“Where to begin?” These words tumble out of my mouth each time someone asks what there is to celebrate about Alex Garland’s Annihilation. Dumbfounded and overwhelmed, a thousand responses knotting in my mind, I rarely offer a competent response. It’s a film about a cellular biologist (Natalie Portman) who enters a dangerous, anomalous, faintly rainbow electromagnetic forcefield called The Shimmer, which grew mysteriously from a meteorite. Joined by a psychologist, an anthropologist, a physicist, and a paramedic, she braves the unknown for the sake of scientific research. They’re the umpteenth team risking their lives to find out what The Shimmer is. But Lena (Portman) goes in because she feels she owes it to her husband (Oscar Isaac), the only human who’s gone in and come back out, albeit trans-mutated. In short, it’s a difficult film to summarize clearly, much less excavate on a critical level.

Answering for Annihilation’s brilliance is like standing in the middle of a complex maze with hundreds of miles of seemingly endless combinations of escape. No matter which way I turn, I’ll exit the maze. But in being asked to explain Annihilation’s singularity, I’m not being asked to merely exit the maze. I’m being asked to trace every possible way out. Each time I reach the end I have to turn around, retrace my steps back to the center, and do it again, this time differently.

Do I begin down the snaking path of humanity’s obsession with the unknown and turn left at the disquieting display of self-destruction? Or should I fork right at philosophical reflections on biology? Do I start towards its status as one of the few intelligent, dignifying female-driven films to come out of Hollywood in the past decade (four of the five most significant roles held by women, known and unknown, queer and straight, and of different ethnicities, varied worldviews)? And if so, which track do I take when the trail divides into dismantling patriarchal gender norms and theories of forthcoming human evolution?

I could exhaust one hundred different ways out with similar thoughts before touching on themes of ecological ethics or technological development. And if I was hospitalized in the process due to exhaustion, I’d be upset that we never breached the intersecting conversations between suicide, mimesis, interanimation, marriage, filtered vision, the metaphysical, and annihilation.

Garland’s sci-fi mind-bender is an intricately woven tapestry whose microscopic threads couldn’t be fully traced by anything short of a dissertation. Attempting to do so in the improvisational context of conversation or tedious texting is like, as the late Sheppard (Tuva Novotny) would say, “using confetti to test a hurricane.”

Annihilation has had a healthy post-release life—prominent critics live tweeting through it like a filmic investigation, publications devoting significant space to it regularly, programmers screening it at repertory theaters, et al. Most conversations I’ve had about it have been hyper. We bounce off the walls with appreciation until we get too tangled in abstractions and have to decompress. Or, at the very least, it piqued their interest. But occasionally, someone thinks it’s hot, fluffed up garbage.

Don’t get me wrong, I love well-founded dissenting critical opinion. It’s one of the main attractions to arts criticism. But it’s one thing to say you hate a film and another to say you think it’s bad. I’m not invested in whether or not someone likes the film. We all have different tastes. But there’s no denying Annihilation’s busy mind. Like the greatest works of art, it practically creates its own center of gravity. I admit that Some Like it Hot and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are masterpieces. I don’t like them, but I recognize their merit. Annihilation deserves to be recognized in its merit, regardless of whether it’s enjoyed or not.

But, like many, I struggle most to defend my favorite films, albums, artworks, novels, etc. You know the overwhelming feeling that favorites bring. Most of us can count on two hands the number of films that have stopped us cold in our tracks for months at a time. I could list hundreds of films that I adore, but only a few that mapped previously uncharted islands in my soul.

Barring occasional exceptions, my favorites become my favorites because they’re meaty. They offer an endless vault of thoughts to withdraw from for the rest of my life, each thought compounding the last and requiring further attention to what thoughts I’ve withdrawn before. They become some of the main avenues through which I shed the blinders of my perspective, learn to unlearn, and eventually grow. Annihilation joins the ranks of inexplicable treasures like Synecdoche, New York (2009), Mirror (1975), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), The Tree of Life (2011), The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), and The Master (2012), to name a few—films that I’ll still be soaking in, marveling at, pondering, feeling, and quoting on my death bed, I imagine.

Annihilation is the cinematic Shimmer. Like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkosvky’s Solaris, Fassbinder’s World on a Wire, or Wenders’ Until the End of the World, it obliterates the sci-fi genre with motivations that will always be a touch out of reach, but, in doing so, it doesn’t necessarily destroy. It takes steps toward change, toward “making something new,” as Lena says of The Shimmer. The film doesn’t fit into the rubric of critical or personal appreciation that we typically process films by, just like Lena’s experience doesn’t fit the field processing questions Lomax (Benedict Wong) asks her (“Can you describe its form?” “No.” “Was it carbon based?” “I don’t know” “What did it want?” “I don’t think it wanted anything.”) Instead, it embraces what film studies professor Lisa Trahair calls a “film’s unparalleled capacity to convey the truth of life in its illogical, non-teleological, open-ended, and infinitely mutating glory.”

In other words, it’s less interested in giving answers and more interested in teaching us how to ask better questions. And there’s value in the way the narrative asks us to forget what we know and consider something ‘other,’ something we can’t predict or fully understand even after the credits have rolled. The sparse, lingering tone of the film isn’t born out of emptiness. It’s carefully crafted to abstain from finality, to perpetually stiff arm determinism in all of its ecological, ontological, anthropological, biological, and extra-terrestrial thought. The ethereal cinematography, stunning performances, incisive screenplay, visionary direction, colorful production design, etc. deserve chapters of their own in the Annihilation monograph. But if we stop at what we can see and hear, we’re low-balling Annihilation something awful. It’s a cerebral event, a thinking film, as film philosopher Gilles Deleuze would have it—dense, elusive, and thought-provoking.

Did you count the number of frames that were shot through shimmer-like substances (the paint guarder, Kane’s enclosing mini-Shimmer in the base’s hospital, or the glasses of water, for example)? Did you revisit the mimetic climax in its orchestral, triptych totality? Did you stop to consider the majestic moments that reference sci-fi of the past or fashion filmic entities that we’ve yet to imagine so prolifically on screen? Like Josie’s (Tessa Thompson) “death.” Although, that’s a retrogressive way to think about it. She tells Lena, “Ventress wants to face it. You want to fight it. But I don’t think I want either of those things.” She doesn’t die. She changes. Maybe she evolves. What about the annihilation of Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh)? That can’t really be called death either. She changes. Maybe she evolves in a different way. Maybe she devolves?

What about Kane’s appearance at the beginning of the film? Where did he come from? We see him walk up the steps, but when asked how he got there, he says he just recognized her in the room, implying that he saw her from inside The Shimmer and somehow stepped out of it and into terrestrial reality. We don’t know it upon first viewing, but the minute detail introduces the metaphysical aspect of The Shimmer, i.e. Garland’s impressive ability to toy with time and space. Most prominently, do we know what The Shimmer was? Do we even have a decent idea of what it was? An organic entity? Substance? An alien? A cosmic force? What did it create? Lena wondered if the products were corruptions or duplicates of form, hallucinations, or echoes. Does The Shimmer have a real world parallel? If so, what? If not, when was the last time a film presented you with the essence of a thing that you could not parallel to the real world?

On top of everything else, who other than Garland has attempted this style of what he calls “dream” adaptation, purposefully abstaining from re-reading the text in order to infuse his own dream-like originality? What other films have gone toe-to-toe with major Hollywood executives and won final cut? (All hail, Scott Rudin, producer and prophet) How many other major-studio-distributed films are bold enough to leave us without answers, to open doors without closing them? How often does a wide-release film carry the mental depth and viscosity of Annihilation without sacrificing the humanity behind it all, or vice-versa.

So, as you’ve probably realized by now, this isn’t the careful examination of seemingly infinite detail that Garland’s masterwork deserves. It’s an explanation of why even the most intricate short essay would leave me dissatisfied with my justification of the film’s brilliance. Because I know I couldn’t capture it all in that format, and I don’t want to spend the next 5+ years of my life buried in doctoral studies. But I can point you toward literature that illumines some of the film’s most labyrinthine thoughts.

Read Keith Basso’s eco-anthropological essay “Wisdom Sits in Places,” Donna J. Haraway’s essay collection Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Stanley Cavell’s The World Viewed, or bell hooks’s text on Belonging. Any paragraph of the aforementioned will start to add thickness to the film. They’ll help you re-consider the way you evaluate the film altogether. Maybe they’ll help you unveil the film’s profundity, or maybe Annihilation just isn’t for you and that’s alright, too. But don’t tell me it’s bad.

While almost every beloved horror classic has received the reboot treatment, Candyman is the type of story that could realistically be reinterpreted every few years and still feel relevant. The adaptation of Clive Barker’s story deals with themes pertaining to racism and inequality, and as long as those injustices still plague our society, Candyman will remain a powerful horror tale.

When it comes to socially charged horror in the modern era, Jordan Peele has proven himself to be one of the most interesting voices out there. He’s creating bold and original scare fare that resonates with the masses, and that makes him a perfect candidate to help tell a new Candyman story.

Of course, this isn’t just Peele’s movie. Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) co-wrote the script and directed the film, and if this trailer is anything to go by, she’s about to make an impact on the horror world in her own right. Check out the footage from the new movie in the first trailer below, then join me as I break down some of the most memorable shots.

The core premise of the original Candyman remains intact for the remake/spiritual sequel. If someone says his name into a mirror five times, he’ll show up and make them regret their words. In this scene, he has just massacred a group of high school students who don’t think the legend is real, so that’s on them for being so stupid. Just like in the original, bees appear prior to his arrival, buzzing around like omens of death. Furthermore, if you look into the pocket mirror, you’ll see the Candyman and his hook.

Cut to Cabrini, several years after the events of the original movie. As you can see, the neighborhood has been gentrified to the point that it’s barely recognizable in its current iteration. That said, it’s evident that the movie will tap into some of today’s social concerns, so don’t expect some soft reboot that’s trying to cash-in on people’s nostalgia.

While the new movie takes place in the same universe as the first film, the plot is familiar, albeit with an entirely different central character. Like Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen in the original) before him, Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is obsessed with getting to the root of the urban legend. In this scene, he discusses his work with a colleague, explaining that he’s working on a story about Candyman and how mirrors play an important part in the legend. More than anything, though, this is just a cool shot that reinforces the trailer’s catoptrophobia-based imagery.

Following a montage of several characters speaking his dreaded name, Candyman emerges from the shadows to claim his next victims. It’s also interesting to see Candyman in an art gallery, given that he was an artist in life prior to being brutally murdered for falling in love with a white man’s daughter. Maybe being around art will reignite his passion for the craft, though it’s likely that he’ll be more interested in decorating the walls with people’s blood.

One of the theories going around is that Anthony is an ancestor of Candyman, and this scene seems to support that idea. While it’s possible that Candyman is just messing with him, it’s evident that there is some sort of connection between the pair. Is Anthony controlling him? Is he possessed? Who knows what’s happening here, but it’s intriguing.

In another familiar callback to the Candyman lore, here’s the Hamlet phrase that appeared a couple of times in the original movie. The juxtaposition of blood and graffiti in a holy place like a church is a haunting image, but the phrase has significance to the legend as well. While the connection to sweets and Candy is obvious, the original William Shakespeare refers to death. In this universe, any time candy is referenced, it’s in association with the macabre.

Candyman opens in theaters on June 12, 2020.

Welcome to How’d They Do That? — a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off.

This entire column is based around the celebration of cinematic techniques that read as magic tricks. In this context: Lon Chaney Sr. is a veritable magician.

An Old Hollywood powerhouse known for his characterizations of unnerving individuals and mangled souls, Leonidas Chaney was born on April Fool’s Day in 1883 to two deaf parents. As Chaney himself explains in a rare interview in Movie Weekly, the unique circumstances of his upbringing meant that, for the actor, “gesture was always a thing of great significance.” A Silent Era performer, Chaney’s physical deftness resulted in emotionally rich, peerless performances that still resonate and shock almost a century later.

In addition to being one of the most evocative performers to ever grace the screen, Chaney was a pioneer of early cinematic special effects makeup. With few exceptions, his best-known characters experience some sort of disfigurement, and the actor took the execution of these mutilations into his own hands, often at the expense of his own comfort and safety (more on that later). From murderous madmen to misunderstood monsters, Chaney consistently elicits bi-tones of repulsion and empathy, curiosity and fear, horror and pity. Gnashing teeth, curling lips, flaring nostrils, his characters are always as upsetting as they are mesmerizing.

A big part of why Chaney’s creature designs are so affecting is because, as horror director Jennifer Kent articulates in an interview with Mountain Xpress: “You can see that it’s a person’s face. It’s just a face that’s been distorted — without CGI obviously — but manipulated so that it looks human, but almost not.” Nowhere else is Chaney’s unique quality of “human, but almost not” more evident than in the disfigured ghoul of 1925’s Phantom of the Opera, one of Chaney’s most impressive make-up jobs, if not certainly his most famous one.

The unmasking of the titular Phantom is one of the most well-known moments in silent film. Arguably, it’s one of the most horrifying images ever put on screen. As the mysterious Eric sits at his organ, our captured heroine Christine loosens his mask. As contemporary reviewer Carl Sandburg puts it: “Her fingers give one final twitch — and there you are!”

The reveal: a defacement more horrifying than any other cinematic iteration of the infamous Opera Ghost to date. His nose is an upturned chip, his mouth a mangled mess, his eyes threatening to pop. It’s hard to wrap your head around: how can that thing be human? This furious, menacing, despair-filled creature? Part command, part challenge, the Phantom shrieks:  “Feast your eyes, glut your soul, on my accursed ugliness!”

With pleasure.

How’d they do that?

Long story short:

By mangling Lon Chaney’s face with wires. Plus some good old fashioned contouring.

Long story long:

In a rare statement on his craft, Chaney explained, as cited by film historian Scott MacQueen in the October 1989 edition of American Cinematographer: “I’m supposed to have evolved some magic process of malforming my features and limbs. It’s an art, not magic…I achieved the Death’s head of that role without wearing a mask.”

Indeed, to pull off the ghoulish look of the Phantom, Chaney undertook a variety of creative if woefully self-harming illusory techniques.

To become a living skull, Chaney raised the contours of his cheekbones with cotton and collodion, a very flammable and syrupy solution of pyroxylin mixed in alcohol that creates the appearance of scarred skin when dried. He flattened (possibly glued) his ears to his head, adding to the skull look. An exaggerated skullcap was used to elevate Chaney’s forehead by several inches, accentuating the bald dome of the Phantom’s skull, draped by flat-pressed wisps of stringy black hair. Pencil lines were used not only to exaggerate the natural creases of Chaney’s brow but also to hide the lip of his bald cap.

Phantom Of The Opera (1925)

In the same quote cited in the American Cinematographer article, Chaney continues: “it was the use of paints in the right shades and the right places — not the obvious parts of the face — which gave the complete illusion of horror. My experiments as a stage manager, which were wide and varied before I jumped into films, taught me much about lighting effects on the actor’s face and the minor tricks of deception. It’s all a matter of combining paints and lights to form the right illusion.”

Taking the color palette of André Castaigne’s illustrations as his reference, Chaney painted his outer eye black, adding stark white highlights around the periphery to emphasize the skeletal effect and suggest the transition from bone to sockets.  The Phantom’s toothy grin was accomplished by attaching prongs (yes prongs) to a serrated, rotting pair of false teeth; creating a gnarled grin with a mouth held wide by design. Chaney further distorted his lips and shaded his face with greasepaint.

