2018 Movie Report Card

Can You Ever Forgive Me? - A
Eighth Grade - A
Won't You Be My Neighbor? - A
Black Panther - A-
Boy Erased - A-
Creed II - A-
Hereditary - A-
If Beale Street Could Talk - A-
Love, Gilda - A-
Love, Simon - A-
Mission: Impossible - Fallout - A-
A Quiet Place - A-
Roma - A-
A Star Is Born - A-
Widows - A-
The Wife - A-
Annihilation - B+
Book Club - B+
Chappaquiddick - B+
Isle of Dogs - B+
The Old Man & the Gun - B+
Ready Player One - B+
The Rider - B+
Tully - B+
Vice - B+
BlacKkKlansman - B
Crazy Rich Asians - B
First Man - B
Sorry to Bother You - B
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - B-
Bohemian Rhapsody - B-
The Favourite - B-
Halloween - B-
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - B-
First Reformed - C+
The Other Side of the Wind - C+
Unsane - C+

Review: "The Favourite"

Two years ago, I came close to ranking Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster as the worst picture of 2016. What (inexplicably) enamored countless film buffs stuck me as dreary bombast, made only faintly tolerable by Colin Farrell’s committed leading turn.

If Lanthimos’ latest picture, The Favourite, is also hardly my cup of tea, it is at least an exquisitely designed and memorably acted picture. If anything, it most recalls last year’s Phantom Thread, a film unimpeachably not without merit that ultimately left a far greater impression on most of my fellow moviegoers.

The Favourite, which despite this middling review is destined for a healthy awards season run, opens on England toward the beginning of the 18th century. The nation remains at war with France and presiding over the throne is Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), the fragile, volatile leader who is immeasurably assisted by friend and adviser Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), the Dutchess of Marlborough.

Throwing this world for a loop is the entrance of Sarah’s cousin Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), who has arrived at the castle in search of employment. Sarah looks down upon Abigail, whose gambling father ravaged the family name, but agrees to provide her with humdrum work. Abigail gradually wins over Sarah and especially the Queen and, before long, plots to win Anne’s favor at the expense of Sarah. When Sarah becomes conscious of Abigail’s manipulations, a battle of wits is set in motion to dispose of the other and secure a place alongside the Queen.

The Favourite is a feast for the eyes, sumptuously photographed by Robbie Ryan, with lavish costumes and art direction by Sandy Powell and Fiona Crombie & Alice Felton, respectively. Weisz does some career-best work as the increasingly irrelevant Sarah, while Colman does not allow an inch of scenery to go uneaten as the disorderly Queen.

Less convincing is Stone, who portrayal rings as strained vis a vis the lived-in turns by Weisz and Colman. Where Weisz especially is able to convey so much through so little, Stone’s performance is more elaborate, yet less full of surprises. The screenplay, by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, provides Colman with a handful of zesty zingers, yet otherwise makes for an only intermittently uninvolving picture, one which provides the rest of the cast, beyond the central trio, without much of anything to do.

There’s no denying the visual beauty of The Favourite, nor the spunk with which Weisz and Colman approach their roles, but it otherwise never takes off as it should - another clumsy effort from a filmmaker whose cinema I evidently just don’t much like.

B-

Review: "Creed II"

Three years ago, following decades of languishing in junk cinema, Sylvester Stallone rebounded with a magnificent, career-best performance reprising his iconic turn as Rocky Balboa in Creed. His loss in Best Supporting Actor, and to the lackluster Mark Rylance of all people, remains for me one of the more heartbreaking Oscar decisions of recent years.

If Creed II does not quite find Stallone reaching Oscar-caliber heights, it does prove the 2015 picture was no fluke - he again turns in one hell of a performance and is matched every step of the way by the brilliant Michael B. Jordan, who too richly deserved recognition for his work in the first film.

Creed II opens on Jordan’s Adonis Creed riding high. He has scored a series of high-profile boxing victories and, more importantly, successfully proposed marriage to girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson). Adonis is torn over Bianca’s desire to begin a new life together in Los Angeles, a move that would bring them closer to his adoptive mother Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) but create enormous distance between Adonis and Rocky, who will surely never leave Philadelphia.

