The Fog (1980)

Film: The Fog (1980)

Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Janet Leigh, Hal Holbrook

Director: John Carpenter

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-00's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

John Carpenter has come up twice before in these horror retrospectives, and in both cases, he kind of knocked it out of the park.  Halloween is a classic of the slasher genre, in many ways it invented the modern slasher genre, but it also is a titillating look at one of the most iconic horror villains.  The Thing is a quintessential alien thriller, one that features great work from Kurt Russell & Keith David, and one of the best endings I've ever seen from a horror movie.  So as I finished off this trilogy of Horror Movies from the 1970's-90's, I needed to find a way to pay homage to my favorite director discovery of the project, and in this case it was a third film that is generally regarded as another horror classic, The Fog.  One of only two movies to unite "scream queens"/mother-and-daughter Janet Leigh & Jamie Lee Curtis, the movie was initially dismissed by critics as middling, but has since been saved by a cult of devotees (horror fans will eventually find quality if it's there), and after watching it-I think the modern critics have it right.  The Fog is a really fun (and spooky) ride.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in a California bay community, one where 100 years earlier, a ship crashed on the rocks.  It turns out this was done on purpose, the goal being to kill those onboard, as they were afflicted with leprosy and the town founders didn't want a leper colony nearby.  The centennial has brought a mysterious fog to the town, and with it, the ghostly crew of that ship are coming for revenge.  We alternate as we learn this between a few different locales.  First there's Father Malone (Holbrook), who discovers the revenge plot, and is a descendant of the town founders.  We have Elizabeth Solley (Curtis), who is a hitchhiker just passing through town who comes across the fog by accident.  There's Mayor Kathy Williams (Leigh), who is trying to keep the town safe...while also prioritizing the importance of the centennial celebration.  And best of the bunch is Stevie Wayne (Barbeau), a disc jockey who, from the lighthouse, is in real time trying to help the people of the city from the fog.

This element of the film, Barbeau's disc jockey, is easily the best part of the film and what makes it special.  In a lot of ways The Fog feels akin to the old Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, as we are hearing warnings to the town in real time.  In an era before smart phones or even cable news, this is a realistic way that people might get the news, and it's chilling because frequently the movie makes a point of Stevie's warnings coming too late, her getting the news after a death or after the fog has moved to another area of the town.  That unreliability (not even the hero can save you) is good movie-making, and something that more horror films should employ without having to underline it (you'd usually see a lot of regret from the hero if they couldn't save someone...here, that's not the case).

The movie isn't as succinct or well-scripted as Halloween or The Thing.  The film isn't entirely logical, particularly muddling the reasons for the fog itself and the revenge plot feels convoluted, but if you look past that, Carpenter makes it genuinely creepy.  One of the realities that three years of doing this has taught me is that horror movies aren't always scary (this month there's maybe 1-2 that have actually had me nervous in the way, say, The Blair Witch Project did the first time I saw it), but The Fog has true elements of horror, particularly a late killing that feels like a nasty coda to the film, and the way that it plays with the mistakes we make when we panic.

1920's: The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera

1930's: The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Invisible Man, Mad Love, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London

1940's: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Cat People, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Invisible Woman, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, Phantom of the Opera, She-Wolf of London, Son of Dracula, The Uninvited, The Wolf Man

1950's: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space, Revenge of the Creature

1960's: The Devil Rides Out, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead,Village of the Damned

1970's: The Amityville Horror, Black Christmas, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Don't Look Now, Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen, Phantom of the Paradise, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, When a Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man

1980's: Altered States, Child's Play, The Evil Dead, The Fly, Friday the 13th, Gremlins, Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, The Thing

1990's-Present: Arachnophobia, The Blair Witch Project, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Candyman, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Paranormal Activity, Scary Movie, Scream

OVP: Supporting Actress (2022)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2022)

The Nominees Were...

Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Hong Chau, The Whale

Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin

Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once

My Thoughts: The internet is kind of an ugly place.  It has corners of wonder, information at your fingertips, friendships develop there (I'm literally typing this at the apartment of a friend I met on the internet), and you can make community with people oceans away.  But it's also a place of extremes, where for some reason everything, even something as simple as an Oscar race, becomes about hatred & ragging on a longtime character actress getting her moment in the sun.

This is all to say, that I, unlike every person on the internet, am in the middle on Jamie Lee Curtis's win for Everything Everywhere All at Once.  I think Curtis is the fourth best performance in the film, but that's not an insult, it's just a well-acted movie.  She's a longtime trouper who knows how to land every comic line reading here, making a character that doesn't read as memorable in the script last in your brain throughout the movie (which is critical to land some of the film's best visual humor in the back-half).  Curtis is charming, and may have won in part because everyone likes her & she was in a major Best Picture winner (she would not be the first person to get an Oscar by playing that card), but she's also someone who has deserved at least a couple of nominations by now, and who lands most of her (short) role.  I'm fine with it, particularly given what we'll discuss later this week in Best Actor.

On the same side, while I do think her costar Stephanie Hsu is better than her, it's not a crime that she didn't win an Oscar (go to certain corners of Twitter, and people will disagree on that front).  Hsu has the trickiest part in the movie, playing dual roles that need to be connected without it feeling like we're belaboring the metaphor, but she does it, stealing scenes from actors with decades more experience, and giving us an overlapping resolution with her mother, Michelle Yeoh.  Like most of the actors in the film, I think the swirling end of the movie might undercut some of the points her performance is trying to make, but this is such a promising start to her career.

