Mysteries In May: Down River (2025)

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Down River (2025)
Directed by Brian Barnard, Tommy Walton
Starring: Jody Thompson, Randy McDowell, and Ashley Sutton

Synopsis: A sheriff and deputy probe a crime at an abandoned farmhouse in West Virginia’s coal country. Their investigation uncovers dark secrets that endanger both the town and the sheriff’s grip on reality.

Rating: **1/2

There is something about this film that I really wanted to like. It starts off well. I’m a big fan of moody mysteries set in some mountainous backwater with a laconic sheriff who hunts a killer. Ronnie Long (Jodie Thompson, who also cowrote) fits that bill. He’s rugged and handsome. He’s got a past that haunts him.

Early on we’ll see him pull over his big old sheriff’s truck at that abandoned farmhouse. He finds a shovel that seems out of place and sneaks into the house. The tension builds. Something is about to happen. Then his partner and friend Shep Mills (Randy McDowell, who also cowrote) calls out. The tension drops, but now there is something strange happening. Ronnie shouldn’t be there. No crime seems to have been committed.

The above synopsis doesn’t really do the film justice. There isn’t much investigating in this movie. There is a twist about twenty minutes into it that I won’t spoil, and I really liked it, but it changes how we view everything that happened before. It changes the relationships the film was developing.

Sometime in the past, Ronnie suffered a tragedy that left him with a head wound. He’s turned to drinking. He started seeing things. Things that haven’t yet happened.

The film plays with time in strange ways. It is disjointed. It will flashback without warning or much in the way of indicating what it’s doing. There were several times I didn’t realize a scene was a flashback, and then I was confused about what was happening in the present. But then we’ll also see the things Ronnie is seeing in his visions. The way it jumps around between these things makes the plot difficult to get a handle on. Once the credits rolled and I had time to think about it, I was able to figure it all out, but it isn’t a good enough film to make me want to watch it again to see how the pieces fit together.

The cinematography is beautiful. The rolling hills and dense treelines are lovely to look at. I liked the story, but the jumbled way it was told was more confusing than interesting. Jodie Thompson is good when he’s being laconic, less so when he has to really emote. I didn’t particularly care for Randy McDowell’s performance at all. There is a side character, a jerk of a cop, that seemed out of place in this story, and they didn’t seem to know what to do with Ronnie’s mother. There is a scene with her late in the film that seems like it is leading to something, and then she just disappears.

Not a terrible film. Worth watching if you need a mystery fix. But not great either.

Now Watching: Nightfall

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Nightfall (1956)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Starring Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Frank Albertson, and Frank Keith

Synopsis: An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.

Rating: 8/10

I was looking for a horror movie to watch yesterday afternoon (because it was Friday), but then my wife sat down next to me, and she doesn’t like horror. So I went searching for something else. The Criterion Channel is hosting three noirs from Tourneur, and I landed on this one mostly because it was short. And I’d seen it before and knew it was good.

I love the way it begins. With Aldo Ray sitting by his lonesome in a bar. Ann Bancroft approaches him, says she’s lost her wallet, and can he loan her five bucks to pay for her drinks? He does, and they have a nice time. Even get a little dinner. Then when they leave, two thugs come at them with guns and take him away.

In flashbacks we’ll learn he was out in the mountains with his friend fishing and hunting. The two bad guys have a wreck near them. Our heroes try to help and find themselves face to face with guns. They’ve just robbed a bank, have a satchel full of cash, and need no witnesses. Aldo Ray escapes. The bad guys accidentally mistake his bag for their money bag. By the time they realize their mistake, Aldo has split, hidden the money, and high-tailed it.

He wandered around the country doing odd jobs, biding his time until the coast was clear. He finds himself in Los Angeles when he meets Ann Bancroft. Meanwhile insurance investigator James Gregory has been on Also’s tail since the beginning. But he’s not so sure if he had anything to do with the robbery.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a short review. There is a nice mix of dark city noir and scenes set in the wide open spaces of the mountains. Aldo Ray is a little flat, but everybody else is terrific and the story is great.

Now Watching: Cherry 2000 (1987)

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Cherry 2000 (1987)

Directed by Steve De Jarnatt

Starring Melanie Griffith, David Andrews, Pamela Gidley, Ben Johnson, Marshall Bell, and Harry Carey, Jr.

Synopsis: When successful businessman Sam Treadwell finds that his android wife, Cherry model 2000, has blown a fuse, he hires sexy renegade tracker E. Johnson to find her exact duplicate. But as their journey to replace his perfect mate leads them into the treacherous and lawless region of ‘The Zone,’ Treadwell learns the hard way that the perfect woman is made not of computer chips and diodes.

