Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema continued the month-long Halloween theme with a look at techno-horror movies. We tend to expect that technology will inherently improve our lives and bring about a better world. Of course, things don't always work out that way. Technology is only as good as the people using it and technological breakthroughs have the ability to reshape our lives for the worse. Here is a recap of the movies discussed on the show as well as some additional titles.
Altered States (1980)
Dir. Ken Russell
Directed by Ken Russell and written by Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States was an ambitious reworking of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this film a scientist conducts experiments that plumb the depths of the unconscious mind and awaken primal instincts. As the experiments continue, the scientist regresses to a state of primitive man. Altered States is a mix of thoughtful science fiction and monster movie shlock that is very effective. Its premise could very easily have become silly but the performances are credible and the tone is managed well enough to keep the movie from flying off the rails.
Creature (1998)
Dir. Stuart Gillard
Novelist Peter Benchley recycled the formula he had pioneered so successful in Jaws in two other books: Beast and White Shark. The latter was about a genetically engineered shark-man that terrorizes a seaside community. White Shark was adapted into a television miniseries first broadcast on ABC in 1998. The story was significantly reworked for the miniseries and it was retitled Creature.
Deadly Friend (1986)
Dir. Wes Craven
Wes Craven had an up and down career, with horror classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes offset by a few really terrible movies. But even Craven’s blunders were interesting, especially 1986’s Deadly Friend. A teenage boy loses his girlfriend in an accident and brings her back to life with robotic implants that turn her into a monster. Allegedly, Deadly Friend was written and shot to be a PG-rated thriller but Warner Bros. executives demanded changes in post-production that turned the movie into an R-rated horror picture.
Demon Seed (1977)
Dir. Donald Cammell
Demon Seed is based on the novel by Dean Koontz. Scientists create a supercomputer that has achieved consciousness and the computer infiltrates the home of the lead scientist and turns the automated conveniences of the house against the wife, played by Julie Christie. The wife is then held hostage in her own home. This isn’t a great movie but it is daring and ahead of its time. In the age of Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, the core idea of Demon Seed doesn’t seem that farfetched and the movie visualizes the way our electronics and consumer goods control our lives.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
Dir. Kenneth Branagh
One of the most frequently adapted horror stories is Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, which has been in print since its publication in 1831. Frankenstein is the story of a scientist who stiches together a man out of body parts harvested from corpses and is then haunted by his creation. Most versions of Frankenstein have only passing resemblance to Shelley’s novel but Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation was very close to the source material and it is one of the better adaptations of the book.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau was the story of a scientist who attempts to create new breeds of humanoid creatures through vivisection. The novel is a commentary on the bestial nature of humanity and the fragility of civilization and it is one of Wells’ most popular works. The Island of Dr. Moreau has been adapted to the screen several times. The best regarded version was 1932’s The Island of Lost Souls, starring Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, and Bela Lugosi. Also notable was the 1996 version starring Marlon Brando, David Thewlis, and Val Kilmer. The production was disastrous and so was the film and the making of it was recently recounted in the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Dir. Steven Spielberg
Michael Crichton made a career out of spinning tales of technology gone awry. Both a novelist and a filmmaker, Crichton wrote and directed 1973’s Westworld, about an Old West theme park that goes haywire. (Westworld has since been adapted into a television series on HBO.) Crichton repurposed the central idea of Westworld for his most successful project: Jurassic Park. In this story, dinosaurs are brought back to life through genetic engineering and, as in Westworld, the park’s automation eventually fails and puts everyone in peril. Steven Spielberg turned Jurassic Park into a 1993 movie and it became one of the highest grossing films of all time. It also broke new ground in special effects and Jurassic Park was one of the major advances in filmmaking’s transition to the digital age.
The Lawnmower Man (1992)
Dir. Brett Leonard
One of the earliest experiments with digital filmmaking was 1992’s The Lawnmower Man. The movie concerns a scientist whose virtual reality experiments turn a simpleminded groundskeeper into a genius. As his abilities grow, the titular character gradually becomes unstable and achieves god-like powers in cyberspace. The Lawnmower Man is very much a product of the early 1990s but few films have used digital technology as creatively or as boldly as it is employed here.
Re-Animator (1985)
Dir. Stuart Gordon
Based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator is a horror comedy in which a medical student concocts a serum that restores life to dead tissue. The movie is gruesome but also very funny. Jeffrey Combs turns in a terrific performance as Herbert West and the movie is a camp classic that is really entertaining.
Soylent Green (1973)
Dir. Richard Fleischer
In the 1960s and 70s, actor Charlton Heston starred in a number of movies about dystopian futures. In titles like Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man, Heston was cast as humanity’s last hope. Among Heston’s output in this period was 1973’s Soylent Green. In this film, Earth has been ravaged by overpopulation and industrialization and humanity subsists on a foodstuff that is manufactured by a powerful corporation. The movie has become a minor sci-fi classic, in large part because of its ending.
The Terminator (1984)
Dir. James Cameron
The original Terminator is as much a horror film as it is a science fiction and action picture. At its core, The Terminator is a slasher movie; an unstoppable killer hunts down a series of women until a sole survivor remains. Filmmaker James Cameron decorated that core idea with science fiction concepts and action movie set pieces and constructed a story about technology turning on the human race. The killer cyborg, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, became one of the most iconic characters in American film.
Unfriended (2015)
Dir. Leo Gabriadze
Wifi and social media technology have been the basis for a number of horror films of recent years such as One Missed Call, Friend Request, and Pulse. The problem with a lot of these movies is that they are geared toward the youth market but dramatize the fears of older audiences who don’t get what kids are doing with their new technology. One of the better examples of these social media-horror films was 2015’s Unfriended. The film consists of the screen activity of a group of teenage friends following the death of classmate and Unfriended successfully plays on the particulars of digital media and contemporary concerns about cyberbullying.
Videodrome (1983)
Dir. David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg’s movies obsess upon the relationship between individuals and society and the ways in which the most personal parts of our selves are molded by technology and ideology. In this picture, a television program director seeks out the edgiest material and finds it in an underground broadcast. Videodrome was a reaction to the advent of home video and cable television and it explores the way the medium could become a mechanism for remolding reality. One of Cronenberg’s most successful movies, Videodrome combines the visceral pleasures of a horror movie with the intellectual and artistic ambition of an art film.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Sunday, October 8, 2017
A Look at Feminist Horror Films
Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema continued the month-long Halloween theme with a look at feminist horror movies. The horror genre has a reputation for being sexist and there certainly are titles which fit that bill. However, horror is one of the few genres that regularly features female leads and gender parity in its casting. These pictures also comment upon patriarchy, misogyny, and gender politics that other films take for granted.
The Seventh Victim (1943)
Dir Mark Robson
In the 1940s homosexuality was forbidden under the Production Code and sexuality and the occult were treaded upon very lightly. The Seventh Victim was, in its day, quite radical. According to Thomas Hobbs, the movie's "female characters control their own destinies, share intimate sexual relationships with one another, and aren't afraid to answer back to men."
