THE DANMAN CAN

In which Noah Baumbach tackles quirky postmodern existentialism. I like that  White Noise (2022) feels nothing like his other films but it's still a mixed bag. The tonal shifts are very bizarre but I've never read the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo so I don't know if they make sense in the context of being an adaptation of that work. Recommended for fans of  Inherent Vice   (2014),  Close Encounters Of The Third Kind  (1977) ( review ), and Wes Anderson films. Noah Baumbach Feature Films Ranked

Guillermo del Toro  and Mark Gustafson 's  Pinocchio (2022) is a good film but I found it to be overlong and the songs did nothing for me (everything sounded auto-tuned and I wish it wasn’t a half-musical). Most of the humor fell flat for me as well. The celebrity voice actors do good work, though I found Ron Perlman ’s delivery didn’t fit his character all that well and the inconsistency regarding accents is odd. I enjoyed the darker aspects of the film but I wish it was weirder and even darker, the way that del Toro's other films are. I appreciate the character designs (a deciding factor for whether I’ll even approach an animated film). But mostly I just love stop-motion and the artistry on display here (though the way everything is finished in post-production it often just ends up looking like CGI anyway). Guillermo del Toro Feature Films Ranked

Carrie  (1976) is the ultimate high school horror story. Countless films have been inspired by and imitated it   (and it's been remade twice ) but none can match the delicious blend of melodrama, humor, tension and technique that  Brian De Palma  created.  Sissy Spacek  and  Piper Laurie   are pitch perfect,  Pino Donaggio 's score is sumptuous and melancholic, and  Mario Tosi 's cinematography is impressive and memorable. Brian De Palma Feature Films Ranked Stephen King Feature & Television Film Adaptations Ranked Top 20 Directors

Big Trouble In Little China  (1986) is simply one of the greatest action/adventure/comedies of the '80s and it's  John Carpenter 's most fun film. It features  Kurt Russell   as Jack Burton—his last (new) iconic role for the director (he would return to play Snake Plissken in  Escape From L.A.   ( review ) for their final collaboration in 1996). BTILC is a genre-bending slice of cinema—effortlessly blending comedy, fantasy, action, and  wuxia . Russell   plays Burton as a caricature of the rugged, macho males we've grown accustomed to in movies—an all American truck driver quipping laughable one-liners in a hilarious John Wayne impersonation, and sporting a furious mullet. In reality Burton is the most inept character, largely taking a backseat to the action handled by the almost exclusively Asian cast. Russell perfectly bumbles his way through the film in a reversal of audience expectations— Dennis Dunn ends up being t...

The 1933 version of  Alice In Wonderland , based on  Lewis Carroll ’s  Alice's Adventures In Wonderland   (1865) and Alice Through The Looking Glass (1871), is the right proportion of surreal and whimsical. It’s amazing to me how much this live action version seems to inform not only the 1951 Disney animated version but also the 1939 film adaptation of  The Wizard Of Oz   ( review ) . While this AIW has nowhere near the staying power of either of those films, it’s still quite entertaining. The production values are cheap but the bizarre, nightmarish costumes are a blast, Charlotte Henry is a cute, endearing Alice, and the appearances by stars Cary Grant , Gary Cooper , and W.C. Fields are fun. 

On the surface  Road House (1989) is pretty straightforward late ‘80s macho action fare but it's immensely entertaining, has fun characters, highly quotable dialogue, and Dean Cundey 's cinematography perfectly captures the smoky, neon-tinged bars with visual flair. Patrick Swayze ’s charming philosophical bouncer is one of his signature roles in this cult classic modern-day western, chock-full of brawls, booze, and blues.

Black Christmas (2006) has plenty of flaws and doesn’t hold a candle to the classic 1974 original ( review ), but it’s an ultra gory, trashy good time. I remember being surprised how much I enjoyed it the first time I saw it in 2007 and it didn’t disappoint on a rewatch. A dumb, fun, ridiculous slasher.

The Whale (2022) is a frustrating watch, just like other  Darren Aronofsky  films such as  The Fountain   (2006) and  Mother!   (2017) ( review ). Frustrating because Brandon Fraser is absolutely fantastic but the film is not quite. When Aronofsky nails it (as with 2000's  Requiem For A Dream  ( review ) and 2008's  The Wrestler ), he really nails it. Pi (1998) was also a formative film for me, as a first year college student. I didn't realize going into The Whale that it was based on a play. This became immediately obvious in the way that Aronofsky blocks his shots and most of the film is framed in 1.33:1 (full screen) aspect ratio. The performances also lean very heavily toward the theatrical. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. Aronofsky's tendency for dramatic (and, yes, pretentious) flair can be a bit much but there are some genuinely affecting and tearjerking moments to be found here. Darren Aronofsky Feature Fil...

A one and done for me. Damien Chazelle Feature Films Ranked

Watching   All The Creatures Were Stirring (2018) is like watching a friend's movie, where you're really happy that they created something more than you're actually enjoying the movie. That might sound harsh, and Creatures is not without some laughs and fun, but production design is virtually non-existent, its cinematography is completely unremarkable, and it's pretty cheesy. There's lots of familiar actors in this Christmas horror anthology (including many Mad Men (2007–2015) alumni and stars of indie genre flicks) but their presence doesn't elevate a film that clearly needed rewrites, a better vision, stronger editing, and a larger budget.

