Horror Thoughts ‘15—Dracula Untold (2014) ***

PG-13, 94 min.

Director: Gary Shore

Writers: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Bram Stoker (characters)

Starring: Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance, Diarmaid Murtagh, Paul Kaye, William Houston, Noah Huntley

“I’m so sick of origin stories.” That seems to be becoming a mantra from filmgoers in this age of the comic book movie where origin stories are everything. I’ve never been much of a mind to think that way. A story is a story, origin or otherwise. What people are sick of is the same superhero origin story over and over again. How many times have we seen the origin stories of Batman, Superman and Spider-Man? Now, Dracula… that’s one we haven’t seen before.

Of course, one of my big problems with so many of today’s vampire stories is that the storytellers have forgotten what the vampire mythology is all about. All too often vampires are turned into superheroes, which is just wrong. Unfortunately, this is just that type of vampire movie. It lacks all the classic themes of the vampire mythos. Considering that those tropes seem all but forgotten today, I’m willing to give into the fact that this is going to be a vampire superhero origin story. Once you give yourself up to that fact, it’s not such a bad movie. It ain’t scary, but it’s enjoyable.

Everest / *** (PG-13)

Rob Hall: Jason Clarke

Beck Weathers: Josh Brolin

Scott Fischer: Jake Gyllenhaal

Jon Krakauer: Michael Kelly

Doug Hansen: John Hawkes

Helen Wilton: Emily Watson

Jan Arnold: Keira Knightley

Guy Cotter: Sam Worthington

Peach Weathers: Robin Wright

Caroline Mackenzie: Elizabeth Debicki

Andy ‘Harold’ Harris: Martin Henderson

Michael Groom: Thomas M. Wright

Yasuko Namba: Naoko Mori

Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Baltasar Kormákur. Written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy. Running time: 121 min. Rated PG-13 (for intense peril and disturbing images).

There is a scene in the new mountaineering movie “Everest” when journalist Jon Krakauer asks two amateur climbers who have hired a guide to take them to the summit of Mt. Everest why they feel the need to climb such a mountain, one that has taken the lives of many professional climbers. They struggle to articulate their need to pursue a goal that they admit is filled mostly with pain. I might also struggle to articulate my own fascination with mountain climbing disaster pictures. I suppose watching an expedition/adventure that is bound to go bad is connected to our inability to turn away when witnessing the aftermath of a car accident. Our human need to empathize and understand what went wrong overrides any need we might have to keep a rosy outlook on the world. We need to examine adversity and tragedy as a mechanism to develop our own ability to deal with the inevitable reality of it in our own lives.

Ebert Thoughts ‘15—The Motel Life (2012) ***½

R, 85 min.

Directors: Alan Polsky, Gabriel Polsky

Writers: Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster, Willy Vlautin (novel)

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Joshua Leonard, Noah Harpster, Kris Kristofferson

Saturday is always the most surreal day of Ebertfest. I don’t know why. I wonder if they try to program the films in a way to produce an eerie sense of being adrift. It’s not a criticism. It just always seems that Saturday is the “lost” day of the festival, with characters trying to find their way through the morass of life. Saturday is the longest day of films and the atmosphere created by them makes it a sort of wonderful cinematic experience.

This year’s Saturday schedule included the films “Wild Tales”, “Ida”, “The Motel Life” and  “99 Homes”. I watched two of these this year and both have a distinct feel of despair about them. The first was “Ida”, with its black and white cinematography and somber subject matter; it certainly played into that atmosphere I described. “The Motel Life” is another strong fit for the Saturday feel.

Fargo, season 1 / **** (TV-MA)

Lorne Malvo: Billy Bob Thornton

Molly Solverson: Allison Tolman

Lester Nygaard: Martin Freeman

Gus Grimly: Colin Hanks

Bill Oswalt: Bob Odenkirk

Lou Solverson: Keith Carradine

Greta Grimly: Joey King

Mr. Wrench: Russell Harvard

Mr. Numbers: Adam Goldberg

Chaz Nygaard: Joshua Close

Stavros Milos: Oliver Platt

MGM Television and 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment present a television series developed and written by Noah Hawley. Directed by Randall Einhorn, Adam Bernstein, Colin Bucksey, Matt Shakman, and Scott Winant. 10 episodes, 2 90-min., 8 60-min. Rated TV-MA (for occasional mild to moderate sexual references throughout, violence & gore, mild language, drinking and some frightening/intense sequences).