She (1965)
Dir. Robert Day
Writer H. Rider Haggard’s book She: A History of Adventure has been adapted into a feature film at least seven times. She is the story of British adventurers who discover a lost city in Africa presided over by Queen Ayesha. The movie was adapted into a 1965 film by Hammer with Ursula Andress in the title role. Its success led Hammer to produce a series of films with female leads including Countess Dracula, Twins of Evil, The Vampire Lovers, and One Million Years B.C. It also appears that this movie had some influence on Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Carrie (1976)
Dir. Brian De Palma
When a movie is described as “feminist” it is often taken to mean stories about strong and assertive female characters. That’s certainly one formulation but it’s far too limiting to encompass all feminist stories. The title character of Stephen King’s Carrie is not an assertive character; she’s meek and docile but the film renders her with depth and compassion. In fact, nearly all of the major characters of this film are women, including the teenage bullies, the would-be heroic gym teacher, and Carrie’s psychotic mother, and the film offers a range of views of womanhood.
Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
Dir. Steve Miner
The slasher movies of the 1980s were frequently attacked by critics and women’s groups for, among other things, exploiting women in danger. According to the popular criticism, these movies specifically focused on the bloody deaths of women and punished female characters who had sex. While there were some films that did this, most slasher movies actually featured equal numbers of male and female victims and the link between sin and punishment was overstated by critics. Among the best examples of this was Friday the 13th Part II. Ginny, played by Amy Steel, was a smart and resourceful heroine who not only stood up to masked killer Jason Voorhees but also to the male camp staff. Ginny was also smart and educated and in the climax of the movie she uses her knowledge of child psychology to defeat Jason.
Ms. 45 (1981)
Dir. Abel Ferrara
Ms. 45 is a rape revenge movie about a mute woman who is sexually assaulted--twice in one day--and then stalks the streets of New York City, killing men Death Wish-style. Unlike some of the other vigilante films of the 1970s and 80s, Ms. 45 is uncertain about the morality of killing and this woman gradually loses her grip on sanity. At the time it was released, Ms. 45 was criticized for exploiting sexual assault but in the years since the movie has been reevaluated and it is now considered an important feminist work.
Aliens (1986)
Dir. James Cameron
One of the great characters in both science fiction and horror is Ellen Ripley from the Alien series, played by Sigourney Weaver. Ripley was a terrific heroine partly because she was tough and rose to the occasion but also because she retained vulnerable human qualities. It’s not a coincidence that the best film in the series also featured Ripley at her most compelling and most feminist. 1986’s Aliens presented the character as a survivor coping with post-traumatic stress and put Ripley on a trajectory of facing her fears and saving the day.
The Stepfather (1987)
Dir. Joseph Rubin
The Stepfather is one of the best and most subversive horror pictures of the 1980s. The title character of this film (played terrifically by Terry O'Quinn) is a twisted version of the suburban dad; he’s a man who bought into the idealized version of the nuclear family—and the ideology associated with it—and then is driven to murder when his expectations aren’t met. The violent disillusionment of the title character feels remarkably contemporary, much more so than the 2009 remake.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Dir. Jonathan Demme
1991’s The Silence of the Lambs remains one of the most popular horror stories and the movie is mostly associated with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins. However, The Silence of the Lambs is really about FBI trainee Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster. Every scene unfolds from her point of view and filmmaker Jonathan Demme is always conscientious of Clarice’s place in a man’s world.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui
Before it was a hit TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a 1992 movie starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, and Paul Reubens. It was the first feature film project of Joss Whedon, who is credited as the writer. The film wasn’t very successful and probably would have been forgotten if not for the television series that ran from 1997 – 2003, guided by Whedon and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon has become one of the biggest names in Hollywood as well as a champion of placing women in lead roles.
The Craft (1996)
Dir. Andrew Fleming
Fantasy movies have a way of literalizing abstract ideas or making mundane everyday experiences new and exciting. 1996’s The Craft was a mix of fantasy and horror in which a group of high school girls dabble in magic. This is at heart a high school clique movie like Mean Girls but it smartly uses the fantasy to visualize young women coming of age and the power of adolescent angst. As the women realize their power they have to learn to take responsibility for it and one especially troubled member of the group is led into dark magic, which literalizes the rage and destructiveness that is inherent to adolescence.
American Psycho (2000)
Dir. Mary Harron
Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho was one of the most controversial books of the 1990s. The novel, which focuses on the life of a psychotic Wall Street executive, featured lurid passages of violence, particularly against women, and American Psycho was a target of protest. However, Ellis intended the book as a feminist piece; it was a send up of the emptiness, materialism, and chauvinism of upper class society pushed to satirical extremes. American Psycho was adapted into a motion picture directed by Mary Harron and co-written by Guinevere Turner with Christian Bale cast in the lead role. In their hands, the violence was slightly toned down while the sardonic tone was turned up and the film version of American Psycho made plain the book’s satirical intentions. Looked at now, it is a striking (and often funny) indictment of what’s popularly called “toxic masculinity.”
Monster (2003)
Dir. Patty Jenkins
Monster was the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who murdered several men. Wuornos lived a horrific life of homelessness and abuse and writer/director Patty Jenkins approached the story with an appropriate level of compassion. Wuornos is played by Charlize Theron in what remains the most extraordinary performance of Theron’s career and she is paired with an equally impressive Christina Ricci as Wuornos’ girlfriend.
The Descent (2005)
Dir Neil Marshall
Neil Marshall’s 2005 movie The Descent follows a group of women on a spelunking adventure. While exploring a series of caves they become trapped and then are preyed upon by subterranean monsters. The creature-feature aspects of The Descent are good and scary but the most intense moments of this movie are the claustrophobic cave set pieces. The Descent also has some impressive character work and the filmmakers do an impressive job characterizing these women and suggesting some depth in their relationships.
Death Proof (2007)
Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino’s half of the 2007 double feature Grindhouse was a play on slasher films with knives swapped out in favor of muscle cars. A group of women are stalked by a deranged stuntman who deliberately crashes his cars for a sexual thrill. The movie plays on the sex and gender politics of slasher film as well as some of the facets of the rape-revenge genre. This was Tarantino’s first step in using movies to comment upon the politics of different film genres, which he would progressively do better in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
Hostel: Part II (2007)
Dir. Eli Roth
Eli Roth’s follow up to his hit 2005 splatter movie was the rare sequel that surpassed the original. The Hostel series is about an organized crime syndicate that abducts tourists and sells them to bidders who pay large sums of money to torture and kill the victims. Hostel: Part II's considerable gore belied the fact that this was a smart movie which drew connections between the gender politics of horror movies and the real life sources (and economic incentives) of misogynistic violence.
The Seventh Victim (1943)
Dir Mark Robson
In the 1940s homosexuality was forbidden under the Production Code and sexuality and the occult were treaded upon very lightly. The Seventh Victim was, in its day, quite radical. According to Thomas Hobbs, the movie's "female characters control their own destinies, share intimate sexual relationships with one another, and aren't afraid to answer back to men."
