Even now, when time has dulled the impression and made me half question my own experience and horrible doubts, there are things in that letter of Akeley’s which I would not quote

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS

2011

Directed Sean Branney

Written by Andrew Leman and Sean Branney (based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft)

plus "The Call of Cthulhu" (2005), written and directed by same

Spoilers: moderate

Walt Disney, part LXIII: Make pishee

CHICKEN LITTLE

2005

Directed by Mark Dindal

Written by Steve Bencich, Ron J. Friedman, Ron Anderson, Mark Kennedy, and Mark Dindal

Spoilers: high

I drink your milkshake

SYRIANA

If it is not the best film about America in the Mideast, then maybe it's just because I haven't seen enough of that sourpussed breed to make the claim.  However, I will say this with unalloyed confidence: it's got the best poster, by far.

2005

Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan (based on the book See No Evil by Robert Baer)

With George Clooney (Bob Barnes), Alexander Siddig (Prince Nasir Al-Subaai), Matt Damon (Bryan Woodman), Amanda Peet (Julie Woodman), William Hurt (Stan), Mark Strong (Mussawi), Akbar Kusha (Prince Meshal Al-Subaai), Jeffrey Wright (Bennett Holiday), Tim Blake Nelson (Danny Dalton), Chris Cooper (Jimmy Pope), and Christopher Plummer (Dean Whiting)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Joe Dante, part XIV: How about that? Turns out voter fraud was real!

HOMECOMING (Masters of Horror, season 1, episode 6)

2005

Directed by Joe Dante

Written by Sam Hamm (based on the short story "Death and Suffrage" by Dale Bailey)

With Jon Tenney (David Murch), Thea Gill (Jane Cleaver), and Robert Picardo (Kurt Rand)

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION (Masters of Horror, season 2, episode 7)

2006

Directed by Joe Dante

Written by Sam Hamm (based on the short story by Alice Sheldon)

Written Kerry Norton (Anne Alstein), Jason Priestley (Alan Alstein), Elliot Gould (Barney), and Brenna O'Brien (Amy Alstein)

Spoiler alert for both: moderate

Steven Spielberg, part XXX: But killing Palestinians isn't exactly cheap

MUNICH

Munich was its director's last masterpiece for a good long while, but a masterpiece it was nonetheless.  Whatever else, you still have to admit that taking on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict represented a somewhat braver thing than simply suggesting that the Holocaust was bad.  Plus, do you know how many cool explosions Schindler's List has?  That's right.  It has none.

2005

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth (based on the book Vengeance by George Jonas)

With Eric Bana (Avner Kaufman), Daniel Craig (Steve), Ciaran Hinds (Carl), Matthieu Kassowitz (Robert), Hanns Zischler (Hans), Matthieu Amalric (Louis), Michael Lonsdale (Papa), Geoffrey Rush (Ephraim), Omar Metwally (Ali), and Ayelet Zurer (Daphna Kaufman)

Spoiler alert: to the best of my knowledge, Israel never faced another terrorist attack again

Steven Spielberg, part XXIX: Vast and cool and unsympathetic

WAR OF THE WORLDS

Spielberg tries his hand at the end of the world, and by dint of making his adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel in 2005, manages to go very far in capturing all the spectacle and the horror of it.  Yet although this War of the Worlds succeeds, on average, as a film that might well be retitled Scenes From the Martian Apocalypse, it also mishandles almost as much as it gets right.  Its undeniable triumphs thus stand next to its great and glaring ineptitudes.

2005

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp (based on the novel by H.G. Wells)

With Tom Cruise (Ray Ferrier), Dakota Fanning (Rachel Ferrier), Justin Chatwin (Robbie Ferrier), Miranda Otto (Mary Ann), Tim Robbins (Harlan Oglivy), and Morgan Freeman (The Narrator)

Spoiler alert: once again, they die of germs; but as for the original content, severe

John Carpenter, part XXVII: Hey, it's not quite the absolute end of the world—but we're getting there!

CIGARETTE BURNS (Masters of Horror, season 1, episode 8)

Carpenter returns to meta-horror—and, in the process, proves that sometimes you really can't go home again.

2005

Directed by John Carpenter

Written by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan

With Norman Reedus (Kirby Sweetman), Udo Kier (Bellinger), and Gwynyth Walsh (Katja)

PRO-LIFE (Masters of Horror, season 2, episode 5)

Carpenter takes on a politically-charged siege film, winds up with boneheaded supernatural horror, and you have to ask, "How the heck did that happen?"