The nose is the worst part. Chaney applied putty to sharpen the angle and inserted two loops of wire into his nostrils (which were themselves darkened with black eyeliner) to make a skeletal shape. Extra wires concealed under putty and the skullcap were attached to Chaney’s nose, yanking the actor’s nostrils upward.

There are some who have stated that in certain shots Chaney manipulated his nose with spirit gum and fish skin. But given that the reports have been contested and imitations have not been successful, we must take these claims with a grain of salt.

There is also a dangerous myth floating about that Chaney put egg membranes in his eyes to give them a cloudy look. This rumor appears to be a combination of two facts: Chaney messing his sight up with the false eye cover from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and the white-out cosmetic contact lens he had personally created for 1926’s Road to Mandalay (one of the first full-eye scleral white glass contact lenses made for theatrical use). In any case, the egg membrane tidbit is likely an exaggeration if not an outright falsehood.

And really, who needs to exaggerate when it comes to Chaney? “He suffered, you know,” recalls Phantom’s director of photography, Charles Van Enger, as cited by the ever-giving American Cinematography. “Sometimes [Chaney’s nose] would bleed like hell. We never stopped shooting. He would suffer with it.”

What’s the precedent?

This was still early days in cinema history, so when we’re talking about the innovative shenanigans on display in Phantom of the Opera, the only real precedent in Hollywood was Chaney himself.

In the aforementioned interview in Movie Weekly, Chaney explains: “Most of my roles have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories I wish to do.” Self-sacrifice was certainly the name of the game when it came to Chaney’s approach to make-up.

Two years before Phantom of the Opera, Chaney designed an affecting but physically-demanding guise for Quasimodo in Hunchback: fitting himself with an external glass eye, a 20-pound plaster hump, and a painful harness that fixed his shoulder to his hip to achieve the desired effect. With humble innovations and the spirit of Occam’s Razor, you can’t discount the impact of Chaney’s make up kit (a fisherman’s tackle box, today a part of the collection at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles).

‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (1923)

That said, without fail, the best creature performances are the ones where the actor wears the makeup rather than the makeup wearing the actor. Doug Jones (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hell Boy, Star Trek: Discovery) is the highest-profile example of a modern performer who can play creature effects like an instrument. Like Chaney, Jones’ embodiment and the makeup he wears consistently come together for performances that are more than the sum of their parts. Andy Serkis is another great example of this, though the added twist of digital space and all the post-production collaboration that entails, is a wrinkle best smoothed out some other time.

It would be easy (and delightful) to sit here all day listing evocative makeup performances (Jeff Goldblum in The Fly…Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde…Warwick Davis in everything…). But, ultimately, Chaney brings something unparalleled to the table: the man did his own goddamn makeup.

The impact of this bespoke quality is elusive but you can’t help but feel it when you watch Chaney perform. He had an intimate knowledge of his own body, both as an actor and as a makeup artist. He knew its abilities, its limitations, and how to weaponize both through the use of self-designed, tailor-made practical effects. The result is up there on the screen, in creatures like the Phantom who to this day remain unparalleled in both their spectacle and their sympathy.

Flight or Invisibility? Pick your superpower. After working your way through the Invisible Man franchise, you’ll never trust anyone who chooses the latter over the former. Invisible Men are not just creeps who get their jollies slinking around in secret; they’re shattered nutcases — or worse yet, gleeful human monsters.

Universal Pictures saw immediate potential with H.G. Wells, but where the author dreamed of speculative science, the studio imagined shock and wow. The suits devoured Wells’ 1897 novel, splaying its concept on their operating table and repurposing its organs into numerous semi-recognizable sequels. Respectable what-if exploration went out the window, and fabulous effects wizardry crawled inside.

In the 87 years since the release of the original James Whale film, Universal has produced seven entries. Ranking them is not a challenge, but it will spark conversation, especially when you reach my chosen top three. If all you know is this year’s release and the first production, you really should make the time for the rest. Even the bottom feeder is quite the sight to see.

7. The Invisible Woman (1940)

No H.G. Wells credit on this one, but that’s not where your concern should rest. The film opens on a butler (George Ruggles) doing one helluva pratfall down a flight of stairs before facing the bombardment of his master’s ratatat slurs of ridicule. After the success of The Invisible Man Returns, which was released earlier the same year, Universal decided to do a comedic switcheroo with the concept, trading the deteriorating male psyche for a rascal gal-about-town.

The Invisible Woman is loaded with screwball zingers, but few land and most raise an awkward eyebrow. “If I knew where your neck was, I’d wring it!” Hardy-har-har. Virginia Bruce plays the titular adventurer who is paired with lady killer John Howard as they battle off dimwitted goons, including Stooge Shemp Howard. Bruce’s invisibility is too often treated with ooh-la-la titillation with one-too-many sequences of goo-goo eyed dolts falling over themselves whenever she’s forced to undress to make her escape. The film is the one entry where the visible out-perv the invisible.

6. Invisible Agent (1942)

Here’s an entry I’d love to see remade. Landing squarely in the middle of World War II, Invisible Agent was designed by Universal as propaganda to aid homefront morale. German-American novelist and screenwriter Curt Siodmak (The Wolf Man, Donovan’s Brain), who fled the clutches of the Nazis for our shores, relishes in belittling the Third Reich at every given opportunity. His script is an angry bit of B-movie cinema, held back by the censors and his director’s point-and-shoot style.

Frank Griffin (Jon Hall), the grandson of the original Invisible Man, lives in secret as the meager owner and operator of a print shop in New York City. Nazi spies led by Peter Lorre invade his workshop and attempt to rob him of his grandfather’s formula. He beats them back and escapes into federal custody. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Griffin agrees to go behind enemy lines as the Invisible Agent, bopping every Nazi he sees on the head. It’s a good time at the movies.

5. The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944)

Want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts. Robert Griffin, no relation to Frank even though he’s still played by Jon Hall, busts out of a mental institution and, in the process, murders a couple of guards. He’s a maniac on a mission. Griffin was robbed of the deed to a diamond field in Africa while out safariing with the Herrick family. When he confronts them, they lie. He doesn’t believe them. They drug him and leave his body to rot in a field outside their home. He awakens and finds a local scientist (John Carradine) who happens to have access to an invisibility formula. He was a terror before, but now he’s an outright lunatic.

The Invisible Man’s Revenge is a parade of wretched souls. Each character you encounter seems worst than the last, but never as bad as the monster at the center of the story. Hall goes from the do-gooder war hero of Invisible Agent to an irredeemable whackjob. Of course, the cinema of the day demands he get his just deserts, but when they come, you’re left wishing similar fates for a lot of the folks involved.

This article is part of our ongoing Picard Explained series, featuring the insights of our resident Starfleet officer Brad Gullickson.

After spending nearly half its run time assembling its cast of misfit space pirates, the sixth episode of Star Trek: Picard jumps to a destination I would have thought reserved for the big season finale: the Artifact, a.k.a. The Romulan Reclamation Site, a.k.a. The Borg Cube, or at least, a Borg Cube. Having not stepped on one since he was kidnapped, assimilated, and steered as their figurehead Locutus, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) returns to face his fear, and more importantly, his hatred.

As he has inched his way toward the source of his nightmares, so too has Artifact resident Soji (Isa Briones) crawled to the realization that she is not the simple biological organism she sees in the mirror. Her questions as to why she goes narcoleptic whenever she calls home to quiz her mother on her father erupts when she starts carbon dating the stuffed animals of her childhood. Every trinket in her room is no older than 37 months. She is who we’ve known she was since the first episode: a synthetic lifeform evolved from the blueprints of Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) with the aid of Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales).

Those wishing Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) would return immediately following her bloody disintegration of Bjayzl (Necar Zadegan), or an apocalyptic confrontation between Picard and the murderous Dr. Juarti (Alison Pill) will have to hold their horses. The good doctor managed to pass her assassination of Maddox off as mere cardiac arrest, and Seven of Nine is staying clear of the former Starfleet Admiral, who ignites pangs of guilt with every glance. We’re at the Borg Cube, so these other threads must be what’s withheld for the season finale, or the second season. Besides, we now need to get invested with the boots Juarti’s knocking with Captain Rios (Santiago Cabrera). That ship warps at factor ten!

Entitled “The Impossible Box,” the sixth episode is concerned mostly with re-drudging the darkest corners of Picard’s trauma. We thought he settled those issues back on the big screen in Star Trek: First Contact, when he and the rest of U.S.S. Enterprise went to war with the Borg Queen in the 21st Century. During that film’s climax, with the help of a primitive engineer (Alfre Woodard), Picard faced the rage caked around his heart. He saw his anger take over and how his crew suffered for it. He was able to pull himself free of the toxic emotion, but don’t think a traumatic event like assimilation can be cured with one trip to the psychiatrist’s couch or the destruction of one pitiful Borg Queen. The anger remains, as does the pain it’s masking.

Some carefully laid plot keeps Picard’s crew on their ship, while he is allowed by both the Federation and the Romulans to venture onto the Artifact. Elnor (Evan Evagora) objects, Dr. Juarti celebrates, and the audience breathes a sigh of relief. We’re still getting used to a lot of these characters. We have our favorites; we’re not so sure about a few others. What matters is that we’re alone with our Captain as he places foot to Cube. Without the supporting cast to distract or encourage his chin up and proud, Picard is allowed to release his feeble humanity aboard the Borg vessel.

Picard is practically shaking once he beams over. From the shadows, Ex-Borgs (XBs) skulk, and Picard keeps his head down and his eyes closed. He stumbles and drifts to the edge of a mechanical chasm, and before he falls, a pair of mutilated arms pull him back from death. He’s terrified, shouting – screaming – until a familiar voice calls out. Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco), the Borg named by Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), welcomes the man who massaged his individuality out of the Collective and embraces Picard with a grand hug.

Hugh is a life preserver. Picard holds on to him desperately. While they never spent much time together after his couple of guest appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Hugh represents one of the many victories Picard had during his time on the Enterprise when he was out amongst the stars making a difference. Hugh is proof that singularity can trump group-think. He’s the perfect guide to shine a light on Picard’s nightmare.

Picard witnesses the tender care Hugh delivers to his fellow XBs, and a little bit of that anger and hatred starts to slip. His eyes no longer dart. They make contact with the XBs, and Picard sees them for the first time. The zombies in the shadows are not monsters, they’re victims, like himself.

Picard threw a lifetime of service away when Starfleet rejected his plan to rescue Romulans from the impending supernova. The higher-ups judged the lives of their enemies undeserving of relief, or better yet, undeserving of the risk to Federation lives. Picard spat disgust at such blatant racism. Life is life.

And yet…

The only good Borg is a dead Borg. Picard would never allow another individual to go through what he went through. He confronted his anger in Star Trek: First Contact, but he did not eradicate it from his person. He still happily laid waste to the creatures who invaded his ship and the Queen that pulled their strings. Once captured, the flesh beneath the machine was deemed rotten and not worth his energy or morality.

“The Impossible Box” concludes with Hugh and Elnor holding back the Romulans as Picard and Soji escape through a fancy-schmancy Cube teleporter. They’re heading to the planet Nepenthe, never before mentioned in the canon of Star Trek. There they will get to the secret buried in Soji’s programming, the location of a possible Borg homeworld.

In battle with the Romulans, Picard is going to catch a nasty reflection. Their doomsayer prophecy predicting Soji and her synthetic kind as the ultimate evil to sentient existence matches Picard’s repulsion for the Borg. In the Romulans, Picard will see his fear, his hate, and his wickedness. As Captain Kirk did before him when he saw the “humanity” in the Klingons (see Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), Picard will rise as an advocate for the Borg.

This is the way of Star Trek. The enemy is never a people. Klingons were the great bad. Meet Worf. The Romulans were the great bad. Meet Admiral Jarok. The Borg were the great bad. Meet Hugh. Meet Seven on Nine. Recognize the life behind the borders. Seek connectivity.

If you’ve never seen James Whale’s 1933 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, that’s definitely a must-see before or after the new version (as I’d recommended at the start of the year). Other sequels and parodies are also worth watching to varied enjoyment (see our ranking of everything from The Invisible Woman to Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man). Leigh Whannell‘s remake is the direct descendant of a classic and is part of a legacy of one of Hollywood’s most famous horror properties. But there are many more ingredients at work this time.

This edition of Movies to Watch After… recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of the 2020 version of The Invisible Man as I recommend fans go back and learn some film history, become more well-rounded viewers, and enjoy likeminded works of the past, even if it’s the fairly recent past (and in some instances not enjoy but still learn about some relevant junk). As always, I try to point you in the easiest direction of where to find each of these highlighted titles.

Upgrade (2018)

Firstly, as more moviegoers discover the talents of writer/director Leigh Whannell with his take on The Invisible Man, I recommend checking out his underseen gem from two years ago. This was not his feature directorial debut, but it was his first chance to break from the ongoing properties he’d been attached to as co-creator of James Wan’s Saw and Insidious franchises. Upgrade is, unlike the Insidious sequel he’d helmed and The Invisible Man, an original idea. Unfortunately (and to some degree, fortunately), Upgrade came out the same year as Venom, to which it has some coincidental as well as uncanny similarities.

Also produced by Blumhouse, the sci-fi movie concerns a man enhanced with cybernetic implants following a tragedy. He’s not only able to miraculously walk again but with the help from an AI inside his body he’s now an amazing fighter and a walking computer. Upgrade isn’t just on here because it’s also by Whannell but because it connects thematically with its implausible science project of a wealthy asshole tech innovator (another good fit for this theme is Ex Machina, which is also about a rich scientist who wants a woman he can own and control) and also sets up the filmmaker’s gift for action combined with horror.

Stream Upgrade with a subscription via HBO

The Mummy (2017)

Universal’s first and last entry in their attempted Dark Universe mega-franchise is a ridiculous affair. And should definitely be watched after the new Invisible Man as a reminder of what we could have gotten instead. Not that Whannell’s movie isn’t filled with its own awful logic and other script problems, but its tone is a little more grounded, thanks to a limited budget ($7 million compared to the reported range of $125-195 million) and especially Elisabeth Moss‘ performance. Her fellow Scientologist Tom Cruise does not have that sort of dramatic restraint, at least not in The Mummy.

Never mind the bigger budget that might have come with the Dark Universe version of The Invisible Man, which was to star Johnny Depp in the title role; it was also the broader acting style, which extended to Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde portrayal here that would have made the difference. But at least with Cruise, that’s what we fans of his enjoy a lot of the time. Like Moss for hers, Cruise is mainly what makes his movie what it is. The Dark Universe version of The Mummy isn’t scary or even very thrilling but it’s often entertaining.

Stream The Mummy with a subscription via DirecTV

Crime After Crime (2011) and Private Violence (2014)

For a true look at domestic violence and what women must endure before men are punished — if they ever are — this week I’m spotlighting two documentary picks. The first one, Yoav Potash’s Crime After Crime, is about a woman who has been in prison for two decades for the death of her abusive boyfriend. Her case has been reopened, and she’s being defended pro bono by two young attorneys, who are the primary characters of the film. Obviously, the abuse victim is guilty of murder, like Moss’ character at the end of The Invisible Man, and she deserved some time behind bars, but not as much as she got. Right? The circumstances are easier to accept as absolution for a vengeful woman in a movie than by the justice system.

