From Dusk Till Dawn (5 Stars)

"From Dusk Till Dawn" is a film that practically splits itself in half; a crime thriller mutates into a vampire siege, and the clash between its two central families sits right at the heart of that transformation.

On one side we have the Gecko brothers, Seth and Richie; criminals defined by chaos, instinct and a complete absence of moral restraint. George Clooney plays Seth as cool and calculating, a man who understands violence as a tool, while Quentin Tarantino makes Richie something far more disturbing; impulsive, erratic, and barely tethered to reality. Their family bond is real, but it's warped; loyalty exists, yet it's rooted in survival rather than care.

In stark contrast stands the Fuller family; a broken but fundamentally decent unit led by Jacob, a former preacher struggling with his faith after personal tragedy. Harvey Keitel gives Jacob a weary gravity, a man trying to hold his children together even as his beliefs crumble. Kate and Scott represent a more recognisable familial dynamic; tension, grief and affection all coexisting in an uneasy balance. Where the Geckos are united by crime, the Fullers are held together by something more fragile; the remnants of love and moral responsibility.

The early part of the film thrives on this contrast. The Geckos dominate through fear, forcing the Fullers into submission, yet there's a quiet sense that the balance could shift at any moment. The Fullers' decency becomes a kind of resistance; they endure rather than retaliate, and that endurance gives them a moral strength that the Geckos lack.

When the film pivots into horror at the Titty Twister, the dynamic evolves rather than disappears. Faced with a supernatural threat, the distinction between the families begins to blur. Survival becomes the common ground; Seth's ruthlessness suddenly has value, while Jacob's moral compass regains purpose. The Geckos' amorality and the Fullers' ethics, once opposed, now function as complementary traits in a fight neither family could survive alone.

What makes "From Dusk Till Dawn" compelling isn't just its genre switch; it's how that shift forces both families to confront what defines them. The Geckos, stripped of control, reveal flickers of reluctant cooperation, while the Fullers, pushed to extremes, discover a capacity for violence they would never have chosen.

By the end, the film suggests that family is less about moral purity and more about what people are willing to do for one another under pressure. The Geckos start as predators and the Fullers as victims, but the night reduces everyone to the same basic instinct; survive, protect, endure. It's in that levelling that the film finds its strange, blood-soaked unity.

Success Rate:  + 1.1

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Ma (4½ Stars)

Octavia Spencer is one of my favourite actresses. I've forgotten in which film I first noticed her, but it was a long time ago. Was it "Spider-Man"? Maybe. She only has a small role, but she's very noticeable. I can't be sure. She started her career with minor roles in a few films, such as "Being John Malkovich" and "Never been kissed". I think I noticed her for her beauty first, and her acting talent later, in her leading roles in "Hidden Figures" and "The Shack".

"Ma" is a different role for her. Usually she plays a good girl, but in "Ma" she's all evil. Admittedly, there's a back story which tells us how she turned bad. She was bullied as an ugly duckling in school, and now that she's a woman she wants revenge. We can sympathise with her, even though her actions horrify us.

It's a role that she plays credibly. She's a magnificent actress.

Success Rate:  + 10.2

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Picture Claire (3 Stars)

This is an unusual crime thriller made in 2001 starring Juliette Lewis and Gina Gershon. I say unusual, because so many random coincidences are used to advance the plot. I don't necessarily dislike the use of coincidences in films, but this film has far too many.

Claire is a young woman who lives in Montreal. She helps the police by telling them about drug deals going on locally. Good for her! More people should help fight drugs. Unfortunately, there are consequences. The dealers set her apartment on fire. She decides to run as far away as she can. A few months earlier she met a photographer called Billy Stuart. She posed for him, and they became lovers, for a short time at least. When he returned to Toronto he asked her to accompany him, but she refused. She spoke no English, so Toronto would be like a foreign country to her.

Having nowhere else to go, she travels to Toronto. Billy isn't at home, so she goes to a donut shop two doors away. She gets into an argument with a man called Eddie, because he's unwilling to give help to someone who can't even speak English. She goes to the toilet, and while she's out of the room the man's ex-wife Lily comes in and strangles him to death. Claire leaves, not even seeing the dead body on the floor, but the donut shop's owner describes Claire to the police as the probable murderer.

So far so good. Claire returns to Billy's apartment and picks the lock to get in. She finds out that Billy is living with someone new. Sorry, Claire, it was your own fault for not joining him in Toronto when you had the chance. Billy comes home with his new girlfriend, so Claire climbs down from the balcony to the apartment below, which just happens to be the apartment where the real murderer lives.

The motive for the murder? Eddie was a jewel thief. He had diamonds that he didn't want to share with his fellow gang members. Lily took the diamonds after killing Eddie. But while in Lily's apartment, Claire took Lily's purse with the diamonds.

