Wednesday Horror: A Quiet Place

Film: A Quiet Place
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on The New Portable.

One of the problems with being regularly 12-18 months behind on movies is that I run a lot of risk of spoilers. I knew, for instance, the basics of Avengers: Infinity War long before I got around to watching it. I’ve gotten surprisingly good at paying attention to what is getting a great deal of positive attention and then avoiding as much as I can about those movies until I get around to them. I was pretty good in that respect with A Quiet Place.

The word on A Quiet Place was that it was scary and really inventive. I agree that there are some great scares here. As for its inventiveness, it is essentially a new spin on some older ideas. There are elements of films like Don’t Breathe in this. More specifically, this is what Signs could have and should have been. In other words, this is original only in the details. That’s not a complaint in any real sense. It’s essentially the same thing I said about Get Out last year, and I liked that movie a hell of a lot.

Really Deep Cover

Film: BlacKkKlansman
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

Spike Lee’s films are up and down sometimes. Some of his films rank as innovative stories almost flawlessly told (Malcolm X, Do the Right Thing). Others (the Oldboy remake, Miracle at St. Anna)…not so much. But when Lee is on and has something to say, I’d be hard-pressed to think of someone better. It’s hard for me to believe that BlacKkKlansman is Lee’s first movie nominated as Best Picture and his first nomination for Best Director.

In this case, BlacKkKlansman has a title that more or less sells itself and serves as the elevator speech for the plot. In this case, it has the added benefit of being based on a true story. In the middle of the Civil Rights movement, a black police officer in Colorado Springs, with the assistance of several other officers, infiltrated the Klan. This is the point where I typically go on a multi-paragraph explanation of the finer details of the plot. I’m not going to do that here.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1943

The Contenders:

Humphrey Bogart: Casablanca
Gary Cooper: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Mickey Rooney: The Human Comedy
Walter Pidgeon: Madame Curie
Paul Lukas: Watch on the Rhine (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 2004

The Contenders:

Martin Scorsese: The Aviator
Clint Eastwood: Million Dollar Baby (winner)
Taylor Hackford: Ray
Alexander Payne: Sideways
Mike Leigh: Vera Drake

Yippy Ki-Yay

Film: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Format: Streaming vieo from NetFlix on the new internet machine.

Say what you will about the new “networks” putting together movies and shows, you can’t really say that they’re not going for it. Amazon, HBO, Hulu, and NetFlix are producing television and original movies that are as good or better than the more traditional networks and studios. That these studios are starting to see Oscar nominations is indicative of this, at least in some respects. A better indication is the level of talent working on these projects. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, was written and directed by no less than the Coen brothers, and has a cast of extremely recognizable talent, even in miniscule roles.

What I didn’t realize when I start watching—I went into it completely cold—is that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology. This is essentially six short films in one slightly-more-than-two-hour package linked together by someone flipping pages in a book and showing us a full-page illustration of the story to come. So, it was quite a shock to me when the first story ended and we move on to a completely new story.

Wednesday Horror: Fear

Film: Fear
Format: DVD from NetFlix on The New Portable.

What can I say about Fear from 1996? I can say that it’s interesting to see Reese Witherspoon at this early stage in her career. Same for Alyssa Milano and for Mark Wahlberg. And yet for having three young stars (Milano actually had a substantial number of credits before this—technically so did Wahlberg even if most were as Marky Mark), Fear is a very standard thriller in a lot of respects. There’s nothing here that you haven’t seen multiple times, aside from Mark Wahlberg grinding on Reese Witherspoon.

To be more specific about what we’re going to get here, Fear is one of those movies where what begins as an innocent crush/fling/attraction is going to quickly become deadly. It’s also one of those movies where the bad guy is just a little bit smarter or ahead of everyone else and while he’s frequently doing things that are clearly illegal, he’s not quite going to get caught in those things until the very end. Everything is going to build up to a final confrontation, when everything is finally going to get resolved. You’ve seen this before. It’s a hell of a lot like Fatal Attraction for the high school crowd with an ending cribbed in many ways directly from Cape Fear.

Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Picture 1952

The Contenders:

The Greatest Show on Earth (winner)
High Noon
Ivanhoe
Moulin Rouge
The Quiet Man