Three Films Make A Post: The hunter becomes the hunted.

Enhanced (2019): By now, quite a few low budget filmmakers have realized that they may not be able to keep up on the spectacle of contemporary superhero cinema, but they sure as hell can use superhero tropes when focussing on comparatively low power sets and street level plots. Like at least half of these films, James Mark’s Canadian example of the type Enhanced is clearly taking its cues from the X-Men, with (mostly) innocent superpowered beings hunted by the government.

The resulting movie is a lot of fun for my tastes. It makes good use of the fantastical elements it can afford, presents some choice comic book science, and comes up with a handful of very nice, small-scale action scenes with more than decent choreography and direction. Leads Alanna Bale and George Tchortov comport themselves well in and outside of the action, too, so there’s a fun time to be had here.

Deep Cover (1992): Bill Duke’s (who is probably much better known for his character actor work than directing despite his copious direction credits on TV and in the movies) movie about a black cop played by Laurence Fishburne when we still called him Larry going undercover as a drug dealer (and partnering with Jeff Goldblum) packs a lot of style (one can certainly be sure that Duke watched Miami Vice and learned all the right lessons from the show), quite a bit of creative wildness, comments about being a black man in the 90s and a generally acerbic attitude towards 90s drug capitalism as well as the war on drugs into all the best-loved tropes you expect from a film in this genre.

With the help of Fishburne, Goldblum and a generally wonderful cast, Duke makes a film that manages to be genuinely intelligent under the cheap thrills, delivers these thrills in the best possible way, and really convinces anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that he should have been one of the great crime movie directors after this, instead of the travelling craftsman he became. (No shame in being one of those, naturally).

In the Cut (2003): Also pretty fantastic is this hazy and moody erotic psychological thriller by the great Jane Campion, who never let her feminism stop her to get deep into the less easily stomached and judged areas of sexuality, desire and lust, and indeed found much useful for feminism to explore there. This is very much a film of a hazy yet tactile mood, interested in all kinds of liminal spaces – between characters, between feelings, between glances, between waking and sleep, between lust and caution, and of course (this being Campion) between touches. The film is pretty giallo-esque in its eroticism, as well as in the deep implausibility of its thriller plot; just as it is with most other great giallos, that implausibility really isn’t the point, though.

Of course, this being a Campion movie, we also get to watch some great performances, not just by Meg Ryan going brilliantly against her America’s Sweetheart thing with ease but also by house favourites Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nick Damici (of all people to encounter in a Campion movie).

Three Films Make A Post: He's Six Feet Six Inches of Dynamite. She's Crazy. Absolutely Crazy.

La Funeraria aka The Funeral Home aka The Undertaker’s Home (2020): Mauro Iván Ojeda’s Argentinean horror film is about a mortuary business that’s haunted by ghosts the undertaker and his family just have to arrange themselves with as parts of their normal life, until they can’t anymore. It is an interesting mixture of Weird family drama, with relatively typical horror movie beats but also a handful of genuinely original ideas about the nature of life, death and love; a film that takes some very un-generic decisions on what to show and what not to; and a bleak film whose friendlier elements in the climax make it feel even bleaker.

La Tulipe noire aka The Black Tulip (1964): Based on Dumas in title only, Christian-Jaque’s French Revolution-set swashbuckler with Alain Delon playing two very different brothers manages to be a fun blast of a film as befits an entry into its genre on-screen, but also has undertones of surprising bleakness (one can argue, also perfectly in keeping with the genre as it should be) that seem to mirror the nature of its main characters, as well as that of the French Revolution itself. Of course, the old order as represented by the sadistic clowns ruling over the part of the French countryside the film takes place in is the main enemy here, and the film knows what its genre is for and what not too well to be too critical of the Revolution. But thanks to the bitter and cynical of the two twins, there’s also the shade of the bitter and cynical turn the revolution itself would take visible.

Special Delivery (1976): In this film by the often great Paul Wendkos, the plot about a war vet robber’s (Bo Svenson) attempt to get at the loot he had to deposit in a mailbox while on the run from the police, encountering a young divorcee looking for herself (Cybill Shepherd) and finding quite a talent for crime and love, really isn’t the point of the film. Instead, Wendkos uses the single street in LA and a couple of places outside of it to create a microcosm of the nightly side of the city and the encounters our leads have in it, with characters like the would-be motorcycle gang of rapist thugs of a young Jeff Goldblum(!), the local crime boss (Robert Ito), and so on and so forth. It’s rather a lot like a road movie that takes place in only one stop on the way.