We are now deep in the Television Renaissance. Who could’ve predicted the Golden Age of TV would bring zombies to the forefront? Perhaps if anyone could’ve, they’d have also predicted that one of the greatest independent films of the 90’s would find its revival here and be so successful in retaining the original’s spirit, while expanding it’s ideas into a longer running format. “Fargo” is easily the best new television series of 2014.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—The Towering Inferno (1974) ***

PG, 165 min.

Director: John Guillerman

Writers: Stirling Silliphant, Richard Martin Stern (novel “The Tower”), Thomas N. Scortia (novel “The Glass Inferno”), Frank M. Robinson (novel “The Glass Inferno”)

Starring: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakley, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Sheila Mathews, Normann Burton, Jack Collins, Don Gordon, Felton Perry, Gregory Sierra, Ernie Orsatti, Dabney Coleman, Mike Lookinland

I think “The Towering Inferno” was the first movie for which I ever developed an obsession. It was a major score for the major networks—back in the day when they were the only three channels to choose from—to get this film on their “Movie of the Week”. I’m not sure which one had it first, but when it aired, it was a two-night event.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Blue Ruin (2014) ****

R, 90 min.

Director/Writers: Jeremy Saulnier

Starring: Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack, Eve Plumb, David W. Thompson, Brent Werzner, Stacy Rock, Sidné Anderson

“Blue Ruin” is one of those independent films that wears the blood, sweat and tears of the filmmakers’ efforts right out on every frame. It’s a dismal story about a family broken by the choices of the previous generation. If you’ve seen Jeff Nichols’ brilliant debut “Shotgun Stories”, you have an idea of the subject matter. “Blue Ruin” isn’t as stylish as Nichols’ film and it’s much more brutal and devastating.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—River’s Edge (1986) ****

R, 99 min.

Director: Tim Hunter

Writer: Neal Jimenez

Starring: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck, Joshua Miller, Dennis Hopper, Roxana Zal, Josh Richman, Philip Brock, Tom Bower, Constance Forslund, Leo Rossi, Jim Metzler

Tim Hunter’s “River’s Edge” was such a staple of my teenage years that I was almost afraid to revisit it and possibly find that it was not as good as I had remembered. I’ve been trying to see it again for several years, I even considered purchasing it on a whim, something I gave up doing when my children started sucking up all my money. I found it on one of my streaming services and the mood seemed right, so…

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Pompeii (2014) *½

PG-13, 105 min.

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Writers: Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Bathler, Michael Robert Johnson

Starring: Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Kiefer Sutherland, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jared Harris, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sasha Roiz, Jessica Lucas, Joe Pingue, Currie Graham

I’m not sure what I did wrong to be subjected to two Paul W.S. Anderson movies in one week. Truth is it’s my own fault. I voluntarily watched both of them and I should know better. I couldn’t shake “Event Horizon” from my head after seeing “Interstellar” for some reason and then “Pompeii” came through the mail from Netflix. I didn’t want it sitting around without something good coming to replace it, so I watched it. True, I’m the one that put it in my queue, but I thought a movie about Pompeii would be really interesting until I learned that Paul W.S. Anderson had directed it. By that point, it was already in my queue, and I was a bit curious as to just how much he could screw it up.

Horror Thoughts ‘14—The Sacrament (2014) ***

R, 95 min.

Director/Writer: Ti West

Starring: AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Kentucker Audley, Kate Lyn Sheil, Gene Jones

It’s true. Since “The Blair Witch Project” popularized the found footage horror subgenre, it has been done to death. And that’s putting it lightly considering the past few years. Found footage has even found its way into family films, like this past summer’s “Earth to Echo”.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why an already established and quite impressive horror director like Ti West would be inspired to make a found footage movie, but with his latest, “The Sacrament”, he puts in his bid on the horse-beaten gimmick.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Sophie’s Choice (1982) ****

R, 150 min.