While I prefer Neil Gaiman 's 2002 novel , particularly due to the unnecessary addition of the Wybie character in the 2009 film, Henry Selick 's Coraline   is nevertheless a fantastic work of stop-motion. The film could stand to be ten minutes shorter but the visuals are so awe-inspiring and the craft on display is so mesmerizing that it is easily forgivable. The recently released 4K UHD looks and sounds stupendous. Bruno Coulais ' score is one of my favorites (he manages to out- Elfman Danny—at least anything he's done since the '90s) and it's just as enjoyable outside the film. Unlike so many animated films (of any discipline) of the last twenty-odd years, I mostly love the character designs in Coraline , which is something that will determine whether I even watch an animated film. I am of the (unpopular?) opinion that Coraline  is superior to Selick's most well-known film,  The Nightmare Before Christmas   (1993) ( review ).

The Five Days  (1973) is a strange film. Strange because it's the only comedy/drama that  Dario Argento  has directed thus far but also because no matter who directed it, it would still feel a bit "off." This can be attributed to the tone of the film which—while very  reminiscent of  Sergio Leone  (whom Dario shared story credit for Once Upon A Time In The West  (1968) ( review ) prior to directing his debut), in particular Duck, You Sucker (1971)—not-so-seamlessly ping pongs between comedy and drama. TFD blends the revisionist western and sexy comedy genres together to tell a fictional account of the revolutionary  Five Days of Milan . The resulting film is, as mentioned above…bizarre. Which is cool, I like bizarre films. There are definitely some laughs to be had from some of the more slapstick material, and a few of the more serious moments manage to be affecting. It's just the way that the film transitions between the tones and its handling o...

Highlander  (1986) feels like it was written by a 12-year-old boy. I mean that in the best way possible. Very little about this movie makes much sense and  Russell Mulcahy ’s music video background is overwhelmingly obvious in the editing and cinematography. To be fair, Mulcahy's music video resume is  legendary —he directed clips for the likes of  AC/DC ,  The Stranglers ,  XTC ,  The Tubes ,  Duran Duran ,  Spandau Ballet  (including " True ," an all-time jam),  Fleetwood Mac  (including " Gypsy "),  Billy Joel  (including " Pressure ," a favorite),  Elton John ,  Rod Stewart  (including " Young Turks "),  Bonnie Tyler 's iconic (and ridiculous) " Total Eclipse Of The Heart " (probably the most easily identifiable in terms of visual similarities to  Highlander ), and of course  The Buggles ' " Video Killed The Radio Star " (the first to be played on  MTV ). Christopher Lambert ...

I've flip-flopped over the years as to whether I like Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971) more or less than  The Cat O' Nine Tails   (1971) ( review ) (whereas I've always liked 1970's  The Bird With The Crystal Plumage  the most of  Dario Argento 's first three films). After this latest viewing of the former, I'm going to give the edge to the latter.  The final film in Argento's unofficial " Animal Trilogy ,"  FFOGV  is undoubtedly the most stylish and experimental of the three. It features innovative and indelible opening and closing scenes, and an excellent  Ennio Morricone  score (perhaps his best one for Argento). Due to a disagreement during scoring this would be the last time that the prolific composer—who scored all three of Dario's Animal Trilogy films—would work with the director until 25 years later with The Stendhal Syndrome   ( review ).  Four Flies  paved the way for many themes and trademarks that wo...

Joe Begos  very much comes from the Rob Zombie / David Gordon Green school of filmmaking where there’s a preoccupation with ultra dirtbag characters who don’t have much of a vocabulary outside of the F-bomb and where mean-spiritedness abounds.  It’s difficult to care one iota for a single character in Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) when they are all this obnoxious and dispensed with so casually. When characters are this scummy and underdeveloped it somehow even robs the joy out of seeing them get offed. I honestly can’t tell if Begos is going for  Tarantino -cool or if he intentionally writes his characters as total douchebags. As he does in every one of his movies, Begos riffs on other, better-made ones. In  Almost Human   (2013) ( review ) it was  Invasion Of The Body Snatchers   (1978) and  The Thing  (1982) ( review ); in  The Mind's Eye   (2015) ( review ) it was  Scanners   (1981) ( review ) and  ...

It's kind of amazing that Deathdream (aka Dead Of Night ) was released just a few months prior to  Bob Clark 's classic holiday slasher  Black Christmas   ( review ), but the former was sitting on the shelf for some time because according to Wikipedia it was filmed in the fall of 1972.  Deathdream is notable for being only the second screen credit for makeup/special effects wizard Tom Savini . His work here makes great use of a small budget and honestly looks better than some of what he did later on in the '70s (the '80s were where he really shined).  Carl Zittrer  provides the same type of jarring and dissonant score work that he did for Black Christmas , and some of the cues and techniques are almost identical but slightly less effective here. Similarly there are other parallels and techniques that director Clark mirrors from his other—more famous—1974 film, including the way he uses humor to balance the bleak content and oppressive ...

Watching the 40-year-old The Secret Of NIMH as a middle-aged man is still a treat. I watched this film many  times as a child. The dark tone was scary, but I remember loving it too. I can't quite recall if the last time I'd seen it was the late '80s or when it was released to DVD in the late '90s. Don Bluth 's first feature after leaving Disney (and taking several of their animation staff with him) holds up quite well. As an adult I can definitely see flaws, but the animation remains gorgeous. I like how the film (mostly) doesn't pander to its audience, there's a palpable sense of danger throughout, and it features one of Jerry Goldsmith 's most sumptuous scores. Don Bluth Feature Films Ranked