1970sJaws (1975) rates 10 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The mechanical shark did not work, the schedule ran three times over, and the failure produced the technique. Spielberg was twenty-seven and had to build suspense out of everything…
1980sLegend (1985) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Ridley Scott built a forest inside a Bond stage at Pinewood, burned it to the ground, and produced the most beautiful fantasy film nobody watched. Tim Curry under three-foot…
1980sFlash Gordon (1980) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Dino De Laurentiis spent a reported twenty million dollars or more on a deliberately camp space opera, hired Queen to score it, and produced something no serious film…
1960sThe Time Machine (1960) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. George Pal made it for under a million dollars, won an Academy Award for a time-lapse effect built out of stop motion and melting wax, and kept…
1980sLeviathan (1989) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. An underwater Alien with a good cast and a wrecked Soviet ship. One of three deep-sea monster films released in 1989, and the middle one.
1990sSpeed 2: Cruise Control (1997) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The sequel that removed the one thing making the original work. A cruise ship cannot go fast, and the whole premise was speed.
2000sPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A film adapted from a theme park queue that had no business being good. Depp built a character the studio…
1990sTitanic (1997) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Cameron built the ship at ninety percent scale, sank it, and hung the oldest story in the world off the side of it. The door problem is real. The…
2010sMad Max: Fury Road (2015) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A two-hour chase that explains an entire world without a line of exposition. The fourth film in a series, the best one by a distance, and…
1990sGuillermo del Toro reroutes the vampire myth through a clockwork device in his startling 1993 debut. The fascination with antique machinery.
1980sKathryn Bigelow's Near Dark strips every vampire cliche and builds a Western instead. That tension carries the picture.
1990sThe tonal whiplash is the entire experience. From Dusk Till Dawn earns its 7 by being two completely different movies stapled together, and by the strange fact that the staple holds.
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