Category Archives: Movies

Yet Another Reason to Hate A. I.

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Generative A.I. is not without decent and good uses but there has been a lot of terrible things as well, the scraping of artists’ work to feed it, my own novel has been fed into at least one A.I. to ‘train it, the enormous amounts of energy used to power it for so far little practical benefits, the dangerously destabilizing effect it could have if not carefully introduced in the economy. All that said last night I discovered yet another reason to hate the wide-spread and easy access to artificial ‘intelligence.’

After watching the programs of interest to us my sweetie-wife and I relaxed by scanning trailers on YouTube. Some were interesting, some were not but then at the end of the line produced by the search lay a trailer for The Odyssey.

Christopher Nolan began filming his adaptation of that classic story in February 2025 and it should hit theaters in the summer of 2026 so it is possible that some form of teaser trailer had just been released.

Nope.

Some forking dipshirt had prompted generative A.I. to make a trailer and it was among the most idiotic and terrible bit of video I have ever witnessed. It was evident within a few moments what sort of garbage this was, and we stopped watching, disgusted with the thing.

It is bad enough when fans make fake trailers; I still recall how hard it was to find a legitimate trailer for The Return, ironically enough also adapted from The Odyssey when the internet was overflowing with fan-made trailers using clips from various movies starring Ralph Fiennes. A.I. doesn’t even resort to clips, it just lies and throws crap into the world.

There are some very funny and creative fake trailers out there, such as Must Love Jaws which is created to make Jaws look like a buddy comedy when misfit friends Brody and Hooper have to stop the evil Quint from killing their shark friend. You would never mistake this for the real trailer, it’s a work of creativity and love, things A.I. does not possess.

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A Few of My Memorable Moments in Movie Theaters

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Movies have been central to my life for literally as long as I can remember. I have vague hazy memories of a Hammer Horror film that make up some of my earliest recollections. But even with a lifetime of cinematic treasures there are sometimes moments that stand out for the experience that came to me in darkened theaters. Here is a small sampling, be aware these have spoilers.

Towering Inferno:

I saw this at the Sunrise theater in Ft. Pierce Florida with my friend Brian Hardman. Brian, a somewhat rebellious early teen lit up a cigarette and got us both thrown out. It was years before I learned how that finally put out the blaze.

Hereditary:

Ari Aster phenomenal horror movie of cults, witches, demon gods, and family dysfunction was a terrific film to see in the theater. The transition from Act 1 to Act 2, where Charlie is killed was so sudden, so shocking that for several minutes I convinced myself it was a dream sequence. It was not. Once the reality of the plot became undeniable I knew I was in the hands of a writer/director that was fearless and that made the rest of the film so much more terrifying.

Dead & Buried:

A non-traditional zombie movie, I saw Dead and Buried at one of the grindhouse theaters that used to exist in downtown San Diego. In the film a hapless photographer is lured by a beautiful woman to a secluded spot with a crowd of quite ordinary looking people who slaughter and burn him alive. His burned body is place in a staged auto accident but when authorities reach and touch the corpse, he screams. That remains in my opinion the most effective jump scare in cinema history.

Alien:

20th century films

Staying for scripts from Dan O’Bannon, I watched Alien on its initial release and it was then and remains an astonishing film. Slow deliberate tension that mounts and mounts. With that said I had an idiosyncratic reaction to the conclusion of the ‘chest buster’ scene. For most of the sequence where Cain dies his terrible and horrible death I sat as shocked as the rest of the audience. However, once the Zeta Reticulian parasite raised itself up from his corpse, looked around the compartment at the characters in my head all I could hear was a tiny high-pitched voice saying, “hello.’ It’s not that scene failed but rather I think my brain had simply overloaded and retreated to humor to deal with it.

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ALIENS: When the Director’s Cut is Inferior

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In 1986, seven years after the release of Alien, the sequel, often lauded as one of the best sequels of all time, Aliens released into theaters to critical and commercial success.

20th Century Films

In 1999 with the release of a boxed DVD set featuring the franchise’s films, a director’s cut of the movie was included, a version that many fans find superior to the theatrical release. I am not one of them.