The second documentary, Cynthia Hill’s Private Violence, is a Sundance award-winning, Emmy-nominated look at the issue of domestic abuse through the work of victim-turned-advocate Kit Gruelle and the case of Deanna Walters. The latter was kidnapped by her ex-husband, along with her daughter, and beaten almost to death. Yet he wasn’t initially arrested for the crime. Much of the point of the doc is to answer why women don’t just leave such relationships and situations. Why don’t they tell anyone is another question. The Invisible Man depicts the story of a woman who just barely manages to leave but still doesn’t feel safe in body or mind, and few understand. Because abusers do tend to go unseen in their crimes, as if they’re invisible.

Stream Crime After Crime with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video
Stream Private Violence with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video

Hollow Man (2000)

Invisible Man movies have historically been about the person who becomes invisible. Whannell’s version flips the switch and follows the invisible character’s victim, turning the story into a vehicle for a social issue metaphor appropriate for a new era inspired by the #MeToo movement. But 20 years before the remake tackled the idea of making a grittier, more violent, and more thought-provoking adaptation of The Invisible Man, audacious filmmaker Paul Verhoeven gave us Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon as the subject of an experiment that leaves him permanently see-through.

The condition drives him crazy (imagine not being able to close your eyes, which would make it almost impossible to sleep) but also allows him to be an even worse creep than ever, to the point that he even rapes a woman he’s already been shown to be voyeuristically infatuated with. Verhoeven means for us to be aligned somewhat with Bacon’s character as a voyeuristic spectator but then takes us to the extreme point of what such invasion entails. I consider Hollow Man a kind of necessary update on and answer to the seemingly innocent pervy comedies of the past, like 1985’s School Spirit, which is about horny ghosts who, due to their invisibility, spy on women in the locker room and undress women in their sleep, all for the gaze of the audience.

Rent or buy Hollow Man from Amazon

Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)

There are other thrillers out there about women having their revenge on abusive men, but Sleeping with the Enemy is the queen of them all. It also follows roughly the same plot as the new Invisible Man remake. Julia Roberts stars as a woman who flees her abusive home — she’s the one who fakes her own death here, while the abusive boyfriend does so in The Invisible Man — and then the guy comes after her, violently. But not in an invisibility suit. Spoiler: she shoots him dead in self-defense as if he’s just some home invader and not her ex, just as Moss’ character does at the end of the new movie.

Thanks to the plot of The Invisible Man being so similar, minus the addition of a new love interest for the woman (most scripts would have had Moss wind up with Aldis Hodge), we probably don’t need the official remake of Sleeping with the Enemy that’s been in development at Fox Searchlight with Candyman reboot director Nia DaCosta at the helm. Of course, we already basically got a remake in 2017 with ‘Til Death Do Us Part, which follows literally the same plot, also without an invisibility suit, as the much more successful 1991 film.

Stream Sleeping with the Enemy with a subscription via Starz

Predator (1987)

When Whannell is done with whatever he does with the Escape from New York reboot, give him the Predator franchise. We’ve seen three installments since the 1987 original — plus two cross-overs with Alien (whose own original protagonist has been compared to Moss’) — and none of them have captured the essence of the first movie as much as the new Invisible Man does. Predator is about an invisible (or well-camouflaged) alien for most of the plot, but his cloaking system is disabled near the end and Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to fight him more fairly. He doesn’t go in and out of visibility, like the villain of The Invisible Man when his suit is stabbed, but the action is similarly tighter and more intimate, even when the invisible man is taking out psyche hospital guards like he’s the Terminator.

Perhaps Whannell’s knack for this cat and mouse kind of action will be suited for other movies, including the Escape from New York remake, but it’s also just what we want from a lot of franchises now. Hollywood has gone for the bigger and more effects-driven sequels for not Predator and even the Universal Monsters brand, but what’s working best is the tighter, cheaper takes like Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which script issue aside does aim for character and story over spectacle. And yet there are also just enough great visual effects tricks to keep things interesting.

Stream Predator with a subscription on Fubo TV

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

The Invisible Man isn’t the first feminist horror movie, but the praise around it makes it seem like that’s the case. Even if the elevated appreciation is because the remake changes things up so much as to lean toward advocating for women and for victims of abuse, it’s still not the first horror remake to approach a familiar story through a more feminist lens. Christopher Guest’s made-for-cable 1993 version of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman aims for such a reimagining. The camp redo makes its metaphoric message tied to size similar to the way Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin’s 1981 comedy (by way of Joel Schumacher’s direction) The Incredible Shrinking Woman does, only in the opposite direction.

However, the truth is that the shlocky original already has enough of a feminist foundation worthy of consideration. The B-movie is hardly a display of great filmmaking craft, and unfortunately, its beginning and especially its ending are more punishing of its main character, who is portrayed as a mentally unstable drunk. Still, this woman is an abused and disrespected woman whose husband cheats on her, tries to keep her locked up in an asylum, and plans to kill her to make off with her large inheritance. She has a right to be vengeful, despite societal stereotyping of angry women back then, and use her increased size against those who’ve wronged her. The ending of the remake is a little more fun, but the original still feels more likely.

Rent or buy Attack of the 50 Foot Woman from Amazon

Gaslight (1944)

In addition to being relevant to the #MeToo movement, the new Invisible Man has a contemporary significance for the way it deals with gaslighting. While the term has become widely appropriated by the political media when discussing broad manipulation by government and other officials (rather than just calling them liars), to gaslight is a more directly personal sort of control through confusion that originates with this classic film by George Cukor. Adapted from the play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton, the movie stars Ingrid Bergman as a woman being made to think herself crazy by a husband messing with their home’s lighting system.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse inflicted on women in order to keep them subservient to and/or dependent on their manipulative husbands. The new Invisible Man remake emphasizes the idea by having Moss’ character committed to a psychiatric hospital after her ex, cloaked by a special suit, makes her out to feel and then seem to others to be mentally unstable. Some of the guy’s tricks could be done without the power of invisibility, such as when he removes her work samples from her portfolio after she’s sure she added them, which plays with her mind. He’s also very good at making her seem violent in front of others without the “magic” of what he’s doing being noticed.

As has been noted in our other coverage of the film, this Invisible Man is different than past adaptations in that it’s not about the transformation of its title character. He’s already a terrible human being before going invisible. He’s already a master gaslighter. He probably would have been a murderer. The invisibility suit just elevates his means of acting on all of it.

Stream Gaslight with a subscription on the Roku Channel

Clones are born to die. Bred in labs, from cells sold by the bounty hunter Jango Fett, clones wake up to a life of service. Here’s your armor. Here’s your blaster. Go get them droids, and we’ll sit back and watch from our throne rooms.

In the previous six seasons of The Clone Wars, we’ve come to learn that the clones are not the brainless drones briefly seen in the films. They have wants and desires. They know friendship. They experience loss.

Last week’s final season premiere, “The Bad Batch,” saw Captain Rex lead a squad of genetically deviant clones behind enemy lines in an effort to disrupt a droid algorithm supposedly predicting Republic attacks. In that episode’s climax, Rex discovered the algorithm’s origins in the voice of a fallen comrade: ARC Trooper Echo. The soldier had turned traitor.

The revelation stirred a profound sense of regret inside Rex. The last time he or we saw him, Echo was consumed in the blast of a shuttle explosion while attempting the rescue of Jedi Master Even Piell (“Counterattack,” Episode 19 of Season 3). We’ve seen plenty of clones and stormtroopers slaughtered over the last 40 years of Star Wars continuity. Their deaths carry about as much weight for us as any ant accidentally crushed under our boot as we walk from home door to car, maybe less so.

Echo’s death was the first time we considered the life of a soldier trapped in a star war. In Rex’s shock and horror, we found our own. The news that Echo might be alive sends a shiver of pain into Rex. His failure to keep his squad together resulted in further loss of life across the clone army. Every laser blast to a clone’s chest might as well have come from his rifle.

Most of Season 7’s second episode, entitled “A Distant Echo,” revolves around Rex and The Bad Batch, now saddled with General Anakin Skywalker, tracing Echo’s signal to the dragon infested planet of Skako Minor. There, Anakin proves himself less of a Jedi Knight and more of a damsel in distress as he’s immediately captured by the native Poletec people. They want nothing to do with the war they’ve brought to their planet and only ease up when Rex assures them that they are there to rid their land of those other warmongers taking up residence a few klicks away.

The Poletecs allow the soldiers safe passage, and the clones make their way to the Techno Union’s towering eye-sores and the source of the algorithm. Here is where Anakin proves his worth, as wave after wave of D-Wing battle droids floods the tower hallways. “A Distant Echo” is the first appearance of these little robot beasties, designed to go toe-to-toe with the dragons of Skako Minor (also called Keeradaks), their backs are mounted with little pterodactyl wings. Sadly, they don’t get much flying in as Anakin and the clones chop ’em up quick. Battle droids make Stormtroopers look like sharpshooters.

While Anakin and The Bad Batch hold off the droids, Rex and the brainy clone named Tech work to penetrate the control room. Wet Tambor, the Techno Union’s head honcho, appears on a viewscreen to mock their efforts. “Your friend is dead,” he chortles. “His mind is ours.” Rex and Tech enter and discover a stasis pod hanging on the opposite end. Tech hits all the right buttons, and the pod bursts open, and Echo tumbles out.

Echo is not the clone he once was. Cords run in and out of his brain. His color is off, frozen to the point of rotten. Below the waist are a couple of droid legs reminiscent of the ones that brought Darth Maul back to the land of walking. For Echo, not much time has passed. In seeing his old friend, he recalls the citadel where he made his last stand for Even Piell. Rex comforts his brother, “Just sit tight trooper. You’re going home.”

Home? What does that mean for Echo? He sure as hell won’t recognize the man in the mirror. In a universe where his brothers eagerly try to differentiate themselves with tattoos and haircuts, there will be no trouble spotting Echo in a crowd. Free from the Techno Union, if he’s to continue fighting the good fight, one could easily see him joining ranks with the aberrant Bad Batch.

Earlier in the episode, Rex asks Bad Batch squad leader Hunter to whom does he and his troops report? Hunter is rather glib and evasive. He says, “Good question. Can’t say that I’ve got an answer?” The mind begins to wander. While Rex and his clones do reappear later on in the timeline via Rebels, we have yet to see The Bad Batch in any other form of Star Wars. What happened to them? Did they make it out of the Clone Wars? Do they make it out of this season?

The Bad Batch might have more than a chip on their shoulder. As they look around, staring at all the good clones marching to their master’s orders, these guys beat to the tune of their own drum, or maybe their own master. Their morality could be right there in their name, a genuine bad batch of clones doing missions for the likes of the Empire on the horizon. Is that too much of a stretch? Aren’t all the Clones and Jedi effectively fighting for the Dark Side unwillingly? The Bad Batch could be the Emperor’s less subtle division of soldiers.

That’s a lot of speculation, and it could all turn to dust by the next episode. Rex’s recovery of Echo is not a happy ending. It’s not an ending at all. Imagining him up and at ’em by next week is absurd. He needs his time to find his place back in the world. Let’s hope he gets it. As is, he’s a shadow of Rex’s regret made manifest. That sorrow will put some distance between the two unless Echo forgives Rex in some fashion, or he gets the cheap narrative way out and goes full-evil.

Two chapters into this final season of The Clone Wars, and showrunner Dave Filoni and his gang are wading into the darkest realms of character. The writers are taking their shot to say their definitive statement on their toys, redefining many of them from what we’ve seen in the movies. You’ll never be able to watch the prequels as dismissively as before. Obi-Wan mildly addressing Rex in Episode III is now a millisecond packed with hours and hours of serialized storytelling.

Welcome to The Prime Sublime, a column dedicated to the underseen and underloved films buried beneath page after page of far more popular fare on Amazon’s Prime Video collection. We’re not just cherry-picking obscure titles, though, as these are movies that we find beautiful in their own, often unique ways. You might even say we think they’re sublime…

“Sublime /səˈblīm/: of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe”

If there’s one thing this young column has already taught me, it’s that Canadian genre movies were really odd back in the ‘80s. I already covered Crime Wave, which might be the best of the bunch, but The Carpenter isn’t far behind it. Directed by David Wellington (who went on to much bigger things) from a script by Doug Taylor, this tonally confused gem is a must-see for fans of strange cinema, so allow me to tell you why you should stream it immediately.

What’s it about?

The Carpenter is a difficult film to describe as it really is a peculiar little flick. The basic story is about a married woman, Alice (Lynne Adams), who falls in love with a sexy, ghostly carpenter (Wings Hauser) after he shows up to renovate her house. Not even death can stop him from completing the project, and anyone who gets in his way is destined to meet the business end of his nail gun.

At its core, though, The Carpenter is a love story about two outsiders finding each other. Anyone who isn’t Alice or the carpenter is an asshole, so it’s easy to root for the pair of them. In the opening scenes, Alice’s husband institutionalizes her for cutting his suits to shreds, while her doctors make jokes like “you have to be crazy to want to come back here” when she finally gets released. Of course, this is an ‘80s horror movie, and good taste humor isn’t to be expected.

The carpenter is protective of the woman who occupies his dream home, but it doesn’t take long for his homicidal tendencies to spiral out of control. Is he a figment of Alice’s imagination, or is he the real ghost of a dead construction worker? Who knows, but the beauty of The Carpenter is wondering what the hell is happening.

What makes it sublime?

Movies about ghosts killing people tend to fall into the haunted house or slasher categories, but The Carpenter defies genre conventions. While there are horror elements and some gruesome deaths, the film is more like a soap opera that’s been cross-pollinated with a cheap psychological thriller and a dark comedy.

The mix of styles is awkward, but it’s all part of the charm. This is the type of movie where Alice and the carpenter have deep conversations while he simultaneously cuts up some dude’s body with a power tool. In one scene, the ghost also compares hard work to music and discusses how it “builds the world.” He’s full of fascinating insights about life, and his messages really seem to resonate with the smitten Alice.

The Carpenter also contains some of the most casual scenes of slaughter you’re ever likely to see in a movie. The ghost just wanders up to people and shreds them without breaking so much as a sweat, and he’s prone to delivering some funny lines as well. For example, in one scene, he walks out of a room, tells a would-be rapist that he needs to learn to keep his hands to himself, then cuts off both of the guy’s arms. The creep doesn’t even let out a scream, and Alice casually watches before going to bed in a calm state. It’s amazing, but you need to see it for yourself to fully appreciate just how hilariously strange the moment in question is.

I’m pretty sure that there’s a message about female empowerment in here too, but that said, the film also seems to yearn for the days of hard-working men who take pride in building something while the women stay at home and let them take care of business. But these ideas never seem to be in conflict with each other, so it’s entirely up to the audience to decide what the movie is trying to say.

While The Carpenter doesn’t boast any psychedelic visuals, it does play out like a strange and hallucinogenic fever dream, all the way down to its woozy, dreamlike score. Characters feel detached from reality, and they often say things that most normal people wouldn’t. But it’s a glorious one of a kind experience that every schlock aficionado ought to view at least once.