So the police are looking for Claire. The jewel thieves are looking for Lily. Lily is looking for Claire. Claire is stumbling round Toronto, with no idea why everyone is chasing her.

Just one more coincidence. Claire lost her shoes while climbing from the balcony, so she visits a pawn shop which has shoes in the window. The pawn shop owner is also a fence. The jewel thieves suspect him of having the diamonds, so they've killed him. Claire walks in and finds a dead body. She keeps getting deeper into trouble.

There are many other details, but I'll stop there. The film has a lot in its favour, such as the atmosphere and the good acting, but the plot is too unfeasible.

The film has unusual cinematography. At dramatic moments the picture breaks up into multiple frames. Some of them are different events, the present mixed with flash backs, while others are different angles of the same event or a single picture broken up into frames. I made 60 snapshots in a two-minute sequence to show how the frames develop, but it would be a bad idea to include them all here. It would give too much attention to a film that doesn't deserve it. The three screenshots below are representative.

It's an interesting film, but too adventurous for its own good. I enjoy the experimental cinematography, but the plot relies too heavily on coincidences.

The film is out of print in America, but it's available on Amazon Prime. It's still available on Blu-ray in Germany, but the plot description has so many errors that I wonder if the person who wrote it even watched the film. It says that Claire comes from a small town. Bong! Montreal is small? It says that she doesn't have Billy's address. Bong! She knows exactly where he lives. It says she comes under the power of the gangster Eddie. Bong! She only speaks to him for a few seconds. It says the gangsters are chasing Claire. Bong! They're chasing Lily, but Claire accidentally gets in the way.

Ma (4½ Stars)

This is a psychological horror film made in 2019. It's almost exactly two years since I watched it in the cinema. I saw it in UFA-Palast, a cinema which unfortunately went bankrupt during the first Coronavirus lockdown.

The film takes place in Sandusky, Ohio. When Sue Ann Ellington was a teenager she was bullied at school. Maybe it was because of her skin colour. In the flashback to her school years all the other children were white. Maybe it was because she was shy. Children who want to be bullies always find an excuse to pick on someone weaker than themselves. This has been festering in her all these years. She now has a teenage daughter of her own, but she hasn't forgotten the children who were bad to her at school. They all still live in the same town. Sandusky is one of the small American towns where people never leave.

Erica Thomson (Juliette Lewis) is an exception. She married and moved to California. After her divorce she's moved back to Sandusky with her 16-year-old daughter Maggie. She was one of the bullies, so Sue Ann decides it's time for her revenge.

Maggie (in the middle) soon makes friends at school. Sue Ann wins their trust by allowing them to have parties and get drunk in her basement. At first Sue Ann wants to feel accepted by the children, in a way she was never accepted in her own youth. After a while the children start to feel freaked out by her constant attention, so her plans change. She wants to hurt the children in order to make their parents suffer.

 

Never trust a woman who likes to play games with teenage boys. Although I have to admit, I wish I'd known a woman like this when I was younger.

This is a chilling horror film that takes a long time to warm up, but in the last 30 minutes it's terrifying. It's a very untypical role for Octavia Spencer, and she plays it perfectly. She should make more horror films.

Success Rate:  + 10.2

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Romeo is bleeding (4 Stars)

There are many films that people call film noir or neo noir. Mostly I disagree with the description. Even Wikipedia claims there are problems giving a definition of film noir. I don't see a problem. As I see it, there are a few details that have to be adhered to, and everything else is optional.

Film noir is about a crime. The protagonist is a man trying to solve the crime. He's hindered in his work by a deadly woman, a femme fatale. That's normally considered enough for critics to give it the label film noir, but there's one essential feature that's often missing:

Film noir is told from a first person perspective. The male protagonist is present in every scene. There's a voiceover that tells us what he's thinking. We're put inside the protagonist's head and we see through his eyes. If this aspect is missing, it isn't film noir, whatever the experts might tell us.

"Romeo is bleeding" is a true film noir. It's about Jack Grimaldi, a corrupt policeman. He has everything a man needs: a good job, a beautiful wife and a beautiful mistress. But this isn't enough for him. He's greedy and wants more money. He works for the mob, giving them information on the safe houses where turncoat mobsters are being held while waiting to give evidence.

Mona Demarkov is the former lover of the mob boss Don Falcone. When she's arrested she offers a deal to escape prosecution. She's too much for the police officers who escort her to the safe house. She almost kills Jack, and then she escapes by taking the gun off a young officer. Don Falcone blames Jack for her escape and gives him the task of finding and killing her within three days. Jack says this is impossible, but he needn't worry because she finds him first. She offers him $300,000 if he fakes her death. That's a good offer, but it's not sincere. She flirts outrageously with him, keeping him too aroused to realise that she intends to kill him.