She (1965)
Dir. Robert Day
Writer H. Rider Haggard’s book She: A History of Adventure has been adapted into a feature film at least seven times. She is the story of British adventurers who discover a lost city in Africa presided over by Queen Ayesha. The movie was adapted into a 1965 film by Hammer with Ursula Andress in the title role. Its success led Hammer to produce a series of films with female leads including Countess Dracula, Twins of Evil, The Vampire Lovers, and One Million Years B.C. It also appears that this movie had some influence on Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Carrie (1976)
Dir. Brian De Palma
When a movie is described as “feminist” it is often taken to mean stories about strong and assertive female characters. That’s certainly one formulation but it’s far too limiting to encompass all feminist stories. The title character of Stephen King’s Carrie is not an assertive character; she’s meek and docile but the film renders her with depth and compassion. In fact, nearly all of the major characters of this film are women, including the teenage bullies, the would-be heroic gym teacher, and Carrie’s psychotic mother, and the film offers a range of views of womanhood.
Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
Dir. Steve Miner
The slasher movies of the 1980s were frequently attacked by critics and women’s groups for, among other things, exploiting women in danger. According to the popular criticism, these movies specifically focused on the bloody deaths of women and punished female characters who had sex. While there were some films that did this, most slasher movies actually featured equal numbers of male and female victims and the link between sin and punishment was overstated by critics. Among the best examples of this was Friday the 13th Part II. Ginny, played by Amy Steel, was a smart and resourceful heroine who not only stood up to masked killer Jason Voorhees but also to the male camp staff. Ginny was also smart and educated and in the climax of the movie she uses her knowledge of child psychology to defeat Jason.
Ms. 45 (1981)
Dir. Abel Ferrara
Ms. 45 is a rape revenge movie about a mute woman who is sexually assaulted--twice in one day--and then stalks the streets of New York City, killing men Death Wish-style. Unlike some of the other vigilante films of the 1970s and 80s, Ms. 45 is uncertain about the morality of killing and this woman gradually loses her grip on sanity. At the time it was released, Ms. 45 was criticized for exploiting sexual assault but in the years since the movie has been reevaluated and it is now considered an important feminist work.
Aliens (1986)
Dir. James Cameron
One of the great characters in both science fiction and horror is Ellen Ripley from the Alien series, played by Sigourney Weaver. Ripley was a terrific heroine partly because she was tough and rose to the occasion but also because she retained vulnerable human qualities. It’s not a coincidence that the best film in the series also featured Ripley at her most compelling and most feminist. 1986’s Aliens presented the character as a survivor coping with post-traumatic stress and put Ripley on a trajectory of facing her fears and saving the day.
The Stepfather (1987)
Dir. Joseph Rubin
The Stepfather is one of the best and most subversive horror pictures of the 1980s. The title character of this film (played terrifically by Terry O'Quinn) is a twisted version of the suburban dad; he’s a man who bought into the idealized version of the nuclear family—and the ideology associated with it—and then is driven to murder when his expectations aren’t met. The violent disillusionment of the title character feels remarkably contemporary, much more so than the 2009 remake.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Dir. Jonathan Demme
1991’s The Silence of the Lambs remains one of the most popular horror stories and the movie is mostly associated with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins. However, The Silence of the Lambs is really about FBI trainee Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster. Every scene unfolds from her point of view and filmmaker Jonathan Demme is always conscientious of Clarice’s place in a man’s world.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui
Before it was a hit TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a 1992 movie starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, and Paul Reubens. It was the first feature film project of Joss Whedon, who is credited as the writer. The film wasn’t very successful and probably would have been forgotten if not for the television series that ran from 1997 – 2003, guided by Whedon and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon has become one of the biggest names in Hollywood as well as a champion of placing women in lead roles.
The Craft (1996)
Dir. Andrew Fleming
Fantasy movies have a way of literalizing abstract ideas or making mundane everyday experiences new and exciting. 1996’s The Craft was a mix of fantasy and horror in which a group of high school girls dabble in magic. This is at heart a high school clique movie like Mean Girls but it smartly uses the fantasy to visualize young women coming of age and the power of adolescent angst. As the women realize their power they have to learn to take responsibility for it and one especially troubled member of the group is led into dark magic, which literalizes the rage and destructiveness that is inherent to adolescence.
American Psycho (2000)
Dir. Mary Harron
Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho was one of the most controversial books of the 1990s. The novel, which focuses on the life of a psychotic Wall Street executive, featured lurid passages of violence, particularly against women, and American Psycho was a target of protest. However, Ellis intended the book as a feminist piece; it was a send up of the emptiness, materialism, and chauvinism of upper class society pushed to satirical extremes. American Psycho was adapted into a motion picture directed by Mary Harron and co-written by Guinevere Turner with Christian Bale cast in the lead role. In their hands, the violence was slightly toned down while the sardonic tone was turned up and the film version of American Psycho made plain the book’s satirical intentions. Looked at now, it is a striking (and often funny) indictment of what’s popularly called “toxic masculinity.”
Monster (2003)
Dir. Patty Jenkins
Monster was the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who murdered several men. Wuornos lived a horrific life of homelessness and abuse and writer/director Patty Jenkins approached the story with an appropriate level of compassion. Wuornos is played by Charlize Theron in what remains the most extraordinary performance of Theron’s career and she is paired with an equally impressive Christina Ricci as Wuornos’ girlfriend.
The Descent (2005)
Dir Neil Marshall
Neil Marshall’s 2005 movie The Descent follows a group of women on a spelunking adventure. While exploring a series of caves they become trapped and then are preyed upon by subterranean monsters. The creature-feature aspects of The Descent are good and scary but the most intense moments of this movie are the claustrophobic cave set pieces. The Descent also has some impressive character work and the filmmakers do an impressive job characterizing these women and suggesting some depth in their relationships.
Death Proof (2007)
Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino’s half of the 2007 double feature Grindhouse was a play on slasher films with knives swapped out in favor of muscle cars. A group of women are stalked by a deranged stuntman who deliberately crashes his cars for a sexual thrill. The movie plays on the sex and gender politics of slasher film as well as some of the facets of the rape-revenge genre. This was Tarantino’s first step in using movies to comment upon the politics of different film genres, which he would progressively do better in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
Hostel: Part II (2007)
Dir. Eli Roth
Eli Roth’s follow up to his hit 2005 splatter movie was the rare sequel that surpassed the original. The Hostel series is about an organized crime syndicate that abducts tourists and sells them to bidders who pay large sums of money to torture and kill the victims. Hostel: Part II's considerable gore belied the fact that this was a smart movie which drew connections between the gender politics of horror movies and the real life sources (and economic incentives) of misogynistic violence.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Suspiria and Eraserhead Retrospective
Today's episode of Sounds of Cinema featured a look back at Dario Argento's Suspiria and David Lynch's Eraserhead. The program featured a couple of interviews and you can listen to the full discussions in the embedded files below.
Interview with Donald May Jr.
Donald May Jr. is the President of Synapse Films, a DVD and Blu-Ray label that restores and releases sci-fi, horror, cult, and erotic films. Synapse Films will release a restored version of Suspiria later this year and in this interview May discusses the legacy and technical qualities of Suspiria, the process of preparing the film for release, and the status of the home video market. You can find out more about Synapse Films online at synapse-films.com.
