Cinema Basement

A review by Forrest  Humphrey  After a decade of absence, the Scream series has graced us once again to hang lampshades on recent horror trends and provide yet another psycho in the Ghostface costume to chase Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette around. The original trilogy existed to deconstruct the beloved slasher movies of the 70's and 80's. The fourth film was made to comment on the many reboots and remakes coming out at the time and this new film, if the title wasn't the giveaway, is here to tell us what it thinks about the new series of horror films that are reboots/sequels holding the same name as the original. AKA, 2018's Halloween , 2021's Candyman and more have come along, so its time for Scream to wink and nod while doing the same thing. Sidney, Dewey and Gale are all present as you'd expect, but they aren't the central protagonists. Instead, as with the aforementioned films, they are the experienced veterans here to be the rock for ...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich So here's my hot take for the day. I like this movie better than the popular show on Netflix. I think the show is very creative and fun and Neil Patrick Harris is awesome as Count Olaf. But I like the tone of this film better and Jim Carrey is much better as Olaf. He still has the humor and wittiness of Olaf but he is also an intimidating villain.  For anyone who doesn't know, the story revolves around the three Baudelaire children whose parents die in a terrible house fire. They are sent to live with Count Olaf, a failed actor who wishes to steal their fortune. The children must stay one step ahead of Olaf as they travel from bizarre relative to bizarre relative. Olaf pursues them, always in a disguise the children see right through.  Again I don't think the show is bad. I really don't. But I just like this more. I won't make this into a here's why the movie better than the show piece. So I'll stop with the comparisons. Carre...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich I love '70s science fiction. It's a style of the genre that still shows up occasionally in films like Blade Runner 2049 and Under the Skin but science fiction is now usually more in line with Stars Wars. Though Star Wars really is slow compared to modern science fiction. Dune this year was more in line with '70s science fiction but still not the pacing of today's film, one of my favorite science fiction films of all time.  Bruce Dern is Freeman Lowell, a botanist in charge of a variety of planet life on a space ship. Plant life on Earth is becoming extinct and so ships are sent off with plant specimens to repopulate the earth with our leafy friends. And well I don't want to say anything else. This film is a wonderful mystery revealed slowly to us. We have Bruce Dern and his robot friends. That's it.  This film is glacially paced sometime. The '70s was all about that. Films took their time. Science fiction went from cheesy over...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Merry Christmas, everyone. No this has nothing to do with Christmas. I mean it has Christian overtones and has to do with the struggles of faith but there's nothing holly or jolly in this film. This is a weird one and I will keep this short as I could have written a full in depth essay on this one back in film school. I would have had I know about it. This is one of those films I'll bring up that's not for everyone. It's a surreal film written and directed by William Peter Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist. Sometime during the end of the Vietnam War a castle in the Pacific Northwest, sure yeah, is being used an insane asylum for military veterans. Inmates include a man putting on an all dog adaptation of Shakespeare and an astronaut who snapped on the eve of a mission. A new commanding officer is taking over, Colonel Kane, played by a brilliant and subdued Stacy Keach, but he may be crazier than the inmates.  There's a lot more to this. ...

 A review by Forrest Humphrey In the wake of Mysterio revealing his secret identity to the world and framing him for murder, life has become quite harrowing for Peter Parker, his family and his friends. Hoping to at least pull the people close to him out of the mess, Peter turns to a friend from the Avengers, Doctor Strange, to help him. The plan? Cast a spell to make the whole world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Unfortunately, things go awry when Peter panics upon realizing “Everyone” includes MJ, Ned and Aunt May. He tampers with the spell and things get even worse from the attempt. Not only does everyone still remember, but the spell pulls in some uninvited guests who also know about Peter Parker's life as Spider-man. Now Peter has to stop these multiverse visitors from making his own world worse.   That's the basic premise from the trailers and I wont go further than that. This film had a great deal to live up to, considering everything its trying to follow up...

A review by Forrest Humphrey   A dying mining town in Oregon, surrounded by foggy mountain woods. When a local man, Frank Weaver, and his friend set up a meth lab inside a closed down mine, they find something ancient, evil, and hungry within the caves as well. It attacks the pair, and Frank's young son who was also along for the trip. Weeks later, Frank's older son Lucas (Jeremy Thomas) is showing red flags to his teacher Julia (Keri Russel), and her looking into what she thinks is a clear cut case of parental abuse soon reveals the ravenous truth about why Lucas is so scared and tired, and why he's roaming the woods gathering roadkill. Much like “Halloween Kills” a couple weeks ago, “Antlers” is yet another film I was looking forward to last year that got heavily delayed due to the pandemic. Directed by Scott Cooper and produced by Guillermo Del Toro, the film starts very strong. The small mountain town is beautifully shot, and the film creates an excellent atmospher...

 For the month of November we will be looking back at one of the longest running film series in history. Starting in 1962 the Bond franchise has always adapted to the times, whether it be the fall of the Soviet Union or a world where Bond is considered a dinosaur. The segment Nobody Does It Better will make appearances now and then after November. I hope all the films will one day get covered.