And in conclusion…

If you like movies that are on an island unto themselves, The Carpenter is the movie for you. It’s a lost treasure from a great era in horror filmmaking, but it’s never too late to discover the movie and fall in love with it. The film tries to blend several tones and moods together, and it succeeds in doing so in its own bizarre way. If you give this one a chance, I promise that you will be entertained and bewildered in equal measure. Such is the power of The Carpenter.

Want more sublime Prime finds? Of course you do.

Growing up: we all do it. No two people have exactly the same coming-of-age story, yet more often than not, we’re drawn to many the same youth-centered stories on screen, deeming them classics and rewatching them again and again. Young people are rarely given the power to tell their own stories, so a coming-of-age film that captures a specific generation, culture, or subculture feels like a rare and special thing for those who are reflected on screen, especially when the film itself finds a viewer during their most formative phase. A good coming-of-age film can become an emblem of sorts, a touchstone that’s at once deeply personal in its description of a fleeting, emotional era of life, and universal in its appeal to anyone who’s lived through it.

The best coming-of-age films mix nostalgic familiarity, impressionistic experiences, and a dollop of brutal honesty that comes with the jarring, often unwelcome understanding of the adult world that accompanies adolescence. That last part is usually handed across time from the more experienced filmmaker to the younger protagonist, a retrospective technique that’s unique to the subgenre and that lends the greatest coming of age stories a sort of prismatic blend of naivety and wisdom.

Although the entries on this list span eight decades, you may notice a significant amount of recent movies. Have coming-of-age films gotten better over time? Maybe not, but American films have certainly begun to reflect the diverse realities of the off-screen world more in recent decades than ever before, so it’s no wonder the best new teen stories each feel honest, unique, and timeless. It’s worth noting that we made the editorial decision to leave off any would-be classics that are too new to look at with any distance, meaning that staff-loved 2019 films like Booksmart and Little Women are excluded from the ranking.

Read on for our list of the best coming-of-age stories of all time, then join us in being grateful to have made it out the other side of adolescence.

50. Ginger Snaps

Getting your period is an oft-examined topic in the horror genre. The body bleeds and the body changes, making it the perfect vehicle for body horror. The transformation of the female body has also lent itself to creature features, as what cultural critic Barbara Creed calls “the monstrous-feminine” cannot possibly be perceived in the human body. Enter Ginger Snaps, a werewolf movie about Brigitte (Emily Perkins) an outcast girl who must figure out how to cure her sister Ginger’s (Katharine Isabel) lycanthropy. Not only is this a film about the unruly female body, but it is also about sisterhood and trying to stand by your ideals as you grow up. Your period isn’t the only weird thing you have to deal with as a teenager; it’s also about recognizing what you believe in and what’s worth fighting for.

Isabel is the werewolf sister who oozes the kind of sexuality we all wish we had in high school. Her transformation from goth outcast to the hottest girl in school is a narrative many of us weirdos wished we could achieve, though there is obviously a massive cost. Plus, Ginger Snaps features one of the best werewolf designs of the horror genre. (Mary Beth McAndrews)

49. Daisies

Sometimes growing up means recognizing just how selfish the world can be. Such is the case for Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie II (Ivana Karbanová) in Vera Chytilová’s 1966 film, Daisies. Chytilova was a seminal director in the Czech New Wave, an experimental film movement where filmmakers from Czechoslovakia experimented with narrative, particularly in the name of politics. Chytilova did just that with Daisies. These two young girls recognize the world is spoiled, so they decide they want to be spoiled, too. They stuff their faces, tease men, and reject the common ideas of femininity. They do not wish to be like everyone else. The Maries want to be themselves and discover how they wish to navigate the world. In the process, they get a little messy but have a lot of fun doing it.

Using the absurdist film techniques that characterize the Czech New Wave, Chytilova creates a nonlinear coming of age story that refuses to give any kind of narrative satisfaction. The satisfaction and joy lie within two young women who realize that they don’t have to be what society wants them to be. (Mary Beth McAndrews)

48. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The feeling of the air on your face during a night drive, your license still new enough to burn a hold in your pocket. The magic of hearing a song on the radio that for just a moment feels like it was made for you alone. The brick-by-brick formation of self and community that takes place in high school: a journal all your own there, a spontaneous Rocky Horror Picture Show performance here, a first kiss and a pot brownie to top it off.

These are the youthful experiences that make up The Perks of Being A Wallflower, but there’s an undercurrent of darker themes, too: suffocating anxiety, paralyzing awkwardness, the acute pain of trauma realized. Each of the three protagonists of Stephen Chbosky’s book-turned-film is wrapped up in a personal struggle and each deals with it differently. Sam (Emma Watson) pursues men who treat her poorly because she doesn’t think she deserves love, Patrick (scene-stealing Ezra Miller) buries the pain of homophobia under a flamboyant exterior, and Charlie (Logan Lerman) is plagued by depression and intrusive thoughts that keep him from fully experiencing typical teen life. Perks does the hard work of looking closely and earnestly at teen life, not only the triumphant highs but also the lows that must be bravely overcome. “We could be heroes,” as the Bowie song says, “Just for one day.” (Valerie Ettenhofer)

47. Boy

When you’re a kid, idolizing at least one of your parents is practically the default. This is especially true for Boy (James Rolleston), a Maori pre-teen who elevates his absent father to mythical proportions. When his dad Alamein (writer-director Taika Waititi) finally returns, Boy and his silent younger brother Rocky (Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu) have to reconcile the Shogun warrior/king of pop/superhero they imagined with the obvious shortcomings of the impulsive, selfish, relentlessly human man in front of them.

Boy is Waititi’s most serious film, and also his most personal. It was filmed in Waihau Bay, New Zealand, the place where the filmmaker grew up, and although it’s got an imaginative undercurrent, Boy also has a verisimilitude that blends impressively with its more creative elements. Boy is for anyone who ever had to realize that their dad was just another person, but it’s also for anyone who grew up in a neighborhood with tons of kids and seemingly no parents, with broken down cars in the backyard and sticks for toys. Boy and his friends are on the precipice of discovering everything they don’t have, and it’s clear that the protagonist’s playfulness could curdle into rage or sorrow at any moment. In the end, it’s not his father but himself who Boy must imagine a version of that he can live with. (Valerie Ettenhofer)

46. Picnic at Hanging Rock

A supernatural mystery, an exploration of adolescent power and obedience, and an unrequited queer love story wrapped up in one ineffable story, Picnic at Hanging Rock lives in its own genre. There are numerous characters to which a young viewer can connect: the beautiful, commanding Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert); the awkward Edith (Christine Schuler); the traumatized Irma (Karen Robson); or the outcast Sara (Margaret Nelson).

While Sara gets most of the screen-time, Peter Weir’s film is about all of them and their growth through and after the enigmatic disappearance of four people. It’s incredibly elegant in style, but there’s more substance tucked away in the glances and gestures of these girls than initially meets the eye. It’s an incredible, horrifying film that is much less invested in satisfying an audience when, instead, it could linger under your skin and stay there. (Cyrus Cohen)

45. Aparajito

Grouped together, the Apu trilogy of films by Indian master filmmaker Satyajit Ray form one of the greatest cinematic coming-of-age narratives of all time. But we can’t really name all three for one slot, and unfortunately, they’re not each popular enough to take up three spots on this list either. The greatest and most famous of the three, Pather Panchali, leans a little too young on its own to count as a coming-of-age film and take the single representative of the series, so Aparajito stands in.

In the middle installment, which is based on the end of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee’s novel Pather Panchali and the beginning third of the follow-up, Aparajito, Apu (Smaran Ghosal) loses more of his family members and begins to learn to live on his own. First, once he becomes a teenager, he receives a scholarship to study in the big city of Kolkata, then he also begins working to keep afloat there. To complete his transition from childhood, his mother dies at the end, leading to part three, The World of Apu, to follow him as an adult. (Christopher Thompson)

44. Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing calls its shot in the coming-of-age canon with Johnny Castle’s famous line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” The film watches Francis “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) grow up over the course of a summertime family trip to the Catskills. When she meets dance instructor Johnny, played iconically by Patrick Swayze, Baby realizes just how small her world has been. Johnny introduces her to a world of dance, sex, and complicated adult decision-making. Dirty Dancing has a lot of dirty dancing and makes great use of its ‘60s setting to soundtrack the film with mambo and Motown galore.

The masterstroke of this film is that it’s not a dynamic where Castle takes a naive, inexperienced young woman and sexes her up exclusively for his purposes (looking at you, Grease). Instead, Castle helps Baby realize that she’s capable of much more than anyone expects of her. Baby is able to embrace her sexuality along with her intelligence and ability. As far as coming-of-age romance stories go, Dirty Dancing remains a relatively early example of a relationship built on mutual trust, equal agency, and personal change for the better. (Margaret Pereira)

43. Boyhood

Boyhood is one of the few films on this list in which you quite literally watch its characters grow up and come of age. Filmed over a 12 year period by maestro Richard Linklater — a director reputed for his warm, nostalgic depictions of the passage of time — the movie is an astounding documentation of the lapsing years in Mason Evans’ (Ellar Coltrane) life, especially the wax and wane of his relationships with mom Olivia (Patricia Arquette) and dad Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke). The film’s success is rooted in its attentiveness to life’s smaller moments; we don’t get to see the graduation ceremony or the divorce proceedings, but we don’t need to. Boyhood is an ode to the nooks and crannies of an ordinary life — and sometimes that’s all you need for an extraordinary movie. (Jenna Benchetrit)

42. Marie Antoinette

It might not be a growing up experience we’ll ever go through, but the playful historical fiction feels supremely relatable in the hands of writer-director Sofia Coppola. She can fashion Kirsten Dunst, her career muse, in extravagant dresses, shower her with ungodly amounts of attention, and drown her in luxury while preserving the well-tread deafening silence of a first romantic encounter, or a reticence around adults, or a cute innocence that expires at a certain age. After all, Antoinette is 14 when we meet her, swooning at the possibility of love (Jason Schwartzman perfectly cast as the awkward boyfriend/heir to the French throne) and lavish living for the rest of her life, before she has children and tragedy starts to set in. It’s through coming-of-age stories like this one that we get a glimpse of the threads of universality that sew growing pains and discomforts in adolescence. (Luke Hicks)

41. Raw

The French New Extremity as a subgenre is all about, well, being extreme. Its films are bloody, gory, and nihilistic as the human body seems to fall apart at the seams. They often focus on the torture of the female body and watching a female character writhe in turmoil. Julia Ducournau’s Raw is all of that but more. She takes a borderline exploitative subgenre and makes it a cannibalistic feminist coming-of-age story where female rage is taken seriously.

Justine (Garance Marillier) is sixteen years old and heading to vet school. There she is forced to consume raw meat which awakens something animalistic in her. Suddenly, she is embracing the rage that has always been bubbling inside of her. She begins to consume human flesh in increasingly larger amounts. Raw is deliciously disgusting, a film that lets its female characters be gross within painting them as monsters. Coming of age is messy and full of anger, so why not portray it that way? (Mary Beth McAndrews)

Writer-director Benh Zeitlin has made quite the name for himself considering he’s only directed one film up until now. Most of that attention came in 2012 after the beauty of Beasts of the Southern Wild struck and all fell prey to its floating expression of magical realism, which feels simultaneously ethereal and indestructible, rigid and free. The rest of that attention came from the realization of Zeitlin’s singular filmmaking style. In a sense, it carries the filmmaking ethos all auteurs probably wish their sets were defined by—shooting that makes room for new thought, reorientation, the amorphous artistic mind, and the kind of trial and error that leads to measured brilliance. What director in their right mind wouldn’t want to work on a shoot that allows the creative process to spread its wings and the final film to flourish, as a result? But Zeitlin’s approach goes beyond the average auteur’s.

For starters, he’s not interested in major stars, storied screenplays on the blacklist, or blockbuster budgets. In the case of Zeitlin, the duration of the process doesn’t even correlate to the budget. His new film, Wendy, was produced over a period of seven years, but only cost an estimated $6 million, which is saying a lot given the context of the production. The Sundance film is a modern take on Peter Pan with old, realist roots. It required, per Zeitlin’s vision, an isolated island shoot comprised almost entirely of children and an ever-changing narrative. That doesn’t scream “convenient,” or “predictable,” or any of the other words studios love to hear that Zeitlin doesn’t.

The focus of the story is the familiar name that forms the title, but there’s almost nothing familiar about her or the tale she inhabits. Peter Pan is a black boy. Neverland is bursting with volcanic action controlled by the kids. There’s a mythical creature called Mother that watches over the children from the water. The list of differences is much longer than the list of likenesses. But the wondrous, reflective style and tone of Zeitlin’s storytelling mode is as present in Wendy as it was in Beasts, solidifying Zeitlin’s ability to milk his open-ended method for all its worth. As for the rest of his approach, I’ll let him do the talking.

One of the biggest stories around this movie is the time it took to make it. You spent five years in pre-production from 2012-2017. What were you and your team doing that whole time besides casting and location scouting?

Those processes and the script. But what’s really different about how we do it is that all of those processes radically affect each other. Every location, every new character cast radically effects the screenplay in ways that are much more drastic than another film where you would sort of finish your script, then go look for the locations, then go look for your cast. I mean, you really sort of go on this exploration of trying to discover where your story exists on the planet, and sort of telling a story as wildly fantastical and traditional as the story of Neverland and Peter and Wendy. People that really spoke to these characters and places that were as awe-inspiring as fairies and crocodiles and mermaids. That was an immense undertaking.

Another immense undertaking was trying to figure out how to rewrite our story to move through these sort of tangible places and people that we found whose spirits spoke to the locations and characters of the film. They were all radically different probably from what we initially imagined, so that process sort of begins with scouting and casting, and the initial exploration of the island took about a year and a half. Then, we got deep into casting. Once we found our cast, that process of re-writing and rehearsal and developing took another two years. That process was interesting because we really cast the kids younger than they could actually play the roles in the film. Yashua Mack who played Peter was five years old when we met him. He was just learning to read. He didn’t know how to swim. He certainly had never acted or even had a concept of what it would mean to be in a movie. And then we cast Devin [France as Wendy], and there had to be this incredible chemistry between the kids. So, there was a long process of taking trips with all the kids out to the island, and having these long adventures and explorations and rehearsals on location so the kids could learn how to sort of play and perform in what were incredibly challenging and hostile environments.

You know, we had this incredible opportunity after Beasts to take time to do things that were really unprecedented in movies. There was no example of this level of a gang of children performing involved roles on location. We took the opportunity of Beasts to confront things everyone tells you to absolutely never try for very good reason. There has to be a real commitment to spending the amount of time necessary to overcome obstacles that would otherwise be considered impossible. Like the construction of the 35-foot underwater, human-operated sea creature—another thing that didn’t have any precedent. There was no way to say, “Well, this should take six months.” No one had ever made anything like this before, so we commit to the process and go into the unknown. That was the experience of making the film.

Did you have any concern about casting Peter as black boy? That he might become a trope and get labeled a magical black character?

We were obviously aware that that would and should be scrutinized. There’s a long history of white male directors creating two-dimensional people of color, two-dimensional women, and one of the tropes is just there to assist the white character in the movie and has no actual history or personality or role or complexity of any kind. It presents the same challenge as you have with any character. The goal with nay character is to create extremely complicated people. I think our Peter can in no way be simplified. To sum up his identity, he’s a truly idiosyncratic kid with dreams and fears and strengths and weaknesses. You can be aware of the conversation and history of a character like that, but you can’t let that mean that Peter Pan has to be a white boy from Britain. We wanted to give this kid the great honor of playing Peter. You think about it and also you think about how to do better than film and literature historically has.

