My Thoughts on Sinners (2025) directed by Ryan Coogler

 These are just some small thoughts I had on this great movie! It has been awhile since I have been to the theater to watch a movie, but this felt special. I was on the fence about going to see it, but the hype got to me and I decided to spend my birthday watching it. It is an amazing film that has really put the flag down for independent and original film-making. I am not a big musical cinema lover, but it is a great film about the blues and what one is willing to give to create art. Although I still prefer Jordan Peele for my horror fix, I was satisfied with this movie. The two musical sequences with Miles Caton and Jack O'Connel were excellent as was the Buddy Guy feature at the end. Michael B. Jordan showed why he is the Robert De'Niero to Ryan Coogler's Scorsese. Wunmi Mosaku was a revelation and the break-out star for me and Delroy Lindo was a solid character actor as always. The comedic favorite of the movie was Omar Miller who takes over nearly every scene he's in after his introduction. 

I did not see this an IMAX so I guess I won't gush over the cinematography like everyone else, but I will tip my hat to Ludwig Göransson for another excellent team-up. Göransson was just as important to this film as the lead actors. And of course the leader that made it all happen is Ryan Coogler, who has yet to make a bad film.

If I have more to add, I may follow-up at a later date.

My (short) Review/Impression on Squid Game (2021) directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk

 I suppose this will be a partial-continuation of my previous review in relation to the survival-horror genre. Squid Game has become the premier Netflix title and while it ain't bad, I don't think it is the greatest thing: basically it's a'ight. I suppose to me this serial does not really do anything new, but does a lot old. For me, it is the fact that it relies so much on stock-genre tropes and lazy stereotypes. The actual action parts are entertaining and interesting, but once the show gets into its rhythm it becomes too predictable and by-the-numbers for me. Even the "twist" was seen a mile-a-way. It's still better than As the Gods Will, but this would work well for someone who is not use to these kinds of shows. Teenage me would have liked this more than 30-something me. 

I guess the moral is that Battle Royale was the first and possibly still the best of this genre. I did get the commentary on the wealth disparity in South Korean society. I felt like this was ok, but had more potential than was delivered. 

My Review of Nosferatu (1922) directed by F. W. Murnau

 Of all the many movie adaptations of the Dracula by Bram Stoker that I have seen, this is supposedly the most faithful to Stoker's novel when it comes to the characterization of the vampire. This is of course ironic given that this adaptation changed the names of all the characters and locations from the book in a failed effort to beat the copyright. Still this movie is one of the most enduring example of German Expressionism and one of the few legit scary adaptations of Dracula. 

As far as silent movies go, this one is a spooky one. Though labeled "black and white," the film is actually tinted in several different colors based-on location and mood. Max Shreck as Count Orlock (the name-changed Dracula) gives as creepy a performance that you would see in a silent horror film in 1922. The expressionist use of shadow, camera angles, and overall cinematography is amazing and the stand-out scene for me is the one of Orlock entering Thomas Hutter's room to attack him the first time—no one has ever walked through a door with that much menace before or since in the history of film.

Donnie Darko (Director's Cut) (2001) directed by Richard Kelly

 This film is one of those 2000s classic films of the hipster canon. I can't lie, I saw this over 12 years ago and I got caught-up in the weirdness of it. It's that James Joyce effect of something being attractive because of how obscure it is and I wasted more time than I care to admit trying to figure out what was going on. Those were more innocent times. Now after watching this after maybe 10 years of forgetting I owned it, the basic way I would sum this film-up is that it gives the opposite answer of the question asked in It's A Wonderful Life (1946): maybe folks would be better off if you did not survive. Interesting piece of sci-fi suspense, but I've outgrown it. Still  the best use of Tears for Fears music in any movie. 

Some Further Thoughts on the movie Us directed by Jordan Peele

 Spoiler Alert if you have not seen this movie as I talk very directly about a key plot point of the movie.

