The Mike's Top 10 Films of 2018

Now that I have your attention, I have a confession to make. My Top 10 Films of 2018 aren't all films from 2018. Also 10 is such a small number. It wasn't big enough for my list.

Look, I know it's special to rank films released during the year, but the year for me was so much bigger than those films. I fell in love with new movies, to be sure, but I also fell in love with a lot of other movies. Or, sometimes, I stayed in love with movies. That's a good feeling too. And I don't want to leave those movies off my top ten of 2018.

This seems like a gimmick, doesn't it? If that's what it takes to shine light on ten to forty-nine movies that made an impact on me in 2018 then I'm ok with that. Let's embrace that gimmick and have some fun!

The Mike's Top 10 Films of 2018!

Number 49 - Mandy
I'm pretty sure I didn't like Mandy. Then again, I didn't hate it as much as some of the people I know who did. I didn't think it was that artisitc, that pretentious, or that good. But it provided a lot of good discussion (that wasn't always good) and had a Cheddar Goblin so I'm starting my list with mercurial thing because that's a fun thing to do.

Number 48 - Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
I like Speed 2. I've seen it a few times, mostly 15-20 years ago, and always thought it was cheeky fun. I watched it again this year, right after I watched Speed for no reason, and I still liked it. Good job, Speed 2.

Number 47 - Hell Fest
This one came out in August to little fanfare and that's probably an accurate amount of fanfare. But, I had a great time watching its goofy horror concept at the theater. It reminds me of the horror movies from when I was a teen, when the horror genre had a bad reputation (because the plots were too goofy for critics and the gore and nudity weren't there for horror buffs) but still produced an effective thriller on occasion. If you like movies like Urban Legend from back then, you'll probably like this.

Number 46 - Real Genius (1985)
An old favorite that I watched a couple of times this year. It's aged so well. The soundtrack still rocks, Kilmer is still charming, and there's still plenty of intrigue trying to understand what Mitch is. You can make Uncle Rico jokes, you can admire a cross section of '80s comic actresses, and you can even laugh. Sometimes that's all you need from a movie.

Number 45 - Ghoulies II (1987)
I never saw this before, because I never thought I needed to. I was wrong about that. It's got that Killer Klowns from Outer Space vibe, which means it's cheeky and goofy and you can deal with it in about 80 minutes and then move on with your life until you repeat the process later. I'm for that.

Number 44 - To Be or Not to Be (1942)
This is in my top ten of all-time, it always makes me smile, and I watched it this year when I needed a laugh. So it's on the list.

Number 43 - Punk Vacation (1990)
An early release from Vinegar Syndrome, my favorite niche label for off the radar exploitation and genre cinema, this feels like the point where after school specials and late '80s z-grade action movies meet on a graph. I'm not sure why it stuck with me so much, but it feels one-of-a-kind as a pulpy bit of cheap cinema.

Number 42 - Three the Hard Way (1974)
If you only know the "blaxploitation" subgenre of the '70s by reputation of films like Shaft, you might be surprised by how varied the films led by African-American superstars of the time period were. One of the most entertaining entries from that time period I've ever come across, Three the Hard Way is fast paced and full of fight and chase scenes, featuring three unique leads - Fred Williamson, NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown, and not-the-NFL Hall of Famer Jim Kelly - in roles that meet their specific talents. I had a friend recommend this as a alternative to a James Bond movie, and that's a fine comparison

Number 41 - Banshee Chapter (2013)
I still dig the heck out of found footage horror, even though trying to find good examples can be like playing Russian Roulette. This is definitely one of the good ones, with a character's pursuit of a deadly psychotropic medication leading her into a strange world and a meeting with Ted Levine. We all know by now, nothing good happens when Ted Levine shows up. It's rare that a movie gets under my skin anymore, but this one had moments.

Number 40 - Cat Ballou (1965)
This is the movie I sung lyrics from the most in 2018, even if I only remembered about two of them. It's darn catchy. Jane Fonda is beautiful as ever, and Lee Marvin won an Oscar for being goofy and cool at the same time, which seems like the best reason to win an Oscar. I don't think we'll ever see another movie like this, and I love that. One of my favorite 'OH MY GOSH I FINALLY SAW THIS" movies of 2018.

Number 39 - Body Parts (1991)
Eric Red had a hand in some of the most renowned horror films of the 1980s, and his work with Kathryn Bigelow on Near Dark and Blue Steel showed that he has a skill for working with dark characters in complicated relationships. While Body Parts, his second directorial effort, doesn't reach the heights of those films or The Hitcher, it's a high-concept sci-fi/horror flick that's never dull. There are some impressive set pieces here too, which makes it stand out against a lot of genre flicks released in the same era. I'm so excited I finally got to see this one in 2018.

Number 38 - Jill Rips/Jill the Ripper (2000)
Ever have that experience where you check out a Dolph Lundgren flick because it looks like an action movie that's a gender-swapping twist on a classic serial killer tale and then start watching it and realize it's really an attempt to cash in on that Nic Cage flick 8 Millimeter that's got way more BDSM and latex than you thought and is just all over the place but enjoyable and also a bit sexy? Man, that's a great experience. I recommend it.

Number 37 - Lost Highway (1997)
I've seen this a bunch of times but I just said "all over the place" and "sexy" for the last flick and no movie embodies those terms more than Lost Highway. So it gets a place on the list.

Number 36 - Trouble Bound (1993)
Back to back for Patty Arquette on highways! This time she's less mysterious sultry and more cute sultry. (Both work.) Southwestern noir had a nice resurgence in the early '90s, and this one isn't quite on the level of John Dahl's work on Red Rock West or Kill Me Again but stars Arquette and Michael Madsen (along with a supporting cast including Seymour Cassel and Billy Bob Thornton) help make it one of my favorite finds of 2018.

Number 35 - True Stories (1986)
I had this forced on me by people who were like "OH MIKE TRUE STORIES IS SO GREAT WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEEN TRUE STORIES WE WILL SEND YOU A COPY TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR ERROR YOU FOOL" and, y'know what? They were right. Sometimes you gotta talk that way to people. It's helping them out. Just...don't be a dick. Anyway, this movie is beautiful and I want to hug John Goodman and now I gotta buy the blu-ray to see it in widescreen. Thanks, rude people who are right.

Number 34 - The War of the Roses (1989)
This is one of those movies I've always "liked" but watching it as a middle aged dude really amps it up a notch. This is a mean goddamn movie. I dig that. Plus, the blu-ray has the absolute cutest introduction by Danny Devito, and that's stuck with me all year. It's a dual threat - cute intro, mean movie. A true achievement.

Number 33 - The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)
This is the kind of whimsical early '40s comedy that, if only for a split second, made me think "You know, maybe there's hope for people like Donald Trump." Then I remembered the man and moved on. It's charming and one of my favorite classic film discoveries of 2018. (Sorry if you like Trump, except I'm really not.)

Number 32 - A Place in the Sun (1951)
Back-to-back classics! I think this is the first Elizabeth Taylor movie I've ever seen. It's a heartbreaking drama, filled with forbidden love and murder and whatnot, kinda the anti-matter to The Devil and Miss Jones' matter. Also it had my favorite shot I saw in 2018, which combines beautiful nature photography with young lovers and my attraction to women's shoulders and necks whooooops I typed too much of my thought process but it's still beautiful. Just look at it!