Angela Bassett is getting an Honorary Oscar later this year, which, honestly, is too soon (I didn't get to talk about this on the blog because time got away from me, but I think she's too young to get a "we're never going to give you a win" statue, particularly after she nearly won in 2022).  Bassett is a brilliant performer, but this role is not good enough to give her a statue.  She gets one great soliloquy, used to maximum effect in the trailers & her Oscar clip, but it's not enough-the movie feels aimless, and needs her character to have more grounding to underline the tragic nature of this movie (particularly given the real-life death that necessitated its melancholy approach).  Good actress, forgettable performance.

Hong Chau is in a similar situation.  Unlike Bassett, Chau is hampered by a terrible movie (Black Panther 2 is fine).  She's the best part of it, and the way that she channels frustration onto the door-to-door missionary who keeps visiting Brendan Fraser's dying Charlie is good.  But it's lost in a movie that has no logic.  Her part feels so alien, this put-upon friend who clearly has not had any in-depth conversations with Charlie because she'd understand how messed-up he has become psychologically in the years that followed his partner's death, and Chau's natural ability to relate to the material can't work in a movie where the script is this bad.  Getting nominated for her scene-stealing work in The Menu would've been a better option.

Our final nominee is Kerry Condon, the "only woman in a cast of men" nomination that happens frequently with Supporting Actress, but here, she's given more to do than just reflect the male actors around her.  Condon's work is kind of spectacular.  In a film where so many around Padraic are trying to find their dreams (which unbeknownst to him, they've been giving up for his happiness), she's the one who understands that it might be worth at least trying.  Her final scenes, when she has to balance the joy of breathing for the first time in years and the heartbreaking guilt of potentially abandoning her brother to the life of loneliness she's escaping is haunting, and the culmination of a movie-long side performance.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Bassett, besting Condon, Curtis, Dolly de Leon (Triangle of Sadness), and Carey Mulligan (She Said), while BAFTA picked Condon against Bassett, Chau, Curtis, de Leon, & Mulligan.  SAG copied Oscar's lineup exactly, including the winner, which does beg the question of who was in sixth place.  I called this lineup exactly and this was less something I was proud of and more something where I was predicting the five frontrunners.  De Leon's film doing well otherwise might mean it's her, and she's the safest supporting actress, but honestly-a crazy nomination like Jean Smart for Babylon was clearly an option here (as would be some of the plethora of supporting actresses in Women Talking).  I will take theories in the comments.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Given that both Glass Onion and Women Talking had multiple performances that deserved inclusion in this lineup, it's weird women in neither of these movies got any love.

Oscar’s Choice: The EEAAO sweep and one of the most impressive awards campaigns I've ever seen got Jamie Lee Curtis the win over Angela Bassett & Kerry Condon.

My Choice: My victor is Condon-her work is the best fit for her film, and has the best-constructed arch.  Behind her (in order) are Hsu, Curtis, Bassett, & Chau.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you want to stay with the Final Girl getting her statue, or do you have time for the stage actress making good on the big screen?  Do we think it was Condon or Bassett who was in second place (history will write it was Bassett, but I kind of think it was Condon giving that film's strength overall)?  And who was our sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2022: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature, Sound, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2022

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

The Good, the Bad, the Undecided, & the Complicated of the 95th Oscars

And there we have it folks, the 95th Academy Awards are in the books.  We have spent more time discussing this Oscar race than the last couple for reasons I'm not entirely certain why (I've been more vested in this race unexpectedly), and we weirdly are not going to leave it behind for long.  I always pick the next OVP contest we profile based on whichever one we finish last, and unless something really strange happens in the next 24 hours, 2022 is going to bizarrely be the next movie to hit that milestone (I've never finished a year this quickly), so we could be into it as early as a month from now.  But as is our tradition here, let's close out the initial run with a peak at the good, bad, and the complicated of last night's Oscars.

The Good

I'm going to start with the good both because it makes sense and also because the internet seems incapable of celebrating anything these days, and I want to recognize-the Oscars did a good job last night.  Putting on an Oscar ceremony is hard...there's an expectation that you have to do something different, that you will have to strive for new viewers & create an ambience or world that's at once respecting tradition but in the process completely unique (i.e. impossible expectations).  In the process, the Oscars oftentimes have felt the need to emulate the Tonys, the Grammys, or in the last couple of years, something truly unforgivable like Jimmy Fallon.  So Jimmy Kimmel was smart to go back to what made the last Oscars heyday (the 1990's and early 2000's) so good.  He delivered a crisp, gimmick-free monologue, one with some solid jokes (maybe a little heavy on the slap jokes, but you can forgive him on that one given that it was inevitable), and stayed relatively safe.  Even the edgier jokes (like the ones about the recently deceased Robert Blake) were at least funny.  Kimmel has been my favorite host since at least Ellen Degeneres, maybe even since the Steve/Billy/Whoopi years, and I'd be happy if he got the same number of opportunities as Whoopi or Billy did before his Oscar career is finished.

In terms of wins, my favorite (by far) was Sarah Polley because at that point, based on the All Quiet on the Western Front stampede (more on that in a second), I was worried she'd go down in a sweep, but thankfully Oscar gave one of our most innovative filmmakers a statue for a wonderful movie.  And while it was not my favorite movie of the year, it's hard to begrudge the Everyone Everywhere All at Once crowd their trophies.  Yeoh & Quan were excellent in their films, and while Jamie Lee Curtis has been better, it's hard to begrudge her this.  She should be on her third or fourth nomination by now, and the reason she isn't is because her best work (Halloween, A Fish Called Wanda, True Lies, Freaky Friday) is in genres like action, comedy, & horror that Oscar shies away from...if you're going to give a career trophy, give it to someone who is severely under-rewarded.  Plus, like, she's good in the movie even if she's not as good as some of her costars...this is a win that will age perfectly well.