According to director Cameron, on the audio commentary for one of the releases, the film was coming in long and as non-linear editing had not yet been widely adopted and the production was running out of time, performing numerous small edits here and there throughout the film to shorten it proved to be insufficient to the task. Producer, and then spouse to Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd noted that the entire reel containing all of the colony material prior to Ripley and the Marine’s arrival could get dropped without impacting the plot. A simple, fast fix that allowed the production to meet that rapidly approaching deadline. When given the chance to re-edit the film with digital editing tools for the box set, Cameron restored the reel and several other scenes that had been excised from the theatrical release.

In my opinion, the longer, less focused, run time damages what was a nearly perfect film in two major ways.

The first is in perspective. With the time spent on the colony meeting a few of the colonist, Newt prior to her horrific experiences, and such dilutes the powerful telling of Ripley’s story. This story is about Ellen Ripley, her post-traumatic stress dealing with the terrors she encountered and the guilt of her survivorship. She is the character the audience invests their emotional capital with, and it is her pain and suffering that makes us tense hoping and praying for a happy ending. To take 10 or 15 minutes away from Ripley for characters we scarcely know and are not at all emotionally invested in their stories. This dilutes the film’s power. Aside from Newt, how many colonists can you name from the director’s cut?

The second issue I will admit is more pedantic, but it is one that bothers more and more when I watch the film.

Each alien drone/warrior comes from a single impregnated victim, and it’s stated that the colony on LV-426, — and don’t get me started on the colony name — had a population of 158 person. 158, that’s  a small movie theater’s worth of people. I have never counted but it looks to me, particularly in the Director’s cut that there are a lot more than 158 aliens that attack the characters in the siege. A favorite sequence for many in the extended version is the automatic guns, set up to guard the tunnels leading into the base where our heroes have barricaded themselves. The guns firing automatically cut down waves of alien drones. Even after all that there remain scores that make the final assault and even still more in the nest to threaten Ripley and Newt’s escape.

Especially in the director’s cut there are simply far too many aliens something that chips and erodes away my ability to suspend disbelief for the movie.

Your opinion may be different and that’s part of the beauty of art, but to me the theatrical is the best version of Aliens.

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Movie Review: Night has a Thousand Eyes (1948)

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John Triton (Edward G. Robinson) a stage mentalist working with his fiancé and best friend instead of the manipulated performance begins having spontaneous and accurate psychic visions. After several come to pass precisely as he envisioned, Triton flees, leaving his fiancé and friend without an explanation, hoping his absence will avert her death that he foresaw.

Paramount PIctures

Isolating himself from humanity and surviving by making mail-order tricks, Triton desperately avoids contact with people, unwilling to foresee more tragedy. However, when circumstances bring him into the orbit of his former fiancé’s daughter (Gail Russell) and his visions again spell doom, Triton struggles to prevent the future that now seems predestined.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes is usually categorized as a film noir, but the paranormal aspects make this a difficult movie to place definitively into any single genre. Where noir is often propelled by human weaknesses such as lust or greed, Eyes finds its motivation in Triton’s deep desire to not be the herald of disaster. The seemingly doomed nature of his vision, presenting what appears to be a hard, unalterable future, gives this film a touch of horror. Triton is a tragic character and, like all really good tragic characters, he is very sympathetic. He never sought the power that came to define his life. He never understood it and wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. Fate commandeered his life leaving him as helpless as a leaf blown by a wind. Robinson gives a fine nuanced performance, and he is the heart of this film. had he been unable to exude the required pathos none of it would have worked.

When I began watching Night has a Thousand Eyes, even though it is not a terribly long movie, I expected to watch only a portion before going to bed, but instead it sucked me in, and I completed the movie in a single sitting. It is well worth the watch.

Night has a Thousand Eyes is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

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STREAMING MOVIE REVIEW: AUDITION (1999)

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Omega Project

Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) a widower of about ten years and a workaholic with the help of a film producer friend sets up a series of auditions for a non-existent production in hopes of finding the right young woman to become his wife. From the moment Asami’s (Eihi Shiiina) headshot and CV cross his desk Shigeharu is fascinated and soon obsessed with the mysterious young woman, ignoring the communist parade of red flags surrounding Asami. Soon enough Shigeharu discovers the depths of Asami’s unbalanced mind the hatred she harbors for deceitful, manipulating men.

