"The Shining" Revisited

What is it about the Overlook Hotel that casts such an ominous cloud? How do the mysterious, inexplicable events surrounding a small and isolated family affect the terror they inflict on one another? These are just two of the broad questions hovering over a long mystery in “The Shining,” a movie of ageless dexterity that also remains one of the more fascinating case studies in academic film analysis. When it arrived in theaters over four decades ago, the conventional wisdom at the time had been swift and dismissive: the exacting hand of one Stanley Kubrick had lost sight of a cogent vision, supplementing the famous source material by Stephen King with so much surrealistic ambiguity and nonsense that he had released a labyrinthian mess instead of a probing psychological essay. But much like his own “A Clockwork Orange” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” time has offered a generous reassessment, and now the picture is usually seen hovering towards the top of most lists of the greatest horror movies ever made. When I first encountered it at the age of 15, my admiration for its technical skill and tone were undermined by an inability to decipher the clues. What was happening to the Torrance family? Were they being haunted by ghosts, pitted against one another by elaborate mind games? Would they have been seen if the young boy at the center of the action were not clairvoyant? Or were they simply imagined by people whose sanity had been compromised by isolation? Over 20 years and dozens of viewings later, I can finally speak with confidence on some of the great paradoxes the story weaves.

"Psycho" Revisited

Abnormal even among the more challenging horror films of today, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” abandons its central character arc for a much more unexpected second just as the plot begins to wade deeper waters. There is an observation made in the preceding scenes that suggest that possibility – namely, a moment when Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) realizes almost prematurely that she must return home and give up the money she stole from her employer – but our wildest notions of the conflict could scarcely predict the outcome of her abrupt escape down a rainy highway. Most of the familiar rules in horror were far from being accepted as part of the formula handbook, but a constant among the early prototypes was the use of one primary character as a source of study. Yet here she was, a mere 48 minutes into a film, showering at a rundown motel owned by an eccentric loner, and being snuck up on by a shadowy figure destined to stab her to death. If the shock of the incident remains startling for its perfect technical modulation – meticulous edits, a piercing soundtrack, out-of-focus details that obscured the numerous wounds – then its broader effect came entirely down to audacity. No other mainstream film up to that point committed itself to such nerve to shatter the comfortable borders of a story, and to this day it remains peerless among a growing arsenal of broadening genre standards.

"American Beauty" Revisited

Like the French Algerian Meursault and Holden Caufield after him, the character of Lester Burnham has soared above the peak of lively resentment and been canonized as one of the great antiheroes of modern pop culture. His presence in “American Beauty” plays to the ongoing call for the everyman’s rejection of procedure, which has been necessitated by the steady decline of the modern workforce in a culture that imprisons them in cubicles and conforms their thoughts to a script of faux courtesy. Traces of that distinction were first visible in the comedy “Office Space,” released in the same year, but this was the moment where the ideology found its most unflinching force: a man whose brutal honesty felt like a nudge towards obliterating the conventional wisdom. Consider how much of the film about him involves the silent bewilderment of supporting players, right down to a wife and daughter who can only look on, in stunned silence, while a pathetic shell of a man suddenly discovers his voice. Perhaps they are surprised to find he still has a spine. Perhaps they are mourning the inability to continue using him as a scapegoat. Or maybe it’s because they can no longer see beyond the ceiling of what he is gradually tearing down.

"The Black Cauldron" Revisited

“Legend has it, in the mystic land of Prydain, there was once a king so cruel and so evil, that even the gods feared him.” The opening narration inaugurates the curse shrouding the fabled black cauldron, an object of such immense danger that its very mention instills dread in the hearts of commoners. Although centuries came and went while it lay dormant, obscured by the spells of defensive witches, a new enthusiasm has gripped the totalitarian forces of the Horned King, who pursues it with persistent determination. In his possession, the cauldron would unleash the frightening power of necromancy, allowing its possessor to raise an unstoppable army of dead soldiers, essentially making him immortal. And all of creation would succumb to this destructive curse, including those whose personalities necessitate the enthusiasm of the audience: a teenage adventurer who dreams of heroism, a clumsy bard, a distraught princess, a furry and inquisitive beast, a snarky sprite and an oracular pig, who also provides the key to discovering the whereabouts of the coveted relic.

"Last House on the Left" Revisited

In some underhanded way a horror film has the capacity to contemplate one’s destructive tendencies just as it does to abuse and torment the souls of the innocent. More perceptive directors discover those possibilities not by holding out optimism in bleak scenarios, but usually by looking through the cracked mirror of passive acceptance. That is the sort of wisdom that informs many of the early Wes Craven pictures, several of which were made with a distinction that raises them above the more sensationalized Hollywood gorefests of later times (even his own). To most they possess the foresight to see a purpose beyond the astonishing violence, and to regard them is to understand that there are some terrible side-roads one must walk before the fates can restore light to an obscured path. But what is one to make of “Last House on the Left,” his nihilistic debut, which by all indications ought to have been one of those endeavors forever lost in the wastes of oblivion? Like a painful secret it persists achingly through the minds of those who discover it, often to a point of mystification; decidedly outside of conventional standards and made quickly and cheaply in a span of weeks, little was there to announce it as anything other than just another trenchant exercise in the murderous tendencies of the disturbed. And somehow that was far more than enough.

