This Week in Cinema, I Learned…Jul 7-13 2024
Written by Cameron Geiser
Welcome to This Week in Cinema, a yearlong film criticism project wherein I will be watching a new film that I haven't seen every single day.
This was a very mixed week folks. On one hand I watched several classic films that I found to be either mildly interesting or at the very least sufficiently entertaining. However, on the other hand, there were a couple of comedies that fell flat in every department, from story idea to execution, nothing really worked. There were three movies this week that did rise above my expectations though, and it was rather satisfying. When a movie suddenly becomes more than I expected it to be it fills me with a profound sense of excitement about the power of this medium. Sometimes it’s in quaint ways like with Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Since my expectations were so incredibly low for the Die Hard sequels, I wasn’t really expecting much of anything based on the other sequels but the third film was a heck of a lot of fun. The second movie to surprise me this week was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. I was taken aback by how genuinely precise the storytelling and editing was, even though it’s just a crowd-pleasing bank heist flick.
The last film to catch me off guard however was Longlegs. Since I watched essentially no trailers for the film and went in only knowing that Nicolas Cage starred as the titular “Longlegs”, whatever that meant. Talk about your pure dread and chilling atmosphere! After watching my fair share of so-so movies in my time, it’s always invigorating to be rewarded by taking a chance on watching new films with little to no expectations going in. It’s always nice to be reminded of that. Especially so after watching films like the Vacation reboot or My Name is Bruce (apologies to fans of Bruce Campbell. I am one of you, but that one was bad!).
July 7th
The Great Escape (1963)
4/5
The Great Escape is one of those movies that I’ve been tempted to throw on several times before deciding against it at the last minute due to the gargantuan runtime of nearly three hours. It’s not the worst hurdle to overcome, but when it was that film or literally any other short movie or activity during the summer months, I always chose the latter. Now the time, and at a time when I have a better appreciation of the Hollywood scene of the 1970’s, though admittedly not much tops The Towering Inferno for star studded event films. The last hour of the film is what makes giving it a watch worthwhile in my opinion. The cast is fairly stacked with Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Richard Attenborough, and Donald Pleasence to name a few.
The whole story is about this massive prison camp that Nazis designed specifically to hold previously escaped prisoners, the most intricately designed and staffed to avoid further failure and shame by the allied forces. Among the cast of characters are several intertwining storylines and roles they all play in their massive escape plan to divert the Nazis’ attention away from the battlefield furthering the cause of the war itself. It was a little slow at times for the first two thirds of the film, but that last hour really *slaps* once the multi-part escape plan is initiated, it’s downright thrilling watching it all unfold.
July 8th
Rocky IV (1985)
3.5/5
The film that defeated Communism itself has arrived. Or at least, that's how it has been pitched to me and joked about for years. Ironically this one and the fifth Rocky movie are the last of the films in the series that I had yet to watch. At an hour and a half it's got good pacing and wraps up before you know it. However, as Rocky IV is the foundation for the Creed films, I probably should have seen this one years ago, because it has the most emotional setup other than the first film in the franchise. The Soviet Union waltzes into America demanding that their proudest son, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) have a match with the Champion, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone).
With Rocky having some reservations about the weight class difference between them, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) challenges Drago to a fight out of his outright patriotism and urge to step back in the ring. With an over the top opening act of James Brown singing “Living in America” before the Match, there were no illusions as to the fate of Apollo Creed in my mind. Creed’s dialogue before this was some of the most heavy handed cheese I had seen in some time with lines akin to “Man, I sure love life” and such. But then I remembered that Stallone wrote the film as well as directing and starring in it and my expectations lessened considerably. It’s a very silly piece of delightful propaganda that I quite enjoyed. It’s not the best the franchise has to offer, but it’s a lot of fun.
July 9th
My Name is Bruce (2007)
2/5
Apologies to Bruce Campbell and fans of his, because this one hurt. My Name is Bruce is directed by and stars Bruce Campbell in a horror comedy spoof of his life as an Actor known mostly for his role as Ash in the Evil Dead movies. He plays a despicable version of himself, which is kinda funny. He's a narcissist and a drunk, and his agent is played by Sam Raimi's brother Ted Raimi. Who, I initially thought, was Sam himself, but I do like the idea of a Raimi being the source of Bruce's suffering. Mostly because of all the on-set candid nature of Sam and Bruce's relationship where Sam delights in torturing Bruce as much as possible for the best shot. The whole premise is essentially that Bruce runs into some fans who love Evil Dead and think that Bruce really can help them with their supernatural problems. So they kidnap Bruce and drag him to Oregon to assist in fending off an ancient Chinese God of War. Unfortunately the film has a TV movie look and feel. It also has some terrible writing and poor direction. There was a lot of cringe all over the script, but hey, at the end of the day if you're a huge Bruce Campbell fan you'll probably find something to enjoy.
