A Nightmare on Elm Street

It’s been years, probably decades, since I watched the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. I wanted to see how well it holds up — or doesn’t. My takeaways:

1)  Surprisingly, Freddy Krueger isn’t on screen all that much. Although his presence is very much felt, the emphasis is on the tormented teens and their bad dreams.

2)  The nightmare sequences, with their heavy dependence on set design and special effects, are dated. Sequels and other rip-off horror movies have left A Nightmare on Elm Street in the dust.

3)  The soundtrack is quite good.

4)  Johnny Depp’s debut performance: About what you might expect from a debut performance — not much. The future superstar is practically unrecognizable as one of the teens. And this movie confirms what I’ve always suspected: Depp’s later, odd accent seems to be an invention of his own choosing. There is no affected speech from Depp in this film; he is just an ordinary-sounding bloke.

5)  The indominable John Saxon: I’ll bet that when Saxon launched his Hollywood career, he had no clue that his eventual legacy would be starring in not one, but two groundbreaking horror movies (the other being 1974’s Black Christmas).

Overall, the movie does not hold up as well as contemporaries like Halloween or Alien. But as an example of typical 1980s white-kids-in-suburbia-terrorized-by-fill-in-the-blank, it’s nostalgic fun. It’s just not particularly scary.  Release: 1984  Grade: B

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Skin

It’s not easy assigning a grade to a documentary like Skin, which chronicles the history of nudity in Hollywood films, because it depends on what the viewer is seeking. So here is a tiered system, based on what I presume might be your expectations from this movie:

a) You are hoping to gain insight into the subject of nudity in mainstream movies, i.e., you want to learn something of value — Grade: C

Although scads of filmmakers, actors and Hollywood insiders are interviewed, their “insights” usually boil down to familiar banalities: “We only do nudity if the scene is integral to the plot,” or, “I was young and needed the money.”

b) You love juicy behind-the-scenes anecdotes about big stars taking it all off for the camera — Grade: B

There are numerous such stories, but your enjoyment will likely hinge on how familiar you are with the players.

c) You are an unabashed voyeur and want to see as many clips as possible of your favorite actors baring all — Grade: A

I’m guessing there are hundreds of such clips. You are guaranteed naked nostalgia featuring the scenes that got you hot and bothered all those years ago. This time in high definition.

Release: 2020

*

Virtual Reality

The threat of artificial intelligence is dominating the news, so it’s little wonder that moviemakers — especially scary-movie makers — are attracted to A.I. themes. In Virtual Reality, a combination of A.I. and V.R. plagues the cast and crew of a slasher flick when they begin to suffer the same bloody fate, in real life, that befalls their counterparts on a movie screen.

Not a bad premise for a horror film, but after an intriguing opening, Virtual Reality doesn’t go anywhere interesting. The Argentinean movie quickly devolves into a frenetic series of predictable fight scenes. Release: 2021  Grade: C

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

“It is a tale told by an idiot former music-video directors, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing nothing much.”

— Macbeth

Make the edits above to Macbeth’s speech, and I think that sums up Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The Academy Award for best picture of 2022 went to this loud and flashy extravaganza last night and … I guess “diversity” was the big winner. Overlong and, dare I say it, over-directed, this science-fiction-slash-dramedy about a Chinese immigrant family is handsomely produced, well-acted, and often clever. But is it a film I’d care to watch again? Probably not. Not unless they cut 30 minutes from the run-time.

As for the plot — another reviewer said it’s basically It’s a Wonderful Life set in the “multiverse,” and I won’t argue with that. We know from the get-go that this rather bland family will live happily ever after; it’s just a question of sitting through two and half hours of multiverse-hopping, body-swapping, and special effects as family members grapple with (oh my!) the meaning of life.

There is simply too much jammed into such a simple story. It’s a film for movie geeks to endlessly rewatch and congratulate themselves on spotting allusions, symbols and metaphors. And it’s a film for Oscar voters to reward, if only to prove that they “get it.”  Release: 2022 Grade: B

*

Dragged Across Concrete

A confession: I saw the title of this Mel Gibson movie, took note of its genre (“action”), and assumed it was late-career Gibson following the precedent of late-career Liam Neeson and Bruce Willis. In other words, I figured Concrete was bargain-basement junk produced to rake in quick bucks — thanks in large part to the lasting appeal of its star.