Number 31 - Thirst (1979)
I watched this really early in 2018 and I don't remember why I loved it except that it was a unique, dramatic vampire film with a strong lead performance and some interesting wicker furniture. I need to watch it again, obviously, but I'm really excited to do that. Australian horror from the late 70s and early '80s is lowkey my jam. If it's yours too, find this one.

Number 30 - Celtic Pride (1996)
Ever not see a movie since 1996 and remember not really liking it in 1996 but still getting really excited whenever people mention it and wanting to see it again and then it gets released on blu-ray and suddenly the stars align and life feels great and you remember all the things you loved about that movie you didn't like? Well, I have. And that movie is Celtic Pride and I know it's bad and I believe it's a treasure. I'm not gonna say guilty pleasure. That's something bad people do.

Number 29 - Tapeheads (1988)
This is another film I revisited in 2018 that's suddenly way better than I remember it being because I'm older and wiser. Plus I had a really good reason to watch it, so it's here.

Number 28 - Dorm (2006)
A Stephen King-esque coming of age tale made in Thailand, this one's just on the list because every time I see it I feel the need to champion it as one of the best horror movies of this generation. If you have preconceived notions about early '00s Asian horror you're not alone, but I assure you that Dorm is a one of a kind film full of heart that provides some legitimate chills.

Number 27 -  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
This could be my "most improved" movie of 2018, which is a ridiculous qualifier because the movie is 70 years old and has literally never changed. But again - this is a film I saw when I was young and was like "Oh, sure, it's ok but it's not Casablanca." It still isn't, but come on....that's a ridiculous comparison, Young The Mike. I saw this in theater this year and suddenly realized just how deep and human John Huston's work here was. I like realizing I've gained a better understanding of things with age. Makes me feel like I'm not just spinning my wheels.

Number 26 - Bloodsuckers from Outer Space (1984)
Oh my gosh, you guys, Bloodsuckers from Outer Space is on blu-ray! That blows my mind. I've always loved this little piece of genre cinema because it feels like something people could have made in the country around the farm I grew up on. Sometimes little charms are enough. And it's on blu-ray now! Thank God for Vinegar Syndrome. They are among the best people.

Number 25 - Bad Times at the El Royale
A 2018 release! And for my money (and I know I'm not alone on this) I feel like this is THE movie from 2018 that, 20 years from now, people will look at and not even realize that 2018 audiences basically ignored it. Comparisons to Tarantino did the film no favors, and I'm not sure they're even warranted. Sure it's pulpy and violent and a throwback to another time, but it's also got genuine surprises, great performances, and a soundtrack that shreds. I realize that sounds like a Tarantino movie too, but it's not! Stop mentioning him, people. Just enjoy this one for what it is, because it's pretty darn good.

Number 24 - A New Leaf (1971)
We all know Walter Matthau can do no wrong. Pretty sure it's one of the commandments or something. But most of the credit for A New Leaf, a film that's equal parts charming and infuriating (don't worry, in a good way) goes to writer/director/co-star Elaine May. This is one of the sweetest mismatched romances I've seen, and even though it creates a lot of debate as to why one character would put up with the other it comes off as a special treat and a truly great film.

Number 23 -  Bonnie's Kids (1973)
I've seen this slice of exploitation more times than is necessary, probably, but I always end up going back to it again. High melodrama with beautiful women and plenty of ridiculous twists, it's a favorite that just keeps popping back into my life when there are surely classier movies I could be watching instead. I gotta admire that kind of infectious film; it earns a spot on this list.

Number 22 - Eating Raoul (1982)
I borrowed this movie from my parents, who told me it was hilarious, when I was in my 20s and probably had the DVD with me for 10-15 years. I finally gave it back, and I think maybe I never watched it. So when I got the urge to watch it again (thinking I had watched it) during 2018 - I was in for something special. Two things came of this:

1. I ended up with a new(?) favorite and a shiny Criterion blu-ray of it. 
2. I ended up with A LOT OF QUESTIONS to ask my parents about why they would loan their son their copy of a murderous swingers comedy. 

Number 21 - Hereditary

I got to see a generational horror release in theater on my birthday this year, and that's an experience I'll never forget. I had a really great day in the middle of the worst weekend of my year, which reminded me that horror movies can still be a force of good, a healing force for the soul, and a form of art whose power cannot be denied. I don't know why this is so low on this list, except that all the movies on this Top 10 list are pretty damn important to me. This one's gonna have staying power, so maybe it'll be higher on my Top 10 of 2019. 

Number 20 - The Ambulance (1990)

I watched more Larry Cohen movies than any other director in 2018, and by a large margin. There are two kinds of filmgoers - those who replied to this sentence with "Who?" and those who replied 'OOOOOOOOHHHH YEAHHHH!" like Macho Man Randy Savage. I prefer the second kind. 

This new to blu-ray offering from Cohen is a film I'd never even heard of at the beginning of the year, and it blew me away as one fo the most enjoyable films I've seen in ages. It's an action/horror hybrid about a Marvel comics artist (Eric Roberts) who ends up battling a sinister vintage ambulance. That's almost all I need to say. This movie rules. 

Number 19 - Best F(r)iends Volume 2 

A lot of the films from 2018 that made this list are here in large part because of the theatrical experience, which I still value more than some Christians value going to church. (Conversely, you'll only find one film on this list that I first saw via a streaming platform, and that's Mandy which I basically just threw on the end of the list as a joke.) It's possible that I didn't have a better theatrical experience in 2018 than checking out the two volumes of Best F(r)iends with my real friendswho also enjoy the strange delight of seeing Tommy Wiseau on the big screen. 

I suppose you have to see Volume 1 to get to Volume 2 (It's a unique experience, I recommend it too), but Best F(r)iends Volume 2 is the most insane thing I saw in 2018. Following up on the Double Indemnity rip off that was part one, this introduces new characters and locations, particularly a strange (often shirtless and overly hairy) character named Rick who is like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite on steroids with a gun. It's a shame Greg Sestero can't act very well (Wiseau gets the hate but this guy is drier than the desert the film was made in) because this could have been the best thing I've seen all year with a better cast. 

Number 18 - Candyman (1992)

I didn't even watch Candyman in 2018, I'm just pumped it's on blu-ray in the States now. I adore it and am so happy its legacy continued in 2018. 

Number 17 - The Monster Club (1981)

No year is complete without Vincent Price. I finally got to this one in 2018 and I really wanna look at as the man's last film. It's funny, a little scary, and full of musical numbers and - when you combine that with the star and friend John Carradine as leads - it's more than you can ask for from any horror anthology film.

Number 16 - Laura (1944)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre was almost my "most improved" movie of 2018 but HOLD ON A SECOND because Laura is better than I remember and oh my gosh serious Vincent Price just swooped in with a steel chair and knocked The Monster Club's Vincent price out of the top 16. Such drama this late in the list!

That ridiculousness aside, I always loved Laura but for whatever reason when I watched it this year it just seemed tragic and amazing and pretty much perfect. I hate when people ask "Why don't people make movies like this anymore?" but in this case...ugh, it's fair.

Number 15 - The Midnight Hour (1985)
I got called "a movie sommelier" when I recommended this to a horror loving friend this year, which was cool because I pretty much lucked into finally seeing it. Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. This classic made-for-TV flick is ripe for new life on blu-ray (or at least someone could clean it up for digital sale, right?) but for now it lives on on YouTube as one of the best tributes to Halloween and classic horror tropes that came out of the 1980s.