It seems like you were constantly making decisions that would’ve been advised against on set. And creatively. Another one of those is the voiceover, which you used a good amount in Beasts, too. Outside of Jack whispering in The Tree of Life, there aren’t very many cases of well-used voiceover. Why do you find it works so in the stories you’re telling?

You know, it’s just part of cinema language at the end of the day. Like any piece of the language, it’s good when you use it well, truthfully, and honestly, and it’s terrible when you don’t. For me, these two films are intensely involved in the psychology and the point of view of their main characters. They’re very subjective movies that live inside of them. The main characters interpretations of the events are as important as the events themselves. And in both films, the story or journey is not the plot of the film. It’s the trajectory that our character is going on and the evolution of their understanding of what’s happening around them.

In my own head, there’s always voiceover. As I walk down the street every day, I’m interpreting what’s going on around me and my thoughts are a huge part of my reality. So, as I go into expressing a character, I want the audience to really understand and see deeply, you know, and understand everything about their interpretation. Voiceover is an incredibly useful and beautiful way of illuminating what’s done inside the soul of the character whose eyes you’re experiencing the story through.

With both Beasts and Wendy, they have what feels like an introduction to a philosophy that leads into the title card and then this big, sweeping hope. Did you set out to introduce a philosophy?

I think the films both center around questions, you know? I wouldn’t say they center around philosophies. You know, I think that there’s a journey these characters take in relation to a central question. Beasts was really asking a question about what home means, and what home means when your home is going to die, and how that connects to family. That early statement of purpose about home and how home is unbreakable feels like a philosophy at the beginning of the film. But then we see that evolve in Hushpuppy’s understanding as her home falls apart. Wendy is built around early thoughts about what it means to grow up, and the need to escape and how growing up is the most dangerous thing that could happen to you. And that evolves over the course of the film. So, I think both films start setting up a question that our character is wrestling with that they think they understand, and then that understanding gets kind of dismantled and we can see them as they go on their journey.

What about the hope? Am I accurate in calling it that? Is that what you’re going for?

In this one, I don’t think so actually. I think Wendy at the beginning of this film feels very stuck. She sort of sees something closing in on her that’s hard to articulate. I thought about it a lot as I was growing up and looking at adults and wondering how and what and when something was going to happen to change me into a grown up, that being this very mysterious—well, when I was a kid I thought of it as like some sort of affliction that would happen and change me. I think that’s where Wendy sort of begins her journey in the film—looking at this ominous thing she sees that changes people’s dreams and changes her ability to be wild and free. She feels this inexplicable pull to run away from that and to go into the unknown and experience wildness and freedom before it’s taken away from her forever.

There’s also a lot of talk about “belief” in Wendy, which makes me think of the character Mother. There’s a lot of religious language attached to her. “She has always been and always will be,” etc. Did you have a religious myth in mind when you were creating her?

Not explicitly. I think that the way we thought of Mother was very much an expression of nature and the planet—something that’s very much at the heart of creation, in a natural sense. And I do think we sort of thought of her as a bit of a goddess and something that’s larger than life. I think that faith is a big part of the story of growing up for everybody, but I don’t think it’s necessarily religious or connected to any particular religious text. For me, that came into the story a lot in interviews, especially with adults. All of our auditions sort of begin with interviews about people’s lives to try to get to know them. And one of the things we asked all the adults that came in was, “Is there a moment in your life that you felt your life change and you felt like you grew up?” A lot of that has to do with loss, or tragedy, or getting hurt in some kind of way. And that brings fear into your life. People would talk about, like, “I wanted to be a motorcycle rider and then I got in an accident, and then I could never get back on and my dreams changed in that moment,” or “I lost someone in my family, my dad, my brother, my mother. When I suffered this loss I never could reconnect to this sense of joy and freedom again, and I felt that was a moment of growing up.” It was really interesting thing for me to think about, and when I talk about belief and faith, it’s not particular to religion. It sort has to do with belief in yourself, and faith in being able to do the impossible and being able to live your dreams. You lose faith in your dreams and lose hope that you can achieve these things. And then you start to doubt yourself and be afraid. Those are things that can change us and cause us to age in ways that are destructive and unhealthy. I think that theme is really important to the film—that Wendy is trying to figure out how to overcome loss and tragedy and heartache without those things breaking her spirit and causing her faith in herself to break.

You have this very loose, languorous filming style. And you talk about how it goes against the grain of how Hollywood works and how it hasn’t been done before. Do you study other filmmakers to achieve that or is it more auto-didactic?

I absolutely, fanatically watch films to try to prepare for my own, and I’m taking things from all over the place to bring into the style. A lot of times we’re trying to figure out how to tell these sort of larger than life stories and give them a sense of reality, so I study a lot of documentaries. For this film particularly, I looked at a lot of Les Blank and the Vittorio De Sica docs. [De Sica] has this collection called Il Mondo Perduto. These documentaries that are verité in many ways, but also larger than life. Sort of studying how the camera has to operate, and how it has to behave when the filmmakers don’t know what’s going to happen. I also looked at a lot of portrayals of joy that felt real, which I think is a very hard thing to capture in film because of how structured a normal film shoot is.  It’s very difficult to achieve true wildness and spontaneous joy. One of the most difficult things to do on set. Certain films that I felt like achieved that: some of the work of Cassavetes, Fireman’s Ball from Milos Forman. Films that achieve a level of chaos that’s so challenging to actually make happen in the context of shooting a film. So, I certainly studied a lot of how those themes operate, and tried to kind of look at the processes of those filmmakers and what differentiated them from other filmmakers who haven’t been able to capture that.

How did y’all decide what to take out of the original Peter Pan story?

Well, we wanted to bring the story to a place of realism. I think traditionally, the experience of Peter Pan has a lot to do with escapism. You run away from your life, have this great time, and then come back home. And we wanted to strip away things that felt really distancing. You know, I think one of the first things I remember learning as a kid is that I couldn’t fly. Everybody wants to fly, but as some point you jump off a roof with an umbrella and realize very viscerally that it’s not going to happen. This adventure that Wendy goes on is something that I have no access to. We tried to take those elements and re-express them in ways that were possible because we wanted to sort of feel like—you know, we lived this experience. We jumped on trains, we took boats to this remote island, we hiked out to this spectacular volcano. The adventure portrayed in this movie—if you are sick of your life and you want to get away in a real way, you know—you can go find this Neverland. We wanted that sense of real plausibility and accessibility to exist in all the elements. So, the first real process was to kind of take anything that made Peter feel like a world that wasn’t ours, and try to find places and things in our world that express the same emotion but are of this Earth and accessible.

As a couple is in the midst of being violently murdered, they ask the three masked strangers standing over them why they’re doing this. The answer? “Because you were home.” Bryan Bertino’s 2008 horror feature The Strangers is a tight, nihilistic film about how sometimes people kill just to kill. There is no rhyme or reason to it; there is only violence and the desire to torture and hurt.

Kristen and James head to his family’s country house in the middle of nowhere after a wedding. There, they try to settle in for the night only to be disturbed by a group of faceless tormenters. They bang on doors, scratch windows, and taunt the couple. They sneak in and out of the house, destroy cell phones, and push the couple to their absolute limit. Their ultimate goal? To toy with Kristen and James like sadistic predators until deciding it is time for the couple to die.

The film’s most terrifying shot marks the beginning of The Strangers’ horror. Kristen stands in the living room looking around. Behind her, out of the shadows, emerges a masked man. He stands silently behind her as she is unknowingly being watched. The shot is a perfect example of letting the audience in on a secret that builds terror and suspense. It is the opposite of a jumpscare but perhaps all the more terrifying: we know what is going to unfold, and we can’t do anything to stop it.

In not seeing a film’s killer, we are more closely aligned with the characters. We do not know any more than they do and we are on a figurative level playing field. Their scares are our scares. We are not privy to any other information and can view the events on screen guilt-free. In a shot like this, we know where the killer is and what he looks like. We want to shout at the screen and tell her to turn around. Obviously we cannot warn the characters on screen, but the impulse is still there. Instead, we must watch helplessly as acts of violence ensue. This is a shot that makes the spectator aware of their viewing position. We are no longer just passively watching violence but are instead implicated in whatever the villain may do next.

However, our expectations are subverted as the strange man doesn’t attack her. He instead vanishes as quickly as he appears. Kristen is not aware he was ever there, but we are. This ups the tension for the audience; we now will be searching the screen for a masked stranger at all times. It does not matter if the protagonist sees the bad guy in The Strangers; what matters is if the spectator can spot him, which drives up the film’s tension even more.

This shot also establishes the scare tactics for the rest of the film, as well as its prevalent nihilism. All three masked strangers are silent stalkers, slipping through the darkness and appearing to watch their victims without necessarily attacking. They are not flashy villains that make noise to announce their presence. The only reason Kristen or James knows they are around is that the strangers let them know. These three people are in complete control of the situation. They operate in stealth, which this shot effectively establishes. These villains cannot be confronted or killed like most horror movie villains. There is no trick to their madness and no way to prevent them from getting inside. No locks can keep them out.

Finally, the shot creates different levels of space, which again adds to its horror. Kristen stands in the shot’s foreground and is well-lit. The light makes this seem like a safe haven from whatever is unfolding outside. However, the background quickly becomes a focal point as the darkness is broken by the bright white mask. It makes this relatively small domestic space feel huge, a massive place full of hiding spots that could be concealing one of these monsters. Locks, doors, and windows do not keep things out but are instead permeable barriers that can easily be shattered. These layers of space shift the domestic space from a place of comfort to a place of fear; it has been infiltrated by a threatening force.

In the infiltration of the domestic space, The Strangers marks itself as an important piece of post-9/11 horror. The horror films that came after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, try to grapple with a nation’s newfound insecurity. These films often portray human beings invading the homes of others with the purpose of sadistic killing, which reflects societal fears around an inability to protect their homes and families. The Strangers takes that fear and creates a narrative about the most terrifying possibility: there is no rhyme or reason to this attack. It is purely random.

This shot from The Strangers is downright haunting. It shows us what might be going on behind us when we are not looking. It implicates the spectator in the slowly unfolding violence. It creates an unsafe domestic space through the use of cinematic space. In just one shot, the horror of The Strangers becomes apparent, its apprehensive and stomach-knotting tone is set, and hopelessness creeps in. There is no fighting the violence. It is only happening because they were home.

Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Kieran Fisher and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s.

Slasher films typically belong on the big screen as the bloody shenanigans are typically too much for TV, but it’s possible to deliver a film that checks off several of the genre’s boxes without needing an R rating. Or is it? This week’s slice of 70s TV terror makes a stab at convincing viewers with its story of an unknown killer “slashing” his (or her?!) way through the models holed up in a mansion. Part Agatha Christie whodunit, possible title inspiration for Brian De Palma’s 1980 classic… it’s time to tune in for She’s Dressed to Kill!

Where: NBC
When: December 10, 1979

They say the fashion business can be murder, but Alix Goldman (Connie Sellecca) still wants in as a model. She’s cajoled her way into a shoot with renowned photographer Alan Lenz (John Rubinstein) — yeah, you read that name right — and after showing off some of her karate moves the pictures end up on Irene Barton’s (Jessica Walter) desk where she’s declared the next “it” model and invited to an exclusive showing at a remote mountain top retreat. Fashion world is crazy y’all.

Another model, one who was visibly upset at the obvious canoodling between Alan and Alix, drops dead after being foolish enough to use lipstick laced with cyanide, but the show must go on so everyone heads up the mountain — accessible only by a gondola operated by a shifty ex-con named Rudy Striker (Jonathan Banks) — for the legendary Regine Danton’s (Eleanor Parker) new line. She hasn’t been relevant in years, and her last ditch effort sees her stealing credit for designs actually created by newcomer Tony Smith (Peter Horton). Along for the ride are models, a catty journalist named Victor De Salle (Clive Revill), ex models like Camille Bentancourt (Joanna Cassidy) whose “face looks like she stepped on a land mine,” the “plain looking” Laura Gooch (Gretchen Corbett), and more.

The first body hits the floor before the show’s even over and others follow, and with the phone lines cut, the power out, and a storm raging outside the group is trapped in a mansion on top of a mountain with a killer in their midst!

She’s Dressed to Kill is pretty darn entertaining tale blending the high stakes fashion world with an And Then There Were None-inspired story line. To the opening point, the killer offs his prey in bloodless ways ranging from poison to blunt force trauma, and the film’s first hour in particular succeeds at setting up numerous red herrings along the way. That hour mark, though, sees the arrival of a new character who immediately shifts the proceedings towards the goofy — still entertaining, but damn silly.

A 70s TV movie is restrained by understandable limitations, but director Gus Trikonis brings his experience as an accomplished exploitation filmmaker — The Student Body (1976), Moonshine County Express (1977), The Evil (1978) — to keep things lively and visually engaging throughout. From the models themselves to action/suspense beats later on, he delivers an energetic little mystery. Writer and TV veteran George Lefferts gives the film a big boost, though, with a script that respects the genre while feeling progressive with its characters. Even better, he never met a red herring he couldn’t throw in to this script.

Could Alix’s desire to be a model lead her to kill the competition? Is the man who Irene fires over the phone angry enough to murder? Should we take note of that mention of Irene’s ex-husband who died in a fire? Is it suspicious that Kate the lesbian model is also a renowned big game hunter and experienced mountain climber? Should we be alarmed that ugly Laura once had fantasies about beautiful people being wiped off the Earth? Is Rudy the perv as evil as he seems? Is Tony angry enough about losing credit for his designs that he might resort to murder? Could Camille the has-been have gone nutty? Should we be unnerved that Alan keeps taking pictures of the dead models? Does no one else notice that the sheriff is wearing a fake nose?

Lefferts’ script keeps all these balls in the air for that first hour while also delivering dialogue that’s both hilarious and aware. “You should never be able to see the white line between your toes,” says the trainer teaching Alix how to walk like a model, and I still don’t know what that means. Eighty three minutes into the movie someone finally suggests they all stick together only for the wise sheriff to immediately add “If you gotta go potty, don’t take a friend.” There are also some more serious observations including Camille’s sharing of a suicide note she wrote in her 20s and Laura’s accusation that “You’ve created a world in which it’s impossible for a woman to be happy unless she deceives herself into thinking she’s beautiful.”

I won’t spoil the reveal for you — odds are you’ll catch on roughly an hour in — but even if you know the outcome the ride is a fun little mystery offering up a relevant commentary on an industry built on the illusion of beauty. “Death isn’t funny, is it,” says one of the handful of survivors, “life’s the joke.” Toss in some karate action, a dummy falling to its demise, mean-spirited insults, an unexpected romance that ends in a marriage proposal after knowing each other two days, a little more karate action, and an over the top villain reveal/monologue, and you have an entertaining piece of 70s TV terror.

Turn the dial (okay fine just click here) for more 4:3 & Forgotten.

Some people spend their days arguing over the merits of Netflix, but the rest of us are too busy enjoying new movies, engaging series, and fun specials. It’s just one more way to re-watch the movies we already love and find new ones to cherish, and this month sees some of both hitting the service.