Audition came to my attention due to a YouTube video about frightening moments in film and I have to agree the scene where what appears to be a large laundry bag moves if startling and unsettling. While this film has a generally good score in its reviews and overall, I did enjoy it I think it runs a little long in duration. The second act, the middle of the film, feels a little aimless slows down just a tad too much for my tastes. It many ways the feels much like many Frankensteinadaptations first acts. We know what is coming and the delay in getting that building very little in tension of suspense. At an hour and fifty-five minutes I think Audition might benefits for just being 10 to 15 minutes shorter.

That said, if foreign film works for you and if subtitling doesn’t interfere with your suspension of disbelief than Audition is worth a watch.

Audition is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel and Shudder.

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Spaghetti Western Review: The Price of Power (ll prezzo del potere)

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I was never into the Italian produced westerns until my sweetie-wife came along and now we will seek them out, either on streaming or on disc. Some have been real gems and others rather tedious to screen. However, this one proved the most unique in the thematic structure of its story.

It is 1881 and President James Garfield (Van Johnson, dubbed even in the English Language version) is touring the western United States as he pushes for greater civil rights for the recently liberated enslaved people. In the sleep desert town of Dallas, Texas, a conspiracy of bitter-end Confederates plot to assassinate Garfield. Only a former Union officer, Jack Donovan (Ray Saunders) stands in the way of the powerful interests plotting the president’s murder.

As the film unspooled, I wondered just how much of the story, a presidential assassination plot in Dallas, was deliberately crafted to invoke the Kennedy killing. My answers came at the end of the second act when hidden gunmen shot and killed Garfield as he rode through the street in an open carriage with the lovely dark-haired wife at his side. This was quite directly a retelling of November 22, 1963, but with a different assassinated head of government. (Garfield was shot and killed while in office, but back east and by a disgruntled office seeker.)

I haven’t yet finished the film, but I strongly suspect that the third act will be fairly standard for a spaghetti western as our hero has plenty to avenge beyond the murder of a president. It’s a shame that the only version streaming in Tubi is the dubbed one but still it’s revealing itself to a most interest example of those late 60s Italian productions.

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Movie Review: Diabolique (1955)

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At a run-down private school in France a cruel schoolmaster torments his mistress and assaults his wife prompting the women to conspire in his murder.

I was supposed to see this film on the big screen with the San Diego Film Geeks monthly screening at the Digital Gym but came down with a cold that weekend and was forced to miss it. Luckily the film is playing on the Criterion Channel.

Artwork: Criterion Collection

Diabolique is considered a classic of the thriller genre. Starring Vera Clouzot as Christina, the Spanish spouse of cruel headmaster Michael (Paul Meurisse) and Simone Signoret as Nicole a teacher at the school and Michael’s mistress. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Vera’s husband, the film is a tight suspenseful production in the vein of a Hitchcock movie. (The novel which the film was adapted from was one Hitchcock wanted but Henri-Georges Clouzot beat him to it.) Murders never come off as planned and murderers rarely are truthful on their lives leading to a story with twists and reveals right up to the final shot. It is an ironic tragedy that Vera Clouzot, playing a woman with a serious heart condition, died suddenly from a cardiac event just 5 years after Diabolique’s release.

There is a reason why this is considered a classic. Every aspect of the production works, the performances, the cinematography, and the direction all take what is a fairly standard film noir set-up and play it to near perfection. I regret that illness robbed me of the chance to see it for the first time in a proper is small theater.

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Quick Review: The Gorge

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Dropped on Valentines Day this year was the action/horror/romance movie The Gorge. Two expert sniper/assassins are the latest people assigned to monitor a mysterious gorge with

Apple TV+

orders to prevent anything from leaving the site and maintaining strict no communication with each other. Since the pair stationed on opposing sides of the chasm are outstandingly attractive people (Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy) the no-contact rule is of course broken. By the third act of the film the pair find themselves at the bottom of the gorge, fighting for their lives and uncovering terrible secrets it has hidden for 80 years.

Directed by Scott Derrickson who gave us the first Dr. Strange film and the wonderful Black Phone I had hopes for The Gorge but while not bad the film in the end proved to be less than satisfying.