The Indifferent

In the past couple of years, to try and stabilize my mood & not constantly drown in worry or negativity, I have given myself permission to not have opinions on some things.  I'm going to highlight three spots that the internet was mad about (or at least passionate about) that I honestly...don't really care one way or the other.

The first was The Little Mermaid trailer.  Did I think it was a little tacky that ABC (owned by Disney) gave the Mouse House's single most important property of 2023 an in-ceremony plug?  Yes.  Does the cinematography & visual effects in the trailer look actively bad to the point where it looks like the movie is not finished yet?  Yes.  Do I understand that in order to get viewers, you do need to entice clicks on the internet, and arguably one of the most on-theme ways to do that would be to highlight movies viewers at home are super excited to see as we embark on the next year of movies?  Yes, yes I do.  I think if we make this a thing there might be less tacky ways to do it, but I'm not opposed to major releases for the next year (hopefully not just for Disney if we do this again) getting incorporated into the show if that means more conversation online and more people buying movie tickets.

The musical performances I was also a bit blasé about (with one exception-more in a second).  I liked Rihanna & RRR's performances, and found enough camp in the David Byrne & Diane Warren performances to not hate them even if I'm not a fan of those songs.  But I don't understand why they never seem to maximize the stage & production numbers in the same way that the Tonys or Grammys always seem to pull off.  I'm not mad about it because I don't really tune into the Oscars for the musical numbers (though as a Rihanna stan, I was thrilled to see her singing anything after such a long absence), but it flummoxes me why the world's most talented visual artists don't know how to stage a production number.

The final one I don't care that much about-the In Memoriam.  I have to come to terms that people will ALWAYS be mad about this one, and while there are performers on occasion who probably warrant this sort of exclusion (this year, I think Anne Heche getting skipped was a bad look, and Tom Sizemore was a weird miss), the internet naming people like Leslie Jordan and Cindy Williams, both of whom were FAR more important on television, as a grave sin the show committed, shows that no one will ever be satisfied on this.  And the beautiful, sad ode a crying John Travolta made to Olivia Newton-John was incredibly memorable.  I think the answer here has always been to only feature Academy members, as well as former nominees & winners, but until then, I'm just kind of tapping out on this one.

The Bad

I talked up front about how Jimmy Kimmel did well, but the rest of the presenters were a bust.  Hugh Grant & Julia Louis-Dreyfus aside (I liked both of their jokes), none of the presenters were very funny.  I get that with someone like Harrison Ford (who was clearly thrown off having to read what was obviously a script intended for he & Glenn Close, the far more natural stage actor of the two, were going to run through for Best Picture before she dropped out due to Covid), but what about Melissa McCarthy?  You make her go out there and sell The Little Mermaid and you couldn't have one of the most gifted comediennes in the movies do at least a little bit of banter with Halle Bailey?  Come on now.

The one musical performance I'm not letting slide is Lady Gaga's.  If you read this blog a lot, you'll probably be aware I have a complicated fandom with Gaga, but I'd like to remind you that I am generally into her music (or at least enough of it that I would consider myself a fan of her music) even if I don't like her acting.  But that performance was ill-advised & poorly-constructed.  It's clear that the rumors that she wasn't able to show up were, in fact, the truth and not a publicity stunt, given how horribly that was shot by the cameraman, and how badly that intro was planned.  What was with this deeply emotional start (for the end credits song to an action film sequel?), and what was with the choice for a stripped down, Nirvana-esque performance from someone who was in full glamour mode just moments before, to the point where you could tell she'd just had her makeup hurriedly wiped off backstage?  I'm not above a stunt, and Gaga does them better than most, but this one did not play well, and only the most ardent (or oblivious) of stans could say this was a win for her.  Kudos, though, for at least showing up when Tom Cruise & James Cameron (who both were nominated and made an abject fortune off of moviegoers this past year) wouldn't (I loved Kimmel taking them to task for not being there).

The biggest misses, though, came in two films that won major statues.  I try not to get too hung up on who did or didn't win (I can count on one hand how many of the films that won were the nominees that I personally would've chosen), but these movies were actively bad, and won at the expense of a LOT of better movies.  The first was The Whale, winning Best Makeup for an unrealistic fat suit (we really are not past this Hollywood?) and for Brendan Fraser's performance in it.  Fraser seems like a nice guy, but it has to be said before the season ends-he's not good in this movie, in fact he's bordering on awful, and he's not a competent enough actor otherwise (at least from what he's shown us in films) to get the benefit of the doubt here.  Truly-his best work remains light action-adventure or comedy films like The Mummy and George of the Jungle, which isn't great acting so much as charismatic (and certainly nowhere near good enough for an Oscar citation).  His work in The Whale was the worst performance nominated this year, in the worst film I saw in 2022.  Given he's a straight actor in a body suit playing a gay, obese man who is treated like a leper his whole movie for no other reason than he's fat...this will age like milk, and Fraser's victory deserves to be named alongside George Arliss & Rami Malek's as one of the worst, most offensive wins in the history of Best Actor.

