Rewatch: Mario Bava's The Three Faces of Fear, aka Black Sabbath. Somehow this is both close to a perfect horror movie, particularly taking each story in and of itself, but also highlights a problem with anthology films: there's a slight repetitiveness to the whole.
...Vale.
I did a Spielberg Top Ten or so I can live with.
Duel
Jaws
Close Encounters
Raiders/ 2nd half of Temple of Doom
Color Purple
Empire Of The Sun
Saving Private Ryan
Catch Me If You Can / Minority Report
Lincoln
Fabelmans
Possible ringers: War of the Worlds, West Side Story
Rewatch: Sam Hargrave's Extraction II. The prison break oner in this is on a very short list of the greatest sequences in 2020s film.
You can see the precursors of this trend in some 1970s sci fi and horror - particularly Fonda's Idaho Transfer, Coma, even a particular Night Stalker episode. It's just been given a more overt Kafka-Piranesian makeover.
Rewatch: Bob Kelljan's Count Yorga, Vampire. Superb little film that smartly updates vampire mythos for the Manson era, Dracula as New Age parasite; full of impressive nastiness, good (and then startling) twists, barely-hidden kink.
Rewatch: Sam Hargrave's Extraction. "We just got attacked by the Goonies from hell."
My essay on Peter Fonda's Idaho Transfer from back when, btw. A true lost auteurist relic.
filmfreedonia.com/2020/05/29/i...
For the Allan Fish Film Festival, amidst the absurd hype and controversy for Christopher Nolan's upcoming take, I look at the only other major movie version of The Odyssey, and muse on the poem's larger imprint on pop culture. You can read it at Film Freedonia...
filmfreedonia.com/2026/06/07/u...