Number 14 - Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Oh my gosh, Arrow's new blu-ray of this one is so cool. It's always been one of my favorite sci-fi films, thanks to the winding plot, nihilistic feel, and Brad Pitt's unhinged performance, so catching up with it on a shiny new blu with plenty of behind the scenes info was a highlight of my year. Thanks, Arrow.

Number 13 - There's Nothing Out There! (1991)
This one's coming to blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome in 2019, so it just might show up on my best of that year list too. Of course I rewatched my DVD of it just before the blu-ray was released, because that just always happens. Why does the universe enjoy messing with me so much?

The good news is that I remembered why I love this meta-horror flick so much, and that made me more excited for the upcoming blu. If you're a horror fan and think characters in horror movies need to watch more horror films, this is the absolute best film you can find in 2019.

Number 12 - Unsane 
Keeping with horror, this is my favorite horror film released in 2018. Steven Soderbergh's in-your-face thriller, which made headlines by being shot entirely on a phone, feels intense and personal as we watch Claire Foy shine as a paranoid woman caught in a mental health/stalker dilemma. Foy had one helluva year and is quickly making a name as one of the best actresses available to filmmakers, and I think her work here is truly special.

Number 11 - Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
I turn to this movie at least once a year, and it always inspires me to keep going. I realize that a convicts and cops joining up to take on a gang that's intent on killing them doesn't seem inspiring, but I look at it from a 'Hey, if they got through the night I can too" type of experience.That's all I ask of the movie, and it never lets me down. It's pretty much always going to be on my Top 10, even if it comes in at Number 11.

Number 10 - Game Night
Back to 2018! This one surprised me to no end. It's an adult comedy that avoids low hanging jokes and manages to be charming and likable while providing murderous intrigue and some blood and violence. The cast, led by Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman, is perfect throughout but it's the script's insistence that audiences can deal with a smart comedy that elevates this to become a great movie.

Number 9 - The Virginian, Season 4, Episode 1 - "The Brothers" (1965)
The best thing that happened to me from a film-viewing standpoint was getting a chance to co-host Get A Clu!, the world's first (we hope) podcast dedicated to the career of Clu Gulager and how an actor moves through the changing landscape of Hollywood. We've only released two episodes so far, which seems like a small thing, but the effort put into this project by my co-host, the amazing Elbee, and myself has been a passion project. I hate that stupid cliche term, but trust me when I say that we've been digging as deep as we can to make sure we do the man's career justice.

Digging through a 60+ year career in film and TV led us to a lot of unique things, and the most unexpected treasure I found in 2018 was Clu's run as Emmet Ryker on The Virginian from 1963-1968. Each hour and a half of the series basically served as its own movie, focusing on different characters and surprisingly progressive stories. The best episode I saw features Ryker trying to deal with a pair of outlaw brothers involved in the accidental murder of a lawman. It's great television, even through 2018 eyes, with thought provoking human drama. (And, a young Kurt Russell!)

(By the way, if you want to hear more about this you can *CHEAP PLUG ALERT* check out Get A Clu! on iTunes or Ouch My Ego!  I'm prouder of this episode than anything else I did this year.)

Number 8 - Creed II
A couple of weeks ago I was convinced that Creed II was the best thing I saw in 2018, and I'm not unhappy with the me that believed that. The Rocky story never needed to extend past one movie, and now, 42 years and 7 films later, it's still thrilling and has created a new star to carry the torch. The latest entry has Sylvester Stallone and his '80s co-star Lundgren taking a backseat to another East vs. West battle, but it's the relationship between Michael B. Jordan's Adonis and his young fiance, played by rising star Tessa Thompson, that gives the movie real power. Creed II even manages to make the son of Ivan Drago, a one-note character from Rocky IV, into a sympathetic character. One of my friends said "I was kind of rooting for Drago" at the end of the film and if you're a Rocky IV fan who ever thought we'd live in a world where that sentence makes sense well....you're more of a dreamer than I am. This series may never die, and I'm fine with that if they keep finding ways to make movies that are this entertaining and moving.

Number 7 - Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Probably my favorite movie of this decade, and almost everything I could say about it I wrote on this site back in February. Just scroll down from this post, you'll find it. It says so much to me, and I honestly believe it got me through parts of this year. Thanks for that, Llewyn and cat.

Number 6 - Halloween (2018)
This doesn't belong this high on the list based on quality, but don't take that as me saying it's a bad movie. It's not. It's very, very good at what it is. If I was listing my favorite films released in 2018, it would probably be Number 6 there too. It thrilled me like nothing else I saw this year. Is that partially because the original film is one of my two favorite movies? Absolutely. That's human, anyone who says otherwise is just repressing their feelings.

You can't take 1978's Halloween out of the picture when looking at this film, and you can judge this sequwl based on that as you wish. Personally, I think this version added more to that film than anything else with the Halloween name attached to it. Jamie Lee Curtis carries it, using her experience in the series and perhaps her own personal demons (she plays an alcoholic well, that's all I'll say about that) to give Laurie Strode a new life. Michael Myers is intimidating as ever without sacrificing any of the mystique that the original introduced, and a backyard scene featuring motion activated lights is one of my favorite moments in the franchise. I was on the edge of my seat for the entirety of this film, and even though I know my history with these characters and this franchise influenced that - I don't really care. I love it. It's a great horror movie.

Number 5 - It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
I watch this every Christmas Eve, and it always inspires me to live better and be more thankful for the good in my life. If that's not worth a spot in the Top 5, I don't know what is.

Number 4 - The Blob (1958)
For about a decade I've been talking about visiting Phoenxivlle, Pennsylvania. That's a ridiculous sentence to most, but for me it was destiny. Phonexville is the home of The Blob, or at least the place where most if it was filmed, and the home of Blobfest, an annual celebration of the film hosted at the same theater where part of the movie was filmed.

The Blob has been one of my favorite films since I was a child, and seeing it in that theater, with a enthralled crowd - well, I don't know if I've ever felt more at home. That'll probably go down as my favorite film viewing experience of all-time until the day I die.

Number 3 - A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Powell and Pressburger's story of a World War II airman who must win the right to return to his newfound love and the land of the living was released on blu-ray by the Criterion Collection this year, amounting to my favorite disc release of 2018. This film is gorgeous, mixing luscious color sequences on earth with rich black and white sequences in the afterlife, and features some truly moving speeches and dialogue choices. 2018 sure seems like a year where I loved melodrama, doesn't it? Yeah, it was that kind of year. I'm very thankful for the films that moved me, and this one moved me more than any other, even on a revisit.

Number 2 - The Night Visitor (1971)
My favorite film find of 2018 is Laszlo Benedek's The Night Visitor, a revenge story in which a wrongly convicted criminal seeks to dispose of the people responsible for his incarceration. That doesn't sound like a unique plot, but the catch is that the lead character is still incarcerated in an imposing tower in an old seaside prison. The way this film pulls its plot off - with daring escapes, plenty of tricks, and even an axe for the horror fans - is perfect. Max von Sydow is fantastic in the lead, and the final shot is....how do you do that chef's kiss motion while typing? Because that's how good the final shot is. This is a super cheap blu-ray, it's probably streaming somewhere, it's one of a kind, I'm ranting, you should see it in 2019.

Number 1 - Avengers: Infinity War
In the timeline that is 2018, it's ridiculous to me that I could claim any movie was more important than Infinity War. This is what movies were made for. That doesn't make sense in the context of the film - I don't think silent filmmakers were trying to create a world where comic book heroes jump from movie to movie, but it speaks to the filmgoing experience and the cultural impact that movies should strive for. It's a film full of jaw dropping moments, that culminates with perhaps the biggest single moment in a movie over the last I don't even know how many years. Probably since the ending of The Empire Strikes Back.