Finally, there's All Quiet on the Western Front, which got four Oscar statues.  Unlike The Whale, because it won below-the-line categories, it's probably going to age fine (or at least fade into oblivion).  But I have to say, this is a boring, lifeless movie that reads as almost a photo copy of the previous iterations of the story, except they added blood.  Particularly given the opportunity to give a final statue to John Williams in Best Score or honor the first female cinematographer in Best Cinematography...it'd be one thing if All Quiet actually was good enough to win any of these statues, but since it wasn't, I'm bummed that Oscar didn't give us better television.

The Complicated

Two things stand out to me as complicated, and they are things that people are talking about on social media that I do have an opinion on, but probably one too nuanced for 280 characters.  The first is the sweep.  This is weird for younger Oscar viewers, who haven't really experienced a sweep in recent years because honestly the last proper one was in 2008 for Slumdog Millionaire.  Everything Everywhere All at Once won more Oscars than any film since they expanded the Best Picture field.  I kind of like a sweep-I think it's shorthand for Oscar putting its stamp truly on a year (it means they're really investing in it, for good or bad, as part of their legacy), but I'm also aware that this means that brilliant movies like Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Fabelmans go home empty-handed.  I personally think a sweep on occasion is a good thing-it provides easy talking points to viewers, and it also underscores that there's another option to "spread the wealth."  But I'm also bummed movies that I liked better didn't get more love.

The second one is the internet being angry about Jamie Lee Curtis beating Angela Bassett.  I feel like what gets lost in this conversation is that Curtis, as we mentioned above, has spent her career largely being ignored by critical bodies despite being a very consistent actor.  She is, surface-level, the daughter of Hollywood royalty (her parents are Golden Age icons and Oscar nominees themselves Janet Leigh & Tony Curtis), and yes, she got in the room in a way that Angela Bassett, the daughter of a single mother & social worker from St. Petersburg, Florida, could not.  But calling this an easy victory for Curtis is negated by the fact that she's spent most of her career fighting to be treated seriously as a truly talented actor and not just with being a yogurt spokesmodel.

What is easier to be angry about with Bassett, though, is what her loss and career has meant.  On the surface, I'm sorry, but I'm not buying either of these are GREAT performances (both of these women have been worse, both have been better, but without Oscar giving his stamp I doubt these movies would've been the headlines in these women's epitaph's).  But Bassett losing underscores that, unlike Curtis who spent her career being one of the best performers in genres Oscar ignored (in very good movies), Bassett largely attempted to work in serious dramas & biopics that are Oscar's bread-and-butter.  Films like Music of the Heart, Waiting to Exhale, and Akeelah and the Bee are the types of movies that Oscar sometimes pays attention to, but didn't give Bassett the time of day in them (and except for Exhale, aren't remembered in the same way that Curtis's work in something like Halloween or True Lies is).  It also shows that Bassett, who coming out of What's Love Got to Do With It, should have had more roles like those bestowed upon women like Holly Hunter, Susan Sarandon, & Jodie Foster who were in major films at that time, did not get a career like that, primarily because of the color of her skin.  Bassett joins a long list of Black women like Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, & Cicely Tyson who were clearly talented, but Hollywood wasn't willing to give a once-in-a-generation talent the kind of career she'd have been given as a white actress. Viola Davis is really the first Black actress to get the kind of career that women like Hunter, Sarandon, & Foster ended up with, and at 64, while Bassett could be back to the Dolby, her fans are aware that this could be it for an actress who had the talent to be the next Meryl Streep or Glenn Close...but not a Hollywood that was ready to let her prove it.

Halloween (1978)

Film: Halloween (1978)

Stars: Donald Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, PJ Soles, Nancy Kyes, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews

Director: John Carpenter

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

I will be honest here-the goal of this marathon is to watch movies that I've never seen before.  And with 14 of the titles, I can say with absolute confidence I haven't seen them before.  Halloween, on the other hand, I'm not sure.  I am not one of those people who have religiously been marking my Leonard Maltin guide since I was a kid (I should've, but I didn't), and my notes are incomplete-some indicating I have seen this at some point (my mom thought she showed it to me), but I have no memory of actually seeing it fully (likely just seeing a chunk of it on TBS in October).  Of course, we'd all be forgiven for not realizing we've seen John Carpenter's signature horror classic.  Made in 1978 for mere peanuts by an independent studio, Halloween would go on to spawn not just a franchise, but would become the most important horror film of its generation, and most of it is now as ingrained into our pop culture as Star Wars or Jaws.  Pretty much all of the movies we're going to profile for the remainder of this marathon are somewhere in its shadow, Halloween becoming the most important horror film since The Exorcist, perhaps even Psycho.  That Halloween would feature Jamie Lee Curtis in her breakout role, who of course is the daughter of Psycho star Janet Leigh, proves that Hollywood loves nothing more than a twist (and a little nepotism).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place on two separate Halloweens, with Michael Myers (as an adult, played by Castle) stabbing his teenage older sister Judy to death after she has sex with her boyfriend.  15 years later, Myers has escaped from a mental institution, and seems intent on going back to his childhood home, potentially to cause more murder & chaos.  He is pursued to that house by Dr. Sam Loomis (Pleasance), who understands that Myers is more than just a bad guy-he's evil incarnate.  Mike Myers slowly starts to kill a trio of friends, one of which is Laurie Strode (Curtis), who is babysitting two kids named Tommy (Andrews) and Lindsey (Richards, and yes it's the Kyle Richards of Real Housewives fame).  Laurie outsmarts Myers, but in true horror movie fashion he clearly is going to make it to live another day, running away from Laurie & Dr. Loomis in the end of the movie, the film ending with his heavy breathing near all of the scenes of his crimes earlier in the evening.