Interview with Kenneth George Godwin
Kenneth George Godwin is the author of the e-books The David Lynch Files. In this interview Godwin discusses Eraserhead and David Lynch's career. More about Godwin and his work can be found online at cageyfilms.com.
You can find other Sounds of Cinema interviews here.
Interview with Donald May Jr.
Donald May Jr. is the President of Synapse Films, a DVD and Blu-Ray label that restores and releases sci-fi, horror, cult, and erotic films. Synapse Films will release a restored version of Suspiria later this year and in this interview May discusses the legacy and technical qualities of Suspiria, the process of preparing the film for release, and the status of the home video market. You can find out more about Synapse Films online at synapse-films.com.
Interview with Kenneth George Godwin
Kenneth George Godwin is the author of the e-books The David Lynch Files. In this interview Godwin discusses Eraserhead and David Lynch's career. More about Godwin and his work can be found online at cageyfilms.com.
You can find other Sounds of Cinema interviews here.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Sounds of Cinema October Programming 2017
October is just about here and that means it’s time for a month of
Halloween-related programming on Sounds of Cinema. Each episode this
month will take a look at a particular theme or set of films and
feature music to match. Here is a preview of what’s to come:
October 1: Suspiria and Eraserhead Retrospective
This episode will take a look back at two pictures from 1977 on their fortieth anniversary: Dario Argento's Suspiria and David Lynch's Eraserhead. The show will include interviews with Donald May Jr., President of Synapse Films, and Kenneth George Godwin, author of The David Lynch Files.
October 8: Feminist Horror
The horror genre has a bad rap for its portrayal of women. Sometimes that's deserved but horror is one of the few genres that regularly features gender parity in its casting and features heroic female leads. This episode will consider a few examples of horror films with feminist bona fides.
October 15: Techno-Horror
Technology is supposed to make life better but it sometimes it goes very wrong. From Frankenstein to Demon Seed to Jurassic Park, horror films have explored our anxieties about technology.
October 22: George A. Romero & Tobe Hooper Retrospective
In the past year we lost two of the great horror directors: George A. Romero and Tobe Hooper. Romero was best known as the architect of the zombie genre but he was was a much more diverse filmmaker than that. Hooper created some of the most memorable horror films of the 1970s and 80s including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem's Lot, and Poltergeist.
October 29: Reboots and Remakes/Pledge Drive
On October 29th, KMSU and KQAL will air different programs.
89.5 KQAL FM: For better or worse, reboots and remakes are a cornerstone of Hollywood's release slate and the horror genre paved the way with Dawn of the Dead and Halloween. This episode will look at the horror remakes that equaled or eclipsed their predecessors.
89.7 KMSU FM: The station will be in the midst of its fall pledge drive. Sounds of Cinema will feature the pledge drive program.
October 30/31: Halloween Special
Airing on Monday, October 30th at 11pm on 89.5 KQAL FM and then again on Tuesday, October 31 at 10pm on 89.7 KMSU FM, the Sounds of Cinema Halloween Special will provide the soundtrack for your All Hallows Eve with an hour-long mix of Halloween-related film music.
Sounds of Cinema can be heard every Sunday morning on the following stations:
October 1: Suspiria and Eraserhead Retrospective
This episode will take a look back at two pictures from 1977 on their fortieth anniversary: Dario Argento's Suspiria and David Lynch's Eraserhead. The show will include interviews with Donald May Jr., President of Synapse Films, and Kenneth George Godwin, author of The David Lynch Files.
October 8: Feminist Horror
The horror genre has a bad rap for its portrayal of women. Sometimes that's deserved but horror is one of the few genres that regularly features gender parity in its casting and features heroic female leads. This episode will consider a few examples of horror films with feminist bona fides.
October 15: Techno-Horror
Technology is supposed to make life better but it sometimes it goes very wrong. From Frankenstein to Demon Seed to Jurassic Park, horror films have explored our anxieties about technology.
October 22: George A. Romero & Tobe Hooper Retrospective
In the past year we lost two of the great horror directors: George A. Romero and Tobe Hooper. Romero was best known as the architect of the zombie genre but he was was a much more diverse filmmaker than that. Hooper created some of the most memorable horror films of the 1970s and 80s including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem's Lot, and Poltergeist.
October 29: Reboots and Remakes/Pledge Drive
On October 29th, KMSU and KQAL will air different programs.
89.5 KQAL FM: For better or worse, reboots and remakes are a cornerstone of Hollywood's release slate and the horror genre paved the way with Dawn of the Dead and Halloween. This episode will look at the horror remakes that equaled or eclipsed their predecessors.
89.7 KMSU FM: The station will be in the midst of its fall pledge drive. Sounds of Cinema will feature the pledge drive program.
October 30/31: Halloween Special
Airing on Monday, October 30th at 11pm on 89.5 KQAL FM and then again on Tuesday, October 31 at 10pm on 89.7 KMSU FM, the Sounds of Cinema Halloween Special will provide the soundtrack for your All Hallows Eve with an hour-long mix of Halloween-related film music.
Sounds of Cinema can be heard every Sunday morning on the following stations:
Thursday, September 28, 2017
What to Make of 'Mother!'
Before it leaves theaters, I want to weigh in on Darren Aronofsky’s film Mother! I’m not so interested in explaining or exploring the film’s allegory and what it means. There is plenty in the movie that is provocative and fascinating (you can find my review of the film here) but for the moment the actual content of Mother! takes a backseat to the implications of its disastrous theatrical release. This film clarified where American cinema and its audience are at this moment and the results aren’t good.
First, we have to acknowledge that Mother!’s release was a failure. As of this writing, the movie has made just over $14 million domestically. That’s not even enough to cover its modest production budget of $30 million. The movie did fairly well at Rotten Tomatoes (68% fresh) but CinemaScore, which polls opening night audience reactions, gave the movie an F.
Why did a generally well-reviewed movie from one of today’s most interesting directors land so badly? I would argue that a film’s theatrical success is not really determined by reviews or by the quality of the movie. Instead, the box office is really a referendum on the marketing campaign. Paramount sold Mother! as a horror picture. It has horrific elements but this was not a movie for the audience that showed up for It and Annabelle: Creation and they probably felt tricked. The wrong crowd was drawn to the theater and they hated it.
Another problem was the release strategy. Many commentators have praised Paramount for opening the movie wide like a blockbuster title. (Mother! played in over 2000 theaters in its first weekend.) While I am happy to see a major Hollywood studio put out such an interesting and daring movie, the wide release was a mistake. Wide releases are fine for mainstream movies or franchise films that have a proven brand name. Mother! was anything but that.
Because of the closing gap between theatrical and home video release dates (and the ever present threat of piracy) there is increasing pressure to get the movie out to the public as quickly as possible. As it is, most releases make about a third of their theatrical gross in the first weekend and make the majority of the total theatrical gross in the first few weeks. Titles are typically gone from cinemas soon after that.
This “open wide” strategy (or “hit-and-run” if you prefer) has become the norm for studio releases over the last three decades. And as Hollywood studios continue to give up on medium budget films in favor of big movies with multi-million dollar production costs they end up treating everything like a franchise title. With Mother!, Paramount tried to put a circular peg into a square hole and it didn’t fit.