And yet.....no one actually seems to act like it's a great movie. I've heard "critics" call it "not even a movie" even though they liked it, which makes me think they should not be called critics. The general filmgoing audience liked it, but seemed more into Black Panther - even though that film offered absolutely no dramatic depth. Infinity War is an epic, moving dozens of characters through dozens of locations and intertwining different plots and locations while keeping everything clear. The addition of Josh Brolin's Thanos as an actual character in the franchise, finally, worked on every level, and interactions between established characters who hadn't crossed paths yet go off without a hitch. I'm pumped just thinking about.

Avengers: Infinity War isn't your traditional "Best of" film, but this is no traditional list. Movies are supposed to thrill us, make us laugh, make us feel, and make us talk after they're over. In a relatively weak year for new releases, this movie did all those things better than anything else. It's a triumph that I'll appreciate forever....unless the next film drops the ball and negates it. I don't anticipate that happening, but if it does....we'll always have Wakanda. I'll be disappointed if Endgame doesn't top Infinity War...but I'm sure I'll snap out of it when I remember this one.

By this point you might have guessed that this list is just the informal ramblings of one dude who likes movies. But I hope you found something you like, or maybe even something you'd like to see, among the things listed here. 2018 was a great movie year for me, and I had to share it. That's why we talk about movies, isn't it?

Volume 18 - Inside Llewyn Davis and the Fractured Folk Tale

It's been a long time since the ol' Double Feature Picture show had something new for y'all, and I'd love to tell you I have a super exciting and cool reason for that. The truth of the matter is, well, this time of year always makes me cranky and reminds me of death. And when I'm not thinking about my real world work - which, thankfully(?), takes up a lot of my time, that's what I've been thinking about lately. And no, it's not the cool kind of death, like we see in Friday the 13th movies or other films of their ilk. It's the kind of death and sadness that's inevitably coming for us all and ready to send our lives into turmoil at any given moment.

So, that's a cool story, right?  Sorry, I don't want to think about it either. It's just who I am.

The good thing about movies is that there's a movie for every feeling, and one day while I was angry at how cold and dreary and threatening the world around me was I started to think about a movie where the lead character feels the same way. It's one of my favorite movies of the last decade, and I was inspired to stop being stuck in my own head and to talk about it here.  It took me a while to make sense of everything, and I can't promise what follows will make sense or be fun to read, but I hope you'll take a trip into this film's world with me and see where this double feature ends up. It might not be a fun trip, but life isn't always a fun trip either.

Inside Llewyn Davis

2013, Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen

We meet Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac, on a night where he's playing folk music in a dark New York City club. The year is 1961, the song is "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" - a pretty depressing tune that asks just what the title implies - and the singer's body language is enough to make us assume he's either half asleep or entirely defeated. The venue is dark enough that we can't see the faces of the small crowd gathered around him, and if you weren't looking closely you might assume he's playing to a bunch of mannequins. Llewyn is doing the best he can, he just doesn't seem to be connecting to his audience. The night ends on a worse note for Llewyn, with a man he doesn't know confronting him in the alley behind the bar and, for reasons we don't yet understand, handing the emotionally distraught singer a physical beating. 

It would be nice to think that this is just a bad night in the life of the man, who we can already tell is very good at what he does, but the rest of Joel & Ethan Coen's film confirms a simple truth - life is not going very well for Llewyn Davis. He's homeless, the woman he's closest to (Carey Mulligan) has moved on and become vicious toward him, and the winter that fills the world around him seems cruel and unyielding. We learn early in the week we spend with Llewyn that he was once part of a successful folk duo and that his partner has died, with Llewyn later revealing in a moment of frustration that this partner committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. We don't meet his band mate, only hearing others talk about "Mikey" in the past tense to Llewyn, and as we watch Llewyn stumble through a series of failures at times we lose focus on this part of his story.

Another thing that is repeatedly lost throughout the story is a cat. Llewyn, after spending the night on a couch at his friends' apartment, accidentally releases their pet cat into the city as he closes the locked door apartment door behind them. The cat becomes Llewyn's off-and-on traveling companion throughout the film, even riding along with him as he hitches a ride to Chicago to meet a producer that might be able to give him a paying gig. The ride to Chicago - shared with a rude jazz musician (Coen favorite John Goodman) and his gruff valet (Garrett Hedlund) - tests Llewyn's patience greatly. Llewyn goes from being quiet and disinterested early in the trip to lashing out in anger when pushed too far, and at this point in the film we've grown accustomed to seeing him react to stressors and questions in an abrupt, angry manner. We build up sympathy for the performer and the man as he moves from place to place, but what follows at the end of his trip is the film's most heartbreaking scene.

Llewyn gets a chance to meet with club owner & potential manager Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham), and is dejected to find that the man he's interviewing with did not receive the copy of his album, which shares its title with the film, that his agent sent ahead of him. Grossman decides that he will still give Llewyn a chance to perform for him - finally, the film gives Llewyn a break! - directly instructing him to "play something from Inside Llewyn Davis."

We know where Llewyn is mentally at this point. He's been insulted, beaten, and defeated for several days, and we can tell by his relationships with others that this is not a new trend. We've seen him lash out, we've seen him assume other people aren't as good as him, and we've seen him make mistakes - like turning down the chance at royalties on a comedy tune ("Please Mr. Kennedy," on which Isaac teams with co-stars Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver for the film's most humorous scene) because he needed cash in the moment. It's clear that Llewyn is committed to what he's doing, and it's obvious that he's really good at what he does. The issue, again, is that he's not connecting with anyone right now. 

Llewyn pulls out his guitar in the quiet club, sits down in front of Mr. Grossman, and plays and sings his heart out. The song he chooses is "The Death of Queen Jane," a variation of an old English ballad, and - as you might have guessed from the title - it's not the most uplifting choice. The song tells a fictionalized account of a Queen who begs for help to save her child during a difficult labor and, after being rebuked by her nurses and her King, dies during childbirth. Llewyn performs beautifully; we can hear the pain he's been through in every note. He belts out the final notes with his guitar silent, letting all of the emotion that's been trapped inside him, and waits a long moment for the first impression that he's made on Grossman.

Finally, the listener speaks.

"I don't see a lot of money here."

Anyone who's had a job interview knows that macabre tales about death aren't usually the best first impression, and it might be easy for viewers to wonder why the heck Llewyn would make that choice. But for Llewyn, this song is personal. He feels like he can't get help, he feels like the world is closing in on him, and he knows that if something doesn't change soon he's going to be gone and the music is going to be all he leaves behind. He's too proud for any of that. Llewyn and Grossman have a brief conversation, in which Llewyn is given a series of suggestions about doing more to connect with people including "stay out of the sun" and, most crushingly, getting back together with his partner. Llewyn is too far gone to tell Mr. Grossman why that's not an option at this point, he simply thanks him for his time and moves on. He's just given a beautiful performance that he put all of his energy into, he doesn't have the strength to talk about it anymore.

Despite everything that has gone wrong in his life and career, Llewyn continues to walk toward his next opportunity. The viewer might wonder if Llewyn still believes life has any value after a series of misfortunes and that's where his costar - the cat - comes back into play. No matter what is going on and how distant he seems from everyone else in his world, he keeps looking out for the cat that continues to get away from him. This simple act - trying to get the cat home safely - tells us a lot about where Llewyn is at. He wants to make things right and to be accepted, he just keeps getting knocked down as he tries.

