When done right, horror movies can work very well. But more times than not, they tend to suck which is why I am not a fan of the genre as a whole. With John Carpenter’s The Fog, we are presented with an interesting dilemma. It’s not a particularly great movie, but there is something about the movie I couldn’t resist. The movie does earn points because of its stylish nature. As the title appropriately suggests, this film is about a killer fog more or less and the production team does a wonderful job in showcasing just how creepy and scary that fog was. Every time I see the green fog travelling through the town of Antonio Bay, California, goosebumps legit appeared all over my body. The movie is also well-directed. John Carpenter is often called horror’s maestro, and you can see some examples of that here. He actually wants to create a story that doesn’t totally rely upon gore or jump scares and he somewhat succeed. The movie also has a very strong beginning. John Houseman’s character Mr. Machen is telling the story around a campfire about the haunted past of the town and it sets up promise that the film only follows through half-heartedly.

This movie takes place in a small seaside town of California and it is fast approaching its one hundred year anniversary. A hundred years ago, a wealthy leper named Blake took a ship called Elizabeth Dane and used it to form a leper colony. But when sailing through the thick fog, they were wrongly led astray by a campfire and everyone on the ship was killed. As we fast forward to present day, the residents of Antonio Bay are about to celebrate their centennial anniversary. But there is about to be a major caveat to the celebration. the victims of the crash are back and with a vengeance. They are back to claim what is theirs in which was stolen from them by the town’s founding fathers.

Now my major complaint about the movie is that it follows the horror tropes by the book way too much than I wanted. Carpenter’s previous horror movie, Halloween gave the genre something new and something that is respected many years later. But this movie was weak in its characterization. It makes the women weak and the men one-note villains. Something that is seen way too much in horror films. However, the cast performed admirably with the tropes in Carpenter’s script. I loved they mostly kept the ghosts in the fog to keep the aura of suspense about, but the ending relied upon a little too much gore when compared to three-quarters of the movie. So in other words, the movie is typical of horror movies. But Carpenter’s direction and the cast were able to pull the film away from the horror of being bad.

I loved the performances of the cast. Some standouts were Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Hal Holbrook. The film follows the footsteps of Barbeau’s character, a radio DJ named Stevie Wayne. She was mostly convincing. Curtis and Leigh are horror alums and they always do well in the genre, so they delivered convincing performances of course. Hal Holbrook gave an interesting performance as Father Malone, who may hold they key for what is happening in the town.

Overall, The Fog is a better-than-average horror film if ever so slightly. I was legit terrified at some points, so that’s how you know this is a good horror film. Then again, I do love a good ghost story. The production design attributed to that feel with all of the fog and the beings behind the fog. But a good directing style and a good cast also helped elevate a rather weak script filled to the brim with tired tropes. A very strong beginning, but is let down by a mediocre ending. But I enjoyed the movie for what it was: a B-horror film.

My Grade: B-

Robert Duvall had himself a fantastic year of 1979. He was nominated for his supporting role in the iconic war film Apocalypse Now. He follows up that “napalm-smelling” performance with another Oscar-nominated performance in this movie The Great Santini. His character in this movie is a form of his character from Apocalypse Now. His character, Bull Meechum, is a hardened Marine who knows nothing but victory and competition. He lives his life with a code and he involves his family in his code. The main theme of the movie is family and at the heart of that theme is a father-and-son story. A very good one at that. The movie was directed and written by Lewis John Carlino, and he did a wonderful job in making the small moments matter. The story itself is a sentimental one, but it stays away from being sappy. There may be tears over the course of the film, but at least you should not end the movie feeling depressed.

Lets get ourselves acquainted with the Meechum family. Bull Meechum(Robert Duvall) is the patriarch of the family and is known as a great pilot and a Marine superstar. His wife is a gentle Southern lady named Lillian (Blythe Danner). She is a very supportive woman to all of her family, including her difficult husband. Then there are the kids-four kids in total. But our main focus is on the eldest son, Ben (Michael O’Keefe). Ben is eighteen years old and is a star basketball player for his high school. Bull is grooming him to join the military, but Ben has other ideas on what he wants to do with his life. Thus culminating a conflict between father and son. There are two main sections to the story: the relationship between father and son and the relationship between Ben and Toomer Smalls (Stan Shaw), the son of their black maid and their experiences in dealing with a racist named Red Petus (David Keith).

The first part of the story is absolutely my favorite and it consists of the first portion of the movie. It’s fun to watch Robert Duvall play to win, but its sad to see how it affects his family. The family constantly goes through hardships because they are always moving because of the military and this setting happens to be in South Carolina. As I mentioned in the opening, this is a father-and-son story. It’s all about Ben wanting to love his father, but at the same time, go on a different path. There was a scene that was hard to watch where Duvall and O’Keefe were playing backyard basketball and Duvall kept bouncing the ball off O’Keefe’s head during one of his modes of high intensity. This is a man who is a fierce competitor(he even wants to beat his son in basketball), a strong leader but has qualities of a dictator.