July 10th
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
4/5
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was a film I picked almost purely on the premise of Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges starring in a film together. What an odd combination of actors, and yet it worked brilliantly. Not knowing anything about the story or plot was the right way to go with this one as the opening of the film was so crazy I had no idea what to expect from scene to scene. Clint Eastwood begins as a preacher giving his sermon in a very small church as a gunman walks up to the door. On the other side of town Jeff Bridges’ character, Lightfoot, roams into town as a charming drifter who immediately steals a car from a plucky car salesman. The two literally run into each other as Thunderbolt (Eastwood) hoofs it out of the church on foot after the gunman opens fire, thus creating a newfound friendship. Lightfoot eventually gets the truth out of Thunderbolt as he never could tell why a preacher would have people shooting at a man of God.
Turns out those men were Thunderbolt’s old partners in crime and they thought he had double-crossed them out of the money they had successfully stolen. They hid it in an old schoolhouse that had since been demolished. The scene stealer here is Red (George Kennedy) in a far more interesting role than the last time I saw him in Cool Hand Luke. He's brash, loyal, and maybe a bit insane. The right fit for the crew he's in. Once the old gang is convinced that he didn't keep the money from them Lightfoot suggests robbing the same bank they hit the first time around because who would expect the same fools to rob the same place, the same way twice? The rest of the film is a series of comedic turns and high tension that I found very entertaining. I especially liked the idea of the criminals getting everyday part time jobs in the area while they scope out the bank to avoid appearing out of place. Watching Red grumble through menial work was comedy gold, especially when he looked like he would pull his gun out and start firing at any time. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was a highly entertaining criminal caper with heaps of comedy sprinkled on top.
July 11th
Vacation (2015)
1.5/5
This reboot of the first National Lampoon’s Vacation, simply titled Vacation, fasts forward to Clark Griswold's son Rusty (Ed Helms) as an adult with his own family living in Chicago who attempts to recreate that family Vacation from the first film. This one… kinda sucked if I'm being honest. The comedy did not land for me, except for a very small bit role that Charlie Day had as a white water rafting guide who had just broken up with his fiance. Other than that the gags, jokes, and callbacks to the first film were all uncreative, bland, and cringe. It was lowest common denominator humor and uninspiring filmmaking for the majority of the runtime. The bright side? It's only an hour and forty minutes.
July 12th
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
3.5/5
Since most of the sequels in the Die Hard franchise are less than stellar, I wasn't exactly looking forward to finding out if the final film I had yet to see was any good or not. Well I'm happy to report that Die Hard: With a Vengeance is not just a decent action film, it's the best sequel in the series. Right from the opening credits the plot explodes onto the screen with a department store in New York being bombed by the new villain played by Jeremy Irons, Simon. Simon calls the NYPD and makes demands involving John McClane (Bruce Willis) performing increasingly dangerous distractions, lest more innocent bystanders die. The first task was to put McClane in Harlem with a large sign adorned by the worst word a Caucasian can say in Harlem, which is how he runs into Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson). Zeus gets wrapped into the bomber’s game and the two bicker back and forth while dodging explosives, ridiculous car chases, and McClane’s hangover. Which by the way, is the only real downer of the film.
I know it’s a narrative excuse for why Bruce Willis looks like he’s so over the franchise already, but this may have been the beginning of his extreme cynicism as an actor. It's actually not that detrimental to this film, so the hangover works enough as a scripting patch. But I was also surprised to discover that the film works as a direct connection to the first film as Simon turns out to be Hans Gruber's brother! I know that's a bit of a spoiler, and Simon’s whole plan isn't exactly revenge for his brother's demise, it's just a convenient trick, but I really liked that tie-in regardless. Die Hard: With a Vengeance is a fast moving action flick from the mid-90s and it's not half bad.
July 13th
Longlegs (2024)
4/5
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Longlegs after watching it. Obviously, it’s not for everyone. In fact several friends and coworkers who saw it told me so. They were as perplexed as I was, a curiosity reflecting in each other’s eyes. “How did you enjoy that movie?” They ask. “How could you not?” I query. I had to think about this quite deeply before finding that it is very much in the same unsettling delight I get from the third season of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Specifically the idea that Evil is omnipresent, but that Good is steadfast and stubborn. Always there to counter each other in fascinating ways. Plot here is irrelevant. The tension, the horror, is in the anticipation. In the mist and mystery. Osgood Perkin’s Longlegs is both pastiche and originality in the horror genre. I understand where the inspirations come from, but I found this new work to be entirely nerve rattling and exciting.
Maika Monroe stars as FBI Agent Lee Harker, a quieter and potentially more stubborn version of Clarice Starling from Silence of The Lambs– who is at least partially responsible for the creation of Lee Harker as a character. Harker is a fun character to watch because there’s more going on than we are initially led to believe, but the fun is in the rollout of details about the mystery, not necessarily the answer you get from said question. Which, I was satisfied with by the way, I just know it has been a bit of a disappointment for some. There is so much about this film that I was impressed with– and Nicolas Cage as Longlegs was a big part of that. He is used just enough to merit his worth, any more would have been too much, and a little less wouldn’t have scratched that itch either. Personally, the atmosphere, dread, and sense of something… being wrong.. all build to a cacophony of curiosity that I found simply divine by the time the credits rolled. Slow burn mysteries, especially those soaked in supernatural tendencies– this is what I love in horror and thrillers broadly. Anything that can stay with you after you leave the theater, like how Longlegs has with me, should be commended.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.