Llewyn's first musical performance in the film makes him appear to be already worn out, and his performance for Bud Grossman pushes him closer to defeat. But when we get to his final performance of the film, an expanded version of the opening scene, we know more about the man.
After a full week of defeat and failure, we understand how little he has to show for his effort. The Coens frame the performance differently this time around and offer us a close up of the singer's face after the final note, so we see him wipe his nose and can see that his eyes are holding back tears. We've known for a while that the music is all he has, but here we can really see how much it means to him. He gets the same muted applause we saw in the opening scene as he jokes "You've probably heard that one before; 'cause it was never new and it never gets old and it's a folk song."

Then we see the part of his performance that was omitted from the opening scene. Llewyn turns back to the microphone and adds "Alright, one more before I go."

The song that follows, "Fare Thee Well," is one we partially heard earlier in the film; one that was abruptly cut short by another of his frustrated outbursts. His cat owning friends, the Gorfeins, ask him to play for them at dinner - Mrs. Gorfein even rebukes Llewyn's initial refusal by saying "I thought singing was a joyous expression of the soul?" - and the dejected singer does his best to belt out the tune before Mrs. Gorfein chimes in singing Mike's part, sending Llewyn over the edge. It's the angriest we see Llewyn throughout the film, and it's the moment we most understand how frustrated he is.

Now, safe from interruption on stage, Llewyn hurls himself into another performance of the song. While most of his performances in the film have been beautiful, this is the one that soars. What he's doing is far from being a joyous expression of the soul, what he's doing is a release of all the depression and loss that have been trapped inside. In this moment, Llewyn is done letting the troubles of the world, including the grief he feels after losing his partner, affect him. He is lost in the song, and his voice soars. I get goosebumps every time I watch Isaac perform this scene - which includes at least a dozen viewings of the scene in the last week - because it's a beautiful picture of a man who knows life is not going to take it easy on him; a man who is expressing himself and escaping the world in the only way he can.

Llewyn's moment might be short-lived - the performer that begins to sing after he leaves the stage appears to be a young Bob Dylan, singing a similarly themed song entitled "Fare The Well" - but it's impossible to miss how much being able to perform this song meant to Llewyn as a form of release. What follows is the second half of the opening scene, including the beating in the alley, but even in that moment we see Lllewyn differently than we did the first time around.

Llewyn isn't directly confronting his feelings about the world, but he's dealing with things the way he can. The people in Llewyn's life often think he's lost, and we can understand their reactions to seeing part of his life and part of his career. But we've spent the whole week with Llewyn Davis, and we can see things more clearly than we could during his first performance. We see that he's fighting to live through whatever the world throws at him, and that it's his music that's helping him deal with all the grief and loss in his life.

In short, we see that the heart of a survivor lives inside Llewyn Davis.

(One last note - I freakin' love this cat. Isaac gives one of my favorite performances ever here. And the cat, in true cat fashion, just looks at him like "Fuck you, I'm stealing all these scenes." And he does. You go, cat.)

I obviously wanted to say a lot about Inside Llewyn Davis (if you've read this far you must be sick of it by now), and when it became time to pick a double feature partner my mood changed quite a bit. Like Llewyn choosing "The Death of Queen Jane," the first impression I'm offering for this double feature might come off as a little morbid for some people.

• We'll start with the obvious here - music is the heart of this movie. 
• Considering the mood I've been in, the first instinct I had was to make this double feature about grief and loss. I thought about discussing a lot of my favorite dramatic films that make me feel the same emotions that Inside Llewyn Davis does.
• But then I stopped and thought about how I felt while writing about Inside Llewyn Davis. And that's when I started to realize that while I was already feeling down about life - I was also working myself into a deeper emotional frenzy by focusing entirely on the topic of grief and loss. And that's when I started to realize that I couldn't keep going in that direction and create a double feature that I - let alone anyone else - would really enjoy watching if I didn't shake things up a little.

Based on those simple factors, I did what the proverbs told me to do and checked myself before I wrecked myself. Well, Llewyn wrecked me a little - but it was a good wrecking. Still, it's a wrecking that needs to be medicated - and we all know what more traditional proverbs say is the best medicine.

A Mighty Wind

2003, Directed by Christopher Guest

A Mighty Wind is another film about folk music that's set in New York City in the wake of a death in the folk music world, and if that makes it sound like an ideal companion for Inside Llewyn Davis to you....you should know that that's where the similarities basically end.

The third mockumentary from star/writer/director/all-around genius Christopher Guest follows three folk music groups as they reunite for a concert to honor the promoter that brought them all to fame. If you were to consider this the same folk music universe that Llewyn lived in, it has been more than forty years since his attempts to make it big and, considering these three bands, you'd probably assume he didn't make it.  If you took the film seriously you might also probably think that's a good thing for Llewyn. But that's ok - because you really shouldn't take this film seriously.

So, I'm telling you not to think about A Mighty Wind the same way as Inside Llewyn Davis. Why, then, in the name of common sense, am I telling you to double feature this with that film? I'll allow two better men than me to describe my reasoning.

Frankenstein's monster once said:

"Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it."

I think Llewyn would agree with the big green monster on this point, though I doubt he would be willing to say it. (Again, he's too proud.) Llewyn is a man who is lost, but he doesn't give up. I've already made this point, but I need to repeat it, because it's the thing that keeps his film from being a total downer. That's good. But it might not be enough.

The second wise man I'd like to consult is Rod Kimble, the eponymous hero of the 2007 classic Hot Rod. He had a similar, but slightly different, take on life:

"Life is pain...and we've got to scrape the joy out of it every chance we get."

Like Llewyn, the characters in A Mighty Wind have been down and out. All three groups reached fame and lost it, and are now only back in the spotlight for a one-night only tribute concert. The Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer - reuniting in a band that's not quite Spinal Tap) were best known for one catchy song - "Eat at Joe's" - about a restaurant, and haven't made much of an impact on the folk scene since. They were replaced in the folk spotlight by The Main Street Singers, now reunited as The "New" Main Street Singers, whose aggressive cheerfulness makes them feel like a musical edition of The Brady Bunch. These two bands are informal rivals - they're not bitter against each other, they just don't exist on the same wavelength - and the difference between them is one of the film's most subtle jokes until it comes to a head during the concert.

The third group we meet is a duo, Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara), whose hit single "There's a Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" took over the music world as a symbol of true love. It's a sincerely great song (it even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song that year), but unfortunately the performers had a severe falling out in the years that followed their success. Now, back together for one night, we get the treat of O'Hara's Mickey trying to pretend everything's fine while Levy presents Mitch as a man who's been through consistent emotional turmoil since the break up.  His performance is one of my favorite in comedy cinema, and the story arc that follows Mitch and Mickey is what pushes A Mighty Wind over the top as my favorite of Guest's comedies. (To be fair, it's a close race. Tomorrow I might say Waiting for Guffman is my favorite. The man is too good at what he does.)

Mickey is the closest comparison to Llewyn Davis that we find in this film, because he too is completely defeated by the world and seems to have lost connection with everyone around him. But again - that's where the comparisons stop. Because A Mighty Wind is not a film about the anguish of life, A Mighty Wind is a film that provides the joy we need to scrape out of life. It's a comedic tale about a lot of people that are down on their luck, presented primarily as a whimsical comedy with a few heartfelt moments where love and humanity triumph over pain. 