Apart from Wendkos direction that makes a lot out of people watching other people from unexpected angles, the film also recommends itself by the great actors. Svenson – not always a favourite of mine – turns a character personable and interesting who could be a simple thug, and Shepherd creates a woman who is at once driven by doubt and insecurity and capable, courageous and determined, while also being charming as hell.

Three Films Make A Post: Same Day, New Killer

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997): Even though nobody would ever call the first Jurassic Park intelligent, how we got from there to this thing, also directed by Spielberg and written by David Koepp, I have no idea. Surely, Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore and Vince Vaughn versus dinosaurs should be kind of a sure thing, but the script has everyone acting even more stupid than in the first film, with little happening here making any sense even by the rules of the universe Jurassic Park was set in, and no visible attempts by the director to jump over the giant holes where a script was supposed to be through his usual magic touch with suspense and thrilling fun. It’s a film made by highly capable professionals in front and behind the camera who all act like they suddenly have no clue about making movies anymore.

To add insult to injury (that is, wasted time), the film also never seems to actually want to end, finally petering out after the worst King Kong rip-off imaginable has gone on and on where every other film this shitty would at least have had the decency to end after ninety minutes.

The Sting (1973): Fortunately, to the rescue of my mood comes the classic George Roy Hill period caper movie that manages to make the depression era look sexy without pretending it isn’t the depression era. This, despite by far not being the first comedic heist film at all, is of course the caper movie most later entries into the sub-genre want to be. Who, after all, would not be captured by the magic of a clever, twisty script that is light and light in touch but never one to pretend depths don’t exist (there is in fact a lot of sadness in this comedy, and quite a few moments that acknowledge bitter truths about the US and life in general, it has just decided not to fall into them), direction that somehow manages to make things that should by all rights be grimy and gritty look slick, cool and elegant without shaving off all the hard edges, the power of Robert Redford and Paul Newman at the height of their stardom, and a supporting cast that’s to die for?


Sky High (2005): If nothing else, this superhero teen comedy directed by Mike Mitchell (who otherwise has a perfectly horrible filmography) is a perfect example of how a film can be utterly generic, and follow the genre structures of teen comedy and pre-Nolan Batman (really, more pre-Raimi Spider-Man, even if the chronology would suggest otherwise) superhero movies slavishly, yet still be charming as heck. Mostly that’s thanks to the lovely cast featuring people like Kurt Russell, Bruce Campbell, Lynda Carter and Kelly Preston as well as young Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Danielle Panabaker selling the clichés with charm and conviction, as well as to a script that may only ever aim at the low hanging fruits of humour and humanity but hits those every single time. It’s not terribly deep (it’s a 2005 Disney teen comedy, after all), but so likeable I’m perfectly okay with that. Plus, who wouldn’t like a film featuring Ron Wilson, Bus Driver?

In short: Jurassic Park (1993)

It is somewhat ironic that a film containing quite a bit of Michael Crichton’s typical technophobe babble is really as lovely as it is in large part to its director, one Steven Spielberg (whoever that is), grabbing the newest digital special effects wizardry of his time and using it to create awe and wonder. To me, this is the last gasp of the man as director of brilliantly paced and structured thrill-rides full of joy and wonder (soon to be replaced by one who mostly makes worthy but deeply uninteresting films only ever asking the easy questions, and disappointing returns to old stomping grounds), and you already have quite the fun film.

There are more virtues to praise still, like Spielberg’s intuitive understanding of how much CGI he can actually show and in what way, being as maximalist as possible with the dinosaurs (that is, after all, what we came to see), but restraining himself when it comes to the things the technology of this time can’t achieve. Consequently, the dinosaurs still look fabulous and believable for most of the film, where other films from the same era of digital technology whose directors were not looking at the effects with the same critical eye (nor the knowledge that it is okay to not show those things you can’t show convincingly) can feel rather dated today.

The script, on the other hand, has its problems. It’s not just that Crichton has less understanding of chaos theory than I do and still feels competent to write a scientist in the field, or that “life will find a way” here seems to mean “life will find a way to break the basic laws of nature”. I’m also perpetually irritated by how nonsensically bad the security efforts at the dino park actually are, full of things that make no sense whatsoever, so that what the film argues is human hubris leading to catastrophe never feels like anything but absurd incompetence resulting in a script. On the plus side, Jeff Goldblum.


It’s really a bit of a wonder the film actually is as effective as it is, but Spielberg’s as good at the suspense as he is at the awe and wonder, so it’s not difficult to acknowledge much of the film’s set-up as dumb but still be thrilled by it.

Three Films Make A Post: An Avalanche of Thrills!