"The Exorcist" Revisited

“The movie is one of the greatest and most hypnotic ever made, a work of sheer genius from the first frame until the last.” – taken from the original Cinemaphile review of “The Exorcist”

So well-known and influential are the underlying devices of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” that few among modern filmgoers now remember the power of their source. Perhaps the most notorious of all horror films, it was the product of a time still concealed in the facade of restraint when it came to visiting the devious corners of a filmmaker’s mind. Shock was always possible – as had been most apparent by Hitchock’s “Psycho,” or Wes Craven’s “Last House on the Left” – but rarely did it stick so persistently in the mind, invariably undermining one’s sense of individual control. We could rationalize how to get away from a crazy killer or how to avoid a menacing threat lurking around the corner, but how did one evade being possessed by a demonic entity? What sense of recovery would have been palpable? Some argue that implication can singlehandedly be credited with changing the trajectory of the entirety of the genre, which by that point had been dominated by homicidal minds or ambitious monsters in lurid fantasy. Here was a movie about real people, real situations and real considerations of faith, in which an innocent teenage girl became the unknowing victim of spiritual violence that stretched beyond existing moral implications. Few among those early viewers can say they walked away from the picture unchanged by the experience, and those that claim otherwise may not be the sorts you prefer to keep company with.

"Princess Mononoke" Revisited

“Princess Mononoke” begins with a voice that throbs over the chords of an ominous score, heralding the arrival of a menacing reality. The scene is the edge of a lush forest, fogged over, and its docile facade is jarred from silence by the breaking of branches and the flight of frightened birds. What lurks among the tall trees is not man but rather the monster man has created, a former deity of nature that has withered under corruption and now seeks to lay waste to those in his path. The peaceful denizens of a nearby village are triggered into frenzy by its dismaying appearance – a massive boar covered in an armor of maggot-like parasites – but among them is a young man whose face never seems to engage in the nightmarish rampage. It is his destiny to fight the creature and ultimately be cursed by it, leading him towards quests of intricate mystery that will blur the lines of fable and reality in ways that are rarely told (or at least done so with such precision). Those opening impulses exist above the sphere of ordinary exposition; the fact that they occur at all in an animated film is cause to contemplate the elasticity of movie genres, especially in a time when most are geared towards much simpler tastes.

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" Revisited

“A reminder, and an example, of how today's filmmakers have forgotten about the overwhelming influence seductive imagery can have on an involving story.” – taken from the original Cinemaphile review of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”

Movie horror began not in the minds of Hitchcock or Castle but in the menacing gazes of early German cinema. Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” usually accepted as the first prominent excursion of this distinction, was filmed and released in 1919 against the trajectory of its time, when those elusive few who actually saw films ought to have been far more enamored by the unsullied awe of moving images. What could have driven a single mind behind the camera to abandon the trajectory of his peers and dive headlong into a world so cynical and haunting, especially after many of his early films – now thought lost – contradicted that impulse? Having just been subjugated by more dominant European powers after the First World War, it was the country in which artists freely abandoned the beckoning of idealism and plunged head-first into the dark corners of the human psyche, effectively creating the tormented soul of German Expressionism. And while conventional wisdom suggests that such a compulsion inspired an uprising of dangerous political minds, it can also be credited with writing the language of the most celebrated of all modern film genres, a categorization of pictures made famous by the prospect of instigating fear the hearts of the audience.

54: The Director's Cut / *** (2015)

A modest act of vision can instigate hard-fought wars within the film industry, and such battles are seldom resolved in the favor of directors. One of the more legendary discussion points in that scenario is Mark Christopher, whose “54” – a long-forgotten relic from the summer of 1998 – arrived on screen in a flurry of hype, and then left with scarcely a notice beyond faded party-goers. It had been pushed by the Miramax promotion machine as the definitive expose on the controversial legend of Studio 54, but what wound up showing in theaters was actually a watered down rendition of Christopher’s original picture, which had been butchered significantly and then refilled with a variety of reshot footage (reportedly, up to 30 minutes of alternate scenes). The reason? According to the film’s distraught creator, the studio wanted less drug use and homoeroticism than what they were given, and demanded more visual excess (not to mention a much more conclusive ending). Only years later did the tribulations of it all come to our full awareness, further perplexing the matter: if the released product was such a financial and critical failure, what was the harm in releasing the original version in some other format after the fact?

