-word title. Ghosts in the mirrors. Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) - a rage-a-holic (it's hilarious how quickly this character becomes enraged by something) is a security guard at a burned down department store (I have no idea why a burned, abandoned building needs a security guard) - but there's something in the mirrors, as he soon finds out. Cue lots of people not believing him, and his family thinking he's gone bonkers when he rids the family home of mirrors (these guys are nuts - they have about 80 mirrors in their house.) Would be a lot of fun on a drunken riff-the-movie night. I mean, it's a terrible movie, but it's silly enough to never get boring.

4/10

That gives me another very good opportunity to plug my good friend's new book, Horrible and Fascinating : John Boorman's Exorcist II : The Heretic by Declan Neil Fernandez. After years of intense research and much effort, it's received some high praise. Both him and I both have been interested in that film for a long time.