While Adonis considers his options, an old foe from Rocky’s past has the young boxer in his sights. Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren, reprising his role from Rocky IV), the former Soviet boxer who killed Adonis’ father in the ring and went on to lose to Rocky in a Moscow showdown, is hellbent on getting his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) into the ring against Adonis. Viktor issues a formal challenge, which Adonis ultimately accepts - despite Rocky’s refusal to support and train him for the match.

With Rocky on the sidelines, Adonis and Bianca indeed make the move westward, settling down in a lavish apartment near Mary Anne and preparing for the upcoming fight. When the face-off produces no winner but leaves Adonis riddled with injuries and overwhelmed with melancholy, Rocky agrees to travel to LA to get him back on his feet in preparation for a rematch against the pugnacious Viktor.

Creed II was directed by Steven Caple, Jr., who proves himself a plenty capable filmmaker, albeit not a master at the same level as Ryan Coogler, who so vividly directed the first picture. Likewise, the Sylvester Stallone-Juel Taylor screenplay is a more familiar, less engrossing effort than the writing from the 2015 film - but that’s hardly to say it’s a disappointment. Stallone is deeply invested in not only Rocky and Adonis but also the supporting players, providing Thompson, Rashad and even Lundgren grand opportunities to shine and flex their talents.

For fans of the Rocky franchise, Creed II is a downright must-see that delivers the goods in a fashion far more stirring and satisfying than most entries in the series. If you haven’t yet seen it, go soon - and with as full and ebullient an audience as possible.

A-

Review: "Widows"

About half an hour into Steve McQueen’s Widows, I found myself questioning whether the filmmaker could really pull this picture off - will it, with its topsy turvy plot and clown car of characters, prove a haphazard and bloated endeavor or a deliciously dizzying heist yarn? The answer, I am pleased to report, is far more the latter than former.

The film, McQueen’s first effort since 12 Years a Slave barnstormed the Oscars five years ago, is a dazzling piece of entertainment that expertly puts to work its starry cast. To know it is presently struggling to catch fire at the box office is a disheartening development to say the least.

Viola Davis, in one of her very best big screen turns, headlines the proceedings as Veronica Rawlings, a lobbyist for the Chicago Teachers Union who is widowed following the death of husband Harry (Liam Neeson), a notorious thief killed amidst a police shootout. Shortly after his passing, Veronica is approached by crime boss and aspiring politician Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), who informs her Harry robbed him and his partners of $2 million. Manning presents Veronica with a deathly deadline - get him his money or face the consequences.

Rattled by Manning’s entrance into her life, Veronica comes upon a notebook Harry left behind, detailing a heist plan that, if executed, would secure $5 million. Unable to carry out such a mission on her own, Veronica reaches out to the widows of the other gunned-down thieves to assist in the operation. Two - Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) - reluctantly accept and get the ball rolling on this daunting assignment.

Meanwhile, amidst their undertaking, there is a contentious local election being waged between Manning and Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), the latter the son of a seasoned Chicago politician (Robert Duvall). Manning is counting on those millions from Veronica to finance his campaign, while Mulligan, no surprise, will also find himself tangled up in the madness at play.

Like a roller coaster ride, Widows proves an anticipation-building slow burn through much of its early-going, only to gradually accelerate into pitch-perfect pandemonium. The script, written by McQueen and Gillian Flynn, is sharp and unpredictable and provides every actor, from Davis and Debicki to Daniel Kaluuya and Jacki Weaver (in memorably menacing turns), with heaps of meat to chew on. Henry continues to prove himself one of today’s great up-and-coming actors, while the veteran Duvall vibrantly plays every precious moment on screen like a possible Oscar clip.

Widows is an all-around marvelous picture that should be a grand crowd-pleaser…if only such crowds would get their asses into the theater to see it.

A-

Review: "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"

Once in a blue moon, Joel and Ethan Coen will deliver a picture that is far more stimulating on the screen, in a purely visual sense, than on the page. A film like The Man Who Wasn’t There, for instance, was less a triumph in screenwriting than a brooding feast for the eyes, made all the more captivating by Billy Bob Thornton’s masterful leading turn.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs marks one of these instances, except it lacks a performance on Thornton’s level. It’s a western anthology and, like so many anthology pictures, is a mixed bag, its half dozen chapters ranging from droll and delightful to uninspired and anti-climatic. The lone bright spot that lingers throughout the proceedings is how drop dead gorgeous it all is, Bruno Delbonnel’s photography richly deserving of Oscar consideration.