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" Revisited

“Here is a film that compares to some of the greats of the genre: a film that can be no closer to reality; a film that matches us against our true fears. No, there has never been a movie like it, and there never will be.” – taken from the original Cinemaphile review of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”

The transcending nature of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is not in how it establishes a unique premise or even an important villain, but in how its actors buy into the material with such vivid implications. When Wes Craven first made his daring and graphic foray into the nightmarish visions of weary teenagers, how was he to know that it would provide more than just a momentary thrill for audiences of that generation? What were the odds that it would be cited so many decades later as a critical benchmark in the evolution of mainstream horror films? Could he have predicted that Freddie Krueger, such a vicious and unrelenting S.O.B., would also persist in the memory bank of notable movie villains? It is because his cast of relative unknowns believed in what they were submitting to with such unwavering conviction that the tragedy of their existence throbs on so effectively in our modern awareness, often informing the movies that continue to emerge from its shadows. Absorbing it now, thirty years from the first moment it shattered the dead teenager genre’s proverbial glass ceiling, is like reliving a primitive (but powerful) attempt at understanding a dangerous world of evil. It forces us to inherit these nightmares as if extensions of our own.

"Elizabeth" Revisited

“It is a masterful exploration of the rich and fascinating world of Elizabethan England; the story of the Virgin Queen, the court’s rude luxury, and the atmospheric tones of life behind the castle walls scramble off the screen like deep hidden secrets of the past just waiting to be revealed.” – taken from the original Cinemaphile review of “Elizabeth”

In a key moment of dreamy perfection, a scarred monarch stares back at her reflection in the mirror and announces, unequivocally, that she has “become a virgin.” What is she suggesting? To understand the implication, one must comprehend the veracity of her journey up to that one moment. In 16th century England, political unrest has paved the way for violent religious persecution, and a Catholic rule is threatened when its current queen, Mary Tudor, becomes terminally ill before producing an heir. All thoughts of the crown falling to her sister Elizabeth, a Protestant, inspire proclamations of damnation, and her almost childlike naivety serves to create an emotional current that amplifies the exploits of her devout enemies. But scrawled across this face of intense consideration is the soul of a woman bound to unwavering endurance, and as her command over the country is tested by quiet betrayals occurring all around her, she comes to see this moment – this one revelation – as the only means of rising above a difficult world of violence and suffering. That she has to discover the necessity of this impulse out of terrible heartbreak (and murderous plots) is as sobering as it is tragic.

"The Matrix" Revisited

“Here, I was not reviewing a film, but being sent on a fabulous journey into the depths of imagination. It's a journey that no one should take less than once.” – taken from the original Cinemaphile review of “The Matrix”

His face is ordinary and stony-eyed, yet muted utterances divulge a feeling of displacement. His life churns along in generic passages, all while an air of ambiguity casts a faint shadow over his presence. Nameless peers glide through his peripheral vision seemingly content with their fortune, but their faces mask similar underlying agitation. No one can clearly describe this sensation that overwhelms them, but there it is all the same, eating away at one’s peace of mind like a psychological parasite. And at the foundation of this reality lies a conflict of even deeper significance, one that alters the course of an uncertain future in one sweep of reveal. Within an elaborate illusion created by an artificial intelligence designed to restrain the free will of human existence, what will become of lives when there is a painful awareness that everyone lacks individual control? When they arrive at the forefront of that knowledge, is it the job of one to free us from bondage, or is it a shared destiny? What sacrifices would we make to be liberated from devices built to silence our nature? And how would machines, programmed without empathy or insight, respond when part of their system falls out of step with a systematic procedure?

"Stage Beauty" revisited; an underrated masterpiece

What follows is part of my original review of "Stage Beauty" from 2006, but with a completely different introduction and altered first half. The original article had been reworked into an essay for purpose of publication in a book for the Online Film Critics Society, which never materialized. This "newer" version of the original analysis is from 2008, and closes the gap on unpublished material from those writing sessions. My opinion of the film has not changed in seven years, and because of such, I am justified in continuing to classify this as a "revisited" piece rather than a full-fledged review. Not all of it is new, but enough has changed to make it distinct from the original assessment.

Original completion date: November 15, 2008

Cult Classics That Never Were: "Titan A.E."

The following article was written in 2008, one of several reflection pieces meant to be published in a book that was being shopped around to publishers for the Online Film Critics Society. The book never materialized, but some of the submissions that various critics made were no doubt well-written essays that were also impeccable in the aesthetic known only to the most talented of online writers. I’m sure that some of the work of my colleagues from the project has since made it online, and because I’m never one to advise wasting a written word, the time has come to publish my own.

Despite the fact that I wrote a review for “Titan A.E.” during it’s original theatrical run, I felt it was appropriate to revisit the movie and it’s ongoing reputation as an underrated gem. (Not so ironically, this piece was written for a chapter called “Cult Classics That Never Were,” which I now use as the header here to create the distinction of it not being a typical film review).