Scream 4 (2011)

Nearly a dozen years after the end of the original Scream trilogy they made Scream 4, to comment on reboots and changes in 21st century horror films, but mostly to make money. A lot of attractive 20- something's and up and comers in this, and most of them die. Better then Scream 3. **1/2

Trouble with the Curve (2012)

A likable enough flick, The Trouble with the Curve is a father/daughter bonding movie by way of way of sports film, he (Clint Eastwood) is an aging pro-baseball scout, she (Amy Adams) is a young lawyer on the verge of being made partner. The two travel around the Carolinas together and eventually work through their old emotional baggage. Justin Timberlake plays Ms. Adams love interest, he was born in 1981 and she in 1974, having the woman be the older partner in a cinematic relationship is rare enough that it might be the most unusual thing in this conventional, but likable film. **1/2

First Man (2018)

Two things about the very existence of this film struck me as odd before I even saw it. 1) First Man is director Damien Chazelle's follow up to La La Land, and other then the presence of Ryan Gosling as the male lead these movies are nothing like each other. 2) Why hasn't there been a major Hollywood film about Neil Armstrong before? I mean he was the first man to set foot on the moon, that's an inherently cinematic story. Also its been nearly 50 years, why did it take so long for him to get his own movie? Well I think I found the answer to that latter question, the reason there hasn't been a Neil Armstrong film up till now is likely because he was a very boring man. Now he's an interesting man in what he did, I mean not only did he go to the moon, but he survived a lot of things he probably shouldn't have survived before then because he so damned competent. However Armstrong was very much a man of his time, a mid-century, mid-westerner who kept his feelings to himself, and this movie does a good job of dealing with that dynamic of its central character, Gosling does a fine job inhabiting him in a nicely understated performance. Still a dullish central character lends a bit of dullishness to the proceedings. Buzz Aldrin on the other hand, as essayed by Corey Stoll, is an amusing blunt fellow.

Claire Foy, who seems very much the "It" actress right now does a great job as Neil's first wife Janet. I knew basically nothing about Mrs. Armstrong going into the film, but Ms. Foy gives a fine performance and makes her feel real and rounded out. This movie fires on all cylinders technically, and while a lot of the NASA stuff we've in seen in film going back at least to Apollo 13 in 1995, it's the portions on the Moon that really adds something fresh. We don't see the surface of the moon in films often, and the quality of the footage from that first lunar landing is so visually poor and hard to make out, it was nice to see this event depicted in HD. I had not made out previously the little pulley system that was attached to the astronauts belts as they disembarked, and how that worked. You see how the camera that took  the moon landing footage folded out from the side of the lander, and how desolate, quite, and beautiful the surface of the moon must have appeared. As a human story First Man felt constrained, but as depiction of one of the most impressive things human kind has every done, its worthwhile.

On the controversy over this film not depicting the planting of the American flag on the surface of the moon, before seeing the film that did appear to be a glaring oversight, having seen it now a depiction of that moment would have really messed with the flow of the piece. Very little time in this movie is actually spent on the moons surface, I don't know if that counts as a spoiler or not. Anyway I did not get the feeling that any slight was intended by the omission of that moment. ***1/2

Phantoms (1998)

Phantoms is based on a novel of the same name by Dean Koontz, and watching it I couldn't help but think that this same basic story would have been better if Stephen King had wrote it (not that King is without his bombs, see, or rather don't see, Graveyard Shift, The Dark Tower). An ancient evil wipes out a small Colorado town leaving only a small handful of survivors, and leaving them for a reason, but what? Weinstein produced film plays like something made for TV. The film features Ben Affleck on the verge of his stardom, Rose McGowan, Live Schreiber, and somewhat bafflingly Peter O'Toole. It's pretty bad, but still watchable once. *1/2

The Faculty (1998)

The Faculty is a 1990's high school variant on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. My sister is a big fan of this movie so I'd seen parts of this before but this was the first time I'd watched it straight through, better then I thought it was going be. Good cast. ***

The Changling (1980)

Not to be confused with the 2008 Angelia Jolie vehicle Changeling, which is based on real events, The Changeling is a haunted house movie filmed in 1979 and staring George C. Scott and his real life wife Trish Van Devere, one of several films the couple made together. I saw this in a revival showing at The Tower theater in Salt Lake, immediately after seeing the 1932 film The Old Dark House, interestingly both movies feature Melvin Douglas. This movie helped me coin a phrase for a certain type of film which I'm calling 'a big grin movie'. 'A big grin movie' is a film in which something I'm not expecting to happen happens, and I'm so happy about it that I wear a big grin on my face. The 'big grin moment' in this movie happens about half way through and I so didn't see it coming, and it so changed the character of the film for me that I just fell in love with it. I owned a copy of this movie within an hour of finishing it in the theater. If your looking for something you likely haven't seen this Halloween id'd recommend. ****

This would probably have been a *** or ***1/2 star movie but the Big Grin moments pushed it up a notch.

The Old Dark House (1932)

The Old Dark House is a 'old dark house movie', five travelers get standard at an isolated mansion one dark and stormy night, and the proprietors of said property, well they be hiding something, but what? A real good cast including Boris Karloff, Melvin Douglas, Gloria Stuart, Raymond Massey and Charles Laughton in his screen debut. Directed by James Whale this is his follow up horror feature to the tremendously successful Frankenstein, The Old Dark House however was a disappointment at that US box office but did well in the directors native England where the story is set. Whale's good friend Ernest Thesiger has a part in this film as one of the odd residents of the titular old dark house, Thesiger would later appear as Dr. Pretorius in Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein, by far the theater actors best known screen role. The story of The Old Dark House is based on the 1927 novel Benighted by J. B. Priestley, that novel apparently has a lot to do with post World War One disillusionment, there are some remaining vestiges of that plot element in the Melvin Douglas characters backstory, but for the most part that is left out of this screen version, makes me curious about it though. This is an extremely satisfying movie, it has everything you could want from the premise, and packs a lot into a lean 72 minutes, which is good because I think this film benefits from a short running time, you wouldn't want to stretch this material out unduly. I was lucky enough to see this movie in an old theater that dates back to the era when this film first came out, that definitely added to the experience but I'd say it is well worth seeing at home. ****