What works in the movie are the leads, Teller and Taylor-Joy works quite well together, have an excess of chemistry with each other and the camera, and are simply fun to watch. All of the movie’s troubles start at the bottom of the mysterious gash in the Earth. The secret they discover not only strains credibility but is actually lackluster. Their fight for survival is meant to the suspenseful but with a film boasting a cast this limited it can never leave your mind that both are going to survive. Additionally, once they reach the bottom of the gorge all character development grinds to a halt. They face no choices or challenges that impact on their character only on their physical survival.

I don’t regret watching The Gorge but it’s highly unlikely I will ever revisit it.

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Who Qualifies as a Final Girl?

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The trope of the ‘final girl’ is one born of the slasher films of the 70s and 80s. The term was coined by Carol Clover in her essay analyzing the gender dynamics of those films. Today the term is pretty much used for any surviving woman or girl of a horror movie that manages to escape or defeat the killers or monsters of the story. The zenith of the concept in a meta-story manner is the ritual sacrifices as presented in the film The Cabin in the Woods which suggests that only when the morally superior, that is virgin, woman is last to die or survive is the ritual, that is the slasher formula, properly solved. A recent film though has me pondering the mutable nature of the trope and just who justly qualifies as a final girl.

The rest of the post/essay will contain spoilers for the film Companion up to and including its ending and its major reveals and reversals. Proceed only if spoilers for Companion are of no consequence for you.

SPOILER WARNING ENGAGED

 

Iris in Companion is the ’emotional support’ android companion for Josh. That is, she is his sex bot and sex toy, fulfilling a role for which he could find no actual human being. On a trip to a millionaire’s secluded cabin, the wealthy host, Sergey, attempts to sexually assault Iris and she kills him in self-defense. Key to understanding this event and how it unfolded is that the character of Iris in utterly unaware that she is in fact a piece of technology. Like Rachel in Blade Runner, she possesses artificial memories giving her the illusion of being a human being. Her defense against her would be rapist is the for all purposes the same as any woman in that horrid situation. Learning of her ‘true’ nature spins iris into a crisis of self-doubt that is only made worse by the further revelation that the murder has been a planned event. Josh, having modifiers her operating parameters and releasing safety measures, plotted with Sergey’s mistress for his death. Iris escapes and seizing control of the app that regualtes her psychological nature first tries to escape but when that fails defends herself, killing all of those who plotted and tries to end her individual existence. In the end Iris ‘survives’ and escapes to live a life unconstrained by preprogrammed boundaries.

So, is Iris a ‘final girl’?

While the human characters are vile, greedy, and without moral standing, it is Iris who is the ‘slasher’ in this story. She is the force that one-by-one dispatches the humans, ending their lives. While it is not uncommon to give the slasher an understandable if exaggerated motivation rarely is it so sympathetic or empathetic as Iris’ in Companion. The emotional release as she drives away in Sergey’s classic Ford Mustang is as great as Laurie Strode’s in Halloween or Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Iris, though the killer in the film, certainly feels like a final girl. So far as I am concerned, she is one.

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Movie Review: Companion

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Nailing the genre of Companion is a tricky endeavor. Many consider it to be a horror film, after all it’s about an A.I. that’s for the run time of the film is primarily engaged in a spree of killing. Other classify the film as science-fiction/thriller, I guess because they turn their nose up at horror. What is undeniable is that Companion is at its heart a satire taking aim at terrible men and the manner in which they treat their romantic partners.

Warner Bros Studios

Sophie Thatcher, whom I last watched in the terrific Heretic stars as Iris, an emotional support robot, that is sex bot, to craven and despicable Josh (Jack Quaid.) They have journeyed far into the countryside for a weekend with two other couples, Eli, (Harvey Guillen) & Patrick (Lucas Gage) and Kat (Megan Suri) & Sergey (Rupert Friend.) Very quickly things go badly when in an act of self-defense Iris kills one of the men and events spiral out of everyone’s control.

Some have complained that Companion’s trailers, revealing that Iris is in fact a machine, destroys the movie’s ‘twist’ but that is not the case. The script is loaded with reveals and reversals that at each turn enhance the story and further the satire.

Writer/Director Drew Hancock has crafted a find piece of cinema that is both highly entertaining, rightfully funny without ever losing it thematic core while avoiding becoming a tiresome lecture. Sophie Thatcher is excellent in her performance, often making these tiny choices that very subtly convey quite a bit about Iris and her internal monologue.

This is a film I can whole heatedly recommend.

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