I was caught up in my own grief and sadness when I started writing this double feature, and that really helped me to appreciate Inside Llewyn Davis more. I watched it three times preparing this double feature and though it's always been a favorite it became almost medicinal this month. It means the world to me, and I love the reminders about life it provides. But it's also good to remember that life can make us laugh, that life can make us happy, and that life can provide us with love. And that's what A Mighty Wind, the second tale of defeated folk musicians we're talking about today, has to offer. 

I haven't said enough about A Mighty Wind, other than that I love it dearly for its heart and it's humor, but I also feel like saying how much heart and humor it has is enough to explain why it belongs in this double feature. It's important to understand loss and sadness, but it can't be the only thing we're focused on. That's no way to get through the day. We need people that make us smile and make us feel joy too. 

Maybe this double feature won't work for you, but it's the double feature I needed this month. Spending time with Llewyn Davis and Mitch & Mickey did a lot to remind me what I need to do to face the world. It got some good tunes stuck in my head, made me think about some great performances, and - like Frankenstein's monster and Rod Kimble - reminded me that life has some good in it. Sometimes that's exactly what we need.

Volume 15 - Event Horizon and Being Blinded by Science

I'm not good at science, you guys. I paid a lot of money for a piece of paper that says I'm a bachelor of it, true, but the reality of the matter is that my talents more resemble another meaning for the acronym B.S. Heck, I don't even like science.

I'm not saying I don't like science like how a Republican doesn't like science; I acknowledge that it's out there. I'm just not the person to deal with it. Other people are better at science than me, and that's fine. Those people probably haven't played as much Tecmo Super Bowl as I have. Let's call it even and move on.

Despite my oppositional stance toward it, I spent a lot of time thinking about a movie with science in it this week. So, in the name of science - kind of - let's take a look at that movie and talk about how much of a non-sciencer I am.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Event Horizon

1997, Dir. by Paul W.S. Anderson

I'm not gonna say Event Horizon is an incredibly smart sci-fi movie. But it's got enough science in it to confuse me. Perhaps I should be embarrassed when I admit that, and maybe I am a little. I'm not to proud to admit it.

There are definitely people out there who understand Event Horizon much more than I do. One such person is a great writer named Elbee, who recently wrote this wonderful article celebrating the film's 20th anniversary over at the fine site Cinepunx. I've read this article, which spells out some of the film's science and some of its theory with great detail, a couple of times now. It makes me want to be a smarter person. It makes sense, which is something I gotta fight through like four edits to get to, and it even shows an understanding of the influences and themes at the heart of this deceptively tricky piece of pulp sci-fi horror. It's the kind of insight you readers deserve, yet it's not the type of insight you will get from me when we talk about Event Horizon. I have no tongue for it.

Event Horizon is the tale of a space ship named, you guessed it, the Event Horizon. It was sent to explore the edge of our solar system in 2040 - a place I thought had already been explored when the film was released in 1997, because science and I don't talk much - and disappeared. Then, in 2047, a rescue named "Lewis & Clark" (I understood that reference! It's not science!), is sent to rescue it when its distress signal appears. Accompanying the crew on their journey is the man who designed the Event Horizon, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill, who apparently was heading to space to avoid dinosaurs), and he's there to explain exactly how much science the movie wants us to think about. My buddy Elbee makes a great point in her article that bears repeating here - you would assume that a bunch of astronauts understood something about science. But what Event Horizon presupposes is - What if they didn't?

I'm fine with that presumption, because I struggle to understand it. I like to think I'm smart, but the more technical terms Neill and friends throw at the screen the more I get a blank stare on my face. You know when your friends are all talking about that TV show you don't watch - in my case, we'll say The Bachelor, and you're not trying to be rude and just leave the party so you just sit there and nod and do one of those "huh" or "ohhh" noises every 27 seconds? That's me when dude starts talking about the physics of space travel...if that even is what he's talking about.

(Off topic, but the 27 second interval is the key to this method of polite disinterest. If you make it 20 seconds, someone else who's not paying attention is gonna be counting and they're gonna notice that it's an even number and they're gonna call you out on it. If you wait for 30 seconds you're gonna seem out of it for too long, and people will know. Trust me - 27 is the perfect number. Try it out sometime. You'll thank me.)

The things we learn when the Lewis & Clark gets to the Event Horizon are:

• Everyone on board is dead.
• The ship is creepy as hell.
• The ship has been to another dimension.

I understand the first two items there pretty well and then all of a sudden WHOA ANOTHER DIMENSION? If this was Twitter I'd throw some cutesy gif about my mind being blown into this paragraph, but this is the real world and I have to use words for my feelings. Apparently, as I understand it, The ship named Event Horizon (inside the movie Event Horizon, naturally) was just chilling out by Neptune, looking around, having a good time, when POOF IT WAS GONE TO SOME PLACE ELSE. And not some place else like Kentucky, but some place else that's not even on the same plane of existence as Kentucky. And not a plane that you fly on either.

When I put it that way it's not too hard to understand, but the more Weir and the confused crew, led by the super fantastic Laurence Fishburne as their no nonsense captain, talk about black holes and how things work with physics...the more I start to doubt myself. And then I see little details in the film that make me question the science even more. At one point a character gets jettisoned out into space and I look at all the little white lights behind him and the only thing I can think is "There's no way there's that many stars grouped so close together out there! It looks like something I would have drawn when I was five and just had my first Mountain Dew and couldn't stop putting dots on the paper so it looked like I used all the space and actually drew something!" Clearly, at this point I'm letting Event Horizon get the best of me and my science-resistant brain.

But, here's the good part. We learn pretty near the middle of the film that this other dimension the Event Horizon (the ship) went to - might just be Hell. And that's good for me. It can't be proven or quantified. I like that in my horror, and I like that in my sci-fi. That's where Event Horizon (the movie) - which has just as many creepy and gory images as it does arguments about physics and other sciences I don't get - works so well for me. 

Sure, it's basically Alien without an Alien (and with a far too spastic electronic musical score), but it does a good job of being that while freaking its characters out in unique ways. I can dig a movie like that, even if I don't feel like I'm smart enough to really understand what it thinks it is smart enough to tell me.

At this point I've said about all I can say about Event Horizon without sounding too stupid. (Well, maybe I'm already there.) So when I thought about explaining what I'm looking for in a double feature to go with it, i thought it would be best if I focus on the things I understand about Event Horizon, and how I can build off of them.

• The characters in the film and the things they are up against belong in two separate dimensions. While I don't quite understand the physics of that, I'm a big fan of movies that pit our reality and the expectations we have about it up against another place that's...to put it simply, quite different. 
• Outside of the seemingly all-seeing Weir, the characters in Event Horizon are kinda normal people who, despite being trained for the predicament they're in, are always playing catch up against the unknown forces they face. They try really hard, and I like that about them. I kind of wish they were more open to the things around them though, but they do their best.
• When things get really icky for the characters in Event Horizon, they come across some creepy black goo. There's something about horror and sci-fi movies with creepy black goo that just makes me smile, so I'm looking for another creepy black goo movie. (I probably won't talk about this again, but I felt like mentioning it here because typing "creepy black goo"is so much fun.)
• When in doubt, the crew of the Lewis & Clark have one of my favorite theories for attacking the evil they can't understand: burn it down. You can science me all you want, but most of the time fire is a great answer. Let's look for people who take on another dimension that way too.