It's a very good film. Lena Olin is the perfect femme fatale. It's a role she was born to play. No man can resist her deadly charm. Today is the first time I've seen the film, and I need to watch it again soon.

Success Rate:  - 3.0

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From Dusk Till Dawn (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #64

Seth Gecko, played by George Clooney, is in prison for armed robbery. His brother Richie, played by Quentin Tarantino, breaks him out of jail. They rob a bank and head towards the Mexican border to retire with their riches, killing 16 people on the way. Seth is a cold-hearted killer, but he's a professional. He only kills if he has to. Richie is a paranoid psychopath, who hears voices and can't keep his sexual urges under control. Seth is ashamed of his brother, but he still loves him and tries to look after him.

At a motel near the Mexican border the brothers meet Jacob Fuller, who's on holiday with his two children. He used to be a Baptist pastor, but he quit his job after having a disagreement with God. He hasn't completely lost his faith; he still believes that God exists. He just doesn't love God any more, because God allowed his wife to die a slow painful death after a car crash.

These are his children, Scott and Kate. Scott's adopted, in case you couldn't guess. Scott's wearing a T-Shirt that says "Precinct 13". This is a subtle hint that the film is in part based on John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13".

Seth forces Jacob to drive him and his brother across the border. As I've already said, he's very professional and promises to leave Jacob's family unharmed if they do whatever he says. Richie has other plans with Kate, but Seth says he'll keep her safe.

This was the first film in which I saw the actress Juliette Lewis, and I was immediately impressed with her acting abilities. Since then I've seen her in a lot of films. It could be argued that she always plays the same character in her 1990's films: an innocent little girl. But she does it so well! I prefer her 1990's roles to the films that she made later.

Isn't she beautiful? Those eyes!

Could this be her signature role? Possibly.

In Mexico the Gecko brothers and Jacob's family take a break in a biker's bar called the Titty Twister. Ugh! I wouldn't be seen dead in a place like that. The name enough is enough to put me off. And this man welcoming the guests at the door would make me turn and run.

The Titty Twister is the home of a vampire clan. My regular readers know that I have vampire fantasies, but not when they're this ugly. I'll never complain about the ugly vampires in "Buffy" again.

Not all the vampires look so bad. Salma Hayek, whose stage name is Santanico Pandemonium, looks quite delicious.

She seems to have a leading position among the vampires.

And she can dance with a snake!

She has a tempting offer for Seth:

"I'm not gonna drain you completely. You'll be my slave".

"You'll be my footstool, and at my command you'll lick the dog shit from my boot heel".

"Since you'll be my dog, your new name will be Spot".

"Welcome to slavery".

If it had been me, I would have asked for more time to think it over. As it turned out, Seth shot her. That's not cool!

"I don't surrender to vampires! I'm Batman!"

Or is that another film?

"From Dusk Till Dawn" is a brilliant film, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It's a throwback to the Italian horror films of the 1970's, but with modern production values.

I know his name has become unpopular in recent years, but the film would never have been made without the backing of Harvey Weinstein. In fact, none of Quentin Tarantino's films would have been made. The people who criticise Harvey Weinstein don't realise how important he's been in the film industry. He's done more for the advancement of cinema than anyone else in the last 40 years. That's no excuse for the way he's abused women. The "casting couch culture" has been commonplace in Hollywood for a hundred years, and Harvey Weinstein was convicted to set an example. In court he was found innocent of most of the charges against him, but he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexual assault and third degree rape.

Was it right to punish Harvey Weinstein so harshly? In my opinion, Yes. I just regret that it had to come to it. He's not the worst offender in the last 100 years. If other directors and producers had been punished for their crimes 50 years ago, Harvey Weinstein would have been too scared to abuse his position.

Success Rate:  + 1.1

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Ma (4½ Stars)

This is a chilling horror film with a shocking role for Octavia Spencer as the title character. It's a shock for me to see her play an evil character. Has she done this before? Not in any of the films I've ever seen. I would say it's out of character for her, but she plays the role so well, as if she's been playing deranged villains all her career.

One small note before I talk about the film itself. In recent years many people have been saying that men and women who appear in a film together should be paid the same. That is utter stupidity. If anyone says that Octavia Spencer should be paid the same as the leading male actor in "Ma", Corey Fogelmanis, he has no understanding at all of the way that cinema works. She should earn ten to twenty times as much as him. The salary paid to actors is based on their star quality, not their gender. What matters is how famous an actor/actress is and how much appeal he/she has with cinema audiences. You can't expect the lead actor and actress in a film to be paid the same if one is famous and the other is an unknown.

Now let's get off my soapbox and discuss the film itself. The film begins with a 16-year-old girl called Maggie moving from San Diego to a small town. If its name is stated, I must have missed it. She's scared of the new school, but the other girls are quick to give her a chance. She's invited to a party. They just have to find someone to buy alcohol for them. Sue Ann Ellington (Octavia Spencer) volunteers. She also says they can use her house to party, as long as they remain in the basement and never go upstairs. It's a dream come true for the teenage clique.