Now the second part of the film is very strong, but I’m not sure if it fits in the movie as a whole. The whole Toomer Smalls relationship seems tangential to the whole father-and-son story we were set up with. It explains the racism that prevailed in 1962 South Carolina very efficiently, but it seems a little random that it was in this movie. That being said, it was well-done and an integral part of Ben’s character.

The Great Santini is one of those films you won’t hear too much about which is a shame because I was taken by surprise how much I really enjoyed the film. It’s a character piece that is not afraid to take risks, which I cannot say the same of today’s films. I love watching father-and-son stories to see the different connections. Duvall and O’Keefe gave very strong performances and they bounced off each other very well. Both Duvall and O’Keefe were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. Blythe Danner deserves a mention because of her performance as a sweet, gentle mother. There are many amusing, upbeat moments of the film, but beware of a dark sadness hiding within. Prepare to cry on more than one occasion. This film tackles the themes of heroism, self-sacrifice, grief, and the sense of being a human very well. I was taken aback on how much I loved this film, but I do love surprises.

My Grade: A

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

I have many ideas and thoughts about Apocalypse Now. Based off Joseph Conrad’s Hearts of Darkness, it is considered to be one of the best films of the twentieth century and one of the best Vietnam War movies ever made. I can generally agree with that assessment, but this movie is overly complicated sometimes. The movie has much to say on character and Darwinism. This movie follows Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) as  he is tasked to travel downriver from Vietnam to Cambodia to assassinate a former American colonel, Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando). But when Willard arrives to meet the Colonel, he realizes all is not what it really is. Kurtz has sided with the North Vietnamese for reasons of Darwinism and staying alive. He confesses how much stronger the Vietcong were than the Americans. They would go to any length to win the war and that is what gave them strength according to Kurtz. Kurtz was once one of the greatest soldiers in the American army and now after the reality of the war set in, he is taken over by madness and despair. This entire movie is about the journey Willard takes to understand what exactly Kurtz has gone through over the course of the war because Willard is going through the same ordeal.

This movie shows both the joy and angst of filmmaking as director Francis Ford Coppola will say. This movie was a very hard shoot as it took over four years to film. (Actor Laurence Fishburne was 14 when he began shooting, and 18 when it ended and Harrison Ford filmed his part before Star Wars made him famous…..and that was two years before this movie’s release). The movie was full of complications ranging from sickness (Martin Sheen had a heart attack on set) to actors being very hard to work with (Brando being Brando). But in the end, this was Coppola’s baby. Sure, he had The Godfather films but this is his heart and soul. With all the trouble this film had, it is remarkable how great this film is. Coppola really makes clear what he thought about the war itself and how hard it damaged the human psyche. He underlines the hell these humans have gone through over the course of this journey.

One of the best supporting characters is Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (he said the opening quote of this review). His performance actually earned him an Academy Award nomination rightfully so. Talking about insanity, this man only cares about surfing and beaches. He only agrees to help Willard take a beach because that beach had great waves. Plus in the Redux version (which this review is from), Kilgore uses helicopters to chase down Willard on the river because of accusations that they stole their surfboards. He also uses his choppers as he plays Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as he swoops down over young schoolchildren. It’s a little over-the-top, but I guess that fits the insanity part very well. Another fun supporting character is Dennis Hopper’s role as a photojournalist for Kurtz. He is supposed to be the funnyman and he incites poetry which he clearly heard from Kurtz himself.

There is one thing that this film wouldn’t work without and that is the opening song. “The End” from The Doors is an iconic tune and it has a significance in the film. I can’t imagine the opening sequence of the treeline being blown away working well without this song. Also keep an eye on the Oscar-winning cinematography from Vittorio Storaro. The movie is utterly gorgeous and he created some of the most beautiful sequences in cinema history.

As well-liked this film is, it does have its share of controversies. Brando, whom was perfect for the role, had a salary of one million dollars (which was unheard of during its time). But there is a sequence in the movie that created even more controversy. The live killing of a cow as part of a sacrifice. Animals are supposed to be protected during movie-making, but this movie actually killed a cow for an incredibly gruesome scene. That is one scene that really appalls me due to an actual animal being killed.

Apocalypse Now is an important movie. Following the success of 1978’s The Deer Hunter, it proved there was an audience for Vietnam War movies after all. It took me several tries to realize what a monumental and influential film this is. It is a very long movie, but it’s a journey about how humankind reacts to the horrors of war. You see Kurtz as a villain at first, but as you come to the end of the movie, that is where we gain some sympathy for the man after everything he has been through. Francis Ford Coppola created a very important piece of art-the biggest film of his career. This is a hard movie to get through, but I think it’s worth watching in the end.

My Grade: A-