I suppose the main issue with Jaws is not that it presents a terrifying man-eating shark, it's more that it's an exceptionally well-made film and a remarkable stand out amongst monster movies.
Film Reviews
Friday, July 11, 2025
Shark Whisperer
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
The Earthling
A curious youngster who's been raised in California finds himself back in Australia visiting the Outback, his Aussie dad resolutely determined to introduce him to his heritage.
Friday, July 4, 2025
The Freshman
One of the strangest phenomenons I discovered while reading animal-themed literature in my youth, was found in Farley Mowat's Sea of Slaughter which I couldn't find the strength to finish.
It's a remarkably detailed account of mass extinction in North America, of the myriad species that have gone extinct since ye olde Columbus finally landed.
It was too sad for me to get through and the lack of sustainable development initiatives was disheartening, environmental groups pushed aside with much more authority and infantilization than they are these days.
The general lack of concern for the lives of integral multidimensional animals, reminds me of a made-for-TV film they used to show every year in my youth.
It was designed to encourage children to stop caring about farm animals, in the film a young child passionately loves their pet, who is one day destined for the dinner table.
By the end, they have accepted that their good friend indeed had to be sacrificed, and even though they're rather sad, they still get on with work and play.
I didn't buy it, I still felt bad for the innovative animal friend who had to be slaughtered, and although many other viewers accepted the outcome, I never really saw why it was shown across the land.
Wanting the schoolyard teasing and criticisms to stop I never really pushed the matter, however, and went about my daily routine as other shows appeared on television.
Nevertheless, in Sea of Slaughter Mr. Mowat thoughtfully points out, that when some bird species were going extinct, scientists killed many of the last remaining individuals.
They did so so they could preserve their stuffed remains within a display case, and write about their lives and habits with ominous summative elaboration.
Why they didn't try to save the species was what surprised me the most, in my youth they were the ones dependably engaged to protect endangered animals.
Why does the carnal instinct to embrace death with misguided enthusiasm, still drive so many psychotics like the ones you find within The Freshman?
Fortunately, as the film demonstrates, clever entrepreneurs consistently cheat them.
But what for a world where it wasn't necessary?
To stop people cashing in on death.
*I don't know if it's a must-see for Godfather fans, but I recommend it, it's well done.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Excalibur
The reliable maintenance of fantastic legend convivially maintained century after century, as the present consistently bores its contemporaries and they adamantly search for entertaining alternatives.
Friday, June 27, 2025
What About Bob?
The traditional meeting once a week between the maladjusted and their doctors, the routine format innocently encouraging freeflowing thoughts and observations.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
E.T
The decent of an alien spacecraft tantalizingly generates communal interest, but the bold residents arrive too late to wholesomely facilitate freeform greetings.
Friday, June 20, 2025
Aladdin
With the situation in the Middle-East becoming worse and worse every day, I have to ask myself, what would I do if I had three wishes regarding the region?
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Silkwood
A difficult life tempestuously driven by the sincere desire to share bold reckonings, dynamic friendships and bohemian protocols keeping things multilaterally attuned.
Friday, June 13, 2025
Grumpy Old Men
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Dune
It's a shame Dune ended up being a negative experience for David Lynch. Some of it's very well done. I still love watching it year after year.
Friday, June 6, 2025
Star Trek: Generations
I wonder how those old shows that I grew up watching every day, for so many years of my life, are currently regarded by the viewing public.
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Enemy Mine
Intergalactic war brings devastation as bellicose covetous cultures clash, the freeform colonization of space demanding macroscopic invention.
Friday, May 30, 2025
Virtuosity
It's fun to watch old films from the '90s which theorized this and that about the future of the internet, I can't say if they're that different from today's, COVID and freetime cut me off from contemporary cinema.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The incorrigible urge the inexhaustible dilemmas audaciously fuelling insurmountable daring, as reflexively situated albeit within imaginative unorthodox compelling gambits.
Friday, May 23, 2025
Crossworlds
Another time, a different ethos effectively guiding and teaching and nurturing, instructive discernment generating calculi, directly concerned with democratic birth.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Malone
Endurance.
Friday, May 16, 2025
Zeus & Roxanne
A family's adventurous dog boldly sets out to discover the neighbourhood, spending time at the calm peaceful beach and chasing cats should they manifest themselves.
His owners take the arts seriously and spend most of their free time engaged, dad writing songs for commercial media while his son photographs whatever he can.
They're vacationing in a rented house across the laidback street from a marine biologist, who's trying to encourage a domesticated dolphin to cohesively rejoin a wild pod at sea.
The dog mischievously follows her one day and even boards her seafaring vessel, where that very same convalescing dolphin serendipitously takes a shine to his daring.
They become friends and their innocent curiosity freely demonstrates interspecies communication, the marine biologist's related grant proposal hoping to study the compelling phenomenon.
But will dolphin and dog also lay the foundation for a long-lasting humanoid relationship?
Arts & Science zoologically orchestrating.
The chillaxed romantic life.
Animals clearly have built in recognition and know when they're interacting with other members of the same species, and they do so without mirrors or schools it's fruitfully learned in the forest or valley.
They also largely stick to themselves although you see modest interspecies contact at times, notably when food is abundant and everyone's relaxed and less stressed accordingly.
On the African savannah wildebeest, zebras, water buffalo and gazelles, broadly mingle and affably interact as the seasons change and the migration flows for instance.
I firmly believe interspecies communication is possible under the right accommodating conditions, if the animals are brought up together as babies in a loving environment with lots of food.