Mother! should have been a platform release, which is to say that it opens in a few theaters at a time and gradually expands. That is no guarantee of box office success but it is a much slower release process and—critically for a movie like Mother!—it allows the picture to find its audience. There is a contingent of people who really like this movie, myself among them, but Mother! didn’t reach those people first. Instead, Paramount courted the Friday night audience with a movie that wasn’t made for them.
This brings me to the viewers. It’s easy for me to be cynical here and sound like a snobby critic so I’ll try my best not to.
The mainstream Friday night audience doesn’t come to the theater looking for a challenging cinematic experience. They are interested in entertainment, not art, and that is fine. But it’s hard to be a movie fan and be anything other than discouraged when something special like Mother! gets released and audiences don’t respond. The movie requires effort by the viewer to engage with its visuals and parse out their meaning. I don’t think today’s mainstream audiences are willing to do that. This is partly due to what viewers have been acclimated to expect. Almost all mainstream movies are literal. There isn’t a lot of experimentation with form and style in Hollywood releases or even in the independent film market. I have to speculate that if Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange or David Lynch’s Eraserhead were released today they would probably get an F rating at CinemaScore.
Mother!’s failure is all the more boggling because the internet is full of consumers complaining that Hollywood doesn’t have any new ideas. Numerous articles were written in the past four months explaining the depressed summer box office with “franchise fatigue.” Meanwhile, the top grossing movies released so far this year are almost entirely sequels or spinoffs as are the titles presently dominating the box office. But when something really creative and original comes along like Mother! (or something good but not based on a major property like Detroit or Wind River or Logan Lucky) the audience stays home. Remember that when you see the trailer for the next sequel, reboot, or remake. Hollywood isn’t the one hostile to creativity. We are.
The final insult to Mother!’s theatrical release came from its writer and director Darren Aronofsky and lead actress Jennifer Lawrence. The movie is an allegory and Aronofsky and Lawrence decided that the prudent thing would be to explain the symbolism in their press interviews. This is a disastrous decision. The whole point of making an allegory is to let the audience figure it out. I recently spoke to writer Kenneth George Godwin and on the subject of symbols and allegory he said, “To just tell people what [the film is] trying to say, I think [the audience is] going to say, ‘Well, that’s just claptrap and who cares.’ Whereas if you leave it unexplained, then the person can experience the film for themselves.” Godwin is exactly right and that’s precisely what’s happened. Explaining the meaning takes the mystery out of the movie and makes it easy to dismiss as pretentious. As long as the meaning remains open to interpretation, the work inspires the audience to keep talking about it and find things in it that the author may not have intended. This is what sustains great works of art. That necessarily means that the filmmaker loses some control over his or her creation as it goes out into the world. Ironically, I would argue that this is central to what Mother! is about, much more so than Aronofsky’s intended ecological message.
So what are we to make of Mother!? Aronofsky made a bold and fascinating movie that is destined for cult status when it hits the VOD and disc markets. But for all its impressive visuals and big ideas, Mother!’s greatest revelation may be how crippled American movie-going has become. Maybe Hollywood studios don’t know how to sell a movie like this anymore and perhaps there’s no theatrical audience for it. If that’s the case, it’s a shame and it doesn’t bode well for the future of American cinema.
First, we have to acknowledge that Mother!’s release was a failure. As of this writing, the movie has made just over $14 million domestically. That’s not even enough to cover its modest production budget of $30 million. The movie did fairly well at Rotten Tomatoes (68% fresh) but CinemaScore, which polls opening night audience reactions, gave the movie an F.
Why did a generally well-reviewed movie from one of today’s most interesting directors land so badly? I would argue that a film’s theatrical success is not really determined by reviews or by the quality of the movie. Instead, the box office is really a referendum on the marketing campaign. Paramount sold Mother! as a horror picture. It has horrific elements but this was not a movie for the audience that showed up for It and Annabelle: Creation and they probably felt tricked. The wrong crowd was drawn to the theater and they hated it.
Another problem was the release strategy. Many commentators have praised Paramount for opening the movie wide like a blockbuster title. (Mother! played in over 2000 theaters in its first weekend.) While I am happy to see a major Hollywood studio put out such an interesting and daring movie, the wide release was a mistake. Wide releases are fine for mainstream movies or franchise films that have a proven brand name. Mother! was anything but that.
Because of the closing gap between theatrical and home video release dates (and the ever present threat of piracy) there is increasing pressure to get the movie out to the public as quickly as possible. As it is, most releases make about a third of their theatrical gross in the first weekend and make the majority of the total theatrical gross in the first few weeks. Titles are typically gone from cinemas soon after that.
This “open wide” strategy (or “hit-and-run” if you prefer) has become the norm for studio releases over the last three decades. And as Hollywood studios continue to give up on medium budget films in favor of big movies with multi-million dollar production costs they end up treating everything like a franchise title. With Mother!, Paramount tried to put a circular peg into a square hole and it didn’t fit.
Mother! should have been a platform release, which is to say that it opens in a few theaters at a time and gradually expands. That is no guarantee of box office success but it is a much slower release process and—critically for a movie like Mother!—it allows the picture to find its audience. There is a contingent of people who really like this movie, myself among them, but Mother! didn’t reach those people first. Instead, Paramount courted the Friday night audience with a movie that wasn’t made for them.
This brings me to the viewers. It’s easy for me to be cynical here and sound like a snobby critic so I’ll try my best not to.
The mainstream Friday night audience doesn’t come to the theater looking for a challenging cinematic experience. They are interested in entertainment, not art, and that is fine. But it’s hard to be a movie fan and be anything other than discouraged when something special like Mother! gets released and audiences don’t respond. The movie requires effort by the viewer to engage with its visuals and parse out their meaning. I don’t think today’s mainstream audiences are willing to do that. This is partly due to what viewers have been acclimated to expect. Almost all mainstream movies are literal. There isn’t a lot of experimentation with form and style in Hollywood releases or even in the independent film market. I have to speculate that if Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange or David Lynch’s Eraserhead were released today they would probably get an F rating at CinemaScore.
Mother!’s failure is all the more boggling because the internet is full of consumers complaining that Hollywood doesn’t have any new ideas. Numerous articles were written in the past four months explaining the depressed summer box office with “franchise fatigue.” Meanwhile, the top grossing movies released so far this year are almost entirely sequels or spinoffs as are the titles presently dominating the box office. But when something really creative and original comes along like Mother! (or something good but not based on a major property like Detroit or Wind River or Logan Lucky) the audience stays home. Remember that when you see the trailer for the next sequel, reboot, or remake. Hollywood isn’t the one hostile to creativity. We are.