Halloween is fascinating in part because of the tropes that it launched.  It was not, as we've already shown this month, the first "slasher" movie-Psycho, of course, had a serial killer of that nature, and movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas both contained elements of what would become signatures of the slasher genre.  But Halloween really brought it to another level, giving us one of the quintessential "final girls" with Laurie Strode, and introducing many of the "rules" of the genre (particularly its complicated attitudes toward sex & virginity & how killers will punish those who don't take these concepts seriously) that would dominate it for the next twenty years.  While it wasn't the first, it's impossible to imagine Jason, Freddy, Chucky, & Ghostface in the decades to come without Michael Myers.

The movie itself is really strong, and ages beautifully.  It is still genuinely terrifying, building its scares not just through graphic violence (that would've been impossible a decade previously), but through genuine tension.  The movie isn't afraid to stretch some of the tension-it's not just about killing some of the teenagers, but instead about faking out the audience-making us try to understand who will live or not.  It's brief (under 100 minutes long), and there's literally no fat on the movie.  The technical aspects are sharp, with solid cinematography, editing, & in particular an iconic score that sends chills down your spine.  Independent cinema still had something of a bad rap at this point in terms of "quality" being the exception to the rule, but look at scenes like the one where the nurse is attacked in the car, and the terrifying way we film the unknown before we understand what's going on-that happens a lot in the movie, and it helps make it feel like it's not working on a dime store budget.

And Curtis, well, is great.  I'm curious as we move into other classics of the genre where we end up in terms of "best acting," but it's clear that Curtis understands that she needs to bring more to Laurie than the script is asking.  I love the way that she genuinely enjoys babysitting (she's not a "good girl" because she's not pretty, but because it's just how she's wired), or the little touches of trying to understand why she's friends with girls so different from her.  She is forging a lot of what would eventually become cliches for a reason-her Laurie is a fighter, and someone who doesn't know her own strength.  Add in Donald Pleasance as an obviously scarred psychiatrist who knows more than he's let on (and perhaps feels some relief that the world understands the monstrosity that he's lived with for so many years), and you've got an A+ horror masterpiece.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Village of the Damned, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Carrie

OVP: Knives Out (2019)

Film: Knives Out (2019)
Stars: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Christopher Plummer
Director: Rian Johnson
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I love Clue.  I know that like everyone loves Clue, but I LOVE Clue.  I like everything about Clue, and not just the movie (which I've seen more than any other film, once watched with my brother I think every day for a month-for two cinephile brothers, I think that's the only film we ever did something like that with, and that includes Disney films, and have a poster of it in my basement).  I collect Clue board games; I have 20 versions of the game in my hobby room closet, as well as three knockoff mystery games (13 Dead End Drive, I see you), and am hoping to make it 21 this Christmas as I have "Clue Guess Who" prominently featured at the top of my Christmas list.  I've read all of the Clue books, watched the Clue VCR game, have the Clue Christmas ornament, I buy the Clue board game chocolate every year that Target has it...I love Clue.  And as a result, I'm about as good of a candidate for something like Knives Out as you can find-a silly murder mystery with a large, talented ensemble cast is exactly what gets me to a movie theater.  Even with a plethora of more plausible Oscar contenders out (though kudos on the trio of Globe nominations!), I couldn't resist last week when I had a two hour window to go and catch Rian Johnson's latest in theaters.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is not, of course, Clue, but it's obvious that Johnson has had a similar adoration for the franchise.  We start with Harlan Thrombey (Plummer), a wealthy mystery novelist, dying of what appears to be suicide in the opening moments of the film.  He had just finished celebrating his birthday party, one that had quite a bit of calamity with his family, and this opened the door for Benoit Blanc (Craig, sporting a ridiculous Southern accent), a noted detective, to be hired by an anonymous figure to investigate what could be a murder.  The film hosts a variety of suspects, from driven businesswoman Linda (Curtis), Harlan's favorite child, to her husband Richard (Johnson), who is having an affair, to his less successful son Walt (Shannon) who is mad that his father is driving him out of the business.  Add in a failed "Goop"-style guru daughter-in-law Joni (Collette) and a spoiled playboy grandson Ransom (Evans), and about the only person you don't suspect is Marta (de Armas), Harlan's nurse & caretaker.  Which means, of course, that Marta is both guilty and we're about to find out why she's guilty.

The best parts of Knives Out are arguably the parts I liked the least while watching it, because I am a mystery fan at heart, and love figuring out the clues as I'm going along.  We find out about a third of the way through what "actually" happened (it's a mystery-there's going to be a twist eventually) with Marta mixing up the morphine vile with Harlan's medication, thus accidentally killing him, and depriving her of her inheritance (Harlan decided to leave all of the money to his caretaker, cutting his family out of the will as a result).  We then see the steps that Marta will take to keep Benoit from finding out, knowing that if she had anything to do with Harlan's death, she'll lose the fortune which will go to Harlan's greedy & unworthy family.  As a result, this becomes more of a thriller than a mystery, as we're meant to take on the role of Marta as an audience rather than Benoit.