Rating: 3/10

The other day a friend of mine posted on Facebook saying that he had created a Substack, and he linked to his first post. It was a bunch of nothing. Just a list of some recent movies he’d watched and a couple of words (not even full sentences) on what he thought. That was it.

I was shocked. I’m shy about promoting my official reviews or well-thought-out essays on social media, and here he was proudly posting this nonsense. I was kind of jealous, actually.

I have always had this idea that I should post about everything I’m reading, watching, and listening to. I like the idea that this blog could be just a collection of little things, mad thoughts, pictures of my cats, etc. But I’m bad at it. I’m bad at social media. I just don’t have the personality to post regularly everyday.

This is especially true with thoughts about films and the like. I always feel like I should write full reviews. But I just don’t have the time or mental energy for that. This is also complicated by the fact that I do write full reviews for Cinema Sentries and this little blog. When I hope to write full reviews, then I don’t write little bitty ones. But then sometimes I don’t write full reviews.

Even for things I know I’m not going to write full reviews on, I sometimes write things for Five Cool Things. It seems silly to write some little something here and then have to repeat myself for those articles.

And yet. And yet, here I am. I’m gonna try and do better. I’m gonna try and write at least a tiny thought on the various things I’m enjoying (or not enjoying, as the case may be.) If I then write full reviews, or include it in Five Cool Things, then that’s just the way it is.

Or, knowing me, I’ll write this one post and then never do this again.

And here are a couple of thoughts about Cherry 2000. For a movie about a dude hiring a sexy bounty hunter to find his sexbot in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, this movie is really rather dull.

There is a version of this film that is wild, sexy, and fun. One that leans into the ridiculous nature of that story. But this movie just limps along. Melanie Griffith is dressed with absolute drab, and her performance isn’t much better.

Now Watching: Deadline at Dawn (1946)

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Deadline at Dawn (1946)
Directed by Harold Clurman
Starring Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, and Bill Williams

After a woman he meets is murdered, a soon-to-ship-out sailor has until dawn to find the killer, aided by a weary dance hall girl.

Rating: 7/10

The first act of this story is quite good. A drunk sailor wakes up to find he has no memory of the last hour of his life and a wad of bills in his pocket. He has a hazy memory of the money belonging to a girl he got drunk with the night before, but when he goes to return it, he finds her dead. He enlists a dance hall girl to help him figure out what happened. He has to be on a bus to report for duty at six in the morning.

All of that stuff is enjoyable, but then they get a cab driver entangled in the mystery, and the quality dips. The character of the cab driver is actually interesting, and the performance from Paul Lukas is good, but he winds up feeling like a third wheel. He takes away from the chemistry the two leads have and muddles it all up.

I hated the conclusion. Thinking about it now, it sort of makes sense, but in the moment it felt absolutely wrong. But the filmmaking is good, and the acting is good, so it is well worth watching.

Now Watching: The Naked Gun (2025)

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The Naked Gun (2025)
Directed by Akiva Shaffer
Starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, CCH Pounder

Only one man has the particular set of skills… to lead Police Squad and save the world: Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. Following in his father’s footsteps, he must solve a murder case to prevent Police Squad from closure.

Rating: 7/10

I was twelve when the original The Naked Gun came out. I can’t remember if I watched it in the theaters, but I watched it many times on home video and loved it. It was one of those movies that seemed to be always playing on cable TV. Or my friends and family members would rent it regularly. I remember seeing it often. I remember it would come on, and me and whoever was with me would sit and watch it.

It was a film that everyone seemed to love. Me, my friends, my parents, sibling, and other relatives. It felt like the funniest movie ever. I watched both sequels in the theater. I remember liking the second one quite a bit but finding the third to be rather terrible. I think most people did, as the franchise kind of died afterward.

And then we all collectively forgot about the films. I hadn’t thought about them in years. I think last year, or maybe the year before, I caught the first one on some streaming service. It was funny, but not hilarious. My sense of humor has changed since I was twelve, and I don’t tend to like movies that are just one joke after the other without much story.

Which brings me to this new one. When it came out, a lot of the critics I follow were excited about it. Some were declaring it the future of cinema. I guess a lot of straight-up comedies don’t make it to the cinemas much anymore, so the fact that this one had big stars and got a real theatrical release got them excited.

I skipped it in the theater because, again, my comedy instincts are weird, and this looked like non-stop gags. But I finally caught up with it this weekend, and guess what? It’s funny.

Liam Neeson is terrific in this. He’s basically sending the type of character he’s played in a thousand movies. He plays it completely straight, which makes all the insanity going on around him that much funnier.

As I figured, there are a lot of gags. I won’t say too many of them because that is how this type of comedy works, but it was a lot. Quite a lot of them worked for me. Not all of them, probably not even half of them, but that’s the thing with throwing tons of jokes at the audince – if only a small percentage of them work, we are still laughing quite a lot.

