Halloween in March, Kershner Exploration

I don't work, so I have a lot of dead time to fill and I like to set up little watch projects to work through over the course of the year to feel a little accomplished when I waste time with a film or show. The first couple months of this year were absolutely crazy, I was out of my apartment nearly as much as I was in it, so I didn't get much movie watching done let alone plan out projects. But I think I have some that are finalizing and that I will utilize this simple little blog to document.

Last year my two biggest projects were rewatching the entirety of the two classic slasher franchises, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. This year, I'm gonna do another classic slasher franchise with Halloween, watching all the Michael Myers films (sorry Halloween 3, though I do love you) through Resurrection in the early 00s. If I get through this quick, I might then add the Rob Zombie Duo and DGG trilogy. I will write my feelings on each of these films here as I watch them. I want to get a LITTLE bit more modern this year, away from all the 80s, so since I happen to own 7 of them on a used DVD collection I picked up for next to nothing, I thought I might do the Saw franchise cause I think I've only ever really seen the first three or so though I'm generally familiar with the plots of others (thanks Wikipedia).

A special project I got cooked out was motivated purely by curiosity. Irvin Kershner directed one of the consensus greatest films of all time in The Empire Strikes Back, and delivered entries in the RoboCop and Bond (unofficial) canons, but not a lot of people talk about the many films he directed in a long journeyman Hollywood career. So I want to, entirely for the first time, check out some of his non-franchise directing work and see what gems there are to be found!

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The Green Mile (1999) - Syrupy Collection of Great Character Actors

The Green Mile was a film that was in a regular rotation for my mom and stepdad when I was growing up, so I saw it many times in the late 90s and early 00s. My love of Stephen King mostly comes from my dad, who owned the first King book I ever read myself in late elementary school (Skeleton Crew) and numerous others I looked at on his shelf all the time and showed me miniseries like IT and The Stand. However, my mom contributed a little bit too with the likes of Creepshow and some of his other 80s adaptations and of course The Green Mile. So I figured why not revisit it since I own it? My biggest problem with The Green Mile is one I share with its spiritual sibling in The Shawshank Redemption which is that it is just very sentimental and sometimes even downright corny. Movies seemingly designed to make middle aged dads get in touch with their emotions by layering that syrup on thick. There’s a place for that and I understand why people really enjoy it, but it just simply isn’t ...

Cat's Eye (1985) - Kitty Across America

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Scream (1996) - Williamson Dialogue Hasn't Always Aged Well, Though Iconic All the Same

My mom grew up among the slasher golden era of the 80s, so she adored the genre and many of the 2000+ VHS tapes she had around for a lot of my childhood were various slasher franchises and what we didn’t have by 7 or 8 I was begging my parents to rent for me from Hollywood Video or Movie Starz on a regular basis. So it goes without saying that Scream coming in and revitalizing the entire genre’s popularity for a handful of years was a big deal in our household and I was probably very young the first time I saw it which was likely not long after it came out on tape in probably ‘97, same with the sequels in later years. I then proceeded to watch it so many times across my childhood well into adulthood that practically every line and scene and even delivery are memorized at that point, which made stepping back to write as objective a review as I can somewhat difficult but I found the more of a critical eye I applied to it the more it worked out. As always starting with the negat...

Blue Ridge Ben

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