Film diary

A surrealist nightmare of expressionist lighting and skewed compositions made from colossal pre- and postwar European architecture, oppressive even when it’s beautiful, its sharp angles stuffed to the gills with detritus, evoking a civilization abandoned in a panic. Even the scenes with hundreds of extras feel lonely. It talks too much but my god does it look incredible.

Whatever the Exorcist II apologists may tell you, its legendarily scatterbrained attempt to rationalize the irrational is not something to aspire to, even more so if you’re unwilling to match its level of sheer lunacy. Supernatural mythology, especially in Eastern traditions, is a lizard-brain beast with little use for reason, but like that ill-advised Exorcist sequel, Ringu 2 attaches electrodes to its spooks, making a fairly simple story of ghostly revenge into a drawn-out thesis… See more →

In this Ringu sequel, which was released at the same time as the first film, almost every noteworthy survivor of the previous installment is killed off pretty much right away, and we soon start to learn that the series’s cursed-videotape shtick is a lot more complicated than everyone thought. The nature of that complication is revealed, as Hemingway would say, gradually, then suddenly, and I won’t spoil the cuckoo left turn it takes in the… See more →

Our protagonist finds a cursed videotape that kills the viewer a week after they watch it, so she starts using her skills as a journalist to get to the bottom of it, and then almost immediately hands the whole project over to her ex-husband so she can rest her little brain, because she is, after all, just a girl. Oh, and her ex is able to unravel the mystery in fairly short order due to… See more →

Matilda Lutz was the lead in this movie the same year she was the lead in Revenge, and I kind of wish I could do to this movie what she did to the dudes in that movie.

I was pretty unkind to The Ring when it came out in 2002, going as far as to make regrettable use of the R-word, and upon rewatching it a couple dozen years later, I was pleased to find myself both more amenable to its silly urban-legend premise and less intent on having a strong opinion about its unremarkable execution. The movie is nothing special, but it’s a perfectly inoffensive way to spend a rainy Saturday… See more →

“I’m not mad, just bewildered,” says Kate Beckinsale about halfway through Tiptoes, a deeply weird cinematic act of little-people advocacy. You might assume she’s talking to the agent who got her the lead in this well-meaning misfire, but the line is actually directed at Matthew McConaughey, who plays her fiancée, who as it turns out is the only Matthew McConaughey-sized person in his extended family, all of whom are otherwise affected by dwarfism. This includes… See more →

As is often the case in low-budget filmmaking, Killpoint is the underwhelming product of one guy spreading himself too thin, with main man Frank Harris writing, producing, directing, shooting, and editing. But he leaves the acting to the actors, and his stable is surprisingly deep (a cast of more than 100), if not all that skilled. Stilted performances are the name of the game, which is to be expected from the Hollywood hopefuls with empty… See more →

If you see only one motion picture featuring a pregnant teen being chased through the woods by a second pregnant teen with a kitchen knife, make it this one.

I only counted three crowns?

That the majority of the soulless thugs prowling the streets in this film are in their 30s and 40s initially took me out of it a bit, but that notable embellishment (along with at least one insanely cold-blooded murder) ultimately puts it far enough over the top to qualify as pure pulp bliss, as opposed to the ickier right-wing fever dream of Death Wish.

Donald James Parker has written no fewer than 18 evangelical Christian feature films since 2013, and he starred in most of them as well, including Gramps Goes to College. They say you should write about what you know, and Parker’s main character in this film—a retired computer programmer who played tennis as an undergrad and moves from South Dakota to Tennessee—is pulled directly from Parker’s own bio. Conspicuously fictional is the part where he goes… See more →