The Haunted Castle (1896)

Another one of the earliest “horror” films ever, courtesy of Georges Méliès. This one, I suppose, is the first “action horror” film ever, though of course in the context of 1890’s filmmaking that mostly just means “a sword fight happens with Satan” (played by Méliès himself). Apparently an alternate title to this was “The House of the Devil”. Well, it’s about as exciting as the Ti West film, so maybe Ti was doing as much an homage to 1896 horror films as he was 1986 horror films. Too bad his wasn’t three minutes long, though.

The Raid (2011)

Not nearly as non-stop asskicking as it’s reputation suggests but you can’t front on fight scenes like that. Every one is more phenomenal, inventive and hilariously violent than the last. It really makes the generic character stuff all the more painful, because a movie as gleeful as this shouldn’t feel so dour. Here’s hoping the sequel realizes how much fun it is. B

Empire of the Sun (1987)

Not surprised at Spielberg’s brutality here, necessarily (after all, he is the same man who went on to make the incredibly traumatic War of the Worlds), but by his ambiguity. At first glance he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too by tempering the gauntlet Jim is put through with a sense of adventure and whimsy, but the bombing run on the prison camp was the Rosetta Stone for me*: it’s actually a film about survival through denial. Jim has to contextualize his experiences through the filter of his adventure comics because otherwise he’d be catatonic with fear, grief and guilt. But the darkness is always creeping in. It’s a challenging and brilliant movie and it never gives the viewer easy catharsis. Even the “happy” ending feels more like a funeral than a reunion (hence the final shot).

But it is also an incredibly exciting and fun movie, particularly any time John Malkovich is on-screen. Malkovich’s commitment elevates his character and, often, the film itself, turning simple jokes like “I’d bet my Life on it.” into incredible catharsis. Pretty much my only complaint is that it’s a little long in the tooth. But I can easily see that changing upon a rewatch. A-

*The other key moment for me is when Jim and his parents are driving through downtown Shanghai to go to the party. The scene starts from Jim’s perspective, as the camera floats past well-framed vignettes like the establishing shot of an Indiana Jones movie. Locals bartering, fireworks, exotic wares; the stuff of kids’ adventures. Then the orphan is beaten by a cop and the tone changes as it switches to his dad’s side of the car. Suddenly the camera pulls back and we see the squalor, the grotesque disparity in wealth between the Graham’s and the locals, the bubbling tension. Fantastic moment that sums up the tonal shifts that the rest of the film will play with.

The Sugarland Express (1974)

Fascinating for how it suggests a different career Spielberg could have had. It’s such a pre-Jaws 70’s film. Obviously it’d be ridiculous to say Spielberg didn’t find his niche as the most successful filmmaker of all-time (right? I suppose it’s possible that, adjusted for inflation, Cecil B. Demille or someone made more box office, but it’s gotta be a slim margin), but one wonders what would have happened if he had kept chasing films like this.

At any rate, this is a really good movie that feels a few script rewrites and casting changes away from being a classic. William Atherton and Michael Sacks can’t match the raw power of Goldie Hawn’s performance and, for what mostly plays as a comedy (albeit a tragic one, with the ending always feeling inevitable) it’s more charming and amusing than funny. Really well directed, though. That moment of clarity that comes from Wile E. Coyote packs a real emotional wallop. And of course, as someone who grew up in Houston, I’m always nostalgic for Texas highways in film, even if this didn’t feel as specific and local a depiction of the state as films like True Stories or Bernie (the “dumb southern yokels” trope gets pushed a bit hard for my liking). B

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Watching this and Jaws back to back made it clear that part of Spielberg’s wizardry is managing a tone that can marry genuinely high stakes and danger with whimsy and humor. You look movies Indiana Jones inspired, like say the Mummy series, there’s never the sense of danger and worry for characters’ safety like Jones during the truck scene (or really, all the set-pieces). It’s like the walking on broken glass in Die Hard: Indiana Jones is fluidly both a superman and human. He fucks up (accidentally blowing up the truck he thinks Marion is on) but he’s also super-capable (CRAWLING. UNDER. THAT. GODDAMNED. TRUCK.)

This was my first time seeing an Indiana Jones movie as an adult (Crystal Skull doesn’t count) and while I was always in the “Temple is better” camp (mostly because that movie informs my taste in films in so many huge important ways) I think now it’s much easier for me to see why this is clearly the best one. I don’t know if I find it as transcendent as something like Jaws, but it’s clearly a perfect movie. A+

Blue Thunder (1983)

Roy Scheider as the sleepiest cop-on-the-edge I’ve ever seen. He’s maybe a crazed, shell-shocked Vietnam vet but so much of his dialogue is ADR’d (probably because of helicopter noise but I wouldn’t be surprised if Scheider was so bored by the movie that he couldn’t bring himself to enunciate his lines) that he comes across as more a somnambulist than anything. I suppose if you’re an actor who’s looking for a quick and easy paycheck, being offered a role that is 80% sitting down is a pretty sweet deal.

