I reviewed the movie on its opening weekend in October here at borg. The movie is a true triumph for fans of director John Carpenter. Of the ten (yep, ten) prior sequels to the 1978 original that set off an entire genre of movies, Halloween Killsis the most faithful to the original story. On the screen it was great fun seeing Jamie Lee Curtis reprise her starring role as 1970s survivor Laurie Strode, along with actors like Charles Cyphers back as the sheriff, Nancy Stevens as the doctor’s assistant, and Kyle Richards as the grown-up little girl. In Halloween Kills: The Official Movie Novelization, author Tim Waggoner digs into this great story, amplifying the characterization, and making everything that flashed quickly past the movie audience have deeper implications. He digs into the timeline of events in 1978 as the modern-day return is revealed moment by moment on that single day in 2018 that is spread over this final trilogy of movies. You’ll be hard pressed to read a better horror tale or movie novelization this year.
Director David Gordon Green’s 2018 movie Halloween was great fun (reviewed here), a welcome callback to the low-budget filmmaking style of the 1970s, a sequel/reboot of the original horror film that set off a new era of scream queens and slasher horror films. But it was only the first act in a three-act opus that continues in Halloween Killsand will wrap next year in Halloween Ends. With this month’s premiere of Halloween Killson streaming platform Peacock Premium, fans will realize Gordon knows the franchise, the genre, and all that retro nostalgia that has audiences clamoring for shows like Stranger Things and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Complete with obscure characters from the corners of Haddonfield, Illinois, returning 40 years later, Halloween Kills is not just good horror but great–complete with all the non-apologetic, operatic gore and scares that have been the backbone of the modern monster movie mega-franchises first resurrected by John Carpenter and Debra Hill back in 1978. Since then we’ve seen the likes of Michael, Jason, and Freddy stepping in for Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, The Mummy, and the Phantom of the Opera.
Initially marketed as Monster Problems, Love and Monsters is a surprise sleeper hit apocalypse movie, also marketed as an adventure comedy, which puts it into the camp of movies like the Jumanji series and Finding ‘Ohana. It was scheduled for release last April, then delayed to late 2020 because of the pandemic, and you probably missed it. Which is now a good thing, because it’s a nicely timed story about survival–namely surviving a big event and getting to the other side of that event, being able to breathe freely again, at least at some level. Starring Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, and Michael Rooker, it’s a monster movie so well done it is nominated for a visual effects Oscar in tonight’s Academy Award ceremony. It’s now streaming on Vudu, Amazon, and DVD/Blu-Ray.
The best thing about reading a book about the making of a film, without first watching the film, is that your view of the book is not skewed by your opinion of the film. If you knew nothing about The Great Wall, the new behind-the-scenes look in The Great Wall: The Art of the Film will prompt you to want to see it. Not only will you find incredible concept art, set design, costumes, and props, the book itself is unique. In the past five years “making of” film and art books have vastly improved in quality. Abbie Bernstein’s new book from Titan Books features the best quality images, the best layouts, and the best book design of any book yet reviewed at borg.com–the book itself has a traditional Chinese book binding and gilded edges. It also features an element left out of many film books these days–it includes images of the entire film, and doesn’t remove spoiler elements, such as, in this case, detailed images of the film’s monsters and ending (the art book for Star Wars: The Force Awakens provided no final image of Luke Skywalker and several costumes and props, as an example).
An icon of China cinema, the man behind several “art house” films in China and the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, director Zhang Yimou discusses in the book why The Great Wall is unique and how it became the biggest production in China film history. If you have watched stunning Chinese film work over the years and aren’t a fan of dubbed or subtitled films, the barrier is language–how can you connect U.S. and Chinese film audiences? Yimou intended just that by making a Hollywood-esque film as a Chinese production in English with a cast and crew from dozens of nations, including more than 100 on-set translators. Beyond that goal, the powerful imagery of the film as displayed throughout The Great Wall: The Art of the Film, is the stuff of Academy Award-winning costume design and art design.
Along with interviews with Zhang are chapters featuring producer Peter Loehr, actors Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Jing Tian, and Willem Dafoe. The most visually stunning chapters detail The Nameless Order, with Zhang’s color coding of each fighting corps, including the royal blue Crane Corps–the fighting unit consisting entirely of women. We see frosted plastic pages displaying each corps symbol, and poster quality designs highlight each leader, along with their shields and weaponry. Detailed sections feature the creation and design of the film’s monsters–the mythical Tao Tei–and how WETA and Industrial Light and Magic created them. And each key sequence of the film is revealed with photographs of special effects and the actors in action.
Chances are you skipped 10 Cloverfield Lane when it hit theaters this March 11. It was one of those movies with a cryptic trailer. In a world where trailers typically give too much away, this one left you thinking John Goodman was some kind of rescuer of two others in a dystopian underground quonset hut. But once you’ve seen it, you realize you were better off not having an explanation. Why? Spoilers.10 Cloverfield Lane is now available on Blu-ray, pay cable and streaming services.
It’s the ultimate horror story. A woman, played by fan favorite Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a smart and resourceful role, wrecks her car and awakens tied to a post in an underground bunker with two men. The older man, played expertly by John Goodman in a performance that would have garnered him an Oscar nod a decade ago (think Kathy Bates in Misery), claims that the outside world is gone, victim to a chemical attack. Maybe it’s the Russians. Maybe it’s aliens. Maybe he’s a psycho. Or maybe its zombies. But we know the movie has the word Cloverfield in the title and is produced by J.J. Abrams, so what’s really going on here? Does it have anything at all to do with J.J. Abrams’s 2008 monster movie Cloverfield or not? Is there some sci-fi element lurking around the next corner? Or is it just a street address, much like Abrams includes the name Kelvin in all his movies?
All will be revealed in time.
10 Cloverfield Lane is an expertly paced mystery, plunging you into the question “what genre is this movie?” It’s that question that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last scene. Fans of M. Night Shyamalan movies will fit right in here, and at times you get the feeling that Shyamalan is somewhere behind the scenes. When is the revelation coming? Who is telling the truth?