The final insult to Mother!’s theatrical release came from its writer and director Darren Aronofsky and lead actress Jennifer Lawrence. The movie is an allegory and Aronofsky and Lawrence decided that the prudent thing would be to explain the symbolism in their press interviews. This is a disastrous decision. The whole point of making an allegory is to let the audience figure it out. I recently spoke to writer Kenneth George Godwin and on the subject of symbols and allegory he said, “To just tell people what [the film is] trying to say, I think [the audience is] going to say, ‘Well, that’s just claptrap and who cares.’ Whereas if you leave it unexplained, then the person can experience the film for themselves.” Godwin is exactly right and that’s precisely what’s happened. Explaining the meaning takes the mystery out of the movie and makes it easy to dismiss as pretentious. As long as the meaning remains open to interpretation, the work inspires the audience to keep talking about it and find things in it that the author may not have intended. This is what sustains great works of art. That necessarily means that the filmmaker loses some control over his or her creation as it goes out into the world. Ironically, I would argue that this is central to what Mother! is about, much more so than Aronofsky’s intended ecological message.
So what are we to make of Mother!? Aronofsky made a bold and fascinating movie that is destined for cult status when it hits the VOD and disc markets. But for all its impressive visuals and big ideas, Mother!’s greatest revelation may be how crippled American movie-going has become. Maybe Hollywood studios don’t know how to sell a movie like this anymore and perhaps there’s no theatrical audience for it. If that’s the case, it’s a shame and it doesn’t bode well for the future of American cinema.
Monday, September 4, 2017
Summer 2017 in Review
Labor Day brings an end to the summer and to the summer movie season. Here is a review of some of the trends in American cinema since May.
Box Office Armageddon
A lot has been made of 2017’s box office which was the worst summer season in a quarter century. The popular explanation for the downturn is franchise fatigue and Hollywood’s overreliance on sequels. The problem with that explanation is that twelve of the top twenty-five grossing movies released so far in 2017 were sequels and that number climbs to fifteen if we count spin offs of existing franchises like Wonder Woman and The LEGO Batman Movie. Meanwhile, plenty of original films didn’t perform well at all such as Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Logan Lucky. Even The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which has been the top earner for the last three weeks, has made less than $60 million.
It could be that the summer paradigm is over. Historically, summer was a dead season for movie attendance (especially in the early years of cinema before air conditioning was commonplace). Prior to the 1970s, the fall and winter holiday season was the most lucrative time for Hollywood and major releases opened at Christmastime. After the success of Jaws in 1975 and Star Wars in 1977, summer became synonymous with blockbuster spectacles and it has remained that way for the past four decades. However, we may be in a period where the calendar is shifting once again. The spring release of megahits like The Hunger Games in 2012, Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014, Furious 7 in 2015, The Jungle Book in 2016, and Beauty and the Beast in 2017 indicate that the blockbuster season is gradually moving from May-June-July to March-April-May. Indeed, five of the top ten grossing movies released so far this year opened in the spring.
The other shift is in television. Throughout the network era, the summer was a wasteland of reruns and the fall was prime TV season with new shows debuting and hit shows returning with new episodes. In the era of HBO and Netflix, new and popular television programs like last summer’s Stranger Things and this year’s The Defenders and Game of Thrones are coming throughout the year and television habits have unmoored from the traditional seasonal schedule.
There is also a more obvious answer: a lot of the big movies this summer just weren’t very good. Alien: Covenant, The Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Rough Night, Baywatch, and Transformers: The Last Knight were lousy movies and their box office performance reflected this. Hollywood’s constant scapegoating of Rotten Tomatoes, a website that aggregates film reviews, is a tacit acknowledgement that these films weren’t good.
Superhero Films to the Rescue
Despite all the doom and gloom about the summer box office, one consistent performer was the superhero genre. Yes, the comic book marketplace is saturated and yes, many of these films are redundant with one another. But the fact is that several of the most successful and most entertaining movies of summer 2017 were superhero adaptations including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. In fact, it’s safe to say that 2017 offered the best crop of superhero movies since 2008.
Comedy Ain't Funny
The worst genre this summer—by some stretch—was comedy. This was the summer of The House, Rough Night, Baywatch, Snatched, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. These movies were derivative, lazy, and not funny. Critics and audiences seemed to like Girls Trip but I wasn’t impressed.
You Probably Missed the Best Movies of the Summer
Although the superhero films dominated the summer box office, several impressive adult-oriented dramas were released this summer, some of which will be best-of-the-year-list contenders. The trouble is no one went to see them. The heavily publicized release of Detroit only generated $16 million domestically. Its box office failure is disappointing not only because it was a great movie but it was also in touch with this political and cultural moment. (Then again, that could be exactly why viewers skipped it.) Also underseen was the crime drama Wind River. This film wasn’t promoted as heavily as Detroit but it did have recognizable stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. It’s discouraging to see these films fail at the box office, especially for those of us who want Hollywood to break up its bloated end of the year release slate.
On the lighter side, there were some other great films that didn’t quite find their audience. Atomic Blonde, an R-rated action film based on a graphic novel, was another good entry in the resurgence of practical action moviemaking. Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh returned with Logan Lucky, an Ocean’s 11-style heist movie that was a lot of fun. War for the Planet of the Apes was modestly successful but it wasn’t the hit that it should have been. And the best family movie of the summer was the underseen Captain Underpants: His First Epic Movie.
There were also some really good indie films released this summer. The most notable was The Big Sick, starring Kumail Nanjiani as himself in the story of how he met his wife Emily Gardner. Some other interesting titles include The Wall, A Ghost Story, Ingrid Goes West, Good Time, and The Beguiled. As independent features, many of these titles didn’t open outside of metropolitan areas but many of them should be available on disc or streaming services this fall.
In Summary
The box office failure of many big budget films was the dominant story in entertainment media this summer but it tended to obfuscate that there were at least as many good films as there were bad ones.
The Best Movies of the Summer
Box Office Armageddon
A lot has been made of 2017’s box office which was the worst summer season in a quarter century. The popular explanation for the downturn is franchise fatigue and Hollywood’s overreliance on sequels. The problem with that explanation is that twelve of the top twenty-five grossing movies released so far in 2017 were sequels and that number climbs to fifteen if we count spin offs of existing franchises like Wonder Woman and The LEGO Batman Movie. Meanwhile, plenty of original films didn’t perform well at all such as Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Logan Lucky. Even The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which has been the top earner for the last three weeks, has made less than $60 million.
It could be that the summer paradigm is over. Historically, summer was a dead season for movie attendance (especially in the early years of cinema before air conditioning was commonplace). Prior to the 1970s, the fall and winter holiday season was the most lucrative time for Hollywood and major releases opened at Christmastime. After the success of Jaws in 1975 and Star Wars in 1977, summer became synonymous with blockbuster spectacles and it has remained that way for the past four decades. However, we may be in a period where the calendar is shifting once again. The spring release of megahits like The Hunger Games in 2012, Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014, Furious 7 in 2015, The Jungle Book in 2016, and Beauty and the Beast in 2017 indicate that the blockbuster season is gradually moving from May-June-July to March-April-May. Indeed, five of the top ten grossing movies released so far this year opened in the spring.
The other shift is in television. Throughout the network era, the summer was a wasteland of reruns and the fall was prime TV season with new shows debuting and hit shows returning with new episodes. In the era of HBO and Netflix, new and popular television programs like last summer’s Stranger Things and this year’s The Defenders and Game of Thrones are coming throughout the year and television habits have unmoored from the traditional seasonal schedule.