Upon reflection, this change in format generally works.  Johnson upends the mystery genre by giving us what we think is the answer, in the process showing what it's like to be an unreliable narrator, but in doing so the ending and the humor don't really resonate by putting someone as morally upstanding as Marta so central to the story.  The movie's best parts should be Curtis, Stanfield, and Collette, all having a blast with their characters, but they're forced into the sidelines to focus on sweet-as-pie Marta and over-acting Benoit, and since the only character whom we spend enough time with and is dynamic enough to be the eventual culprit is Evans' Ransom, we know eventually that it'll be revealed that he's the killer (by switching the labels on the bottles).

The film is fun, no question, but the entire time I saw it I kept thinking "this should be more fun."  It runs too long, isn't snappy enough outside of the initial interrogation sequences, and because it takes away the enjoyment of solving the mystery, it doesn't make us vested into the stories of the eccentric relatives.  As a result, we get relatively two-dimensional performances from people capable of so much more, and while de Armas has ability, she's kind of boring as Marta when you keep wanting to go back to the fun promised in the trailer & the movie's opening chapters.

A Mother's Day Celebration: Hollywood's Best Mother-Daughter Pairs

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought it would be fun to look at my five favorite mother-daughter pairs in Hollywood.  Below I have ranked the best mother-daughter pairs at the movies:

5. Diane Ladd and Laura Dern

Laura finally started to catch up with mama Diane at the Oscars this past year.  The Rambling Rose costars have had a long history with Oscar, with Ladd nominated three times versus Dern's two nominations.  Both are brilliant performers who also costarred on HBO's Enlightened.

4. Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher

Debbie was one of the biggest stars of the 1950's, headlining dozens of romantic comedies, and is still celebrated today (she recently won the SAG Life Achievement Award), while Carrie Fisher would have enormous success in front of the screen in the Star Wars films (she'll be in Episode 7 later this year) and behind the screen as a comedian and screenwriter.

3. Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson

Goldie Hawn is perfect, and I've always LOVED these two together whenever they do interviews or talks on the red carpet.  Kate hasn't had the career her mom has, but she's always insanely fun and I constantly wish she'd pull her mom out of retirement for some sort of mother-daughter comedy (who wouldn't want that?).

2. Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli

Both legends in their own-right, two of Classic Hollywood's biggest stars both won Oscars (Judy a juvenile award, while Liza emerged victorious with Cabaret), and both became immortal for their singing prowess and stage presence.

1. Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis

Janet's a Hollywood icon, starring in three of the best films ever made (Touch of Evil, Psycho, and The Manchurian Candidate) while Jamie Lee Curtis has headlined films as diverse as Halloween, True Lies, and Freaky Friday.  Together they're not just Scream Queens of different generations-they're my favorite mother-daughter pair in Hollywood.

Those are my favorites-how about yours?  Who else would you add to this list?  Share in the comments!  And Happy Mother's Day!

A Look at Women and the Box Office

Jennifer Lawrence's Catching Fire is poised to cross the $350 million domestic mark this weekend, becoming only the third film to do so this year, and putting it within shouting distance of Iron Man 3, which gathered $409 million this past summer.  This year has been a robust one for women at the Box Office.  In addition to Lawrence's success, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy both headlined a pair of $100 million+ grossers at the box office, and Jennifer Aniston/Kristen Bell also were the leads in films of similar grosses.

That being said, being the Number One film of the year continues to be a "man's world."  Since 1980, only one film had a woman get equal/top billing and was also the highest-grossing picture domestically: Titanic's Kate Winslet (who is technically second-billed, but only due to the alphabet).  Otherwise literally every other film had a man as the definitive lead.  

This wasn't always the case.  While Box Office Mojo (the only site I trust explicitly in these sorts of matters) only goes back to 1980 in their grosses, films of the 1950's through the 1970's regularly had women such as Mitzi Gaynor, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews, Audrey Hepburn, Barbra Streisand, and Ali McGraw starring in the top-grossing film of the year.

So as a bit of fun today (and because it's cold out and I don't want to venture into the iciness), I thought I would track the past 25 years of cinema, and look to see what the biggest role for a woman in the top-grossing film is, as well as the highest-grossing film where an actress gets top billing.  Let's take a look (we'll skip 2013 since we've already gone there)!

1988

Top Grossing Film: Rain Man

Main Female Star: Valeria Golino, who is Tom Cruise's girlfriend and gets third billing

Highest-Grossing Film With a Top-Billed Actress: So, for those who are curious, I'm going with top-billed star or someone who gets a tie for top-billed, so even though, say, Winona Ryder might have the biggest part in Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton is still the champ there.  I'm also skipping Working Girl here, because in the posters I can find, Melanie Griffith is below Harrison Ford and Weaver gets second billing, proving that the billing isn't alphabetical.  Therefore, I’m going with Jamie Lee Curtis and A Fish Called Wanda, who gets alphabetical top-billing (shared with John Cleese, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin), and was the twelfth highest-grossing film of the year.

1989

Top Grossing Film: Batman

Main Female Star: Kim Basinger as Michael Keaton’s girlfriend, and she gets third billing

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: I probably should have looked at how difficult it would be to pick out “top-billed” before I started this project.  One could argue that Kirstie Alley is the lead in Look Who’s Talking, but she gets second billing to John Travolta.  Morgan Freeman is before Jessica Tandy alphabetically for Driving Miss Daisy, but the way the poster is structured they don’t share top-billing.  Therefore, the crown goes to Meg Ryan who shares top-billing with Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally… in the eleventh highest-grossing film of the year.