2006

Directed by John Carpenter

Written by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan

With Caitlin Wachs (Angelique Burcell), Mark Feuerstein (Dr. Alex O'Shea), Emmanuelle Vaugier (Kim), Bill Dow (Dr. Kiefer), and Ron Perlman (Dwayne Burcell)

Spoiler alert: moderate

This is not heaven, it's the world—and there's troubles in it

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

A plea for tolerance that you think about more than you feel, and which you likely won't think about too hard, at that.  But you must admit, it is made with some truly awesome violence.

2005
Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by William Monohan

With Orlando Bloom (Balian), Liam Neeson (Baron Godfrey of Ibelin), Ed Norton (King Baldwin IV), Eva Green (Sybilla), Jeremy Irons (Tiberias), Marton Csokas (Guy de Lusignan), Brendan Gleeson (Raynald de Chatillon), Alexander Siddig (Imad), and Ghassan Massoud (Salah ad-Din)

Spoiler alert: you may or may not be surprised to learn that the Crusader state of Jerusalem no longer exists

Reviews from gulag: First, the news in brief

While I was away, I had the opportunity to watch what I suppose one might as well call a "few" movies.  Here's some of them, in bite-sized form.  Or maybe two or three bites, because if there's one thing even moving to Pittsburgh can't beat out of me, it's my awful long-windedness.  Today's subjects: Citizen Kane, His Girl Friday, Network, and Good Night, and Good Luck.

CITIZEN KANE (1941)
Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) dies, and a newshound (William Alland) seeks the story of his final words.  He never solves the mystery of Kane for himself—although we are privy to more than he—but he learns through conversations with the great man's friends that he was human like the rest of us, even if he didn't know it.

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is very likely the single most overrated film made in the sound era.  But that says more about the overreaching critical reevaluation of it—the reevaluation that eventually snowballed into its acclamation as the long-running Best Film Ever on just about any critics' poll you'd care to look at—than it could ever possibly say about the quality of the actual film itself... which is, of course, simply deliriously high.  Yes, fewer pictures have been more talked-about than this one, and Kane has been just about talked to death: its spectacularly well-appointed deep focus compositions; its beautiful lighting schemes; its monumental art direction; its bitterly humorous satire, so viciously on point it might have been slanderous were everything bad not based at least in part on something true; and, of course, its extraordinary lead performance by Welles, taking William Randolf Hearst only as the starting point for his creation of the saddest man in the world—the man who thought he could buy happiness.  So, no, maybe it wasn't particularly close to the best movie ever made, not even back in 1941.  But Goddamned if it isn't still absolutely Great—even after all those decades it spent, condemned to be The Greatest.  Maybe now that Vertigo is the Best Film Ever (an even worse choice, but never mind), we can enjoy Kane for what it is and always was: entertaining, moving, human, and expertly-crafted, too.

Score:  9/10

Ron's heartworm medication, part I

HARRY POTTER AND THE ____________
Directed by Chris Columbus (1-2), Alfonso Cuaron (3), Mark Newell (4), and David Yates (5-8)
Written by Steve Klove (1-4, 6-8) and Michael Goldenburg (5) (based on the novels by J.K. Rowling)
With the population of Britain—Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasly), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Richard Harris (Prof. Albus Dumbledore, vol. 1), Michael Gambon (Prof. Albus Dumbledore, vol. 2), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), Alan Rickman (Prof. Severus Snape), Kenneth Branagh (Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), David Thewlis (Prof. Remus Lupin), Brendon Gleeson (Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody), Jim Broadbent (Prof. Horace Slughorn), Timothy Spall (Wormtail), Maggie Smith (Prof. Minerva MacGonacle), Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange), Warwick Davis (various), and Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort)

Spoiler alert: I'm trying to keep it at moderate—God alone knows whom for—but it will unavoidably slip into high in regards the later films

Dispassionately and exactingly ranking the films of Christopher Nolan by their utilitarian value, nos. 9-7

The Internet asks, "Is Christopher Nolan the greatest director alive?"  And the answer is, "No, of course he's not.  Are you high?"  But if the question were, instead, "Is Chris Nolan the most consistently excellent director working today?", there are nine films to consider, and the answer might be quite different.  (Okay, the point is, I marathoned his movies, and now you're just going to have to deal with it.)

Spoiler alert: well, I don't spoil Interstellar, anyway