The problem is that Sue Ann, who the kids call Ma, becomes obsessive. She reacts badly to anyone who doesn't want to accept her hospitality. She wants to be one of the kids, which she obviously isn't. As the film progresses we see that her obsessions aren't new, they've developed over the years.

That's all I can say without giving away spoilers. Octavia Spencer's acting is brilliant, as always. She says so much with her facial expressions. Apart from Luke Evans, none of the actors come anywhere near her level, but they're still adequate for the roles they play.

This is an excellent film, but I've deducted half a star for a disagreement I have with the plot, or rather the progression of the plot. Very early in the film we're given strong hints that something is wrong with Ma. I would have found it more satisfying if she'd been shown in a positive light until later in the film, maybe half way through.

Hick (4 Stars)

After complaining a few days ago about Chloe Grace Moretz's last three films going straight-to-video I thought I would watch one of her older films from her successful years. "Hick" is a film I enjoy a lot, but maybe it was a bad example of her early career. I didn't realise until after I watched it today that it also went straight-to-video. Maybe the film industry has always been biased against her?

She plays Luli, a girl from a poor family in Nebraska. It's no sin to be poor, but her mother should have taken better care of her. Luli never knew her father, and all her life there have been a series of men living with them. On her 13th birthday Luli's mother buys her a gun. A girl needs to defend herself, doesn't she? Then they go to the bar for a drink.

Luli decides to run away from home. She wants to go to Las Vegas to find a sugar daddy. She doesn't get very far. While hitch-hiking she gets involved with a wannabe cowboy called Eddie. He's not the sort of rich man she's looking for, but a romantic involvement begins. He takes her to a friend's house where they can have a love nest. When she tries to leave him he goes crazy. He cuts her hair, dyes it black and keeps her tied to the bed whenever he goes out.

The moral of the story is that a young girl should never trust anyone she meets in the street. It's better to get to know men on the Internet and talk to them for a few months before moving together. It's never explained why he wants her to have short black hair. He's just crazy.

"Hick" was made in 2011, when Chloe Grace Moretz was only 14. Her acting ability at that young age was phenomenal. She deserves more than a straight-to-video career.

The film has only been released on DVD in America and England. You can order it on Blu-ray from Germany, if you're able to play Region B discs.

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Cape Fear (1991 version) (5 Stars)

Let's get into the old argument about remakes again. When I was a teenager the original version of "Cape Fear", made in 1962, was my favourite film. I found it so terrifying, much more than the so-called horror films that I used to watch on Friday evening with my mother. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the Hammer Dracula and Frankenstein films, but they were more camp than horror. "Cape Fear", on the other hand, sent shivers down my spine.

Then it was remade in 1991. I missed it at the time. I wasn't much of a film fan back then. Times change. I heard about the remake a few years later, and I groaned. How could such a brilliant film be remade? I didn't bother renting it on video. I just wasn't interested. Then I finally saw it by accident on television. What I mean is, the TV guide said that "Cape Fear" would be shown, so I sat down to watch it, thinking it would be the original version. It wasn't. I overcame my initial disappointment and didn't turn it off. And as it carried on I thought to myself, "Hey! This is good after all!"

Max Cady is a criminal who has spent 14 years in prison after raping a young woman. He holds his defence lawyer, Sam Bowden, responsible for his imprisonment, because he didn't defend him adequately. Now Max wants to make Sam suffer by raping his wife and daughter before his eyes.

"Cape Fear" is a good example of how a good film can be remade even better. The basic story is the same, but there's more of a psychological terror aspect to the remake. Max Cady uses his wiles to infiltrate the family. He attempts, successfully at first, to persuade the lawyer's daughter to like him. There's less of a good-vs-evil story in the remake. Sam Bowden is shown to be a man with vices, something which is only hinted at in the original. The religious aspect is more pronounced in the remake. We see Max Cady speaking in tongues.

The strength of the remake is also in the actors. Robert De Niro puts on the best performance of his lifetime as Max Cady. When I watch him I really hate him, and I mean that as a compliment. Not many actors could make me feel so emotional about the character they play. Juliette Lewis is also outstanding as Sam Bowden's daughter Danny, who is a more important character in the remake than in the original.

The film is directed by Martin Scorsese. I know he's a famous director, but there are very few films of his that I enjoy. This is his best film, in my opinion, followed by "Hugo" and "The Aviator". Maybe I'm biased concerning the latter two films, because I've always liked films about films.

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From Dusk Till Dawn (5 Stars)

"What's that you said?"

"You want to look at my feet?"

"That's my left foot".

"That's my right foot".

"Now please excuse me while I wash the blood off my shirt".

"Men are so weird".