1990

Top Grossing Film: Home Alone

Main Female Star: Christopher Guest favorite Catherine O’Hara plays Kevin McAllister’s mother, and gets sixth-billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Patrick Swayze outranks Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg on the Ghost poster, so that’s a no.  Therefore, thanks to our now patent-pending alphabetical clause, the award goes to Julia Roberts who shared top-billing in the fourth-highest grossing film of the year in Pretty Woman.

1991

Top Grossing Film: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Main Female Star: This is one of the only films on this list that I haven’t seen, and it’s bumming me out because it has a female star in second billing (our first) and also one that kicks some ass-Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: In our first case of an actress not sharing the top billing (though she does share the title), Paige O’Hara, the voice of Belle in Beauty and the Beast takes the prize with the third highest-ranking film of the year.

1992

Top Grossing Film: Aladdin

Main Female Star: As the voice of Aladdin’s girlfriend Princess Jasmine (what does it say that we’re only five films in and the description “girlfriend of the main character” has been used thrice), voiced by Linda Larkin, lands third billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Everyone only remembers Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, but she gets third billing to Keaton and DeVito.  Demi Moore gets above-the-line billing on A Few Good Men, but the ranking isn’t alphabetical so she loses to Tom Cruise.  That leaves us with the seventh-highest grossing film of the year, Sister Act, and its star Whoopi Goldberg as our victors.

1993

Top Grossing Film: Jurassic Park

Main Female Star: Though really the stars are the effects and Steven Spielberg, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler lands in the number two spot behind Sam Neill.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Our first actress to repeat is Meg Ryan, who shares top-billing with Tom Hanks in the number five grosser Sleepless in Seattle.

1994

Top Grossing Film: Forrest Gump

Main Female Star: As Forrest’s girlfriend Jenny, we have Robin Wright with second billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: It’s hard to imagine now, but Sandra Bullock wasn’t a big enough star in 1994 to outrank Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper for billing.  Jodie Foster was above-the-line for Maverick, but Mel Gibson still gets higher billing than her (and the above-the-line isn’t alphabetical).  That means we hit our lowest-ranking yet with 13^th place.  The victor is Susan Sarandon, who was Oscar-nominated for her work in The Client.

1995

Top Grossing Film: Toy Story

Main Female Star: Oof-all the way down in seventh place is cowboy Woody’s girlfriend Bo Peep, voiced by Annie Potts.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Whew-I thought for a second that Mel Gibson was going to get top-billing on Pocahontas, but thankfully that went to the title character, voiced by Irene Bedard, for the fourth highest-grossing film of the year.

1996

Top Grossing Film: Independence Day

Main Female Star: I was a little worried when I remembered this very male-dominated film at how far we’d have to go for a woman, but it was only fourth billing, with Mary McDonnell (playing the First Lady and wife of a main character) being the main female lead.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Oh so close-were it not for Independence Day, we would have had a female-led top-grosser, as Helen Hunt gets first-billing for the number two film of the year, Twister.

1997

Top Grossing Film: Titanic

Main Female Star and Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: In the only year that we’re going to cover where this happens, Kate Winslet shares top-billing with Leonardo DiCaprio for this romantic epic.

1998

Top Grossing Film: Saving Private Ryan

Main Female Star: This is probably the only time I’ve ever hoped for Armageddon over Saving Private Ryan, as women would have done much better there.  While there are bit parts played by female actors in this film, you have to go through dozens of men to get to them, so I’m not even going to bother finding out what the ranking was.  We’ll just say does not apply and move onward.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Thankfully Cameron Diaz was a big enough star to land a top-billed slot for (Number Three) There’s Something About Mary.  Otherwise we would have had to go well outside the Top 10 to land a female-led film.  Clearly 1998 was not a great “Year of the Woman” at the movies.

1999

Top Grossing Film: Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace

Main Female Star: Here is where franchises really and truly start to take over the tops of the box office, and so we’ll see more repeats on these names.  Here we find third-billed Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala (she isn’t the “girlfriend” role until episode two, so we’re good for now).

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Our second actress to appear twice on this list, Julia Roberts doesn’t even need an alphabetical clause to get her top-billing for Runaway Bride, the ninth highest-grossing film of the year.

2000

Top Grossing Film: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Main Female Star: So apparently for a while there films no one liked became the highest-grossing films of the year.  Jim Carrey’s gaudy misadventures had a young Taylor Momsen in second billing for her work as Cindy Lou Who.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Continuing the trend of films no one really likes anymore, we have the fifth highest-grossing film (and our third film to star a repeat actress on the list), What Women Want with Helen Hunt sharing top-billing with Mel Gibson.

2001

Top Grossing Film: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Main Female Star: This is genuinely hard to tell, because the credits don’t go in order of screen-time, per say.  I’m going to just go with conventional wisdom, then, and say that Emma Watson was in third billing, though it may well have been Maggie Smith for this particular installment.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: The romantic epic doesn’t have split billing, so Kate Beckinsale in Pearl Harbor is out-of-luck to Ben Affleck.  Therefore, we have to go to the twelfth-place film Hannibal, where our alphabetical clause probably gets Julianne Moore in on a technicality (Hopkins was clearly top-billed here), but they’re both above the line and even on the poster, so it counts.

2002

Top Grossing Film: Spider-Man

Main Female Star: Playing, once again, Spider-Man’s girlfriend is Kirsten Dunst.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: It’s arguable whether Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman share top-billing on Attack of the Clones, but I’m erring on the side of no without a poster to back-me-up.  Therefore, the winner is the surprise hit of 2002, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its star Nia Vardalos, who landed the Number 5 spot (can you imagine something like that happening even just ten years later?).

