Jaws is the best shark movie; this is not up for debate. What is up for debate is the still-prestigious mantle of the second-best shark movie. While the oft-cited Open Water and The Shallows are formidable contenders, my pick for the true heir to the post-Jaws throne is 1999’s Deep Blue Sea. Continue reading →
The Edge, much to my pleasure, is a hard movie to classify. It’s a survival adventure but not a survival adventure, a killer-animal flick and not a killer-animal flick, a two-hander yet not a two-hander. It skirts that rare line of mass entertainment and highbrow drama, chiefly thanks to David Mamet’s sly script, which never sacrifices smarts for action – or vice versa. Continue reading →
As an avid fan of killer-animal movies, one thing I’ve learned is that they are shockingly easy to fuck up. For every Deep Blue Sea there are a dozen Shark Nights, for every Alligatorcountless Primevals. But within the pantheon of trashy creature features, my favorite has to be Anaconda. The movie has never enjoyed the warmest of receptions – its critical response was mixed at best, and it’s often used as a bad-movie punchline – and it’s not hard to see why.It’s unapologetically cheesy, old-fashioned, and lowbrow.But I believe that Anaconda’s true intended audience is the die-hard fans of its genre, and for those of us in that group it’s an absolute corker. Continue reading →
Those of you who read my Worst of 2015 know that I was no fan of Jurassic World. Among its greatest faults was its insistence on bludgeoning its audience with slavish callbacks and references to the series’ first installment. Jurassic World’s follow-up manages to escape the shadow of its revered progenitor, but creates new headaches in the process. Continue reading →