As my traditional 4th of July viewing of this movie reminded me, there's no other movie that makes me react and respond to it the way that Jaws does.
It's my favorite movie of all time, and in my book, there's nothing that stands remotely close to it.
I could endlessly geek out about everything. The masterful Verna Fields editing. The impeccable John Williams score. The unsung hero of that Bill Butler cinematography. That impossibly crisp Hoyt/Heman/Madery/Cutler sound design. That…
Night of the Living Dead represents a beloved Halloween tradition for me. It wasn't always that way, though.
I first discovered the movie when I was home sick from elementary school on Halloween in the 1980s. Some channel (A&E, maybe?) was running an all-day marathon of Night of the Living Dead. I saw a few harmless, hokey, and essentially laughable creature features in my early years, and I thought that this would be more of the same.
I was wrong.…
The energetic and fluid-smooth fight choreography, Tiger Chen's compelling main character arc, and Keanu Reeves's kinetic direction help to make Man of Tai Chi a fairly interesting and entertaining martial arts actioner even as Reeves's sadistic, figuratively mustache-twisting bad guy is hard to take seriously at times.
Don't misunderstand me, though, that's not a complaint. It was somewhat refreshing to see Reeves drop the stoic heroic routine and take on a villainous role once again, even if that involves him…
May the day never come where I tire of Stephen Chow's rambunctiously energetic visual style.
As it was with his other films that I've seen (particularly the magnificent Kung Fu Hustle), Chow blends an idiosyncratically memorable gang of characters with hyperkinetic aesthetics to give you a cinematic experience that's as rare as it is rewarding.
That opening sequence with the Water Demon pulls you in and the movie JUST DOESN'T LET UP from there, giving you exhilarating action and hilarious comedy all the way through to that beautiful closing scene.
The REAL magic is in Stephen Chow's style. It always has been.
Thanks again, The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, for bringing such a spectacularly goofy movie into my life. Gleefully, exuberantly insane in its excesses, even for the 1980s.
All-timer one-liner: "Besides, I'm Beta, you're VHS."
Also also, that title reveal with the neon sign is EVERYTHING.
To put it simply, I was not at all adequately prepared for the emotional journey of this movie. Not at all.
It goes to more than simply revisiting characters I've loved watching time and time and time again. Along with Tony Shalhoub as Monk, it feels as if Jason Gray-Stanford as Disher, Ted Levine as Stottlemeyer, Hector Elizondo as Dr. Bell, Melora Hardin as Trudy, and especially Traylor Howard as Natalie haven't lost a step since the 2009 finale of…
