Reel Film Chronicles – Page 16

Crawl

I probably wouldn’t have sought out Crawl if it wasn’t for a couple of things; the first one being that it’s produced by the beloved Sam Raimi and directed by the intriguing Alexandre Aja, who has some decent films under his belt, including Horns and Mirrors (which I remember watching nearly a decade ago and being legit nervous to look in the mirrors of my apartment when I got home). The second, more prominent reason for Crawl to float to the top of my watchlist was just how many damn alligator movies that I’ve been watching with my friends lately. It started innocently enough with a couple of Australian pictures (and yes, they were crocodiles there and my inexperienced Canadian-reptile brain doesn’t know much of the difference) then into a couple of North American releases aptly named “Alligator” and unoriginally, “Alligator 2.” They were tremendously fun films – maybe it was the foreign feel of a giant lizard roaming about: I’ve seen enough movies about bears to know to be on the lookout for them here in my native country,…

Terminator: Dark Fate

2019 | dir: Tim Miller | 128 m Terminator: Dark Fate is another in a long line of belated Terminator sequels that I will have to try to actively forget. In this case, it shouldn’t be too hard. Terminator: Dark Fate was an utterly forgettable film, but at least it wasn’t aggressively bad like the previous entry in the series, Terminator: Genyisys. (I still die a little inside whenever I read that title). Why are studios still subjecting us to these sequels? And perhaps more importantly, why are audiences still subjecting themselves? The obvious answer is that because the original Terminator is an iconic sci-fi film and Terminator 2: Judgement Day is widely regarded as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) action movies of all time, they set the bar so high and piqued our interest so much, that we’re willing to risk laying down our hard-earned cash for utter garbage just for the slim chance to chase that high again. And like most junkies, Terminator fans still haven’t learned our lesson. For some insane reason, despite all obvious evidence to the contrary, I had incredibly high hopes going into Dark…

2019 Year in Review

Two hundred sixty four. I still look at that number and question its authenticity; while it’s true you could probably knock a few titles off that list depending on your standards, it’s my own count and it holds true as I compare it to other years gone by (and yes, I will eventually make a more refined count later on, one that does not include short films or certain television episodes – looking at you Black Mirror). 264 represents a fairly sizable increase and upward trend: 2018 saw 245 and 2017 saw 203 titles in the log. As you may be aware, I log everything through Letterboxd, and pay for the yearly stats so it can point you in the direction of my obsession: I’m always hesitant to put together a top ten list of the year, but it seems to have happened. There are too many factors at play that can’t be represented in one coherent list, so maybe I should break it down further. Alas, I’m too busy watching more movies in an attempt to break another record…

Morbius: The Trailer

Based on the trailer that recently dropped for Morbius, it looks like the suits at Sony forgot to tell director Daniel Espinosa that he’s not making a Batman film. As Jared Leto stood in a cave surrounded by an agitated colony of bats (colony is the correct term, you can look it up) flying around him as if in kinship, I couldn’t help but think of how eerily similar they were to scenes from Batman Begins which was released, ah yes, let’s see… fifteen years ago. Well, that flew by. It seems that the fluke success of Venom, which managed a box office of over $800 million in its theatrical release alone, has emboldened the Spider-Man film rights holders over at Sony to spin that roulette wheel once again, and hope that the movie-going public rewards them for making a film of which the best that can be said was that it wasn’t a total dumpster fire. And I mean, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the only real reason Venom wasn’t completely dead on arrival was that with all the talk of production issues, audiences were expecting…

Homefront

I didn’t even see Franco’s glaring mug at the bottom of the poster for Homefront: seeing his name in the opening credits brought a chortled laugh, but then the names kept coming. Winona Ryder. Kate Bosworth. Clancy Brown. Frank Grillo! Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone! What madness have I draped myself into, this quiet, cold Sunday January evening. With the popcorn sufficiently covered in seasoning and a cold soda on the end table, I continued my journey into the neglected, unwatched films of my digital movie collection. After coming off a series of decent films on, the previous week, including The Elephant Man, Comet, and Joe, I approached Homefront with some hesitation; indeed, I’m not a BIG Statham fan and by that, I should say I don’t go out of my way to watch his films but I don’t shy away either when they’re on (I haven’t see all the Crank movies or Transporter films). As I was prepared to bury myself in my phone for the duration of the movie, I found that I couldn’t take my eyes away throughout…