The film I'm about to recommend to you certainly doesn't live in the same world as Event Horizon. But it's a movie that embraces the things I understand about movies like Event Horizon, and it's a movie that challenges reality while not relying on that pesky ol' science that I don't want around. We're making concessions for my inadequacies as a learner with this double feature, I admit it. 

Please stay with me. Because we're gonna have some fun doing it.

John Dies At The End

2012, Directed by Don Coscarelli

Don Coscarelli is my kind of director. When he wants to go to another dimension, he throws the science right out the window. The man made two of my very favorite horror movies - Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep - both of which challenge reality in playful ways. Yet his most recent film, John Dies at the End, might be the wildest thing he's ever made. Inside it, alongside two fantastic leads (Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes) and two iconic character actors (Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown), is a character that understands the whole "other dimensions and evil" problem in a very similar manner to myself.

His name is Detective Lawrence Appleton (no one will ever convince me he's not named after Mark Linn-Baker's iconic character from Perfect Strangers), he's played by Glynn Turman (who starred in an underrated '70s gem, J.D.'s Revenge and deserves much love), and he easily gives my favorite performance in this insane, dimension-hopping, drug-induced vacation from reality. There's a moment in the middle of the film where he confronts the film's central character, David Wong (Williamson), about what's going on in this bizarre situation. His explanation of what he thinks is going on, quoted below, is pretty much the perfect representation of how a non-sciencer like myself thinks when faced with the kind of situations these two films offer up.

"You know, everybody's got a ghost story, a UFO or a Bigfoot story. Now what I think is that stuff is both real and not real at the same time. I ain't no Star Trek fan and I don't know about other dimensions and all that. But I am an old school Catholic and I do believe in Hell. I believe it ain't just rapists and murderers down there. I believe it's demons and worms and vile things; the grease trap of the universe. And the more I think of it, the more I think it's not some place 'down there' at all, that it's here, all around us. We just don't perceive it. Just like how the country music radio station is out there, in the air, even if you ain't tuned to it."

Take out the Catholic part - in the immortal words of Bob Dylan, "It ain't me, babe" - and Detective Appleton just described my understanding of other dimensions and the evils in the world to a T. Which is pretty amazing, since we've never met. I guess Detective Lawrence Appleton and I are (you guessed it) PERFECT STRANGERS.

Like Event Horizon, John Dies at the End is a movie I've seen at least a handful of times - it's a young flick, but it is incredibly rewatchable - and could not explain to you without using the phrase "AND THEN THINGS GET NUTS!" But while Event Horizon tries really hard to explain the science behind its madness, this one embraces a sort of lunatic philosopher role. As the film starts the narrator poses a conundrum, a rambling logic puzzle about undead beings and axe repair that has nothing to do with the rest of the film's plot, and this kind of logic (or lack there of?) never stops coming at the viewer as the characters face some of the most bizarre encounters you'll find in a horror film.

It would be unfair if I didn't list some of those bizarre struggles, so here's a quick run down of just a few of the things we encounter while following these characters:

• Meat monsters
• A flying insect moustache
• "Eyes Wide Shut World

If any of those things make sense to you based on any science class you ever took - God bless that teacher. If you have their number, send it on over to The Mike. I have so many questions.

Another major departure from the first film in our double feature are the two lead characters, Dave and John. Everyone on the Event Horizon - aside from the doctor, who obviously knew more about the titular ship than them - is hesitant when faced with the reality-altering visions they see throughout their film. On the other hand, Dave and John are carefree and open-minded. This horror comedy's best joke might be the presentation of how level headed these two ordinary guys are in the face of shapeshifting monsters and gateways to other worlds. There's very little fear shown by either character, and their calm approach to such a bizarre series of events keeps the viewer smiling throughout the film.

It might seem like a disservice to pair Event Horizon with a film that throws out any of the logic and science that it works very hard to incorporate, especially as I explain just how far the second film's tone deviates from the focus on terror that the first was built around. I'd argue that those departures are what makes this such a fun double feature, because Event Horizon is so effective in its use of science to create terror (even if I don't understand it) that following it up with another film with the same goals would maybe be a bit too heavy for even a horror loving viewer like me.

By the time you see the alternate dimension that John and Dave travel to late in their film, you'll understand that John Dies at the End is not interested in painting the same picture of Hell that Event Horizon did. And that's quite fine. Both of these films are nightmare scenarios that challenge reality and make things pretty gross and gory at times, but some nightmares are just weird and wacky and not as terrifying as some other nightmares. I think we've got room for both kinds of nightmares in horror cinema.

Both of these films will make you think, will make you squirm, and will surprise you. One will scare you more than the other, and one will make you laugh more than the other, even if it relies on a few too many dick jokes. If you want to see some science go wrong, but don't want to spend too much time trying to understand that science, try out this double feature and enjoy the ride through a few unique nightmare dimensions.

Volume 2 - Get Out and the Conversations We Need To Have

Last week we had some fun with some horror movies, this week we're starting with horror again. (If you haven't met me, you'll learn to expect that they'll come up a few times.) Gotta admit though - I'm really nervous about writing this piece. Based on who I am and what I've experienced in life, I can't possibly know what I'm talking about here. I thought about that a lot when I was considering this double feature, and I almost didn't do it. But sometimes the conversations we need to have are not the most comfortable ones, and sometimes the things we mean to say are more important than the mistakes we might make trying to say them.

That said, I'll leave one last warning up front. The things I am about to say will be said in the best way I can based on my experiences and the knowledge I have from my life. If the terms I use are insensitive or poorly chosen, please let me know. I am trying to do the right thing, I'm just not sure I'm the person to do it.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

I don't need to spend a lot of time talking about the movie we're starting with this week; everyone else in the film world and lots of audiences have already done that for me. It's one of the most well-reviewed movies of the year, and it's a flick I think will stick around for a long, long time.

Get Out

2017, Directed by Jordan Peele

I've already put my cards on the table, so I'll say this in a real simple way: I love Get Out a lot. I think it's one of the best horror movies ever made, and I'm not the kind of person who says something new is one of the best somethings ever made often. I buy new jeans more often than I find new favorites, and y'all should see some of the ratty jeans I wear. This is not what I do. And yet, here I am, doing it.

If you're one of the people out there that hasn't seen it or doesn't know about it yet, here's the quick summary of what you need to know about the film. A young African-American man, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), goes to the home of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) to meet her family. Things there...are not what they seem.

That's it. That's all I want to say. You may be picturing something like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - a film Peele lists as an influence on his film (more on that in a bit) - but there's a whole lot more "not what they seem" in this film than a difficult Spencer Tracy and a racist maid. The biggest joy in watching Get Out is seeing how it tackles this racial divide and finding out what the twist Peele has waiting for us is. 

The central theme of Get Out is best summed up by Peele's own words. In an interview to promote the film for Crave Online, Peele was asked what scares him the most. His answer, posted below, has a lot to do with the movie I picked for this double feature.

People. I think, and it goes to this whole horror thesis I hope I get to explore, but there's nothing that's scarier than what people are capable of when we get together. The way we can use fear, the way we can scapegoat, the way we can value those closer to ourselves more than we value people further from ourselves, or the other. I think human beings together are capable of the greatest things on Earth but also capable of the biggest atrocities.

Get Out hammers home that point. It manages to do so in an entertaining manner, balancing the injustices people are capable of with impressive comic and dramatic moments and a neat little horror/sci-fi twist. So, where can we go from there? Here's what I was thinking when I started looking for a double feature partner for this one.