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019): This is not really a film made with my age bracket in mind at all, but as a family movie that drags a well-worn pop culture character into contemporary times and social mores without going the route of deconstruction, grimdarkness or irony, Katt Shea’s film does fall into my areas of interest. The film is not just highly effective at this but charming as hell, the sort of family film even the childless like me would totally watch with their imaginary demon children and can enjoy without. It’s also excellently paced, silly when it needs to be silly, earnest when it needs to be that, clever and even mildly subversive in an unassuming way that’s easy to miss if you blink too often. Sophia Lillis makes a fantastic contemporary version of Nancy Drew too, projecting just the right mixture of self-assurance, rebellious streak, intelligence, humour and family love a modernized version of the character needs.

10 Things I Hate About You (1999): While it is not quite on its level, Nancy Drew would probably make a great double feature with what may very well be the best teen comedy/teen romance of the second half of the 90s, as directed by Gil Junger and written by the sometimes unassumingly brilliant writing team of Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith. As everybody probably knows, this gives Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” a bit of an update for the late 90s teen set, making nearly all the right decisions about what to keep and what to discard of old Bill for its time and audience, adding some Old Hollywood flow to the dialogue (which always endears a romantic comedy to me), and then proceeds to charm the pants off of anyone watching with a heart and a brain.

The thing this and Nancy Drew share is an unwillingness to pretend a teen audience is dumb, so while it does a very crowd pleasing kind of dance, it also contains subtleties and complexities and isn’t afraid to show and use them, very much in the spirit of Shakespeare, the godfather of great commercial art if ever there was one. That Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger work fantastically together hardly needs mentioning.

Vibes (1988): But why not end this entry on a let-down, namely Ken Kwapis’s sad attempt at doing a romance/adventure movie clearly meant to be in the spirit of Romancing the Stone but with added psychic powers. Jeff Goldblum, Cyndi Lauper (who would have been ordered to drop the accent by any half-competent filmmaker) and Peter Falk do their best with what they are given, but there’s only so much anyone can do with a comedy script whose jokes aren’t funny, nor a romance that doesn’t know how to be romantic.


Particularly when the not terribly funny nor romantic script is then adapted with all the style and panache of a kitchen table (that’s the least stylish and panach-y thing coming to my mind right now, and it’s still funnier than most of the jokes in here), bogged down by leaden pacing and finally killed by a disturbing lack of imagination.

Three Films Make A Post: Its victims become maniacal night creatures

The Shipping News (2001): Swedish director Lasse Hallström aims for some sort of North American magic realism with elements of the (Northern?) Gothic here. At times, the result is compelling with scenes that suggest an element of near-cosmic/spiritual awe surrounding life on Newfoundland, making the more melodramatic turns of the plot feel fitting; at other times, he lays the BIG EMOTIONS on so thick they begin to feel more silly and contrived than the fated he is probably aiming at until even some of the expertly (perhaps too expertly) added lighter moments can’t always distract from the artificiality of plot, place and characters.

Always, though, the actors – which isn’t exactly a surprise with Julianne Moore, Kevin Spacey and Judi Dench only being the tip of the iceberg of talent - are doing a great job with whatever the script gods throw at them.

Cooties (2014): Summer school teachers led by Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson and Alison Pill have to fight off the attack of zombie-fied (well, virus infected) elementary school kids. Hilarity and/or brutal violence ensues. Well, sometimes, for about half of the jokes in this one are actually funny while the other half falls a bit flat thanks to the script’s complete lack of originality. The same thing also hampers interest for the characters, though there is one surprise that changes up at least one of the rules of how characters in this sort of movie live and die a bit.

Some of the suspense scenes are rather on the effective side – original or not. Directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion tend to play most of these scenes straight, which works out well for the film. Despite its imperfections, this is a likeable little movie, not the sort of thing that’ll shift any paradigms but certainly worth a watch.


Into the Night (1985): Ed (Jeff Goldblum) suffers from insomnia, learns that his wife is cheating on him and is bored to death by his job. How lucky for him that he lives in a John Landis movie, so he meets professional mistress Diana (Michelle Pfeiffer) and gets dragged into a comedy thriller plot that involves killings nobody in the film seems to feel much about, a bizarre rogues gallery of character actors, directors and even David Bowie, and an improbable romance. It all adds up to a skewed and loving portray of Los Angeles by night (like in the old chestnut with “the city is a main character”, but true), with quite a few clever thriller bits, many more funny jokes than unfunny, and a series of encounters with all sorts of strange people, neither starting nor ending with Diana’s Elvis impersonating brother. Actually, there’s also a thematic throughline concerning trust and self-knowledge that is more complex than the film’s general pace and grinning even in the face of murder suggest, which only helps turn a film that is already a joy to watch that decisive bit better. Well, the film’s ending is a bit rough and awkward but I’ve come to expect endings that don’t quite come together from everything Landis puts out.