BigCombo

It's the best French film of the decade and perhaps one of the greatest investigations into young love ever made. Mathieu Amalric is a revelation and demonstrates he's one of the finest young actors in the entire world. I love this film, and it makes me so happy to know it exists.

It's no wonder Zoetrope went bankrupt after this lavish, great-looking but bad-tasting bore of a film. Coppola had clearly lost his mind by this point (the APOCALYPSE NOW production, as we all know, is the most probable reason) and went way over-budget with the sets, etc. Yes, they look great, but great sets and cool camerawork can only take you so far. You need a script, too, and this film didn't really seem to have one. I can only think of one director who ever worked well without a script and that was Godard (see PIERROT LE FOU for a great example of spontaneous filmmaking).

That said, some of the acting here is inspired, especially that of Frederic Forrest. Kinski is cute but dull, but here's an honest question - why is Teri Garr constantly getting naked in this film? I'd rather see Kinski sans clothing.

One more caveat in this bad review: the opening title sequence is amazing.

First off, I hated Halloween H20. Kevin Williamson, you're rich, you're famous, now retire. Or just write TV. And Steve Miner - you can't direct.

Halloween 2 is not bad. Not great.

I'm not counting Halloween 3 in this discussion since that's the Season of the Witch and good old Miguel ain't in that one.

Right, so we have Halloween 4, which has the best ending since Halloween 1. You have to love Jamie going all like Uncle Mike killing her stepmother. That was an amazing ending. Amazing. Creepy as hell.

And then you have Halloween 5. Which has an absolutely hideous opening (that hermit who Michael shacks up with then kills? What?), but once it gets rolling it gets pretty fun. The Man in Black is confusing as hell but he adds a nice air of mystery to Michael (which almost excuses the fact that Michael, before this, has been: shot a few times by Loomis in Part 1, blown up by Loomis in Part 2, and shot to pieces and thrown down in a mineshaft in Part 4, and yet he lives...I mean, it doesn't take a 1600 SAT score to figure out that Michael's not quite human...). I think the Man in Black at this point suggests supernatural forces behind Michael (and Part 6 has all that horrible Cult stuff that squandered the opportunity to make this nice and creepy).

Anyway, back to why I like Part 5. It scares the living hell out of me. Part 4 has its moments (you have to love the thumb in the forehead and the aforementioned Jamie-Goes-Berserk at the end), but it meanders a bit too much and too much of it takes place in daylight. Part 5 is actually directed fairly well and while yes, it has a lot of the "BOO!" oh that's not the killer HERE'S THE KILLER, it gets past it on the strength of Danielle Harris freaking out like a banshee (she scares the hell out of me) and the use of shadows, low angles, etc.

Okay, just one more note. I hate Part 6. It's the worst.