October 2021

Well, here we are—19 months since my last movie blog post. The final movie I saw before the pandemic shut everything down (St. Frances) was on March 15, 2020. I've already described how dramatically life on Earth changed literally overnight, so all that's left is to recount what has transpired in the better part of two years that have elapsed since then. Movie-wise, nothing. With thousands of movies available for me to watch on my computer or iPad, you'd think I'd avail myself, but my interest level plummeted. I did continue to watch TV, listen to music and read books. A more or less complete list of the books I read during the pandemic includes: Watching You, The Family Upstairs, Invisible Girl and The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell; If It Bleeds, Later and Billy Summers by Stephen King; The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides; Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir; Close Your Eyes by Rachel Abbott; The Best Friend by Shalini Boland; The End of Her by Shari Lapena; and Playing Nice by J.P. Delaney. Beyond reading, watching TV and listening to music, pretty much the only highlight worth mentioning during the pandemic was that I joined TikTok, first as a viewer, then as a creator. In August or September of this year, a fellow creator inspired me to watch four movies he recommended: 

UNSTOPPABLE (2010)—Train conductors Denzel Washington and Chris Pine must try to stop a runaway train in Pennsylvania before a mass tragedy occurs. Very suspenseful and engrossing, with good performances by both leads, plus Rosario Dawson. (9)

COP LAND (1997)—Sylvester Stallone is a New Jersey sheriff whose town is populated by corrupt cops. Will he tell rat-squad chief Robert DeNiro what he knows about these morally corrupt law-enforcement officers (Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta) and get the crap beaten out of him, or stay silent? The movie is intermittently entertaining, but suffers from too many people (including Sly himself) smoking cigarettes nonstop. (7)

TERROR TRACT (2000) Ever since I was a kid, I have loved horror anthology movies. When I was in middle school, I saw a couple (Tales from the Crypt and Asylum) that captured my imagination, and 1982's Creepshow was Stephen King's contribution to the genre. Since then, I've seen many more, but none have been as impressive. Terror Tract is a TV movie featuring the late John Ritter as a real-estate salesman who's trying desperately to sell a property where some Very Bad Things happened, and those things provide the springboard for three creepy flashback stories. The first involves a jealous husband, his cheating wife, her boyfriend, and an ill-fated murder plot. The second is about a little girl who befriends a mischievous monkey that infuriates the girl's dad (Bryan Cranston). Finally, the third story is about a teenager who has visions about how the people around him keep getting killed. It's all moderately entertaining, done on a shoestring budget; the monkey episode, though quite silly, is really the only memorable thing in it. (6)

CLIFFORD (1994)—I had always been curious about this comedy, which has a great cast, including Martin Short, Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen and Dabney Coleman. Short, who is one of the funniest comedic performers of my lifetime, plays 10-year-old Clifford, who basically drives his uncle (Grodin) crazy with his pranks and misdeeds. The movie was universally panned at the time of release, but I had been persuaded to view it with an open mind. That proved ineffective, as the movie is so relentlessly awful that it almost hurt to watch. For nearly half the movie, the characters are all screaming at each other. It was so sad to see truly talented performers stuck in this dreadful excuse for a film. (1)

This month, I made my first trip to a movie since March 2020. The Pacific Theater at the Grove shopping plaza—which went out of business during the pandemic—reopened this year as an AMC theater. Numerous new films have opened, and I was eager to dip my toe into the cinematic pool. So I saw:

THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021)—So enthralled was I by 2018's Isle of Dogs that I was super-stoked to check out Wes Anderson's latest concoction. Everything from the director's bag of tricks is on display here: the dollhouse-type pans from room to room, the bright color palette, the quirky characters, the odd dialogue, even the fonts are part of his trademark. Although ostensibly taking place at the office of a New Yorker-style publication headed up by the aging Bill Murray, it's really another anthology film, and the three stories that unfold are all re-enactments of the publication's feature articles. Of the three, I only enjoyed the first one, which is about an artist (Benicio del Toro) who's in prison after committing a couple of murders. While in lockup, his work gains popularity, and his talent ultimately leads to his early release from jail. There's not much to the story, but it is told with a huge amount of humor, imagination and sensuality. The final two stories are total bores, although the art direction is typically amazing. (6) overall.