Ghost Ship (2002) Review
Ghost Ship (2002) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A salvage crew boards a liner missing since 1962. The first twenty seconds are among the best in modern horror and the remaining eighty minutes cannot follow them.
Tag: Writing Craft (Page 11)
1990sSpeed 2: Cruise Control (1997) Review
Speed 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.
1990sOut to Sea (1997) Review
Out to Sea (1997) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Lemmon and Matthau as dance hosts on a cruise ship, in the last decent film the pair made together. Slight, warm, and carried entirely by forty years…
1970sThe Love Boat (1977-1987) Review
The Love Boat (1977-1987) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Nine seasons of guest stars falling in love on the Pacific Princess. Artistically negligible, structurally brilliant, and it rebuilt an entire industry.
1990sTitanic (1997) Review
Titanic (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…
2020sTriangle of Sadness (2022) Review
Triangle of Sadness (2022) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A luxury cruise, a great deal of vomit, and an island where the toilet manager is in charge. Blunt satire in three parts, and the third one…
1980sAmadeus (1984) Review
Amadeus (1984) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Not a biography and not trying to be. A film about a competent man given exactly enough talent to hear genius in somebody else and never produce it himself.
2000sEastern Promises (2007) Review
Eastern Promises (2007) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Cronenberg on the Russian mafia in London, where the body is the filing system and the tattoos are the documents. The bathhouse fight works because nobody in it…
1970sTaxi Driver (1976) Review
Taxi Driver (1976) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Schrader wrote it living in his car after a divorce, and the film never once steps outside Travis Bickle's head. The narration sounds reasonable. That is the horror.
2010sMad Max: Fury Road (2015) Review
Mad 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…
1980sBrazil (1985) Review
Brazil (1985) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A clerical error kills the wrong man and a whole film proceeds from a typo. The most internally consistent world in the genre, and Gilliam fought Universal for most…
Digital TransformationWhy Rotten Tomatoes Sucks: The Score Does Not Mean What You Think
The Tomatometer is not a rating. It is the percentage of critics who gave a film a passing grade, so a film everybody finds mediocre can score 94% while one people love scores 60%. Almost every complaint about the site…