The film’s six stories are presented through an ancient book, titled The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the American Frontier.

Kicking off the series is, well, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” a chapter equal parts funny and gruesome as the title character (Tim Blake Nelson), an outlaw cowboy, sings and shoots his way through the glorious Monument Valley. Nelson’s buoyant turn is irresistible stuff, so it’s a shame the entry flies by in no time. Likewise, the second story, “Near Algodones,” is terrific but fleeting. It features James Franco as a bank-robbing cowboy but it’s Stephen Root, as the plenty prepared bank teller, who steals the show.

“Meal Ticket” has heaps of promise but, despite a intriguing turn from Harry Melling, never takes off as it should. It sports Liam Neeson as a struggling impresario who travels from town to town with his performer Harrison (Melling), a limbless man who recites classic works of poetry and literature. As Harrison increasingly proves less of a draw, the producer must consider alternative talents to support a living. It’s a fine concept that isn’t sufficiently fleshed out.

The very best story comes next - it’s the prettiest (like, jaw-droppingly splendid) and most absorbing and expertly performed. “All Gold Canyon” is centered on an old prospector (Tom Waits) on the hunt for gold in a magnificent mountain valley. Through tireless work and determination, he finds precisely what he was looking for…and don’t you dare try robbing him of his findings.

The fifth story, “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” is headlined by Zoe Kazan, portraying Alice, a young woman venturing across the prairie to Oregon with her brother (Jefferson Mays). When he dies, she decides to continue on westward and becomes close to the wagon train leaders (Bill Heck and Grainger Hines) in the process. If Kazan rings too contemporary to quite convince in her role, Hines is pitch-perfect as the seasoned Mr. Arthur.

Last and least is “The Mortal Remains,” a chatty tale about a quintet of stagecoach travelers (Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson, Saul Rubinek, Jongo O’Neill and Chelcie Ross) en route to a mysterious destination. The novelty of seeing Daly, per usual giving it her all, in a semi-major motion picture isn’t enough to much lift this uninvolving dud.

In the end, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs emerges more a haphazard curiosity than anything close to top-tier Coens. It is a must-see for Waits fans and sure is a pretty picture but otherwise - mark this down as one of the more disappointing efforts of 2018.

B-

Review: "Boy Erased"

Boy Erased has all of the ingredients of a Best Picture Oscar winner, including three of the most devastating performances to this year grace the screen. What it ultimately lacks, holding it back from reaching masterpiece territory, is the right filmmaker to get it across the finish line.

This isn’t to completely lambaste the picture’s writer-director-actor-producer Joel Edgerton, who in the past has proven himself a marvelous talent both in front of (in It Comes at Night and Loving, among others) and behind (with The Gift) the camera. Edgerton here delivers a very fine film, albeit a frustratingly workmanlike effort that leans heavily on its actors and source material. It’s an endeavor that finds Edgerton an immense talent at getting the best out of his actors, while sporting very little visual flair himself as a filmmaker.

The film, based on Garrard Conley’s eponymous 2016 memoir, follows Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges, yet again proving himself one of today’s finest young actors), the son of Baptist parents (Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman), who, upon revealing his homosexuality to them, reluctantly agrees to enroll in a gay conversion therapy camp. There, Jared befriends other participants, each struggling to navigate and survive their way through this hellish experience. The program is spearheaded by “therapist” Victor Sykes (Edgerton), whose conversion methods are equal parts manipulative, traumatizing and sadistic.

Boy Erased is at its most compelling when focused on the family dynamic, with Hedges, Crowe and Kidman having an absorbing, all too convincing rapport that often rings of Ordinary People. Each actor is turning in some of their very best work, perhaps Crowe in particular, who absolutely kills it in his final scene toward the picture’s end. There’s also a terrific cameo from the always fabulous Cherry Jones, portraying the family physician, none too sold on Jared entering the program.

