KIller Joe (2011)

 This Southern Gothic crime drama is the final (non documentary) film directed by the legendary William Friedkin. 'Killer Joe' is adapted by Tracey Letts from his stage play of the same name. Emile Hirsch and his father Thomas Hayden Church hire "Killer Joe" (Matthew McConaughey) a corrupt Dallas police detective who moonlights as a hit man, to kill their despised mother and ex wife respectively; this is in order to get the $50,000 in insurance money to be received by their sister/daughter Juno Temple, a flighty innocent with a sexual edge.

Many complications arise, Hirsch and Church are not too bright, Church's current wife Gina Gershon says it's not a good idea, the ex (who we only see briefly dead) turns out to have a boyfriend and Killer Joe embarks on a sexual relationship with Juno as "a retainer" until they get the money. Also, not everybody here is giving the straight story. Rated NC-17 for nudity and violence, this is by no means peak Friedkin, but it's still an involving 102 minutes. ***

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

 Sweet family film expanded from the Obama era internet shorts created by actress/voice star Jenny Slate and her then husband Dean Fleischer Camp (both of whom apper in the film together and apper to be on rather friendly terms). Marcel (Slate), is a tiny, stop motion animated shell, who lives in an Air B&B with his grandmother Nana Connie (Isabella Rossellini).

Marcel is befriended by Dean Fleischer Camp, a documentary film maker staying at the Air B&B after the breakup of his marriage. Dean interviews Marcel and posts the videos on YouTube, where they quickly become a viral sensation. Marcel uses this celebrity and the aid of Dean, his internet fans, and later 60 Minutes Leslie Stahl, in a quest to locate the missing rest of his family and friends, who he believes were accidentally packed away by a previous tenant. 

Again, this is surprisingly sweet, and with a timeless quality that should keep it forever fresh. A little melancholy and enderingly reflective, the film is a meditation on loss and the courage it takes face it. Highly recommended ***1/2

End of the Gun (2016)

 I don't blame Keoni Waxman's direction here, nor in the main do I blame the script co authored with Chuck Hustmyre. In fact if this same movie was made with a bigger budget, better acting, and 25 years earlier, it would probably be well remembered today. The bulk of the blame must go to producer/star Steven Segal who huskily, and with little effort goes through the motions in this Paris set caper film. It's hard to care about a film when the star dosen't. I did however enjoy looking at Jade Ewan. *1/2

Zodiac (2007)

 I saw most of this in 2007 at my brother's house. I arrived 15 -20 minutes into the movie. My niece was in a crib tucked back to where she couldn't see the screen, and I spent most of the movie watching her experimenting with standing up while holding onto the bars. Sweet memory for me. Anyway I'm glad I finally saw the whole thing, I enjoye journalistic investigation movies and this one is very solid (it's about the Zodiac murders in 60's/70's California). ***1/2

Fatal Attraction (1987)

 "Don't have an affair, she might be crazy and ruin your life." That's the message of 'Fatal Attraction', a film which unlike 'Basic Instinct', didn't live up to the hype. I found it mostly unpleasant. There was nobody I liked enough here to feel emotionally invested in. It probably didn't help that I don't find Glenn Close attractive, perhaps different casting there would have better kept my attention; which is no slight on Close's acting, she really went for it. **

Special Effects (1984)

 Zoë Lund leaves such a strong impression with so little screen time in 'Bad Lieutenant', then in Ms. 45 she plays a mute, so I wanted to see more of her acting. In 'Special Effects', a very Hitchcock infused thriller, Zoë's character gets killed off in the first 22 minutes of the movie, but she's back in a different form for the last 40ish percent of the film.  

Brad Rijn manages to track his run away wife to NYC after years of searching, he goes there with the intent of bringing her back to her son and home in Texas. She runs away from him, and goes to the home of a director acquaintance played by Eric Bogosian, who then kills her and dumps the body. Brad is the prime suspect, Bogosian bails him out on condition that he participate in a documentary movie he plans to make about the man's late wife. By chance Brad meets a woman who looks just like his late wife and is also played by Lund. Brad convinces Bogosian to hire her for the film, and boundaries of identity proceed to increasingly break down. 

