Jaws (1975)
This may be the hardest review I ever had to write. You see, I’m a fanatic, or rather a finatic, about the movie Jaws. It is my favorite movie. I consider it absolute perfection. So,…
Universally Loved
Happy Death Day (2017)
Time loop movies are not new. TimeCrimes and Triangle are some wonderful examples but everyone remembers one film in particular when encountering a time loop film. Groundhog Day. In fact, the term “Groundhog Day” has…
Slap Shot (1977)
Slap Shot was a film made when Paul Newman was no longer the young fresh faced matinee idol he once was, but still was doggedly handsome. They must have wondered what to do with him….
Glass (2019)
If you watch Glass critically, you might believe it is about the power of belief. If one believes they can do extraordinary things, they can. I posit, however, that theme was played out in Unbreakable…
Sgt. Bilko (1996)
Most modern viewers won’t know the character of Sgt. Bilko, and frankly, not many did when this movie arrived in cinemas in 1996 leading to a disappointing box office take. Nonetheless, I always had a…
Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950)
As I stated with our review of Ma and Pa Kettle (1949), the Kettle movies helped a struggling Universal pivot from the horror films that kept the studio in the chips through the 40s as…
Tremors (1990)
It’s not a secret that my favorite film of no time is Jaws. I have Jaws puzzles. I have Jaws posters by the score. I have stuffed sharks, a shark poster in the garage where…
Freaky (2020)
Body swap movies have been around longer than you may think. Films like Turnabout and Here Comes Mr. Jordan came out in the 40’s. However, most point to 1976’s Freaky Friday as the popularization of…
Billy Elliot (2000)
Generally in this column, and in the Universal library for that point, we have been examining what I would call fantastic cinema. Fantasy, sci-fi, horror; outlandish and lavish productions outside the natural world. This week…
Psycho II (1983)
Alfred Hitchcock, arguably, created the slasher genre in the 60’s with his sublime film Psycho based on Robert Bloch’s shocking (for the time) book of the same name. You would need to be a psycho…