The Descent: Part 2

Any sequel to The Descent was going to have a hard time, so expectations going into this were fairly low. Indeed, I didn’t even know this movie existed; I had seen The Descent at home long after release and it became an instant classic and put away as a film too scary to watch again. Not necessarily because the horror of the creatures, but moreso the claustrophobic passages and situations the women find themselves in. I shudder just thinking about it. But, as I get older and a tiny bit more brave I found myself needing to revisit the original before tackling the sequel, and I’m happy to report that I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Depending on which version of The Descent (having different endings) you saw/remember, Part Two will begun with some confusion, but this is easily remedied with a quick web query. Unfortunately the bewilderment doesn’t stop there: Sarah – our protagonist and sole survivor of the first – is found two days after the events of the first and is immediately brought into the…

Robocop

Robocop will always hold a special place for me in the hallowed halls of cinema. Not only is it one of my favourite movies from one of my favourite directors, it was also one of the first R-rated films I ever saw. Watching in wide-eyed fascination as a mutilated, reconstructed cyborg shot a rapist criminal in the dick to save a hostage was what Obi-Wan Kenobi might have called my first step into a larger world. Paul Verhoeven’s social satire laced with a touch of religious allegory immediately caught my attention captured my imagination and caused this tingling sensation down in the depths of me. In short, I was hooked almost immediately, and over the years, my appreciation for and enjoyment of Robocop has only grown. So when the good folks over at Arrow announced a new release of this iconic action/sci-fi masterpiece, I knew instantly that my wallet was going to get a little lighter. For me, this was the year of Arrow. Criterion is still the king of the boutique labels, and for good reason; they’ve set the standard for quality…

The Changeling

Hopefully you don’t mind a little context for this. I’ve tasked myself over the past few months to follow along with The Evolution of Horror podcast series as they take on the various genres of horror; first was slashers, and now we’re onto ‘ghosts’ and as a result, I’ve been watching a decent number of older ghost-related movies (as evidenced by a few quick entries on this very site). There’s been one problem though: I’ve found my mind wandering and quickly becoming bored with many of these films; I felt especially bad for The Haunting, which is highly spoken of but I could barely sit through it without checking my phone and yes, even excusing myself from the room brush my teeth during one particular scene. So I was nervous to continue on this trend, less I don’t give these movies the respect they deserve – although honestly some of them may not: nobody is saying they all have to be good. My friend suggested turning my phone off while the movie is on, so I took it a step…

Halloween (2018)

{field 2} | dir: {field 3} | {field 4}m Halloween is one among many John Carpenter masterpieces that he has deigned to bestow up the world, and I have, of course, watched it many times. The rest of the sequels… not so much. As part of my annual horror movie marathon this October, I decided to get caught up the rest of the Halloween series. Much to my dismay, I discovered that much like the Friday the 13th series, the sequels to Halloween represented at best diminishing artistic and entertainment returns and at worst head-scratchingly terrible movies, the scripts for which probably wouldn’t receive a passing mark if they had had been submitted as creative writing assignments in a grade 4 class. Yes, I’m looking at you Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween: Resurrection. These are sequels that are so bad that it felt like they were made specifically to insult and alienate fans of the series (or at least of the original film). The Halloween sequels seemed to go off the rails almost immediately, adding increasingly nonsensical aspects to the Michael Myers mythology that made the character less impactful and…

The Lighthouse

It’s been nary twenty four hours since somberly leaving the theatre after watching The Lighthouse and I’m still unsure what I just witnessed, but I do have a feeling I just participated in something unique, and maybe even great. Throughout the nearly two hour runtime of the film, I was mesmerized from beginning to end, and there were many moments that have stuck with me, with noted significance on the performances by Patterson and Dafoe: they were incredible. Dafoe’s Thomas Wake has a few close shot monologues that had me pouring over every word, every movement of his face and terrified as I gazed into those unblinking eyes. Pattinson plays Winslow, a newcomer in the lighthouse keeping world: he is adamant to perform his duties by the book, but is quickly (or maybe it’s slowly) rolled over by Wake’s relentless task-driving and unwillingness to adhere to anyone’s rules but his own. Wake keeps the upper portion of the lighthouse off limits to Winslow, which – combined with living in such small quarters with someone and a belligerent seagull – drive…