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Writers: Alan J. Pakula, William Styron (novel)

Starring: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol

I saw Alan J. Pakula’s “Sophie’s Choice” as a child. It may have been my first real experience with The Holocaust. I don’t think I even saw the entire movie. Certainly if I did, the whole love triangle stuff between Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol flew far above my innocent mind. But, the choice Sophie had to make in the concentration camp. Well, that stuck with me. I was devastated that such a thing could be asked of a person.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—All Night Long (1963) ***

NR, 91 min.

Director: Basil Deardon

Writers: Nel King, Peter Achilles, William Shakespeare (play “Othello”)

Starring: Patrick McGoohan, Keith Michell, Marti Stevens, Paul Harris, Betsy Blair, Richard Attenborough, Bernard Braden, Harry Towb, María Velasco, Dave Brubeck, Johnny Dankworth, Charles Mingus, Bert Courtley, Keith Christie, Ray Dempsey

So for a few days now, I’ve been searching for a way to remember actor/director Richard Attenborough, who passed away earlier this week. Attenborough was a renowned actor and director.

As an actor he was best known in his early career as a military man in such pictures as “The Great Escape” (1963), “Guns at Batasi” (1964), “The Flight of the Phoenix” (1965), and “The Sand Pebbles” (1967). He also appeared in “Doctor Doolittle” (1968), “10 Rellington Place” (1971), Satyajit Ray’s “The Chess Players” (1977), and Otto Preminger’s “The Human Factor” (1979). He was perhaps best known to modern audiences, however, for his late career rolls as John Hammond in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” (1993) and “Jurassic Park: The Lost World” (1997), and as Kris Kringle in the 1994 holiday remake “Miracle on 34^th Street”.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Orca (1977) ***

PG, 92 min.

Director: Michael Anderson

Writers: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati

Starring: Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Keenan Wynn, Peter Hooten, Bo Dereck, Will Sampson, Robert Carradine, Scott Walker

Certainly in many ways “Orca” is a ridiculous movie. It’s a shameless attempt by Hollywood to capitalize on the success of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” from two years prior. It’s taken from an Italian script—cleaned up for Hollywood by an uncredited Robert Towne—stars two British actors who were known to American audiences but far from the A-list, and it grossly misrepresents the behaviors of killer whales and the terrible practices of the industry involved in hunting them. However, it’s a surprisingly good revenge story.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—World’s Greatest Dad (2009) ***½

R, 99 min.

Director/Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait

Starring: Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, Alexie Gilmore, Evan Martin, Henry Simmons, Geoff Pierson, Lorraine Nicholson, Mitzi McCall, Tony V., Naomi Glick, Zach Sanchez, Ellie Jamison, Michael Moore, Jermaine Williams

OK. First of all, it’s important that we get a hold of ourselves. Just because we’re worked up that a beloved comedian has been taken away from us, let’s not just jump to the conclusion that a three and a half star review of a movie of his that we’ve never heard of means that we’re going to get an actual good version of “Patch Adams”. “World’s Greatest Dad” is a very dark comedy. It isn’t Robin Williams running around in a dress and a wig putting out the fire on his fake grandma boobs. It isn’t the manic straight man making it seem OK to other straight people that gay people exist, because they’re funny. It isn’t another Mork from Ork teaching us the greeting “Nanu, nanu.” This is a movie that may inform us as to the dark nature of the thoughts that might’ve fueled the genius we all lost.

The Fault In Our Stars / *** (PG-13)

Hazel: Shailene Woodley

Gus: Ansel Elgort

Frannie: Laura Dern

Michael: Sam Tremmell

Isaac: Nat Wolff

Van Houten: Willem Dafoe

20^th Century Fox presents a film directed by Josh Boone. Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber. Based on the novel by John Green. Running time: 125 min. Rated PG-13 (thematic elements, some sexuality and brief strong language).

You’ve seen this story before. A young person is diagnosed with a terminal illness. She hasn’t had a chance to live life or even grow up, and she’s already facing death. She meets someone who not only changes her life, but her perspective on life, and she can face her fate with more dignity than before. Yes, it’s been done before; but here, it is not only done well, but it contains a surprising twist and touches upon something that these stories often don’t. The afflicted person is not the only person in her scenario. There are others in her life that care for her and adjust their own lives for her affliction, and the most important thing for the person who is dying is that her death affect those around her as little as possible, which is just simply not possible.