Cinema Basement

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich This film is fucking bizarre. A mix of farce and romantic comedy this film is a sort of subversion of the '80s romantic comedy. At times it's like Airplane meets When Harry Met Sally meets a Woody Allen film. Steve Martin plays Larry Hubbard, a struggling wannabe novelist working for a greeting card company that suddenly finds himself as a lonely guy. No matter what he does he can't seem to find that special someone.  I don't think this is a fantastic film but it is an interesting film with different styles of comedy working for the most part. There's a real romantic comedy in there but there's the over-the-top goofy comedy at others.. The standout thing here is the main performance. Steve Martin is an American treasure and he absolutely is the number one thing that makes this movie work. His straight-faced playing of the hapless Larry makes the jokes land that much better, much like the dry delivery of Peter Graves, Robert Stack,...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Jeff Bridges is Max Klein, a man who survives a plane crash. When he walks away from the crash basically unharmed, he begins to think he is indestructible and that life needs to be lived to the fullest and not wasted. That's as basic an explanation I can give for a film like Fearless, released in 1993 and directed by Peter Weir. It's more of a character study than anything but it's a fascinating one. This is a film one should just kind of experience for themselves. Depending on someone's religious or spiritual beliefs, whatever you want to call it, reactions to this film will be different.  Fearless will not work for everyone. I could see someone being pissed off by it, to be frank. But to me, it's a study on our connection to both this world and whatever is next. What happens when someone has a near-death experience? When they peak behind the curtain so to speak? Max comes close to the brink of death and when he comes back, he knows ...

Announcement from the editor  Due to some personal matters and just general stress from our current world, I am delaying Sean Connery month until January, where I can give him the focus he deserves. 

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich To discuss a legend like Sean Connery, one would think I would start with Dr. No and go from there. We will get there but I decided to start with a film that would also let me make up some ground for the canceled John McTiernan month from awhile ago. McTiernan ends his most famous hat trick of films, starting with Predator in 1987 and concluding with the amazing action-thriller The Hunt For Red October from 1990, based on the book by Tom Clancy. Sean Connery is Marko Ramius, a Soviet submarine commander who is taking the newest Soviet sub out for a test run. The sub, the Red October, is able to move silently through the water and past the sonar of the US navy, meaning they can have nuclear warheads off the coast without warning. Ramius thinks this is unacceptable and too much power for his country to have. He has decided to defect and turn the Red October over. The US and Soviets are after him. The US thinks he has gone crazy and is coming to launch ...

An introduction by Brooks Rich We lost a legend in October and thus we will be spending the month of November celebrating the work of Sean Connery. For starters yes he has made some problematic comments in the past. We all understand that. But sometimes we can separate the man from the art. So we're not here to judge him as a person. We are here to pay tribute to his body of work. From James Bond to Finding Forrester. Rest in peace, Mr. Connery.

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich A few technical issues delayed this posting but here it is. The film I personally think is John Carpenter's masterpiece. The Thing is great and is a landmark film in science fiction horror. But Halloween started a genre boom that would last for more than a decade. Slashers weren't a new type of film but they had yet to go mainstream in the states. The Giallos were popular in Italy but films like Black Christmas weren't getting mainstream traction in the US. Halloween changed that, leading to films like Friday the 13th, which inspired dozens of copycats itself, and Nightmare on Elm Street.  What makes Halloween work even all these years later? It's simple really. It's a perfect suspense film. The film doesn't rely on jump scares and instead builds the tension with shots of Michael Myers just staring at our characters from a distance. This boogeyman is built up until he finally strikes in the third act of the film. Most slashers fin...