I had myself another Blockbuster weekend. Enjoy!

——Close Encounters of the Third Kind——

I wasn’t really expecting much when I sat down to watch this movie, since the UFO thing has been pretty much done to death for me and I knew all the key points of the movie (the mashed potatoes “This means something” and the spaceship over the natural monument playing music) before watching it. And yet this movie completely enthralled me from almost the beginning. (I didn’t really like the opening in Mexico, but once you get to Richard Dreyfuss everything is fine.) I really enjoyed the fact that Spielberg pushed all of those great moments to their limits, not cutting scenes down to fit into a time frame or a pacing limitation. Normally the movie moves at a regular pace, but every time a UFO appears it’s almost as if time slows down, letting the impact of what you are seeing really sink in. What could have been silly and cliché becomes sublime somehow, and brings a real honest sense of wonder to those scenes. You’re just a curious as to what it all means as Dreyfuss is. Tension is built up better than in most horror films. The dialog is extremely fun and yet realistic. I found this movie extremely mesmerizing and entertaining. It brought back that UFO fascination I had as a kid almost as if it had never left me.

If there is one thing I could find fault with, it’s the fact that I really wanted to know what the aliens really wanted, or at least see what the inside of the ship looked like. Those are minor quibbles though, completely unrelated to what the film actually accomplishes. This one gets a gold star.

(A)

——Carrie——

Brian De Palma makes an excellent horror film. Sissy Spacek gives an extraordinarily well acted performance. John Travolta…well, let’s leave him out of it. This is probably the best adaptation of a Stephen King book I’ve ever seen, adapted from my favorite Stephen King book. There is just this great symmetry between the blood of Carrie’s period that starts the movie and the pig’s blood at the prom that ends it. The scenes where Carrie’s mom abuses her are more frightening than any sort of telekinesis death she uses later on. There are some real scares and chills in this movie, which I really respect.

There are a few things I would change though. The soundtrack is a little too much. Do we really need a Psycho screech every time Carrie uses her powers? It borders on the ridiculous. Also, a few of the camera tricks De Palma uses are a little over the top. Split-screen–good. Kaleidoscope vision–uh, what? Also sometimes I felt like the movie moved a little too quickly along. I would have liked a few scenes slightly lengthened, just to get to know the characters better. Otherwise it was probably one of the greatest horror movies I’ve seen.

(A-)

——Unforgiven——

While I didn’t go crazy over this movie or anything, I was impressed with what it did: create probably the most realistic Western I’ve ever seen. Instead of being a continuation of the Man with No Name from the Leone films with no actual change to the pattern, here is a character that has a past that actively presses itself upon him at all times. The weight of the past and all of the bad things this guy has done have become a monkey on this guy’s back. He can’t escape the past, and yet because of his wife he wants to change himself into something better. He tries hard to ditch his past but it has a way of always keeping up with him; a sort of purgatory life on earth. He isn’t the typical Western hero. He can’t even get onto his horse right. What kind of cowboy is that? Morgan Freeman has lost his taste for killing. The kid can’t see farther than 50 yards, and when he does kill he quickly regrets it. The sheriff is the bad guy, NOT getting justice for the wronged woman. English Bob, killer gunfighter, gets taken out without even pulling his gun and then all of his accomplishments are shown to be fraudulent. No one really fits into their Western clichés. And that’s what I like about this movie. When Clint finally gets all badass and starts killing people it’s not a stand up and cheer moment, but a sad one, as he’s finally let his new moral outlook go and let down his promise to his wife. The movie doesn’t end with him riding off into the sunset, but into the rainy night. I might not have gone ape shit for this movie, but it’s still a damn good stunning Western.

(A)

——Better Off Dead——

I’m a huge fan of John Cussack. Everything I see him in I like. I love his 80’s movies. Well, I hadn’t seen this one, but I’m glad I rented it (even though I rented it to make my sister happy and didn’t know that she had already seen it. Oops). I love movies where the bizarre is considered normal. There are plenty of moments like that in this movie (I just figured out that the director also worked on Eek! the Cat, one of my favorite cartoons). I found myself quite enamored with this film, because for the most part it was anything but predictable. I also appreciate a movie that can actually make attempted suicide seem funny. While this film isn’t perfect (bad eighties music, bad claymation hamburger sequences that reminded me too much of UHF) I really enjoyed it quite a bit. Where’s my two dollars!

(A-)

——La Femme Nikita——

I was a little disappointed with this one. I hear Luc Besson’s name and I think of cool action sequences. I hear that Luc Besson made a movie about a female assassin, which later gets turned into a popular TV show, and I’m totally there. Unfortunately the final product was nothing like what I was expecting, everything other than Besson’s always dynamic directing being a disappointment. This movie about an assassin has surprisingly little action in it, offering only tiny glimpses of what could have been (the scene where she had to make her first assassination and then escape was pretty cool; the few brief moments where Jean Reno were on screen were awesome). The plot aimlessly meanders all over the place, rarely achieving the emotion impact that it strives for (unlike, say, Leon where the meandering feels very focused on the character arcs of the principles). Nikita is so odd that it is really hard to try to identify with her. You’re never really able to fully get into her head. And the movie ends on quite a whimper. It feels more like the cliffhanger to a TV show than a resolution of conflict (which is probably where the idea for the TV show came from). I didn’t get into this at all. The direction was still really cool, but everything else was blah.

(B)