• Peele has coined Get Out, and the next several films he plans to make, as "social thrillers." One of the coolest things I've seen in a long time is that, ahead of the release of Get Out, the Brooklyn Academy of Music allowed him to program a series of films entitled The Art of the Social Thriller. Through this 12 film series, he paired his film up with greats like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Rear Window (my personal favorite movie ever!), The 'Burbs, and more. Go ahead and click on that link and look at that list of films. It's beautiful, man. So...I couldn't use any of those films here. Dude stole my thunder. Thanks a lot, Jordan.
• As the quote above states, the scariest thing about Get Out is the human element of it all. At the center of the film are people. People who don't think Chris' life is valuable. People who get together and have their own way. Unfortunately, we need another movie that features people like that - even if it makes the double feature a little less pleasant.
• Before Get Out, Peele was most known for his time in comedy. As the co-star of Comedy Central's groundbreaking Key & Peele, Peele spent five years making people laugh and pushing the limits of comedy, while also dealing with plenty of issues like racism and homophobia. He wasn't the person you'd expect to make a movie that challenges what we think and what we believe about each other - and yet his willingness to challenge viewers helped him become the perfect person for that film. We need another director like that.
• Above all else, the thing that excites me about Get Out is how much it got people who had seen it talking. I can't sum that all up in one bullet point, so let's have a quick personal talk before we get to our other movie.

Hi. My name's Mike, and I am a white man. More than that, I'm a white man who grew up in a place where there were only white people. It was the '80s and the '90s, and that was just how things were there. For the most part, it still is.

The only black - that's the word we used then, because that's the word we were taught - people I knew were on TV or in sports. I never really thought about them as different than me, and I was never really told they were different than me, but the older I got I just started to notice that people around me - and thus, me - talked about them a little differently. And yeah, people used the n-word. It was thrown around in jokes sometimes, just because it could be. 

Perhaps the weirdest encounter of my life happened when I was a young adult. I had gone to college and stayed in my college town after graduation; I was now a "city boy." One day, I was home for a gathering with my extended family. I had a pair of black tennis shoes - cheap ones, I'm not the kind of guy who's rocking any Jordans - and for no reason, other than the fact I thought it didn't matter, I had replaced the worn out black shoelaces with some white ones. If this sounds like one of the smallest decisions I've ever made in my life, that's because that's what it was to me. Yet, as I wandered through a totally normal setting with people I've known my entire life, someone I was walking by said, our of nowhere, "Did you get those white shoelaces from one of the blacks over there?"

I still have no idea why the color of my shoelaces mattered, or how it represented the African-American community, and - I'll be honest - I was far too dumbfounded by the question to even reply to it.  I realize that this is one of the smallest incidents of racism in the history of racism - I've seen much worse, believe me - but it just struck me as the most bizarre comment I'd ever heard in my life. And it made me fully realize...that's how some people think when they've only learned from their own community. Sometimes they are taught things and they teach their children things and the cycle just goes on. And most of the time they don't even talk about it.

Nowadays, I work directly with people of many races and colors, but I still live a mere 25 miles from my hometown in a "city" of about 60,000 people on a school day. It's not a huge shift - this is still a 90%+ white community - but it's something. And when I talked to some of those people about Get Out, I got the biggest smile on my face. I was never in a place where we had actual conversations about race issues with someone, outside of the basic lessons about slavery and The Civil War we had in school. I don't blame my parents or close friends and family for that - I know all of them to be people who would stand up with the same opinions I have if they were confronted this issue - but it's so weird to look back and think about the unspoken beliefs people had back then. I wish we had more movies like this, movies that made us think about our belief systems and made us ask questions and start conversations about life.

Like I said, I know this is a totally white story about racism. But it's mine, and it makes me want to help people who might want to have these conversations get to that point. So let's get to that double feature....

The Intruder

1962, Directed by Roger Corman

I'm really excited that today's audiences have a film like Get Out that can get them talking about race issues. The film I wish I had seen when I was younger, that would have helped me to be more understanding of the dangers of groupthink and stereotypes, is Roger Corman's The Intruder.

Like Peele, Corman - a master of pulpy schlock that covered everything from Edgar Allan Poe to Crab Monsters - doesn't seem like the guy you'd expect to make a statement about how we live with each other and how minorities face challenges being accepted as who they are. Yet here he was in 1962, teaming up with author Charles Beaumont and a pre-Star Trek William Shatner, to create a film that tackled the white reaction to the integration of schools in the South without compromising one bit.

The Intruder is the story of Adam Cramer (Shatner), a young white man who rolls into a fictional town telling those he meets that he's a "social worker" and that he's "come to do what I can for the town." In fact, what he's come to do is stop the town from accepting a small group of African-American teenagers into its all white high school. And it really doesn't take him much work for him to get most of the white people in town on his side.

Bragging about his membership in the Patrick Henry Society (I googled it, it's real) and repeating "Whose law?" whenever someone reminds him that United States law has already decided that the schools will accept these students is enough to get Cramer in the door with most of the townspeople. We quickly see that they are generally opposed to integration, especially when it takes less than four minutes of the film before a little old lady drops a casual "nigger" in conversation. Much like my personal experience, she uses the term toward a white man who just happens to not be meeting her standards. This town is living that same belief that there's something different about white and black people - but unlike my childhood, this was a time when these comments were rarely held back.

While Cramer is busy giving speeches on the courthouse steps and reminding the town's richest man that "democracy is the collective will of the people," there seems to be only a couple of men in town who are willing to stand up against him. The guy I really like is Tom, the head of the town newspaper, who at one point admits to his wife that he is, in fact, in favor of the integration of schools. She responds with shock, because that's just not the way people in that town think, and when she asks him why he's never told her this he gives the perfect response to sum up his realization.

"Because I didn't know. I don't think I really knew til now. One thing Adam Cramer's done for us...he's made us face ourselves."

If this sounds a little like The Twilight Zone, that's because Beaumont - who adapted his own novel for Corman after the studios that bought the rights chickened out on making the film - wrote 22 episodes of that show and knew exactly how to point out the dark side of human nature. But there's no disclaimer from Rod Serling here; this is our world and our reality. As the film builds to a finale that's full of lies, threats, and all kinds of mob mentality, The Intruder becomes a gut-wrenching film to watch. 

Random note, because this post hasn't been long enough, I freakin' love this kid that co-starred in The Intruder. His name is Charles Barnes, and Corman picked him for a central role because he was a student and football player at a school that was integrated the previous year. He didn't bother finding an actor in Hollywood for the role, he just told Barnes to go with what he experienced and work from that. And the kid nails it. So good.

I don't think this would be an easy double feature to watch - you're definitely going to want to watch The Intruder first and end with Get Out, both for tone and timeline reasons - but I think it's an incredibly important one. Both Beaumont and Peele knew how dangerous people can be when they start thinking the wrong way, and both films can be necessary conversation starters.

I've never told that story about my shoelaces before. Partially because it's such a small incident, but also because it's just not comfortable to talk about these issues. Yet, the only way we can get stronger and smarter and braver in our world is to challenge ourselves to do it. Maybe watching The Intruder will help people see how things used to be, and maybe watching Get Out can help them see how things still are today. Maybe if we look at these things, and talk about these things, we can help change the lives of people who don't understand the racism that lives in their community. 

Maybe there are better ways to do it, but for me it's the movies that speak loudest. And if these movies can make me think more, it's my duty to recommend them to others too. That's a chance worth taking.