I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.

How do you follow-up one of the most celebrated horror films of the decade? By making another film that is hotly anticipated. We saw a horror film meditating on race relations with Get Out (2017), but with Us (2019) Jordan Peele turns his focus to class inequality and the division of American society between the haves and have-nots. This movie can also be seen  as a commentary on what Generation X thinks about American society in the new century–their anxieties about it, but I want more to focus on the class allegory. Like Peele's previous feature, this film rewards repeat viewings; Peele has really learned well from the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movies.

The using of the Tethered as the underclass (they literally are forced to live underground) and "regular" people as the privileged ruling class was brilliant enough. Peele really outdoes himself by showing what he thinks would happen if two members of these classes found themselves in each other's shoes–a kind of warped version of The Prince and the Pauper or Trading Places (1983) as horror instead of comedy. In Peele's mind, the member of the underclass who schemed her way to the surface is able to more or less "pass." The member of the surface world that is kidnapped and forced to live among the underclass does not accept her supposed fate. She gathers a following among the underclass–the Tethered–and decides to launch a violent invasion/revolution on the privileged surface world. The idea that Peele postulates how one rises out of the underclass and if the closing of the inequality gap can be done without massive loss-of-life is something the movie gives a very pessimistic answer to. We aren't led to believe in the end that the real Tethered Adelaide was even a little bit remorseful for what her actions kicked-off. We know that the leader of the Tethereds' revolution is killed before the event is completed and the movie ends without "us" (the audience) knowing the aftermath.

The confirmation of what happened in the house of mirrors that we see at the end served more to make me feel conflicted than anything else. Does the film mean to tell us that a revolution against inequality is not worth the cost? Is it saying that only select talented people can lead it? When watching the whole film, the characters of Adelaide and Red come-off more tragic and frustrating than anything else. In the end we are forced into the same predicament as the son Jason of reckoning with the truth and our complicity in the inequality and suffering of the world around...us. 

My Review of The Haunting (1963) directed by Robert Wise

 It is amazing to think one of the greatest psychological horror films of all time was directed by the same guy who directed The Sound of Music and West Side Story. The Haunting was one of the few books I read in grade school that I didn't feel was a chore and this movie adaptation is just as a good. The idea of what you don't see  being scarier than what you do see is always an interesting idea. This film comes at what can be considered the end of the black and white movie era in the West and used black and white filming techniques superbly.

A swf named Eleanor living unhappily with her asshole-sister's family is chosen to stay with other specially chosen people at a strange mansion called Hill House with a paranormal researcher for his project. Eleanor is not the most socially-trained person (she spends the whole movie having a mental breakdown), but luckily for her her haunted-housemates are all assholes so it all balances out. Meanwhile we learn that Hill House is basically a slaughterhouse for all the people who have ever lived in it and the two caretakers who work there won't go anywhere near the property after sundown. As the gang stay at the house, strange things do indeed start happening and Eleanor and the others debate whether the house is haunted or not. It all comes to a head when an unexpected visitor arrives.

It's a testament that the screenplay is so good given how painfully sixties the acting is. That can be credited to it being co-written by the author of the novel the movie was based on: Shirley Jackson. Claire Bloom was the best of the bunch for me. What makes this movie work is the set-design and cinematography combining to give the film such a terrifying atmosphere. The crowning achievement of this film is the refusal to use any visual special effects (compared to the disastrous 1999 adaptation that tried to cram as many special effects in it as possible).  It would be interesting to compare this to the Roger Corman adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher.

My Review of Get Out (2017) directed by Jordan Peele

 I've never been a big horror movie fan, but I got my horror-movie go-to list. This movie and any other with Jordan Peele's name on it is on that list. As soon as the previews for this film came out I was curious and seeing this film when it was released was an experience. This is one of the few movies that gets scarier when you see it the second time and you are in on it. From what I understand, this movie and Us (2019) are part of a larger story of a sinister conspiracy.