Less stirring are the camp scenes, with Edgerton too muted as the ringleader to pack the necessary punch. There are, however, very affecting scenes around the lead-up to Jared’s coming-out, including a shattering sequence involving classmate Henry (Joe Alwyn). Constantly jumping back and forth between past and present, and compellingly so, Edgerton’s screenplay is a greater success than his direction, which veers from the uninspired to the heavy-handed.

My qualms with some of Edgerton’s contributions aside, Boy Erased remains a mostly riveting production, with its trio of stars in pitch-perfect form. I just wish I could give the film these masterful performances grace a tad higher grade than…

A-

Review: "The Other Side of the Wind"

In 1961, nearly a decade prior to principal photography began on Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind, the filmmaker, whose most recent picture was Touch of Evil, began mulling over a project loosely based on Ernest Hemingway, who that year committed suicide. Welles intended his leading man to be an aging admirer of bullfighting who is enamored with a much younger bullfighter.

This concept ultimately stalled, lingering in the background for Welles well into the close of the decade, at which point the director opted to change the project’s setting to Hollywood and his central protagonist to a fading filmmaker. At last, in 1970, The Other Side of the Wind went into production…and would remain a work-in-progress over the six years to come. It was not until 1974 that Welles finally found his Jake Hannaford, the Hemingway-like figure who is killed in a car crash on his 70th birthday - none other than fellow actor-writer-director John Huston would dive into this pivotal role.

With nearly 100 hours of footage in the can, production wrapped on The Other Side of the Wind in early 1976. Instead of earning a theatrical run, the treatment you’d expect for a Welles-Huston collaboration, the picture would spend decades in legal obstacle hell, languishing long after the director’s death in 1985. Instrumental in saving the film were director (and co-star of the picture) Peter Bogdanovich and producer (and production manager on the film) Frank Marshall, both significantly responsible for getting the picture financed, edited and into the hands of Netflix, where it is now available for streaming.

Considering its awe-inspiring production history (and my admiration for so many Welles productions, perhaps most of all The Magnificent Ambersons), it does hurt a bit to report The Other Side of the Wind, while not without its pleasures, is mostly an incoherent mess, a haphazard satire of 1970s New Hollywood that is too bonkers to be boring but never on the level of Welles’ best work.

The picture opens on the sight of a totaled vehicle, which we learn, via narration from protege Brooks Otterlake (Bogdanovich), was driven by the now-deceased Hannaford. Earlier that day, prior to his death, we find Hannaford vying to rejuvenate his declining career. His comeback vehicle is hardly a mainstream picture along the lines of Citizen Kane or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre but rather a trippy, sex-packed art house production, performed without any dialogue.

Throughout The Other Side of the Wind, footage from the film within the film, headlined by the stunning Oja Kodar (as “The Actress”) and Bob Random, is intercut, leaving the proceedings all the more dizzying an endeavor. Much of the picture centers on Hannaford’s birthday party at an Arizona ranch where guests, the director himself most of all, become increasingly inebriated. Hannaford is desperate to secure funding for his picture, a quest that seems all the more improbable as the evening progresses.

The Other Side of the Wind is chock full of entrancing performances, with Huston a pitch-perfect fit for the dwindling director. He is surrounded by the likes of Susan Strasberg (as a ferocious film critic), Lilli Palmer (as an exasperated former star of the silver screen) and Mercedes McCambridge (as Hannaford’s longtime secretary), all game for the madness of these proceedings. Alas, these turns are largely upstaged by the disorderly, chaotically edited picture around them - just when a character pulls you in, you’re abruptly swept away.

Amazingly, amidst this starry cast, it is Kodar, in the film within the film, who leaves the most lasting impression. She has a hypnotic, intensely alluring screen presence, with the camera head over heels in love with her - no surprise, given she was the director’s girlfriend over the final years of his life. If the film within the film wasn’t so tedious and ridiculous, one has to wonder how much more the exciting Kodar could have excelled.

The Other Side of the Wind is of course a must-see for all Welles aficionados, warts and all. That does not, however, mean its a great picture. In the end, its production history is leaps and bounds more riveting than the final product before us.

