Rules of Engagement
Even William Friedkin's most loyal fans would admit the Nineties were not a particularly fertile artistic period for him. That decade saw him putting out the laughable horror film The Guardian (1990), the eventual release of his long-on-the-shelf and heavily recut 1987 death penalty drama Rampage (1992), the tepid sports drama Blue Chips (1994), and the resoundingly unnecessary (save for a nifty car chase) Jade (1995). On the small screen, he helmed two made-for-cable remakes, the Roger Corman production Jailbreakers (1994) with Shannen Doherty, Antonio Sabato Jr., and Adrien Brody, and 12 Angry Men (1997) with a powerhouse cast that included Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, Ossie Davis, James Gandolfini and, perhaps inevitably, Tony Danza. Continue Reading →
The Exorcist: Believer
SimilarBuffalo Soldiers (2002), Carrie (1976), Constantine (2005), Die Hard (1988), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), I Stand Alone (1998), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Klute (1971), Minority Report (2002), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Silent Hill (2006), The 39 Steps (1935), The Devil's Rejects (2005), The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), The Shining (1980), We Own the Night (2007),
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Evil Dead Rise (2023), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), Saw X (2023), The Equalizer 3 (2023), The Nun II (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
If you like loud noise jump scares, you’re going to love The Exorcist: Believer. Continue Reading →
Blue Chips
While difficult, it is essential when reviewing a film to evaluate it within the context of the era. To choose a relatively inoffensive hypothetical, if a movie made before 1980 refers to bipolar disorder as “manic depression,” you shouldn’t ding it for the outdated terminology. After all, at that moment, that was the proper parlance. Still, it’s not easy, especially when our understanding of an issue has changed significantly in the years since. This reviewer, for instance, struggled mightily to judge William Friedkin’s 1994 directorial effort Blue Chips on its own era-specific merits. Continue Reading →
Sorcerer
If Sorcerer’s sole highlight was Roy Scheider's descent into hallucinatory madness amidst an almost lunar rock field, it would still be a special movie. Scheider is Jackie Scanlon, an American getaway driver turned washed-up exile in the isolated Columbian village of Porvenir. He’s the last survivor of a desperate mission to transport increasingly unstable dynamite to a burning oil well. The blaze is so bad that only controlled explosions to burn off its fuel stand a chance of extinguishing it. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, including Jackie’s kibashed truck giving out a long walk from the well. Haunted by—or just plain hallucinating—the laughter of his dead co-driver, he stumbles forward. Surrounded by the surreal with nothing but a rickety crate between him and the hair-trigger death, it’s all he can do besides die. Continue Reading →
The Pope's Exorcist
Welcome back to Filmmaker of the Month. In honor of the film, and in its spirit, we sent in a young writer, Megan Sunday, and another young writer, Gena Radcliffe, to do spiritual battle with The Exorcist. Continue Reading →