I've re-watched this movie so many times in my life I've lost count.
When pushed to name my favorite movie of all time, inevitably I always come back to Jaws. After repeated viewings over the years, I continue to remain amazed and pleased by how well it’s aging and holding up against newer, slicker technology and wunderkind directors. Steven Spielberg went on from Jaws to direct some of the best, most important, cultural watershed motion pictures ever made, but of…
One of the scariest movies ever made with a killer cold open. I saw this for the first time when I was traveling alone in Ireland in 2000. There had been previously nothing in the Western horror canon to prepare me for what I was going to experience. The visuals, the slow, quiet, inexorable dread. J-horror would go on to take the world by storm, but it all started here, with a haunted video, a dark mystery, and a long,…
Solid ensemble cast doing great work, but lacking in some of the nuance this important historical event needs. I really appreciated the “behind-the-scenes” frantic energy and controlled chaos it takes to cover an unfolding news event like this with limited ‘70s technology and the whole world watching. Choices are going to be made, and not all of them will be the right ones — this holds true for the time, and for when a film like this gets made.
Essential viewing for fans of Free Solo and The Dawn Wall. If you can manage it, watch this one first. It’s a passionate, insightful portrait of the evolution of rock climbing, especially as it’s unfolded in Yosemite National Park, and a revelation of the wild, scruffy, free-spirited adventurists drawn to its gorgeous, sheer granite walls.
I struggled with Free Solo upon first viewing having none of this context with which to understand Alex Honnold’s unique gifts and place within El Capitan’s…
If you can stomach past the sex with a dead body thing (that occurs very early in the film) the rest of the movie is thick with tension and nail-biting suspense. I love when a film can keep me on the edge of my seat. I love it even more when I have NO IDEA how the story is going to end, making everything feel dangerous and precarious.
I also feel the necrophilia serves to say some pointed things about…