C+

Review: "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"

In 1967, the year of Spencer Tracy’s death, up-and-coming writer Lee Israel broke through with a devastatingly great profile on Katharine Hepburn, published in Esquire. Over the following two decades, Israel penned a trio of celebrity biographies, one of which, Kilgallen (a portrait of journalist and game show panelist Dorothy Kilgallen), was lauded as among the finest bios of the 1980s.

By the 1990s, however, her past works proved long forgotten, as Israel found herself earning attention not for her biographies or countless magazine articles but rather her recent criminal activities.

Director Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?, based on Israel’s eponymous memoirs, opens on Israel (Melissa McCarthy) who, in 1991, is struggling to make ends meet, months behind on her rent and devastated that she cannot afford medical treatment for her beloved cat. Israel is desperate for an advance on her latest project, a biography of Fanny Brice, but her agent (the formidable Jane Curtin) cannot make that happen, nor does she terribly want to. The irksome, surly Israel has burned bridge after bridge in recent years and has no industry allies to speak of.

At last, Israel finds a companion in Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant), a vivacious grifter who shares in her disdain for society and dependency on the bottle. Hock isn’t the least bit shaken when Israel presents her grand scheme to bring home that elusive dough - she is going to earn a living fabricating signed personal letters from deceased, high-profile writers, from Brice to Noel Coward to Dorothy Parker. Israel finds fleeting success but, when suspicions are raised around her documents, Hock steps in as a partner in crime to sell them on her behalf. With the FBI on their trail, however, is it inevitable that Judgment Day lurks on the horizon.

With a sparkling screenplay from Jeff Whitty and the reliably amazing Nicole Holofcener, and led by a pair of actors in career-best form, wholeheartedly committed to the material, Can You Ever Forgive Me? ultimately emerges one of the year’s very best pictures.

McCarthy and Grant have a dazzling rapport, with each going to town on the comic and dramatic opportunities presented to them. Not to be overlooked is the rest of this splendid ensemble cast, including Curtin (who slays in her two scenes), Anna Deavere Smith (superb as exasperated ex) and particularly Dolly Wells, warm and perceptive as Anna, a book shop owner who takes a liking to Israel. A dinner between Anna and Israel proves one of the film’s most absorbing and affecting scenes, in a film full of them.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? will be richly deserving of every accolade it inevitably earns for McCarthy and Grant - but I sure hope they aren’t the picture’s lone recognition this awards season.

A

Review: "First Man"

A sense of deja vu came over me throughout First Man, director Damien Chazelle’s latest collaboration with leading man Ryan Gosling.

Two years ago, I was thoroughly enchanted by Gosling’s Oscar-nominated turn in Chazelle’s La La Land, a film which, despite my affection for its actors and overall look and feel, left me rather cold. An absorbing love story and Chazelle’s palpable affection for movie musicals aside, I never felt it quite got off the ground, nor, perhaps most egregious of all, did it sport a terribly memorable soundtrack.

Fast-forward to the present awards season and, once again, I am head over heels for Gosling - for my money, First Man marks career-best work and should catapult him right toward the top in the race for Best Actor - and decidedly less enamored with the proceedings around him.

This isn’t to say First Man is a bad picture but, after being spoiled in recent years by the dazzling likes of Gravity and Hidden Figures, it marks a surprisingly ho-hum endeavor.

Gosling portrays Neil Armstrong, the legendary American astronaut who, as you may have heard, made history in 1969 as the first person to walk on the moon. First Man opens on Armstrong eight years prior to that awe-inspiring event as the test pilot finds himself on a streak of aerodynamic calamities. Colleagues are concerned he is distracted, which is indeed the case - he and wife Janet (Claire Foy) are devastated by the failing health of young daughter Karen, who ultimately succumbs to a brain tumor.

Overwhelmed with grief, Armstrong dives further into work, applying for NASA’s Project Gemini. Accepted into the program, the Armstrongs join other astronaut families in moving out to Houston. With the Soviets making progress in their spacecraft efforts, Armstrong squarely focuses on his training and, in 1966, is named commander of the aborted Gemini 8 mission. Toward the close of the decade, Armstrong is again called upon to steer the ship, this time as commander of Apollo 11. The rest, of course, is history.

First Man is at once refreshingly unsentimental and curiously uninspiring.

