THE DANMAN CAN

A dreamy, mythical, romantic, and tragic tale, suffused with unease, beauty, atmosphere, and mystery. Peter Weir Feature Films Ranked

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  (1974) is lightning in a bottle. It's one of a handful of horror films worthy of hyperbole. It's required viewing for any horror hound. It's the ultimate grindhouse film. It's one of my  Top 100 Films  (Letterboxd version of that list  here ) and one of my  Top 10 Horror Films .  Tobe Hooper  was never able to capture that lightning in a bottle again. He came close with his over the top 1986 sequel  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2   ( review )—a much less highly regarded film but one I love as equally as the original—but for totally different reasons. TCM  is a messy, imperfect film. Some of the scenes drag on too long, the action ebbs and flows in weird patterns, and it's quite repetitive at times. The first time you see it, it's hard to decide if the filmmakers are deranged geniuses or flying by the seat of their pants. But it works either way because it builds and builds to that show-stopping dinner scene a...

Poorly lit, awkward, mostly unfunny, but fascinating in a car wreck/can't look away from it kind of way, Highball (1997) probably could have been a decent film had it been granted more time and money . As it exists, it's essentially  Noah Baumbach 's  The Room  (2003) ( review ) and I can fully understand why he asked to have his name removed from it. Noah Baumbach Feature Films Ranked

Sandwiched between the first two Godfather films, Al Pacino  made his first (of two) masterpiece(s) with director  Sidney Lumet , Serpico (1973). The second arrived two years later in Dog Day Afternoon . It's a shame the two never worked together again after that. While the systemic corruption exposed in Serpico  (based on the real life of police detective  Frank Serpico ) probably felt more eye-opening in 1973, the film itself has aged incredibly well, thanks in large part to Pacino's all-in (and mostly restrained) performance, the quasi-documentary quality, the interesting editing, and the time capsule of the period (you can't deny Pacino's outfits and facial hair phases). Sidney Lumet Feature Films Ranked Top 20 Directors

Holy tomato!—a charmingly campy and crude Charlie Band  cult cut. TerrorVision   (1986) features a cast of genre stalwarts, super weird and hilarious characters, ridiculously silly but creative creature effects, eye-popping production and costume design, and a really fun theme song by the Fibonaccis , reminiscent of Oingo Boingo and Missing Persons . A slime-covered '50s monster movie-cum-neon '80s horror sci-fi satire that scratches a very specific itch.

 Sometimes a film can be a real cool hand, a natural-born world-shaker.