Now Watching: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
Directed by Rian Johnson
Starring: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, and Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: A young priest is sent to help a charismatic older priest in a small church. A seemingly impossible murder brings in Detective Benoit Blanc to solve the case. Every parishioner is a suspect.

Rating: 8/10

Released on Thanksgiving in 2019, Knives Out felt like a breath of fresh air. This was just before Covid kept us all home and right in the middle of Trump’s first term in office. It was a cozy little blanket that kept us warm from all the trouble brewing in the air. It was a lovely little Agatha Christie-esque mystery with an incredible cast and a terrifically twisty plot. I loved it. I still love it, as I watched it last week and found it to be just as delightful as ever.

Its sequel, Glass Onion, wasn’t quite as good. It felt a little too modern and a little less cozy, but it featured another great cast, and Daniel Craig had slipped perfectly back into his brilliant detective’s slippers.

I’ve been excitedly waiting for the third film ever since. Sadly, because Wake Up Dead Man is a Netflix film, it only got a limited theatrical release. The only theater anywhere near me that was showing it was an old, broken-down theater half an hour away. I really wanted to see this on a great big screen with an audience, but that didn’t happen.

Still, it was worth the wait. We get another great cast and a mostly great, twisty mystery. Josh O’Connor is terrific as a young priest with a dark past but a passion for compassion who comes up against a firebrand more interested in calling out the sinners than loving his flock. There are some interesting reflections on faith and the importance of finding your own calling.

At 142 minutes, it runs a little long, and not everything worked for me. The original is still my favorite, but I hope they keep making these movies for years and years to come.

Now Watching: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Directed and written by John Huston
Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Rating: 9/10

An absolute classic. I love this film. I’ve seen it many times. I’m hoping to do a Top Five Bogart in Film Noir list this month, so I’m watching as many of those as I can. This is often considered the very first film noir, and it is one of the very best. I don’t really have the bandwidth right now to do a full review, but since I watched it, I wanted to at least mention it.

It was the first film directed by John Huston and the first film Sydney Greenstreet ever played in. It made Bogart a star and set the template for untold detective stories to come. It is a terrific film and I higly recommend it.

Now Watching: A Better Tomorrow (1986)

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A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Directed by John Woo
Starring: Lung T, iLeslie Cheung, and Chow Yun-Fat

A reforming ex-gangster tries to reconcile with his estranged policeman brother, but the ties to his former gang are difficult to break.

Rating 7/10

John Woo’s breakout film contains most of his hallmarks – balletic gunplay, slow motion action, big emotions, and goofy comedy—but in slightly lessened form. There is some very good stuff here, but it feels like a trial run for later films like Hard Boiled or The Killer. Also, I’ve never been a big fan of the outsized emotions his characters have in these films. Maybe it is the difference in cultures, but it always feels cheesy and fake to me. But those action scenes are still top-notch.

Now Watching: City on Fire (1987)

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City on Fire (1987)
Directed by Ringo Lam
Starring: Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, Sun Yueh, Carrie Ng , and Roy Cheung

Synopsis: An undercover cop infiltrates a gang of thieves who plan to rob a jewelry store.

Rating: 7/10

City on Fire is now mostly known as one of the inspirations for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. There are certainly similarities there, but Tarantino more than makes his film his own. Chow Yun-fat plays the undercover cop who doesn’t really want to be there. He’s ready to quit, but his uncle (who is also a cop) pushes him to complete the assignment. He kind-of, sort-of befriends one of the robbers, which makes the whole thing more complicated, especially when it goes bad.

There are some terrific set pieces and some very goofy romantic angles. I’m not super soaked in Hong Kong action movies. I’ve seen several, but not enough that I can claim any sort of authority on them. It always throws me off how weird the romances are in these things. Our guy here comes home, more or less harasses his lady by following her into the bathroom, then jumping into the shower with her, pushing into her space, and then giving her a ring. Then he postpones the wedding, then he doesn’t show up…etc. It’s probably a cultural thing, but so many of these films play the romances off with the weirdest bits of humor.

But Chow Yun-fat is amazing.

Now Watching: Drug War (2012)

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Drug War (2012)
Directed by Johnnie To
Starring: Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, and Huang Yi

Synopsis: A drug cartel boss who is arrested in a raid is coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.

Rating: 8/10

This is the type of film that will keep bringing me back to Johnnie To. The plot is convoluted and a little crazy, but also endlessly interesting with cops, informants, and bad guys switching allegiances and sides like a roulette table. The action is fierce, chaotic, and meticulously staged.

There is a scene late in the film where a cop handcuffs himself to a guy’s leg. Then the cop gets killed, so the bad guy has to run around dragging the cop’s corpse along with him. If that doesn’t make you want to watch this film, I don’t know what will.