The complete list of movies and shows hitting (and leaving) Netflix this month — March 2020 — is below, but first I’m going to highlight a few that stand apart from the bunch.

Netflix Pick of the Month

The bulk of today’s science fiction films tend to be big studio efforts that are short on ideas and heavy on CG effects, but smart genre efforts still exist and one is hitting Netflix this month. The Platform arrives March 20th from Spain, and it delivers from beginning to end. The setup is simple — a future prison tower exists with one cell per floor, with a hole in the center of each, and once a day a glorious feast is lowered down to feed the inmates. Those at the top eat very well indeed, and each level below is forced to accept the leftovers of those above. The film’s metaphor for society doesn’t try to hide itself, but the scathing commentary comes in the form of a thrilling, funny, brutal, and ultimately thought-provoking tale. You’ll want to see this one, people.

Marky Mark as Robert Urich?!

Robert Parker’s bestselling mystery series saw a successful television series in the 80s with Robert Urich playing the talented and charismatic private eye, Spenser. Mark Wahlberg is hoping to bring his own brand of P.I. shenanigans to the screen with this new feature adaptation of the Spenser novel Wonderland. Can he bring the goods as well as Urich? We’ll find out when Spenser Confidential lands on March 6th as a Netflix Film, but the trailer has me leaning towards a hopeful yes. Peter Berg directs from a script co-written by Brian Helgeland, so my fingers are crossed!

The Best of Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg!

… aren’t coming to Netflix, but some of their other films are! Okay, I’m messing with you a little there as GoodFellas (1990) is new to Netflix this month and is obviously among Scorsese’s best films. Hugo (2011), though? That was is a dud despite the misguided opinions of some of you out there. Regardless, it’s also streaming this month. And speaking of questionable taste, can you believe there are die-hard defenders of Spielberg’s Hook (1991)? That movie is a bundle of mistakes from casting to script choices, and if you don’t believe me you’ll be happy to know it’s available now on Netflix.

Timely Much?

Sure, 2011’s Contagion is the more accurate and terrifying Hollywood film about a viral pandemic, but that one’s not currently streaming. You know what is? Wolfgang Peterson’s Outbreak (1995). It’s neither accurate nor terrifying, but it does star Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, and Cuba Gooding Jr.

The Complete List

March 1st
Always a Bridesmaid (2019)
Beyond the Mat (1999)
Cop Out (2010)
Corpse Bride (2005)
Donnie Brasco (1997)
Freedom Writers (2007)
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
The Gift (2015)
GoodFellas (1990)
Haywire (2011)
He’s Just Not That Into You (2009)
Hook (1991)
Hugo (2011)
The Interview (2014)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Life as We Know It (2010)
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
Outbreak (1995)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Richie Rich (1994)
Semi-Pro (2008)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Sleepover (2004)
Space Jam (1996)
The Story of God with Morgan Freeman: S3
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Tootsie (1982)
Valentine’s Day (2010)
Velvet Colección: Grand Finale
ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas

March 3rd
Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL

March 4th
Lil Peep: Everybody’s Everything

March 5th
Castlevania: Season 3 — NETFLIX ANIME
Mighty Little Bheem: Festival of Colors — NETFLIX FAMILY

March 6th
Guilty — NETFLIX FILM
I am Jonas — NETFLIX FILM
Paradise PD: Part 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Protector: Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Spenser Confidential — NETFLIX FILM
Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City — NETFLIX FILM
Ugly Delicious: Season 2 — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY

March 8th
Sitara: Let Girls Dream — NETFLIX FILM

March 10th
Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal — NETFLIX FAMILY
Marc Maron: End Times Fun — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL

March 11th
The Circle Brazil — NETFLIX ORIGINALDirty Money: Season 2 — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Last Ferry (2019)
On My Block: Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Summer Night (2019)

March 12th
Hospital Playlist — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

March 13th
100 Humans — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
BEASTARS — NETFLIX ANIME
Bloodride — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Elite: Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Go Karts — NETFLIX FILM
Kingdom: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Lost Girls — NETFLIX FILM
The Valhalla Murders — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Women of the Night — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

March 15th
Aftermath (2017)

March 16th
The Boss Baby: Back in Business: Season 3 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Search Party (2014)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)
The Young Messiah (2016)

March 17th
All American: Season 2
Bert Kreischer: Hey Big Boy — NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL
Black Lightning: Season 3
Shaun the Sheep: Adventures from Mossy Bottom — NETFLIX FAMILY

March 18th
Lu Over the Wall (2017)

March 19th
Altered Carbon: Resleeved — NETFLIX ANIME
Feel Good — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

March 20th
Archibald’s Next Big Thing: Season 2 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Buddi — NETFLIX FAMILY
Dino Girl Gauko: Season 2 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Greenhouse Academy: Season 4 — NETFLIX FAMILY
The Letter for the King — NETFLIX FAMILY
A Life of Speed: The Juan Manuel Fangio Story — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
The Platform — NETFLIX FILM
Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Ultras — NETFLIX FILM
Tiger King — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY

March 23rd
Sol Levante — NETFLIX ANIME

March 25th
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
Curtiz — NETFLIX FILM
The Occupant (Hogar) — NETFLIX FILM
YooHoo to the Rescue: Season 3 — NETFLIX FAMILY

March 26th
7SEEDS: Part 2 — NETFLIX ANIME
Blood Father (2016)
Unorthodox — NETFLIX ORIGINAL

March 27th
Car Masters: Rust to Riches: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Decline — NETFLIX FILM
Dragons: Rescue Riders: Hunt for the Golden Dragon — NETFLIX FAMILY
Killing Them Softly (2012)
Ozark: Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
There’s Something in the Water (2019)
True: Wuzzle Wegg Day — NETFLIX FAMILY
Uncorked — NETFLIX FILM

What’s Leaving?

Leaving 3/3/20
Marvel Studios’ Black Panther
The Men Who Stare at Goats
The Notebook

Leaving 3/4/20
F the Prom

Leaving 3/7/20
Blue Jasmine
The Jane Austen Book Club
The Waterboy

Leaving 3/9/20
Eat Pray Love

Leaving 3/14/20
Men in Black
Men in Black II
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection : Classic: Collection 3

Leaving 3/15/20
Coraline

Leaving 3/17/20
Being Mary Jane: The Series: Season 1-4

Leaving 3/19/20
The L Word: Season 1-6
Zodiac

Leaving 3/24/20
Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time

Leaving 3/30/20
Batman Begins
Charlie’s Angels
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
Death at a Funeral
Drugs, Inc.: Season 5
Hairspray
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
New York Minute
P.S. I Love You
Paranormal Activity
Small Soldiers
The Dark Knight
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Wild Wild West

Follow all of our monthly streaming guides.

The name’s Bond. Bondathon. With 24 official James Bond films to conquer before ‘No Time To Die’ hits theaters, Bond fan Anna Swanson and Bond newbie Meg Shields are diving deep on 007. Martinis shaken and beluga caviar in hand, the Double Take duo are making their way through the Bond corpus by era, so hang up your hats and pay attention.

There’s a subtle scent of vodka and gunpowder in the air, middle-aged British men are discovering who Billie Eilish is, and Daniel Craig is psyching himself up for a press tour. This can only mean one thing: there’s a new James Bond movie on the horizon. The upcoming No Time To Die will be Bond’s return to the big screen after an almost five-year absence. To mark this momentous occasion, we here at Film School Rejects knew that a simple ranking listicle just wouldn’t cut it.

Instead, we — Meg Shields and Anna Swanson — are undertaking a more lengthy endeavor. We will be watching all 24 official Bond movies and cataloging our assessments of each actor’s time spent as the eponymous super-spy. We’ve put together a few questions that will help us unpack our takes on the first set of films. While Anna was raised in the church of Bond by parents who wouldn’t have had it any other way, Meg is more familiar with Austin Powers (you do the math on that one). This is to say that whether you’ve come to this column looking for the opinion of a seasoned fan or a fresh-eyed inductee, we can help.

We’re kicking things off with Sean Connery, the gruff Scotsman who helped turn James Bond into a cultural icon. But how do his films hold up, what are the highlights, and how do two viewers with vastly different levels of familiarity with Bond find common ground? These are the questions we’re eager to dive into. But first, for those who didn’t spend the weekend binge-watching, a reminder of what goes down in Connery’s six outings as Bond. Take a shot every time Blofeld plays keep-away with nuclear weapons.

• In Dr. No (1962) Bond journeys to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of an MI6 station chief. 007 deduces that all signs point to the sinister space-launch-disrupting plans of Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman), an operative tied to the evil organization SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion).
• In From Russia With Love (1963) SPECTRE sets about getting even with 007. Hoping to lure Bond to his death, the baddies convince British intelligence to steal a Lektor cryptography device from the Soviets. And so it’s off to Turkey, Belgrade, and Venice to lie, cheat, and get in bed with the enemy (literally!).
• Bond’s basic bitch Miami vacation is cut short when he’s assigned to keep tabs on the titular villain in Goldfinger (1964): a criminal who steals American gold bullion and sells it at a higher international price point. During his investigation, Bond learns of a much more sinister plot than gold smuggling involving a nuclear bomb, Fort Knox, an aviator named Pussy Galore, and something called “Operation Grand Slam.”
• Thunderball (1965) features Bond yet again taking on SPECTRE, who have stolen two NATO atomic bombs thanks to some very convincing plastic surgery, “state of the art” underwater camouflage tactics, and a shit load of scuba diving. It’s up to Bond to retrieve the bombs before a major city is destroyed.
• In You Only Live Twice (1967), SPECTRE are up to their old tricks: stealing space crafts from the US and the USSR, knowing that they’ll blame each other. Bond is tasked with foiling the plot before rockets start flying. A few culturally insensitive jokes, several ninjas, and one fake marriage later, and Bond comes face to face with his arch-enemy Blofeld for the first time.
• Back for his final official outing as Bond, Diamonds Are Forever (1971) sees Connery facing down a collection of Blofeld doppelgangers played by 50 shades of Charles Gray. Aided by his old friend Felix and the aptly named Tiffany Case, Bond uncovers Blofeld’s plan to pivot from diamond smuggling to global nuclear supremacy.

What did you expect? What surprised you?

Bond Beginner
I may be ignorant of the cinematic works of Mr. James Herbert Bond, but 007’s undeniable presence within the collective consciousness has not eluded me. I have a passing knowledge of the functional alcoholism and the womanizing; the fantastic fashion and the punny quips; the suggestively-named lady friends, and the would-be world-dominating villains. James Bond and the world he inhabits are iconic (a fact perhaps especially true of these early Connery entries). But look: my knowledge of Bond is shallow. At most, I was expecting a charming man in a suit to gamble, drink, and fuck his way through international intrigue, saving the world with his fists. All to say: my familiarity with Bond going into this marathon was exclusively superficial; tropes and ticks and general suspicion that this macho man of mystery wouldn’t be my type. Though, in all fairness, I’d never really given him a fair shot. More on that later.

Because I just watched all six of these films for the first time, I have plenty to be surprised about. One of the things that immediately caught me off guard was the travelogue format. Whether it’s Japan, Turkey, or Jamaica (it’s usually Jamaica), the Bond films are largely centered around a charming, if woefully dated curiosity with The International. Bond fans are probably laughing at me, but I swear, I had no idea. Another surprise: while I knew that Bond, uh, fucks, I don’t think I was fully prepared for the no-holds-barred horniness of the 1960s. As if anyone can be prepared for that. I also was not ready for the real star of the show: production designer Ken Adam. The Connery-era Bond films look fantastic: they’re clean and gaudy; colorful and minimalistic; of a time and timeless. These sets belong in a museum, and, for all I know, some of them probably are. If you have an appreciation for a good shag carpet, you’ve come to the right franchise. There’s a pun in there somewhere.

Bond Veteran
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen Dr. No and somehow my takeaway is still astonishment at just how low-budget the film was. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a scrappy thriller that I firmly believe holds up, but it’s also a charming reminder of the franchise’s humble origins. Many a corner was cut along the way, but for the most part, the film came together impressively well. The MVP of these early films is and always will be production designer Ken Adam, who constructed ingenious sets and made a meal out of the limited resources available to him. As much as I know to expect this, it’s always a treat to rediscover the details that make this such a rich film worth appreciating.

As far as surprises, I went into this viewing having a clear idea of how I felt about Connery: I like half his movies. I looked forward to the first three — all of them undeniable classics — and was less than jazzed about the last three. Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger are movies I know well and have revisited countless times. Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds Are Forever aren’t my favorites, needless to say. There’s many a Bond movie that I will love despite its flaws (Meg can attest to this), but these three have always felt like the worst of both worlds: neither good enough to be classics nor bad enough to be straight up campy delights.

I’ll admit this opinion was underselling You Only Live Twice. Maybe I was just in a better mood this watch; maybe enough time had passed for me to look at it with new eyes; maybe it just clicked for whatever reason. I enjoyed it a lot more than expected. I still don’t prefer it to any of the first three Connery movies, and I wrestle with my feelings about parts of it, but it definitely bumped up a few spots in my ranking this time around. Let this be a testament to the power of a revisit. I’m glad I gave it another shot.

Do these films hold up?

Bond Beginner
There are two ways I want to answer this question. The first has to do with the inevitable cringe of films made in the 1960s, and all the sexual assault and casual racism that comes with that (especially when you’re dealing with an alcoholic super-spy whose preferred espionage strategy is “I fucked my way into this mess, and I’ll fuck my way out”). As far as what you can take and what you can leave, tolerance for Bond’s sexual aggression is the main barrier for entry. It was a different time, and that grants some leniency. But the more egregious moments can be hard to hand-wave and I’d be lying if I said they weren’t distracting, especially without the buffer of nostalgia.

The second way I want to approach this question is broader. Let me use a frame of reference that I’m more familiar with. In Mission: Impossible, even when the odds are against him, we know that Ethan Hunt, like Bond, is going to figure out how to save the world and that he’s going to be fine. The turn of the screw—that I would argue Bond fails to match—is that Ethan cares about people. And the threat of losing them is what gives his heroic shenanigans emotional depth. From what I’ve seen in these Connery films, Bond does not actually care about other people. He may jest and flirt, but ultimately he treats his allies, flings, and even his colleagues like they’re disposable.

Let’s indulge the take that “people die in Bond’s line of work, so not caring about them is his survival strategy.” As far as the Connery films are concerned, that’s an enormously generous reach. And, more to the point, narratively, that take is far more boring than it is cool. Case in point: to me, no contest, From Russia With Love is the best of these films. And it got a shit load of points by having something the others didn’t: diplomatic stakes underpinned by emotional ones. Bond’s feelings for Tatiana have a weightiness that isn’t present in his relationships with any of the other women of the Connery era (except maybe Moneypenny, depending on how you spin it). You get the sense that his relationship with Tatiana is more than just a matter of convenience, and it makes the surrounding intrigue and action setpieces all that more involving.

I suspect I’m fighting a losing battle by bemoaning Bond’s lack of meaningful relationships. But it can’t be helped. I’m not saying that Bond needs to be sanitized or saved. I enjoy a power-abusing, beaten-down civil servant as much as the next girl. But I find myself wishing the films would comment on how much of a maniac he is. So far, Felix, the CIA boy is the only one out here acknowledging Bond’s “habits,” albeit with a marked degree of “that’s our boy!” Then again, maybe them’s the 60s.

