I'm Not There

The best thing about the IT reboot: 1-   The chemistry between the friends of The Losers Club.  The combination of writing and          delivery,  especially by Finn Wolfhard really makes the friendship believable and       entertaining making it easier to get invested in the kids. 2.   The performances of everyone in the movie are complimented by an interesting story.         Beverly's individual story with her father really stands out as both disturbing and very  well acted.   3.   IT not relying on cheap jump scares like many contemporary horror films. It build         suspense  nicely with  great cinematography and pacing.   That  projector scene tho.        Also, the New Kids on   the Block references, this  movie's got the right stuff.

Darkish Universe Originally published  TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2017 I just finished watching Universal’s second reboot of the Mummy and the launchpad of it’s Dark Universe. This movie is “ish”. Not “ish” as in the censored radio version of what Van Helsing was but rather as what has been reported, this movie keeps changing as Dr. Jeckyll from actionish to horrorish making it hard to know what to expect. Not in the good way but more in the “we just won’t abide by conventions of either genre because it’s easier to tell this story.” Overall, the film is ok at best and tolerable at worst. If I was to compare this to Dracula: Untold, I would choose Dracula as the superior film and start to the Dark Universe. Tonality is the biggest flaw in this movie. From the very beginning, as great as an actor as Tom Cruise is, something in his performance in his first scene, did not convince me he was smart ass military adventurer thief. Military adventurer thief absolutely, the guy...

Back when I was so cute

With Halloween season fast approaching, horror movie marathons are a must.  One of the first films screened here was The Creature From the Black Lagoon, the first in a series of three films prominently featuring the Creature.   Knowing what I know about the series as a whole,  re-watching the original this year made me think of it in a different way.  The whole saga of the Creature has some strong parallels with the stories of a great number of Americans.  Let's explore the major plot points of the franchise starting with the 1954 original. In a far off land, people, animals and "others" go about living comfortably in their habitat until the "civilized" outsider "discovers" an artifact.  Fair enough, but then he returns and brings with him more professionals like him, initially in the name of science. Once they get word that there is a creature just freely swimming around, greed and the need for notoriety replace science and lead them to a b...