Even cats and dogs perhaps seals and penguins can learn to trust one another under such circumstances, as my pet bunny and his friend the guinea pig learned to do so many years ago.
This strategy will likely work more effectively when less testosterone is worked into the mix.
Wild bulls so likely to struggle and fight.
Like the rabbit my dad threw over the fence when I was a child (he was a really mean bunny).
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
The Milagro Beanfield War
Competing interests divergently envision the possible future of a rural town, one striving to see the local populace flourish, the other secretly leaving them behind.
Friday, May 9, 2025
All the Little Animals
The loss of a loved one lugubriously leads to a new set of rigid familial schematics, and whereas his mother was kind and generous, Bobby's intimidating step-father's acrimonious.
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Major League
The atypical gathering of eclectic characters subliminally motivating awestruck change, through random fluid mismatched architectures cohesively drawn and effervescently flexible.
Friday, May 2, 2025
Galaxy Quest
The jaded cast of a sci-fi hit grow tired and weary of the sideshow circuit, depressing thoughts of theatrical authenticity clouding their chillaxed better judgment.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Midnight Run
A mischievous moneyman suddenly flees with 15 million in cold hard cash, his life in serious objective danger as he's hunted by the mob.
Friday, April 25, 2025
Yearning
*Spolier Alert
A dedicated daughter-in-law spends her life managing her new family's business, her intricate savvy and reflexive know-how having saved it from ruin during World War II.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Strange Brew
A TV show is granted to two playful brothers who take rest and relaxation beyond excessive limits, their habitual shenanigans still sincerely amusing and able to please a critical crowd.
Friday, April 18, 2025
The Suitor
A young bachelor eccentrically lives the imaginative life of the daydreaming mind, and sees no need to embrace the rituals generally distinguishing adult life.
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Jacquot de Nantes
A young experimental film enthusiast concentrates on vivid storytelling, having instantaneously been mesmerized by the first live puppet show he went to see.
Friday, April 11, 2025
Come and See
One of the most blunt traumatic films to ever illustrate Nazi World War II horrors, Elem Klimov's Come and See cacophonously presents sheer total war.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Sanjuro
The improvised planning of the itinerant samurai much more fluid in the cerebral Sanjuro, after a group of younger emboldened citizens discover a plot to dispose of an elder.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Ikiru
The fluid motion of the bureaucratic stream meticulously generating endless paperwork, to be filed and effectively categorized as emergent initiatives continuously diversify.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Yojimbo
A small town in the Japanese countryside embraces bleak internal conflict, as a local chieftain compassionately decides to give his business to his only son.
He eventually tries to side with one family (out of boredom) but then overhears a secret plot to murder him, which doesn't drive him to the other side but leaves him suspicious and self-absorbed.
Friday, March 28, 2025
Danton
The joyous influence of the French Revolution continues to reverberate this postmodern day, the hard-fought liberty gallantly won by a sad oppressed people suddenly victorious.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
La Ronde
Consistency and balance, an irregular routine effectively embracing artistic showcases, athletic endeavours proactively brokering a solid foundation of limitless trust.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Ashes & Diamonds
With the joyous end of World War II comes further political conflict to Poland, as opposing ideological viewpoints daringly clash in the chaotic foreground.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Sambizanga
When extremist politicians start routinely flouting and ignoring the law, the haunting spectre of the secret police gothically looms in the grim imagination.
A stand out feature universally despised of the Eastern Bloc in old school Europe, the hated and ruthless clandestine cops belligerently sought ideological adherence.
Extremist right wing governments in Spain and Germany used similar tactics which were also condemned, the ubiquitous totalitarian panopticon stifling not only dissent but also freeflowing conversation.
Extremist governments brutalize their people until they're so beat down they no longer resist, and attempt to abide by the imposing dictates of stubborn and obstinate draconian laws.
They even meticulously monitor what people say which effectively prohibits irony and role play, you can't pretend or hypothesize or joke without having to worry about being arrested.
Such governments employ people in the community often extremist zealots whom nobody likes, to listen to what people are saying and then inform the police about 'unsettling' developments.
They don't have to tell the truth and can effectively lie about what's been said, the resultant network of miserable mendacity cacophonously stifling honest public discourse.
As the years wearily drudge by and the widespread injustice is routinely compounded, people long for alternative means to legitimately fight for social freedoms.
In Sambizanga, a resistance forms in the heart of bitter Angola, to protest colonial rule and furtively take back their Native country.
A bold member of a resistance network is viciously taken one dismal morning, his wife and child left to desperately find where he's suddenly been brought without any warning.
He's questioned within the prison and cruelly beaten with abysmal tactics, his body unable to withstand the punishment eventually suffering an unnatural death.
Seeing a country as free and proud of its traditions as the celebrated United States of America, sheepishly succumb to such a state under Trump is reminiscent of revolutionary times.
Did Washington, Jefferson, and Adams not lead their people away from despotism?
To create a free and democratic nation.
Once the envy of the Western World.
*Is Jared Polis (Governor of Colorado) a candidate for the Democratic Nomination?
Friday, March 14, 2025
Pokolenie (A Generation)
In occupied Poland in 1942, a group of courageous citizens unite, and bravely fight back against Nazi oppression, while looking towards a much brighter future.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Blade Runner
If you ever find yourself training chatbots, after having consistently consumed sci-fi films for most of your life, bearing in mind a corresponding sensitive disposition, you may find yourself thinking the strangest things.
Friday, March 7, 2025
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The recreational impulse to tell lively tales improvisationally immersed in exotic wonder, effectively drives so much interactivity as days slowly pass and nights stall and linger.