Pretty trippy film when you get down to it. Lund does a number of accents in this film and none of them are great. Intentional? Rijn is pretty unmemorable but Bogosian enjoys chewing the scenery. It's Hitchcock meets De Palma meets Blow-Up***

Obvious Child (2014)

 Unusual romantic comedy staring Jenny Slate as an aspiring NYC based stand up comic, who unexpectedly falls for an earnest MBA grad from Vermont (a likable Jake Lacy). It's kind of like 'Knocked Up', only she ultimately chooses to have an abortion, and he supports her in this. The movie is not apologetic about it either, this is a very matter of fact pro-choice movie and yet it knows that in the romantic comedy context, this is bold and transgresive. Filled with likable but flawed characters, I found it to be an enjoyable movie, and with its approach to abortion, also thought provoking. ***

Basic Instinct (1992)

 A fairly large gap in my first hand cinema viewing knowledge; I knew 'Basic Instinct' from its once notorious reputation, but was still surprised how far it went. Good central performances, good atmosphere, solid tension, a well maintained sense of feeling off balance, and about a half dozen false endings. Also the sexual  explicitness of this film, still shocks.  ***1/2

Weapons (2025)

 I can not find/seem to have deleted my review of the movie Weapons. I'm not going to take alot of time and rewrite it, but I just want to say that I loved Weapons, it was the rare theatrical experience now days where I could come away with the reasuring knowledge that film can still produce something that really feels new. ****

Frankenstein (2025)

 I hadn't originally planed to see this theatrically, but I'm really glad I did. Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, in my opinion, is both the best cinematic version of the Frankenstein story, as well as my favorite new movie I've seen this year. This comes about through a number of factors. With my belated conversion to streaming services, I find there is not alot out there that seems worth the effort to see theatricaly. But this was ultimately able to intrigue me enough, especially given lackluster competition.

As a film this Frankenstein benefits from del Toro's direction, as well as a strong but (surprisingly for del Torro) not overdone aesthetic. Unlike most film adaptations, which focus on the middle of the story, del Toro sticks closer to the structure of the original novel and approaches Victor Frankenstein as a character that can't really be understood without understanding his strained relationship with his own father. He gives us a Frankenstein in which every major character has an unhealthy obsession, and in which the narrative can be viewed as the preparation of a cycle of family abuse. Also a great cast at top game, with Oscar Issac, Mia Goth and Jacob Elordi (who I was not familiar with) as standouts.There is also, flawed though it may be, my favorite ending to a Frankenstein story. ****

Millenium Actress (2001)

 The late Anime autor Satoshi Kon's film was inspired by the lives of two  popular 1950's Japanese actresses Hideko Takamine and Setsuko Hara. This  movie tells the story of the career of composite actress Chiyoko Fujiwara from a child actress of the 1930's, to a major starlet of post war cinema, to decades of reclusive retirement starting in the 1960's.

 Chorizo tells her story to a documentary film crew at the turn of the millenium, and through animation that crew is depicted as interacting with and filming Chorizono over the course of her life. Throughlines include Chorizono's mother never fully approving of her daughter's life choices, a decades long riverly with another actress, a complicated relationship with a director she would later marry and divorce, and a life long obsession with a man she meet once as a teenager and who she would regard as the love of life. 

There is a lot I like here, but it never fully came together for me as I hopped, so I didn't get to the point where I could say I loved it. I liked it. Kon's next picture however, 2003's Toyko Godfathers, is a film I grew to love over my first viewing. There are four other films that Kon either wrote and/or directed before his death in 2010 from prostate cancer at the age of 46. I hope to get to those eventually. ***

Final Girls (2015)

 Five teenagers get sucked into a 1986 slasher movie in which one of the teenagers (Taissa Farmiga) late mother (Malin Akerman) played a supporting part, thus potential for closure. Moderately interesting meta concept, moderately well executed. This is the film on which actor Adam DeVane meet his future wife actress Chloe Bridges. **

Victim (1961)

 British film stars closeted gay actor Dirk Bogarde, as a closeted gay lawyer who runs up against a blackmail scheme. Relassed 6 years before the decriminalization of homosexuality in England, film does a fantastic job of walking a difficult line, largley sympathetic to its gay characters, seemingly every opinion on homosexualiy is expressed by at least one character over the course of the film. A social issues film to be sure, and a strong, but not over bearing one; it is also a first rate thriller, consistently engaging and had me guessing up until the end. I was super impressed with this, its reputation is deserved. ****