Bond Veteran
I admit I can’t look at the Bond movies I love with total objectivity, so for me, the first three Connery films hold up. There are some things that I know wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) exist in a movie today, but I love these movies for what they are, warts and all. Where this conversation gets tricky is around the latter three, the ones that I don’t watch with rose-colored glasses.

I’ve always said that I’ll take a bad Bond movie over a good anything else, but Thunderball really throws a wrench in that claim. It’s not that it has a bad plot; the narrative is good enough that I quite enjoy the not-a-remake unofficial entry, Never Say Never Again. But, my god, is this version unbearably slow. I get that at the time the underwater scenes were cool and new but now it feels like watching paint dry. If I could cut Thunderball down to a cool 72 minutes by removing the glacially paced underwater sequences, then maybe I’d enjoy this movie more. As it is, the film is so slow that I feel my brain go into screensaver mode the second Bond sinks below sea-level.

I also tend to not hold any misogynistic scenes against films made in the 60s, because it was, y’know, the 60s. But it sure would have been nice if Bond’s aggression had been dialed back so that it wasn’t permanently at 11 in this movie.

Speaking of a film being of its moment, it’s impossible to look past the racism of You Only Live Twice and it’s a damn shame that this spoils some of the better moments in Connery’s fifth outing. The Bond movies always served travelogue purposes and here the film apparently seeks to illustrate Japan’s cultural heritage by putting every stereotype on display. Some of it is not at all done with malicious intentions; I do believe that there is a sincere interest in offering audiences back home a glimpse of a culture and history different to their own. But there are enough jokes at the expense of the Japanese characters that, even when understood as a product of its time, leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

But I still find myself unable to throw it all away. There are some really brilliant moments in this film. The villainous scheme of lowering poison into someone’s sleeping mouth via string is genuinely ingenious. The hollowed-out volcano lair is god-level in addition to being ripe for parody. I also will never turn down any opportunity to see Q in the field and his bringing of Little Nellie to Bond doesn’t disappoint. I can’t claim that You Only Live Twice is perfect — far from it — but it has its moments. And at least it takes place on dry land.

And then there’s Diamonds Are Forever. I still don’t quite know what to make of it. When people say this is their least favorite Bond movie, I get it. It’s a confoundingly weird film with a narrative all over the place, the franchise’s most annoying Bond girl in the form of Tiffany Case, and queer-coded henchmen who are treated with all the care of a sledgehammer to the face. It’s a bad movie. And yet…

Maybe it being so bad is what prevents it from ranking last for me. There’s more skilled assemblage on display in my personal least favorite, Thunderball, but its sluggish pace makes it more of a chore than this campy, bonkers, absolutely terrible movie. Diamonds Are Forever is bad in such a way that I am actively paying attention to all of its confounding choices. This means I’m not bored. If that’s my greatest takeaway, then so be it. Could always be worse.

Amazon Prime is the only streaming service with a cost that also gets you free shipping, and that my friends is a deal. They’re in the original programming game, but their biggest offering remains the ton of films available to watch anytime for Prime members.

The complete list of titles hitting Amazon Prime this month — March 2020 — is below, but first I’m going to shower some affection and point some eyeballs towards a few specific titles.

Amazon Prime Pick of the Month

Blow the Man Down (2020) exhales starting March 20th, and while I haven’t seen it yet it’s the new-to-me film I’m most looking forward to on Prime this month. Described as equal parts comedy, drama, and mystery, the film follows two young woman whose (accidental?) killing of a man sees them descend further and further into their small town’s criminal world. It looks like a good time for fans of dark, violent comedies.

March Horrors

Pet Sematary (2019) rises from the grave on March 19th, but while it’s worth a watch for those who haven’t seen it I’m not the biggest fan. It’s well-acted and the production design is solid, but the film’s back half is just a whole lot of dumb that I can’t get behind. A better remake can be found in The Crazies (2010) which turns George Romero’s paranoia-filled thriller into a creepy and suspenseful horror film. The Descent (2006) is another fantastic arrival with its terrifically terrifying and claustrophobic tale about a group of friends who go spelunking and disturb some subterranean dwellers along the way. The sequel, The Descent: Part 2 (2010), is also new to Prime this month.

A Robert Cormier Double Feature

Okay, this is a bit of a cheat as one of the films — the best of the two — is already on Prime. The Chocolate War (1988) just made the cut on our list of the 50 Best Coming of Age films, and it’s a brilliant look at the emotional toll that comes with being a teen. The new film being added this month isn’t quite as good, but Tenderness (2009) is still worth a watch as it explores the mystery behind a teen who may or may not have killed his family. Russell Crowe stars. (Not as the teen.)

Little Seen Westerns

Westerns remain a fantastic setting for films of all types from action to comedy to horror and beyond, and two lesser known titles are hitting Prime this month. Sam Shepard’s Silent Tongue (1993) sees River Phoenix as a man in a precarious situation, and while I haven’t seen it yet the cast (which also includes Richard Harris, Alan Bates, and Dermot Mulroney) combined with its description as a dramatic horror/western has me sold. Santee (1973) arrives on March 30th, and while it’s far more traditional of a western it’s one of the good ones. Glenn Ford stars as a bounty hunter who welcomes in a young man who he knows is the son of a man he’s killed, and the expected action/drama follows.

The Complete List

March 1st
Abduction (2011)
Cantinflas (2014)
Chilly Dogs (2001)
The Cooler (2003)
The Crazies (2010)
Danny Roane: First Time Director (2007)
Deck The Halls (2011)
The Descent (2006)
The Descent: Part 2 (2010)
Destiny Turns On The Radio (1995)
Eyes Of An Angel (1994)
Going The Distance (2010)
Good Morning, Killer (2011)
Henry’s Crime (2010)
Hide (2011)
Hornets Nest (2012)
Innocent (2011)
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Lady In A Cage (1964)
Man On A Ledge (2012)
Night Of The Living Dead (2007)
Night Of The Living Dead: Resurrection (2013)
Richard The Lionheart (2014)
Ricochet (2011)
Route 9 (1998)
Silent Tongue (1993)
Silent Witness (2011)
The Skull (1965)
Spinning Into Butter (2007)
Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (2002)
Tenderness (2009)
Wayne’s World 2 (1993)
Patrick Melrose: Season 1

March 6th
ZeroZeroZero: Season 1 – Amazon Original series

March 8th
Show Dogs (2018)

March 11th
The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team: Season 1 – Amazon Original series

March 13th
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)
Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse: Season 1 – Amazon Original series
Jessy & Nessy: Season 1A – Amazon Original series

March 19th
Pet Sematary (2019)

March 20th
Blow the Man Down (2020) – Amazon Original movie

March 21st
I See You (2019)

March 23rd
A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011)
Luther: Season 5

March 27th
Making the Cut: Season 1 – Amazon Original Series

March 30th
Santee (1973)

Follow all of our monthly streaming guides.

Anime isn’t known for having huge box office success in America, and when there are hits they tend to be Studio Ghibli fare, Pokemon movies, and other family-friendly features. More mature anime tends to get limited releases and therefore not much chance for blockbuster success. However, thanks to specialty event-style distribution, Japanese animated films for teens and grown-ups are on the rise at the box office.

The latest release from FUNimation Entertainment, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, debuted domestically last Wednesday and actually topped the box office in first place, grossing $2.5 million on its opening day. Through Sunday, the manga adaptation had reached a domestic total of $8.5 million, including the official opening-weekend amount of $5.1 million, placing fourth. Showing at only 1,260 locations, the movie had the second-best per-screen average of all wide releases in theaters.

Heroes Rising is the second My Hero Academia feature. FUNimation released My Hero Academia: Two Heroes domestically in the fall of 2018, and that installment held the anime box office record for films rated PG-13 and R until now. Two Heroes grossed $1.4 million on its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada. Having debuted on the Tuesday prior, its total through its opening weekend was about $4 million. Released on fewer than half as many screens, though, its theater average was higher.

Because other major anime features of the past have received limited theatrical releases, the average attendance per screen for those non-kid-friendly films has been greater, too. The new My Hero Academia feature only saw about 300 tickets sold per location, while one of Ghibli’s rare PG-13 efforts, Princess Mononoke, sold around 3,500 per screen back in 1999. Other significant per-screen successes include Akira back in 1988, Perfect Blue in 1999, and Metropolis and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie in 2001.

For a comparison of anime box office for titles not appropriate for children, here’s a ranking by estimated opening-weekend attendance/ticket sales:

1. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (2020): 0.55 million
2. Weathering with You (2020): 0.52 million
3. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004): 0.51 million
4. My Hero Academia: Two Heroes (2018): 0.2 million
5. Night is Short, Walk on Girl (2017): 0.039 million
6. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001): 0.039 million
7. The Wind Rises (2014): 0.038 million
8. The Boy and the Beast (2016): 0.032 million
9. Princess Mononoke (1999): 0.028 million
10. Steamboy (2005): 0.021 million

I kept the amounts by millions of tickets because that’s what I always do, plus it makes the above titles stand out more distinctly lower when compared to the following ranking of the top 10 anime releases in general, no matter the MPAA rating, by opening-weekend attendance:

1. Pokemon: The First Movie (1999): 6.1 million
2. Pokemon: The Movie 2000 (2000): 3.6 million
3. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie (2004): 1.53 million
4. Pokemon 3: The Movie (2001): 1.46 million
5. Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2019): 1.1 million
6. The Secret World of Arrietty (2012): 0.81 million
7. Digimon: The Movie (2000): 0.79 million
8. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (2020): 0.55 million
9. Weathering with You (2020): 0.52 million
10. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004): 0.51 million

As far as worldwide box office grosses are concerned, though, three PG-13 releases rank in the top 10, which can’t be broken down by ticket sales: Weathering with You ($193 million), and Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke ($161 million) and The Wind Rises ($136 million). And of the rest of the above, only Pokemon: The First Movie ($173 million) and The Secret World of Arrietty ($146 million) rank among the top. Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai films have always just done much better outside the US.

But interestingly enough, the My Hero Academia films aren’t that huge in Japan (though they’re still considered hits there even if not among the top 50 best-selling anime releases), so their popularity in America is notable. Weathering with You was a comparable hit in both territories, but of the other titles on the mature anime domestic ranking, the two Miyazaki films and The Boy and the Beast did much better overseas than what has been popular here. I admit I’m not aware of why the American fanbase for My Hero Academia is analogously greater than back home.

Meanwhile, new Pokemon animated features are now just skipping theatrical release. While Kunihiko Yuyama’s 2017 feature Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You! and Tetsuo Yajima’s 2018 feature Pokemon the Movie: The Power of Us both hit theaters very briefly courtesy of Fathom Events, the new computer-animated feature Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution, helmed by Yuyama, Yajima, and Motonori Sakakibara, made its debut last week straight to Netflix. And there, it’s reportedly (by Netflix) one of the top 10 most popular titles available.

Jonathan Entwistle seems to be drawn to Charles Forsman’s work. Following on from the success of The End of the F***ing World, he knocks it out of the park with his adaptation of I Am Not Okay With This. And the good thing about his interpretation of this story is that he plans to continue the journey of Syd (Sophia Lillis) beyond a single season, as evidenced by the cliffhanger ending that’s given viewers plenty to ponder.

The big question concerns the identity of the mysterious shadowy figure who has been following Syd around. In the comics, there’s an equivalent entity, but it’s a manifestation of Syd’s feelings that briefly appears when she feels like she’s losing control. She describes it as the embodiment of her “hatred, anxiety, and anger.” The spook is a very small part of the comics, but the creators of the Netflix show exercise their fair share of creative freedom with the adaptation, and one of their changes was turning the emotional specter into a physical character.

Given that adolescent trauma is a major theme in the series, it’s entirely possible that the mystery man is a hallucination of some kind. That said, whether he’s real or imaginary, all the signs point toward him becoming Syd’s mentor for dealing with her telekinetic powers. This is another difference from the source material, as the shadow ends up causing her to become isolated from everyone she cares about, and in the comics, she actually kills herself at the end of the story.

One possibility is that the man is Syd’s dead father, who has somehow found a way to remain in the mortal coil and get through to his daughter. The show implies that Syd inherited her powers from him and that his abilities also came about following a traumatic experience. The ending reveals that the shadow man was watching over Syd — as opposed to haunting her — throughout the season. Therefore, it makes sense for the mysterious guardian/mentor to be Syd’s father, as he has experience with the powers and a personal attachment to her.

At the end of the final episode, the mystery man also informs Syd that she doesn’t have to be afraid of him, but “they” will be. This suggests that her father has returned from the beyond and wants to use her for some kind of mission, which probably involves her killing people whom he thinks are deserving of death. “Let’s begin,” he says during the closing moments of the finale, indicating that he’s going to start training her.

At the same time, it’s entirely possible that the figure is someone else entirely. If Syd has telekinetic powers then it’s probable that there are more people like her out there. Maybe it’s one of her old man’s army buddies? Her dad is the obvious answer to serve as her new guide, so maybe the creators will set out to surprise viewers in the next installment.

Regardless of who he is, though, it’s clear that he’s going to help Syd channel her powers. But will he use her to fight for justice, or does the mysterious man have a sinister agenda? The show is more optimistic than the source material, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some horrifying twists in store.

Hulu has been stuck in the third-place position when it comes to movie streaming behind Netflix and Amazon Prime because most people still see them strictly as a home for next-day television. They have movies too, though, and more than a few of them are gems that make Hulu a destination beyond last night’s TV shows.

The complete list of new movies and shows hitting Hulu this month — March 2020 — is below, but I wanted to highlight the best of the bunch along with several others worth seeking out.

Hulu Pick of the Month

Big Time Adolescence (2020) arrives on March 20th after premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and it’s by all accounts a good time. Saturday Night Live‘s Pete Davidson plays something of a slacker who takes a teenager (Griffin Gluck) under his wing, and I suspect the result is a coming of age experience for both of them. The film is enjoying a limited release this month in theaters, but Hulu’s premiere will be the way most of us watch it — and I’m okay with that.

Two Indies from Female Filmmakers

I haven’t seen either of these and have only heard of the first, but new movies from female filmmakers are always worth mentioning. Knives and Skin (2019) premieres on March 6th after a full year or more on the festival circuit. Billed as a “coming of age thriller,” the film follows teens looking for a missing friend. Brown Girl Begins (2018) opens on March 26th and is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi tale from Canada, and that alone sounds intriguing.

Going Into the Dark

Hulu’s Into The Dark series — a new feature every month made in association with Blumhouse — has had a few winners over the year and half it’s been running, but despite the horror genre labeling it’s rarely gone the creature/monster route. That changes with this month’s entry, Crawlers, which wiggles into existence on March 6th. The story involves “a vicious horde of body-switching aliens” which is more than enough to get me excited.

For Whale Lovers Only

Everyone’s seen Free Willy (1993), but who can claim to have also seen Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Free Willy 3: The Rescue (1997)? Well now that person can be you as all three films in the franchise are streaming on Hulu. Curious how Willy the whale is basically the John McClane of the ocean? Now you can find out how he keeps winding up in the wrong place at the wrong time!