Remarkably, the film redeems itself with a spectacular final 30 minutes.I’ve come to expect so little actual excitement from 80’s action movies (as so often what passed for thrills are second unit shots of machine gun fire and fiery explosions) that when John Badham climaxes with a fantastic helicopter duel (it’s to his credit that I couldn’t figure out exactly how much of it was actually shot in the air above Los Angeles and what was achieved via special effects, models, etc.) I was ready to forgive him. Previous to that the only person I could get on board with was Warren Oates, who adds another great performance in both the pantheon of compelling Warren Oates performances and the pantheon of hilarious police captains. B-

Jaws (1975)

Still perfect, obviously. The opening ten minutes are probably the greatest exposition in film history. I love how delightfully fake it is. Not just the special effects (of course hiding the shark most of the time benefitted this film immensely), but the liberties it takes with zoology and even basic physics. The shark ramming the boat while they’re drunk feels more like a little kid ramming his shark toy into his boat toy than the actual physics needed for a 35 foot shark having to gain momentum and turn itself around to batter the boat multiple times.

Was also struck by how much Spielberg’s camera stays still. Certainly part of this is the logistics of shooting on the water (which must have been a nightmare) but like so many of the limitations put on Spielberg, it ends up really working in it’s favor. As does casting clear non-actors in most of the child roles. A+

Jurassic Park (1993)

This was one of those movies I watched a million times on tape as a kid, so it’s definitely too familiar to be that thrilling. So, Jeff Goldblum’s performance aside (which is too electric and spazzy to ever be too familiar), it was hard to work up much enthusiasm this time around. Which is probably why I found myself nit-picking a lot. But man, for a movie that exists almost entirely for the purpose of showing you sweet dino-saw-yers, it spends a lot of time wringing it’s hands at the pretend science that made it happen. It made sense in the novel, which was more fact-based and featured more in depth explorations of all the science, but in this film all the attempts at profundity (including the “kid-hating man who meets annoying kids and now loves kids” arc) are just annoying. And, 21 years later, the CGI finally looks like CGI to me. Except for that T-Rex attack, which is still incredibly perfect. For me the scariest shot in that whole thing is the jeep being crushed into the mud. That felt like old-school (relatively) dangerous Spielberg. B-

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

Come for the set-pieces and tone (both dynamite), try not to leave from the inane twisting story and never-not-creepy mo-cap. Seriously, how is mo-cap animation still seen as a viable choice? It makes every character look like one of those “if the Simpsons were real” photos. I was excited pretty much exclusively because Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish were co-writers, but pretty much the only stuff that feels like Wright is that the story is as numbing and twisty as Hot Fuzz’s, only without the humor to act as a spoonful of sugar. Final chase scene is a doozy, but I’d trade in all the scale in the world for a main character who was the least bit interesting. It’s fun, but it’s certainly no Castle of Cagliostro.

Also odd to cast a comedy team like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as voice actors only to make them change their voices and their dynamic, but it probably bought them a really nice vacation somewhere warm, so good on them. B-

Invasion USA (1985)

Yet another “action” movie whose action sequences mostly consist of people standing still, yelling, and firing machine guns. The same kind of inert sequences you see in something like Rambo: First Blood Part II. It’s definitely an 80’s thing, where just the idea of soldiers shooting dozens of rounds a second was enough to give your red-blooded male action movie audience a chubby. I thought the ludicrous premise of an army of terrorists invading America would sustain a film like this comedically but, a few deliciously paranoid conservative moments aside (“They don’t even understand their freedoms. WE WILL USE IT AGAINST THEM.”), it really squanders the idea. To be fair it’s probably an over-ambitious plot for a film budgeted like this, so it ends up playing mostly as a series of vignettes in which Chuck Norris (who co-wrote the film, based on a story by his younger brother, so I guess the whole Norris clan is nuts) fucks up terrorists’ days. They want to blow up this church of decent, God-Fearing, white American people but wascally Chuck Norris sabotaged their bomb and blows them up instead! Wash, rinse, repeat.

This was the first Chuck Norris movie I ever watched and I still don’t think I have a good handle on what his persona as an action star was. He mostly just seems quiet and bearded. In this he’s even kind of off-putting and creepy, as a man whose sole reason for existing is to whisper ever so gently in the head terrorist’s ear “It’s time to die.” There’s a reason gay jokes and modern ironic appreciation of 80’s action movies always go hand in hand. You kind of wish the two would just bone and get it over with. D+