Chris and his girlfriend Rose plan a weekend at Rose's parents' house. Chris is nervous because he's black and Rose and her parents are white, but she reassures him that it's fine. On first meeting the parents are overly-friendly, but the black workers at the house are noticeably uncanny in their speech and mannerisms. After a run-in with Rose's hypnotist mom, things go down-hill for Chris.

This film being the commentary that it was on the dawning of the Trump-era has been talked about. The look at racism among white leftists that this film meditates on has been talked about. I want to focus on the idea of being in a situation where there is no sanctuary. Where those who you thought were friendly allies were actually not only enemies, but in some cases the masterminds. One wonders what a Denmark Vesey or Toussaint L'Ouveture would have thought about this film. For me, the most agonizing part of this movie was when Chris thought he was with a friend and we know that was not the case.

I should also comment briefly on the hero of the film: Lil' Rel Howery playing the role of Chris' best friend Rod. Rod is the character every horror movie needs. Yes he's funny, but the fact that remains that while the antagonists were one step ahead of Chris, Rod was one step ahead of everybody! Howery gave that star-turn performance here.

This movie holds up so well because despite the fantastical elements, so much of it is rooted in the bitter truth that people carry in their hearts due to the myth of white supremacy. Peele originally conceived of this movie as a meta-commentary of the treatment of black horror film-fan by mainstream horror cinema generally. But of course, if you've read James Baldwin's review of The Exorcist in his book The Devil Finds Work then you know that the ideas of Get Out had a long relevance before Peele wrote the script and as long as the dual ideologies of whiteness and anti-blackness exist, not simply Chris but the whole country is doomed to be trapped in the sunken place. Oh, and the ending was geniusly subversive allusion to Othello. 

My Review of Kwaidan (1965) directed by Masaki Kobayashi

 After the success of such a gritty masterpiece like Harakiri (1962), Masaki Kobayashi  got the greenlight to make one of the most ambitious movies in Japanese history. He took his clear-eyed revolutionary critique of power, Japanese national mythology and history and applies it to the horror genre. The anthology-format and the stunning set-design and cinematography make Kobayashi's first color film a resounding success. This also sees him go from his social realism style of his previous films to a surrealism influenced by traditional Japanese art-aesthetic (something had only previously done in Thick-Walled Room (1956)). 

The film adopts four stories from Lufcadio Hearn's horror anthology collection Kwaidan. Kobayashi takes these stories and adds his own social commentary to them. Story one centers on greed. Story two centers on betrayal and the surveillance-state of wartime Japan. Story four deals with arrogance and Japanese culture. But for this review I want to talk about story 3 "Hoichi the Earless." This story is about a blind biwa player that lives in a Buddhist temple and gained renown for his performances of passages from The Tale of the Heike. Hoichi starts being forcibly-summoned to play for a mysterious aristocratic clan. It turns out that the dead Heike clan has been forcing him to play manically in a cemetery for them about there past glories despite it undermining his health. This keeps going on until the Buddhist priest figure out what's going on and intervene. This is the longest of the episodes in this movie and was Kobayashi's commentary on how the nationalist glorification of figures of like the Heike was so twisted and helped lead to the destruction of a generation during WWII. Kobayashi's interpretation of the Battle of Dan-no-Ura  and the story overall was meant to make folks question the glorification of these suicidal-militaristic values in the Heike story. Kobayashi certainly did not believe in honoring any aspect of the past that senselessly harmed people in the present. Anything dealing with the military and rigid duty was the enemy of Masaki Kobayashi.

Though I am not a big fan of horror movies, I do appreciate horror films with a message or a point (though I have my exceptions like Zombie comedies or John Carptenter's Halloween) like this one or the Jordan Peele movies for example. This movie is showing you the uncanny, but also making you think of some real-world scary things like militarism, fascism, and nationalism–very 2020 type of horror.