The Complete List

March 1st
50/50 (2011)
Abduction (2011)
Blue City (1986)
Cantinflas (2014)
Charlotte’s Web (1973)
The Cooler (2003)
Danny Roane: First Time Director (2007)
Deck the Halls (2011)
The Descent (2005)
The Descent: Part 2 (2010)
Destiny Turn on the Radio (1995)
Eyes of an Angel (1994)
Foxfire (1996)
Free Willy (1993)
Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995)
Free Willy 3: The Rescue (1997)
Friends with Kids (2012)
Furry Vengeance (2010)
Good Morning, Killer (2011)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Hide (2011)
Hornet’s Nest (2012)
Innocent (2011)
The Interview (2014)
Lady in a Cage (1964)
Leap Year (2010)
Major League II (1994)
Man on a Ledge (2012)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Night of the Living Dead (2006)
Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection (2012)
Richard the Lionheart (2013)
Ricochet (2011)
Righteous Kill (2009)
Silent Tongue (1993)
Silent Witness (2011)
The Skull (1965)
Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002)
Swingers (1996)
Tenderness (2009)
Up in the Air (2009)
Wayne’s World (1993)

March 4th
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2010)

March 6th
HIllary: Docuseries Premiere (Hulu Original)
Into The Dark: Crawlers (Hulu Original)
Knives and Skin (2019)

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4 Lovers (2013)
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Real Housewives of Potomac: Complete Season 4 (Bravo)

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One of 2019’s more positive success stories was the arrival of a Rian Johnson‘s premiere Whodunit, Knives Out. He and a fantastic team of creatives both behind and in front of the camera delivered a winner that made bank at the box-office and found critical acclaim as well. Happily, it’s pretty great too.

The film just arrived on home video and comes packed with fantastic extras including a feature length making-of documentary that’s almost as long as the film itself. It also includes two commentary tracks — one with Johnson in the theater, blasphemy I know, so we’re ignoring it, and one recorded a week into the film’s release. It’s an expectedly entertaining and informative track, so of course we gave it a listen!

Keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…

Knives Out (2019)

Commentators: Rian Johnson (director/writer), Steve Yedlin (director of photography), Noah Segan (actor)

1. The opening shot required the two dogs to run from one trainer to another, but they initially had trouble getting them close to the camera. They ultimately had to build a little ramp so the dogs wouldn’t slide directly under the camera.

2. The opening inserts are inspired by 1972’s Sleuth, and the shot at 1:25 of Jolly Jack the Sailor is a direct reference.

3. They had to digitally paint out some of the blood they used on set for that first appearance of Harlan Thrombey’s (Christopher Plummer) dead body at 2:08 in order to secure a PG-13 rating.

4. Marta Cabrera’s (Ana de Armas) apartment was filmed in a building once frequented by a young Whitey Bulger.

5. That’s Joseph Gordon Levitt narrating the true-crime segment on we hear on Marta’s sister’s iPad in the kitchen.

6. Johnson acknowledges that despite numerous edits and attempts to shave it down, the script’s opening interrogation sequence (complete with flashbacks edited in) was “always a really tough read.” He would have people read it and adds that “I never didn’t get the note that ‘boy those first thirty pages are rough, and then it kicks into gear.'”

7. Johnson met Segan on their first film, Brick (2005), and they’ve remained friends and co-workers. “I finally wrote you a role that gets to the soul of Noah Segan.”

8. It was Toni Collette who picked the Roxy Music song that her character Joni Thrombey dances to early on.

9. They wonder if anyone notices that Meg Thrombey’s (Katherine Langford) shirt at 10:34 features a diagram of lady bits. “That might have been how we kept our PG-13,” adds Segan.

10. The beats with Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) playing a piano key periodically were originally written with him sitting behind Lt. Elliott’s (LaKeith Stanfield) chair and tapping it with his foot. Once they were on location, though, Johnson realized that the geography of the room afforded him the better option of the piano.

11. “I had written into the script that Blanc speaks with a subtle Southern accent,” says Johnson, and after they all finish laughing he explains that Craig researched accents and became attached to historian Shelby Foote’s cadence and drawl. “So it’s kind of that, it’s a little Foghorn Leghorn, and it’s also a little Harlan Pepper which is Christopher Guest’s character in Best in Show, which is funny because Christopher Guest is Jamie Lee Curtis‘ husband.”

12. The most impressive digital trickery will always be the work we don’t notice, and to that point the shot at 17:21 is a perfect example. It’s a simple insert of a family photo on a shelf showing Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson), his wife Linda (Curtis), and their son Ransom (Chris Evans), and it was added to ensure audiences could put a face to a name as characters were talking about Ransom before we’d actually met him. It was accomplished by shooting the framed photo in front of a green screen and then comping in one of the wide shots of the room — slightly blurred as it’s background — behind it. Works beautifully and you’d never know it was “faked.”

13. The Man Who Would Be King (1975) is one of Johnson’s favorite movies, so between takes he would try to get Plummer to talk about working with the legendary John Huston.

14. Segan and Stanfield pitched Johnson (jokingly) on a spin-off for their detective characters called Okay Cops. “And the tag line is ‘They’re fine.'”

15. They had to re-shoot the shot at 30:22 of Walt Thrombey (Michael Shannon) smoking his cigar on the porch because the character in the window behind him was too clear — it’s later revealed that it’s Marta, so they further obfuscated it by having Craig’s stand-in don the robe instead.

16. Johnson acknowledges that while the film’s first act has been “very arch… to this point” what follows comes down to the scene between Plummer and Armas. “They have to come in and land a real emotional connection between these two pretty quickly, and then they have to land this scene on an emotional level or the whole movie doesn’t work.”

17. Working out the mechanism by which to handle and explain Marta’s switching up the drugs is the script element that kept Johnson frustrated the longest. “I need something where both she and the audience crucially need to believe that she has messed up, and through her error has killed him, but it needs to be something that I can effectively undo at the end of the movie.” He says he went through lots of overly complicated variations before settling on the finished element.

18. Johnson and his wife “are big Hallmark movie fans,” and he wants to know if Danica McKellar has done a mystery film.

19. It was Don Johnson’s idea for his character to hand his empty plate to Marta as if she was the maid during the immigration conversation. It’s a great beat.

20. The painting of Harlan wasn’t finished until after filming wrapped, so every scene showing it is an effects shot.

21. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow is the first book that Johnson ever gave Segan… who has not read it yet.

22. Johnson decided early on that he wanted a PG-13 rating for the film, so he had to remove the f-bombs from his original script. He also originally wanted Plummer’s throat slice to be “a very expressive, expressionistic red splash” towards the audience, but the MPAA gave them an R which forced him to drop it completely.

23. The great Ricky Jay was originally set to play the role that is now embodied by the equally great M. Emmett Walsh. Jay died during production, so they added a black & white photo of him at 55:06.

24. The film’s key greensman, Butch McCarthy came up with The Menagerie Tragedy Trilogy on the day of filming after Johnson asked the cast and crew for suggestions.

25. Many of the family’s first names are lifted from 70s musicians to help Johnson remember them while writing. “Joni is Joni Mitchell, and her ex-husband is Neil, Neil Young. Richard and Linda are Richard and Linda Thompson. Walt and Donna are Walter Becker and Donald Fagen from Steely Dan.”

26. Johnson’s cousin, Nathan Johnson, composed the film’s score, as he’s done for all of the director’s films “except Star Wars, which he understood.” It was the composer’s first time using an orchestra, and he delivers.

27. “You had sex with my grandpa, you dirty anchor baby!” was an improv by Jaeden Martell who plays young Jacob Thrombey, but it was lost in the scene as multiple characters are talking and yelling. It was Shannon who approached Johnson and told him that Martell had a killer line, so they made sure to go back and capture it.

28. They recorded the commentary one week after it opened in theaters, and Johnson’s thrilled that Evans’ white sweater has entered the public consciousness.

29. Patton Oswalt contacted Johnson after the film opened to ask if the needle drop of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” at 1:21:47 was an intentional reference. Apparently the song is (possibly) about a groupie Lightfoot had experience with named Cathy Smith — who’s best known for being the one who gave John Belushi a fatal injection of heroin and cocaine in 1982. “And Patton, who is brilliant in his thinking in terms of 3D chess is like ‘was that a crazy reference to Marta?'”

30. Yes, that is a Brick reference at 1:32:59 in the form of tunnel graffiti on the wall to the left.

31. Ransom makes a Baby Driver reference during the car chase, and since Johnson felt “there’s no way we’re going to top anything in that” he decided to go the opposite route and deliver a silly chase.

32. Segan recalls the scene where his character grabs Evans’ upper arm “and I could not find purchase… his arm muscle was much larger than my hand.”

33. Johnson was happy to get a Stephen Sondheim reference in via Blanc’s singing a song from Follies in the car. Apparently the legendary musical theater composer was a big fan of mysteries and puzzles. “The character in Sleuth that Laurence Olivier plays… is based on Stephen Sondheim.”

34. Johnson contemplated cutting Blanc’s doughnut speech, but Craig convinced him that it was good. Watching the actor deliver it sold him on keeping the entire thing.

35. That last glimpse of Harlan’s portrait at 2:04:13 is tweaked a little “leaving everything feeling okay.” He’s now smiling.

36. Don Johnson’s black eye at 2:04:44 is a visual effect added in post-production. The shot right before of Marta holding the coffee mug at 2:04:33 is also an effect — “originally you could read the writing on the mug, and we realized it tipped it, the last shot didn’t have the same impact if you’d already seen the words… and so our effects guy basically moved her hand so it was covering the words so we got the final little reveal.”

37. Another of Johnson’s cousins, Mark Johnson — “It’s a family operation here!” — did the title credits and based the font on an Agatha Christie series of paperbacks. Zack Johnson is another cousin, and he painted the cast paintings for the end credits.

Best in Context-Free Commentary

“I play Trooper Wagner, the heart of the film.”

“If you keep your eyes peeled you’ll see the leaves come and go over the course of the movie.”

“Here’s your Hamilton moment.”

“Ah! Puking into the pig!”

“Daniel can’t whistle.”

“Anytime you see an actor eating in a movie, pity that actor.”

“Jamie Lee Curtis for James Bond. Start the hashtag.”

Final Thoughts

Knives Out is a fun film due as much to Johnson’s writing/direction as to the glorious cast, and the commentary is almost as much fun. Johnson’s tracks are always filled with appreciation and anecdotes making for entertaining and educational listens. Watch the film, watch the doc, and listen to the commentary!

Read more Commentary Commentary from the archives.

Movies are not the product of the gods. Movies are made by people. The confusion occurs when a film plunges into your heart and seems to fill your entire being. We find so much of ourselves in the movies that it feels like our connection with them is holy. And it is! Cinema is spiritual. The art binds us to the rest of us. Through them, we begin to understand the world outside the theater and break down the walls that divide. We praise them. We worship them. We venerate the individuals involved.

We call Fay Wray the first “scream queen.” In the original King Kong, clutched tightly in the grip of the eighth wonder of the world, the actress belted in horror like no other that came before her. In her terror, we found our own, recoiling as Kong dragged her through the jungles of Skull Island, across bottomless chasms, and battered dinosaurs lifeless. At the same time, she was a luminous beauty, and the great ape’s infatuation with her was understandable.

In 1933, King Kong was a gargantuan hit, which was no small feat as the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. Tickets ranged from 25 cents to 75 cents, and they sold by the truckload. From morning till night, seats were filled, and they stayed that way for months so folks could see the beauty topple the beast. Fay Wray entered into legend in the palm of Kong, and her name will never fade from the lips of movie maniacs.

King Kong, however, was just one of over a hundred credits to Fay Wray’s name. In fact, she made so many movies that Wikipedia can’t even be bothered to list them all. She worked with dozens of creators, in every type of movie and every kind of genre. Her face adorns our walls, and we’ll keep her name in lights until the Earth blinks out of existence, but she got there by doing everything she could to keep her family well-fed and happy.

Her daughter, Victoria Riskin, adores King Kong, but she also wants you to know that the woman that helped bring the ape into the spotlight was more than the scream queen dangling from the top of the Empire State Building. She was a worker and a loving mother. She was tremendously proud of her career and delighted in telling fans the secrets bubbling within the sauce of cinema. Fay Wray kept us happy, and in doing so, she stood guard for her family.

King Kong returns to cinemas on March 15th courtesy of TCM and Fathom Events. The film is nearly 90 years old and has been remade several times and will see some form of re-imagining this year when Kong goes up against Godzilla. I spoke to Risken over the phone, and we discussed her earliest memories of Kong, how her mother felt about the eighth wonder, why the big gorilla still resonates with audiences, and why you should see the original on the biggest screen possible. Here is our conversation in full:

What is your first memory of King Kong and hearing about your mother’s work in that film?

Well, there are two very vivid memories. I vaguely knew that she had been in a movie called King Kong, and one day when I was at my elementary school, a little boy came up to me and said, “Hey, is your father an ape?” I did not like that at all! So, I was kind of shy about even discussing the fact that my mother had been in this movie with King Kong.

Then, about that time, the movie was showing on television. I don’t know if it was Million Dollar Movie or just one of those Saturday morning shows. She said, “Do you want to watch it? Or do you feel you would like to see the film?” Then she said, “I think you’re old enough that you could see it.” And just her saying, “I think you’re old enough,” that’s all you have to say to a child. Well, of course, I’m old enough, I can see that movie.

She put me in front of the television set and I got engrossed in the story. She was a little worried about me, so she came into the room two or three times, sort of pretending she was going from the bedroom to the kitchen. Finally, towards the end of the film, she came in and I was sobbing. I was absolutely crushed, sobbing. And she said, “Oh my gosh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Was it upsetting to you to see your mother in such distress?” And I said, “No, I felt so bad for King Kong because he just liked you, and everybody didn’t understand that.”

I completely identified with Kong, and then I didn’t speak to her for at least two hours, because I thought she had been part of this terrible conspiracy. It touches on what I think is the genius of the original film. By the end, you have sympathy for this beast who’s been taken out of his element. He runs amuck and all because he’s in search of this little person whom he loves.

From there, obviously, your relationship with the film evolved.

No question that it evolved. Ultimately, I realized that it was a remarkable film and an American classic. I appreciated it the more I learned about the two men who made the film, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Their backgrounds? What adventurers they were! Then there is the role that the film played in terms of saving RKO from bankruptcy. The whole history around that film makes it so much more fun and so remarkable.

But even in my own personal life, there’s a little sidebar story. Do you mind?

No, go ahead, please.

In 1978, I went to China, when China was still very closed. It was difficult to get in. I went with a group of people hosted by Norman Lear, who was then the top guy in television. Mary Tyler Moore was in our group and a lot of notables — Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner, and so on.

The Chinese had not ever seen any of these television stars. They didn’t know who they were. And Norman is going around the room introducing them saying, “This is Mary Tyler Moore, and she’s the most famous television star in America.” And the Chinese are looking at her like they have no interest because they don’t know anything about her.

The meeting isn’t going all that well because everyone looks kind of dead-faced. Finally, he comes to me and says, “You might know Vicky because her mother was the star of King Kong.” And they started to pound their chest and laugh. They knew King Kong! It was this great icebreaker for our trip into what was then completely closed communist China.

So, King Kong has been kind of a family friend for a little bit. If you need to influence the maître d’ at a really great restaurant, sometimes knowing King Kong can help to open those doors.