There is also a more obvious answer: a lot of the big movies this summer just weren’t very good. Alien: Covenant, The Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Rough Night, Baywatch, and Transformers: The Last Knight were lousy movies and their box office performance reflected this. Hollywood’s constant scapegoating of Rotten Tomatoes, a website that aggregates film reviews, is a tacit acknowledgement that these films weren’t good.
Superhero Films to the Rescue
Despite all the doom and gloom about the summer box office, one consistent performer was the superhero genre. Yes, the comic book marketplace is saturated and yes, many of these films are redundant with one another. But the fact is that several of the most successful and most entertaining movies of summer 2017 were superhero adaptations including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. In fact, it’s safe to say that 2017 offered the best crop of superhero movies since 2008.
Comedy Ain't Funny
The worst genre this summer—by some stretch—was comedy. This was the summer of The House, Rough Night, Baywatch, Snatched, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. These movies were derivative, lazy, and not funny. Critics and audiences seemed to like Girls Trip but I wasn’t impressed.
You Probably Missed the Best Movies of the Summer
Although the superhero films dominated the summer box office, several impressive adult-oriented dramas were released this summer, some of which will be best-of-the-year-list contenders. The trouble is no one went to see them. The heavily publicized release of Detroit only generated $16 million domestically. Its box office failure is disappointing not only because it was a great movie but it was also in touch with this political and cultural moment. (Then again, that could be exactly why viewers skipped it.) Also underseen was the crime drama Wind River. This film wasn’t promoted as heavily as Detroit but it did have recognizable stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. It’s discouraging to see these films fail at the box office, especially for those of us who want Hollywood to break up its bloated end of the year release slate.
On the lighter side, there were some other great films that didn’t quite find their audience. Atomic Blonde, an R-rated action film based on a graphic novel, was another good entry in the resurgence of practical action moviemaking. Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh returned with Logan Lucky, an Ocean’s 11-style heist movie that was a lot of fun. War for the Planet of the Apes was modestly successful but it wasn’t the hit that it should have been. And the best family movie of the summer was the underseen Captain Underpants: His First Epic Movie.
There were also some really good indie films released this summer. The most notable was The Big Sick, starring Kumail Nanjiani as himself in the story of how he met his wife Emily Gardner. Some other interesting titles include The Wall, A Ghost Story, Ingrid Goes West, Good Time, and The Beguiled. As independent features, many of these titles didn’t open outside of metropolitan areas but many of them should be available on disc or streaming services this fall.
In Summary
The box office failure of many big budget films was the dominant story in entertainment media this summer but it tended to obfuscate that there were at least as many good films as there were bad ones.
The Best Movies of the Summer
- Atomic Blonde
- Baby Driver
- The Beguiled
- The Big Sick
- Captain Underpants: His First Epic Movie
- Detroit
- Good Time
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Ingrid Goes West
- Logan Lucky
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- The Wall
- War for the Planet of the Apes
- Wind River
- Wonder Woman
The Worst Movies of the Summer
- Alien: Covenant
- All Eyez on Me
- Baywatch
- The Dark Tower
- The Emoji Movie
- The Mummy
- The Only Living Boy in New York
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
- Rough Night
- Snatched
- Transformers: The Last Knight
Monday, July 24, 2017
A Look at Threequels
Yesterday’s episode of Sounds of Cinema took a look at threequels – third installments in a film series. Here’s a look at the movies discussed on the program as well as some additional titles.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Dir. Sergio Leone
Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone reinvented the Western genre with 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars and continued the story in For a Few Dollars More. Leone completed his trilogy with 1966’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, one of the most iconic motion pictures in the Western genre. This film is actually a prequel to the other films. It reveals the origins of the Man with No Name and this picture seals Clint Eastwood’s cinematic image as the mythic Western antihero. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has an extraordinary visual style and one of the great scores in all of film music provided by Ennio Morricone.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
Dir. Don Taylor
The original series of Planet of the Apes films stretched from 1968 to 1973 with five films released in six years. The movies were renowned for their action and groundbreaking makeup effects and they have since been lauded for their political content. However, the best sequel of the original Apes saga is light on both action and politics. 1971’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes has a decidedly lighter tone but it’s also the most dramatically engaging Apes sequel and the most heartbreaking entry in the series.
Rocky III (1982)
Dir. Sylvester Stallone
The Rocky series has an interesting tension between earnestness and self-awareness and never is that more evident than in Rocky III. The series is largely autobiographical on Sylvester Stallone’s part and Rocky III finds the character made soft by success. After becoming the heavyweight champion in the previous film, Rocky has to rediscover the “eye of the tiger.” The first half of this film is quite playful and pokes fun at the commodification of celebrities (and of Stallone himself) while the second half has some of the most satisfying drama of the series.
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)
Dir. Richard Marquand
1983’s Return of the Jedi was the third entry in the original Star Wars trilogy and it is rightly ranked third in that initial batch of films. But it is in great company and just as Empire Strikes Back set a standard for what a sequel could be, Jedi created a template for what final chapters of a sci-fi and fantasy epic could accomplish. It also solidified the standing of Star Wars in pop culture and in the public mind.
Day of the Dead (1985)
Dir. George A. Romero
Day of the Dead was the third film in George A. Romero’s zombie series, following Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. At the time of its release and for many years following, Day of the Dead was considered an inferior sequel and it isn’t as influential as its predecessors. But Day of the Dead has undergone a reappraisal and it’s now regarded as one of the better horror films of the 1980s.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Dir. Chuck Russell
The horror genre of the 1980s was awash with slasher films with many of them virtual remakes of their progenitors. However, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors stands out and is one of the best horror sequels of any decade. The movie expanded the scope of the series and provided the backstory of Freddy Krueger while also featuring some ambitious special effects. The movie also heralded the direction for the rest of the series and subsequent Nightmare films had more to do with the style and tone of Dream Warriors than they did with the original film.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Dir. Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings was one of the most popular film series of the last decade and it concluded with 2003’s The Return of the King. This film ranks third among the three installments. The storytelling gets clunky in places and the extended cut shows signs of the hubris and self-indulgence that has dogged Peter Jackson’s later movies. Despite that, The Return of the King is a terrific piece of work and it tied the record with Ben-Hur and Titanic for the highest number of wins at the Academy Awards, earning eleven Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Dir. Alfonso Cuaron
The Harry Potter series is one of the most popular and most successful franchises in history. However, the motion picture adaptation got off to a rocky start with 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and 2002’s The Chamber of Secrets. Directed by Chris Columbus, the first two Potter films were lackluster fantasy filmmaking. Alfonso Cuaron may very well have saved the series with 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Cuaron’s film had impressive art direction and a terrific style as well as more complicated source material and this picture is frequently credited as one of the best films in the series.
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Dir. Paul Greengrass
The story of superspy Jason Bourne reached its organic conclusion with 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum. It brought the story to a satisfying close by resolving Jason Bourne’s identity and his ongoing conflict with the Treadstone program. Two more sequels followed—The Bourne Legacy in 2012 and Jason Bourne in 2016—but this is an instance in which the studio should have left well enough alone.