But what a pleasant surprise! The movie has action, to be sure, but mostly it’s a thoughtful meditation on life as a cop in the age of “defund the police.” Oh, and it’s also got a suspenseful bank heist.

My only quibble — surprise, surprise — is that this is yet another film that’s simply too damn long. But overall, the film is an absorbing drama. Release: 2018  Grade: B+

*

X

The original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a classic of horror because its tone was crazed camp. You didn’t know whether to recoil or laugh at the family of manic cannibals who terrorized a group of young people. If you were like me, you just gaped at the crazies in wide-eyed disbelief.

X, writer-director Ti West’s salute to Chain Saw, gets some of this stuff right. The setting, somewhere in the rural South, is suitably eerie. The slow-burn setup isn’t bad. But this is the age of art-house horror and, if you want your movie to eventually be called “classic,” it must have Serious Themes.

And so out the farmer’s window goes crazed camp and lunatic action, and in comes soulful meditations on the sadness of aging by two actors wearing lots of makeup and trying their darndest to look and sound very old. But they aren’t particularly scary. And neither is the movie. Release: 2022 Grade: B

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Arctic

Mads Mikkelsen stars as the unfortunate sole survivor of a plane crash in — you guessed it — the arctic. Will he have what it takes to get back to civilization? Does a polar bear shit in the snow?

The “Man vs. the Elements” storyline never goes out of fashion. Whether it’s Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, Tom Hanks (and “Wilson”) in Cast Away or, in this case, Mikkelsen in frigid Iceland, it’s a scenario that appeals to our survival-instinct roots.

In the movies, you just need a charismatic actor with an expressive face, and some realistic — preferably daunting — scenery. Arctic delivers on both.

If the film isn’t quite as moving as some of its Hollywood ancestors, it’s because Mads must go it alone (there is another character, but she’s barely conscious). He doesn’t have other actors with whom to share the drama, and the trauma. Not even a volleyball.  Release: 2019  Grade: B+

**

Top Gun: Maverick

I have hazy memories of watching Top Gun in the 1980s, whether in a theater or on VHS, I couldn’t say. I recall thinking it was entertaining, but not particularly original.

Flash forward to today and the long-delayed Top Gun sequel, which I watched last night and thought: It was entertaining, but not particularly original.

But that’s not completely honest. In today’s political climate, in which everything Hollywood produces seems either snark-filled or way too “woke,” old-fashioned Top Gun: Maverick feels paradoxically fresh.

One thing hasn’t changed over the decades — both movies are first-and-foremost Tom Cruise vehicles and, although his face is a bit saggier than it was in 1986, Cruise’s movie-star charisma hasn’t faded a bit. Release: 2022  Grade: B+

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Emily the Criminal

Aubrey Plaza starring as the tough-as-nails protagonist in a gritty crime drama? Sure, why not. Writer-director John Patton Ford’s low-budget debut feature is a minor masterpiece of tension, pacing, and unexpected turns. Will novice “dummy shopper” Aubrey learn that crime doesn’t pay, or will she live happily ever after?

Bonus: If you don’t know much about the intricacies of credit-card fraud, the burdens of student-loan debt, or the perils of workplace background checks, you will after watching this gem. Release: 2022 Grade: A-

**

White Noise

As far as I’m concerned, the biggest sin any movie can commit is to be boring. No worries on that count with director Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel.

White Noise is (take your pick) a satire on materialism, a family comedy, a drama about infidelity, or a disaster pic about an “airborne toxic event.” It’s all of those, and the mishmash is at times confusing. But Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, as (gasp!) intellectual Ohioans dealing with all the above, keep things interesting. Release: 2022 Grade: B+

**

The Motive

I really like the premise of this Spanish film: a talentless “little man” catches his successful-author wife cheating on him and then, partly as revenge but also because he believes that he, too, can publish a book, concocts a plan.

Acting on the advice of his writing-class instructor (“write what you know!”), he decides to manipulate the lives of his apartment neighbors so that he can draw on their pain for his novel. After all, since his own life is so drab and depressing, why not tap into theirs?

This great premise is undermined, unfortunately, by a twist-ending that is both underdeveloped and unconvincing. Release: 2017 Grade: B

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