Fear City (1984)

 A psychotic starts cutting up, and later murdering strippers in NYC. Detective Billy De Williams is on the case, but will ex boxer Tom Berenger beat him to the punch? Director Able Ferrara's neo-noir, errotic thriller is simultaneously weighty, gritty, and pretty silly. Despite some early pretensions, this is not an exploitative art movie, it's an arty explotation movie. Digest that and its an entertaining watch. Lots of nudity. A young Melanie Griffith  is Berenger's love interest. ***

Murder is My Beat (1955)

 When police detective Robert Shayne becomes convinced that attractive blond Barbra Payton didn't commit the murder she's been convicted of, he takes her on the lamb to prove her innocence. Edger G. Ulmer's direction elevates the bargen basement plot, but by the final third I was mostly on my phone. Film contains a night time fight in a ceramics factory. **

The Apprentice (2024)

 Bio-pic examins how Donald Trump's mentorship by the infamous lawyer Roy Cohen, helped turned the little shit into an egonomical monster. Jeremy Strong is a suitably Machnivallian Cohen, while Sebastian Stan gives an impressive, at times surprisingly subtle, and even empathetic portrait of Donald J. Tump. ***1/2

The Muthers (1976)

 Explotation flick about two black, female pirates, who infiltrate a slave labor camp in the Philippines. It's okay. **

Ms .45 (1981)

 The hauntingly beautiful and ill fated (dead of congestive heart failure at the age of 37) Zoë Lund plays a mute seamstress who becomes a vigilante after suffering not one, but two rapes on the same day. Dark underground thriller is a more artful 'Death Wish', ablely helmed by the great Able Ferrara. ***1/2

No Questions Asked (1951)

 Largley by accident, lawyer Barry Sullivan ends up becoming a middle man, negotiating the return of stolen goods between the mob and insurance companies. Future U.S. Senator George Murphy is the police detective out to put a stop to this scheme, while Arlene Dahl and Jean Hagen form a love triangle with Sullivan. Rather good actually, though a cop out with the ending makes me wish the film had stopped 60 to 90 seconds earlier; Sullivan should have died, not revived at the last minute. ***

Mystery Street (1950)

 Ricardo Montalbon is strangly cast as a Boston police detective on the case of a skeleton washed up on Cape Cod. The movie wants to be a kind of proto CSI, with emphasis on the lastest Truman era developments in forensic science. **1/2

Roadblock (1951)

 I start Noirvember with this competent B-picture about honest insurance investigator Charles McGraw, who reluctantly gets involved with criminals in order to finance the lifestyle desired by his dream girl Joan Dixon. In true film noir irony, Joan really loves Charles even if he dosen't have much money. I liked the two lesser known leads, the film is an approate mix of melodrama and procedural, with a legitimately exciting ending featuring a chase sequence down the dry LA Riverbend, one of the first movies to use that as a filming location. When the couples flight encounters rain and turbulence early in the story I knew they'd be okay, because a point is made that they are flying TWA, the airline owned by then RKO owner Howard Hughes. **1/2

From Beyond (1986)

 Another Lovecraft adaptation, 'From Beyond' was released the year after (the better known) 'The Re-Animator', with the same writer, same director, and same leads (Jeffrey Combs & Barbra Crampton). The scale is cut back but the effects have noticeably improved; losser, less funny, but sexier. This is my preferred of the two. Ken Foree is a welcome addition to the cast. ***

The Re-Animator (1985)

 Adapted from a H. P. Lovecraft story, 'The Re-Animator' is a cult favorite horror comedy in which medical student Jeffrey Combs develops an injectable substance that can resurrect the dead, but at best with mixed results, they tend to come back rather agreesive (think 'Pet Semitary'). Gore and boob's promised and delivered with some intelligence and flair, as well as an "off" sense of humor. ***

Psycho Goreman (2020)

 'Psycho Goremam' is a very Canadian horror comedy about a pre adolescent suburban girl who gains total control over the actions of a genocidel alien warlord, that she and her brother dig up in the backyard and name Psycho Goreman. This is better in concept then it is in execution, though it has its moments. My favorite aspect of the film is its setting up arcs for its characters but intentionally not completing them. The film teases that it is supposed to say something, but by the time the father has occasion to pronounce "we really learned something today" he very quickly confesses that he's not sure what exactly that is. **