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Dir. Lee Unkrich
Pixar has now invested itself in sequels. This has been a financial goldmine for the studio but with diminished creative returns. However, the Toy Story sequels are the impressive exception. The third film was made fifteen years after the original and it played to the now adult audience who had grown up watching the first two installments. Toy Story 3 was about the passage into adulthood and it is among the best movies Pixar has produced.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Dir. Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan finished his Batman trilogy with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. Although it’s unwieldy and not as perfectly crafted as 2008’s The Dark Knight, Nolan’s third Batman film has an ambitious and epic scope. Where a lot of other superhero franchises sputtered out (the Christopher Reeve Superman films, the 1990s’s Batman movies, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy), The Dark Knight trilogy is consistently excellent and comes to a compelling close that’s unlike anything else in the superhero genre.
Before Midnight (2013)
Dir. Richard Linklater
A lot of the most notable threequels are works of science fiction and fantasy because those genres lend themselves to serialization. However, one of the best motion picture trilogies is Richard Linklater’s Before series consisting of 1995’s Before Sunrise, 2004’s Before Sunset, and 2013’s Before Midnight. The ongoing story concerns the relationship between an American man and a French woman (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) with each installment checking in on them about every ten years. Where the first two movies were about their burgeoning romance, Before Midnight finds the couple at a crisis point.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Dir. Matt Reeves
The Apes series was rebooted with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, continued with 2014’s Dawn, and concluded with 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. The third film brings the story arc begun in Rise to a satisfying conclusion and like the best of the classic Apes pictures, War takes some dark turns while delving into themes of survival and civilization. In terms of quality, consistency, and narrative follow through, the new Apes series is one of the most consistent film trilogies ever created.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Dir. Sergio Leone
Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone reinvented the Western genre with 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars and continued the story in For a Few Dollars More. Leone completed his trilogy with 1966’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, one of the most iconic motion pictures in the Western genre. This film is actually a prequel to the other films. It reveals the origins of the Man with No Name and this picture seals Clint Eastwood’s cinematic image as the mythic Western antihero. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has an extraordinary visual style and one of the great scores in all of film music provided by Ennio Morricone.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
Dir. Don Taylor
The original series of Planet of the Apes films stretched from 1968 to 1973 with five films released in six years. The movies were renowned for their action and groundbreaking makeup effects and they have since been lauded for their political content. However, the best sequel of the original Apes saga is light on both action and politics. 1971’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes has a decidedly lighter tone but it’s also the most dramatically engaging Apes sequel and the most heartbreaking entry in the series.
Rocky III (1982)
Dir. Sylvester Stallone
The Rocky series has an interesting tension between earnestness and self-awareness and never is that more evident than in Rocky III. The series is largely autobiographical on Sylvester Stallone’s part and Rocky III finds the character made soft by success. After becoming the heavyweight champion in the previous film, Rocky has to rediscover the “eye of the tiger.” The first half of this film is quite playful and pokes fun at the commodification of celebrities (and of Stallone himself) while the second half has some of the most satisfying drama of the series.
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)
Dir. Richard Marquand
1983’s Return of the Jedi was the third entry in the original Star Wars trilogy and it is rightly ranked third in that initial batch of films. But it is in great company and just as Empire Strikes Back set a standard for what a sequel could be, Jedi created a template for what final chapters of a sci-fi and fantasy epic could accomplish. It also solidified the standing of Star Wars in pop culture and in the public mind.
Day of the Dead (1985)
Dir. George A. Romero
Day of the Dead was the third film in George A. Romero’s zombie series, following Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. At the time of its release and for many years following, Day of the Dead was considered an inferior sequel and it isn’t as influential as its predecessors. But Day of the Dead has undergone a reappraisal and it’s now regarded as one of the better horror films of the 1980s.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Dir. Chuck Russell
The horror genre of the 1980s was awash with slasher films with many of them virtual remakes of their progenitors. However, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors stands out and is one of the best horror sequels of any decade. The movie expanded the scope of the series and provided the backstory of Freddy Krueger while also featuring some ambitious special effects. The movie also heralded the direction for the rest of the series and subsequent Nightmare films had more to do with the style and tone of Dream Warriors than they did with the original film.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Dir. Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings was one of the most popular film series of the last decade and it concluded with 2003’s The Return of the King. This film ranks third among the three installments. The storytelling gets clunky in places and the extended cut shows signs of the hubris and self-indulgence that has dogged Peter Jackson’s later movies. Despite that, The Return of the King is a terrific piece of work and it tied the record with Ben-Hur and Titanic for the highest number of wins at the Academy Awards, earning eleven Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Dir. Alfonso Cuaron
The Harry Potter series is one of the most popular and most successful franchises in history. However, the motion picture adaptation got off to a rocky start with 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and 2002’s The Chamber of Secrets. Directed by Chris Columbus, the first two Potter films were lackluster fantasy filmmaking. Alfonso Cuaron may very well have saved the series with 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Cuaron’s film had impressive art direction and a terrific style as well as more complicated source material and this picture is frequently credited as one of the best films in the series.
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Dir. Paul Greengrass
The story of superspy Jason Bourne reached its organic conclusion with 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum. It brought the story to a satisfying close by resolving Jason Bourne’s identity and his ongoing conflict with the Treadstone program. Two more sequels followed—The Bourne Legacy in 2012 and Jason Bourne in 2016—but this is an instance in which the studio should have left well enough alone.
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Dir. Lee Unkrich
Pixar has now invested itself in sequels. This has been a financial goldmine for the studio but with diminished creative returns. However, the Toy Story sequels are the impressive exception. The third film was made fifteen years after the original and it played to the now adult audience who had grown up watching the first two installments. Toy Story 3 was about the passage into adulthood and it is among the best movies Pixar has produced.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Dir. Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan finished his Batman trilogy with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. Although it’s unwieldy and not as perfectly crafted as 2008’s The Dark Knight, Nolan’s third Batman film has an ambitious and epic scope. Where a lot of other superhero franchises sputtered out (the Christopher Reeve Superman films, the 1990s’s Batman movies, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy), The Dark Knight trilogy is consistently excellent and comes to a compelling close that’s unlike anything else in the superhero genre.
Before Midnight (2013)
Dir. Richard Linklater
A lot of the most notable threequels are works of science fiction and fantasy because those genres lend themselves to serialization. However, one of the best motion picture trilogies is Richard Linklater’s Before series consisting of 1995’s Before Sunrise, 2004’s Before Sunset, and 2013’s Before Midnight. The ongoing story concerns the relationship between an American man and a French woman (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) with each installment checking in on them about every ten years. Where the first two movies were about their burgeoning romance, Before Midnight finds the couple at a crisis point.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Dir. Matt Reeves
The Apes series was rebooted with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, continued with 2014’s Dawn, and concluded with 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. The third film brings the story arc begun in Rise to a satisfying conclusion and like the best of the classic Apes pictures, War takes some dark turns while delving into themes of survival and civilization. In terms of quality, consistency, and narrative follow through, the new Apes series is one of the most consistent film trilogies ever created.
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