Gosling’s restrained portrayal of Armstrong is brimming with melancholy and deeply affecting - he keeps the picture absorbing even while Josh Singer’s screenplay proves a colossal bore. Less successful is Foy, a usually marvelous actress who hits only familiar notes as Armstrong’s fretful wife. At least Foy has some modest meat to chew on, however - the rest of the cast is uniformly underused.

From a technical perspective, First Man marks a grand achievement in sound mixing and editing, with Chazelle doing a fine, if often workmanlike job staging the mission sequences. What is ultimately, stunningly missing from the picture is any sense of awe, that intense feeling of wonderment that swept the world on July 20, 1969.

First Man marks a triumph for its leading man but otherwise doesn’t much soar.

B

Review: "Halloween"

Michael Myers, it’s so nice to have you back where you belong. You may be in your sexagenarian years, yet you continue to bash in brains and slice and dice horny teenagers with masterful precision. It’s just too bad the picture around you this time doesn’t operate at your same commanding level.

I am a Halloween nut, through and through. Not only do I of course worship John Carpenter’s 1978 original - both among the finest pictures of its decade and greatest horror films of all-time - I’m even quite taken with Halloween II and Halloween: H20. Hell, throw Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers on television and I’ll cancel all of my prior commitments!

So, you can imagine I was quite surprised and more than a little heartbroken as I found myself not so enamored with the latest entry in the franchise, David Gordon Green’s Halloween - a follow-up to the Carpenter original that opts to pretend all prior sequels never came to fruition. Perhaps most key of all is it erases that pesky development, which first arouse in Halloween II, that Michael and Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode were siblings. This is something I was completely down for, yet Green’s Halloween doesn’t even satisfy at the same levels of Halloween II or H20.

In the dismal Halloween: Resurrection, Michael found himself confronted by the craze over reality television. This time around, it’s true-crime podcasting, presented in the form of a pair of British journalists (Jefferson Hall and Rhian Rees) who, 40 years following Michael’s murderous rampage in the first Halloween, pay the psychopath a visit at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. You see, Michael has been imprisoned there since his capture by Dr. Loomis (RIP Donald Pleasance). Now, with Dr. Loomis having passed on, he’s being treated by another eccentric doc, Ranbir Sartain (Haluk Bilginer).

After egging Michael on, both showing him his former mask and bringing up Laurie, the podcasters pay a visit to none other than the sole survivor herself. Laurie has spent the past 40 years battling PTSD and preparing herself and her family for what she sees as Michael’s inevitable return. She’s been married and divorced twice and lost custody of her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), who now has a teenage daughter of her own, Allyson (Andi Matichak).

Laurie, no surprise, hasn’t the faintest interest in cooperating with the Brits. She’s far more focused on her old foe, who conveniently is being transferred to a new facility on the eve of Halloween. It should come as scant surprise that Michael of course manages an escape, gets his hands on his old mask and greets Haddonfield with a long overdue, plenty grisly return. If Laurie is prepared, the rest of the community, per usual, is very much susceptible to Michael’s prey.

Never before has this series been such a meandering slog as it is in its opening half hour. The insertion of true-crime podcasting into the franchise must have sounded timely and inspired on the page but it’s not the least bit compelling on the screen. Once Michael is back in action, the proceedings do at least muster the same satisfaction as a competent slasher picture, yet it’s never nearly on the same level as Carpenter’s original.

As always, Curtis gives it her all as Laurie and especially provides the picture a boost in its final half hour, a cat-and-mouse duel between she and Michael that is claustrophobic in the best sense. Unfortunately, the supporting cast around her isn’t terribly memorable and there is at least one character and plot twist that, thankfully briefly, sends the film jumping the shark. Kudos to the very funny Jibrail Nantambu, portraying the only character (besides Laurie) you’re genuinely rooting for Michael not to knock off.

Green does a fine job staging the rousing grand finale but the rest of his direction is strictly workmanlike stuff, decidedly not Carpenter-caliber. Speaking of Carpenter, however, his musical score, jazzed up a bit this time around, remains a stirring winner.

If Halloween is hardly the worst entry in the series, it also falls tragically short of the greatness once so present in this franchise.

B-