2003

Top Grossing Film: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Main Female Star: Oddly enough, this is the only time the Tolkien series has made it to the top of the heap.  Like Harry Potter, the billing here is very off in relation to actual screen time, so the winner is either Miranda Otto, Cate Blanchett, or Liv Tyler, though only Otto gets a robust role in the film.  At least if it’s Otto it’s not the main character’s girlfriend (though she’s still in love with him).

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: The alphabetical rule blocks our second woman of color getting in here, as Queen Latifah is second-billed to Steve Martin in Bringing Down the House.  The same is true for Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta Give.  Therefore we have to do our fourth double-appearance and our first ever tie with the 21^st (yes, that’s not a typo) highest-grossing film of the year Freaky Friday starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in the dual top-billing.

2004

Top Grossing Film: Shrek 2

Main Female Star: Cameron Diaz plays Shrek’s wife in this film, and lands third billing for her efforts.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Drew Barrymore suffers from the alphabetical billing clause in 50 First Dates, which leads oddly to another 21^st place finish with another actress (similar to Lohan) who had a very brief period of box office success: Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge.

2005

Top Grossing Film: Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith

Main Female Star: Natalie Portman, now decidedly in the girlfriend mode, gets second billing.  Also, in a side note-how odd is it that this film did SO much better ($90 million) than that year’s Harry Potter?  This is not something commonly thought of because of Harry’s spellbinding international grosses, but the Star Wars films perform much better domestically than the boy wizard.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Our second film on this list so far to get a woman into the second-highest grossing film, Tilda Swinton lead the field with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but could only manage the silver.

2006

Top Grossing Film: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Main Female Star: Pulling in third billing is Keira Knightley as, you guessed it, Orlando Bloom’s girlfriend (and the third leg of the Jack/Will/Elizabeth love triangle).

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Probably our eldest actress so far to get cited, in 17^th place (a mild improvement, though nowhere near where we were a decade ago), we have Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, which won her a massive comeback and an Oscar nomination.

2007

Top Grossing Film: Spider-Man 3

Main Female Star: Again, this is one of the only top grossers I never got around to (which is odd, because I was seeing a lot of movies during this period).  Either way, we have Kirsten Dunst once more as Peter Parker’s girlfriend.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: The alphabetical clause discounts Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up as well as Jessica Alba in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (a film so little looked up, its video game pops up before it does in IMDB).  Instead, we have Amy Adams taking the prize for her Princess Giselle in Enchanted, coming in at twentieth place.

2008

Top Grossing Film: The Dark Knight

Main Female Star: Oh, it’s a comic book film so you just know that it’s a girlfriend role: Maggie Gyllenhaal playing Rachel with fifth place billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: And for the first time ever, we have a female-led film series.  Say what you want about Kristen Stewart and this cinematic series, but few other women in the past ten years can compete with her box office pulls.  Twilight gets us seventh place.  It’s also worth noting that 2008 was a surprisingly robust year for women at the Box Office: Sarah Jessica Parker’s Sex and the City, Meryl Streep’s Mamma Mia, and Angelina Jolie’s Wanted were all in the Top 20.

2009

Top Grossing Film: Avatar

Main Female Star: I was genuinely curious considering her lack of star power and the fact that Sigourney Weaver was a bigger name at the time, but Zoe Saldana (in second) did indeed get the top spot here.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: In fourth place, we have our second appearance by Kristen Stewart, though it’s worth noting that Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side got in eighth place this year, meaning that after roughly a decade where women could barely scrape into the Top 20, here we had two films in the Top 10 that were female-led.

2010

Top Grossing Film: Toy Story 3

Main Female Star: Unlike fifteen years earlier, we didn’t have Annie Potts, but instead Joan Cusack as our top actress, and Cusack comes in as third with the rootenest, tootenest Jessie.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Despite being the title character, Mia Wasikowska was outranked by the movie star that is Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland.  That means for the third year in a row we have Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (and another female-led film in Tangled, which rounded out the Top 10).  Eclipse ranked fourth.

2011

Top Grossing Film: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Main Female Star: Ten years after the question mark, this is still a bit up in the air, but it does appear that Emma Watson managed to slide into second billing for the final installment of the series.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Kristen Stewart continued her trend, with Breaking Dawn Part 1 being the third highest-grossing film of the year.  The next highest-ranking was The Help’s Emma Stone at thirteenth place.

2012

Top Grossing Film: The Avengers

Main Female Star: Well, at least she isn’t a girlfriend role.  In fifth place is Scarlett Johansson, playing one of the six avengers, the Black Widow.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Jennifer Lawrence supplants Kristen Stewart for the first time in four years, with The Hunger Games coming in third to Breaking Dawn Part II’s sixth place.  The highest-ranking woman not in a franchise (at least it didn’t seem intended to be a franchise at the time) was Kristen Stewart once more in Snow White and the Huntsman.

And there you have it, my friends-an exhaustive look at the box office and women’s roles in it.  It isn’t difficult to see the sexism on display-more than half of the principle roles in the highest-grossing films were women playing the main character’s love interest or girlfriend, and were it not for Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, female-led motion pictures would have almost no position in the Top 10’s of the past decade.  What about this list most surprised you?  What would it take for Hollywood to fix what is clearly a problem?  Why don’t people see more female-led motion pictures?  Share in the comments!